Authors: Mariah Stewart
Forgotten
CONTENTS
For my dad
ONE
N
o two ways about it. Dying was a bitch.
There would always be too many important things—good things—left undone.
Madeline Williams wept for all the books she’d never read, all the music she’d never hear, all the sunsets she’d never see. The grandchildren she’d never hold. On a bad day, she made lists of all the
nevers.
Today had been a particularly bad day.
She shifted her tired shoulders and eased her head back upon the pillows she’d stacked behind her on the bed she’d slept in almost every night for the past twenty-nine years. It was just after four on a Tuesday afternoon, but already her eyes were closing in spite of her wanting to stay awake long enough to watch the sun drift down behind the row of evergreens that ran along the far edge of her property. She remembered the day her ex-husband, Greg, planted them the year they moved into this sweet Cape Cod on Higham Road. They’d put in gardens and shrubs and had taken such joy in the shared work. But things had changed over the past decade, and when he left her, he left for good, leaving behind the house and the gardens and the joy as well.
Divorce was a bitch, too.
She wondered if he ever looked back. Most days it seemed all she did was look back.
One of the things she hated most about the disease that was siphoning away her life was the way it kept nibbling at the precious time she had left. It seemed that every day, she lost a little more to her body’s demands for sleep. It was the medication, it was the treatment, it was the disease. She knew all that. She just hated that it was happening to her, and happening so quickly. She’d hoped for more time.
Yesterday her daughter, Lisa, left work at noon to hit the bookstore and pick up the long-awaited new release from Maddy’s favorite author, and had hurried over with it as a surprise. It was a book she had long anticipated, but she’d not been able to get past the first page. The chemical fog in her brain had seemed to absorb the meaning of the words, and the ever-present fatigue had gotten the best of her. Before she’d realized what was happening, she’d fallen asleep, the book on her chest.
Maddy hated knowing that she wouldn’t live to finish it. In frustration, she’d hurled the book to the floor.
There was one thing she’d sworn she’d do before she died, and it was weighing heavily on her mind today. Her greatest fear was that she’d fail in that, too. The energy it took to dispose of the book left her weak, and she closed her eyes, letting exhaustion take her to that dark place where these frightening truths could not follow. But they’d still be there tomorrow when she woke up, and they’d be there the day after as well—would be there, she knew, until the end, which, if the doctors were to be believed, wouldn’t be all that long now.
She slipped into sleep, the promise of death so close she felt its breath, even as it stole hers. It was, they said, only a matter of time.
S
he awoke in a dark room, the only light that of the night-light Lisa had plugged into an outlet outside Madeline’s bedroom door. With great effort, Madeline pushed herself up and reached for the clock on her bedside table. It was twenty minutes after eight. She’d slept for four hours.
She pulled the covers aside and sat on the edge of the bed in the pink cotton nightshirt that Lisa bought for her last Mother’s Day. She dangled her short legs over the side of the bed for a moment before making her way slowly to the bathroom. She’d just closed the door when she heard Lisa outside the bathroom.
“Mom, are you all right?” Lisa stood in Madeline’s bedroom, anxiously awaiting an answer.
“Yes, fine, sweetheart. I just got up and needed to use the bathroom.”
“Are you sick? Do you want me to come in and help you?”
“No, baby. I just needed to go to the bathroom.” Maddy fought the sharp edge in her voice. These last few days, she’d been short-tempered, and it hurt her as much as she knew it hurt Lisa. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
Madeline finished up, flushed, washed her hands, and pulled open the door. Lisa sat on the end of the queen-sized bed looking nervous and scared.
“Do you think you can eat something?” Lisa asked.
“In a while,” Madeline smiled to reassure her. The last thing she wanted was food, but she was hoping that, in another hour or so, she’d feel like eating. “I just woke up, and you know I never like to eat right away.”
“Carolyn called a while ago to see how you’re feeling today,” Lisa said.
“I’ll give her a call in the morning.” Maddy knew her lifelong best friend checked in at least once a day, every day. It was breaking her heart to know that Carolyn was having such a hard time facing the inevitable. Right now, though, as much as she appreciated her friend’s love and concern, she lacked the strength to deal with anyone else’s sadness. It was all she could do to cope with her own.
Maddy stood in front of her dresser, wondering who the sick old woman was who looked back at her from the mirror. If she’d been vain, which she was not, she would have been more upset at the sight of her reflection. Mostly, these days she was resigned to her appearance. She knew the woman the mirror had reflected once upon a time was long gone, and would never be back.
“I had a thought.” Maddy turned to her daughter. “I woke up with something very important on my mind.”
“Do you remember what it was?”
“Don’t interrupt, I’m liable to lose it.” Madeline tried to make a joke. She opened the top drawer of her dresser and moved several things around. “Ah, here it is. I can’t believe that after twelve years, it’s still where I put it.”
