by LS Sygnet
“Well of course we do. He’s been filling in at Foundations ever since that horrible tragedy in January when Pastor Napier was murdered. Lyle was a member of Foundations from the very beginning. He left the city years ago to start a church somewhere on the east coast. I didn’t know him, as you well know, because Foundations was your father’s church.”
Crevan nodded. He cringed at our curious stares.
“And what pray tell, was your church before you and Aidan married?” Johnny asked.
“It was Saint Angelo’s of course,” she said. “Aidan and my mother never made peace after we married and Aidan insisted that I join Foundations.”
Briscoe grinned.
“Don’t start,” Crevan warned.
“Son, you’re half Catholic. There might be hope for you yet,” he chuckled.
“Great,” I said. “I really am the only sane one in the room.”
“So Dad knows Henderson,” Crevan confirmed.
“Yes. All of the church deacons know him. He’s quite active for his age, and when he offered to fill in until the congregation could find a permanent replacement, your father took it to the board immediately. Why would you think that Lyle –”
“Hush, Kathleen,” I said. “We’ll explain it all later. Right now, I need you to be very clear on this. Aidan has been in contact with Lyle Henderson for a long time?”
“I… well, since Lyle came back to Darkwater Bay. He married the widow Sanderfield in our church. I don’t know about what happened before that.”
Johnny turned his head and muttered a curse.
“Mom, are you sure?”
“Of course I am, Crevan. My memory is perfectly fine.”
“We can’t ignore this anymore than we can ignore the possibility that my father lied to me too, Crevan,” I made the concession that had been unthinkable earlier today. His reply surprised me.
“Seriously? You don’t have to throw me a bone, Helen. I saw the pictures of you with your father. It’s obvious that he loved you. No, I think you were right earlier today. I think he had no idea that you weren’t his flesh and blood child.”
“So what did happen to that baby?” Devlin kept steering the conversation back to something else I didn’t want to think about. Apparently, it was written all over my face again. “Helen, I’m sorry, but it’s part of the mystery here.”
“I know,” I said. “But I have no idea why they’d swap me for his real child. What was it they hoped to gain?”
“Too bad Wendell died,” Devlin said. “He could probably shed some light on it. I mean, it sounds like he really hated Henderson if he forbid Marie from letting them have any contact with you.”
“That was on religious grounds.”
“Was it?” Johnny turned to me. “We need to know if that was the truth.”
“There’s no way you’ll ever find the answer to that question now,” Crevan said. “Dev’s right. If Wendell hadn’t died, maybe. Now? It’s gone. There’s no way anybody alive that was involved in this will talk.”
“They will,” I said grimly. “If I have to beat the truth out of them, they’ll talk.”
Kathleen’s face faded to the color of wet ash. “My word!”
“Mom, Helen’s just venting,” Crevan said.
“No, she isn’t,” I dug in my heels. “Kathleen, you may as well know the truth now. Crevan is the gentle child. I’m the bully. And if you don’t think I’d beat someone within an inch of their life or worse if it meant putting a stop to children being sold into slavery, you’re sadly mistaken.”
“Surely you don’t believe that Lyle would sell children!”
Crevan cupped his mother’s elbow and led her to the sofa in the family room. Her soft cries punctuated Crevan’s explanation of what Kathleen didn’t know about my abduction, the dead little girl in the harbor several weeks ago, the abducted Datello baby, all of it.
“Are you telling me that you think your father could’ve… given my daughter to this man?”
Johnny’s gaze met mine.
“Oh my God,” dawning flooded Crevan’s eyes. “Could that be what Gillette was talking about?”
Dev’s eyes darkened. “The son of a bitch. You were supposed to be his because he already bought you as an infant?”
“Whose?” Poor Briscoe had to feel like his head was the ball at Wimbledon.
“Tony, it’s a long story,” Johnny said. “I’m wondering where Henderson was when The Celeste was making its way to Cleveland Island.”
