Redemption (11 page)

She fought the depression trying to pull her down. If she wanted to find her father’s killer, she needed to stay strong, to answer John’s questions and to help in any way she could, but memories were battering her defenses. Her father sitting before his fire, law book on his lap as he dozed. The genuine smile of happiness when she’d visit.

He’d been so proud of her on graduation day, beaming when he’d revealed the brand-new, cherry red Ford Mustang as her gift. That’s why it’d been so hard to tell him about her pregnancy. She’d dreaded a disappointment that had never come.

“Hope?”

She raised her head and blinked. John was half-turned toward her, wrist resting on the steering wheel. His face was bathed in the waning light of day. At first, up at the cabin, she’d been frightened of the harsh lines, but now she’d come to love them.

Love?

Inwardly, she scoffed. No. She hardly knew the man. Though she did like him a lot. He was the only person she trusted in this bizarre situation. And she did enjoy his touch. Maybe because when he bestowed it, she knew it cost him and that made it all the more special. And sleeping with him the night before had been heaven. Her memories had remained buried and for the first time since witnessing her father’s death, she’d slept well.

What would John do if she suddenly said she cared for him? He’d be horrified. Come up with a hundred different reasons why she shouldn’t, none of them dealing with the true reasons. The ones he kept buried in his heart and guarded like a prison fortress.

She didn’t think she loved him. But she also didn’t doubt she
could
love him. Of course, it would be an uphill battle, trying to fight her way through to his heart. And who said he’d want her in the end? She was a single woman about to have a baby. A lot of men didn’t want a ready-made family. Jerry Kemper taught her that.

As soon as the thought entered her head, she felt bad. John Callahan was nothing like Jerry Kemper. But still, she doubted he’d want to raise some other man’s kid.

“You ready to go in?”

She shifted her gaze from his face to the brownstone. She nodded and got out while John reached in the back and retrieved her new clothes. Together they walked up the short flight of steps.

When they stepped inside, she pulled up short and John knocked into the back of her, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder to keep her from pitching forward. Her father’s gifts still lay scattered on the living room floor, the packages brightly wrapped in laughing Santas and cheery snowmen. Red bows trailed from them, making the place look festive.

“Christmas was his favorite holiday, besides my birthday.” Behind her John closed the door and set the packages down. “Why did this happen?”

“I don’t know. But we’ll find out.”

She closed her eyes, picturing her father’s body the last time she’d seen him. Where was he? What did they do with him? And
why
? Why would they take his body away?

“Take your coat off. I can make some tea if you want.”

But instead of shrugging out of John’s coat, she turned and pressed against him, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in his chest. He smelled of the outdoors, his silk turtleneck soft against her skin as she swallowed past the lump in her throat.

He remained frozen, his arms out to his sides, as if he didn’t know what to do.

“Hold me,” she said against his chest. She fought the tears of grief. The packages were a horrid reminder that she would never celebrate another Christmas with her father. Never sit in front of a fire sipping hot chocolate and listening to Christmas carols as she told him about her students. Everything had changed and she was only now beginning to realize how alone she was in a world that had turned downright scary.

John’s arms slowly came around her, cradling her in his strength and warmth, in the protectiveness she needed so desperately. She would have to soldier on without the one man in her life who had always been there for her, through the grief of the death of her mother, the breakup with her first boyfriend and the trials and tribulations of growing up. But not now. Now she wanted—needed—someone else’s strength to draw on.

“What am I going to do?” she asked.

John’s hands, at first stiff on her hips, began to move over her back, pulling her closer to him. Her stomach provided an obstacle but he didn’t seem to mind. “You’re going to survive,” he said.

“How?”

“By living one day to the next. And pretty soon you’ll look at the calendar and realize days and months have passed and the pain isn’t nearly as bad. Then a year will have gone by and the pain will still be there, but you realize it’s something you can live with.”

She lifted her head and looked at him. His eyes were so dark and so serious. “How do you know this?”

He shrugged. His hand skimmed her spine and even through the thick coat and sweater, she felt the heat and shivered in response. He had wonderful hands, the scars adding to the greatness of the man. “I just know,” he said.

