by LS Sygnet
I wilted, not much, but enough for him to get a toe in the door before I slammed it completely shut and undid our tenuous progress.
“I didn’t know that he knew any of this, Helen. Christ. I love you. Why would I keep you in the dark if I knew he was aware of the truth? And if he did know, why the hell didn’t he say something to me, particularly when I believed you’d been abducted again?”
“Damn you and your logic.” My eyes welled with tears.
“Baby, come home with me.”
“I need to tell Celeste that I’m leaving.” One tear sluiced down a cheek.
“Write a check. I’ll give it to her and make a plausible excuse for your abrupt departure.”
I nodded.
“Checkbook?”
Another nod.
“Go wait in the car,” Johnny pressed his lips to my temple and hugged me gently. “I’ll take care of the donation.”
“I feel like a fool,” I said. “Why would he agree to let me meet his mother if he knew that she’s really…?”
“We won’t know the answer to any of these questions until we can have a very private conversation, Helen.” He pulled the valet ticket out of his pocket and pressed it into my hand. “Go wait for me in the car. I won’t be long.”
I wept softly all the way from Hennessey Island while Johnny held my hand and tried to soothe riotous emotions with a thumb brushing back and forth across my knuckles. His eyes darted into the rearview mirror regularly. I assumed he wanted to be sure the Dev and Crevan were behind us.
They were.
My emotions weren’t as easy to predict as the confrontation brewing on the horizon. The old friend, that red-black murderous rage boiled in my veins long before Johnny pulled the Expedition into the garage.
“Helen,” he said softly, “please try to remember that you hid the truth from Crevan too.”
“What?”
“I know you’re very angry with him right now, because he may have known the truth longer than you did, but you didn’t exactly rush right out to share the news with him either after Maya confirmed what you suspected. The bottom line is that he’s your brother. Forget that he’s my best friend for a minute and try to consider how you’ll feel if you lose Crevan because you’re pissed off.”
“I never said –”
He squeezed my hand so tightly that I winced. “You didn’t have to say it. I know you. I think I recognize the look that scared the hell out of Tony Briscoe when I see it.”
The pendulum swung the opposite direction. Moisture leaked from my eyes again.
“We’ll get to the bottom of why he kept this to himself, Helen. I already know why you didn’t want him to know.”
“You do?” I sniffled mightily. “Maybe you should enlighten me, because I don’t think I’m sure anymore.”
“At first, you were afraid that Wendell was part of your infant abduction,” Johnny’s voice dipped achingly low. “It’s pretty clear that after you liberated him from Attica, keeping the truth suppressed protected what really happened to Wendell. God forbid anybody start digging into his history all over again. They might start asking questions about that visitor he had the last day he spent in prison.”
I nodded and shook a few more tears loose.
“Add to that, I’d say that the last person in the world you want butting into our life is Aidan Conall.”
The sob choked in my throat, not just because every word Johnny said was true, but because once again, he proved to me that he knew me better than I apparently know myself.
“At this point, doesn’t it make the most sense to find out what made Crevan keep this secret to himself too? I highly doubt that his reasons mirror yours at all.”
Of course they wouldn’t. How could they? Despite the fact that Crevan and I shared a kinship almost from the very beginning, he didn’t really know me. He certainly didn’t know my father, but what was common knowledge had to make him suspect who was behind my abduction.
“Helen?”
“I’m all right,” I sucked in a steadying breath. “And you’re right, as usual. I guess part of me wanted to protect Crevan because I thought he was in complete denial.”
“We both did,” Johnny’s jaw muscle ticked over clenched teeth.
“He convinced Tony too.” Another random thought popped into my head. Maybe this propensity for being a great liar was genetic after all.
“I know. Then again, Tony didn’t realize that his partner was gay either.”
“I want answers,” I said softly. “I need to know why he lied to me. If that means I have to tell the truth about Dad –”
“Helen, you will not confess to anybody that Wendell is still alive. If we have to fudge the facts, then we’ll tell them that I found you before you had the opportunity to question him yourself, that you wouldn’t have made it to him before he died anyway.”
