Bloodline rj-11

by F. Paul Wilson

  "There are laws against this kind of thing. I'd be suin you now for libel—"

  "You mean 'slander.' Libel is in print."

  "Whatever. You'd be hearin from my lawyer instead of me right now if you wasn't Dawn's mother. But this is the last time. This is your last free pass. Next time, we go to court."

  She smiled. "Fine with me. The only way I can get hurt in court is if what I'm saying is untrue. And it's not, is it."

  Bitch. How could Daddy have sired such a dumb cow?

  Well, maybe not so dumb. She'd found out he was her half brother. No, wait. She didn't find out—her detective did. Jeremy had to get the name of this guy. Couldn't handle him like Gerhard—that, he admitted, had been stupid—but maybe he could get Vecca to pay him off.

  "Who's feedin you all this crap?"

  "A friend."

  "The same guy who fed you that other line of bull?"

  "Maybe."

  "Tell me who he is. I need to have a heart-to-heart talk with him, straighten him out on a few matters."

  Her mouth twisted. "Like you talked to Mike Gerhard?"

  "I never heard of this Gerhard guy. Let me talk to your PI. Talk—nothin more. Just give me his name."

  She laughed—laughed—then said, "You've got to be kidding."

  Rage exploded in Jeremy—a white-hot burst of flame spreading from his chest into his limbs. He wanted nothing more than to run up these steps and wipe that smile—

  She must have seen something in his face because her smile did disappear as she took a quick, small step back inside the door.

  "You want to hit me, don't you."

  The words struck like a bucket of ice water. Almost as if she'd read his mind. He looked down and saw his foot on the first step.

  She stepped out again and gave him a contemptuous stare.

  "Go ahead, brother. Do your worst."

  Another explosion. Jeremy teetered on the edge of doing just that. This bitch had no idea what his worst could be. He started to raise his other foot to take the next step but stopped himself.

  A voice in his head shouted, No!

  That's exactly what she wants. She wants you to lose it and pound the shit out of her. Because then she'll have won. You can double-talk your way out of unsubstantiated accusations and lab reports, but take a few pokes at Dawn's momma here in public and you'll not only lose your freedom, but you'll lose Dawn as well. For good.

  He backed off the step—damn near the hardest thing he'd ever done—and kept a calm expression as he looked up at her.

  Maybe Daddy hadn't done such a bad job siring her. She'd done what she was supposed to: Birthed a baby girl and raised her and protected her. She was even ready to take a beating for her.

  I take back the "cow" remark, Moonglow. You've grown into one hell of a woman.

  And with that he felt something stir in his loins. He realized he wanted her—wanted to rip off those clothes and take her.

  That too was off-limits. But it gave him an idea. A wonderful idea.

  "This is getting us nowhere. Be warned. And be warned about somethin else. Dawn says she told you about the pregnancy. Well, if you ever hope to lay eyes on your grandson, even for a second, you'd better make the best of things as they are and leave us alone."

  He took huge satisfaction in Moonglow's stricken expression as he turned away and sauntered toward his car.

  13

  "Well, did you tell her?" Dawn said when Jeremy stepped through the door. "Did she get the message?"

  He put on an uncertain look. As before, he had to play this carefully. Even more carefully than the last time.

  "I… I don't think so. I don't think she'll ever leave us be."

  Dawn stepped closer, a concerned look on her face.

  "What do you mean?"

  Jeremy looked away. Now the touchy part. Had to hold back and let her think she was prying it out of him.

  "Nothin."

  "Nothing? Come on! You threatened her with a lawyer and what did she say?"

  "It's not what she said. It's what she did."

  "What, damn it!"

  He loosed a long sigh. "I'm not sure how to tell you this… not sure I even want to."

  "What do you mean?" Dawn took a step back. "She didn't try to hurt you, did she? Did she have her gun?"

  Oh, this was perfect, perfect.

  "I almost wish she had."

  "What are you saying?""

  Another sigh, then he turned and gave her a forlorn look as he hit her with the money shot.

  "She came on to me."

