Authors: Barbara Freethy
Or had he died because Alex had taken that picture?
God, how could he live with himself if that were the case? Knowing that he might be responsible for his father's death made his chest tighten and his breath come short and quick. He felt dizzy and had to sit down. Julia was suddenly beside him, her hand on his thigh.
"It's not your fault," she said urgently.
He looked into her blue eyes and saw that little girl again. Maybe it wasn't his fault. Maybe it was hers. He'd been drawn to her then, and he was certainly drawn to her now. If he'd walked away before, none of this would have happened.
"She's right," Stan said. "We don't know if your father's death had anything to do with that photograph."
"It's a hell of a coincidence then," Alex replied. "Let's examine the sequence of events. The photograph is published. My dad comes to me in a panic, making me swear not to tell anyone, and the next day he's dead. Some government agent tells you to back off. Even my mother thinks the accident is suspicious. We're developing a pretty clear picture of what went down. Now we need to figure out why. What was in that damn photo that was so disturbing? Do you have the negative? I asked Joe, and he couldn't find it in the magazine files."
"I assume your mother has it." "She doesn't."
"Then it must have been destroyed." Stan paused. "It's not important, Alex. It all happened a long time ago. There's nothing to be gained by traveling back to the past. You won't be able to change anything that happened. You can't bring your father back. Sometimes you just have to let go."
"Like you did? You let go too damn fast," Alex said, fixing Stan with a hard glare. He saw Stan's face pale and knew he'd struck a nerve, but he didn't care. The man who'd been like a father to him for most of his life now seemed like a stranger. How could he have failed to push for an investigation into his best friend's death? It was unthinkable, inexcusable. "Tell me something, Stan," he continued when the older man remained silent. "Why did you encourage my mother to put my father's photos in the exhibit, especially the picture of the little girl?"
Stan shrugged. "It's been twenty-five years. There was so much publicity at the time of the photo- people searching for the girl, wanting to adopt her- I didn't think there was anything more to come of it now than had come of it before."
"What happened back then?" Julia interrupted. "When people were searching for the girl, what did they find out?"
"There were inquiries to adoption agencies," Stan answered, "about how the child might be adopted. Someone in the government contacted the orphanage and was told it had no record of the girl. We printed that in the magazine a few weeks later. Eventually the interest died down."
"Someone in the government?" Alex echoed. "Let me guess: Daniel Brady?" Stan didn't have to answer. The truth was written across his face. "Where is this Daniel Brady now?"
"I have no idea."
The answer was smooth, but Alex didn't buy it. "That's funny, because I would have thought that you might have called him as soon as I told you that Julia came knocking on my door last Friday."
A nerve twitched in Stan's neck, and his lips tightened. "What will it take to convince you to drop this search, Alex? The last thing your father would want is for you to keep digging into his personal matters. He wanted to protect you."
"I'm not a child. I don't need protection." He looked at Julia. She hadn't said much during their conversation, but he was sure she had taken in every word. "What do you think?"
"I think we should find out what happened," she replied in a firm, determined voice.
"I agree." Alex got to his feet. "I want to talk to Daniel Brady."
"I'll have him get in touch with you," Stan replied.
"Why don't you give me his number?" Alex countered.
"You can trust me, Alex. I'll let him know you want to talk to him." Stan took a breath. "Is there any way I can ask you not to involve your mother?"
Alex uttered a short, harsh laugh. "Believe me, that's not something I'm considering. She already talked to one reporter about Julia being that girl."
"She shouldn't have done that."
"Well, she did. And now this reporter is intent on finding out Julia's story. Why don't you tell Mr. Brady that?"
"I will."
"Good. Ready?" Alex asked Julia.
She nodded, offering Stan a soft good-bye and a thank-you. Alex didn't feel inclined to offer either. He was almost at the door when Stan called him back.
"Alex, don't go there."
"I have to."
Julia waited until they were in the car, seat belts fastened, engine running, before she asked, "So where are we going?"
"You'll see," he said.
***
Julia should have guessed where they were headed as soon as they left the city, but it wasn't until she saw the Pacific Ocean and Alex pulled off at a vista point on Highway 1 that she realized his full intention. Without a word, he turned off the car and stepped out onto the gravel-filled parking area. She hesitated for a moment, wondering if he'd rather be alone. But as she thought about exactly what had happened here, she knew he shouldn't be on his own. She got out of the car and walked over to the waist-high wood railing at the edge of the cliff. The air was colder here, with the wind blowing spray off the ocean.
Her pulse sped up as she looked over the railing. It was a clear night, and the stars and moonbeams lit up the scene below. It was at least a two-hundred-yard steep drop to a rugged beach filled with sharp rocks, boulders, and crashing waves that thundered in and roared out. The ocean took what it wanted… when it wanted. There was no escape, not if one got too close to those powerful waves.
Here, at night, in the dark, Julia could imagine all sorts of terrifying monsters in that black sea, waiting to claim another victim. Instinctively, she took a step back from the railing. She'd never particularly liked heights. She always felt that odd sensation of knowing how easy it would be to slip over the edge. Shivering now as her vivid imagination made her even colder, she wrapped her arms around her waist. She wanted to go back to the car. In fact, she wanted to go home, but she couldn't leave Alex here alone to picture the most terrifying night of his life.
She thought back to his earlier words, when he'd told her how he'd waited on this bluff for the search-and-rescue team to bring up the mangled car and, he'd hoped, to bring back his father, still alive, still in his life. How scared and lonely Alex must have felt. She wondered why his mother had brought him here. Why hadn't he been kept protected at home, surrounded by other loving relatives?
