by LS Sygnet
Johnny watched the transformation and wisely stepped around Kathleen, like he thought that would buffer her from the coming storm.
Nothing would.
Chapter 35
I shrugged off Briscoe’s meaty paw and rose.
“Helen,” my husband tried to curb the urge I couldn’t control.
“I need answers, Johnny. She came to me. You’re not going to stop what has to happen.”
“Don’t be…”
My eyebrow shot up. “Don’t be what? Me?”
Briscoe patted my back. “I think he’s suggestin’ that you catch more flies with honey.”
“Funny,” I said coldly. “My instinct is to swat them until they’re all dead.”
“Uh-huh, and I think that’s what’s got us both a little concerned.”
Kathleen stepped around my husband. “It’s all right, Johnny. I’ll tell her anything she wants to know.”
“Did you and your husband discuss who I really was after I arrived in Darkwater Bay?”
She shook her head. “But he knows. We’ve both known since the moment news broke of that odious man’s arrest last spring.”
Jerry Lowe. Dad was right about keeping a low profile. The press had splashed as many page one photographs of me on the front of the Sentinel as they had Jerry Lowe. That fucking troll kept reaching out and meddling in my life from the moment I met him and probably wouldn’t stop until the day he died.
“And you’re sure Aidan is aware?”
She nodded. “He questioned Crevan about you quite vigorously.”
Funny that Crevan hadn’t mentioned that.
“And when did that conversation take place?”
Kathleen’s eyes darted toward the floor again. “Christmastime. I suppose it was a fear that Aidan had that perhaps if Crevan’s marriage to Belle was over that he could be attracted to you.”
“God,” I groaned. “Was he still that blind?”
“Hopeful,” Kathleen said, “but afraid of disaster.”
“Crevan… did he uh…”
“Tell Aidan that he knew who you really were?” she asked. “I wasn’t certain he knew until this afternoon, Helen. He simply told Aidan that you were his friend, his colleague and that Johnny was so madly in love with you that no other man in the world stood a chance with you.”
Johnny’s chest puffed out a little bit. “Damn right.”
My eyes rolled to the back of my head. Men.
“You have money, certainly have the means, so I don’t understand why you didn’t look for me,” I said. My hand absently rested over my belly. “I would never stop searching for my children.”
Her eyes brightened at the subtle reference to grandchildren, but I squashed that too.
“He didn’t care if I was found, did he, Kathleen? After all, I wasn’t a son.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“No? Then what was it like? Crevan says your family is old money, that his father hasn’t worked a day in his life, other than being an alleged philanthropist. Couldn’t spare a few of the family coins to keep searching for his missing daughter, though, could he?”
“I wanted to find you. But…”
My eyes narrowed to angry slits. “But what?”
“He said I needed to focus on your brother.”
“You couldn’t do both?” I struggled to modulate a little bit of the fury from my voice. “Or is that how things work in the Conall family, Kathleen? One child gets everything, the other gets nothing at all.”
“He promised he would find you!” she wept. “Weeks turned into months and then years, and I stopped asking him. I stopped because it simply made him so angry that he couldn’t…” her lips disappeared again.
“He couldn’t what, Kathleen? Couldn’t give you any information because he never looked for me at all?”
Her eyes met mine. Kathleen shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “He’s never talked about it, not since the police told him that this woman, this nurse Martha Henderson disappeared without a trace.”
My mind skidded and veered off in another direction. “Kathleen, this is important. Do you remember Martha Henderson?”
“I’ll never forget her,” she said. A little spark of anger in her eyes looked so familiar, it broke my heart.
Fuck the DNA. I could deny that until the stars fell. Watching this woman, with her expressions and emotions was like looking into a mirror at times. There was no escaping the truth. She was my mother.
“I’ll remember that vile woman and everything about her until the end of time.”
Tony stepped around the table. “If you remember her so clearly, how come the cops never had a very good description of her when Helen got snatched?”
I chuffed out a soft laugh, knowing yet disbelieving at the same time. “Aidan wouldn’t let them question you, would he?”
Kathleen nodded.
Johnny’s eyes met mine. His conclusions were quickly matching mine. For whatever reason, Aidan Conall didn’t want me found. A to B to C told me that it was a pretty good clue that Aidan was involved in my alleged disappearance, if only through refusal to look for me. But why? And how did Lyle Henderson fit into all of this? It made no sense.
Marie was pregnant with Dad’s child. Why the swap? Had something happened to Dad’s real child? What angle were they playing? Dad didn’t even want children. So what was the point in providing one, particularly since it wasn’t even his child?
Fingers dug into both temples. Dammit. Johnny was right. As much as I love my father, facilitating his escape was a stupid move. What if I couldn’t find him? What if he really had the answers that I needed to figure out why all of this happened?
Worse, what if he lied to me?
“Dear, are you all right?” Kathleen took two brave steps toward me. When I didn’t retreat or shoot her with daggers, she advanced into my personal space. Her hand rested on my side. “Please tell me that you didn’t lie about having a good life, Helen. I couldn’t bear it if I thought that you’d suffered.”
