For an instant, there was silence.
“I am planning to leave five million dollars to each of the graduates. I know that, in different ways, Betsy and I have damaged each and every one of them.”
He turned to look at them, expecting expressions of gratitude.
Instead he stared at identical expressions of contempt and disgust.
97
“It’s time,” Bruno said. “We’re going to have you call Mommy.” He had put the shiny blue contact lenses back in his eyes.
Timmy looked up into the blue eyes that had haunted him for more than five years of his young life. “You shot my daddy,” he said.
“That’s right, Timmy, and let me tell you why. I didn’t want to be a criminal. I wanted to break away from the mob. I was only nineteen. I could have had a different life. But your hotshot grandfather caught me driving drunk. I begged him to let me go and told him that I was reporting to the army the next day. But he arrested me. Then the army wouldn’t take me, and I got back with the mob. I broke into a house, and the old lady in it had a heart attack when she saw me. She died. I got thirty years.”
Bruno’s face became contorted with anger. “I could have done anything. I can build computers. I can break into any computer or phone. I had figured out how to get even with Leo Farley. I was going to kill the people he loved-his son-in-law, his daughter, and you. I got your father, but they sent me back to prison on a stupid parole violation for another five years. Now you know, Timmy, and it’s time to call Mommy.”
Laurie and Alex watched as the graduates walked out of the room, leaving Robert Powell sitting alone. Silently Laurie nodded to the crew to pack up. There was nothing more to be said.
Alex felt the vibration of his phone ringing in his pocket. It was his office; the investigator he had assigned to find out about the landscaper.
“Alex.” His voice was urgent. “The landscaper you asked us to check out. He is not Bruno Hoffa. He’s Rusty Tillman, who served thirty years in prison. He got out five and a half years ago, a week before the doctor was shot. He went back to prison on a parole violation, and got out five months ago. We ran his picture-”
Alex dropped the phone. Unbelieving, he stared at Laurie. She had been about to step out onto the patio. He heard her phone ring as he frantically shouted, “Wait, Laurie!”
She was already out on the patio, her phone to her ear.
“Timmy, you’re not allowed to call me during the day,” she said. “What’s wrong, honey?” And then she looked up.
The pool house door was opening and Timmy, in his pajamas and robe, was coming out, hand in hand with the gardener. He was holding a rifle pointed at Timmy’s head.
With a shriek Laurie began to race across the lawn.
Chief Ed Penn was roaring toward the Powell estate. “Don’t turn on the sirens,” he warned his driver. “We don’t want to alert him. Tell all units to report to the Powell estate.”
The policeman in the squad car behind the estate had received the urgent message, had cut through the woods and was climbing the fence. Although a highly skilled marksman, Officer Ron Teski had never fired his weapon in the line of duty. As he sprinted toward the backyard, he realized this might be the day he had trained for. Blue Eyes dropped Timmy’s hand and, laughing, let him run to Laurie, who was running toward them from eighty feet away.
The squad car carrying Ed Penn came racing around the circular driveway. Penn, his gun in hand, frantically took aim at Blue Eyes. The shot missed its mark.
By now Laurie had reached Timmy and was bending over to pick him up. Wanting to finish the task the way he had envisioned, Blue Eyes took aim at Laurie’s head. As he was about to fire, Officer Teski’s first shot cut into his shoulder. Spinning, Blue Eyes raised the rifle and tried to point it in Laurie’s direction. His finger was on the trigger as he felt an explosion rip through his chest.
Blue Eyes’ body fell to the ground accompanied by the sound of breaking glass. The bullet he had fired crashed through the window of the den where Robert Powell was still sitting. With a puzzled expression, Powell raised his hand to what remained of his forehead and then fell from the chair.
Seconds later, in a foreshadowing of what was to come, Alex Buckley was wrapping Laurie and Timmy in his arms.
Epilogue
Six months later, there was another reunion of the graduates-this time on a much happier note.
It was Alex who suggested they get together at his apartment on New Year’s Eve. The developments in their lives had been extraordinary, and he said it was time to share them.
They sat together and compared notes over cocktails while Ramon prepared dinner.
Claire had gone to a therapist, able at last to talk about what Robert Powell had done to her. “It wasn’t my fault,” she was now able to say with conviction. She had started to use makeup again and was quietly content to no longer conceal her resemblance to her mother. Now she sat, a very pretty woman, laughing with her old friends and telling them about her new social life.
Regina’s first action when she received the money from the Gala Reunion had been to return the commission Bridget Whiting had paid her. The real estate business had picked up, and a bigger home with an office attached was within her grasp. It gave her enormous pleasure to know that her ex-husband and his rock-star wife were in the midst of a bitter divorce. Zach spent almost all of his free time with her.
Nina was engaged to Grant Richmond. She had willingly turned over her share of the Powell and production company money to her mother, with the proviso that they never have any contact again. Muriel, typically, was telling everyone how much Robert had loved her, and that they had planned to be married before the dreadful accident that took his life.
Alison was attending medical school in Cleveland, commuting from home. She joked that it was hard to keep up with her fellow twentysomething students. She shared the joyous news that she was three months pregnant. Rod had stunned her by saying he was going to be her fellow student. For years, it turned out, he had wanted to become a pharmacist himself.
The four graduates were all saying that Robert Powell was shot before completing his final attempt to make up for what he had done. They were asking each other whether, if he had lived, they would have taken his money. They admitted to each other that they would have accepted it after all they had been through.
George Curtis had been invited to the party, too. Listening, he realized he had gotten off easy. Robert Powell had never suspected his relationship with Betsy. Isabelle had forgiven him. He could have saved twenty years of anguish, but had been too much of a coward to do so.
At the dinner table George smiled as he thought about the announcement he was about to make. Robert Powell had promised to give the graduates five million dollars but had died before he could change his will. George was going to give each of them the five million that would have come from Powell. George knew in his heart that he was trying to make up for the damage his twenty years of silence had inflicted on them.
Three of the graduates had gone to Chief Penn with the recorded threats from Josh, who was now out on bail, awaiting trial. A search warrant had revealed the jewelry Jane had stolen in his apartment. Since Jane had taken it from Betsy, it was now part of Betsy’s estate. When Josh’s trial and his appeals were over, it would be released for Claire to dispose of as she wished.
Alex, listening to the four graduates, marvelled at their resilience, and then he looked at Laurie. For the first time in the nearly six years since Greg’s death, she and Leo had left Timmy with a neighbor who was a babysitter. He saw how their faces now were transformed by the easy laughter they shared with the others. It had been incredible for them to learn that a seemingly routine DUI arrest Leo had made as a young patrolman had been viewed by Blue Eyes as the event that had ruined his life-driving him to Greg’s murder and forcing them all to live under the threat of violence for so long.