Sins of the Father (34 page)

They were.

My emotions weren’t as easy to predict as
the confrontation brewing on the horizon. The old friend, that
red-black murderous rage boiled in my veins long before Johnny
pulled the Expedition into the garage.

“Helen,” he said softly, “please try to
remember that you hid the truth from Crevan too.”

“What?”

“I know you’re very angry with him right
now, because he may have known the truth longer than you did, but
you didn’t exactly rush right out to share the news with him either
after Maya confirmed what you suspected. The bottom line is that
he’s your brother. Forget that he’s my best friend for a minute and
try to consider how you’ll feel if you lose Crevan because you’re
pissed off.”

“I never said –”

He squeezed my hand so tightly that I
winced. “You didn’t have to say it. I know you. I think I recognize
the look that scared the hell out of Tony Briscoe when I see
it.”

The pendulum swung the opposite direction.
Moisture leaked from my eyes again.

“We’ll get to the bottom of why he kept this
to himself, Helen. I already know why you didn’t want him to
know.”

“You do?” I sniffled mightily. “Maybe you
should enlighten me, because I don’t think I’m sure anymore.”

“At first, you were afraid that Wendell was
part of your infant abduction,” Johnny’s voice dipped achingly low.
“It’s pretty clear that after you liberated him from Attica,
keeping the truth suppressed protected what really happened to
Wendell. God forbid anybody start digging into his history all over
again. They might start asking questions about that visitor he had
the last day he spent in prison.”

I nodded and shook a few more tears
loose.

“Add to that, I’d say that the last person
in the world you want butting into our life is Aidan Conall.”

The sob choked in my throat, not just
because every word Johnny said was true, but because once again, he
proved to me that he knew me better than I apparently know
myself.

“At this point, doesn’t it make the most
sense to find out what made Crevan keep this secret to himself too?
I highly doubt that his reasons mirror yours at all.”

Of course they wouldn’t. How could they?
Despite the fact that Crevan and I shared a kinship almost from the
very beginning, he didn’t really know me. He certainly didn’t know
my father, but what was common knowledge had to make him suspect
who was behind my abduction.

“Helen?”

“I’m all right,” I sucked in a steadying
breath. “And you’re right, as usual. I guess part of me wanted to
protect Crevan because I thought he was in complete denial.”

“We both did,” Johnny’s jaw muscle ticked
over clenched teeth.

“He convinced Tony too.” Another random
thought popped into my head. Maybe this propensity for being a
great liar was genetic after all.

“I know. Then again, Tony didn’t realize
that his partner was gay either.”

“I want answers,” I said softly. “I need to
know why he lied to me. If that means I have to tell the truth
about Dad –”

“Helen, you will not confess to anybody that
Wendell is still alive. If we have to fudge the facts, then we’ll
tell them that I found you before you had the opportunity to
question him yourself, that you wouldn’t have made it to him before
he died anyway.”

“I can’t do that! What if Crevan has already
made up his mind to pin this on my father? I will not sit by and
pretend that I don’t know that Marie was behind the whole
thing!”

“We already have enough evidence to prove
that, sweetheart. Let’s not forget that we’ve connected the human
trafficking ring to Sanderfield and Henderson, and it’s a short
leap from him to Marie. That and the fact that your father’s former
sergeant already verified that Wendell kicked Marie out when he
found out she was pregnant and was on the job the night she
allegedly gave birth to you in Poughkeepsie, excludes him from the
plot that resulted in your abduction.”

I lifted Johnny’s hand to my cheek and
pressed it against damp flesh firmly. “Thank you. Thank you for
believing that I told you the truth about Dad.”

“There’s one aspect to all of this that I
don’t think you or Crevan have considered,” Johnny said.

“What?”

He pulled his hand free and smoothed it
through my hair. “He doesn’t know Wendell, Helen. But I met him. In
that brief period of time, and what I’ve come to understand about
his motives since then, there’s no way I would ever believe that
your father is an evil man. Everything he did, no matter how
illegal it was in the eyes of the law, he had justification. I’m
pretty sure that I could’ve seen his side of it every single time,
even though I would’ve made different choices. We both would do
anything to protect you, Helen.
Anything
.”