“He’s in his eighties, Johnny. Surely you don’t think that he would possibly believe he could keep me in captivity. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Devlin said. “Have you shown her the surveillance we did on him before OSI closed?”
“I didn’t think it was wise, in the first place,” Johnny said. “Beyond that, we weren’t really communicating a whole lot at the time you took the photos.”
“You’ve seen him?”
Devlin sighed. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it, Helen. Yes, I’ve seen him. Think Jack LaLaine with a good plastic surgeon.”
“So he doesn’t look like he’s eighty-two.”
“He doesn’t look sixty-two,” Johnny said. “It’s not the first time we’ve noticed this phenomenon. Eugene Sherman didn’t look as decrepit as he should’ve either.”
I had seen photos of him. “Yeah, but he didn’t look twenty years younger, and his child-bride wife sure as hell looked too young for him.”
“Still, these guys seem pretty obsessed with looking young, being fit. If he’s the guy who planned to take you away from me, you wouldn’t have looked grotesquely out of place together.”
“I think you just said I look old.”
“Helen, that’s not what I meant. All I’m saying is that it wouldn’t have looked as odd as say, Hef and some of his girls.”
“I’d look bizarrely old compared to his preference,” I said. “Anyway, he still wouldn’t have been able to overpower me.”
“Not unless they broke your will before he took custody,” Devlin said. “And wasn’t that what Andy planned to do?”
My stomach twisted into a hard knot.
“Helen, I’m sorry,” he said hastily. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Or make you turn green.”
I spun on one heel and didn’t come back until I had plenty of soda crackers to quell the churning bile. Johnny had a glass of ginger ale waiting for me. He perched on one of the stools at the breakfast bar and drew me back against his chest. One hand rubbed a slow circle over my belly.
“Nobody’s gonna touch you but me.”
I rested the back of my head against his chest. “Promise?”
“Yeah. And I think we’ve had enough brain storming for one day. I think it’s time everybody goes off and does whatever it is they do when they’re not working.”
“What about Kathleen? We can’t just send her back to Aidan,” I said softly. “Johnny, if he’s involved in this, even on the very periphery and without knowledge of what really happened, he’ll see right through her. She doesn’t have the will to stand up to him.”
“Let Crevan take care of her.” He kissed the side of my head. “She’s his mother, Helen. We have our own family issues to deal with now.”
Dad. We had to find Dad. That’s what Johnny was subtly telling me. I knew he was right. Ache to hear Dad’s voice again warred with fear that maybe he lied to me too.
“Dev, would you and Tony mind herding everyone out? Doc is wiped out. She needs to rest and eat something more than soda crackers.”
“Sure, Johnny. And don’t you worry about this, Helen. We’ll get to the bottom of this one way or another. You’ve got my word,” Briscoe said. He reached out and patted my shoulder. “These bastards are goin’ down for what they done all these years. I don’t care how shrewd they think they are.”
“Thanks, Tony.”
“You bet, kid.”
“Johnny, I need a moment
alone with Crevan before he leaves,” I said. “I promise, I won’t be long, and whatever you want after everyone’s gone, you’ll get no argument from me.”
“We can talk to him before he goes,” Johnny said. “You’re not cutting me out of the loop, Helen.”
“It’s about her.” My eyes wandered to Kathleen. “I have to make sure that he’ll take care of her while we move this investigation forward, Johnny. She’s never stood up to Aidan in her life.”
“Neither has Crevan.”
I turned in his arms. “But he has, Johnny.” Our eyes locked. “He didn’t back down. He’s with Alex. Don’t sell him short. He won’t cave in over this, not now that he knows why Kathleen has been hot and cold all these years. Crevan needs to know that I’ve got his back.”
“All right. And then we’ll focus on getting you settled down for the night.”
I nodded. A moment later, I tugged Crevan by the hand and led him into the office. The door clicked softly.
“Am I apologizing for something else again?”
“Crevan, you have to know the truth,” I said. “I don’t have much time. Johnny would kill me if he knew I told you all of this, but you have to understand that this isn’t all a dead end.”
