Prospect Street (45 page)

Alec gestured Faith toward the chair and Pavel toward the bed. He leaned against the wall. “The old lady told you, didn't she?”

She didn't play games. “Dottie Lee told me you're Sandor Babin, Dominik Dubrov's cousin.”

He shrugged. Not with hostility but resignation.

“Alec, this is Pavel Quinn, Dominik's son. You probably knew him as Pasha.”

For the first time Alec looked at Pavel. “I know who you are.”

“Since we met in Faith's yard?”

“Yeah. Your mother changed your name to hers, huh?”

“She was ashamed.”

“Wasn't any reason to be. Your father was a better man than most.”

“I'm glad to hear that.”

“Weak, though. Maybe it runs in the family.”

“How so?” Faith asked.

“My family left Hungary. His left Russia. Maybe we learned to turn tail when things get tough, I don't know.”

“My father didn't run, he killed himself,” Pavel said.

“There's a difference? A man takes whatever avenue is open to him. And that was the only one your father could see.”

“Why?” Pavel demanded. “What boxed him in until the only solution was to take his own life?”

“Why do you need to know?” He turned to Faith. “Why do
you?
”

“Pavel and I share a sister,” Faith said. “We know Dominik was Hope's father, and that he knew it. We also know that somewhere along the way my father discovered the baby was Dominik's. Can't you see why we need to know what happened? I suspect my father of the kidnapping, and Pavel suspects his. That's no way to go through the rest of our lives.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Whatever you know. Anything that might help.”

“Maybe it won't help. Maybe it will make things worse.”

“Alec,” Faith said gently, “that's not up to you. Not anymore. I think you've been protecting somebody, but it's time now to tell the truth. Let it go. Let us decide what happens next.”

He closed his eyes, fighting some interior battle. “I need a drink.”

“Please, not now,” Faith said.

Alec's face was taut with tension. “What you know, that's old news to me. I know a whole lot more than that.”

When he didn't say anything more, she prompted him. “Will you tell us? Please?”

He was silent for so long Faith was afraid he wasn't going to answer. Then he began. “Your father found Dominik, and they had a fight while your mother was still in the hospital.”

Pavel encouraged him. “Tell us what happened.”

“Dominik went to see the baby in the nursery, sneaked in and peeked at her, and somebody told the senator, only he wasn't a senator in those days, just a congressman. Dominik said the bastard had been paying people to watch and see who showed up at the nursery.”

“What happened when my father confronted Dominik?” Faith said.

“He threatened to deport him. And Dominik believed he could do it. In Russia, in Hungary, things were simpler. The people in charge could do what they liked. Members of our family died just because somebody in authority wanted them dead. The rules changed every day, depending on who was making them.”

“That's why he killed himself? Because he was afraid of deportation?” Pavel didn't sound convinced. “I can't believe it. Maybe if a hearing was imminent and he was sure he was about to lose—”

“My mother had promised to protect him if it ever came to that,” Faith said.

“That wasn't the only thing the senator said.” Alec opened his eyes and looked at Faith, as if he was weighing the rest.

“Alec, I want the whole truth,” she said. “I already know my father is capable of many things, not all of them good.”

When he spoke again, his voice was low. “He threatened the baby.”

She knew if she protested, that would be the end of his secrets. She forced herself to nod. “Go on.”

“He told Dominik that he'd only agreed to raise Hope because he had no choice, but he also said that things happened to babies, bad things. Sometimes they just died and nobody
knew why. Sometimes it looked like they'd just stopped breathing, like someone put a pillow over their faces and pushed and pushed….”

He sank to the floor with his knees up to his chin and his arms wrapped around them. He began to rock back and forth.

Faith didn't realize she was crying until tears were rolling down her cheeks. The threat was too much like the one her father had used against her mother to deny it. “Alec, did my father kill Hope?”

He continued to rock, eyes closed. “Dominik, he couldn't go to your mother and tell her. She'd warned him that the senator might threaten him if he ever found out Dominik was Hope's father, but she was convinced the baby would be safe. There was no proof Senator Huston had talked to Dominik, and Dominik was afraid your mother would think he was making up the story to force her to leave him.”

“So he kidnapped Hope,” Pavel said. “Because he felt he had no choice?”

Alec opened his eyes. “What do you know about your father? You think he loved the baby more than the mother? You think he could have done such a thing to Mrs. Huston?”

