Girl of Vengeance (20 page)

Dylan nodded. “I know,” he said in a tense voice. Then he exhaled, and in a slower, lower tone he said, “I know. In the meantime, what
can
I do?”

“I want you talk with O’Leary. Let him know what you can about what she knows, where she might go. You two were on the run for a short period—did you use cash? How did you communicate?”

“Cash, gift cards, burner phones. She can stay hidden if she wants, she knows how. But it’s dangerous out there.”

Alexandra sighed. “You’re forgetting Sarah’s with her.”

Dylan said, “Sarah’s a kid. They both are.”

“I wouldn’t underestimate either one of them, Dylan.”

“It’s not a question of underestimating them. You didn’t see the people who came after her, Alex. They were killers.” His voice was fierce, the tension behind his words as sharp as a straight-razor.

She closed her eyes. How was she ever going to get her husband back? It was as if the war had reached out and swallowed him back up, just like it did Ray. He was here, and completely alert and aware. But he wasn’t. As she watched him, she thought about the long months of recovery from his injuries. Walking, and later running beside him around Central Park as he healed his body. But healing his mind was another thing entirely. That wouldn’t be finished in a week or a month or a year. She could almost see he was on the edge of a meltdown.

Alexandra stood up and put her hands on his shoulders, effectively stopping him midstride.

“Dylan,” she said.

“Look, I just
can’t
not do—”

“Dylan!” she said. “
Stop.
She’s going to be okay. You can’t fix this. Please let it go.” Then she wrapped her arms around him as tight as she could.

For a second, he didn’t move. Then his shoulder sagged, and his arms wrapped around her, and he said, “I’m sorry. Shit. I’m sorry.”

They stood and swayed together for a few moments, slowly calming down. Then she stirred when she heard a throat clearing behind her.

Shit!
Prince George-Phillip was still standing there.

“Forgive me,” George-Phillip said.

“No … forgive me,” Dylan said. “I’m just not used to sitting around.”

George-Phillip gave him a disarming smile. “I understand completely. You’ve got a very smart woman here, Dylan. Listen to her.”

Dylan hung his head. “Yes, sir.”

“I really must step away,” George-Phillip said. “I promise I’ll let you know the moment I hear anything.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Alexandra said. She knew for Dylan words like that must be incredibly awkward, but she’d grown up around diplomats. Titles were routine. She waited for George-Phillip to leave, then turned back to Dylan.

“I love you, Dylan.”

“I love you,” he whispered back.

Carrie looked at the phone sitting on the table in front of her. Forty minutes before, she’d taken Rachel, who seemed to be running a slight fever, and put her down for her nap. Rachel was listless, and didn’t want to drink, which left Carrie with swollen and painful breasts. She’d pump in a few minutes, but right now she was trying to decide what to do about her cell phone. In the background, the television was turned to CSPAN, where Richard Thompson was live on television, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

She’d missed two phone calls while putting Rachel down. One from Sarah, who hadn’t come home the night before. She’d also sent a text message:
I’m with Andrea, headed west. Don’t worry about us.

The other call was from an unknown number, but the voicemail was from her mother.

She sighed and closed her eyes. Deal with Sarah first. She sat on the couch, tucking her feet under her and facing the silent television. The cameras were focused on Senator Chuck Rainsley, his grey hair looking white under the bright lights. When had she met with him? Two days ago? Three?

She wondered if Richard had been lying to her about Rainsley, or did her mother lie to him? Was he sitting there in front of that committee now, thinking that the man who had cuckolded him was the same man questioning him?

Carrie shrugged. The web of lies was so complicated that she had no idea what to think.

You were five before I knew. We’d already
…
bonded.

The subtext, of course, was that had he known she wasn’t his daughter, he would have shoved her aside, disregarded her, maybe sent her away
just like he did with Andrea.

Richard Thompson didn’t deserve this much of her attention. She picked up the remote and turned the television off, then dialed Sarah’s number.

