Don't Say a Word

by Barbara Freethy

  "It was someone's fault."

  "Let's take a walk on the beach," Julia said. She kicked off her high-heeled sandals and rolled up the cuffs of her blue jeans.

  "I don't want to walk on the beach. It's foggy, it's cold. And we should be doing something." Although he couldn't quite think of what that something was.

  "It's not as cold as Buffalo. The sand will feel good between your toes. And we need to think before we act. Come on, Alex."

  "Fine." Alex slipped off his tennis shoes and socks and followed her onto the sandy beach. For a while they just walked, absorbing the sounds of the waves crashing on the shore, the seagulls squealing as they dipped in and out of the water, and the low drone of a small airplane cruising along the coast. As the minutes passed, the fog began to lift, rays of sunshine peeking through. By afternoon it would probably be completely sunny, but for now Alex appreciated the fog. It mirrored the way he felt inside. There were sparks of light in his brain, but still a thick curtain wouldn't let him see all the way to the truth.

  The cool, moist sand felt good beneath his feet. The sensation brought him back to reality, grounding him in the present, taking him away from the past. He couldn't remember the last time he'd walked on a beach. He'd always been too busy for such simple, time-wasting pleasures.

  He paused as Julia bent over to pick up a shell. Her long, thick, wavy blond hair blew loosely about her shoulders, and he itched to put his hands through her hair again, the way he had the night before, trapping her face to his kiss. His gut tightened at the memory. Julia was a beautiful woman. It was no wonder he was attracted to her. Unfortunately, it wasn't just her body he found immensely appealing; it was her personality, her willing-to-try attitude, her determination to know the truth even if it hurt, her curiosity in the outside world, and her kindness, her compassion, her softness—a softness that would probably get her into trouble if she trusted the wrong people. He would have to make sure she didn't do that. He would have to protect her.

  But first he had to figure out who the wrong people were. He walked down to the water's edge, thinking once again that the sea held the answers. His father had died in this ocean, his hopes and dreams for the future lost in the waves. All because of a photograph. How could he ever forgive himself? His father's death was all his fault. And there was no way to change any of it.

  A sharp wind picked up off the ocean, spraying his face with water. For a split second he wondered if his father was trying to tell him something. Was he wrong? Was he buying into a story that someone was trying to sell him? Why should he believe Daniel Brady or Stan or even his mother? None of them had given him one ounce of proof.

  "Help me," he muttered. "Help me figure out what to do next. Should I talk to Brady? Should I talk to Stan? Is there someone I'm not thinking about?"

  A large wave took shape, growing in size and power as it rolled toward the beach. It crashed against the sand just a few feet away, the water coming all the way up to him, washing his feet and the bottom of his jeans in water. Was it some sort of answer?

  "A little cold for wading, isn't it?" Julia asked, as she came over to him.

  "I didn't move fast enough."

  "You didn't move at all. What are you thinking, Alex?"

  "Nothing."

  "I don't believe you. I know you're hurting inside, and you're not the kind of man who admits that. You like to be big and strong and invincible. And you hate it when you're not."

  She had that right. He hated feeling weak, powerless, the way he did right now. The hatred had begun a long time ago when his parents had told him that they were separating, that his father wouldn't live with them anymore, that he'd only see him occasionally. And those powerless feelings had grown after his dad died, after the funeral, after he was left alone. So he'd created a life for himself in which he was in control. He worked for himself. He called his own shots. He decided when to go and when to stay. Everything had worked fine… until now.

  "It's hard to lose a parent," Julia continued. "When my mom died, I felt as if I'd lost my right arm. I didn't think I would ever feel whole again. I can't imagine what that would have felt like if I'd been a child, as you were when your dad died, especially since your mother isn't the warm and fuzzy type."

  "I hated her," Alex admitted. "For a long time I wouldn't even talk to her. I blamed her for keeping me away from my dad, for the year I'd lost while they were battling for a divorce. I even thought she'd driven him out that night, on that wet, rain-slicked road. I believed they'd had a fight and he was driving too fast. I guess I was wrong."

