Rare Find (27 page)

Ronin walked to her father's side and collected his empty plate. "Thank you. It was excellent, by the way." Loaded with dishes and silverware, Ronin headed to the kitchen.

Whew.
There were some times when people really should be alone.

This was that time for them. And he'd be happy to clean up. He'd seen the kitchen earlier, enough to know that Dennis was a decent cook and cleaned as he went, so whatever washing up that was left would be minimal.

Maybe by the time he was done, they'd have worked through their differences, and they could put their heads together to solve at least some of the problems facing them.

In fact, he wanted action. Not this damn waiting for something to happen. He'd found many leads, but there was nothing concrete. His mind went back to the mess at Tappet's house.

What had the person been looking for? The coroner had the book she'd found in Tappet's boot, but it was in code. She'd sent it to the lab. It would be analyzed, and if there was time, someone would try to decipher the code. All she'd added was that she'd seen a lot of WC listed. That meant nothing to anyone he'd asked. He'd already requested to have the pages scanned and sent to him. With any luck, they would be waiting for him when he logged onto his email.

That wasn't all. This was a busy and frustrating day. He'd already run Fez's name through the databases and come up with nothing.

So far the search for a Timothy, vet or pre-med student, was resulting in a huge list. He needed something to narrow it down. There were just too many to contact personally.

There were so many elements at play. The tiger on the black market connected to Tabitha. The break-ins at Exotic Landscape. The man on the video cameras. If he'd been wanting to release the lynx, why hadn’t he taken them?

If he hadn't wanted them, then why did he bother to cut the pen open?

"Maybe he put something into the pen?" he murmured to himself. Considering that idea, Ronin thought about all the things that could have been slipped into the pen without showing up on the surveillance camera. And dismissed the idea. The staff had searched the pens for the animals, and would have noticed anything majorly different.

He checked the time then called his brother.

"How's Tabitha doing?" Roman asked.

"She can't keep this up. Hell, she was slim before but now she's one step away from being gaunt."

"I can imagine." Through the phone, Ronin could hear his brother sigh. "Okay brother, what do you need?"

"Did you get the security system checked out on Exotic Landscape?"

"I did. There are some uncompleted sections, but that's all part of the new office expansion happening in the back of the building."

Had he heard anything about that? Ronin wasn't sure. "I don't think she wanted everything monitored. She's operating this as a reserve, not a zoo."

"Except she needs to bring in donations to keep the place running, and live web cams bring an audience. That brings in money." Roman continued. "But they also bring in the bottom feeders. These camera feeds clearly show where the animals are located."

Ronin ran his fingers through his hair. "There is decent security, strong fences and as much as most people might want to keep these animals, to go and stealing them is a much bigger step than most of the general public is willing to take."

"And that other level of the world already has suppliers for these animals." Roman's voice deepened. "I'm getting the feeling that the two incidents aren't related."

"So do I. And that just pisses me off. I'm not making any headway on finding Fez or figuring out how Tappet was connected to Tabitha's tiger."

"Black market specialist, Bruce Tappet? What's going on with him?"

Ronin brought his brother up to speed.

"So someone offed Bruce. No surprise there. He was working for Colby."

Ronin's gaze widened. "Winston Colby? Jesus, I forgot about him."

"You don't want to do that. Turn your back on that guy and you'll get you head cut off. "

That's when he remembered Tappet's code book and the multiple WC entries.

Monday late afternoon

T
abitha stared at her father, shocked, confused...and yes...she felt betrayed. How long had he kept this bottled up inside? Telling her years ago would have helped them both?

She'd been very close to her grandfather, but she'd turned to him because she had no one else. In her heart, she'd wanted her father. But he hadn't wanted her. That had been her belief.

With his disclosure, she felt her whole childhood being flipped. Her surety disintegrating.

He sat across from her, staring at her steadily. Those soft gray eyes willing to accept whatever judgement she'd placed on him.

What he must have gone through.

Her grandfather hadn't been an easy man. In fact he'd been damn hard. Unyielding. And no way in hell would he have accepted his son's sexual orientation.

But times had changed. At least for other people. For her grandfather, his best days had been while he was in the circus. He'd loved the life. Loved the people. When he left the circus community, he'd changed. Or maybe it had happened after Tabitha’s grandmother passed away. In recent years the animals were the only things he'd continued to love and he’d forever reminisced about the good old days.

If her father had grown up in today's world, he'd likely have found acceptance amongst his peers. Forty years ago, the phenomenon hadn't quite started.

"I'm sorry."

His gaze widened. That was obviously not what he'd expected to hear.

Then again, it was not what she'd expected to say.

She took a deep breath and clarified. "I'm sorry that grandfather felt so threatened that he couldn't accept the truth. I'm sorry you felt so threatened you couldn't share the truth with me. And...I'm sorry for me."

Then she added in a soft voice, "I spent a lot of my childhood wondering what was wrong with me that you didn't care enough to be around. What was wrong with me that I was so unlovable? I turned to animals, like Grandpa, because they loved me back. Unlike you."

A horrified sound ripped from his mouth. He leaned forward and covered Tabitha’s hands with his and said, "There's nothing wrong with you. You're perfect. You always have been."

"And yet Grandfather raised me. You were never here," she accused, pain rising to the surface. "Ever."

