by Jessie Cooke
“And why is that?” Blackheart asked.
“Because they don’t know that I’ve figured most of this out...yet. They don’t know who you are.”
“Neither do you, yet,” he said, ominously. Gabe noticed again how their expressions were just the same as they stared at each other. And then Blackheart went on to ask, “So how did you know to look for me, if your mother didn’t tell you?”
“My mother wasn’t able to tell me anything, unfortunately,” she said, sounding hurt, or maybe betrayed. “But really, I don’t want to talk about this here. There’s a coffee shop on Jefferson Highway called Brew Ha Ha. Will you meet me there in half an hour? I’ll explain everything then, I promise.” Blackheart looked annoyed, but he nodded. Patrice waited for them to get on their bikes and drive away before going back inside the house, and Gabe’s heart didn’t slow down in his chest until she was out of sight. She may have just been using him, but along the way he was developing real feelings for her that weren’t just simply going to disappear. Still, he thought, looking over at Blackheart, if he was forced to choose, even at that moment, he already knew there was no contest. His loyalties lay with the man who had kept all of his promises. The man who had paid for his parents’ funerals, and probably put that hundred thousand dollars into Gabe’s account, out of his own pocket. Blackheart had never let him down, not once, and no matter what he wanted to do about Patrice and whatever she had to tell them at the coffee shop, Gabriel already knew which side he was going to be on.
3
“Do you think she’s telling the truth?” Gabe and Blackheart had made it to the coffee shop and they’d been waiting for fifteen minutes in silence. Blackheart sipped his chicory coffee and looked as calm as if he were simply having a nice visit on a hot afternoon in Louisiana. Gabe wished he knew how he did it. His insides were quivering and it was all he could do to keep his voice from doing the same when he spoke.
“She’s the only one who knows that at this point, I suppose,” Blackheart said. “Here she is, so I guess we’ll know soon enough.”
Gabe looked over in the direction Blackheart was looking. Patrice had just parked and was stepping out of her car. She’d put on a pair of flip-flops, but other than that, she looked the same as she had half an hour before and once again his body responded. She flipped her long hair over her shoulder as she bent back into the car door to retrieve something and he had to force his eyes away from her round butt and long, tan legs before she stood up and caught him looking. They watched her approach, with a folder in each hand. Blackheart stood up when she got close...always the gentleman...so Gabe did the same. “Coffee?” Blackheart asked.
She glanced at Gabe and then back at Blackheart before sitting down in the seat that was already pulled out for her. “No, thank you.” Blackheart and Gabe both sat down and Patrice pushed one of the folders over in front of Blackheart. “What do you know about this?” she said. Blackheart opened the folder. Gabe couldn’t see what he was looking at, but whatever it was made his right eyebrow stand up as he read through the papers, and something besides the calm, coolness showed in his eyes. He turned each piece of paper over on its face as he read through the next one and meanwhile Patrice and Gabe sat quietly and waited. Blackheart took his time, which to Gabe seemed like forever, and when he finally closed the folder he looked back at Patrice and Gabe could actually hear the sympathy in his voice as he said:
“This was your mother?”
“Yes. Do you remember her now?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, sounding sincere. “I don’t.”
Patrice narrowed her eyes like she didn’t believe him, before handing over the other folder. “These are copies of pages from her diary.”
Blackheart opened it and again took his time reading through several pages. Gabe continued to watch him, refusing to let his eyes wander over toward Patrice where they still desperately wanted to be. When his president finished reading whatever was on that page he looked back up and said, “I’m truly sorry for your loss. She sounds like a beautiful person, and I wish I could tell you I remembered her, but I don’t. Those were wild times in my youth; I’m sure there are many other women I met and didn’t remember.”
“And you never wondered how many you might have met and impregnated?”
“No. I had relations with adults. I took all precautions, but as you know, nothing is 100%. I simply assumed if it happened and the adult woman it happened to wanted to bring it to my attention, that was her choice. I wasn’t in hiding, Patrice. Your mother could have easily found me.”
