The Secret Son Read online

  “You don’t want to hurt your daughter. You love her far too much to do that.”

  “I do-o-o-o.” Molly Gaston wailed pathetically, a testimony to her frantic mental state. “I love you, Katie, you know that, don’t you?”

  Jack listened carefully for a response, for any sign that the eight-year-old was still alive. He heard silence.

  There were no windows in the bathroom. A team of Washington police crisis specialists was standing by, ready to rush the door if Jack made the call. That would be his last resort. The door crashing down on her could easily drive the unbalanced wife of Dr. Talbot Gaston to one last act of desperation.

  Killing their daughter.

  “I never would’ve left Katie here after telling Molly I wanted a divorce if I’d thought for a second that she’d turn on her. Katie’s the one person I know Molly loves.”

  Gaston’s face was white, pinched. An orthopedic surgeon, the tall, athletically built forty-year-old man didn’t appear confident and capable. He looked like a scared kid. Beaten.

  “Talk to her, Gaston,” Jack said. They’d been at this for more than an hour. His instincts were telling him they didn’t have much time left.

  Gaston crouched down, his face inches from the doorknob. “What do I say?” he whispered. There was desperation in his eyes.

  “Can someone call my priest, please?” Molly’s voice was weak. “Please?”

  “I’ll go,” Gaston said.

  Jack grabbed his arm. “No. No clergy.”

  “But she asked—”

  “No clergy,” Jack said quietly, but with steel. “She’s trying to legitimize her desire for self-destruction. If she finds absolution for what she knows is wrong, she’ll act on it. Talk to her.”

  There was a rustle on the floor behind the door. And then a sob.

  A childish sob. Katie was still alive.

  “Thank God,” Gaston’s voice broke before he quickly controlled himself.

  Jack pulled him in front of the door again.

  Molly was beyond reason. Beyond professional help at the moment. She needed someone who could reach the innermost places inside her and help her find a remnant of the woman she once was.

  “Tell her you had no idea she cared this much. That you’d really like another chance to talk to her. To make this work for both of you.”

  Gaston nodded. “I’ll stay married to her forever if that’s what it takes to keep Katie safe.”

  “Worry about that later,” Jack said. “Right now, let’s get your daughter out of there.”

  Gaston broke once more, one sob, and then straightened. Jack wasn’t surprised by the strength, the assurance and concern in the man’s voice as he spoke to his mentally ill wife. Gaston was fighting for the life of his only child.

  Something Jack would’ve given his life to have had the chance to do.

  AN HOUR AND A HALF later, hands in his pockets because they didn’t feel quite steady, Jack approached the Hart Senate Office Building. This late on a Friday he expected the building to be deserted, but hoped he might get lucky one more time and find Erica still in her office.

  His footsteps loud on the tile floor, he rounded a corner. Her office was halfway down the hall just ahead. It was no big deal if she wasn’t there. He was fine.

  Of course, he’d looked forward to relating the afternoon’s incident, as he always did when he experienced something like this. Talking to Erica helped him exorcise it, insofar as that was possible. He recalled Gaston’s horror upon arriving to find his wife locked in their downstairs bathroom with his daughter and a butcher knife. Thank God he and Gaston had managed to talk her down.

  Erica’s light was on, he could see the reflection in the hall outside her door. Increasing his pace, Jack made up his mind. Even if Cooley was there with her, he wasn’t leaving.

  He almost strode right in and hauled her up from that impressive leather chair behind the cherry desk and made love to her then and there. Door open and all. He needed her to rescue him from darkness. Needed her to share life and joy with him, to wipe away the threat of death and the stench of desperation.

  “Hi,” he said, instead, leaning against the door-jamb as though he’d done nothing more that day than write curriculum.

  Erica looked up from her computer screen, her face blank for the second it took her to recognize him. “Jack!” she said. She met him halfway for a kiss that righted his world.

  “Hi!”

  Jerking back, stunned, Jack turned to see a miniature version of Jefferson walk into the room as though he owned the place. “I was in the bathroom, but I’m back now.”