“I can’t do that! What if Crevan has already made up his mind to pin this on my father? I will not sit by and pretend that I don’t know that Marie was behind the whole thing!”
“We already have enough evidence to prove that, sweetheart. Let’s not forget that we’ve connected the human trafficking ring to Sanderfield and Henderson, and it’s a short leap from him to Marie. That and the fact that your father’s former sergeant already verified that Wendell kicked Marie out when he found out she was pregnant and was on the job the night she allegedly gave birth to you in Poughkeepsie, excludes him from the plot that resulted in your abduction.”
I lifted Johnny’s hand to my cheek and pressed it against damp flesh firmly. “Thank you. Thank you for believing that I told you the truth about Dad.”
“There’s one aspect to all of this that I don’t think you or Crevan have considered,” Johnny said.
“What?”
He pulled his hand free and smoothed it through my hair. “He doesn’t know Wendell, Helen. But I met him. In that brief period of time, and what I’ve come to understand about his motives since then, there’s no way I would ever believe that your father is an evil man. Everything he did, no matter how illegal it was in the eyes of the law, he had justification. I’m pretty sure that I could’ve seen his side of it every single time, even though I would’ve made different choices. We both would do anything to protect you, Helen. Anything.”
My mouth opened, but before words could form, knuckles rapped the window behind me. I turned. Devlin’s serious gaze met mine. “Are we interrupting?”
“We’d better get inside, Helen,” Johnny said.
Crevan was pacing behind the SUV when I slid out and looked past Dev’s shoulder.
“Crevan, let’s start talking,” Johnny said sternly. He might not be the commander of OSI anymore, but he hadn’t lost the authoritative tone.
He nodded and followed us into the house.
I was digging through the freezer when I felt all eyes impaling me. “What? I’m the one who needs to offer an explanation here?”
Crevan let loose. “If you knew about this, you could’ve told me, Helen.”
The notion of a strawberry shake evaporated into the rich irony. “I could’ve told you? Exactly how long have you known, Crevan? And why didn’t you say something to us?”
His eyes roved from me to Johnny. “Did she rush to tell you when she found out?”
Johnny cursed under his breath.
“I guess that answers one question. How long have you known?”
“Since Maya told him,” I said. “Christ, I only went to her with my suspicions because I needed scientific proof.”
“You tested my DNA?” Crevan’s pitch rose with anger.
“Hold on a second,” Devlin interrupted. “How about we start at the beginning so those of us, namely me, without any back story know what the hell is going on here.”
“She’s my twin sister,” Crevan said softly. Our eyes met again, the first moment that either one of us had blurted out the truth to the other so clearly. At least I knew that we were both on the same page.
/>
“What? How the hell did either one of you figure this –”
“Devlin, not now,” I said. “I want to know how long you’ve known, Crevan. Why did you let Tony believe that you accepted that ridiculous lie your father told as gospel truth for all these years when you knew it was a lie?”
He shrugged. “He’s my dad, Helen. Don’t tell me you haven’t ever accepted a lie from yours because of no other reason than who he was.”
My chest expanded while my brain struggled to find patience. “My father never lied to me. Every time I asked him for the truth, he gave it to me.”
“Every time?”
“That I asked, yes.”
Crevan’s eyes narrowed. “So you simply never asked him certain things.”
“I know my father committed crimes,” I snapped. “Jesus, it’s not like he wasn’t serving life in prison, Crevan. It’s also on record that I never had contact with him from the time of his arrest forward.”
“So you didn’t have the opportunity to ask him why he abducted you from the hospital when you were born?”
I felt the room tilt. Johnny wrapped his arm around my waist. “Crevan, knock it off. We already know that Wendell had no knowledge of how Helen came to be his daughter. And even if he ever learned the truth over the course of her life, it never had any impact on how much he loved her.”