“Because of Angelina?”

His body stiffened and she felt the need inside him to pull away.

“Because of Angelina.” This time it wasn’t a question. She laid her head back on his chest. “It’s okay.”

He sighed and the sound seemed full of regret. His hands had stopped moving and returned to being stiff. He was still holding her but inside he had retreated.

He pulled back a little and looked down at her, his emotions firmly under lock and key. “Why don’t I make that tea? Then why don’t you open the presents from your father.”

Hope was sitting on the couch when John returned from making tea. He placed a mug on the table beside her, then settled into the opposite end of the couch, his long legs splayed out before him, his big body half-turned toward her.

He was a coffee man. She knew that from looking through the cupboards in his cabin, but ever since she’d said coffee made her nauseous, he hadn’t had a sip. He was such a kind, generous man, regardless of what he wanted her to believe.

She fingered the wrapped package in her lap, staring down at the comical Santa with one leg in the chimney, the other firmly planted on the snow-covered roof. She felt like that. One foot dangling over a sheer drop, the other on a slippery slope.

“My mother died when I was thirteen,” she said, for some reason wanting John to know her father through her memories. A sort of eulogy. Her dad deserved that at least. “She had ovarian cancer and died four months after being diagnosed. I think Dad and I were still trying to get over the initial shock of learning she had cancer and then, suddenly, she was gone.” The pain, like John had said, was still there but dull. What she missed most, especially during her teen years, was a female she could turn to. “At first it’d been hard with just Dad. No matter how much he’d tried to be both mother and father, he couldn’t do it.”

At the time, shopping for a prom dress with him had been mortifying. Only with age had come the wisdom and the hindsight to realize how much he’d done for her.

She pulled on the ribbon, stretching it taut, then releasing it, watching as it sprang back into its curlicues. “I didn’t want to tell him I was pregnant. I was ashamed. Especially when Jerry refused to marry me and have anything to do with the baby. He was so supportive and so excited to be a grandpa.” Tears rushed into her eyes. He’d never get to see his grandchild, and his grandchild would never know her father. “So…” She took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her eyes.

John tilted his head toward the gift. “What does the tag say?”

“Baby Boy Stewart.” She smiled when she read it.

“He wanted a grandson, then?”

“He never said.”

“Open it.”

Her hands shook with the realization that this would be the only gift she would give her child from her father. When the wrapping fell away, she lifted the lid and sat back with a grin.

“Don’t leave me in suspense,” John said.

She lifted out the tiny baseball mitt and laughed.

John smiled with her and toed another box toward her. “Open the next one.”

She reached down and snagged the box, finding it harder to bend nowadays. “This one’s to Baby Girl Stewart.”

“Ah, he was hedging his bets.”

“Apparently.”

Out of the tissue paper, she lifted tiny pink ballet slippers and set them next to the mitt. Her bottom lip trembled with suppressed tears but she refused to cry. This was a good moment. Bittersweet for sure, but good.

“There’re more,” John said.

Next she opened a sweater for her and a few gift certificates to her favorite stores. Only one small present remained and she lingered over it, wanting to prolong the moment. While she opened her gifts, she could pretend her father was somewhere, maybe on vacation, and they were separated by miles instead of death, but with the last gift, all pretense fled.

“He’s still with you, Hope. In your heart.”

Her gaze flew to John’s. How did he know what she’d been thinking? How’d he know to say the right thing at the right time?

“Open it,” he urged.

Once again her hands shook until the package revealed a sterling silver box, oval in shape, with something engraved on the top.

“‛He who has Hope has everything’,” she read aloud, her voice shaking with emotion. She dashed at a tear that had escaped. “It’s from an Arabian proverb. He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope has everything.”

“It’s appropriate.”

She looked up at him, at the pain that flashed across his face and was gone in an instant. She lifted the heavy silver lid. Once again, tears blurred her vision and her heart beat double-time. She placed the box on the cushion between them and folded her hands in her lap. “I-I can’t…”

John reached for it, opened the lid and peered inside. Then he pulled out the folded piece of paper. A letter from her father. She didn’t think she could read it, not without falling apart. And it was very, very important she didn’t fall apart because she feared she’d never be able to put the pieces back together again.