She handed Lisa a card.
“What is this?” Lisa frowned.
“What does it look like?” Madeline sat next to her on the side of the bed. Her body was already craving sleep again.
“John Mancini, Special Agent, FBI.” Lisa read the faded business card, then looked up at her mother. “This is the agent who investigated…when Chris…?”
Madeline nodded, and despite her best intentions to go downstairs and watch TV with Lisa, she slid back into the bed and pulled the covers around her.
“I want you to go to him, Lisa. I want you to ask him—beg him, if you have to—to go to the prison and ask the monster where he buried my son.” Madeline’s eyes suddenly filled with tears.
“Mom, he might not even be in the FBI anymore.” Lisa held the card between her thumb and forefinger.
“Shouldn’t be too hard to find out. You call the FBI and you ask.” Madeline reached for her water bottle but it was just out of her range. Lisa shot up and handed it to her.
“What makes you think he’d do something like this? He might not have time, you don’t know what other things he’s working on…”
“Then he can look you in the eye and tell you no,” Madeline said simply. “It’s the last thing I will ever ask of anyone, Lisa.”
“Mom, you can ask anything of me, and I’m more than happy to do whatever…”
“No, you don’t understand.” Madeline removed the lid from the bottle and took a few sips. “There is nothing that I want except to bury my son. I want them to find Chrissy and bring him back, whatever is left of him, and bury him properly next to me. That’s all I want, Lis.” Madeline reached out and took her daughter’s hand. “Can you try for me, please?”
“Of course, Mom.” Lisa leaned over and kissed her mother’s pale cheek. “First thing in the morning. I’ll find him.”
“Thank you, baby.” Madeline lay back against the pillow and smiled. “I can’t leave him out there, you know? I just can’t leave this world, knowing that my little boy is still out there all alone somewhere.”
“I understand, Mom.” Lisa smoothed the blankets out over Maddy’s wasted form and kissed her forehead. “I’ll call, I promise. First thing in the morning…”
TWO
T
he newly leased sports car inched past the short row of identical brick townhouses for the third time before parking directly across the street from one. The driver turned off the engine and studied the façades as a child might study one of those
Can you find the difference between these pictures?
exercises in a workbook. Fifteen minutes passed before the car door opened and a tall, deeply tanned woman with short black hair and mile-long legs emerged. Dark glasses covered part of her face, and a pale green scarf draped the neck of the simple white shirt she wore with black linen pants. She leaned against the car for another few minutes, then walked across the street and directly to the house marked 712.
She rang the doorbell and waited.
Her hand was raised to ring a second time when the door opened. A dark-haired man wearing glasses, a gray T-shirt, and worn khakis stood barefoot in the doorway, a wide grin on his handsome face.
“Hey! Portia!” He greeted her with a bear hug, scooped her up, and swung her into the foyer. “Welcome back. Great to see you!”
“Thanks, Will.” Portia Cahill allowed herself to be totally engulfed by her sister’s longtime love and fiancé.
“Miranda’s not home, but I expect her any minute now.” He let her down and pushed the door closed with his foot. “But come on in, sit.”
“Sorry to pop in unannounced,” she said as he led her toward a comfortably furnished living room. “I’d have called but I wasn’t sure what time I’d be getting in. My plane was late leaving London and late getting in to Newark, so I missed my connection to Baltimore.”
“Hey, I know the drill. Travel’s a bitch these days.” He stood in the doorway. “What can I get you? I know you have to be hungry, thirsty, tired…”
“Actually, I would love a cup of tea.”
“Great. I’ll just be a minute.”
“I’ll come with you.” She followed him down the hall to the back of the house.
“We might have some kind of cookies in the pantry there, if you’d like a snack.” He filled a kettle with water, placed it on the stove, and turned on the burner. “If we’d known you were coming, we could have…”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call. I should have,” she conceded. “But you don’t seem all that surprised to see me.”
“Well, we’ve known you’d be coming back for about a week now,” he admitted. “We just didn’t know when.”
“I suppose John told you?” she asked, annoyed that their mutual boss had shared her relocation plans with her sister. Then again, she reasoned, why would he not? John couldn’t be expected to know that Portia hadn’t been in touch with her, wouldn’t have known about the strain between them.
“He did mention it to Miranda. He assumed she already knew.” Will turned his back to get mugs from a glass-doored cabinet.
“So I guess she’s pissed off that I didn’t call her.”
Will shrugged. “You’re going to have to take that up with her, Portia. I’m not getting in the middle of the two of you.”
“I suppose she was almost gleeful when she heard I got the bounce overseas,” Portia muttered.
“That comment wasn’t worthy of you.” He turned around and faced her, his eyes solemn. “You know her better than that.”
Her lack of response was a silent admission that Portia did, in fact, know that her sister would not find pleasure in her twin’s downfall.