  “Kevin, you remember Jack?” Erica’s voice was slightly choked.

  “Yep. Hi, Jack,” Kevin said. “Me and Mom are working on a important speech for my dad to give. It’s about not making more nucl’ar munitions. You know anything about that?”

  “Not much,” Jack said. Not as much as Jefferson Cooley, certainly. And even if he was an expert, he didn’t think he’d admit that to Erica’s troubled son.

  While he’d been talking to the boy, she’d returned to her seat behind her desk.

  “You going to be here long?” Jack asked her.

  She frowned at the pages spread close to her computer. “Maybe not,” she said. “Kevin and I were supposed to be going out for pizza tonight, but some new statistics came in that substantially change Jefferson’s arguments in a speech he’s giving in the morning. I’m working on the press release that’s going out right afterward.”

  She and Jack glanced at Kevin at the same time. The boy had climbed onto a chair beside Erica’s computer and was looking at a book on his lap. It was open to a full-page map of the United States.

  “Do you know where all the old nucl’ar munitions plants are, Jack?” he asked. “Mom says she’s not sure.”

  “I’m not sure, either,” Jack said. “But I do know how to make a bunch of different bird whistles. You know how to whistle yet?”

  “No. I got some cards here. You want to play war?”

  “I never liked that game,” Jack said. “But I know slapjack. You want to try that?” Jack couldn’t quite believe he was asking the boy this.

  “Okay,” Kevin said. “Just until Mom’s done with our work and we go to get pizza. You want to come for pizza?” The miniature man had climbed down from his chair, cards in hand, and was heading toward the coffee table in front of the couch. Almost without conscious thought, Jack followed him.

  “I’d like that if your mom won’t mind,” Jack said. He glanced over at Erica, expecting her to be following the interplay, and was surprised to find her engrossed in her computer.

  “She won’t mind,” Kevin said. “I know she likes to eat with you because she does it a lot.”

  Probably because the afternoon’s incident was still fresh in his mind, Jack kept interposing his feelings about the Gaston girl on Erica’s son. As though the boy needed to be rescued. Not from a disturbed mother, but from something potentially as dangerous. Little Kevin Cooley was being held hostage by his own mind.

  Feeling like a freshman on his first day of high school, Jack spent the next half hour playing cards with a five-year-old boy. Nothing felt right. Or natural. Yet he had no choice but to stay.

  Kind of like people being drawn to a bad car accident. No one ever wanted to be there. Bystanders knew it was going to bother them, stick with them long after they’d gone on their way. And yet, they couldn’t not look.

  To Jack, Erica’s son was a bad car accident.

  ERICA CALLED JACK on Sunday afternoon. Said she had something to talk to him about. Kevin was with his father.

  Jack suggested they take a cab down to the Potomac River. When he’d been out riding his new bike the previous weekend, he’d discovered a paved trail that ran for miles through beautiful woods along the river.

  “I’ve in-line skated this trail many times, but never walked it,” Erica said as they started out.

  Jack took her hand. “I used to ska
te in Central Park.”

  “You have skates?”

  “No, there was a place down by the park where you could rent them.”

  “We should get you some. I’d love to have someone to go with.”

  The future implied in that statement relaxed him a bit. “So what is it you needed to talk to me about?”

  They’d been out on Saturday—took in a theater production at the Kennedy Center, which had been impressive, but the best part of the evening had been going to an out-of-the-way pub where they’d shared appetizers and beer afterward, laughing, talking about their most embarrassing moments, their first dates, their worst dates—all things they’d never had time for in the past.

  It took him a second to realize she wasn’t answering his question. Senses tuned, he braced himself for something he wasn’t going to like.

  “Erica?”

  “It’s about Kevin.”

  Jack breathed a little easier. At least it wasn’t about them.

  “More problems?” Jack really felt for her. Kevin was an engaging little guy. If Jack had ever had a son, he’d probably have been nothing like Erica’s boy. He’d have had no manners, and no idea how to hold an intelligent conversation, either.

