Set the Night on Fire (26 page)

C
asey didn’t want to stay, but he didn’t want to leave either. He didn’t know what to do. Neither did Rain. Dazed and subdued, they stayed in the ER waiting room. Finally, Casey checked the time. It was after seven in the evening. They’d been at the hospital over eight hours. He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his thighs.

“I should go up and see the babies.”

“What’s going to happen to them?” Rain asked.

“I don’t know,” he said bleakly. He stood up. “Coming?”

Rain shook her head. “I’m going home.”

“Rain, please stay.”

She played with a strand of her hair, uncertain. “I don’t know the first thing about babies. They make me nervous.”

“You don’t have to do anything. I just don’t want to be alone. Please stay.”

Reluctantly, she nodded. They went up to the nursery. The babies lay in their tiny bassinets, oblivious to the fact that both their parents were gone. Alix had named the boy Daniel, and the girl, Lila. Casey waved to the night nurse, who gazed at him with a sad expression. She knew. Probably everyone in the hospital knew. In a way that was good. He didn’t have the energy to explain.

Casey gave baby Lila a bottle, watching how greedily she sucked down the formula. She had dark hair, and lots of it. From Dar, of course. The nurses said lots of hair on an infant was good luck. He brushed his fingers across her cheek. Daniel was as bald as Dwight Eisenhower. The nurses had said every baby looks like Ike. He remembered how he and Alix had giggled. It was just last week, he thought. A lifetime ago.

“See, this is what you do. You just . . . ,” Casey said to Rain when Lila finished her bottle. He was rubbing tiny circles around the baby’s back the way the nurses had taught him. He stopped when he heard noises outside the nursery.

The doors to the room swung open, and a big man swooped in. He was trailed by several men who looked like FBI agents, and another man whose white coat indicated that he was a doctor or hospital official. The big man’s eyes swept the room as he made his way to the nurse in charge, but when he spoke his voice was surprisingly soft.

“I’m Sebastian Kerr,” he said to the nurse. “I want to see the infants. Now.”

The nurse waited a beat, as if to say he might be important, but his authority didn’t extend to her nursery. Then she looked at the man in the white coat who’d come in with Kerr. When he nodded, the nurse motioned to Casey. “Over there,” she said quietly.

Kerr turned around, his eyes taking in the room. When his gaze landed on Casey, Casey felt his cheeks get hot. He got up and handed the baby to one of the nurses, then went over. Rain came with him.

“Mr. Kerr, I’m Casey Hilliard.”

Casey was five ten, and Kerr towered over him. “Do you have some connection to my daughter?”

“We . . . we’re roommates. We live . . . lived together.” Casey motioned to Rain. “She does, too.”

“The last man I saw her with was tall and dark. An unemployed bum. Who are you?”

Casey tried to restrain his anger. “I’m her . . . a close friend.”

“Does that mean you slept with her, too?”

Rain’s mouth opened. “You can’t talk that way, Mr. Kerr. You have no right . . . ”

Kerr turned to Rain. His voice was soft but his tone was rock hard. “I have every right. She was my daughter.”

Rain’s fury exploded. “But you’re implying she’s . . . that she was . . . that we don’t know who the father is. That’s not true.”

“Young lady,” Kerr said, as if a lady was the last thing he considered Rain to be, “frankly, I don’t care who the father was. Or is. Those babies should never have been . . . conceived.”

Casey flashed back to the tiny mobiles Alix had ordered for the cribs. He’d gone with her up to Lazar’s, the baby furniture store on Devon, to shop for them. “Mr. Kerr, you have no idea how much your daughter loves . . . wanted them. These babies were the only thing she cared about.”

Kerr wheeled around. “Alixandra didn’t know what she wanted. Or what was best for her. And now it’s too late . . . So if you’ll excuse me. I’ve seen enough.” He started toward the entrance and turned to the official in the white coat. “All right, here’s what we’re going to do.” He lowered his voice, and Casey couldn’t hear what he was saying.

As Kerr and his retinue left, Casey’s stomach knotted into a ball of rage. Rain was so angry she started to stalk out too.

“Where are you going?” Casey asked.

“To smoke a cigarette.”

“You don’t smoke.”

“I do tonight.”