“All that crap between you and Miranda and your father…” Will shook his head. “That’s stuff the two of you have to work out on your own.”
“Well, she’d be right if she said I brought this transfer on myself,” Portia sat on one of the wicker chairs in the corner and rested her elbow, chin in hand, on the kitchen table. “I should have kept a lower profile. I should have been more aware of the press.”
“I hardly think you’d have expected some tabloid reporter to mistake you for one of Jack Marlowe’s girlfriends.”
“Everyone but me was highly amused when it was revealed that I was in fact his daughter.” Portia made a face. “Not funny to have people think you’re your own father’s playmate. Disgusting, actually.”
“But understandable, since so many of Jack’s girls are our age or younger these days.” Miranda Cahill came into the kitchen and tossed her bag onto the counter. “And since he really has never publicly owned up to having sired us, you can’t blame the press for thinking you were our dear daddy’s girl
du jour.
Whew, this heat’s a killer, isn’t it?”
“Good to see you, too, Sister Love.” Portia rose and watched Miranda warily. “And for the record, Jack’s owned up to it now.”
Miranda stared back into eyes the exact shade of green as her own. “Well, that certainly makes up for, oh, thirty-some years of neglect.”
“I
am
glad to see you, Miranda,” Portia said softly.
“Oh, shit.” Miranda opened her arms and hugged her twin. “I’m glad to see you, too. I’m so glad you’re home and safe.”
“I was safe overseas,” Portia told her as she backed away slowly from the embrace.
“Really? Because I never feel safe when I’m being shot at. There’s something about the sound of bullets whizzing past my head that makes me just a tad jumpy.” Miranda shrugged. “Of course, maybe it’s just me…”
“It wasn’t that bad, really,” Portia assured her. “I admit there were some dicey moments, especially in Afghanistan, but all things considered, it could have been worse.”
“Well, that’s all behind you now, right?” Miranda sat opposite Portia at the table. “You’ve been reassigned stateside.”
Portia made a face. “For the time being, I suppose. At least until this dies down, and people forget what I look like.”
“Sorry, but no one will ever forget what you look like,” Will interjected. “Once your face is out there, it’s out there, and people will remember you. It’s part of that whole cursed-with-beauty thing. People remember beautiful faces.”
“I know you meant that as a compliment, Will, but it’s not making me feel better.” Portia sighed. “I love undercover work. I love counterterrorism, I really do. I could have stayed overseas and ended my career there.”
“Unfortunately, if you’d stayed overseas once your cover was blown, your career would have ended permanently, a lot sooner than any of us would have liked,” Will pointed out.
The kettle whistled and Will tended to it, pouring tea into one mug and serving Portia. He then poured coffee from a glass carafe into mugs for himself and Miranda. He was setting a carton of half-and-half on the table when Miranda said, “Oh, we’re drinking tea, now, are we? How very British of you.”
“Lots of people drink tea.”
“You never did. You never liked it. But I guess all that time you spent in London, being wined and dined by Jack…” Miranda paused. “Or do you call him
Dad
now?”
Portia’s eyes narrowed and she wrapped her hands around the mug.
“Don’t, Miranda,” she said. “Just…don’t.”
Miranda bit the inside of her mouth but didn’t speak.
“I think I’ll just go on up to my office and check my e-mail,” Will said. “Maybe water the plants. Feed the goldfish.”
“The goldfish died last month, Will,” Miranda reminded him drily.
“Yeah, I know. I’m still in denial. I sure do miss the little buggers,” Will said as he backed out of the kitchen. “Besides, I know you two have a lot to catch up on…”
Portia watched through narrowed eyes as Miranda added more cream to her coffee. It seemed to take longer than necessary, and Portia knew she was struggling to get her temper under control.
“Go ahead and say whatever it is you have to say, Miranda. Let’s just get it out and over with once and for all so we can move past it.”
“There is no ‘once and for all.’” Miranda looked up. Portia saw a touch of sadness in Miranda’s eyes and was painfully aware there was nothing she could say to make that sadness vanish. “Not as long as you continue to defend Jack, as long as you refuse to acknowledge what he is and what he did to our mother thirty-odd years ago.”
“I don’t need to defend Jack. He is who he is. And for the record, Jack loved Mom. She was the one true love of his life. I know you find it hard to believe, but…”
“Oh, ya think?” Miranda snorted. “Well, narrow-minded me. Just because he left her pregnant and unmarried while he courted some of the great beauties of their day. Oh, hell, he’s courted some of the great beauties of
our
day. And he’s been married what, four times? A couple of supermodels, an actress. A princess, for Christ’s sake. But somehow, he never found time to marry Mom.” Miranda scoffed. “Love of his life, my ass.”
“Look, that was between the two of them. If Mom could understand—if she could accept it—I don’t know why you can’t.”