The call went straight to voicemail. Of course. Carrie’s stomach twisted a little, realizing there was no putting this phone call off. She thought about the last time she’d seen her mother, five months ago. She’d never gone so long without seeing her, but they’d still spoken regularly. She’d never been close to her mother—a lifetime of hurt prevented that. But she’d never, ever forget how her mother had stood up for her at the hospital, how she’d hugged Ray and burst into tears when she learned of their secret marriage. She’d never forget those black days after he died, days when she couldn’t even get out of bed. Days when she wanted to die. Despite their painful past, their conflicts and sometimes their hate, her mother had been there for her and Sarah.

Her hand shook as she reached out and picked up the cell phone again. She dialed the unfamiliar number slowly, each digit heavier than the last, until it felt like she couldn’t possibly dial the last number. But then she did.

She put the phone to her ear, trying to ignore the twisted feeling in her stomach. She didn’t know the woman she was calling. Except that she’d suffered unspeakably, and Carrie—along with
all five
of her sisters—hadn’t known, hadn’t guessed, and for a lifetime they’d blamed her for it.

One ring. Then a second. Click. Then the voice she knew so well, high pitched, the very faint Spanish accent. “Hello? Carrie?”

Carrie’s throat closed and she leaned forward, left hand across her stomach. She tried to say something. Anything. But no words came out.

“Carrie? Are you all right?”

“Mother,” she whispered.

“Carrie, what’s wrong?”

“I’m so sorry,” Carrie whispered. Tears began running uncontrollably down her face.
Goddamn it!
She hadn’t meant to fall apart. “I’m so, so sorry, Mother.”

“What? Whatever for? Carrie, you must tell me what’s wrong.”

Carrie sniffed and blinked her eyes, rolling them up toward the ceiling to try to control the tears. But she couldn’t, they just kept coming. She felt desolate. She whispered, “Julia found the police report, Mother. And the pictures. From Valentine’s day.”

Her mother sucked in a breath, and Carrie spoke again. “She found the diary. We would never have looked at it, not in a million years, but you were
missing.
”

“
Madre de Dios,
” Adelina whispered.

Carrie said, “I didn’t know.
We
didn’t know. We thought … we thought you were … crazy. That you hated us. We thought … we thought
he
was the sane one.”

Adelina whispered, “All I ever wanted was to protect you.”

Carrie sobbed. “You did. You did the best you could. Mom … I met my father. My real father. He seems like a good man. He told me … about you two. About … what happened to you in Spain. It wasn’t perfect, Mom, but you
did
protect us. We just didn’t know. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I hated you.”

“Carrie, you don’t have to—”

“Please forgive me?” Carrie whispered.

“Of course. Carrie, you’re my daughter. I’m the one who … I’m the one who needs forgiveness. From all of you.”

“No,” Carrie said. “It’s…” She closed her eyes. Her mother sounded—she sounded as if the weight of her remorse would crush her. “I forgive you. You did the best you could, Mom. And … you don’t know how much it meant to me. After Ray died. You saved my life. I wanted to die. And you gave me the courage to go on.”

At the other end of the line, she heard her mother’s voice catch, then sniffing. More tears. She waited, taking a deep breath.

Carrie felt … empty. Drained. The tears still ran down her face, but they weren’t tears of grief. They weren’t the desolate, awful tears and emptiness and death she’d felt after Ray died. They were tears of … relief. Of redemption. Of … joy? She’d lost a lot … but she’d gained something too. A father she’d never known. And a mother she’d never known either.

Both of them took some time to pull themselves together. Adelina was the first to speak.

“So you met Prince George-Phillip? Where?”

“He’s in Washington, Mother. I don’t know exactly why, but I understand he had a meeting with the President.”

Silence at the other end of the line, except for her mother breathing.

“Mother, what is it?”

Her mother sniffed. Then she said, “I never stopped loving him, you know. I’d have given anything to have had a life with him. Except for you girls. That was the one price I couldn’t pay.”

Carrie closed her eyes. The tears threatened to overflow again. She thought about the unspeakable suffering her mother had been through. To protect her daughters. To protect
Carrie.
She whispered, “It’s not too late.”

In a sad voice, Adelina said, “I broke his heart, Carrie. Twice.”

Carrie closed her eyes. Then in as forceful a voice as she could muster, she said, “Mother. It’s
not
too late.”

Adelina sighed. Then she changed the subject. “Tell me—where are your sisters? I’ve been out of touch too long.”