  “I need your help, Jack.”

  Jack felt on edge, but his reply was nonetheless instantaneous. “Tell me what I can do.”

  “I need you to come over for dinner.”

  “Name the time,” he told her.

  “Kevin will be there.”

  “Fine,” he said quickly, trying to disguise his reaction. Being with Kevin bothered him. A lot. Because he liked the little guy far too much.

  Erica stopped, gazing up at him. “You’re really okay with this?”

  He swallowed, met her eyes, then looked out over the riverbank, and back. “He’s a part of you, Erica,” he said, ignoring the driving compulsion he felt to help the boy. “I want to know as many parts of you as I can.”

  Jack, starting to walk again, stopped when Erica didn’t budge. “He’s a person in his own right,” she said, “not just a part of me. He has thoughts and feelings and needs.”

  “I know.”

  A couple of skaters, in full head, wrist and knee gear whizzed by.

  “He thinks you don’t like him because you changed your mind about going out for pizza with us the other night.”

  Without warning a picture of that pudgy little boy in South Dakota came to mind, the shocked look in his eyes when the bullet burst through him, telling him forevermore that not everyone in the world loved him. Or would protect him.

  “I liked him a lot.”

  “He doesn’t understand why you aren’t as involved with his life as Pamela is.”

  This time when he started to walk, she came with him. Jack was tempted to release her hand, to travel on his own—but this was Erica, and he wasn’t ready to let go yet.

  “It’s only because he’s with Jefferson every time we’re together that he hasn’t seen me.”

  Jack wanted to pretend that that was wholly and completely true. But…

  “We only see each other when Kevin’s with Jefferson so you don’t have to see him.”

  The damaging words came softly, whispering across the Sunday breeze. Before he could respond—not that he knew what to say, a group of cyclists appeared behind them, serious ones, judging from the skintight shorts, shirts and the helmets they were wearing. Jack thought longingly of his expensive new high-performance bike.

  He couldn’t bear the thought that he was hurting any kid. Especially Erica’s. Kevin was one of the most compelling little kids he’d ever met. And he’d met lots of kids, far too many, in his career.

  “So when’s dinner?” he asked. Sometime between now and then he’d find a way to relieve the panic in his chest.

  She stopped again. “Kevin’s sharp, Jack,” she said, moving off the path as another cyclist sped past.

  “It took me about ten seconds to figure that out.”

  “You have to be honest with me.” Her beautiful brown eyes implored him. “He’ll figure out in no time if you don’t want to be with him. I can’t afford to expose him to that. If you can be comfortable with my son, then I need you there. If you can’t, then I don’t want you.”

  I don’t want you. The words seared him.

  “I’ll be okay.”

  He would be. Somehow.

  APPROACHING THE BUILDING with brown bag in hand, Jack didn’t look any different from any other man who might’ve come calling on a woman and her son. At least that was what Erica decided when she peeked through the window in the den and saw him coming down the street. He was wearing gray slacks and a white polo shirt that deftly outlined the muscles in his upper arms.

  She wondered what was in the bag.

  And how she was going to get through the next couple of hours. Her stomach had been churning since yesterday afternoon, when Jack had insisted they have this dinner right away.

  He’d said they shouldn’t make Kevin suffer under misapprehensions a day longer than necessary. Much as she wanted to find a reason to postpone tonight, she hadn’t been able to argue with him. So here she was, on Monday night, still in the navy suit she’d worn all day, with Italian takeout in the oven, waiting to bring her lover into the home she’d shared with her ex-husband.

  And still shared with the son he didn’t know was his.

  “He’s here, sport,” she told the little boy, who’d already checked the dining room twice to make sure he’d set out the napkins and silverware exactly as he’d been taught. His hair, the same shade as Jack’s, had been neatly combed and he’d put on his tie an hour before. “You want to get the door?”

  “Yeah.” He waited in the archway between the den and the foyer.

