In the end Danny was too much a son of the Midwest to ignore the call to be responsible, so he returned. The lake house was much as he expected. The kitchen was stocked with easy-to-heat canned goods and the freezer contained a variety of one-serving meals. Dirty dishes remained in the sink, as though the squatter had quickly vacated the place. One of the upper-floor bedrooms looked well lived-in. Dirty towels were scattered on the floor of the attached bathroom. At the same time, the dust was thick throughout the major public rooms of the ground floor, and there was little indication of any recent activity. Apparently the camp had only been a way station on Josh’s overall journey.
After going through every room in the mansion and the servants quarters that were built over the old stables now converted into garages, Danny felt certain Josh was gone forever. Sitting on the stone terrace outside the living room and gazing toward the dock and boathouse, he contemplated seeking freedom by prepping the suspended powerboat in that building. He could motor it out on the flowage and away from the house. Almost twenty miles in length, the flowage had been formed years ago when the Coeur de Lattigeaux River was dammed to generate power. Channels from the resulting flowage offered connections to many of the true lakes, including this one, Clearwater Lake. Danny could speed for miles across these waters and let his thoughts go where they might. Maybe he could decide whether to reach out to his father and try to reconcile He could take his old man fishing. He hadn’t ever invited his father to see the place after its refurbishment. For too long, they had acted as though they lived in different universes. Maybe together they could visit his mother’s grave. That was at least one thing that still connected them. It wasn’t too late.
Danny looked across the lake and watched the dark skies that were transforming the water below into a black mirror. The rising wind was driving the water frothy with whitecaps as the front edge of the rain raced toward him. He headed back into the house because it wouldn’t be long until the storm hit. Inside, he turned on lights, placed a CD in the player, lit the fireplace, poured himself a glass of wine, and sat by the fire. Maybe he should call Cynthia. Instead he stared toward the lake and decided to wait out the storm.
That’s when he saw it—the dark funnel shape descending from the clouds, skirting the opposite edge of the lake, heading northeast toward the border of Wisconsin and upper Michigan, and ripping the forest apart. Outside, the roar of the wind grew monstrous, and rain pelted the window until it completely obscured what lay beyond. It was foolish to sit in the living room near so many enormous panes of glass, as though he was tempting the churning tornado to shift direction and slam into the camp. Danny didn’t move.
The lights flickered and then went out. Danny reasoned the funnel touched the transmission lines that went from Thread toward the power plant in Timberton. If the twister had pulled up the lines, trees were also likely downed across them and it might be hours before the power would come back on. In the distance across the lakes, as the rain abated, he could see a glow rising from the American Seasons complex. Apparently, the resort still had its power. But he was alone in a dark house.
In the quiet dimness of the swirl of the stormy twilight, he heard a creak and then a voice.
“Reminds one of New Year’s Eve, doesn’t it?” said a familiar voice.
Josh.
“Were you looking for me?” he asked. “I had to move out when someone sent the cops to check on the place. But I couldn’t leave entirely. I figured eventually you would show up. Wanted to be here when you did. And now here you are.”
Danny said nothing.
“I know you found my room in Los Feliz,” Josh said. “Did you like what you found?”
Danny wondered if he was safe, but if not, where could he flee? Could he get to the car? If only he had already placed that boat in the water. Even in this storm, he would rather be on the lake than in this room with Josh.
Josh seemed not to care. “I just need you to know something. There’s one thing left to discover, and that’s why I’m here. Everything I’ve ever done is for you. You believe that, don’t you? I wanted to give you everything you could ever want. A career. Money. Friends. A lover.”
Danny felt unreasonable hope.
“Know why? Because if you didn’t have everything, I couldn’t take it away.” And Josh laughed.
Hope vanished. “Who are you?” he asked.
“I am your nemesis,” and Josh laughed again.
Danny remembered some Greek myth about Nemesis and Narcissus. He seemed to recall that it didn’t end well. “Do you think you can break me? Are you hoping I will commit suicide? Is that what you want?”