“You first,” Carrie said. “How is Jessica?”

Adelina sighed. “She’s stable and in recovery. It was … you can’t imagine, Carrie. You’re a mother now … but to see your daughter go through that … she was addicted to meth, Carrie.”

Carrie sucked in a breath. “How?”

“Grief and neglect and the wrong crowd all at once. After she and Richard came back to San Francisco last fall he retreated to his study and more or less ignored her. What he didn’t know … what none of us knew … was that her girlfriend had killed herself.”

“Oh no,” Carrie gasped. “Which friend? Who?”

“Her girlfriend, Carrie. Jessica was in love with the poor girl.”

“Oh…” Carrie said.

Adelina sobbed, then said, “She was afraid to tell me. She thought I’d hate her because she was a lesbian. My own daughter. That’s how badly I’ve failed.”

“
You didn’t fail,”
Carrie said. “Mother … you didn’t. You’re human, and there’s only so much any of us could do. And … none of us were there for her. None of us.”

Abruptly Carrie remembered the Christmas before last. When she’d fallen in love with Ray (a stab of pain that they’d never celebrated Christmas together) and the morning when she’d gone downstairs and found her mother in tears.

Was I that terrible a mother to you girls?

Carrie remembered that she hadn’t been able to say anything reassuring. She’d merely said,
You’ve mellowed out a lot over the years.
As if that did anything but dig the wounds in deeper. A few minutes later, Adelina had said,
I know you’ve always watched out for your sisters, you’ve always tried to fix things for them. And I’m grateful for that ... especially ... during those times when I couldn’t be a good mother. You were a mother to them.

Carrie sighed. Now it all made sense, it made a kind of terrible and heartbreaking sense.

“So … Jessica fell in love. And the girl committed suicide. And she was all alone and got mixed up in drugs.” The prompt steered her mother back onto the subject.

Adelina began speaking again. “When I got out here I got her into therapy. But I didn’t realize how serious it was, until a few weeks ago. She came home late after going out without permission. She had blood on her forehead from a fall, and then she started vomiting. Carrie … I was … in a rage at first. Screaming at her. But then she had a seizure.”

With the last word, Adelina’s voice dropped to a tortured whisper and she continued. “She fell to the floor and her arms and legs were moving uncontrollably, and … it was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen. I called 911 and an ambulance came and got her to the emergency room.”

Carrie closed her eyes. That explained the scene Julia had described at the house. There simply hadn’t been time to clean up.

“Where are the rest of my daughters, Carrie?”

Carrie sighed. “Julia and Crank are staying at the condo with me for the time being, but Crank had to fly up to Boston this morning. The IRS has … well, they’ve frozen their assets. He went up there to pay their employees in cash, and Julia is here dealing with the IRS. She’ll be back this afternoon, I think.”

Adelina sighed then said, “I met the lead investigator from the IRS. He seemed reasonable.”

Carrie raised an eyebrow. “Really? When?”

“He left here a couple of hours ago.”

Carrie let out a breath and said, “I’ll let Julia know.”

“And the others?” Adelina asked.

“Well, Dylan is trapped at the British Embassy for the time being. So Alexandra is there with him. I don’t know how long that will last, though. The media picked up on it this morning. He … well, there’s no making it softer. When the condo was attacked on Friday, he killed two of the gunmen. One of them was a federal agent.”

As Carrie said the words, her eyes involuntarily darted to the hallway floor. The carpet had been ripped out there by the FBI forensics lab. She presumed because it had blood on it.

Adelina sighed. “That poor boy. He already had a heavy enough burden on his soul.”

Carrie whispered, “Yeah. He does. So that leaves Andrea and Sarah. Andrea
was
at the British embassy as well, but apparently last night she ran—jumped over the fence. George-Phillip called me this morning.”

“Why?” Adelina cried.

“I don’t know,” Carrie said. “But Sarah stole Eddie’s motorcycle and apparently picked up Andrea. Sarah sent me a text saying to not worry. But she didn’t answer when I called. I’ll try again as soon as I can.”

Carrie looked around and said, “It’s weird, really. Rachel’s asleep. It’s the first time I’ve been alone since last August. Since … well, since Ray died.”