“How do we know that’s the truth, Johnny? How do we know that his old pal the desk sergeant wasn’t just covering for him? This man was a criminal of the highest order. He probably had an existing network of people loyal to him who’d have done anything, lied, stolen, cheated, you name it, up until the day he died.”
Clearly Crevan understood my father. Dad did have such a network. He’d obviously been in contact with someone other than Johnny after our chat, or he wouldn’t have been able to facilitate his death for the record so easily. Tiny fingers of doubt leeched through my heart. What if Dad did lie to me? The officer at Attica told me two cops had visited him. What if the other hadn’t been FBI as I assumed? Suddenly I felt a burning need to talk to David.
“What we know about Wendell’s crimes is suspect,” Johnny argued. I watched the veins in his neck distend and pulse. “And we also know for a fact that this Jersey Third Eye business was Marie Henderson’s brain child, not Wendell’s. He was never convicted for anything the authorities suspected he may have actually done.”
I felt my forehead scrunch. “Exactly how much digging have you done into Daddy’s history, Johnny?”
“More than you could imagine,” Devlin said. “Helen, I think you should sit down.”
Chapter 32
Nothing short of Johnny pinning me into a chair with the full weight of his body would’ve made me sit. I paced the length of the family room. “So, all of this bullshit about investigating Marie was a lie. You’ve really been digging into Dad’s past.”
“Helen, it’s not what it sounds like,” Johnny offered up the first of many lame statements designed to placate me.
“Isn’t it, Johnny? Tell her the truth. We know that he was implicated in a number of missing children cases –”
I shut Crevan up with little more than a glare. “And how many of those children had an increased life expectancy, not to mention a vastly improved quality of life because somebody intervened and put them in better homes? And suspicion isn’t proof, either, Crevan. Considering what an asshole your father is, who’s to say that I wasn’t rescued rather than abducted?”
“Helen,” Johnny warned with a single word.
“No, let’s talk about this. Let’s talk about why he’s so hot to protect a man that treats him like shit because he’s gay, a man so horrible that he lied about me to try to browbeat Crevan into being more butch!”
“Well, we all know I could never out-butch you, Helen,” Crevan mocked my outrage with some barbs of his own.
I rolled my eyes. “Is that why you didn’t tell me what you knew? You’re jealous because I’m the tough kid your dad always wanted you to be.”
“You’re certainly a lot more like him than I –”
“Enough!” Johnny bellowed. He snagged my arm and pushed me into the corner of the sofa. “Sit, shut up and listen. Both of you. Do not speak unless I’ve asked you a direct question.”
I swallowed hard, but thought twice about defying his order. Johnny’s recent anger toward me was a little too fresh in my memory.
“Crevan, did you know for sure that Helen was your long lost sister?”
He muttered a curse. “Not until I saw her with Mom today. It was pretty hard to miss.”
“Granted, there was an unmistakable resemblance, particularly when they were side by side. Except for Helen’s height,” he said. “How long did you suspect?”
“Since the night she arrived in Darkwater Bay,” Crevan said.
“What?” I gasped. Johnny held up one hand.
“And what did you do about it, Crevan?”
He shrugged. “A little digging into her background.”
“Meaning what exactly?” Johnny asked.
“Date of birth, location, parent’s names –”
“You knew about Dad before I told anybody the truth?” Unbelievable! My anger burned brighter.
“Helen, I will not tell you to be quiet again,” Johnny said. He turned back to Crevan. “Well, did you know that Wendell was alive and for the most part well in upstate New York?”
He nodded. “It was pretty obvious to me why Helen preferred to think of him as dead. I envied that convenient delusion.”
“Except I loved –”
Johnny glared, and I snapped my mouth shut.