As Josh sat on the chair across from Danny, he looked at him in a way that Danny once would have considered an expression of love, but now he wondered what it really meant. Josh smiled sadly, “Don’t you think suicide is best left to your mother?”
“Don’t bring my mom into this.” Danny almost shouted, surprised at how much it stung to hear his mother mentioned.
“What do they say? ‘Like mother, like son.’ Genes run deep.”
Danny wanted no more of this. “I can’t believe that I never knew who you really were. Maybe if none of this happened, I never would have. But you would never have let that happen, would you? You made sure I discovered the real you, didn’t you? So now I know what you are: a killer.”
Josh didn’t protest. “My goal isn’t to make you know who I am. It’s just the opposite. I want to make sure you know who you are. I need you to look into the mirror and see yourself for who you really are. Listen up. This is who you are: Your mother’s son. Pete’s special boy. Oliver’s plaything. You’re a fraud.”
“Shut up! This is about you. Not me. You’re the crazy one . . . the criminal . . . the terrorist. I read your notes and listened to your tapes.”
“Funny the words you chose. Terrorist. Killer.”
Danny suddenly felt wary. Something had shifted and he remembered how he feared the house was a giant trap, but he couldn’t keep himself from asking, “What do you mean?”
From the way Josh leaned back against the chair, Danny knew that he wanted to be asked that very question. Josh pointed toward the goblet that Danny had set on the coffee table. “I’m getting a glass of that wine. My story might take a while.”
Again, Danny debated fleeing. Could he outrace Josh in this rain and make it somewhere safe? Why hadn’t he invited Cynthia over?
“Do you still carry around that picture of you as a baby with your mother?” Without thinking, Danny nodded his head to indicate yes. “Remember that other woman? The one you said was your mother’s friend?” Again without wanting to, he agreed.
“Her name was Pauline Newmann. You probably knew that. Did you know that she grew up in the same town as your mom, and that she was her dearest friend? Did your dad ever tell you that?”
Josh knew that Danny’s dad never talked about the past, especially not when it came to his dead wife.
“I bet he never said a word about how Pauline died, did he? Let me tell you the unhappy story. She was blown up on Christmas Eve in 1968 when a terrorist bombed a building at Bremen College where she worked, the same place your mother worked. An anti-war protest, and she was the one who died. Not a politician. Not an army general. No, your mother’s friend. At Bremen College in Milwaukee where your parents lived in 1968, the year you were born.”
Danny felt uncertain. He should know about Pauline. He still carried a photo of his mother and her but he had just been born then. Maybe his dad had mentioned it. Danny felt shaky, reminded of the day he discovered his mother was dead.
“I bet no one ever told you about your mom’s role in that. Did you ever hear that she was part of the anti-Vietnam War group that claimed responsibility for the bombing? The FBI always thought she was the one who set it in motion, but they could never prove it. But she was. She was the one responsible for killing her best friend. Maybe that’s why she committed suicide. Maybe she just felt guilty.”
<
br /> “You don’t know that,” Danny’s voice had sunk to a whisper. It couldn’t be true, but yet somehow he felt Josh was telling the truth.
“Yes, I can know it,” Josh replied. “You know how I like to check things out. A while back, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request on your mother’s files. I just wanted to know your past. That’s how I discovered there’s a lot you don’t know about your roots. Maybe it’s time.
“I always thought that you and I were somehow entangled in a way that meant for our lives to be connected. Even if I wanted to exist without you, I couldn’t. But here’s the problem: I can’t exist with you either—at least not until we both know who you are and what really defines you. I can’t rest until I know your true colors. Because you are my reality, and I am yours.
“So are you your mother’s son? And if so, how will you react to the truth? I’ve always wanted to tear away everything until we face ourselves in abject nakedness, unable to hide behind anything but our essence.”
Josh walked over to one of the bookshelves and pulled out a book. Behind it, there was a folder that he had apparently hidden. “You can’t guess how much I have been looking forward to this day.”
