by LS Sygnet
Apparently, Aidan was desperate not to be the Conall that moved to the poor house.
Hadn’t we said all along that greed was the basis of most crimes? I suppose our biological father would’ve spouted some nonsense about the love of money being the root of all evil.
And maybe in his case, he’d have been right.
Crevan went into hiding. Of course, I still have keys to the penthouse, so he couldn’t keep me away. I think that between Alex and me, his guilt is easing faster than it would if we’d let him wallow in it alone.
As for Kathleen? Well, she wanted nothing to do with Aidan’s money after she learned how he got it. She’s still living in Johnny’s house in Downey, and Crevan told me that she’s volunteering at the Sixth Avenue Shelter. There’s irony for you.
Two days after the shooting, I woke up and found a note from Dad. He was well enough to travel and thought it best that he lay low for the foreseeable future. I suspected he was off getting a new face that would allow him reentry into Darkwater Bay before my children are born. He keeps his promises, at least the ones he makes to me.
While the FBI was too busy helping Johnny prove that Crevan didn’t fight with an innocent man for possession of his gun, I had Celeste and Sofia Datello over for lunch. I still get a little teary-eyed thinking about the joy that filled my home when she was finally reunited with her husband.
After that meeting, Danny called Agent Joel Soule and told him that he was terrified that all the murders in Darkwater Bay were attempts on his family’s life, that he’d been hiding out because he couldn’t bear never seeing his wife again.
Soule agreed that it would be all right for him to come home as soon as Marcos was behind bars.
Johnny says that the feds are ready to start the trial, thanks to Datello’s eagerness to put the ugliest chapter in his life behind him.
I wanted to go to Dunhaven and chat with Jerry Lowe again, but this time, when Johnny put his foot down, I didn’t resent it quite so much. Jujitsu is a fading memory for me now. I look like I could pop these babies out tomorrow, but I’ve got another trimester to go.
And today, on my thirty-ninth birthday, Johnny said he has a surprise for me. I doubt it’ll be such a shock for me though. Getting Crevan out of the penthouse, dragging the friends I resisted having in the first place over to our house doesn’t seem very surprising. At least not anymore.
If anybody had told me where life would take me a year ago, when this nightmare really started for me, I’d have laughed in their faces. Yet here I am. Married. Pregnant. With a brother. Close friends who I no longer shut out of my life. Happy. The only thing that could make life better was if Daddy could be here with me every day.
The chime at the front gate jerked me out of my moment of gratitude. I struggled off the sofa in the family room and made my way to the control panel. “Can I help you?”
“Special Agent David Levine here to see my favorite former profiler.”
My hand froze over the release for the gate.
He rang again.
“Just a minute.” One hand clasped to my chest. Was this Johnny’s surprise? Lingering doubts about David persisted. Johnny didn’t push, never even talked about David’s involvement in that last day or two of the case.
I don’t know how much time passed, but the chime sounded again.
My hand trembled. I forced my fingers to uncurl, to push the button and open the gate. Panic swelled in my chest, slowed the thudding heart that seemed to barely pump the icy sludge through my veins. Was this it? Would he stand at my front door and read me my rights?
It was what I deserved after all. Forgiveness means nothing without expiation. My judgment was walking toward the front door.
“Helen,” he said, brow etched with concern. “Are you still angry with me? Didn’t Johnny tell you what really happened?”
Ha! Didn’t Johnny tell him what really happened? No, of course he didn’t. My husband isn’t through cloaking my sins. Apparently that’s something he’s gotten rather good at – cloaking the sins of the Conall twins. Nobody but Crevan and I realized that the cloak was drenched in blood.
“Honey, I’ve wanted to talk to you for weeks now. First Johnny said you needed time to come to terms with what happened between Aidan and Crevan. Then I was swamped with evidence that Aidan really was… well, what we all suspected he was. It’s been weeks, Helen, and you have no idea how many people we’ve found who were victims of what these vile men did.”
Well, at least there was that.
“But that isn’t why I came here today. I’m here because I miss my friend, and I think it’s high time that the two of us had a completely honest conversation.”
“Confess my sins,” I said.
“And mine,” he gave me a lopsided grin. “Can I come in?”
I stepped aside and followed him into this house I never intended to become attached to, the life that I swore I could walk away from at any time. Well, it hadn’t quite worked out that way. Now that I would likely lose it, I couldn’t bear the idea of letting it go.
“Please don’t cry,” David said. “I’m sorry, my dearest friend. And really, that’s all I came here to say. I know you’ve gotten quite the reputation for lying to people out here, Helen, but you’re not the only one guilty of sparing people the brutality of the truth.”
“I don’t want to do this.”
“Since when don’t you want the truth?”
Oh, I don’t know. Since I finally found something I didn’t want to lose by acknowledging something as ugly as facts.
“It’s not nearly bad as you’re imagining, Helen, I promise.”
And my truth wasn’t nearly as benign as he imagined.