John’s gaze met hers, full of sympathy and understanding.

“I can’t read it.”

“I think you should.” He held the folded paper out to her but she shrank into the cushions, shaking her head. “You need to read it, Hope.”

“No I don’t.” Not yet, at least.

“What if it gives us a clue?”

She stilled. “You think he knew he was going to be killed?”

“We won’t know if you don’t read it. If you’d like, I’ll leave you alone and you can read in peace.”

“Don’t leave.” Her tone turned pleading and she didn’t care. Didn’t care if John saw her as weak or needy. He simply nodded and she unfolded the letter.

Dear Punkin,

If you’re reading this, then something has happened to me. I thought by hiding the letter in the Christmas presents they wouldn’t find it. Pretty tricky for a washed-up old man, eh?

She smiled and wiped at her tears. It was as if her father were right here next to her. She could actually hear the timbre of his voice through the words on the paper.

John watched the play of emotions cross Hope’s face as she read the letter. She sat with her fist pressed against her mouth, her throat working as if she were fighting nausea. One after the other, tears raced down her cheeks and dripped off her chin and hand.

When she finished reading it to herself, she lowered her fist and cleared her throat. “The beginning’s about me, Jerry and the baby.”

“You don’t have to tell me, Hope.”

She shook her head. “You need to know. The money. Suzanne. I know why he died.” She hiccupped, holding back a sob. “Suzanne killed him.”

She handed him the letter, stood and walked away. John watched her for a few moments, not knowing if he should go to her or read the letter. When she just stood at the window and looked out, he turned his attention to the letter.

Charles Stewart’s handwriting reminded him of an EKG reading, all dips and spikes.

I know people thought I had a hand in the whole mess a few years back. But, honestly, I didn’t know about the deal with the Saudis. If I had, I would have advised Bradley against it. And Suzanne, I still shake my head over that. What was she thinking? A traitor to her own country, selling weapons to terrorists so they could use them against her own countrymen. It’s unforgivable.

Suzanne made a lot of money dealing those arms. The government searched high and low for the profit but could never find it. Then one day it literally landed in my lap. Millions and millions of dollars.

As John read, it took a concerted effort not to fist the paper in his hand, ball it up and throw it into the cold fireplace then flip the switch to incinerate it. What the hell had Stewart gotten himself into?

Not long after Bradley died, I received a sealed envelope from his attorney, advising me that Bradley had named me in the will. Inside were numbers to offshore accounts and credit cards attached to the accounts.

In a letter, Bradley said he was sorry for involving me in the entire mess. He regretted everything he’d done and blamed himself for the ruin of his career and mine. Then he told me about the money. Said if I didn’t want it, to give it to the IRS. If anything, they’d implicate Suzanne in tax evasion and make her life a little more difficult.

I swear, Hope, I was going to do it. I was all ready to take everything to the IRS.

Instead, I let myself think about it, play with the idea of keeping it. Then the devil started talking to me. That’s the only way I can describe it.

I earned that money with the death of my career. I worked hard for the Carmichaels and had nothing to show for it. Then you wanted to go to grad school and I saw no reason for you to work two jobs to put yourself through when the least the Carmichaels could do was help out. So I used the money. And the car I bought for you was a little gift from them as well.

Over the years I dipped in, nothing major, just a little here and there.

Anger churned in John’s gut at Stewart’s weakness, at his stupidity in not realizing that what he’d done would come back to bite him in the rear. But mostly at involving his daughter in something she was obviously ill equipped to handle.

Remember a few years back when I opened that safety-deposit box in both our names? I hope you still have the key, but knowing my Hope, you will. Go to the safety-deposit box. Do what you have to. Just don’t get mixed up in all this like I did.

If you need help, go to John Callahan. He’s a good guy. An honest guy. He’ll help you. He has a bone to pick with Suzanne, but he’ll help you regardless. Tell him everything if you have to. Dead guys like me can’t be proud.

I’m sorry, punkin. Truly, truly sorry.