He handed over the file.
“Sometimes, it seems you can look at yourself and not change. Maybe that mirror has no power on you. But can you look at your mother and still not escape your past? Let’s find out.”
And then Josh said something odd. “I think the cat is finally dead. And it’s time for me to go. Forever.”
And he walked toward the entry, into the darkness, and exited into the storm.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Josh
The confrontation wasn’t satisfying. Handing over the synopsis of files on Danny’s mother should have provided great satisfaction, but he felt nothing. No, worse than that, he felt guilty, a feeling he never liked.
Testing Danny was proving disappointing, and it was becoming an issue. Just in case it was ever needed, years ago, Josh planned a detailed escape route. To do so, he created more than one false identity and scouted out various countries with non-extradition treaties. He always thought such foresight might prove handy—one never knew when old crimes might come back to haunt one. Even though he somewhat exaggerated the level of grand larceny he perpetrated on Oliver’s gang of Arab friends, Josh had siphoned more than a few million dollars of their funding that had been secreted away in European banks. Some of that purloined cash was used to give Premios and Danny breathing room, but the rest was in a safe place for Josh’s future use. He saw no reason to feel guilty about the financial hack. In some ways, it was downright patriotic. Who knew what Oliver’s gang planned to do with that money? Let them think their own colleague made off with it, just in time to get murdered in a home burglary. Even if these guys suspected Josh was behind the loss of money, they weren’t going to find him.
As long as he got out of the country.
But he still needed to complete things with Danny. That wasn’t happening. By now he had offered Danny both the carrot and the stick. Over the years, he showered Danny with all the blessings of a good life. He helped engineer Danny’s fame as a blogger. And he bestowed wealth. Such things didn’t come easily, but Josh was always willing to pull whatever levers of influence were needed to grease the skids. He gave the kid everything, but Danny never abused his new powers. It was inexplicable. So much for the carrot.
He had no alternative but to use the stick and take things away. Doing so would surely nudge Danny into his baser nature until he would collapse into the despair that Josh was certain ran deep inside everyone. Destroying Danny’s image of him was a small price to pay and Josh had paid it; yet Josh still didn’t see the change he wanted. It wasn’t fair.
He had only one card left to play—Danny’s mother—and he was lucky to have it. Since Josh truly believed that some horrid truth lay behind every action of every person, he had often thought there had to be a reason the woman killed herself. Maybe that speculation gave him the idea to go digging, or perhaps someone in town referenced the woman’s past. Whatever, once he decided one day to seek out more, never expecting anything to come of it, he found it easy enough to submit Freedom of Information requests to the various federal agencies. Soon he had several folders on Lempi, her parents and even her husband Toivo—Danny’s father. Josh figured that all those odd Finnish names would make it easy to scope out forgotten facts.
His requests had been a lark, but then he hit the jackpot. While there was nothing about Danny’s father, it was another situation with Danny’s grandmother, Marja Makinen. Turns out the government tried to deport her during the Fifties and the Red Scare era. They didn’t succeed.
But there was an even bigger surprise. It was Lempi, Danny’s mother. She had her own skeletons, including a suspected radical past. Although several major passages in the documents were redacted, the FBI files clearly documented their unproven suspicions about a never-solved bombing and those details were enough to fill Josh with an anticipatory rush of joy. Even Danny couldn’t withstand this revelation. His mother’s death haunted Danny, but it was a haunting of longing and love, not fear. What would he do with the truth?
Josh never considered leaving those files in his hidden room. It would have been like displaying a thermonuclear bomb in an open field. No, Josh had held onto his secret for more than two years, never expecting to use it. But times changed. Turned out that Danny was tougher than he thought.
