Caleb looked away for moment, then with what looked like great reluctance, brought his gaze back to hers. “I saw him, the son, on the tarmac of a small airport in Venezuela participating in a transfer of weapons.”
He didn’t have to specify that it was an illegal transfer. In fact, Kit didn’t need much more information than that to figure out why Caleb had come to her after seeing what he’d seen.
“And you wondered if I was still friendly with them after Dad died and if I’d given them any of his journals,” she stated. Whether he thought she might have known what was in them and willingly handed them over or not, she didn’t want to know.
“When I left the house, I photocopied some of the same journals you probably did,” Caleb started to explain. “I didn’t know my ass from a teakettle, but I was determined to do something to stop him. I used some of the money Mom left me in the same kind of trust I know she left you and I armed and trained myself.”
Kit thought she was beyond being surprised but found herself speechless at his words. Who in his right mind trained himself to go after a brutal trafficker single-handedly? But there, in the question, was the answer. Caleb hadn’t been in his right mind. Just as she hadn’t been when she’d realized what a farce their home life had been.
“I can’t imagine what that must have been like, Caleb,” she managed to say.
He waved her off and kept talking. “There was a guy who came onto the scene about two years after I started tracking our father’s activities. I didn’t know who he was, and I couldn’t buy any intel on him. But he seemed to suddenly show up a lot in our father’s transactions.”
“Not one of the Michaels men?” Kit clarified.
Caleb shook his head. “No, I would have recognized either one of them.”
“Who was it?”
Caleb lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know for certain, but based on what you told me—us,” he corrected, “in Windsor about what you went through and what you did with Dani and Drew, I’m thinking he might have been someone Drew sent in after you handed over the information.”
The timing of what had happened back then made sense. But she didn’t know why he was important, so she asked.
“I saw him again with Henry Michaels on that tarmac,” Caleb answered. “Not knowing what I know now, it was too big a coincidence to see someone I knew had worked with our father show up with someone from our father’s social circle. It was obvious Michaels was, or rather is trying to get into the business, and I had to wonder how he knew who to make contact with.”
“And you thought I might have known and told him.”
Kit’s heart sunk a little at the realization that her brother could have thought so little of her. Not to mention that it seemed to conflict with Garret’s suggestion as to why Caleb might have left. If Caleb had in fact left to protect her, it would have been because he’d thought her worth protecting. But here he was now, thinking she was the kind of person who would help their father’s friends enter the playing field—the kind of person she knew he would never in his life protect. So if he thought of her as that kind of person, then he hadn’t been protecting her when he left. To him, she must have been the kind of person worth leaving in that hellhole, not someone worth saving.
“I see,” she added softly, willing her eyes to stop welling.
“No, you don’t, Kit,” Caleb said. His voice was strong enough that her eyes came up to meet his.
“I don’t?”
Caleb shook his head. He hesitated, then continued. “There was one brief moment when I wondered if maybe you had taken up where our father had left off. But it didn’t take me long to realize that the thought was based on everything ugly I had seen in the world. It wasn’t based on who I knew you to be. I know,” he said, staving off her objection. “I know I don’t really know you as an adult—neither of us really know each other. But what I knew of you as a kid and even as a teenager? There was no way you’d be carrying on our father’s legacy. You were constantly trying to save things—animals, people, even spiders for god’s sake. You weren’t about to start selling children or arming terrorist groups.”
Okay, that made her feel marginally better. “So what did you think?”
He took a deep breath and let it out. “I knew about the journals too. I already told you I photocopied them, just like you did. After I realized you weren’t the head of some new crime syndicate, I wondered how Henry Michaels got into the business and if the journals had had anything to do with it. I thought maybe you’d given them to him after our father died. After all, if you hadn’t known what they contained, you wouldn’t have known to ask why Michaels would have wanted them. It was much easier for me to imagine you trying to make our father’s friends feel better by giving them some of his things than it was for me to think of you taking his place.”
“Then why did it feel like you were accusing me of something?”
She saw regret flash in his eyes, but to his credit, he didn’t look away. “Because I was angry. I didn’t know how Michaels got involved, I still don’t really know who that other guy was, and I was angry at myself because I thought maybe I missed something all those years ago. And if I missed something, then how many people have suffered since?”
Kit had to bite her lip at the self-recrimination she heard in Caleb’s voice. She had a feeling that if he could, he would probably blame all the world’s problems on himself.
Finally, Kit shook her head. “I don’t know how Henry, father or son, would have gotten ahold of our father’s journals, but I do know that they were both around a lot after he died. They more or less had free rein of the house for several weeks and helped in sorting out the estate. I would bet that one or the other of them either knew about the business beforehand and offered to help in order to find the details of our father’s business, or they didn’t know and just came across the information when they were going through his things.”
After a long pause, Caleb inclined his head, seemingly in agreement.
So, now she knew why Caleb had asked about Henry Michaels. Even with her soothing tea, her stomach roiled at what she was about to say. But after everything Caleb had just told her, he deserved to know.