John guessed that’s where he came in. The cleanup team, so to speak. Charles Stewart had used him, used the knowledge that he had an ax to grind with Suzanne Carmichael and bet his daughter’s life John would help. And what would have happened if he’d refused? If Hope had never found the letter and Suzanne found her first? Or worse, if she’d arrived at his cabin an hour later?

He tossed the letter on the coffee table and rose. Hope stood at the window, arms wrapped tightly around her as if she would fall apart if she didn’t physically hold herself together. Her tears had dried but there were deep lines between her brows, as if she was thinking hard. Or trying not to.

He approached slowly, completely out of his depth.
Thank you, Charles Stewart.
John didn’t know how to handle grieving women, angry women or hurt women. And Hope was all three.

Yet, while there was a part of him that wanted to run, a bigger part wanted to stay, to somehow fix this for her. He had to chuckle. Fix things? Him? Hell, he had to fix his own life before he could go tinkering with hers.

He ran a hand through his hair. And when did he go from wanting to end his life to wanting to fix it?

He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope has everything.
The proverb fit.

“I hate him,” she said, her gaze glued to something outside. Her body shook and he reached out with the intention to touch her shoulder but let his hand drop to his side.

“Right now you do.”

“No. I really, really do.”

He was so out of his league here. He could use Kate. She would know what to say. But she was in Ohio and besides, this wasn’t her problem and Luke would probably shoot him if he dragged Kate into this.

“He paid for my graduate degree with illegal money. And the car…” She sounded bewildered and he wondered what she was going to do when the numbness wore off and the real anger appeared.

“Good people sometimes do bad things. That doesn’t make them bad people.”

She pursed her lips and he could tell she wasn’t ready to listen, but he felt compelled for some odd reason to defend her father. Probably because Hope loved the guy and John didn’t want to see her memories tainted with stupid decisions her father had made.

“I wish he’d never met the Carmichaels.”

Yeah, well, so did he. But wishing wasn’t going to get them anywhere. “He made a mistake. A stupid mistake that got him killed. I imagine in his own way, he thought he was doing good with the money.”

“What did he mean when he said you had a bone to pick with Suzanne?”

John drew in a deep breath. Now was not the time to go into that. “Suzanne and I have crossed paths a time or two.”

She turned to him, her arms still tightly wrapped around herself. “Tell me, John. Tell me what she did to you. Make me understand.”

For a long time, John didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. The memories were too close, his anger at what Stewart had done too raw. He’d been manipulated and he didn’t take kindly to it. If Stewart were alive, John would have a thing or two to say to the man. But then, if Stewart were alive, John wouldn’t be here.

“It happened during the arms deals,” he heard himself say. Where the words came from, he didn’t know. Why, he didn’t know either. Several highly placed psychiatrists had tried to pry the story out of him, claiming it would help his healing process and none had succeeded. “I got a call from Suzanne. She was my boss at the time. Told me about some terrorist activity in Peru.

“I went. Turns out I was the sacrificial lamb. Suzanne used me to make it look like she was taking action against the People of Light when in actuality she was working with them.” He shrugged and let his voice trail off. It took considerable effort to appear nonchalant, like it was all in the past when in reality it was right there before him.

The betrayal had been overwhelming. Before he’d learned the truth, he’d been able to console himself with the fact that what he’d done, what he’d endured, had been for his country, to make the people of the United States a little safer. That belief had been blown out of the water the day Luke called with the true story of Suzanne’s betrayal.

It had been the beginning of the end for him.

Hope’s eyes had gone soft with pity and horror. The horror he could take. The pity he could not.

“It’s over and done with, cupcake. No big deal.”

“Why do you call me cupcake when you’re trying to push me away?”

“Do I?”

“Yes. It doesn’t work. Only makes me want to get closer. I’m sorry for what Suzanne did to you.”

“Don’t be.” He felt the walls closing in on him, his barriers slipping into place, divorcing him from the feelings battering at the defenses he’d learned to erect years ago. He mourned that Hope stood on the other side of his fortification even while he understood the need for it. “I don’t need pity.”

She shrugged. “I can’t help it. It’s what I feel. Get over it, Callahan.”