“I don’t know how you can.” Miranda made a face. “He left us…flitted in and out of our lives for years, though the blame for that is on her as well. She let him hurt her, over and over again. Even after she married Roger—a really decent guy who loved her—Jack couldn’t stay away, and she couldn’t say no when he came back. He just couldn’t leave her alone. Even when she was dying.”
“I think she wanted to love Roger—I think she really tried—but she never really did. She liked him a lot. Respected him. But she never loved him. I think she wanted to be a good wife to him,” Portia reminded Miranda. “And I think Roger really tried to overlook Mom’s feelings for Jack. He knew that she’d never love him the way she loved Jack.”
“Yeah, well, after a while, poor Roger couldn’t take it anymore. Hence the divorce. But I will never forget the look on that man’s face when you brought Jack into Mom’s hospital room that last time.” Miranda averted her eyes. “Mom was dying. Roger thought that at last, he’d have her all to himself. He wanted to be her rock, wanted to be the one who was there for her at the end. He wanted to be the one who held her while she passed. And then you had to go and bring Jack back in at the last minute…”
“First off, I did not
bring
him.” Portia’s eyes blazed. “Mom specifically asked for him. She wanted him there. And knowing how close to the end she was, he asked me to come with him. If it hadn’t been for him, I might not have been with her at the end, either, since you weren’t in any big hurry to share that bit of news.”
“That’s just not true.” An indignant Miranda slammed her mug on the table. “Mom may have shared her bad news with Jack, but she never told me how bad things were. I found out from Roger the morning the two of you showed up.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied her twin’s face. “How could you even think I’d have kept that from you?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you’ve been so pissed off at me because of my relationship with Jack that you hadn’t spoken to me for months before we found out that Mom was sick.”
“No matter how angry I was, I would not—could not—keep something like that from you,” Miranda whispered. “I have no use for Jack, that’s true, but I would never have kept you from Mom, if I’d known how close we were to losing her. I’m afraid I was in a bit of denial then. I didn’t want to see how bad she was. It was easier to tell myself that she was going to beat it, that she was going to be fine. I couldn’t imagine it turning out any other way.”
Portia bit her bottom lip to hide its quiver, but it was too late. Miranda had already seen and recognized her sister’s attempt to cover up her emotions. She got up from her seat and stood behind Portia’s chair to rest her head upon her sister’s.
“All those years, it was just the three of us, remember?” Miranda sniffed back tears. “You, me, Mom. The Mighty Cahills.”
Portia nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“She faced the censure of a small town to raise us by herself, and never regretted it, as far as I could tell.”
“She didn’t. She told me she wouldn’t have changed one thing in her life, not for anything.” Portia swallowed hard, fighting her own tears. “She said we were the best thing that could have happened to her, and she thanked God every day that she had us.”
Portia lifted her face to her sister and said, “Mom loved deeply, Miranda. Deeply and forever. That’s how she felt about us, and even though you don’t like it, that’s how she felt about Jack. He was the love of her life.”
“Too bad she wasn’t the love of his.”
“Ah, but she was,” Portia told her. “That’s the part you don’t understand. He never loved anyone but her.”
“Did he tell you that?” Miranda sneered.
“Many, many times.”
“And you believe him?” Miranda shook her head. “Then you’re as blind as Mom was about him.”
“If you got to know him, you’d understand. His life hasn’t been a normal one.”
“Ah, yes. Mad Jack Marlowe. Sixties rock idol. Guitar god. International superstar.” Miranda shook her head. “I understand all too well. Why bother to tie yourself down to one woman when you could have
all
the women?”
“That was part of it, probably. I’m sure it was, especially when he was younger. Jack’s way of life has taken him down some very strange roads. Mom wasn’t interested in traveling those roads with him. She wanted to stay home, with us.”
“I’m sure that’s what she told herself…”
“It’s how she really felt.” Portia shook her head from side to side. “Do I understand that? No, frankly, I don’t. But I respect it. It was her choice.”
Miranda rolled her eyes. “Jack would have tired of her in no time if she’d tried to follow him.”
“Which is why she never did.” Portia smiled. “And why he always came back to her.”
“We will never see eye to eye on this, will we?”
“Probably not.”
“I don’t want to see him.”
“You don’t have to.” Portia reached over and took her sister’s hand. “But don’t get upset if I do.”
“I don’t want him to be my father.”
“Now
that’s
something we can’t do anything about.” Portia smiled.
Miranda got up and refreshed her coffee. A moment later she turned and said, “I read somewhere that he has this yacht that’s supposed be like a floating palace. It supposedly has luxury staterooms and an incredible chef and a full staff.”
“All true.” Portia nodded. “He leaves it in Greece.”
“Have you ever been on it?”
“For a whole week last year.” Portia smiled at the memory.
“Is it truly glorious?”