“Suffered?” I bristled. “Lady, you don’t know the half of it.”
“Oh no. Please no.”
I glared at her. “My father died in Attica Correctional Facility. He was a convicted felon. But you know what, Kathleen? I’d take him any day of the week over the man you married. My father loved me. He sacrificed his life so I could have everything, a clean slate, freedom to live my life on my terms. Have I suffered? Fuck yes, I’ve suffered. But only because I didn’t have him for the past twenty years.”
One hand clapped over Kathleen’s mouth and muffled her gasp. Maybe it was the truth about Dad or my well timed f-bomb, I don’t know, but it got her away from me. Johnny took her place. He wrapped his arms around me.
“We’ll figure it out, sweetheart.”
“Yeah,” I said, “and we’re starting right now.” I pulled away from him. “She stays. You let her slink away with her tail between her legs, and we’re back to square one New York. You get my drift?”
He nodded. “Where are you going?”
“To get my baby book. I’m getting the truth about Martha Henderson, once and for all.” I stopped at the bottom of the staircase. “And you’d better get Crevan’s ass back over here right now. This family secret bullshit is over. Are we clear?” The words were technically directed at Johnny, but Kathleen understood that the message was for her.
She sagged against the kitchen table and nodded.
Maybe it was a relief for her to have someone in the family strong enough to stand up to Aidan, I don’t know. In a battle of wills, him against me, I had no doubt who would win. Genetically, we might share a thing or two, but it was Wendell Eriksson’s steel in my spine. Some things are learned. Half of me hoped that Aidan was stupid enough to take his lessons the hard way.
I jogged to the second floor and then up to the attic, lost in thoughts. Mostly I questioned whether I would ever learn the truth. At the bottom of everything was Andy Gillette’s
threat, his nasty insinuation that I was already sold. If for no other reason than the safety of my children, I had to push forward.
And wouldn’t it be ironic if I could rub Crevan’s nose in the fact that his father wasn’t pure as the driven snow in all of this either? He was so hot to lay the blame at Dad’s feet. Well, we’d just see about that.
I dug the baby book out of its box and flipped open to the first photograph. Dad, snuggling me in his arms, unadulterated love and awe shown in his eyes. It was there, the proof, the evidence. I had no doubt that Johnny would wear an identical expression on his face when our children were born.
It wasn’t until I reached the end of the first year that a picture of Marie was tucked into the one of the tiny decorative frames. Someone thought it would be a good idea to take a photograph of Dad and me, and include her in the shot. Family photo. There weren’t a whole lot of them taken over the years. I stared at the snapshot, faded with age. Dad held me, my chubby little girl arms wrapped securely around his neck. Our eyes were locked, and my face animated as I explained something to him and held his rapt attention. Marie stood next to us, the afterthought to a photo, very much representing what she was in our lives.
It had always been Dad and me. She was outside of us. Was it choice or guilt? Was she the devil I’d always believed her to be? What lurked behind those vacant eyes in the photograph?
There was so much more to this story. I had no idea how we’d ever get to the bottom of it without exposing my most recent crime. “Daddy, I need you,” I whispered.
“I’m sorry about what happened earlier, Helen.” Crevan’s voice cut through my trip to the distant past.
My eyes rose slowly. Apparently, I’d been lost in memory longer than I realized.
“Did you apologize to your mother for being such an ass at lunch?”
He sighed and ambled over to where I sat. A moment later, he sat cross-legged next to me on the floor. “Johnny said the two of you talked, that she admitted that they’ve known almost as long as I suspected who you really were.”
“Yeah.”
“Is that the aforementioned baby book?”
I nodded.
“Want me to leave?”
“Not really.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth, Helen. It’s all pretty fucked up, huh.”
“Very,” breath shuddered from my lungs. “I mean, how do you start that conversation? Hey, I think you’re my twin sister who was abducted at birth?”
He laughed softly. “Not exactly the smartest thing to say to someone with your credentials,” Crevan said. “I could’ve wound up being Jerry Lowe’s roommate out at Dunhaven.”
“I would’ve thought you were crazy. All my life…” Instead of struggling for the words, I simply flipped open to the first page of the baby book and showed Crevan the evidence.
“Looks like love to me,” he said.
“He worshipped me. I don’t know how else to explain it. Crevan, my dad has money. Had. If I had used it to fight the charges against him, I’d have never lost him all those years ago. He’d have walked away, not unscathed, but he would’ve had his freedom.”
“But it would’ve tainted you too,” he said. “Look at all the families who have been destroyed because of a not guilty verdict when everyone knows they were guilty of something.”
“Yeah, a certain miscarriage of justice in Florida comes to mind.”
“So he took the blame and the sentence so you had a chance, could distance yourself from him and be on the side of the prevailing public opinion.”
“That’s what someone who loves his daughter does, I guess.” My throat burned. “Not what a daughter who loves her father does though. I should’ve fought for him. I should’ve been unselfish and stuck by his side through the whole thing.”