Patrice narrowed her eyes and said, “Maybe she did...and maybe that’s why she’s dead.”
“I’m telling you she did not...but again, I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Did you kill her? Did you kill my mother?” Gabe had been taking a sip of his coffee and nearly spit it out when she said that. Gabriel had never heard anyone other than the local police say anything like that to Blackheart, and his own heart seized up as he waited for Blackheart’s reaction. But other than a slight tic of his left eye, he didn’t react. He asked her a question instead.
“No, I did not kill your mother. I can say that with surety, since I’ve never put a hand on a woman in anger in my life. But since you don’t know me, perhaps you should think about it like this: what would my motive have been? Men have children out of wedlock often. Why would I kill her for that? What would I have to gain?”
She looked frustrated as she said, “I don’t know. What I do know is that I don’t believe she killed herself. Just those few pages you read of her diary, you have to be able to see how much she loved being a mother, and that she was happy...I see more reason for you to kill her than for her to kill herself. Besides, I’ve done the research. Women who kill themselves don’t jump off balconies and splatter on the sidewalk. They take a less violent approach, usually.”
“How old were you when she died?”
“Eight months.”
“You seem like a smart girl to me,” he said, softly. “You can see by these diary entries that she hid the pregnancy from everyone...and she talks about how much you look like me but doesn’t say anything about contacting me. So, from the time I supposedly impregnated her until the time of her death, seventeen months passed...seventeen months in which I had no reason to want this woman dead. seventeen months that she had to meet many other people.” When she stayed silent he said, “What did the police say? I assume since you have all of this, you’ve gotten a copy of the police report?”
“Yes, but it’s worthless. They didn’t even really do an investigation. My grandmother had just buried her husband of almost fifty years. When they came and told her that her daughter had been in a hotel room, alone with her illegitimate child, drinking wine and smoking marijuana, and decided to take a nosedive off the balcony, that was enough for her. She didn’t want to know anymore, and she definitely didn’t want a ‘scandal.’ Her whole life was about what our family looked like to the outside world, and she couldn’t have this getting out to the press. My guess is that she shut down any further investigation because as bad as it was to have ‘suicide’ on Kasey’s autopsy report, my grandmother decided that was better than the possibility of what they might find if they looked into her background. It was 1996 but the way her family was so humiliated by her getting pregnant out of wedlock, you would have thought it was 1949. My...aunt...she said that Grandmother figured if they were able to keep it out of the papers, people would just forget about it. Then she used her status in the community to pull strings with the newspapers to get them to bury the story, and Kasey’s obituary was even a lie. It doesn’t mention she had a child and all it says was that she ‘passed away’ at the tender age of twenty-three...then it goes on to talk about the family, how successful my grandfather was and everything my grandmother did for the church and the community. Sickening,” she said, tears forming in her pretty eyes. She focused them on Gabe then and said, “I didn’t know any of this, up until a few weeks ago.
All I knew about Kasey was what little they’d told me. The woman claiming to be my mother told me Kasey was her younger sister and she’d died when I was a baby. There were a few pictures of her around my grandmother’s house, but other than that, no one talked about her. I believed the people who raised me were my parents, biologically. Then one day this young guy is transferred to my floor after surgery and I felt this really strong connection to him, to you. I liked you, Gabriel, right away. For me, that was strange and unusual. I’ve always been kind of hard on people, it’s why I’m still single, my mama...my aunt, she always said I was born suspicious.” Blackheart chuckled at that; he himself was one of the most suspicious people on earth. He didn’t trust anyone until they proved to him they were worthy of it.