Twenty minutes later, Rain was back. Casey finished giving Danny his bottle, but when the nurse took the baby from him, she avoided making eye contact.

“What’s wrong?”

The nurse shook her head.

Casey frowned. “Carla, something happened . . . I can tell. What is it?”

Finally she peered at Casey with a gloomy expression. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, okay?” the nurse whispered. “He claims you’re not the twins’ father. And have no rights over them . . . or the mother. He’s planning to airlift the mother’s body out of here tomorrow. He rented a private jet.” She paused. “The twins will not be going with him.”

“What?”  Casey’s voice cracked.

Rain’s jaw dropped. “He can’t do that!”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.” The nurse settled Danny in his bassinet. Casey and Rain lurched back into the hospital corridor.

Rain dug her fingers into Casey’s arm. “We’ve got to stop this. What’s going to happen to them? We have to do something!”

“What, Rain?” Casey felt desperate. “What can we do? The man is a monster.”

Rain looked past him. “Casey…”

But Casey wasn’t listening. “A monster who’s out to ruin their lives.”

“Casey.” Rain grabbed his arm, her voice insistent.

He turned around. Sebastian Kerr was standing in the corridor just behind them. Casey wondered if Kerr had heard him. He didn’t care.

Kerr stood against the wall, arms folded. “We will be flying my daughter’s body back to Indiana tomorrow morning. We will not be taking the infants.”

“If Alix knew, she would never forgive you.”

Kerr dropped his arms. For a moment, the shell of his face cracked and a shadow of something almost compassionate passed over him. “Alix was young. She had her entire life ahead of her.” Then Kerr’s face closed, and his features resumed their cold fury. “Believe me, some childless couple will be thrilled to have twin newborns. Unless they are separated, in which case, two couples will be blessed.”

“You can’t abandon your grandchildren. They’re your heirs.”

“They are not my grandchildren. They are bastards. That is not a burden my family needs to shoulder.”

“God damn you!” Casey’s fury spiked. “They’re Alix’s children. Not yours. I won’t let them be thrown in the trash like yesterday’s newspaper. I . . . I’ll take them myself.”

Kerr’s eyebrows shot up. “Do you know what you’re saying?”

Casey nodded defiantly.

“Are you prepared to say you’re their father?”

“Would it make a difference?”

“Are you?”

There was no time to think about it. Casey sucked in a breath. “Yes, I am their father, damn you.”

“And your name will go on their birth certificate?”

“That’s right.”

Kerr didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “You’re a fool.” He leaned in so close that Casey felt Kerr’s breath on his face. “I don’t know who you’re protecting,” he said softly, “or why. Or if any of this is tied to the bomb that destroyed my daughter. And my store.” Kerr straightened. “But as for the infants . . . if you take them with the self-indulgent hope that you will one day make a claim on my estate, or reveal whose babies these are, let me tell you what will happen. You—and your girl friend . . . ,” he motioned toward Rain, “will be arrested and charged with the explosion at my store. As well as the murder of two security guards and my daughter.”

“You can’t! I . . . we had nothing to do with the bomb!”

Kerr stared at Casey.

“We weren’t there. You have no evidence.”

“Are you sure?”

Casey’s insides churned. He thought about the FBI agents who’d come to the apartment. Had they taken something besides the photos? Somehow slipped something into their pockets that would incriminate him and Rain? It was possible.

Kerr looked as if he knew what was going through Casey’s mind. “You understand, of course, that there is no statute of limitations on murder.”

Who would raise Alix’s babies if he was arrested or—God forbid—prosecuted?  Casey saw a dark hole opening up with everything he knew and loved slipping inexorably into it. Dar. Rain. The babies. Alix. His future. All because he wanted to do the right thing.

“I understand,” he said softly.

“Good.” Kerr cleared his throat. “Now, I am not an unreasonable man. In return for your silence, I am prepared to write you a significant check which can be put toward the welfare of the infants.”

“I don’t want your money.”

“Again, I ask are you sure?”

“I don’t want a goddamned dime from you.”

“The more fool you.” Kerr sighed. “But, if that is the case I believe our conversation is now over.”

Kerr gave him a cold smile and started down the hall. Casey watched until he was out of sight.