“He got good and drunk at the club one night.” She started telling her brother the story of what had happened the night their father died. “It wasn’t anything new, but for some reason I noted it. Maybe because I was more sensitive to everything he did by that time.” She paused, remembering. “I don’t know why it seemed more pronounced to me that night, but it did. I had my own car, thankfully, and left a few minutes before him, I didn’t want to be on the road at the same time he was. Anyway, about two miles from home, right at that sharp curve up the hill to the right,” she said, knowing Caleb would know the spot she was talking about, “my tire blew. It wasn’t a big blowout, but just around that curve is a small pullout. I parked there, thinking I would call for some help. But then I heard him coming.” Again, she paused, thinking back on that night. She remembered exactly what she’d done. But now, as she let herself really think about all the details for the first time since it happened, she realized that even though she’d known exactly what she’d been doing, she didn’t remember anything about what she’d been feeling or even thinking. It was almost as if she’d been an automaton, programmed to do what she’d done.
With a shake of her head, she continued. “His car had such a distinct sound, you could hear it coming from a mile away. Especially up in the hills between the club and our house. Anyway,” she paused again to take a sip of her tea, vaguely noting how pale her brother had become. “Anyway,” she started again, taking a deep breath, “I was parked and when I heard his car, I simply got out and walked out into the road. I knew he would be driving too fast and I knew he was drunk. So I stood and waited.”
And Kit saw the moment Caleb realized exactly what she had done. A look of horror flashed across his face as his head drew back and his eyes went wide. She saw him swallow.
&
nbsp; “Jesus, Kit. He could have killed you,” he all but choked out. “What if he hadn’t swerved? What if he hadn’t even seen you? What if he’d been on his phone and hadn’t noticed?”
For a moment, she said nothing. Playing with her tea bag, she knew her brother would figure out the rest. And when he let out a strangled sound, she looked up. He knew.
“Why, Kit? Why did you do it?”
And she knew he wasn’t asking why she’d killed their father.
“I did it because I didn’t care anymore, Caleb. I didn’t care if I lived or died. My life, in so many ways, had been turned inside out and eviscerated. You were gone, the father I’d thought I had was gone. I couldn’t trust any of my ‘friends’ anymore because I had no idea who was involved with him and who wasn’t. I figured that, if I died, who would really care? It hardly mattered to me. And if I took him with me, or even just hurt him a little bit, then so be it.”
And that was the truth of it. That time in her life had been the darkest time she had ever experienced. Her father was a murderer, a rapist, and a man capable of selling his own daughter. She was seventeen and had no one to go to, no one to rely on, no one to trust. And so yes, looking back on it, what she had done was the act of a desperate and scared teenager. She remembered the constant, searing hurt she had lived with since she’d had her world turned upside down, so she’d done—or tried to do—the only thing she knew could stop all the pain.
“But Drew and Dani, they were helping you,” Caleb pointed out, his voice quiet with desperation.
Slowly, Kit nodded. “They were. I had made copies of the journals, given them the pages, and they were working on it. But they didn’t know everything. They didn’t know what he’d done to me. I was too ashamed to talk about it.”
“Kit, that wasn’t your fault,” Caleb interrupted.
She gave a bitter laugh. “I know, but that’s the thing about shame: it often overwhelms logic. I couldn’t talk about it; I still don’t talk about it much. To this day, there are only three people I have ever told.” She paused for a moment and let that sink in. For the longest time, Marco was the only person she’d ever told—now two more knew. With a sigh, she shook her head and continued.
“But it wasn’t just about me and about what he’d done to me, Caleb. Dani and Drew knew about the arms and trafficking. But what they didn’t know was how personally involved he was. They didn’t know that he raped some of the young girls he smuggled into various countries. They’d never heard him laugh as he was told about the death and destruction the weapons he sold had caused,” she finished, her voice quiet in the confines of the kitchen.
In the silence, she waited for Caleb’s censure. Waited for him to condemn her decisions, her actions. Waited for him to point out that their father would have been brought to justice in a court of law had she not intervened.
Her heart was thudding heavily in her chest and each breath she took felt labored. Her tea was cooling in its mug and she was still playing with the tea bag, avoiding looking at her brother. Staring at the dark brew, she flinched when Caleb’s hand came into her line of vision. Gently, he tugged her fingers off the tea bag string and wrapped his hand around hers, resting them both on the table.
She looked up.
“I’m so sorry, Kit. More than you will ever know. I’m so sorry.”
She blinked back the tears gathering in her eyes, not aware until now of just how much it meant to be relieved of her brother’s judgment hanging over her head.
“I shouldn’t have left you there. I shouldn’t have left you in a position to ever have to make the decisions you made. I know you made the best ones you could, and while to my dying day I will regret that you had to make them at all, I can’t find any fault with what you decided to do.”
A single tear tracked down her cheek. She cleared her throat and looked away. “Even though I’m not sorry he died? I may not have meant to kill him, but I’m still not sorry he died.”
