She shrugged and glanced down. She hadn’t told him everything about her past, but he knew she’d lost her son twelve years ago. He’d been murdered. She hadn’t shared any other details, but even sharing those few had been like ripping open her heart.
Her loss had sent her into a self-imposed exile. It was why she lived alone in the woods, but didn’t explain why she’d helped him, or why she believed him. She’d tell him in her own time.
“Claire is-” What could he say? “-not what I expected.”
“She is who she is. You can’t expect that the horrible things that happened in the past wouldn’t affect her.”
“No, but I–I wanted her to be. . open. She was cold. She’s believed all this time I’m guilty. She was angry and scared. Scared of her own father! I love her more than anyone, and she-”
“Tom.”
He caught her eye. Nelia never raised her voice, but her tone commanded his attention.
“You can’t expect to change her mind during one surprise confrontation. Give her a little time.”
“Unless she turns me in to the cops.”
“Do you think she will?”
Did he? “I really don’t know.” He bit back his fearful frustration. “I need her help.”
“I can look for Oliver Maddox,” Nelia offered, not for the first time.
“Claire has the resources and training to do this. You’ve already risked too much for me.”
“You saved me as much as I saved you, Tom. My cabin in Idaho was as much a prison to me as San Quentin was for you. You freed me. I’m not leaving you now. Not until we find out what happened to your wife.”
“Nelia, tell me the truth. How did you find me?”
“I told you. I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I went to investigate, found you.”
“But you were hours away from home. And you never leave, or so you told me. Why that day? Where were you going?”
“Back home.”
“From where?”
He knew all about how she’d found him-she’d stopped for gas, the snow was coming down harder, she feared she wouldn’t make it back to her cabin before her road became impassable, even with four-wheel drive. She saw what she thought was an angel, did a double take, and saw him lying in a ditch. He’d crawled out, trying to make it to the road, but passed out.
But she’d never told him why she was three hours from home, or why she was driving in the storm, or where she was coming from.
“On the anniversary of my son’s murder I visit his grave. In San Diego,” she whispered. “For the last twelve years. I’ve never told anyone.”
“No one? Not your family?” She spoke to her mother every Sunday afternoon. It was a formal, one-sided conversation, with Nelia cutting it off after ten minutes.
“My ex-husband knows. He found me at Justin’s grave the third year I went.” She looked down at their clasped hands. “I swore him to secrecy. He owed me. Like Lydia, he was having an affair. But unlike you, I knew about it and didn’t care. I didn’t love him. Never had. We married because of Justin. . and we divorced when we no longer had him.” Her voice cracked. “I want you to reclaim your daughter, Tom.”
“Nelia.” He kissed her hand, squeezed it. “I couldn’t have made it this far without you. I’m going to make Claire listen. I didn’t have time to tell her everything Oliver told me. I need to go to her house and-”
“Her house? That’s not a good idea. You said yourself you saw one of the FBI agents in her neighborhood yesterday.”
Mitch Bianchi. He’d been at the Starbucks kitty-corner to Claire’s house yesterday morning. Tom had considered approaching him. After all, Tom had saved the FBI agent’s life during the raid on Blackie Goethe’s gang.
But he’d decided against it. He needed more information before talking to anyone in law enforcement, even Bianchi.
“Tom? Let me go to Claire.”
“I don’t want anyone, even Claire, knowing you’re helping me. You may not care, but I won’t let you risk anything more than you already have. Please. I don’t want to worry about you, too.”
“I need to do something!”
“You can. Talk this out with me as I write a letter to Claire. Help me find a way to convince her in writing what I failed to get across today in words.”
FIVE
Claire was certain that Oliver Maddox was some piein-the-sky liberal public defender wannabe who’d encouraged her father’s hopes of getting away with murder.
What she should do is contact the FBI and inform them her father had made contact. Or maybe phone Bill and Dave Kamanski. They’d know what to do. Both cops, they had told her more than once that all she had to do was call if she needed anything.
She didn’t want to drag them into it. The Kamanskis had been her only family since her father’s arrest. Dave was the big brother she never had, and Bill. . she had often wished he was her father. Because she hated the real one who was sitting on death row.
Actually, she didn’t hate him, and that’s why she felt so miserable much of the time. She wanted to hate him. She wanted to hit him, yell at him, throw things at him for killing her mom, for ruining their lives. Making her sit through a public trial for weeks, through his sentencing. It had been the worst time of her life. From the minute she saw her mother’s dead body, and knew her dad had shot her, to when he was sentenced to die, it had been hell.
Guilt twisted in Claire’s heart. She’d spent more time over the last fifteen years trying to hate her father for his crimes than mourning her mother’s death. She’d been so angry with her mom about the affair, furious that she could be so selfish as to hurt the family. And then she was gone. Claire never had the chance to talk with, argue with, love, or hate her mother. It was so much easier to focus on the trial and hating her dad than it was to focus on the pain and guilt over her mother’s murder and remembering every fight, every disagreement she and her mother had shared. She wanted to go back and tell her mother she loved her.
A part of Claire wanted Maddox to be right. She had believed for so long that her father was a killer, but she never stopped loving him, even when she wanted so much to hate. It had made his crimes that much harder to accept, and transformed her love into confusion and misery.
The only really good thing in her life right now was Mitch Bianchi. She’d been moving from guy to guy for so long without any commitment that having someone sort of steady was nice. More than nice. He was the sexiest, safest guy she’d ever dated. A writer, perfect. She didn’t want to think about her long history with other underachieving men. She shrugged it off whenever Dave Kamanski teased her about the “dumb blonds” she dated: good-looking men who didn’t tax themselves mentally, often not holding down regular or “normal” jobs.
Mitch was different. He was surprisingly smart. He didn’t seem like she’d imagine a writer to be, but he did have a way with words. And he was so hot, so sexy, his body hard as a rock. He worked out, and they had spent many hours together playing racquetball on the weekends. He didn’t let her win and he played hard.
And damn, he looked doubly hot when he sweated in his cutoffs and faded T-shirt.
Chewy and Yoda liked him. Funnily enough, that made Claire a little less comfortable. She was growing attached to Mitch, and she didn’t want to get close to anyone. Her life was a mess. She was a mess. But she didn’t want to get rid of him, either.
There was no way she was dragging Mitch into this situation. She didn’t want him being charged as an accessory or harassed by the FBI. She was going to have to figure out what to do about her father’s contact on her own. She didn’t believe her dad, but she wondered if he had actually convinced himself he was innocent. Or maybe. . he was.
Her stomach churned, the latte turning sour. What would it hurt to talk to Oliver Maddox again? Find out exactly what he’d been feeding her father? Maybe then she could convince her dad to turn himself in. She didn’t want him gunned down or arrested in a big standoff. She was tough, she’d withstand the media scrutiny, the way her life would be turned upside down like it had been after the prison break. She’d avoided more reporters than cops that awful week in January. .