“You see, I should’ve put my foot down right away when Rick died. I should’ve never allowed Mark Seleeby to go on that witch hunt, Helen. It simply fueled the fire when he connected with Eddie Franchetta. Thanks to Danny Datello, the prosecution is now convinced that Eddie’s mysteriously changing stories about what he did or didn’t see the night Rick Hamilton committed suicide could be linked back to his intense dislike of you, Helen. Danny even offered an explanation as to why that animosity existed.”
“Oh?” Gratitude makes even ones nemesis offer protection in my crazy world.
“Wendell,” David sighed. “Though I have no idea how Danny Datello possibly found out about this, but it seems that your father was responsible for the incarceration of Eddie’s father, Helen, a very long time ago, even before Wendell made the rank of detective.”
Dad. That was how Danny learned about Franchetta’s axe to grind with the Eriksson family.
“I shouldn’t have let you bear the burden of guilt over Datello’s alleged death either, Helen. I’m glad you, and especially Danny’s wife know the truth.”
“I’m not really angry, David. None of this even matters anymore, does it?”
He nodded. “It matters because I feel… incredibly guilty. You see, Eddie Franchetta made all sorts of wild claims, Helen. Some of them were too ludicrous to believe, but others…” his voice faded to silence.
“Like the night he claimed to see Rick die.”
“No,” David said adamantly. “I never believed that, but he said some other things that we followed up on, Helen, things that panned out.”
“What things?” Fear lodged in my throat, thick and suffocating.
“He said that he believed Wendell Eriksson was contacting him, trying to blackmail him into saying very specific things about what really happened to Rick in that park.”
“I see,” I said.
“We connected the calls to Alfred Preston, Helen. And then, well, when he tried to murder Danny Datello –”
“Oh God. That’s why Soule was in Darkwater Bay!”
“Yes. We had already developed a very deep suspicion of one of our agents.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when I asked specifically about him, David?”
“Because we didn’t know what he was up to Helen
, beyond being one of the men with Seleeby when he accosted you in October. We had no idea that… well, what he was truly doing might’ve killed more than just Datello. I feel responsible for that infant’s abduction. We should’ve looked harder, sooner. The man should’ve been placed under a microscope until he either confessed or went up in flames.”
I reached for David’s hand. “It wasn’t your fault. The people responsible for what happened to Sofia Datello, to all of us who were abducted, are dead now. Well, except for Melissa Sherman.”
“Yes, and as I understand it, she’s more than willing to cut a deal now.”
True. Johnny was practically dancing a jig in the streets when she made her full confession to him and Devlin at OSI. That little DNA test I had Billy Withers run on Lyle Henderson solved the final mystery – at least as far as I was concerned. It was a paternal match made in hell, only Melissa had no idea that her mother and her grandfather were really her mother and her father. Still made me queasy thinking about it.
“And so that’s pretty much all of it, why you had every reason to feel paranoid. I did lie to you, but it wasn’t because I was looking for evidence against you, Helen.”
“But if you had looked –”
He placed one finger over my lips. “If I’d looked, I wouldn’t have done anything differently. You know, Wendell Eriksson was a lucky man. To call you daughter, I can’t think of anything more wonderful, Helen. And parents love their children, no matter what. They accept it all, the good, the bad, the reasons that otherwise terrible things don’t seem so awful after all.”
A single tear streaked down my cheek. “You know.”
David smiled brightly. “I know that I love you. I know that you’re as dear to me as the daughter I never had. I know that everything worked out better than any of us could’ve imagined, Helen, and I also know that none of it would’ve happened if you hadn’t come here, sweetheart. None of it. The case against Marcos is a slam dunk. And why? Because you found that disk, because you arrested Danny Datello, and unwittingly put him in the safest place he could’ve been in.”
“Yeah, well somebody still got to him.”
“Well it wasn’t Sully Marcos, and because of you we knew that Preston needed to be watched. Do I wish it had unfolded differently? Yes. I even wish that Aidan Conall hadn’t been a coward that tried to fight his own son. He deserved prison. He should’ve lived with the scorn of this city staring him in the face.”
“I agree, but I’m glad he can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
“It’s important that those who harm others not do so again,” David said gently. “Sometimes, the second chance is wasted, Helen. I always hate to see that happen.”
My sons chose that moment to voice an opinion – with a vigorous kick. One hand settled over the swollen flesh. “I know, David, and I have every reason in the world to embrace where my second chance marriage has taken me. I promise not to disappoint you.”
“Have you chosen names yet?”
I laughed. “Honestly? We’ve been so busy since almost the moment we found out I was pregnant, I doubt Johnny’s even given it a moment’s thought. I know that I assumed he’d be John Junior, but now that there are two? I have no idea.”
My friend, my mentor, the gift-giver of my second chance rose and smiled. “I’ve always been partial to the name David, myself, but then, that’s just me. Take care of yourself my dearest, and don’t wait until things are spinning out of control before you call me again.”
“I promise,” I said.
And this time, I actually meant it.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