“I know that most people would believe that he should have seen justice through a court of law, but I’ve been around long enough to know that most people like our father—those rich enough to hire the best lawyers or emigrate to a country with no extradition laws—get away with what they do far more often than the average man. Our father wasn’t dumb. Arrogant and maybe careless toward the end, but not dumb. He already had bank accounts the courts couldn’t touch and houses in countries that would have let him not only live out his days but probably continue what he was doing.”
He stopped talking for a moment and held her hand in his, their roughness and heat reassuring her like they had when they were kids.
“I’m not going to judge you, Kit, especially not after some of the things I’ve seen and done and allowed to happen. But god, am I sorry you had to live through any of that.” His voice cracked toward the end and Kit looked up from their hands to a pair of eyes that mirrored hers. A pair of eyes that not only saw her and what she’d done, but that reflected regret and held not only his pain but hers as well.
She squeezed his hand and a flicker of hope flashed across his face. She knew that someday they’d talk about everything. They’d talk about everything she had heard, everything she had done to get information to Drew and Dani, everything she had felt during that time. But now was not that day. And that was okay. Because she had hope now. Hope that maybe she would get her brother back. Hope that maybe she’d let herself want him back.
***
Later that afternoon, Garret stood at her window staring out at the snowstorm. From Kit’s position at her makeshift desk, she had a perfect view of his profile. It had been two days since he had told her about leaving his job. She still wasn’t sure what to make of it all. She hadn’t been joking or overreacting when she’d told him it was too much pressure. She didn’t want to be the cause of any regrets in his life.
But the more time they spent together, and granted it had only been two days holed up in a CIA safe house, the more she started to wonder if he’d been right. If not giving themselves the opportunity to even try would be what they’d both end up regretting.
It was so tempting to let her thoughts fixate on where her relationship with Garret was going since there really wasn’t much else for her to think about while stuck on Cape Cod, especially after unburdening herself to her brother. But her good sense stopped her every time her mind went down that path—the path of happily-ever-after or, alternately, the path of what-the-hell-have-we-done. Being in protective custody with the potential for someone to come after her because of her random association with someone from MI6 wasn’t really the time to be thinking about whether or not she and Garret made a good couple.
“It’s too bad we’re not alone on vacation. This could be so much more entertaining, so much more fun,” Garret said, turning to give a pointed look at the bed, her bed, a bed she’d been sleeping in mostly alone, “if that were the case.”
Her lips twitched. Here she’d been thinking all sorts of deep relationship thoughts and Garret had been thinking about sex. Well, now that he’d brought it up, she had to admit he wasn’t the only one who’d been thinking along those lines. Both nights she’d gone to bed early, and at some point he’d come in and slid between the blankets next to her. But all he had done was wrap an arm around her and fall asleep. And when she’d awoken in the morning, he’d been gone. When this was all over, it might actually be nice to lounge around in bed with him for a few days. Or weeks.
“Any news from Drew?” she asked.
He’d turned back to the window but she saw him shake his head. “Nothing of any consequence.”
She sat up straighter. “What does that mean?”
He turned to face her, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. “Of the two men they were still looking for, they found one but the other is still in the wind, which means we do nothing different.”
Kit thought about this for a second. It made sense that they do nothing since the potential threat was still out there.
But still.
“Did he have anything to say? The guy they caught?” she asked.
If she hadn’t been watching Garret closely, she wouldn’t have noticed his nearly imperceptible hesitation. But she had been and she did.
“Garret?” she prompted.
After a moment, he lifted his shoulders. “The guy didn’t say much of anything. He wasn’t interested in being tried for treason.”
Kit blinked. And frowned. This was so not her world. “Are you saying he killed himself?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.
Garret nodded in response.
She let out a huff of air and sat back in her chair. “So, what about the guy MI6 does have in custody, and how close are they to finding the third guy? Do we know if they know anything about me? Has the man in custody said anything about seeing me with Jonathon that day he was shot?”
Garret took his time answering, which didn’t sit well with Kit. She thought his hesitation came either from some mistaken belief that she didn’t need to know the details, or because he himself wasn’t sure what to think. Neither option made her feel very comfortable, so she let him take his time.
Finally, he answered. “The one they have in custody hasn’t said anything about hiring out a contract on Jonathon Parker. In fact, he denies it.”
“But he would, wouldn’t he? I mean, in the spy world, isn’t it worse to kill one of your own agents than a civilian, someone not officially in service?”
Garret wagged his head then moved to the side of the bed and took a seat. “In the US, it’s definitely worse to kill someone on active duty—police, soldier, anyone—than another civilian. But in the world of the CIA and MI6? Well, it’s a little different. There’s this weird code that, once you’ve entered the game, you’re fair game. And since the premise of organizations like these are to protect the people from what they don’t know, killing a civilian is often frowned upon way more than killing another agent.”
Frailty of Things Page 14