  Erica’s heart broke for the tiny soldier so determined to fight battles. She’d tried to get him to forgo the tie, to put on one of the T-shirts he used to love.

  But he’d been adamant.

  Erica was afraid to know what was going on in her son’s mind, how he’d convinced himself that he needed to be a man. Why he felt he wasn’t entitled to be a little boy.

  The second Jack stepped into the condo, Erica was terrified. But so, so glad. The place hadn’t been complete without him in it, they hadn’t been complete, as a couple, until he saw where she spent her private time.

  Like a tour guide, Kevin showed Jack around the condo before he’d even had a chance to say hello. Or dispense with his bag.

  “This is where I do my work,” he said, indicating a stool pulled up to Erica’s desk at the far end of the den. “Mom does hers over there.” He pointed to her chair. “Come this way, please.”

  He led Jack through the condo, talking constantly in his childish voice with its adult intonations. Erica tried to catch Jack’s eye, to apologize, shrug, thank him, tell him hello, but his attention was completely on the boy in front of him. Too nervous to follow them, Erica stayed in the den, opening a bottle of beer for Jack and pouring herself a glass of white wine.

  “That’s my mom’s room,” she heard Kevin say. Heat spread through her and she took a sip of wine. She’d have to get a grip if she was going to survive this evening.

  Jack there in her home. Standing right outside the bedroom that had hidden so many of her tears and secrets.

  “And this is my room.” Kevin’s voice rose, and he sounded, just a little, like the young boy he was.

  Jack there with her son. Their son. His son.

  Kevin marched back into the den importantly, glancing over his shoulder at his guest. “What’s in your bag?”

  “It’s a surprise.” Finally Jack met her eyes.

  And the smile she saw in those depths took her breath away.

  “Oh,” Kevin said. “You want to sit down?” He climbed into Jeff’s chair, leaving the opposite one for Jack.

  “Sure,” Jack said, and then, “thank you,” to Erica as she handed him the bottle of beer. He turned back to Kevin. “Your mom make you guys use coasters
here?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Kevin jumped down immediately, got a couple of the leather coasters from under the coffee table and set one out for Jack. He put another one by his chair.

  Erica poured her son a glass of cranberry juice and placed it beside him, smiling when Kevin forgot to say thank you, like any other little boy.

  Kevin was trying not to stare at the brown bag Jack had sitting on his lap. And failing.

  “Don’t you want to know who the surprise is for?” Jack asked, his attention on Kevin.

  He’d make a wonderful father. The unexpected thought caught her completely off guard. In another time, another life, Jack would’ve been able to give so much. Just in the few times she’d seen him with Kevin she’d noticed the natural affinity he seemed to have with children.

  Or was it just his son?

  Was she robbing them both of something vital by keeping her secret? In trying to protect them, was she hurting them, instead? Inflicting more pain where she tried so hard to bring happiness?

  Or would telling her secret cause the greater pain?

  And what about Jefferson?

  Wineglass in hand, Erica sat on the sofa perpendicular to them, looking out the wall of windows across the room. There’d been many nights when Jefferson seemed mesmerized by those lights. Right now she wished they’d have the same effect on her.

  “Yes, I want to know,” Kevin was saying. “If you want to tell me, that is.”

  “Why don’t you guess?”

  Unable to help herself, Erica turned, watching them.

  She watched their son, waiting to see how’d he react to Jack’s challenge. In the old days, the days before Jefferson left, Kevin would’ve been jumping up and down with excitement. He would’ve been determined to figure it out.

  “I don’t know,” he said now. “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me.”

  Oh, Kev, come on little buddy, you don’t have to be this way.

  “That’s just it,” Jack said, leaning toward Kevin, almost as though sharing something confidential. “I want to tell, but it’s more fun if you guess first. Can you hurry it up a little?”

  He was good.

  “Well—” Kevin’s brow furrowed, and his eyes were glued to the bag. “It’s pro’bly not flowers for my mom.”