Harlequin Intrigue, Box Set 2 of 2 (49 page)

“This is my wife, Elizabeth,” McCord finally said as he straightened up after tucking a blanket around her lap. “Honey, you shouldn't have gotten up without someone to help. Perhaps you should go back to bed.”

“I heard voices,” she said. “I was hoping Maria had come back. I told her about...everything...and she came unglued.”

Brighton looked fondly at Elizabeth but there was also contrition in his eyes. “My dear, this young woman is Lily.”

His comment was met with stunned silence and then finally a gasp. “
This
is Lily Block?”

“I prefer my maiden name,” Lily said. “Kirk.”

“You're different,” Elizabeth said in awe, then looked up at McCord. “Robert, you said she was a heavy drinker, a druggie.”

“She was strung up on something the night she came to Block's house.”

Lily laughed with no humor. “I was strung up on nerves. I was scared and worried sick about my son.”

He studied his hands for a moment then murmured, “Yes, I can see that now.”

Elizabeth wasn't finished. “You said she couldn't be trusted. Then Maria found those pills so I told her what I knew...but this girl isn't like that. She's different than you said. Different from what Maria thinks!”

“Yes,” Robert Brighton mumbled and shook his head. “I can see that. I don't know how—”

“Please,” Lily said, looking from one person to the next. “Please, everyone, just stop talking. Where is my son? Do you know?”

“Why don't you sit down,” McCord suggested.

Lily walked over to Elizabeth's chair and knelt down beside it. “Can you tell me where Charlie is? What does Maria have to do with any of this? Who is Darke Fallon?”

“So many questions,” Elizabeth said.

“Then just answer one,” Lily pleaded. The hope mingled with fear in her voice made Chance's heart clench. “Do you have my son?”

Elizabeth touched Lily's hair in an almost maternal gesture. “I did have him,” she whispered, “but I don't anymore.”

CHAPTER TEN

“We don't have him?” Robert Brighton said, and to Lily's ears he sounded surprised and upset by the news. “What the hell happened?”

Chance put his arm around Lily as he helped her stand. “Hang in there,” he said. “We'll get to the bottom of this.”

She looked up at him and took a breath, then she spun around and looked at the older woman. “What did you do with my boy?”

Elizabeth's lips trembled. “My sister took him.”

“Maria? Where did she take him?”

“I don't know. She just said he couldn't stay here.”

“But there's nowhere else for him to go,” Lily protested. “The only person left is Jeremy.” She gasped. “She wouldn't take him there, would she?” When Elizabeth didn't respond, Lily's voice climbed. “Would she?”

“No, no she hates him as much as I do. But maybe if she felt there wasn't an option.”

Lily turned to Robert. “Give me my phone. I have to try to intercept her. I have to talk some reason into her.”

“Maria doesn't have a cell phone,” Elizabeth said. “Please, another few minutes isn't going to make any difference. Everything is so messed up. Let us explain.”

Chance took Lily's hands in his. “We have to listen. Maybe there's something that will help us get Charlie back. Please, Lily, trust me one more time and give these people fifteen minutes, then we'll figure out what to do next.”

“Fifteen minutes,” she said.

Chance sat down, pulling Lily to sit beside him. She was too upset for this inactivity. All she wanted to do was run out that door and keep running until she found Charlie.

But which direction did she run? Maria could have gone anywhere. And if she did do the unthinkable and returned Charlie to his father, then what? Jeremy would immediately secret Charlie away.

It didn't matter, she decided. She was ready to stand her ground and press charges and win her son once and for all. She had nothing to lose now, nothing.

“What Lily heard of the note you left after abducting Charlie seemed to indicate White Cliff and retribution for a lost son, an eye for an eye thing,” Chance said.

“That's right,” McCord agreed. “We aren't heartless. We figured if Jeremy knew we had Charlie that he wouldn't really worry about the child being harmed.”

“How did you know he wouldn't call the FBI?” Lily asked.

“Because I know him,” Elizabeth said. “I know what a coward he is. I knew he wouldn't risk public knowledge of his link to White Cliff and what he thinks is a nest of crazy people and I knew he wouldn't shed too many tears over his son. With him it's all pride.”

“What about me?” Lily couldn't stop from saying. “I've been in hell. What about Charlie?”

“We had a mistaken opinion of you,” Elizabeth said with a note of regret in her voice. Or maybe apology. “We'd heard you abused drugs. Then you got here and told us a phony story but you acted pretty reasonable until your supposed husband came and then you and he just disappeared. Maria went to your apartment to see you this morning, but you didn't answer the bell. She taped a note to your door and then saw that the door was unlocked so she tried it. She found the barbiturates. She packed up your things, and came to me. After I told her about you, she was desperate to get you out of White Cliff. She didn't know Robert had already brought you here.”