  "You don't sound sure."

  He turned to her. "I'm not sure. Everyone lied before. Who's to say they're not lying now?"

  She shook her head, understanding in her eyes. "I don't know. Do you think Brady was lying about my mother being in Russia?"

  He knew she wanted a different answer than the one he could give, but he had to tell the truth, at least the way he saw it. "No, Julia. I'm sorry, but I think your mother was in Russia."

  "I don't want to believe it."

  "It makes sense that she was there. Think about it. She was friends with my father. Her grandmother was Russian. She was passionate about the country, fluent in the language. Of course she was there."

  Julia frowned. "Then I must have been there, too."

  "Yes."

  She lifted her chin, a light of battle coming into her eyes. "Okay, then. She was there, and I was there. We have to find out why. What next?"

  What to do next—that was a hell of a question. "You could do what Brady said—lie, tell everyone you were born and raised in Berkeley, and that you never left the country. Then you'll be free of this mess. You can marry your Michael and live happily ever after."

  "With my past buried in a mystery? That's not me, Alex." She paused. "Actually, that was me. I never had the courage to look at myself in the mirror and question who I was. I let my mother die without asking her the questions I wanted to ask. I was too scared. And I'll tell you something: I'm still scared. But I'm not walking away this time. I'm going to follow this trail to the end of the road—even if that road leads me all the way to Russia."

  Chapter 11

  When Julia entered her apartment she found Liz sitting at their kitchen table with the sewing machine out and a pile of fabric all around her.

  "Hey," Julia said tentatively as she set her bag on the floor. She wasn't sure what to expect from Liz. She'd received a dozen messages on her cell phone begging her to call, but she'd kept putting it off, wanting to talk to Liz in person. Now she wished she'd done it over the phone. Her sister's attention was focused on the material she was stitching, and Liz gave no indication that she'd even heard Julia come in. She was obviously angry.

  "What are you working on?" Julia asked, stalling with trivial conversation. Although she was a bit curious about what Liz was planning to do with the yards of floral fabric spread out in front of her.

  "A project," Liz muttered. She stopped sewing and glanced at Julia. "So you finally decided to come home. What's the occasion?"

  Julia sighed at the tone of Lizzie's voice. She was tired from her trip, confused about everything she'd learned. She didn't want to fight with Liz, but she had a feeling it was inevitable. "I left you a message that I was staying with a friend," she said.

  "Does this friend have a name? Oh, wait, let me guess. Alex Manning."

  "We were following a lead. In fact, I have some news to tell you."

  "I'm not really interested, Julia. Since it's obvious you don't care what I'm doing, I don't care what you're doing."

  Julia pulled out a chair and sat down across from her. "Don't be like that, Liz. Don't make this hard."

  "Is that what I'm doing?" Liz asked, hurt in her big brown eyes. "How could I be making your life difficult when I haven't seen you in twenty-four hours? Did you ever consider that my life might have gotten harder when you disappeared and the press had no one to follow but me and Dad?" Liz began to pull the pins out of t
he fabric, her movements jerky and angry.

  "Have they been bothering you?" Julia asked, feeling guilty. "I am sorry, Liz. I thought they'd wait until I surfaced again."

  "Where did you go?"

  "I went to Buffalo, New York."

  Liz's jaw dropped. "You're kidding. You went all the way across the country yesterday and came back today?"

  Julia nodded. "I found our grandmother."

  Liz stabbed herself with a pin and yelped. She put her finger in her mouth, licking off the drop of blood.

  "Are you okay?" Julia asked.

  "What did you just say?"

  "I found our grandmother, Susan Davidson, the woman I read about in the obituary."

  Liz swallowed hard, then sat back in her chair, drawing in a deep breath of air. "I can't believe you went to see her without telling me."

  "I wasn't sure you'd support me," Julia replied.