My mouth opened, but before words could
form, knuckles rapped the window behind me. I turned. Devlin’s
serious gaze met mine. “Are we interrupting?”

“We’d better get inside, Helen,” Johnny
said.

Crevan was pacing behind the SUV when I slid
out and looked past Dev’s shoulder.

“Crevan, let’s start talking,” Johnny said
sternly. He might not be the commander of OSI anymore, but he
hadn’t lost the authoritative tone.

He nodded and followed us into the
house.

I was digging through the freezer when I
felt all eyes impaling me. “What? I’m the one who needs to offer an
explanation here?”

Crevan let loose. “If you knew about this,
you could’ve told me, Helen.”

The notion of a strawberry shake evaporated
into the rich irony. “
I
could’ve told
you
? Exactly
how long have you known, Crevan? And why didn’t you say something
to
us
?”

His eyes roved from me to Johnny. “Did she
rush to tell you when she found out?”

Johnny cursed under his breath.

“I guess that answers one question. How long
have you known?”

“Since Maya told him,” I said. “Christ, I
only went to her with my suspicions because I needed scientific
proof.”

“You tested my DNA?” Crevan’s pitch rose
with anger.

“Hold on a second,” Devlin interrupted. “How
about we start at the beginning so those of us, namely me, without
any back story know what the hell is going on here.”

“She’s my twin sister,” Crevan said softly.
Our eyes met again, the first moment that either one of us had
blurted out the truth to the other so clearly. At least I knew that
we were both on the same page.

“What? How the hell did either one of you
figure this –”

“Devlin, not now,” I said. “I want to know
how long you’ve known, Crevan. Why did you let Tony believe that
you accepted that ridiculous lie your father told as gospel truth
for all these years when you knew it was a lie?”

He shrugged. “He’s my dad, Helen. Don’t tell
me you haven’t ever accepted a lie from yours because of no other
reason than who he was.”

My chest expanded while my brain struggled
to find patience. “My father never lied to me. Every time I asked
him for the truth, he gave it to me.”

“Every time?”

“That I asked, yes.”

Crevan’s eyes narrowed. “So you simply never
asked him certain things.”

“I know my father committed crimes,” I
snapped. “Jesus, it’s not like he wasn’t serving life in prison,
Crevan. It’s also on record that I never had contact with him from
the time of his arrest forward.”

“So you didn’t have the opportunity to ask
him why he abducted you from the hospital when you were born?”

I felt the room tilt. Johnny wrapped his arm
around my waist. “Crevan, knock it off. We already know that
Wendell had no knowledge of how Helen came to be his daughter. And
even if he ever learned the truth over the course of her life, it
never had any impact on how much he loved her.”

“How do we know that’s the truth, Johnny?
How do we know that his old pal the desk sergeant wasn’t just
covering for him? This man was a criminal of the highest order. He
probably had an existing network of people loyal to him who’d have
done anything, lied, stolen, cheated, you name it, up until the day
he died.”

Clearly Crevan understood my father. Dad did
have such a network. He’d obviously been in contact with someone
other than Johnny after our chat, or he wouldn’t have been able to
facilitate his death for the record so easily. Tiny fingers of
doubt leeched through my heart. What if Dad did lie to me? The
officer at Attica told me
two
cops had visited him. What if
the other hadn’t been FBI as I assumed? Suddenly I felt a burning
need to talk to David.

“What we know about Wendell’s crimes is
suspect,” Johnny argued. I watched the veins in his neck distend
and pulse. “And we also know for a fact that this Jersey Third Eye
business was Marie Henderson’s brain child, not Wendell’s. He was
never convicted for anything the authorities suspected he may have
actually done.”

I felt my forehead scrunch. “Exactly how
much digging have you done into Daddy’s history, Johnny?”

“More than you could imagine,” Devlin said.
“Helen, I think you should sit down.”