“I don't do drugs,” Lily said. “Jeremy created that story to discredit me. He gave those drugs to Chance to kill me. And I was anxious because someone took my five-year-old child,” she added. “
You
took him.”

“After we got away from Block,” Chance added, “we decided to look for a family who had lost a son. We kept coming up with the name Fallon. Lots of Fallons around, but none with a family member named Darke, not even one with a missing family member. It seemed this guy didn't exist. As far as I know, the police are still searching for his past. What we deduced brought us to you people. We didn't announce our true identities because Block had warned us that to do so would threaten Charlie's life. Was the man claiming to be Darke Fallon actually your son, Elizabeth?”

“I don't have a son,” she said bitterly.

“But you did, didn't you? That's why the note you left when you took him said a son for a son. When Maria pointed out this house, she said Brighton lived here with her sister and his kids. But she originally phrased it ‘their' kids. I think you had a son and I think he killed himself in a jail cell.”

Chance turned to Lily. “There's something you don't know. I investigated the trunk in the tunnel.”

“What tunnel?” Elizabeth asked.

“The one in the food storage bunker?” Robert Brighton asked.

“Yes.”

“It leads to an old church my father bought three decades ago,” Brighton explained. “He constructed the tunnel as another way out of White Cliff if authorities ever tried to take us over. I haven't thought about it in years.”

“I'm betting your son knew about it,” Chance said. “The trunk is full of stories with one central hero named Darke Fallon. There are also sunflower seeds.”

“Darke Fallon,” Lily whispered.

“Jimmy loved sunflower seeds,” Elizabeth said with a choked sob. “I planted them this year just as I do every year.” As Chance withdrew the key complete with its ribbon and small brass medallion from his pocket, she all but gasped. “Let me see that,” she demanded. “That's my father's war medal. This is the key to his old trunk. We keep it in the basement.”

“I doubt it's in the basement anymore,” Chance said.

“You said the trunk was full of stories?”

“Yes.”

“Why would Jimmy hide his stories?”

“Perhaps because they were blatantly explicit.”

“In what way?”

“Sexually. He apparently had a relationship or wanted one with a local girl named Tabitha Stevens.”

“Tabitha?” Lily said, looking at Chance. “I saw initials in a heart by that cot in the church: J.B. plus T.S. It seems if that was Jimmy, he didn't tell Tabitha about the stories or his alter ego. Did Jimmy run across Tabitha in the church's maintenance room?”

“It seems likely,” Chance said. “I found remnants of sunflower seeds on the floor. Plus, Tabitha's grandfather preached there at one time, perhaps she heard stories, I don't know.” He looked at Elizabeth and added, “By the way, Tabitha was also Wallace Connor's girlfriend.”

“Are you suggesting Jimmy killed Wallace Connor out of jealousy? We had proof Jimmy was here in White Cliff that day. That damn Block destroyed it.”

“I'm not suggesting anything,” Chance said. “But why didn't your son's fingerprints show up when the police checked files? Why no birth certificate, no social security card? Why did he lie about himself and why did this whole community never mention one of theirs died at the same time as the man everyone was asking them about? Didn't anyone put two and two together?”

“The first part is easy,” Elizabeth said. “I had Jimmy after a very short and violent first marriage. I was so gullible. I left before I even knew I was pregnant and almost immediately met Robert. His father was in the midst of creating this alternate world. He'd been in prison because of a couple of scams he committed earlier in his life so he was keeping this place under wraps, knowing he'd be investigated when the police found out he was collecting money from investors.

“All that aside, White Cliff seemed like utopia to me. Robert already had several children by his first wife who died before we met. It seemed like I'd turned my life around and found my own little slice of heaven. Jimmy was born up here at White Cliff.” She wiped at her eyes. “It seems like only yesterday. He was my only child. And to answer your question, no, I didn't register Jimmy's birth.”

“The government of this country is into every aspect of every life,” Robert Brighton chimed in. “It doesn't matter what so-called party they belong to, they're all the same. They amass numbers and data and make records so they can control us. They conspire with foreign agents to undermine any expression of independence. Freedom is a concept to them and not one they particularly even like. We
live
freedom.”

