“How long did this go on?”
“Months. He substituted at the school from October until April. Your daddy noticed how much I talked about Smith. He was on the football team. Big, hulking boy. Strong as an ox. Not much sense, or so I thought. But he was smarter than I ever realized. When Cody said Smith was trouble, I wouldn’t listen to him or my friends. I wanted what I thought was a real grown-up man.”
“Smith.”
“Yes. I heard Smith talking to another teacher about a party he was having. I asked my parents if I could go. Of course, they said no. I argued. They forbade me. Nothing tastes as sweet as forbidden to a wild teen girl.” She moistened her lips as if parched.
Jo turned to the plastic pitcher by the bed and poured water into a matching cup. She put a straw in the cup and held it to her mother’s mouth. Candace drank deeply.
When Jo had set the cup aside and leaned back, her mother continued. “I snuck out of my parents’ house. I thought I was all grown up at seventeen. Thought I understood the world and how it worked.”
Seventeen. A baby.
“When I saw him at the party he saw me immediately. He watched me as I talked to other people . . . men. Even in those days I looked mature for my age. Finally, when he could break away he motioned toward the kitchen. We met there, and he pulled me outside. The night was cold. And he took off his jacket and draped it on my shoulders.”
“What happened?”
“He told me I was beautiful, and I fell for it all. I drank up his lies as if I’d been lost in the desert.” She closed her eyes, but the tears spilled free. “He took me to his room that night. I was scared. But he kept asking me if I was as grown up as I claimed.” Her mother swallowed. “In the morning before he woke up, I left and snuck back in my bedroom window. I never told anybody.”
“Smith didn’t let it go after the one night.”
“No. He kept giving me looks at school. Kept telling me I was pretty when no one was looking. I snuck out with him a few more times.” Candace cleared her throat. “I had no shame.”
Jo sat silently for a long moment waiting for her mother to finish the story. There was more. There had to be. Finally, as gently as she could, she said, “What happened? How did it finally end between you two?”
She closed her eyes. “I’m tired.”
“Mom, please tell me.”
Her mother turned her face away from Jo. “Not now. I can’t talk now.”
The truth was but millimeters from her fingertips and yet it remained out of her reach. “Was Smith my biological father?”
Her mother’s head snapped back. Her gaze blistered Jo. “Never use the word father and Smith in the same sentence. The man was a monster.”
“What did he do to you?”
“Be grateful he is dead. Be grateful.”
“Mom, you can tell me anything.”
“I read all the newspaper stories about him. People tried to figure out why he did what he did. The truth was he didn’t need a reason. He craved fear like a drunk craves booze.” Her mother squeezed her hand. “I thought if I worked hard enough and was a good enough mother to you and your sister and a wife to your daddy, I could make up for that time. But I’ve never been able to work hard enough to forget.”
Her mother wept, drawing herself up into a tight ball. What had happened? What had Smith done to her mother? As much as Jo wanted to push for answers, she knew they’d not come right here and now. Soon, she told herself. Soon her mother would release her terrible secrets. “It’s okay, Mom.”
Jo kissed her mother on her head and let her sleep. Out of the room and to the waiting area, she sat and buried her face in her hands. Her mother hadn’t said the words but she knew. Smith was her father.
A solid night’s sleep had calmed Dayton. He’d now realized how news of Sheila’s death had left him frazzled. But this morning, he felt like a million bucks. As if he could tackle the world.
Dressed for a run, he cut through the kitchen and into the garage. He took two steps toward his car when he heard footsteps behind him.
He turned as the pop, pop, pop of suppressed gunfire ripped into his chest. For a moment, Dayton stared at the man, stunned, as a bloom of blood blossomed, a growing patch on his white shirt.
He stumbled back against his car. “What the hell?”
“I don’t appreciate poachers.”
Dayton listed sideways and slid down the side of his car. Blood oozed from the holes in his chest and pooled on the floor.
The man glanced at his gun. “I’ve always liked the .22. It’s not expensive, easy to hide and not fancy. But low-caliber bullets can bounce around a man’s insides like a Ping-Pong ball, tearing up organs and smashing bone. It’s a good caliber.”
Air bubbles gurgled from Dayton as he gasped for air. He was drowning in his own blood. Like Sheila.
“It won’t take long.” The man replaced the gun in his coat pocket. “And you aren’t going to kill Jo Granger.”
Dayton rolled on his side. He tried to claw his way across the cement garage floor but he couldn’t summon the air to move. “Why?”
The man smiled. “You’ve been watching Jo Granger. And you’re smart enough to get around the law. I see the way you look at her. You want to kill her. Like you killed your wife.”
Dayton swallowed. “No.”
He smiled. “Just us here now, Dayton. No need to lie. You want to kill her. But you’re not going to. I am.”
Knowing Jo would be at the hospital all night and safe, Brody had spent most of the night watching surveillance footage of Hanna’s street corner. He’d caught images of “Robbie” but nothing concrete. He was determined to find the needle in this wretched haystack.
He’d taken a break after dawn to go home, shower and grab a quick bite before heading to the hospital to see Jo. He found her in the waiting room, alone, her eyes closed and her head tipped back against the wall.
“Jo,” he said.
She opened her eyes immediately and looked up at him. She stood and he pulled her into his arms. She clung to his shirt.
“How’s she doing?”
Jo nestled close to him. “She’s going to be okay. Physically.”
He stroked her hair, savoring the soft scents. “Did she say why?”
Jo hesitated a moment. “Something happened between my mother and Smith, but she won’t tell me. I asked her again if Smith was my father but she wouldn’t answer.”
Silence stretched between them. “Biology doesn’t change anything, Jo.”
She searched his gaze. “It can be a huge predictor.”
&
nbsp; He stroked the hair off her face. “Jo, you are a good, kind woman. You are not him.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I know.” She sighed. “I just want all the missing pieces to come together. Mom’s not telling me everything.”
“What could she be holding back?”
“I don’t know. But I’m thinking it’s pretty awful.”
Brody hated leaving Jo at the hospital, but she’d insisted she’d be fine, and she needed to spend more time with her mother.
Now he sat at his desk and pushed yet another surveillance disk CD into his computer. The tapes were taken from the store that overlooked Hanna’s street corner.
A dark Mercedes pulled up to her street corner, and she walked over to the window. She was smiling as the driver leaned toward her. And then her smile vanished, and she stepped back from the car door. A male driver got out of the car. He flipped a dark hoodie over his head as he hurried toward Hanna. He pulled money from his pocket and tried to shove it in her hand. For several tense seconds they stood, his arms wrapped around hers. She took the money and got into the car.
He closed her passenger door and hurried to the driver’s side.
“Turn around, you son of a bitch.” From this camera angle, Brody had never seen the man’s face before he drove away with Hanna.
Brody popped the disk out and searched his stack, finding the footage from a camera mounted at a light two blocks away. He loaded the disk, tapping his fingers on the desk as he waited for the image. He fast-forwarded to the moments where the other tape stopped.
The Mercedes stopped at a light. And this time he could see the driver’s face. In that instant, the camera caught him in profile.
There was no mistaking the man’s identity.
Scott Connors.
Brody and Santos quickly discovered that Connors had been fired yesterday. He’d not only missed huge blocks of time in the last five weeks, but he’d screwed up several key stock trades.