"I couldn't." So concise, so clean, so cold.

She sat back and closed her eyes. "Tell me."

In a halting voice, this man who ran million-dollar corporations shared how hard it was when he told his father. How he'd been kicked out. How he'd been forced to leave the animals he'd loved and never come back. How he'd tried to be straight. How he'd wanted to be normal. And for a little while, he succeeded. With her mother…

"Then your mother and I broke up. She left and I tried to go out with other girls." He traced the wood grain in the tabletop. "I drank a lot. Experimented with anything and everything. I'm not proud of what I did, but I was hurting, and I did everything that would dull the pain and make me forget what I was." He took a deep breath. "And finally I realized I was lying to myself. I was never going to be normal. And my sexual orientation was never going to be 'normal' as per my father's standards."

He turned to look back at her. "When your mother arrived with you, the long and short of it is she came to me with a three-month-old baby and said that you were my responsibility."

"She walked out of your life and my life that day, and I knew I was no more equipped to raise you than she was. I was a mess," he admitted. "And my lifestyle was not safe for a baby."

He settled back in his chair to stare out the window moodily. He let out a broken laugh, but there was no humor in it. "Can you imagine? And my life back then...I was living in a house with four other party animals. There was booze and girls and guys and drugs everywhere." He turned to glance over at her. "I planned to get my life together, but it would take time and I knew here was the one place where you'd be safe. Where you'd have someone to love you. And where I could still be in your life. So here you are." He waved an arm around the room. "And the place still looks the same today as it did back then."

Tabitha had let him talk uninterrupted. She didn't know what to say or what to think. So much of her history needed to be rewritten. She had no problems with her father's sexuality. His explanation made sense and answered a lot of questions.

But not all of them. "Why didn't you take me home with you later when you started sorting your life out?" She tried to keep the hurt out, but a lifetime of holding it all in was hard and now that the dam was breaking, she needed to hear the answers.

"That was your grandfather. He said I was unfit to raise you and now that you were under his care, you'd stay here. I could visit, but I'd never again have custody." He traced a knot in the wooden table, his face twisting with old memories. "Unfortunately, my uncle, your grandfather's brother, was there at the time. He'd been a major part of our lives when I was growing up. But at that time, they were having some kind of major disagreement. Maybe he wouldn't have been such a hardass then if his brother wasn’t around all the time feeding him venom. The thing is, once your grandfather set down rules, he never would reverse them." He shrugged as if shaking off the memories. As if he didn't care.

And she'd bet he'd cared a lot back then.

She didn't want to think about the legalities involved. Her grandfather had been a very interesting person. She had no memories of his brother. As far as she knew, he'd died when she was little. Her grandfather hadn't always been easy to live with, but there'd been one thing she'd never doubted. He'd loved her.

Maybe he'd needed her as much as she'd needed him. And maybe he'd felt as guilty over his son as his son felt over his own daughter.

Her grandfather had often spoken of his life in the circus, but never of his life with his son or any extended family. She'd had no idea if her father traveled with him or stayed elsewhere. Or had he come along later? She dredged through her memory banks, trying to figure out what she knew about her grandmother, and realized she was coming up blank. Just bits and pieces from her grandfather's stories.

"You aren't saying much."

Startled, she pulled herself back to the conversation. And him. She studied the uncertainty in his gaze, the tension around his mouth. This had to be hard for him. And liberating. For that she was glad. But she could do so much more. "For the record...I don't have a problem with you being gay. I want you to be happy." She smiled tentatively. "I just want you to be in my life."

His gaze warmed as she spoke. He tilted his head. "You can't possibly think I don't love you?"

She snorted. "As much as you're capable of, maybe. But from my perspective, there hasn't been very much of your love thrown my way. If you'd told me this a long time ago, it would have been much easier for both of us." She sighed. "I could have told you a long time ago that it didn't matter to me. That I loved you as you were."

"I couldn't," he admitted softly. "That was a promise I was forced to give my father. To never tell you. To never poison you with my twisted, perverted lifestyle."

"Ouch," she murmured. "He was very strong in what he believed was right and wrong."

"His version of it."

"And is that why you are finally telling me? He's dead and gone and can't judge you anymore?"

"I no longer need his permission." He smiled. "But I made a promise to him and I couldn't break it while he lived."

"That had to have been difficult," she murmured.

"The hardest thing was he wouldn't let you stay with me when you were younger because you might be influenced by me and my ‘sordid’ lifestyle."

She shook her head, her heart sad. "He missed out on so much."

"And so did I." Her father's voice thickened suspiciously. "And I have to ask: Has this happened too late?"

There was sheen to his eyes and she felt the answering moisture in her own eyes. God, what he had been through. What she'd been through. Because of a judgmental old man who couldn't handle his own fears. She'd loved her grandpa and that would never change, but he'd done his son wrong. She strongly believed there was plenty of love to go around. It was so sad that these two strong men hadn't believed in themselves or in each other.

And it was well past time for this to be cleared up. And laid to rest.

There was an uprising of emotion. A welling of pain bubbling up and over...to dissipate under the gift of acceptance. An ache from an old wound she'd barely recognized, having lived with it so long...began to ease.

And a freedom she hadn’t recognized before as having been denied...opening.

She smiled. "Hello, Dad. Welcome to our new life together."