“He … he came to me that night. Drunk out of his mind, despairing. He needed comfort. I suppose I felt sorry for him. That was the night I conceived. By the time I learned I was pregnant, Sito had been institutionalized. I couldn’t keep the baby, then. I couldn’t raise it alone, with the father in an asylum—” She looked at her hands and flattened them on her legs in an effort to stop wringing them. The tendons stood out.
“I never saw Simon again,” she said. “At least, not in person. When he started making the news years later, I didn’t recognize him. I’ve avoided hearing anything about him. I must be the only person in Commerce City not following his trial.”
“He doesn’t know that he has a child,” Celia said. Janet shook her head. “You could probably sell your story to one of the tabloids for a lot of money
.” She was mostly joking.
“I could,” Janet said, her smile thin and bitter. “But can you imagine if the child—my child—learned the truth about his parents? If he’s still out there—I can’t imagine how it would feel, to learn that your father was someone like that.”
Maybe a little like having Captain Olympus as a father. It would be different, of course, having a hero to look up to rather than a villain to despise. But somehow, it would also be the same.
How was she going to tell all this to Mark?
“Ms. Travers—I know who your son is. I’ve met him. Would you like to hear about him?” He’s the mayor, and you have a valiant grandson who’s a police detective—her genes had done pretty well for themselves.
She looked back, stricken. The yes sat on the verge of trembling lips. Celia regretted this whole trip. She hadn’t wanted to make an old woman cry.
Abruptly, Janet shook her head. “I put that behind me years ago. I’ve kept it secret for a very long time. If I heard about him, I would want to meet him. I’d want to know if I’m a grandmother, then I might want to be a grandmother. No, I don’t want to hear any more about it.”
“Then I’ll leave you alone. Thank you very much for speaking with me.” This time when she offered her hand, Janet shook it, lightly, fleetingly.
“You won’t tell anyone about me, will you? You’ll keep my secret?”
The photocopy of the birth certificate burned in her pocket. No one else had seen it. No one else had to. She’d get rid of it. “I’ll keep your secret. Thank you again.”
* * *
She had one last exorcism to attempt.
Elroy Asylum was one of the places people ended up when they couldn’t afford institutions like Greenbriar. Industrial and sadly out of date, the four-story cinder-block monolith had a functional sterility that made it hard not to feel a little sorry for its inhabitants. Except that one wing of the hospital was dedicated to criminals. Technically not criminal, she supposed—they’d been deemed insane. Technically, every one of them stood a chance of being cured and set loose in the world.
But some of them, Celia believed, were simply evil. If evil was a form of insanity, so be it. But those people didn’t want to be cured. Knowing what she knew now, she wasn’t sure whether Sito was sick or evil. She didn’t know if he wanted to be cured.
She only knew she never wanted to see him back in the world of the living.
Scuffed linoleum floor and fluorescent lighting were the prominent features of the asylum’s reception area. A man in the white uniform of an orderly occupied the desk and seemed deeply involved in sorting a stack of folders. Celia loomed politely until he looked up.
“Hi, I wondered if it would be possible to visit a patient.” She smiled hopefully.
“That depends on the patient’s status; let me check that for you. Who do you want to see?”
Deep breath. “Simon Sito.”
He stared at her. Her smile froze. All right, so this was rather odd. All she needed now was for him to recognize who she was, and he’d be on the phone to the police.
“I’m sorry, that won’t be possible,” the receptionist said. “He’s under strict security protocols. No visitors.”
“No exceptions?”
“I’m afraid not.” He couldn’t have been any older than she was, but he had the authority of the uniform. She couldn’t stare him down.
She didn’t have a warrant from the DA. She didn’t have permission. She didn’t have a reason for being here, except to satisfy her own curiosity.
“What if I said it’s really important and the fate of the city could rest on whether or not I see him?”
The guy chuckled. “Fate of the city? Who do you think you are? Captain Olympus?”
That didn’t even merit a response. “Well, then. Thanks for your time.”