Patrice kept her eyes on Gabe and said, “I set really high standards for myself, and I always have for the people I surround myself with as well. So anyway, this one day a few weeks ago when I was visiting my mother, I was telling her about you. She was genuinely happy for me, at first. She’d always told me I was too hard on people. But when I told her you were in a motorcycle club, things changed, and quickly. She wanted to know the name of the club, which I thought was odd because I doubted that my middle-class mother would know anything about any clubs other than what she might have read. When I told her the Jokers, I could literally watch the color drain out of her face. She told me I should stay away from you, but no matter how much I pushed, she wouldn’t tell me why...other than that she’d ‘heard’ things about your club. I was determined to find out for myself though, so the next day I went to that party with you at the club...it was the first time I saw him...” She glanced at Blackheart again then and after several long minutes she turned back to Gabe.
“I know you can see it. I have his face. I told myself it was just a weird coincidence at first. But I saw my mother another week or so later and she asked me point-blank if I was still seeing you. When I said yes, she started acting so weird again and I’m not even sure where it came from, but I heard myself asking her if she had an affair with Blackheart. I had been trying to figure things out, why she was so freaked out about me dating you, and why I looked so much like him, and I thought maybe that’s what it was. Maybe she’d cheated on my dad and that’s why I looked so much like this guy and not like my dad at all. The sound of his name though, when I said Blackheart, that sent her into a torrent of tears. It was bizarre and when she finally calmed down and I insisted she tell me the truth, about everything. Imagine my surprise when she began with, ‘You’re not really our daughter.’”
Gabe felt ashamed of himself at that moment because he could see the pain in Patrice’s eyes, but knowing she was interested in him before she found out about Blackheart and not because she was using him to meet his president was like a hundred-pound weight being lifted off his shoulders. “Why didn’t she ever tell you before?” Gabe asked.
She sighed and said, “They both, she and my...” another quick look at Blackheart and she swallowed hard and said, “my father. She called him and he came home and they told me the story together. They said that Grandma made them promise not to ever tell me. Then once she passed away, I was a teenager and they were afraid of how I’d take it. It was like the more time that passed, the harder it got. They knew I would be angry. I had a right to know.” Her eyes landed back on Blackheart’s face and she said, “Especially because I did still have a biological parent out there.”
“So what else did they tell you?” Blackheart asked.
“My father got this big box out of the safe. It was like Pandora’s box. They said that it was everything Grandmother had told them to get rid of. Inside this box was my mother’s diary...the one the police found in the room the day she died... her ID and some jewelry, and my real birth certificate. The one I’ve been using all of these years list my Aunt Cindy and Uncle Ron as my parents. I’m not sure how they pulled it off, or if they ever really adopted me...I didn’t get around to asking any of that yet. But the birth certificate in that box had my real mother’s name on it, Kasey Cormier. My name was Patrice Cormier; all this time I thought my last name was Leboux. Mom didn’t name you as my father,” she said, to Blackheart. “She listed him as ‘unknown.’ It was only in her diary that she talked about you, and that’s how my aunt knew your name, and about the club. But anyway, I was born in Portland, Maine and they told me that while they all thought my mother was in medical school, in Maine, she had taken a sabbatical, because she was pregnant with me. She had dropped the bomb on them about going to medical school in Maine at the last minute and then for a solid year she made excuses about why she couldn’t come home for holidays and things. Then my grandfather died, and she came home for the funeral. Needless to say, they were all shocked when she showed up with a baby. My grandmother was furious and wouldn’t even talk to her and told her she wasn’t welcome at the funeral. My mother died just a week later, and my grandmother and the people I thought were my parents all this time, did everything she could to make sure the memories of her died that day with her.”
The tears had begun to sneak out of her eyes and roll down her face. Gabe couldn’t stand to see her cry. He slid his arm around her, unsure if she wanted him to touch her or not, but she didn’t pull away. She leaned into him and reached up with one hand and wiped the tears off her face. It was several minutes before anyone said anything else, but Blackheart was the one who broke the silence. He stood up and said:
“Gabe you make sure she gets home okay. Patrice, I didn’t kill your mother, but if you want help finding out what really happened to her, call me. The only thing I’ll ask in return is that you don’t go around spreading rumors about me throwing women off balconies. I got a reputation to uphold.” Gabriel smiled at that and Blackheart’s lips twitched. Patrice didn’t say anything, but Gabe saw her watching Blackheart as he got on his Harley and drove away.