“Then what happened?” Faith demanded.

“I watched him suffer. He couldn't decide what to do.” Alec's gaze locked with Faith's. “And so I made the decision for him. I took her.”

Faith stared at him. The answer to everything had been right in front of her. Sitting right in front of her, and she hadn't guessed it. She had been sure that either she or Pavel would leave Alec's room as the child of a kidnapper.

She felt Pavel's hand on her shoulder. “You?” he asked.

“It wasn't as hard as the papers made it sound, though I had to make all the preparations fast. I cut through backyards to get to the house. I took Dominik's key and let myself in through the basement. The baby was asleep and stayed that way when I lifted her from the crib. Your mother was playing the piano. There was no pause, not even after I closed the door behind me.
I knew a young mother who agreed to help me get the baby away once she heard the story. I knew I could trust her, and I had a place for the baby to go.”

“Where?” Pavel said.

“My family came into this country through Canada. A Hungarian family we knew in Ontario wanted a child and couldn't have one of their own. They had been trying for years and years. By then they were almost old enough to be grandparents. The papers were easy to forge. They knew who to ask for a new birth certificate, and how much to pay and how to have it done quickly. We, all of us, had practice with false papers. My family couldn't have come to America without them.”

He was speaking faster now, as if he had waited a long time to tell someone and was afraid he might not have time to finish. “My friend took Hope across the border using her own baby's birth certificate for identification and gave her to the Canadian family to raise. She told them the baby was illegitimate, a teenager's baby, and the girl's family would disown her if they ever found out. She said the girl had gone away to have it out in the country by herself, and nobody could ever know the circumstances of the baby's birth. They wanted a baby so badly that they didn't ask any questions.”

“Canada?” Pavel's hand was a heavy weight on Faith's shoulder.

“I knew if I tried to keep Hope in the United States, she would be found. I did it for Dominik. He was my best friend, more like a brother. I did it to protect his daughter and because he wouldn't do it himself.”

“And you never told anyone? Not all these years?”

Alec stopped rocking. “Tell? No, but Dominik knew. He figured it out.”

“And nobody else knew except the woman who helped you? Not even the people who raised her?”

“Why should I tell anyone? I knew I was right. I was sure I had prevented a murder. She was a baby, just a little baby. Dominik's baby. She deserved a life, didn't she?”

“But it ate at you, didn't it?” Pavel said. “Just the way it ate at my father until he killed himself.”

“Once he knew, Dominik figured out there were no good choices. Hope was safe, but Mrs. Huston was nearly crazy from grief. In the end your father died from grief, too. He couldn't turn me in to the police. I was his cousin. He couldn't tell Mrs. Huston. He couldn't rescue Hope and give her back, because he was afraid for her life, too.”

“And so he killed himself,” Pavel said.

Faith couldn't let that go. “And after all that, you still thought you'd done something good? Something right?”

For a moment he looked defensive. “I was sure I'd done something good.” His face crumpled a little. “Then I had kids of my own. One day I looked at them and I knew what I'd done after all. And that's when I started to drink.”

There were unanswered questions, but one loomed above the others. Faith couldn't make herself ask it. Not yet.

“At that point, why didn't you tell somebody?” Pavel asked. “Why didn't you turn yourself in when you realized how serious this was and how many lives you'd destroyed?”

“You think it would have been that easy?”

“I just want answers,” Pavel said.

“Because I still believed the senator would harm the little girl! And she was a little girl by then. A pretty little thing, and happy. So happy with her new parents. They weren't rich, but they thought she was a miracle, and they gave her everything they could. So if I told the police where she was and what I'd done, I would have destroyed one happy family to fix an unhappy one. How could I do that? In the end there was nothing I could do. Just like Dominik.”

Faith knew she would be sorting this out for months. Years. But one question still hadn't been answered. The most important one. She asked it at last. “Alec, where is Hope now? Please tell us. It's time to set the record straight. Nobody can harm her. She's thirty-eight years old.”

“She's alive. She's happy.” Alec fell silent.

“Please, I have a sister,” Faith said. “You don't know what that means to me. Hope has a sister—” she glanced at Pavel “—and a brother, and it's not your duty to protect her. She's old enough to know the truth and figure out what to do about it.”

He sat very still, considering. Faith was almost afraid to breathe. At last he got to his feet and went to the dresser. He opened the top drawer and lifted out a neatly folded pile of clothing, reaching under it for something. Then he replaced the clothing and turned.