  The color drained from her face. "What?"

  "I was afraid you wouldn't believe me. You thought I was lyin about her tryin to buy me off and—"

  "No!" She waved her hands. "No, it's just—are you sure?"

  "Well, she was wearin some sort of red robe that she took off and there she was, standin right in front of me bold as day in her birthday suit."

  Jeremy knew about the robe from his explorations of the house the few times he and Dawn had had the place to themselves.

  "No! She'd never! What did she say!"

  "Nothin. But she knelt down in front of me and started pullin at my fly, and… and I guess that kind of said it all. I—"

  Dawn waved her hands again. "Stop it! Stop it! I'm going to be sick!"

  "I knew I shouldn't have told you."

  "Ohmigod! But this is so not her. Mom's just not into that. I mean, she's gone out like maybe twice in the last two years."

  Careful… careful… need just the right tone here…

  "Maybe that explains it."

  Dawn looked at him like a kid who's just been told there is no Santa Claus. "She stripped down right in front of you? That's so totally not my mom."

  He decided to risk going out on a limb to add the finishing touch.

  "I was floored myself. Did you know she's got this cute little butterfly tattoo"—he touched his lower abdomen, just below his belt line—"right here."

  Dawn pressed her hands against her eyes. "Stop! I've seen it! I've seen it! Damn her!"

  He slipped his arms around her.

  "Go easy on her, darlin. She seems like a real confused woman. Don't be too mad at her."

  "Too mad? Oh, I'm not too mad at her, because mad doesn't even come close. I'm like totally pissed out of my mind!" She bit her upper lip as she blinked away tears. "My own mother. I can't believe this."

  "I'm so sorry, Dawn."

  And for an instant he meant it. She was hurt, crushed. So although he wanted to take a run up to Vecca's and find out where this detective was getting his info, he couldn't leave Dawn right now.

  She'd just had the rug pulled out from under her life. But Jeremy was going to give her a new rug—a Persian carpet.

  14

  The phone rang. Christy checked the caller ID and saw Dawn's number.

  Now what? As much as she loved her daughter and wanted to speak to her, she had a feeling this would not be pleasant. Not after the way they'd parted this afternoon. Not after the smirk on that man's face as he'd left earlier.

  After hesitating for a few heartbeats, she picked up.

  Dawn… screaming incoherently…

  Christy's heart climbed into her throat. Had something happened? Had he done something to her?

  "Dawnie-Dawnie-Dawnie! What is it? Are you hurt?"

  "Hurt?" she screeched. "How can you ask that? I'm not hurt—I'm CRUSHED! My own mother! How could you DO that?"

  "Do what? What are you talking about?"

  "You know damn fucking well what I'm talking about!" The screech broke off in a wrenching sob. "How could you, Mom? How could you come on to Jerry like that? You of all people!"

  What? Come on to that man? Never in a million years!

  "I don't under—"

  "He told me all about it!"

  The bastard! The sneaky, lying bastard!

  "Then he's lying. I didn't even let him in the house!"

  "No!" The screech again. "YOU'RE lyin
g! You took off your clothes right in front of him!"

  "I did no such thing!"

  "STOP LYING! He told me about the butterfly! How else could he know about the butterfly if you weren't stripped down in front of him!"

  Butterfly? What was she—?

  Her tattoo—she'd got it on a crazy whim at seventeen… high… at the beach… wearing a bikini… going to a tattoo parlor with her friends… they all got inked…

  But how did that man know about it?

  She'd worry about that later. Right now she had to break through Dawn's hysteria. Christy struggled to keep her voice calm, her tone rational.

  "It's all lies, Dawn. He's trying to make you hate and mistrust me. I didn't do anything like that. I never would! You know me better than that."

  "/ thought / did."

  "You've known me for eighteen years and him for what—a few months? Who are you going to believe?"

  "He knows about the butterfly; Mom! How else could he know about it?"

  "I have no idea. Maybe he's been peeping on me or—"

  "Stop it! You re crazy! STOP IT!"

  And then the line went dead.