  "You're right. I wouldn't have supported you. Dammit, Julia, it's one thing to screw up your own life. Why do you have to mess up mine, too?" she asked. "I was finally feeling normal after a year of uncertainty, and now you're turning everything upside down."

  Julia heard the pain in Liz's voice and wished she could make it better instead of worse. But there didn't seem to be any way to get to the truth about her own life without touching on Liz's life. She had to make Liz understand that there was a positive side. After all, they now had a grandmother they hadn't had before. That was something. She reached for her handbag and pulled out the photos Susan had sent back with her.

  Before she showed the photos to Liz, she needed to tell her the rest. "There's something else you have to know. Mrs. Davidson thought that our mother died twenty-five years ago. She was told that Sarah perished in a fire."

  Lizzie's face was a picture of confusion. "I don't get it."

  "Mom let her parents believe she was dead." Julia didn't know how else to put it. She and Alex had run through a number of scenarios, including the fact that maybe someone else had intervened, making both Sarah and Susan Davidson believe the relationship was over for different reasons. But who that third person would have been was unexplainable. "I don't know exactly what happened," Julia said as Lizzie remained silent, obviously digesting the news. "Mom said that her parents disowned her. Mrs. Davidson told me that Sarah died in a fire. One of them lied, or someone else lied, but the bottom line is that Mrs. Davidson knew nothing about us or our life with Sarah."

  "Stop calling her Sarah. She's Mom," Lizzie complained.

  Julia nodded, but she knew that she was starting to think of her mother as Sarah more and more, maybe because it helped delineate the person that her mother was before she'd married Gino. "These are photographs of our grandparents and Mom when she was little." She set the stack down on the table in front of Liz. "You look a lot like Mom when she was younger."

  Liz hesitated. She stared at the photos as if she were afraid they would jump up and bite her. "I don't think I want to look at them."

  "They won't go away just because you don't look."

  "Don't push me," Liz snapped. "You're the one who's always whining about feeling rushed. Can't you see you're doing the same thing to me?"

  "I'm sorry. You're right. I've had more time to think about this than you have. If it helps at all, Mrs. Davidson is really nice, and it was clear to me that she adored Mom."

  "Then why did she disown her?"

  "She said she didn't do that," Julia repeated. "She didn't even know about me. The last she knew was that Mom was single and alone. She didn't even believe Mom could have kids because of an ectopic pregnancy she'd suffered a few years before I was born."

  "She must be lying. Or maybe this Mrs. Davidson was hiding something. She and her husband could have done something horrible to Mom when she was a child. Maybe she was abused or something…" Liz waved her hand wildly in the air as she tried to come up with reasons for the confusion.

  "I honestly don't think Mom was abused by our grandparents," Julia replied. "Mrs. Davidson couldn't stop crying when she found out who I was. She couldn't understand why Sarah would have wanted her to think she was dead. She loved her so much."

  "Then why would Mom have lied to us? If you don't think Mrs. Davidson is lying, then you think Mom did."

  "I'm afraid I do," Julia admitted, even though it hurt to say the words. "Mom must have had her reasons. She told Gino the same story, that her parents had told her she was dead to them after she got pregnant with me. She never veered from that story."

  "So there's something we're missing," Liz said. "I don't think we should take this woman's word over Mom's word. We don't know Mrs. Davidson at all."

  "She'd like to know us. She'd like to come out and meet you—when you're ready," Julia amended quickly when Liz began to shake her head.

  "That's not going to happen. I don't need another grandmother, especially one I don't trust. Mom didn't want us to know them. That's good enough for me. I don't even care about her reasons. She always wanted to protect us. Whatever she did had to be for that purpose."

  Julia wished she could have such blind faith in their mother, but there were too many details blurring the picture of the mother she'd known. "There's more, Liz."

  Liz put up her hand. "Please, stop. I don't want to hear more."

  "Mom majored in Russian in college," Julia said, ignoring her plea. "Her grandmother, our great-grandmother, was a Russian immigrant. Apparently they spoke fluent Russian together." Liz didn't want to believe her. Julia could see the denial in her eyes. "Don't you think that means something?"