“I also understood why, Helen,” Crevan said. “What with your history at the FBI, your career in law enforcement, I couldn’t imagine that you’d want it to be common knowledge that your dad was alive. In fact, I was content to let you pretend with everyone that he was the father you idolized and that he simply died when you were very young. Like I said, I envied you. I couldn’t very well fob off the dead father story when he’s tormenting a pretty vocal demographic in Darkwater Bay, specifically my people in Downey.”
Damn him. Crevan knew how to tug a little sympathy out of the heart that wanted nothing more than to be hardened.
“Why did you let Tony believe that you bought Aidan’s story of the dead brother?” Johnny shook his head in confusion.
“He’s still my dad, Johnny. Would you want to admit to anybody that your father was a big game-playing liar? I doubt it. Besides, he’s got more money than God, which tends to buy loyalty if not credibility. The only person who would’ve looked like shit for calling Dad on his lies was me.”
“Except it’s a matter of record that your sister – that Helen was abducted from Saint Mary’s the night the two of you were born,” Devlin said. “And none of this explains why you thought Helen might be your twin sister the night you met her. Granted, the resemblance between the two of you became pretty obvious when she chopped off all her hair, but other than that –”
“Jesus,” Johnny interrupted. “That’s why, isn’t it? When she first got here, her hair was shorter. You recognized her.”
Crevan nodded. “She looks like our mother. Not as much now, but when Mom was young, they could’ve passed as twins. When I found Helen’s date of birth, I knew. What I didn’t know was if she was aware that she had been… adopted, I guess.”
“So you started dropping hints about our birthdate,” I said. “You wanted to see how I’d react, if I knew I was a twin, if I’d put it together too.”
“Did you?” Crevan leaned forward and peered at me intently.
“No,” Johnny said. “She didn’t realize the truth until Dev’s old partner dropped the name Martha Henderson while she was on The Celeste.”
“Is that why Johnny found you in New York, Helen? Were you there looking for answers?”
Before I had the chance to lie, or worse, tell the truth, Johnny answered for me.
“She was. And if I h
adn’t found her, her next stop would’ve been Attica to confront Wendell.”
“He didn’t know any of this, Crevan,” I said. “She lied to Dad. He believed I was his.”
“And you’re sure?” Crevan asked, though it sounded more like disbelief than seeking confirmation.
I looked at Johnny.
“He had no idea, Crevan. You don’t know this, but while you, Tony and Helen were working that case in Downey with the dead homeless men, I was doing some investigating of my own. I was worried about Helen. I went to Attica.”
“You talked to her father?”
Johnny nodded. “Granted, it was a single conversation and it had nothing to do with that aspect of Helen’s life, but one thing was crystal clear to me at the end. Wendell Eriksson loved Helen. He had no idea that she wasn’t biologically his.”
“Parents love and bond with adopted children –”
“No, Crevan,” I said. “My entire life, Dad told me stories about how much I was like him, how I even had my grandmother’s hair. He believed I was his. He didn’t even want children. He told me a story about Marie when I was very young. He was angry because she suddenly got fat and there was no explanation for it. He took her to his doctor and found out that she was pregnant with me. At least we both thought it was me. He was so angry that he kicked Marie out. He was done with her. She moved into her mother and step-father’s home. Dad said they talked a few times.
“You should know that like me, my father found religious dogma irrelevant in life. That was what prompted him to insist that Marie come back home. She was carrying his child after all, and he couldn’t stand the thought of Marie ruining… well, me, with all of that nonsense that Lyle espoused.”
“Your grandfather was religious, a minister, right?” Crevan asked.
“With beliefs that are very much in line with those of your parent’s church,” I said. “He wouldn’t have allowed that to be crammed down my throat, Crevan. So when I was born, it wasn’t in New York City. Marie was still in Poughkeepsie with her parents.”
“And what happened?” Crevan asked.
“Dad’s sergeant put an alert out to the city hospitals that if Marie Eriksson checked in to deliver a baby, that Dad’s precinct would get a call. Only she told Dad that Lyle wouldn’t take her to the hospital, that I was born at home and that Lyle drove her down to the city the next morning for care.”