  Christy tried to call back but Dawn wouldn't answer. She thought about going over there but decided against it. What would that accomplish? More screaming, more he-said, she-said, and Christy unable to explain how that man knew about her tattoo.

  A chill ran over her skin. Had he been peeping on her?

  But how? She never walked around undressed. The only time she was unclothed was for a shower, and her bathroom was on the second floor and she kept the blinds drawn, so even if he climbed a tree—

  A camera… he knew computers and video games… had he installed some sort of minicam in her bathroom? She'd read where they could be hidden in something as simple as a box of tissues.

  It sounded so paranoid, but look at what that man had done in so short a time: He'd stolen Dawnie and turned her against her. Tonight's lie proved that nothing was beneath him.

  She'd have to search her bedroom and bathroom inch by inch. But first…

  She grabbed her phone and dialed Jack's number. She no longer wanted him as an investigator. She prayed he'd hire out to do something else—something more direct, more… final.

  15

  "Carb loading again?" Jack said as he sat down.

  He'd arrived at the diner and found Levy's car in the lot, but no Levy. He checked inside and found him chowing down at a table for two along an inner wall.

  Levy looked up from his platter of latkes and applesauce. "These are fabulous."

  "Have I got a friend for you."

  Jack hid his annoyance. He'd wanted to meet outside, give him the hairbrush, and be off. Now there'd be chit-chat and exhortations to join in on the eating. Jack wasn't hungry and in less of a chit-chatty mood than usual, which meant approaching zero.

  A waitress showed up, older and not as pretty or perky as the last one, and asked what Jack was having.

  "The latkes," Levy said. "I'm not kidding. They're loaded with little bits of onion and fried to perfection. You've got to try them."

  Jack looked at the oily lumps of potato and decided to pass. He ordered coffee.

  He slipped the brush out of his pocket and, touching only the bristles, slid it toward Levy along the rear edge of the table.

  "This belongs to Dawn."

  Levy's mouth was too full for speech so he simply nodded and shoved it into a side pocket of his suit jacket.

  "When can I expect results? I promised tomorrow."

  He swallowed. "Promised? Who did you promise? I hope you didn't—"

  "Don't worry. Didn't mention Creighton. But I needed Christy's help to get the sample. I implied I had an in with a commercial lab."

  "Tomorrow might be pushing it. We have a queue for DNA analysis."

  "So, pull rank."

  "Already did that with the last sample. Too often might attract attention. I'd like to keep this to myself for the time being."

  Jack watched him. "Planning a palace coup?"

  "Not at all. But I don't want a certain camel sticking her nose into this particular tent. You know how that story goes."

  Jack hadn't the vaguest.

  "Enlighten me."

  "It's an old Arabian tale about a desert traveler who beds down in his tent on a cold night. His camel asks if it can stick its nose in the tent to keep it warm. The guy says yes. Later the camel asks if it can put its head inside. The guy says yes. Then come the front legs, then the hind legs. Soon the Arab is out on the sand and the camel has the tent all to itself."

  Jack had to smile. "Are you telling me Doctor Vecca's got a hump on her back?"

  "No, but she's a camel nonetheless."

  "What do you think you'll find, gene-wise?"

  He shrugged. "We know Christy's chock full of oDNA. If Dawn's father had a fair amount, that could mean Dawn is loaded. If she is, and she mates with Bolton—also packed with oDNA—that baby could be off the map."

  "If… could… you don't sound very sure."

  Levy looked annoyed. "If I knew, I wouldn't have to run tests, would I? Look, if Dawn's father is a regular Joe like you or me, he probably didn't pass on much oDNA. That said, if he fertilized an ovum from Christy that carried very little of her oDN A—don't forget: Only half of a parent's genes wind up in any given ovum or spermatozoon—Dawn would be relatively oDNA free. And thus her child, even with Bolton as a father, could have no more oDNA than Bolton contributed."

  "So these generations of barnyard breeding, as you called it, could be for nothing."

  "Absolutely. It has a hit-or-miss aspect to it. Let's just hope we're dealing with a series of misses."

  "Why?"