“That's why I didn't get him a social security number or anything else. As far as the world outside of White Cliff knew, he didn't exist and it seemed like the most pure form of freedom I could gift him with. As time passed, it became clear that we'd made a good choice because Jimmy was different than other kids. He loved to hunt and fish but he was poor in school and awkward around people. Other kids made fun of him at times. I can't tell you how many fights we broke up. I knew he was roaming around at night but I also knew he couldn't get through the gate and the unfinished part of the fence is guarded... I didn't know he wrote stories and I would have sworn girls were the last thing in the world he would concern himself with.”

“Boys will be boys,” Robert said. “I should have known that. I just had no idea he'd found the tunnel. But how do you know for sure it was Jimmy who wrote those stories?”

“It stretches the imagination to think someone else created those stories and the character Darke Fallon and then got your son to confess to murders using that same name,” Chance said. “Plus, there's a photograph of you in the trunk, Elizabeth. We need to verify everything, though. Perhaps you'll recognize his handwriting. It's very hard to read.”

“Like a scribble?” Elizabeth asked.

“Yes. But I still don't get it,” Chance added. “Someone here must have seen Jimmy's picture in the newspaper when police were attempting to track Darke Fallon down.”

“It was a terrible picture,” Elizabeth said. “Most of the people here probably didn't even see it. Most of us believe the government runs the media. Some did, but didn't recognize Jimmy, they just assumed the police had a man in custody named Darke Fallon, and no one had ever heard of that person before. A few people did recognize Jimmy's photo and asked us about it. We told them it was a conspiracy by the police to undermine White Cliff's legitimacy, an attempt to gain access to our community assets and records. We said Jimmy was a victim just as much as the Connor boy and nothing would be gained by admitting he came from here. Anyway, what business was it to the police that our boy had sacrificed himself for some reason we'll never know?”

“Dead is dead,” Robert Brighton said. “If the police invade White Cliff, there will be more violence. I have to believe that Jimmy would not want his brothers and sisters dying because of a decision he made.”

Lily stared at the Brightons and realized they were on a different planet than she was, not only politically, but in other ways, as well. Charlie's welfare was all that mattered and if anything happened to him, she'd move heaven and earth to avenge him. “What was your evidence that Jimmy wasn't in Boise?” she asked.

“A dated photograph.”

“Don't you have the negative or a copy of it on your computer?”

“No, it was one of those old Polaroids,” Elizabeth said. “Jimmy found a camera and a whole box of film down in the basement, left there by Robert's father decades ago. He liked to fool around with it. Anyway, Jimmy was ice fishing that day over at Freedom Lake with his stepbrother.”

“Then you have a witness,” Chance said.

“Yes, but it's doubtful a relative, even a step relative and especially someone from White Cliff, would be believed in America's skewed justice system. What we had was that photograph.”

“Of him fishing?”

“Of him with his catch, yes. We ate his fish for dinner that night. He seemed right as rain. The next morning he was gone like he'd been teleported off the face of the earth. A day after that, he confessed to a murder that happened while he was up at Freedom Lake. Maria drove down there with the picture a day later. Jeremy assured her he would use it to help solve the case. She also told him something he didn't know that we hoped might motivate him to work harder on Jimmy's behalf. By the weekend, Jimmy was dead.”

“He must have left during the night via that blasted tunnel,” Brighton said. “I should have thought of that. It's just been years since anyone talked about it.”

“All of this is interesting,” Lily said. “But it's been over fifteen minutes. I'm sorry about your son, but it's my son we have to think of now.”

Robert had been sitting on the edge of a chair and he got to his feet as though he couldn't sit anymore. “You have to understand...Elizabeth hasn't been the same since Jimmy died. And now she's sick... I thought if I could bring her Jeremy's boy it would give her a reason to keep fighting.”

“But why Charlie in particular?”

Robert looked at Elizabeth. “She has to know, honey.”

“Know what?” Lily said.

“I never divorced my first husband, Lily, so I'm not really Robert's wife,” Elizabeth said. “There's no easy way to tell you this.” She took a deep breath and kept going. “I married Jeremy Block right out of high school and left him less than a month later. That's what Maria told Jeremy the day she gave him the photo, hoping it would make a difference to him. But...it didn't.”

“Wait a second,” Lily said. “Your son Jimmy is my Charlie's half brother?”

“Yes.”

“After Jimmy's death, I got a job working for Jeremy,” Robert said. “We knew he had a son—we didn't know his mother had taken him when she left. And then, lo and behold, the son is returned, rescued from his hard-drinking, drug-taking, carousing mother down in Reno...”

“None of that is true except that I lived in Reno,” Lily said.

“We know that now,” Elizabeth murmured. “I should never have trusted a word that man said. But that's why Robert and the boys took Charlie as soon as Jeremy got him back. To protect him from his parents.”