She tried to imagine other people living in that house, other people laughing, crying, fighting, putting their keys in the door and turning the lock to come home. She tried to imagine another little girl sleeping in her room, getting ready for her first day of school, her first slumber party, her prom. She’d always hoped to get married at this house. But she guessed it was a little dream to lose compared to everything else she’d lost. Her brother, her father, even her mother through her various betrayals now just seemed like a stranger to Lily, someone she could not understand and was not sure whether she could forgive.
When her mother delivered the news that Tim Samuels was her father, it didn’t even come as a surprise. Hadn’t she always known it on a cellular level? She might have been able to forgive them for that. After all, she’d always thought of him as her father; he’d loved her and raised her well. Biology didn’t matter all that much, did it?
It was all the rest of it. Her parents’ awful past, what they did to Mickey, what Mickey became as a result of that. That Trevor Rhames was free. Those were the things that were killing her inside. Angry tears spilled down her face and she felt like she had a rock in her throat where the injustice sat, impossible to swallow and digest.
Her mother stepped out through the French doors and leaned against the railing, gave her a wave that meant, “Come in. It’s too cold out here.” But Lily turned her back. Her mother was collecting photographs and knickknacks, the detritus of their ruined lives, putting them in boxes. Lily wanted no part of anything like that. She’d only come to say good-bye to her home, her father, and the little girl who used to love them both. She would cut it all loose, let the ocean take it and start again.
She turned around again to look at her mother. But she was gone. On the balcony, there was a man. He had close-cropped, bleached-blond hair, wore a pair of black jeans and a hooded gray sweatshirt. She frowned, felt her heart lurch. Then she started to run toward the house as the man turned and walked inside. The sand slowed her progress as she ran with all her strength. Finally, she reached the wooded walkway and pounded toward the balcony. She flew up the stairs.
Inside her mother sat on the chintz couch weeping, and beside her stood her brother, changed in every way, his appearance, his aura, but still her brother. She didn’t know whether to punch him or embrace him. She threw herself at him in some combination of those things, screaming at him in a voice she barely recognized.
“You bastard,” she yelled. “You fucker.”
He held onto her and let her pound on him with her fists. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.” She just kept saying it over and over, like the words could hurt him the way he’d hurt her, like they were blades she could throw at him. Finally, exhausted, she slumped against him, felt his arms around her. She heard Lydia Strong’s words in her head.
“Lily, I think he’ll come to you. He loves you and he won’t be able to live with himself without trying to make you understand why he did what he did. He’ll come for your forgiveness.”
She’d thought about it and knew Lydia was right.
“And when he does?” she’d asked.
What makes you think he’ll come today?” Jeffrey asked.
Where they sat in the Kompressor on the bluff, they could see Lily Samuels standing on the beach.
“The closing on the house is tomorrow; they have personal items they want to retrieve,” said Lydia, staring at the ocean. “It seems like a good day for contrition.”
Christian Striker sat in the backseat. “He’d be crazy to come back.”
“I think it’s safe to assume he’s crazy, Striker,” said Lydia. She caught his ice blue eyes in the rearview mirror and smiled.
“Look,” said Jeffrey. “She’s running. She’s running toward the house.”
Just then Lydia’s cell phone rang.
They killed my father,” Mickey said to Lily while she was still in his arms.
“And you killed mine,” she whispered.
“I didn’t kill him. He killed himself.”
The irony of his own words was completely lost on him. She pulled away from him and looked into his eyes. He looked a little unhinged, a little vacant.
“Mickey,” she said softly. “Your father committed suicide. No one killed him.”
“Their actions, their betrayal killed him,” he said, waving a disgusted hand at their mother.
“You father was unwell, Mickey,” Monica said softly. “He abused me. He abused you-”
“Don’t do that,” Mickey screamed. “Don’t tell lies to make what you did okay. You betrayed him, you tampered with my mind-my mind.”
Monica stood and reached for him. “We wanted you to forget, to move on and live a happy life. We didn’t want the ghost of that day haunting you.”
He pushed her away and she landed on the couch, put her head in her hands. “Get away from me,” he yelled. “Stay away.”
“You’re acting like a child, Mickey,” said Lily. “Grow up.”
He looked at her in surprise. The wind wailed outside and the smell of salt was strong in the air. The door stood open and the room was growing cold.
“You burned the house down, okay,” she said, spreading her arms. “Figuratively speaking, anyway. You’ve avenged your father; you’ve ruined your mother. You got everything you wanted, right? What I don’t get is-why me? I’ve never done anything but love you.”
He looked as his feet, then up into her eyes. She saw shame and a pouty, childish anger there. She wanted to slap his face.
“You were the only thing they really loved,” he said with a shrug. “Their marriage went to shit. They thought I was dead, and they were about to lose all their money; Tim thought he might possibly go to jail, and they were still standing. It was only when Tim thought he’d lost you that he started to unravel, that he started bargaining with his life.”
She thought about it a second.
“So that was the deal you made. He ended his life and you spared mine.”
“He came to see us; he wanted to deal. He said if we killed him and made it look like an accident, that there would be insurance money. His cash and assets would cover his debt to the IRS and he knew he could get Mom to hand over the insurance money if it meant your life. He wanted to buy you back.”
“But it was never about money,” said Lily.
He shook his head. “I have money, Lily. I always have. I just wanted him to look down the barrel of that gun and see what my father saw: hopelessness, despair, the end of a life badly lived. I wanted him to die with all his sins and failings staring back at him from that cold metal eye. Just like my father. And I wanted her to be left with nothing. That was the deal, not some paltry insurance payout.”
“And he agreed.”
“As long as I promised to let you go when the deed was done.”
“How did he know you’d keep your word?”
“He knew I loved you. That was the only thing we ever had in common. We both loved you so much.”
Lily sank to the couch, feeling suddenly like her own legs couldn’t hold her. Monica wept quietly beside her.
“How did Rhames find you?”
“He always knew where we were. He was watching for years, waiting.”
He sighed, paced the room for a second.
“He came to see me when Body Armor went on the market. He was just in my apartment one night when I came home. I was terrified, thought he was some kind of maniac. But he knew things about us, about our life, about Monica and Tim. He knew everything. And then he helped me to retrieve my memories. Memories he had helped to erase.”