* *

Two weeks later Rain lifted her knapsack onto her shoulders.

“Is that it?” Casey asked. She didn’t have much more than she’d come with.

“I travel light.”

“You’ll keep in touch?”

“Sure,” she said.

Casey didn’t believe her. He looked around the apartment one more time. The furniture was still there, and the utensils, but Rain had packed up Alix’s things and donated them to the Salvation Army. Casey did the same with the few things Dar, Teddy, and Payton had left behind.

“When are you leaving?” she asked.

“As soon as the twins can travel.”

“Wilmette isn’t that far.”

He didn’t answer.

“Do they know? Your parents?”

“Not yet.”

“Are you sure about this, Casey? You’re taking on a huge responsibility.”

He smiled. “Surer than anything I’ve ever done.”

“Well then, I guess this is it.” She shuffled toward Casey and awkwardly put her arms around him. Casey hugged her. He looked away so she wouldn’t see his face. “Alix was right, you know.”

He drew back. “How?”

“You’re a connector, Casey. You brought us all together. And now . . . ”

“It wasn’t me. It was her.”

“Believe what you want. But I know the truth.” Her hand brushed his cheek. She went through the door, letting it close it behind her.

Casey heard Rain clatter down the stairs. The downstairs door squeaked as it opened, and he heard the hum of traffic outside. He waited a moment, then followed her out to the pay phone around the corner. He dialed the hospital’s number, talked to a nurse, then hung up. He dropped another dime in the slot and dialed a familiar number.

“Mom? It’s Casey.”

“Oh my god!”

“I’m coming home. Tonight. And I have a surprise for you.”

Part Three

The Present

* * * *

L
ila Hilliard didn’t believe Dar. She was still woozy from the painkillers Cece had given her—maybe she had misheard. People living together in a commune. Working for the “Movement.” Innocent lovers torn apart by events beyond their control. The death of one at the hand of the other. On some level, it sounded like a hippie version of Romeo and Juliet. With her father as the arch-villain. And yet she felt a tenuous connection to the story, as though questions she’d never articulated, but had been gnawing at her, were finally being addressed.

If it was the truth.

She forced herself to focus. She trusted numbers, not people. People lied. Shaded the truth for their own agendas. She didn’t know either Gantner or Cece. She had no reason to trust them. Especially if he was the one who killed her mother. If she wasn’t injured, she’d probably try to run away from them before he killed her, too.

On the other hand, why would he have told her a preposterous sounding story if he wanted to do her harm? In fact, now that she was thinking about it, this man, father or not, murderer or not, had saved her life. Didn’t that warrant a fair hearing?

She blinked several times. “My father . . . ,” she said. “It’s Casey’s name on my birth certificate. Not yours. How did that happen?”

Lila wasn’t sure whether Dar was surprised by her question or grateful that she hadn’t dismissed him altogether. “Your father  . . . Casey . . . ,” he said, “was my best friend. He was also the most honorable man I’ve ever known. At the time, putting his name on your birth certificate was the right thing to do. For your mother . . . and the two of you.”

“But why didn’t he ever say anything about it? And why did he tell me her name was Alice Monroe, not Alix Kerr?”

“To protect you.”

“Why?”

He hesitated before answering. “Your grandfather—Sebastian Kerr—didn’t want anyone to know that you and Danny were his daughter’s children. He put Casey in a no-win situation.”

“But there had to be other people who knew the truth.”

“There were. The six of us in the apartment knew. And Bobby.” He explained who Bobby was. “And your grandparents. Alix’s brother, Philip, too. But Rain and Casey were the only ones around when you were born. And once Casey decided to keep you, he probably never said another word about it to anyone. ”

“Even to my grandmother?”

“Even her.”

A wave of confusion washed over Lila. Coming so soon after her father—Casey—and Danny’s deaths, this was too much. She couldn’t absorb it. Either Dar was lying, which made him no better than a con man, or he was telling the truth, which made him a monster. “How do you know all this? Why should I believe you?”

Dar swallowed and lowered his head for a moment. Then he looked up and took a breath. “Because it’s the truth.”

Lila fell back against the pillows, recalling a dim memory from her childhood. She’d awakened from a bad dream one night and went down to her father’s office to be comforted. The door was closed. She could hear her father’s muffled voice, “No. We can’t do that.”