There was no alternative but to deploy his one remaining tool, and Josh was certain the unveiling would have the greatest impact in the backwoods of Thread. That was his only reason for hiding out in the camp. He needed to disclose reality in the setting where it had been forgotten. Unfortunately, over the past few months, Danny never acted as Josh anticipated. As far as Josh could tell, Danny never even checked if Josh was sequestered at the lake house. Finally, Josh deliberately made himself visible to fishermen off shore so that sooner or later, word would get back to Danny.
Maybe he was losing his touch. Josh always thought he could with equal skill read people and manipulate them. That’s why he was so quick to hire Orleans, expecting to mentor her until she could apply her skill at reading people and be a companion in his machinations. Sometimes it was lonely trying to play god with people’s lives. But Orleans hadn’t lived up to her potential. Unfortunately by the time her backbone of morality became clear, he had grown too dependent on her financial acumen. Orleans had to stay, but not in the role he had planned.
Jesus Lopez was another acolyte who offered great potential. Discovering Lopez’s novels was an almost sexually charged event. Josh delighted in this amoral author who thrived on chaos and evil. Josh even suggested to Danny that he enroll in Lopez’s seminar, not because he thought the man would be a good teacher, but because he wanted to meet the guy.
It worked. They hit it off. Jesus even dragged Josh into some darker sexual escapades that wouldn’t normally have intrigued him, but proved to be a form of brotherly bonding. Josh had been ecstatic when he stumbled over the amazing coincidence that Jesus and Oliver knew each other from their days together at a university in Chicago, and he played that opportunity for everything that it was worth.
Whatever Josh asked Jesus to do, he was always downright eager to follow through. That included trailing Chip, especially when Josh made up some cock-and-bull story about why Jesus should wear that old fisherman’s hat on the stakeout. Josh still didn’t understand why he added such a stupid detail. Sometimes, Josh thought a part of him wanted to be caught. In the end, the hat didn’t matter. Jesus saw Chip check out the buildings. As Josh hoped, Jesus shared the news about Chip’s investigation with Oliver. Admittedly Josh failed to anticipate that Oliver would call in reinforcements to deal with Chip. But that didn’t matter. Josh didn’t own any responsibility for what happened to Chip. Plausible deniability. He only helped people get to where they wanted to be.
It was too bad about the break-ins at the Los Feliz ho
use. Life had its coincidences, and Josh was sure the attempted burglaries were just the actions of local kids. At first the occurrences greatly angered him, but then he realize how much the actions spooked Danny, and that proved good for his test.
But Josh still had to get Danny to reach that point of personal self-discovery. Someday Danny would understand and appreciate that Josh wasn’t being vindictive. He was doing this out of love. He really was. But he couldn’t take these actions directly. He wasn’t a murderer. He only helped things along. Turning the gun on Oliver was an anomaly. Just like stabbing Pete wasn’t really Josh’s nature.
Josh didn’t want another anomaly. He wanted Danny to make his own choices.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Flowage
“You need to call the police,” Cynthia was firm.
From across the dinner table, Danny replied equally adamant, “I can’t.”
They were at a crossroads and blocked. On one hand, Danny could choose what Cynthia considered the only logical path to follow even though it would betray Josh. On the other hand, he might choose the alternative of staying silent, which each knew should never be taken, even if it might protect the man that Danny once thought he loved but now didn’t trust. Both choices were untenable, and Cynthia could understand why Danny just floated between the two, unable to moor on either. After Chip’s murder, she felt a similar sense of being lost. But at some point, you needed to drop your feet to the bottom, stand up and start walking in one direction or the other.
The night before, the tornado left a streak of fallen trees in its wake. While the storm caused no damage to the American Seasons resort, downed trees continued to block several back roads between Lattigo and Thread. Safely driving the country lanes from Danny’s camp to reach the resort was still impossible. When Danny called that morning to rage about Josh, Cynthia encouraged him to take his motorboat through the flowage to reach the American Seasons marina. With its powerful engine, the trip would take less than half an hour. She wanted them to meet in person, sooner rather than later. She wished that he had called the night before, and didn’t like imagining him brooding alone in the huge house with Josh in the vicinity
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