"This is where it happened," Alex said finally, his voice deep and husky, filled with emotion.
She glanced at his hard profile. His gaze was on the beach below, his thoughts obviously in the past. She remained silent, willing him to share whatever he needed to get out. Alex wasn't a man to confide his personal problems. She sensed that he carried most burdens alone, especially the heavy ones, the ones that touched his heart. The fact that he'd even brought her here told her that his defenses were weakening, that his need to find the truth about his father's death was overshadowing his need to stand solitary and strong.
"This is where my dad's car went over," he continued. "All these years I thought it was an accident. He was driving too fast. He liked speed. He always had. The roads were slick. It was raining, and he couldn't see. There were so many plausible reasons why he went over the side of this cliff."
"Those reasons could be true," she offered tentatively. "We don't know for sure that they're not."
"I know. I can feel the truth in my gut."
She didn't know what to say. No words could take away the pain he was feeling, especially now that he thought he was responsible for what had happened. He'd taken that photograph. With that one reckless, impulsive act, he'd put something in motion, something neither of them understood.
"Why were you so damn important?" he muttered, shooting a frustrated glance in her direction.
"I don't know. I wish I did."
"We have to find out."
"We will," she said with determination. Her doubts about her mother and her own past were bigger now, but her resolve was also stronger. She would know the truth, whatever it took. Which brought her back to her own part of the story. "Do you really believe you saw my mother in that square? And don't answer quickly," she added, putting up her hand. "Think about it. Because it's important that you get it right."
He turned to gaze at her, his face a mix of shadow and light. "I'm good with faces, Julia. I know that's not what you want to hear."
"How could my mother have been in Moscow that day?" The thought was inconceivable.
"It makes some sense-if she was friends with my father."
Julia considered that for a few moments. She didn't want to believe Alex was right. She preferred to think he was mistaken. He'd only glanced at the photograph of her mother and herself. And her mother was so average in looks-brown hair, brown eyes. There was nothing spectacular about her. She could have resembled a thousand women. But Julia was afraid to take the rationalization too far. If she was going to try to deny everything they discovered, she'd never get anywhere. So she forced herself to open her mind.
"Let's say she was there," Julia said aloud. "Maybe I was there, too. Maybe my mother put me in that orphanage while she was meeting with- your father. She might have thought of it as a day-care center, a temporary babysitter."
"I suppose," he said slowly, but she could tell he wasn't buying her theory.
"It is possible," she persisted. "At least give me that."
"You couldn't have just been there on vacation, Julia. It wasn't easy to visit Russia at that time. Your mother would have had to have a good reason."
"What about that theater group? My mom and I could have been part of the group, too. We should look into that." The more she thought about it, the more that seemed like a possibility.
"Don't you think you would have remembered a trip like that?" he asked.
"I don't remember anything," she said in frustration. "The years before my mother's wedding to Gino are a complete blank. So why would I remember that?"
"Sorry." He paused. "It does seem odd that your memories don't begin until you're adopted by your stepfather. I wonder why you can't remember at least bits and pieces of your earlier years."
She could see where he was going, and she didn't like it. "You think I'm blocking something out, don't you?" "It's just a thought."
"Fine. If you don't agree with my theory, what's yours?"
"About my father or your mother?"
"Both."
Alex rested his elbows on the railing. "It probably wouldn't have been unthinkable for my father to get caught up in some Moscow intrigue. I've been tempted a few times to step out from behind the camera. I just never knew he felt that way. He always told me that a good photographer stays detached, remains an observer. But if he saw something that bothered him, maybe that would have changed his mind."
"So you think he could have been spying for the government? Isn't that what Stan implied was going on?"
"I'm not willing to go that far. My dad loved photography. He was never without his camera. I don't believe it was just a front. It was a part of him. When he was shooting, he was in another world. I wanted to be a part of that world. I knew that from the time I was a little kid." Alex looked back down at the water and sighed heavily. "I thought I knew my father. All these years I thought I knew who he was. And now he seems like a stranger. How did that happen?"
She could hear the pain in his voice, and it touched her deeply. Alex had followed in his father's footsteps. Now those footsteps were taking him down a path he didn't want to go. He'd thought of his father in one way for so long, he couldn't think of him differently. Just as she couldn't think of her mother as anyone but the quiet, suburban mom she'd grown up with. Trying to picture her mother meeting a man in a Moscow square was impossible.
"At least I know one thing," Alex continued. "My dad's accident was no accident. I should have seen that years ago. One minute he was terrified. The next minute he was dead. That wasn't a coincidence. And it was all because of that damn picture."
A cold wind blew Julia's hair across her face. As she peeled the wet strands off her cheeks, she realized that the fog was coming in. The stars had disappeared. The moon was going into hiding, too, and they were being covered by an ice-cold blanket of mist. It was as if the universe were taunting them, telling them they would only see the truth when it was time, and not a second before. She moved closer to Alex, wanting his warmth, needing his strength. She felt suddenly afraid of what was coming.
She put a hand on his arm. She could feel the muscles bunched beneath his sleeve. He was as tense as she was. And angry, too, furious with himself. It wasn't a reasonable anger, but how could she convince him of that?
"You're not responsible," she told him again. "You were a little boy when you went to Moscow. You took a picture. That's all you did. You can't take the rest of it on."