“What is it? Honey, is this why you turned green?”
I nodded.
“Do you think your father might’ve been part of this too?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But that’s what you don’t know.” Air rushed painfully into my lungs.
“Hey, whatever it is, it’s all right.”
“Can I trust you?”
“Of course you can.”
“I mean it, Crevan. We’re really family. That means something to me. Even though I threw you out earlier, I didn’t mean –”
“I know. Neither one of us wants to believe the men who raised us were part of this, but we’re not children anymore, Helen. You’re about to be a mother. I’m going to be an uncle. The way I see it, this is more about protecting them than it is fixing what happened to us all those years ago.”
Relief flooded me. “Good, then we’re on the same page. I might’ve made a horrible mistake. I don’t think I did, but either way, we need the information more than I need to conceal what I’ve done.”
Crevan frowned. “This sounds serious. Maybe even illegal.”
“It was illegal.”
“Helen –”
“Hush. It’s about my father. He’s not dead, Crevan. He escaped from Attica, and thanks to Jerry Lowe, I was able to get him out of there without anyone realizing that he wasn’t really sick.”
Chapter 37
Apparently the luck of the Irish transcends the reality that I grew up believing that my ancestry is Scandinavian. Crevan wasn’t pissed. He was downright thrilled.
“Do you realize what this means?”
“Shh! Johnny’s probably got his ear pressed to the door.”
“Helen, if you know where Wendell is, we can get to the bottom of this a hell of a lot quicker.”
“I don’t know where he is. When Johnny found me in New York, I was about to fly off to some warm country that wouldn’t extradite either one of us.”
“Seriously?”
“I thought I could do it. I couldn’t. But I wasn’t about to throw away Dad’s chance to be free. He should’ve never been punished for Marie’s crimes.”
“So you’re going to look for him?”
“Johnny and I will find him. That’s not why I’m telling you this.”
“Then why?”
“Because the way I see it, we’ve got two potential witnesses that can tie all of this together. Henderson, Sanderfield, Melissa Sherman, Gillette, all the rest. Your mother and my father are key to this whole thing. Johnny and I can find Dad.”
Crevan’s eyes fluttered shut. “If Mom walks through the door after hearing everything she’s heard today, Dad’ll know it in a second.”
“Exactly.”
“You want me to keep her away from him.”
“You think that’s a bad idea?”
“I think it’ll raise more questions than the problems that sending her home to Dad would cause. She can’t leave him.”
“Not even over a reconciliation with you?”
“Ah, Helen, you don’t know the can of worms –”
“Do we want to get to the truth in this, or do we want to pretend that we can just ignore everything these men have done? You said it, Crevan. This isn’t about what happened 39 years ago. My sons could be at risk.”
“I know. But if we want to keep him off guard and too pissed off to realize what’s really going on, that’s the way to do it. I just hope I don’t end up losing Alex over this.”
“She could stay with us, but you know what that would tell Aidan.”
“Yeah. That we’re all wise to who you really are.”
“So will you do it? Can you keep her away from Aidan?”
“I’ll try, but Helen, she’s got all kinds of weird ideas about being submissive to him. They’ve brainwashed her for four decades.”
“Do you have your cell phone?”
“Of course I do,” he said then warily asked, “Why?”
“Call him. Call Aidan right now.”
“And say what?”
“We’ve got to cut Kathleen out of the loop on this one. We’ve got to make this seem like it’s Aidan’s idea. She’s not going to be welcome to come home.”
“Helen, she’ll freak. We can’t do that to her!”
“Let me handle Kathleen. Believe me. I’ll make it so worthwhile to her that she’ll be free of his abuse for the rest of her life, Crevan, even if he isn’t guilty of more than not giving a damn if he ever found me.”
“I’m not sure why that scares me even more.”
“For God’s sake, do you trust me at all?”
Crevan pulled out his cell phone. “What am I telling him?”
“You ran into Kathleen at the charity luncheon on the island today. You talked, invited her to dinner with you and Alex, and she accepted. You’d like him to come too.”