4
“I should go,” Patrice said as soon as Blackheart was out of sight.
“Okay. Are you alright?”
She nodded. “I’m fine. A little embarrassed, I guess.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed, but...do you really think Blackheart killed your mom?”
She shook her head, slowly. “No. He’s right...too much time had passed; it wouldn’t make any sense at all. I’m just...I’m in shock over all of this. I read her diary, Gabe, every page of it. She wasn’t depressed, not even unhappy.” She smiled and her face lit up when she said, “She loved me. She was working at a medical office in Maine. She hadn’t had a chance to go back to school, but she planned to. She was so young...” The smile faded again and fresh tears filled her pretty eyes. She took a shaky breath and said, “Even the day she got back to New Orleans, and my grandmother told her she wasn’t welcome at the funeral, she barely wrote a paragraph about it. She was sad, but it seemed like she was at peace and ready to just go back to her new home and get on with her life.” She smiled again and said, “The next whole page was about what a good time she’d had that day, ‘showing me around’ New Orleans. She said she’d wanted to show me everything in the place she loved, and missed. It was her home.” Another tear rolled down her face and she quickly wiped it away. “She was forced to leave it because of me.”
“It’s not your fault though, I mean, you know that, right? Whatever happened, you were just an innocent baby. It sounds like you made her real happy, at least you have that.”
“I have nothing,” she said, almost in a whisper. “I’ve got nothing of my mother but a bunch of old papers, and that’s my family’s fault. They could have kept her alive for me. They just wrote her out of my life, and theirs...she was only twenty-three years old.” She started crying again and this time Gabe put both of his arms around her and pulled her in tight. He just sat there and held her until she pulled away, wiped her face again, and smiled at him. “I’ll bet you’re sorry that you’re the first man I’ve ever really trusted right off the bat, huh?”
He smiled and wiped away a tear t
hat she missed. “Not a bit.”
“Thank you.” She sighed and said, “I need to apologize to Blackheart. I’m not even sure where that came from. I’m so embarrassed.”
“I think he understands,” Gabe said, unsure if his president did or not. But all he wanted was to make Patrice feel better. He hated seeing her so sad. “Can I ask what you plan on doing about...you know, finding out he’s your dad...maybe?”
“I think that’s his call at this point. I’m not pushing for a DNA test or anything. I don’t want anything from him.” She hesitated and Gabriel said:
“But you’d like to know.”
“Yeah, I would. I never had the choice before, you know...when they took my mom from me, they took him too. They took that choice away from him and me both.”
“You think your mother would have ever told him, about you?”
She nodded. “She wrote about it a lot in her diary. I guess that’s what made me so mad when he said he didn’t remember her. I think she was a little bit in love with him, and it made me sad that she was just another conquest for him.”
“It was a long time ago...” She rolled her eyes and he said, “Sorry, I guess defending him just comes natural. He’s a good guy though, you know. He’s been with a lot of ladies, but I’ve never seen him disrespect one, or treat them poorly.”
She smiled slightly and said, “I’m sure he must be a good man, or you wouldn’t care about him so much.” Giving herself a little shake, like maybe she was trying to clear her head, she said, “What happened to your face?”
Gabe had forgotten about the fight the night before, and the black eye and bruise on his cheek. He felt his face go hot now when he said, “Had a little too much to drink last night, I guess.”
“You got in a fight, at the club?”
“Yeah, you know...brothers fight sometimes, but we always make up in the end. Ripper said something that pissed me off and I had enough drink in me to not think before I threw the first punch. I was worried about you, you know? You just disappeared on me.”