“I have a picture.” He held it out to Faith.

She took it, her hands trembling. She expected to see a baby, the baby she had only glimpsed on the pages of newspapers. Instead an adult stared back at her from a torn sheet of heavy tan paper. A pretty woman with dark curly hair. She had the body of someone who preferred eating to dieting, a warm smile and laughing dark eyes. In the crook of each arm was a small child, a boy and a girl.

“This is Hope?” She couldn't take her eyes off the photograph, which seemed oddly familiar. She felt Pavel move closer to gaze at it, too. “This is my sister? But I've seen this photograph somewhere.”

“She writes books for children. I go to the bookstore and look at them sometimes. I tore that from the jacket of one.”

Faith looked up at last. “Not Karina Gililand?”

“That's her name.”

“Faith?” Pavel took the picture from her hands. “You know something about her?”

“I read her books to my children when they were little. She was their favorite author, one of the only things they ever agreed on. We have them all. I even kept them after we moved so I could give them to my grandchildren someday. They're packed away in the attic.”

She put her hands to her cheeks. “In
my
attic. In a corner, right under the rafter where my grandmother carved her name.”

She began to cry again. She felt Pavel's arms come around her, but she wasn't sure which of them needed the comfort more.

T
his year the Christmas tree at the Hustons' house was adorned with icicles of hand-blown glass and delicate antique ornaments from Germany. The ten-foot blue spruce sported bundles of cinnamon sticks tied with plaid taffeta ribbon, and dried slices of oranges and lemons. Lydia was sitting beside it, waiting for Faith to arrive.

The clock had already ushered in midnight, and even though Faith was aware her mother never fell asleep until the early hours of the morning, this late-night visit was uncharacteristic. Lydia knew her grandchildren were gone for the weekend, but that didn't explain Faith's phone call an hour ago. She hadn't asked if she could come to Great Falls; she had announced an impending visit.

“You're still up?”

Lydia turned to see Joe in his flannel robe, standing in the doorway. He seemed annoyed that he didn't have privacy for his nocturnal wanderings.

“Faith's stopping by.”

“At this hour?” He sounded even more annoyed. “You should have taught her better manners.”

“Her manners are perfect, but yours are beginning to upset me.”

“I'm not in the mood for company. Tell her I went to bed. And don't let her stay long. We have a prayer breakfast tomorrow morning at the Mayflower.”

“I'm going to insist she spend the night.”

He snorted, but he left without another thrust and parry. She was grateful.

The house was silent by the time she heard Faith's car in the driveway. Thanks to Samuel, no one else would have made it that far. She met Faith and ushered her inside, taking her coat and hat with a minimum of discussion to hang them in the hall closet.

Faith followed Lydia back to the living room, where tiny white lights twinkled on the tree. “Have a seat,” Lydia said. “Would you like something to drink?”

Faith declined. She'd said little since entering the house. She shivered now, and Lydia crossed the room to light the gas fireplace. The room was already warm, but the temperature outside was below freezing. Snow had fallen, and more was expected.

“You'll have to stay,” Lydia said. “I won't let you drive home this late. What were you thinking, to come all the way out here in this weather?”

“I was thinking I couldn't wait.”

Lydia wasn't sure what to say. “Did the children get off all right? Alex is with his father?”

“They're both with David.”

Lydia, on her way back to the sofa where Faith had perched, slowed in surprise. “You're joking.”

“No, Remy asked to go with him. There was a nasty incident, Mother. She's been hanging out with some college boys—men—down the street. I'm not going to go into it all right now, but she's okay. David got her out of a bad situation, and they've reconciled.”

Lydia joined her, lifting a Christmas afghan crocheted from filmy white mohair off the back of the sofa to tuck around Faith's legs. “So that's why you're here. No wonder you're upset.”

“Mother, you don't know the half of it.”

“Remy's all right? Really?”

“I think so. And David will take care of her. That's not why I'm here.”

“There's more?”

“I don't know how to tell you this.”

Lydia's heart began to speed. “That's the worst possible way to begin a conversation. Just tell me.”

Faith leaned forward and took Lydia's hands. “Mother, we've found Hope.”

 

Pavel Quinn, Dominik's son, was flying to Canada later that day to search for his half sister. He knew executives at several publishing houses in New York, and he was sure he could learn Hope's address. No longer Hope, of course. Karina now.