  "I don't know what it means. You're driving me crazy. You have so many questions about everything. Why can't you just love the things you have, the people with you, instead of always wanting more? Why can't you be satisfied for once in your life?" She jumped to her feet. "I have to go to work."

  "Don't run out, Liz. We need to talk about everything."

  "No, we don't. Here's what I think. You do what you want, and leave me out of it."

  Liz grabbed her keys and purse and strode from the room. Julia stared after her, wondering how they had gotten so off track with each other. During the past year they'd been closer than close, sharing the work it took to keep their mother comfortable and happy. Now they were as far apart as they had ever been.

  Liz would say it was Julia's fault. Maybe it was. Maybe she did want too much.

  But unlike Liz, she couldn't turn a blind eye to the lies that had been told. She'd spent her whole life stopping herself from asking the questions that mattered, afraid she would hurt her mother. But her mother was gone now, and it was time she got the truth—the whole truth.

  Stan didn't seem surprised to see Alex when he showed up at his front door. "I thought you might come by," he said, waving Alex into the house. "Did you meet with Brady?"

  Alex nodded, following Stan once again into his study. "We did. He basically confirmed what you suggested, that my father was murdered."

  "I'm sorry, Alex. Do you want to sit down? Can I get you something to drink?"

  "No, thanks." Alex paused. "There's something that's been bothering me since I left Brady."

  "What's that?"

  "He said you were friends with Sarah, that you got her the job with the theater company, and that you, in fact, were one of the primary players in setting up the whole trip. He also said it wasn't the first time you were involved in a cultural exchange between our countries. Why didn't you mention that when Julia and I were here on Sunday?"

  Stan frowned, his lips drawing into a tight, irritated line. "Brady shouldn't have told you that."

  "Because it isn't true, or because you didn't want us to know? You told Julia and me that you'd only met Sarah twice. That was a lie."

  "There weren't many more meetings than that," Stan said. "My involvement with Sarah was limited. Charles told me she was excellent with a needle and thread. The group needed several costumers, so she was recommended for the trip."

  "What about the exchange itself?"


  "I made a couple of calls."

  Alex suspected it was more than a couple of calls. Stan was being far too evasive. "Were you in Russia with my father?"

  Stan walked around the desk by the window and sat down, putting up a barrier between them. He pressed his fingertips together, then said, "No, of course not."

  The words were delivered in a firm, steady tone, no hint of a lie. Alex had no reason not to believe Stan, but he couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that he hadn't asked exactly the right question. Still, Stan had been his father's closest friend, and even after his dad's death, he had kept in touch. He'd made the effort to come to Alex's games, his high school graduation. Stan had helped him get his first camera, his first job. Alex had never believed they had anything but a completely honest relationship. Now because of a few small details, he had doubts.

  Alex sat down in the chair in front of the desk. He picked up a pen and twisted it between his fingers. "Tell me more about your connection to the theater group."

  Stan tilted his head to one side. "I made a few calls with government officials that facilitated the exchange. I did it for Charles. He was the driving force behind the entire effort. He obviously had another agenda besides photographing the event."

  "Which you must have known at the time."

  "I suspected," Stan admitted, "but I didn't ask questions."

  "You should have. What about Sarah?" he continued. "Did she have Julia with her when she went to Russia? Because it's becoming very clear that Julia is that girl in the photo."

  Stan shrugged. "I didn't know anything about Julia. I have no idea why she was in that orphanage, if she is in fact that girl. I do know the photo was a problem for Charles. He didn't tell me why, except that he was furious it had been printed without his knowledge. I already told you that, Alex."

  "How could you not know if Julia was with Sarah? Brady said you were friends with both of them. And you must have helped the performers acquire papers for their travel."

  "That wasn't my job. And Brady is mistaken. I wasn't friends with Sarah. Charles was. Everything that involved her was done through him."