Crevan’s finger traced the face on the photograph. “A guy who loves his daughter this much would’ve never permitted it, Helen. He’d have kept pushing you away until you stopped trying.”
Except in the end, he had seen me. Not that he knew he was seeing me. I smiled sadly. If I had showed up as Helen Eriksson, Crevan was right. He’d have turned me away for my own good. It was exactly as I’d realized at dinner the other night. Dad took the freedom I gave him because I wanted it, not because he did. I had no doubt. If he knew I needed him now, he’d risk everything to be there for me. He’d hide my involvement in his escape. He’d go back to prison if that’s what it took to be where I needed him to be.
“So, can I ask why you’ve retreated up here to the family photo archive?”
I nodded. “I think there’s a distinct possibility that Kathleen might recognize someone in this book.”
“Wendell?”
“No, Crevan. How many times do I have to tell you that he wasn’t –”
“Sorry,” he interrupted. “I don’t want to start another argument. Do you have pictures of your grandfather in there?”
“He wasn’t my grandfather. He was Marie’s step-father. Believe me, there wasn’t a long period of my life when I even thought of her as my mother. And I never knew her parents at all. Like I said, Daddy wanted nothing to do with them.”
“Because of the religious stuff.”
I nodded.
And then another thought occurred to me.
“Crevan, do you think it’s possible that your parents knew Lyle Henderson through their nutty brand of religion?”
He frowned. “I don’t know. I guess anything’s possible. Dad knows a lot of people, Helen.”
“And your mother has never forgotten the face of Martha Henderson. Which is exactly why she needs to see one of the photographs in this book.”
“You think you have a picture of her?”
I nodded. “I think Martha Henderson might’ve been my mother, Crevan.”
He rose slowly and offered his hand. “What say we work together to get to the truth this time, Helen?”
“I think I’d like that.”
Chapter 36
I rolled my eyes into the stares when Crevan and I descended from my most sacred storage. “Is it really so weird?”
“Not when we’re looking at you individually,” Dev said. “Side by side, yeah. Pretty freaky, Helen. You really need to let your hair grow long again.”
I stuck my tongue out at him. “Johnny likes it this way. He thinks its adorable.”
“Yeah, and I think you’d be gorgeous if you shaved your head,” he chuckled. “Still not advising you to try it.”
Johnny shot him a glare.
Crevan slipped back into the personality I knew, the one I needed him to show all the time. “All right you two. Dev, I’m flattered that you find us so gorgeous. Maybe if things don’t work out with me and Alex –”
Johnny burst out laughing.
Mission accomplished. The tension evaporated. It was nothing short of miraculous that Kathleen wasn’t offended by her son’s odd way of diffusing my husband’s jealousy. Instead of scolding him, she inched forward.
“Was there something you wanted me to see, Helen?”
“There is, Mom. Helen told me what you said earlier, that you’d never forget the face of the nurse who abducted her the night we were born.”
She nodded, but avoided eye contact with her son. I nudged him in the ribs.
Crevan sighed heavily. “Mom, I’m sorry I was so angry at the restaurant earlier. It just occurred to me that if you were face to face with Helen, that you knew the truth, that you’d probably known, or at least suspected, from the very beginning.”
“I’m sorry too,” she said. “I should’ve come to you, but your father…”
“Yeah,” he said. “Well, that’s in the past now. He can’t bully all of us, especially if we stick together.”
I clutched the baby book to my chest. Pretty sure my heart was pounding a dent into the front cover. What if Kathleen recognized Marie? Would that unleash Crevan’s zeal to incriminate my dad again?
Johnny appeared and tugged
me against his side. “Are you ready to do this, baby?”
What choice did I have? We needed answers. This was the quickest way to get them. “There’s no other option.” I sucked in a deep breath.
“What is it, Helen?” Kathleen asked.
“I have a photograph that I want you to look at. I need to know if you recognize the woman in it.”
“You think it could be this nurse? Martha Henderson? But why would you have a photograph of her?”
“Mom, just look at the picture,” Crevan said. “We’ll talk about the prevailing theory if this woman is someone you recognize.”
Johnny had to pry the book out of my grip. “Helen, whatever happens, it doesn’t change anything. He loves you, always did, always will.”
Fortunately, everybody in the room believed that he was offering me some sort of comforting fallacy, the silly hope that somewhere my Dad lived in eternal paradise and not the toasty place.
I nodded and flipped the book open to the photograph taken at my first birthday party. Johnny’s eyes zeroed in on me and dragged a deep affectionate chuckle from his gut.
My focus was on Kathleen.
She gasped. “She was older. But how can that be? If you were a year old in this picture, how could Martha Henderson appear so much younger in this picture than she did the night you were abducted?”
My eyes met Johnny’s. We shared an odd mix of horror and relief.
“Because it wasn’t Helen’s adoptive mother that stole her,” Johnny said.
“Then… then who?” Briscoe asked.
“Her grandmother, Lyle’s wife,” Crevan said.
Kathleen’s forehead wrinkled. “Lyle? As in Lyle Henderson?”
“Mom, do you know him?”