Karina Gililand, a woman with a house and a family and a career.

Despite Lydia's protests, Faith had gone home after telling the whole story, convinced Lydia and Joe needed to be alone to resolve this. Somehow Lydia had walked her to the door, even kissed her daughter's cheek and watched her drive away. But hours passed before a sense of reality returned. She stared at the ceiling and trembled for most of the night. When she finally fell asleep just before dawn, the familiar nightmare began, but this time the music was gentle and sunlight sparkled through the rooms. This time she found her way to Hope's nursery, where the dark-haired infant slept peacefully in her crib.

When Lydia awoke, she didn't know what to say to her husband, but she did know Faith was right. She had to say it in private.

By seven she couldn't stay in bed another minute. She covered her nightgown with a robe and went to make coffee. Marley had the day off, but for once Lydia was grateful to be alone with her husband.

At seven-thirty Joe came into the kitchen, fully dressed for the day. They weren't scheduled to leave until nine-thirty, but true to form, he would spend the next two hours working in his study.

“Sit,” she said. “We have to talk.”

“I have phone calls. Can't it wait?”

“No, it can't.” She took a tray with the coffee service and a platter of toast into the breakfast room, and reluctantly he followed her.

“Is this about Faith?”

“No.” Lydia set the tray on the buffet and poured coffee for herself before she turned. “No, Joe, it's about Hope.”

Joe was fiddling with the Roman shades at the window closest to his chair. He turned, frowning. “What hasn't been said already?”

“That she's been found.”

His expression didn't change. She knew he didn't believe her.

Lydia's knees threatened to buckle. She crossed to the table, coffee cup in hand, and sank into her chair. “Her name isn't Hope Huston anymore, of course. It's Karina Gililand. I have a photograph. Would you like to see it?”

“This is preposterous!”

“Sit down, Joe.”

The shade thudded against the window; then his chair scraped the hickory floor. “What are you trying to feed me?”

“The truth.” Lydia couldn't hold the cup any longer. She set it on the table. “Hope lives in Canada, most likely in a suburb of Toronto. She's lived in Canada all these years. The family who took her in named her Karina, but they were much older than we are, and they're dead now. Pavel Quinn found some facts about her on the Internet. Karina married a man named Bob Gililand and had two children by him, but they're divorced. She writes children's books. Faith has them all. I even read them to our grandchildren.”

“You're not making any sense.” Joe got up and crossed to the buffet to pour coffee for himself. “What makes you think this stranger is Hope?”

“Because the man who kidnapped her told Faith the whole story. She and Pavel are checking, of course. But there's no reason to believe it's not true. Everything fits.”

“You would believe that baby was carried off on a spaceship if an idiot in a Star Trek uniform told you he'd seen blinking lights in the sky that night.”

“No, Joe, I wouldn't. But I believe this.”

He flung himself into the chair across from her and slammed his cup on the table. “Who took her?”

“Sandor Babin, Dominik's cousin and helper. Dominik had nothing to do with it. He didn't know until later.”

“Why? There wasn't a ransom demand.”

“Because you threatened her, or that's what Dominik believed. You went to him and threatened him with deportation, then you talked about how easily a baby could be smothered—”

“I—did—no—such—thing!” Joe sounded furious, but there was something that didn't quite ring true about his performance.

Lydia examined him. She wanted to believe him. She didn't love Joe Huston. She didn't even like him. But she wanted to believe, more than anything, that Joe had never planned to murder her daughter, and that Dominik really had misunderstood.

Otherwise, how could she live with herself?

She finished the story, still searching his face. “Sandor knew what you told Dominik, so he took matters into his own hands. He claims he was afraid for Hope's life.”

“Where is this man now?”

“Homeless. Broken. The kidnapping caught up with him. All of us…” She swallowed tears. “All of us were so damaged. Even you, Joe.”

“What does that mean?”

“I've believed for years you might have been responsible. You know I have. You said things that made me suspicious. You know what that's done to our marriage. This house has been an armed camp. We never had a chance.”

“We've done the things we had to.”

“There's one more thing we have to do. If Karina Gililand really is Hope, we have to tell the world. This secret's going to
get out, the way secrets always do. Once we make contact with her, someone will sniff this out. We need to be sure the story is told with sensitivity and discretion.”