She opened the door. He was standing, the phone in his ear, an anguished expression on his face. Now she realized it was fear, but at the time, she only knew whatever it was made her uncomfortable.

That night was one of the few times her father had ever been sharp with her—he’d told her to go back to bed and stop snooping. She thought she’d done something terribly wrong and crept up the steps, humiliated. He came up a few minutes later to apologize, but he never said to whom he’d been talking or why. Did that conversation have something to do with his secrets?

Still.

She refocused on Dar. “Even if it’s the truth, why should I trust you? Or forgive you? You killed my mother.”

A shadow passed over Dar’s eyes. He kept his mouth shut.

“Well?”

“You’re right,” he said slowly, a look of pain clearly etched on his face. “I’ve had to live with that for forty years.”

“How did it happen?”

Dar was quiet.

“You owe me,” Lila said.

Cece, who was standing behind him, squeezed his shoulder. He twisted around. She nodded. He turned back to Lila and took a breath.

“I went to see your mother right after you were born. You were still in the hospital, you’d been born prematurely. I didn’t know that, of course. I just wanted to say goodbye. To all of you. But . . . ” His eyes filled. “Alix—your mother—wouldn’t let go. She begged me to stay. She wanted to work it out. I couldn’t. I told her. So I left. I took the El down to the store. The thing was . . . ” He bit his lip. “She followed me. I didn’t know until I saw her dart into the alley, right before the blast went off. She started running toward the van. I was across the street with Payton. I wanted to run after her, but there wasn’t enough time. She got caught by the full blast of the explosion.”

No one said anything.

“So, yes. Because of my recklessness, I killed the only good thing I’d ever had in my life. Until now.”

Lila stiffened. He couldn’t woo her with words, no matter how prettily he made them. “If I weren’t injured and weak, I’d get away from you as fast as I could. You destroyed my family. What makes you think I want anything to do with you?”

“I understand. I don’t expect anything from you. But I needed to try.”

“Try what?”

“To save you.”

“From what?”

“Whoever’s trying to kill you.” He hesitated. “I think I know who it is.”

“Who?”

“One of the men who planned and detonated the bomb with me.” He paused. “Senator Ted Markham,” he said softly. “The man who’s running for president.”

* *

Maybe that was why she and Danny always felt so unsettled, Lila thought the next morning as she came awake. If Dar Gantner was telling the truth, the detachment she’d always felt—the feeling of skating around the periphery of life—was not just the deprivation of a lonely, motherless child but a biological reality. She really was a separate being, not part of Casey Hilliard’s DNA.

They said children sometimes had a sixth sense about those things, and despite the blanket of security which Casey and Gramum had thrown over them, she must have felt it. Danny, too. Her brother had dealt with it through drugs and booze; she’d coped by over-achieving, dismissing her isolation as the result of some deep-seated character defect. She lay in bed, trying out her new knowledge. Knowing she hadn’t been crazy all those years was, in an odd way, satisfying.

The murmur of voices floated upstairs. “We can’t stay here indefinitely,” Cece was saying.

“You don’t like sleeping on the couch?” Dar replied.

“Come on. You know what I mean. Whoever lobbed that grenade is still gonna be after her. They have to know she’s disappeared—her picture’s all over the news. Everyone—the police, ATF, and God knows who else, is looking for her. Unless you’re prepared to explain it to the world, we need to leave.”

“The cops will never believe me. Especially since it was an explosion. They’ll yank my parole faster than you can say ‘hand grenade.’ Which means whoever planned this knew who they were dealing with. They wanted me to be implicated.”

A guilty realization hit Lila. Despite her ambiguous feelings about the man, her presence was complicating his life. She thought about getting up and leaving. Maybe she should go to the police herself and explain what happened. They’d believe her.

Except Dar had a point. The only person she could identify at the scene was him. With his track record, they’d never believe he’d saved her. They might even think he’d flip-flopped—tried to kill her, and when he realized she was still alive, pretended to save her instead. The same thought had crossed her mind.