“He’ll have a fucking stroke,” Crevan predicted, but dialed the number while he cursed.
I listened while he laid out the ruse. It was like Aidan was on speaker phone. No turning back now. Again. Seemed like I was living through lots of those no turning back moments of late.
“Well, I’m sorry you feel that way about it, Dad, but she’s my mother. She wants to be part of my life again. I’ll continue to hope and pray that you come to your senses.”
Crevan disconnected the call.
“We need to get to your mom now,” I said. “He’ll call her before I’ve got the door open, you mark my words.”
I dashed through the door just as Kathleen pulled her ringing cell phone out of her purse. “Don’t answer that yet!”
“What? Why not, dear? It’s Aidan.”
“Mom, listen to Helen. I just –”
“He just called Aidan and invited him to dinner with you, Crevan and Alex tonight.”
Kathleen looked like she might hyperventilate. She dropped the phone into her purse. “Oh! Crevan, why would you do that? He’ll never forgive me!”
I strode across the room and took her hands. “He’ll know you know the truth if he sees you. And then he’ll know that we know the truth. If Lyle Henderson is part of what happened to me, if he and his wife were really responsible for my abduction and Aidan doesn’t know it, he could tell Lyle, confide in him. We can’t risk that. If he stole me from you, don’t you want him punished for that?”
“Oh, I don’t know how Lyle could possibly be involved, Helen. And Aidan is my husband. He’s your father –”
“Yet he’s been nothing but horrible to Helen, Mom. You remember how he treated her when she came to the house a few months ago.”
Her teeth sank into the flesh of her lower lip.
“Please,” I said, “if you ever hope to have a relationship with me, we’ve got to get to the tru
th and stop these men. I’m still in danger. My children are in danger. Please help us… Mom.”
I know. It was cheap and manipulative. But it worked. She crumbled right before my eyes. Weeping ensued while her phone started and stopped ringing three more times. It took Crevan and me the better part of half an hour to shut off the waterworks. When she was composed, she called Aidan back.
“He’s my son!” she said softly. “I will not lose him too, Aidan. If that means I’m not welcome to come home, so be it. I’ll – I’ll stay with Crevan.”
He nodded encouragement, and I caught a glimpse of Johnny’s expression out of the corner of my eye. He knows me so well. I doubt he realized how quick I am with a plan when backed into a corner. Then again, I hadn’t really lied this time. Not yet anyway. I didn’t know if I could lie to him about what I told Crevan.
Kathleen disconnected the call and let out a shuddering sob. “He’ll never forgive me.”
“Maybe he will,” Crevan said. “If we can prove what really happened to Helen, maybe he’ll understand why it had to be this way, Mom.”
“He said I’m not his wife anymore, that he won’t tolerate this kind of disrespect.”
Crevan hugged her. “When you said you could stay with me, it was true, Mom. You can stay as long as you like.”
“And you’ll love Alex,” Johnny said.
I shot him a glare.
“Oh, I hadn’t thought about that. Will I really have to meet him right away, Crevan?”
Johnny’s eyebrows wiggled mischievously. Bastard. I hadn’t thought about how to explain to Kathleen that Alex lived with Crevan now.
“Mom, Alex lives with me. If you can’t accept that, I’m sorry.”
My silent reply to my husband was shrouded in smug. Didn’t think Crevan was strong enough to stand up for himself, did he?
Johnny sighed. “If you’d rather have your own space, Kathleen, I’ve still got my folks house in Downey. You could stay there until this situation resolves itself.”
Her eyes filled with panic. “Would that be safe? I mean, what if Aidan tries to see me? I don’t want to do anything that would put my children at risk – or my grandchild.”
Exactly where I didn’t want this nonsense to go, but it was better than the alternative. “Then you’d be much safer at Crevan’s penthouse, Kathleen. And we know for a fact that if Aidan knows you’re really there, he won’t try to see you, at least not until we close our investigation.”