Chapter 32

Nothing short of Johnny pinning me into a
chair with the full weight of his body would’ve made me sit. I
paced the length of the family room. “So, all of this bullshit
about investigating Marie was a lie. You’ve really been digging
into Dad’s past.”

“Helen, it’s not what it sounds like,”
Johnny offered up the first of many lame statements designed to
placate me.

“Isn’t it, Johnny? Tell her the truth. We
know that he was implicated in a number of missing children cases
–”

I shut Crevan up with little more than a
glare. “And how many of those children had an increased life
expectancy, not to mention a vastly improved quality of life
because
somebody
intervened and put them in better homes?
And suspicion isn’t proof, either, Crevan. Considering what an
asshole your father is, who’s to say that I wasn’t
rescued
rather than abducted?”

“Helen,” Johnny warned with a single
word.

“No, let’s talk about this. Let’s talk about
why he’s so hot to protect a man that treats him like shit because
he’s gay, a man so horrible that he lied about
me
to try to
browbeat Crevan into being more butch!”

“Well, we all know I could never
out-butch
you, Helen,” Crevan mocked my outrage with some
barbs of his own.

I rolled my eyes. “Is that why you didn’t
tell me what you knew? You’re jealous because I’m the tough kid
your dad always wanted you to be.”

“You’re certainly a lot more like him than I
–”

“Enough!” Johnny bellowed. He snagged my arm
and pushed me into the corner of the sofa. “Sit, shut up and
listen. Both of you. Do not speak unless I’ve asked you a direct
question.”

I swallowed hard, but thought twice about
defying his order. Johnny’s recent anger toward me was a little too
fresh in my memory.

“Crevan, did you know for sure that Helen
was your long lost sister?”

He muttered a curse. “Not until I saw her
with Mom today. It was pretty hard to miss.”

“Granted, there was an unmistakable
resemblance, particularly when they were side by side. Except for
Helen’s height,” he said. “How long did you suspect?”

“Since the night she arrived in Darkwater
Bay,” Crevan said.

“What?” I gasped. Johnny held up one
hand.

“And what did you do about it, Crevan?”

He shrugged. “A little digging into her
background.”

“Meaning what exactly?” Johnny asked.

“Date of birth, location, parent’s names
–”

“You knew about Dad before I told anybody
the truth?” Unbelievable! My anger burned brighter.

“Helen, I will not tell you to be quiet
again,” Johnny said. He turned back to Crevan. “Well, did you know
that Wendell was alive and for the most part well in upstate New
York?”

He nodded. “It was pretty obvious to me why
Helen preferred to think of him as dead. I envied that convenient
delusion.”

“Except I loved –”

Johnny glared, and I snapped my mouth
shut.

“I also understood why, Helen,” Crevan said.
“What with your history at the FBI, your career in law enforcement,
I couldn’t imagine that you’d want it to be common knowledge that
your dad was alive. In fact, I was content to let you pretend with
everyone that he was the father you idolized and that he simply
died when you were very young. Like I said, I envied you. I
couldn’t very well fob off the dead father story when he’s
tormenting a pretty vocal demographic in Darkwater Bay,
specifically
my people
in Downey.”

Damn him. Crevan knew how to tug a little
sympathy out of the heart that wanted nothing more than to be
hardened.

“Why did you let Tony believe that you
bought Aidan’s story of the dead brother?” Johnny shook his head in
confusion.

“He’s still my dad, Johnny. Would you want
to admit to anybody that your father was a big game-playing liar? I
doubt it. Besides, he’s got more money than God, which tends to buy
loyalty if not credibility. The only person who would’ve looked
like shit for calling Dad on his lies was me.”

“Except it’s a matter of record that your
sister – that Helen was abducted from Saint Mary’s the night the
two of you were born,” Devlin said. “And none of this explains
why
you thought Helen might be your twin sister the night
you met her. Granted, the resemblance between the two of you became
pretty obvious when she chopped off all her hair, but other than
that –”

“Jesus,” Johnny interrupted. “That’s why,
isn’t it? When she first got here, her hair was shorter. You
recognized her.”