Joe was on his feet before she finished. “We damn well won't make contact, and we won't tell anybody! Do you want to parade your affair in front of the world? Admit your connection to Dubrov? Tell everyone your baby girl was illegitimate? Leave well enough alone, Lydia. Leave this woman alone!”

“I won't be cheated out of knowing her. She's my baby, my little girl! I don't care if some of this will be hard to explain. If she wants to know me, I want to be her mother. I won't be kept from her any longer.”

“You?
You!
This is all about you. What about my career?”

“We have to consider how best to tell the story and to whom. We—”

Joe was too enraged to listen. “If I'd wanted the whole world to know about Hope, I'd have told the truth years ago!”

“Years ago there was no point. You didn't want to tell the world I was an adulteress—” Lydia stopped, watching the expression on her husband's face. The rage was tempered now by something else. Caution? For a moment she was at sea, adrift in the nuances of what he'd said and his own reaction to it.

Then she understood.

She rose on trembling legs. “You're not talking about my affair, are you? You
knew
who took her. All this time you knew where she was and what happened to her. Joe, you knew!”

“Of course I didn't know. I was talking about you and Dubrov and—”

“You liar!” His rage was nothing compared to hers. “You knew my baby was alive. You knew where she was! And you kept it from me! You watched me suffer. You watched me bleed one drop at a time for decades, watched my heart ice over. You bastard!”

This time he didn't deny it. His expression changed to something close to satisfaction. “You deserved it. After what you did
to me? Yes, I knew, because that man Babin was an idiot. He dropped a religious medal in Hope's crib that day when he bent over to take her. The Hungarian St. Elizabeth, the patron saint of poor people. Isn't that perfect? I found it between the mattress and the slats while you were downstairs calling the police. I'd met Sandor Babin when he was painting the row house. I knew his family emigrated from Hungary and he was Dominik's cousin. He might as well have left his calling card.”

Lydia sank to her seat. She stared at the man she had been married to for almost forty years. She had remained married to Joe even when he plotted against a president, and afterward, when she worried about his involvement in the kidnapping. She had stayed with him, borne him a child, stood by his side on the campaign trail. And all the while he had been silently torturing her. He had never forgiven her for her sin, never assumed any blame for it. He had simply gotten even.

“You can't stay in the Senate,” she said at last.

“Have you lost your mind? Do you want to destroy everything we've both worked for?”

“Yes, I do. You're evil, and I won't let you spread your poison any further. Your heart attack was convenient, Joe. Now you can use it as an excuse when you resign. By then the public will know some of Hope's story. How much they know will depend on how quietly you go. If you fight me, if you try to stay on, I'll tell the world that you knew all along where Hope was, even when you were pleading with her kidnappers on camera.”

“No one will believe you.”

“Quite possibly. But then I'll tell them about your plans for President Kennedy, and no one will dispute that, because I have the documents. You know I do.”

He tried one more threat. “You've kept those documents hidden all these years. Any consequences to me will be yours by proxy. You'll be tarred by the same brush.”

Her smile felt precious and new, the first of a long line of smiles in the years she had left. The bleak years were over. The rest of her life was ahead of her.

“I have my daughters, Joe, and four grandchildren who need me. They don't have to elect me. I don't have to campaign. I just have to show up. I have everything I need and more than I ever knew I wanted, and I will
not
have
you
in my life. Because the day you resign from the Senate is the day I'll file for divorce.”

 

Pavel thought Washington was cold in December. He'd also known—on a theoretical level—that Toronto would be colder. He piled on layers, topping them with a jacket bought for the West Virginia ski slopes. But there weren't enough clothes in the world to make up for the biting Canadian wind. On the airplane a proud Torontonian had mentioned—gleefully—that Toronto was the battle zone for frigid Arctic air from the north and warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico.

Mother Nature had declared war, and Pavel was a pacifist.

The skies were dark by the time he made his way to the Park Hyatt in historic Yorkville, which was dressed in full regalia for the holiday. He was used to the hotel, since he always stayed there on business trips, and Karina lived near the university, which wasn't far away. He had gotten her address through a ruse, and he planned to use the same ruse when he called her.

He checked into his room and took a long, hot shower in the elaborate marble bathroom. Ten minutes into it he had thawed sufficiently to speak without stuttering. He dried and slipped on a robe, but he still didn't lift the receiver. Faith's final words before he left for the airport played and replayed in his mind.