She bit her lip. She wasn’t sure how she felt about Dar Gantner, but there was another problem. The cops couldn’t—or wouldn’t—protect her from Teddy Markham. Who in their right mind would believe a presidential candidate was trying to kill her? They might even press charges against her. Could you be charged with making reckless accusations against a public figure? And, in the unlikely event they did give her any credence, they’d probably tell her to hire a bodyguard, like the Chicago police did the night Enduro Man shot at her on the Gold Coast.

She lay back, feeling helpless and weak and frustrated.

Cece’s voice cut into her thoughts, “ . . . Well, then . . . we don’t have a choice.”

“Can she travel?”

“Her injuries are mostly superficial. She should be able to.” There was a pause. “You have someplace we can go?”

“Yes.”

* *

Cece drove west on I-90 under a flinty sky. Lila was propped in the back seat surrounded with pillows and blankets. A gusty wind threatened to push the black Honda across lanes, and even though traffic was light, Cece kept both hands on the wheel. When Lila cracked the window, the air pressure inside the car changed, and her ears popped. She rolled it back up.

Dar looked back at her. “You okay?”

Lila nodded.

He nodded, too.

 “Why did you do it?” she asked. “The bomb?”

He took his time answering. “Because I didn’t say no.”

Lila felt her expression harden.

“I know that isn’t much of an answer. The others had already planned it. I probably could have dissuaded them. But I didn’t try.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t care by that point. Your mother and I were finished. The Indian boy we’d been taking care of was dead. Nothing mattered. I was even thinking about suicide.” He hesitated. “It’s a family tradition.”

Lila tilted her head.

“My father—your other grandfather—hung himself.”

 “I’m sorry.” She paused. “But this was your girlfriend’s father’s store. The mother of your children. How could you betray her like that?”

“I didn’t see it in those terms. I thought I was striking a blow against the capitalist system. I assumed we’d be caught, but we’d go out in a blaze of glory. And usher in a tiny part of the apocalypse. In retrospect, it was incredibly reckless and selfish. And narcissistic. But when you’re young, you don’t think about the consequences. At least I didn’t.” He focused on her. “One thing, though. I never intended to kill anyone. You have to believe that. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone in the store that night. And I certainly didn’t know that your mother was in the alley.”

Lila hugged her chest. She didn’t know what to believe. “Was . . . was  . . . my father involved?”

 “No. Your father wasn’t political to begin with, and he’d dropped all his activities by then.”

“Who was?”

“It was mostly Payton. Although Teddy became more enthusiastic.” A faraway look came over Dar. “It was Teddy who found the VW van we ripped off. And filed off the VIN so it couldn’t be traced. Except they did, anyway. He didn’t realize the number was also mounted on the engine block.”

“Why were you the only one charged? The only one who went to jail?”

“After the blast, I ran off to Colorado. To an abandoned town called Lanedo. Payton and Teddy were the only two people in the world who knew where I’d gone. One of them must have told the feds where I was because they found me pretty quickly. When they did, I figured they’d already picked up the other two. It was only after they arrested me and no one else surfaced that I realized what I was up against.”

“Which was . . . ”

“Let’s just say I realized powerful interests were aligned against me. The system wasn’t going to work in my favor. That’s one of the reasons I pled guilty.”

“What happened to Payton and Teddy?”

“Payton went underground . . . so far off the grid no one ever found him.”

“For forty years?”

“About seven years ago I got a letter from Rain saying he’d resurfaced. That he’d changed his name to William Kent and was teaching school in New Mexico.”

“Why didn’t you tell the authorities? There’s no statute of limitations on murder.”

“I never got the chance.”

“Why not?”

“He died in a car accident a few weeks later.”

Lila was quiet. Then, “What about Teddy?”

“Teddy?” A small smile played on his lips. “Teddy went to law school. Became a DA. Got elected Senator. Decided to run for president.”

“So he was the one who set you up.”

“Rain always suspected Teddy was an informer. I didn’t want to believe it. But yes, Teddy set me up.”

“You spent forty years in jail because of him.”

“No.” He swallowed. “I spent forty years in jail because I detonated a bomb that killed three innocent people. Including your mother. It’s just that Teddy and Payton didn’t do the time with me.”

She shook her head. “How can you go on knowing he got away? He . . . he robbed you of your life. Climbed on your back to get ahead. If he was capable of that forty years ago, what’s he going to do if he’s elected president?”