“Oh my God.”
“God never came around to my house while all that was happening.”
Gibson watched as two large tears fell onto Francine’s cheeks. She pulled the van over and gripped Francine’s hand. “I’m so sorry you had to deal with all that... horror.”
“It made me stronger in some ways. And totally blew me up in others. And you see the result.”
“And Rochelle’s mother?”
“She finally just bugged out, leaving Rochelle to fend for herself. FYI, I hate my mother. And I pity my mother. And I guess as the years went by the pity became stronger than the hate.”
“So you took care of her?”
“There were no happy times with my father. There were happy times with my mother. If he hadn’t been in the picture, things would have been far different. For all of us. Yes, she had her issues, the booze, and the drugs, but they were almost all because of him. So when I was old enough and had enough money, I found her and put her in assisted living.”
“Couldn’t you have gone to the US Marshals Service? They could have made all this stop, surely.”
Francine glared at her. “Are you joking? The local marshals were in on it.”
“What!”
“My dad offered me up to them. That way he got special privileges. They let him and Enders do whatever they wanted.”
“What were their names?”
“One’s dead. The other guy’s in Norfolk now.”
“Not Earl Beckett?”
“That’s him. I got into his office when I was working on the cleaning detail for the federal building.” She slid out a thumb drive from her bag. “And got this.”
“There was no way he put any of that on a government computer,” said Gibson.
“No, but they had a file on my father that I thought might be helpful. And, more importantly, I wanted to find out who else Beckett had guarded since.”
“Did you get a list?”
“Yeah, but I haven’t started checking it yet.”
“You could have gone to the police, the school principal, somebody, Francine. Isn’t there anyone that could have helped you back then?”
“My father was all about the details, so he had already thought of that. I have my mountains of notebooks, so I guess I take after him in that way. Anyway, no one knew he was Harry Langhorne who had been accused of pedophilia back in Jersey. He and Enders spread rumors, through the cops, the schools, our pediatricians even, that we made shit up. That Rochelle and I couldn’t be trusted. My father and Rochelle’s dad even made us write up confessions saying it was all a lie just in case somebody suspected. They threatened to kill us if we didn’t.”
Francine focused on a photograph taped to the dash of Gibson’s kids. Next to it was a note that had a round face beside a large heart with the word “Mom” in childish scrawl.
“I can never have kids because of how forced sex at that age hurt me physically.” She sighed and sat back. “Rochelle had it even worse. I don’t know everything they did to her.”
“Why was she treated differently?”
“Because she wouldn’t cry. All the stuff they did to her, she refused to cry. And she wouldn’t beg them to stop. That pissed them off beyond belief. I guess I was the weak one. I cried, and I begged. Not that it did much good.”
Gibson sat back and looked at her with a conflicted expression. Francine noted this and said, “You don’t believe me?”
“I want to, but—”
“—but I’m a liar. A good one. Yeah, I know. Well, it doesn’t really matter if you believe me or not, does it?”
“But why involve me?” said Gibson. “You said you knew about me when I was a cop.”
“It was before then. At Temple.”
“Were you a student?”
“No. I worked in the cafeteria, and at odd jobs on campus. I also helped with the theater productions. I did that for free because... well, I liked it.”
“Why did you say I had everything and then I just pissed it away? I had to work my ass off for everything. I didn’t come from money, Francine.”
“I wasn’t talking about money.” She glanced at her. “Basketball star, the lead in all of those plays, a loving family. I would watch all of you walk around campus when they came to visit. There goes Mickey Rogers, the baddest badass on campus. You were a rock star. Everybody just... loved you. I... never knew how that felt. So, in my mind, you had it all. I thought you were going to be a pro basketball star, or rock the boards on Broadway.”
“But I never did because I wasn’t good enough, Francine. Playing ball in college and being in college theater is way different from doing it at the next level. The funnel gets really, really narrow.”
“I wanted you to try. I wanted—”
“—to live vicariously through me?”
“Pathetic, I know. But I didn’t have a whole lot else going on.”
“And baiting me into all this?”
“I’ll tell you the truth, though you probably won’t believe it.” She paused and looked directly at Gibson. “I wanted to kick your ass. I wanted to find the treasure before you did, even with all your resources at ProEye. You had failed at life, at least I saw it that way. But if I could beat you. If I could show the world that—”
“—that you were the real rock star, and, what, everybody would love you?” Gibson stared grimly at her. She pointed at the car seats in the back. “I made the choices in my life. I got married and had kids because that’s what I wanted. I don’t owe you or anybody else an explanation because it’s nobody’s fucking business but mine. So you waited all these years and decided to blow my life up and put my kids in danger all so you could feel, what, good about yourself? That is pathetic.”
Francine didn’t shrink under these harsh words. She simply nodded. “You’re right. Everything you just said is true. I’m a pathetic loser. You hate me and you should hate me.” She opened the van door. “I will take care of this. I’ll get Trask off your case. I’ll find the treasure and that will be that. So you’ll be good to go.”
“You can’t guarantee any of that.”
“Nothing in life is guaranteed. But I’ll do my best.”
Gibson’s tone softened. “Look, I know you’ve had a shitty life. And I’m sorry for that. If that had happened to me, I’d probably be in an institution.”
“I have been in an institution, and I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Francine bluntly.
Gibson stiffened at this. “What about your mother?”
“Once I have the treasure, I can buy her freedom.”
“And Earl Beckett?”
“What about him?”
“Does he just get away with this?”
“I can’t do anything about the people he’s already hurt, but I’m going to do my best to stop him from hurting anybody else.”
“So if you didn’t kill your father, and Rochelle didn’t kill him? Doug?”
“No, Doug wouldn’t do that, not without Rochelle knowing.”
“Did Beckett know about the phrase, ‘Do as I say...’?”
“Sure. He used to lord that over us, too.”
“Beckett said your father got away cleanly, as though he had help.”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“Could his help have been Beckett?”
Francine shot her a glance. “Why would he do that?”
“For a piece of the treasure?”
Francine closed the van door, fully reengaged. “You think?”
“And then your father did what he always did. He screwed the guy. But Beckett strikes me as one tenacious bastard. He kept looking. And he found the man. And he killed the man.”
“If we could only prove that.”
Gibson sat back and looked thoughtful. “The only thing I can’t figure is that phrase was written by two different people. Which means if Beckett killed him, he might not be working alone.”