  Jack knew why he didn't want Jonah Stevens's plan to succeed. Any scheme that involved the Otherness had to mean bad news for the world as he and Gia and Vicky knew it. But what did Levy care? He knew nothing of the Otherness, and Jack would have thought he'd be fascinated by the outcome.

  Levy looked uncomfortable. "It's hard to say. Jonah Stevens… what could he have known of his genome? No one knew about oDNA thirty-odd years ago. So how could he know he carried something different?"

  Jack shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. "Maybe he didn't. Maybe he just sensed he was 'special' and wanted to preserve his bloodline."

  "Concentrate his bloodline is more like it. There's a certain primitiveness about this, a certain sense of cunning purpose that makes my skin crawl." A

  fleeting smile. "INot very scientific sounding, is it. But this isn't a rational deduction. It's a gut reaction."

  Jack regarded Levy. Here sat a guy who dealt in chemicals and proteins, dissecting how they were structured and interacted, and oDNA should have been just another of those proteins. Yet his primitive hindbrain, the ghost of reptiles past, sensed something wrong, something threatening, something other.

  "Never hurts to listen to your gut now and then, I al—"

  Jack's phone rang. Gia? He checked the readout. No… Christy.

  "Yeah?"

  "Jack, I've got to talk to you."

  "What's up?"

  "Not on the phone. Can you meet me at the same place as this afternoon?"

  "I guess so. Tomorrow morning?"

  "No! It's got to be tonight!"

  Back to Forest Hills? Tonight? No way.

  "What's the emergency?"

  "Everything has gone to hell. That man is the devil himself." She sobbed. "Please, Jack. I may have lost Dawn for good. This can't wait till tomorrow. Please?"

  He sighed. He'd been looking forward to kicking back at Gia's, putting his feet up, cracking a brew…

  "All right, but I'm north of the city. Let's make it someplace midway. Do you know where Van Cortlandt Park is?"

  "Sure."

  "Good…"

  16

  They'd parked in a well-lit section of the main lot and, as before, Jack moved into Christy's car where she recounted the events since they'd parted.

 
It never ceased to amaze him how quickly things could go from bad to complete crap.

  Had to hand it to Bolton, though. Dirty as it was, telling Dawn that her mother had come on to him was a sick masterstroke. But one that could have backfired had he not known about the butterfly tattoo.

  "So you see," she said finally, "this changes everything."

  Jack wasn't following. "I don't see how."

  She looked at him with teary eyes, gleaming in the glow from the streetlights. "I've lost her. She'll never trust me again, and she'll certainly never come back home again unless…"

  "Unless what?"

  "Unless she's got nowhere else to go."

  Jack hoped this wasn't going where he sensed it was. He decided to let her fill in the blanks.

  "How does that happen? Get Bethlehem to kick her out?"

  She shook her head. "That won't happen either." Her voice hardened. "That man has to die."

  He raised a hand. "Whoa, now. I hope you don't think I'm going to—"

  She lifted the Talbot's bag that had been lying between them on the front seat and thrust it at him.

  "There's a quarter of a million in here. It's yours if you make it happen."

  Jack didn't touch it. "Sorry. I don't—"

  "Then find someone who will!" she said, her voice rising in pitch and volume. "You must have contacts, you must know somebody—"

  "Forget it. Keep pushing and I walk."

  She stared at him a moment, then slumped back against the seat and barked out a harsh laugh.

  "What is it with llüs money? Is it cursed or something so that nobody will take it?"

  "It's the same money you offered Bethlehem?"

  She nodded. "He wouldn't take it, you won't take it… God, it's a quarter of a million bucks and no one wants it!"

  "Let's put aside murder for the moment and look at this from another angle…"

  Murder… if someone knocked off Bolton, the mysterious "agency" connected to Creighton would have Jack down as the most likely suspect.

  "What other angle is there?"

  Bolton knowing about the tattoo bothered him. Christy had told him her theory about a hidden minicam. Jack had trouble buying into that. Where would a guy who'd been locked away his entire adult life learn to install something like that?