Pretty Wanted (27 page)

So he was finally going to open up. I watched him, waiting.

He cleared his throat. “After the
incident—
”

“The hit-and-run?” I offered. If he was going to come clean, I wanted him to speak as plainly as possible. No politician mumbo jumbo.

“Right. After that, she didn’t want to support our plan anymore. She wanted us to turn ourselves in. I said no—I thought what we were doing was more important. He was one guy, but we could help thousands. Millions, even.”

“Just what was the plan, exactly?” I asked.

“We wanted to take the gambling money from the bank where the riverboat kept its account, and return it to the people of St. Louis, to the homeless shelters and soup kitchens. Sparrow was just the beginning—we had other actions planned, too.” Up until now he’d spoken slowly, haltingly, but now it was like he was caught up all over again in the excitement of his ideas. “I knew I had a lot to give the world—I just needed a voice. The actions would do that. The stuff that Occupy has been doing? We were doing that fifteen years ago.”

I had a lot to give the world
. Even if he thought he was trying to do this great, noble deed, it was all about his ego. Toni had said it best: megalomaniac. “But where did all of this start?”

He rubbed the skin of his forehead. “I was working as an organizer, and I met Bailey and Chet at the Sheet Metal Workers Union. That was when I realized how easy it was to get people to listen, if you made your message clear enough. They seemed to really get it. I asked them to work for me.”

“And my mom?”

“She was a bookkeeper at the union office. We got . . . involved. She was so smart, so full of life. With her by my side, believing in me, and these other guys hanging on to my every word, I felt invincible. When the riverboat thing began, I started to go to rallies and speak out about the casinos. It was the perfect cause for our mission. Your mom always came to support me. But it wasn’t enough to just talk. We needed to do something big, something that would shake things up.”

“So you planned the robbery.”

“I did, and it went off without a hitch,” he reminded me. “Until we hit that guy. Brianna wanted to get out, set the record straight. She thought it wasn’t worth it. I had no idea she was also pregnant at the time. I was too young and too dumb to realize it then.”

He shook his head and regret furrowed his face, deepening the lines across his forehead. I still didn’t understand exactly what kind of person this man—my father—was, but the pain tracing his eyes and lips was real. I knew because I was young now, and I was living with my own mistakes. That was what it looked like when you wished you could go back and make different choices.

“We had our meeting time arranged—the money was supposed to be in the car. And it wasn’t.”

“She disappeared then,” I said.

“She stayed in the city and changed her name—I guess she thought if she could hide in plain sight she wouldn’t have to move the whole family around. And she’d taken the money with her. I thought maybe this was her revenge. She was angry at me for letting her go, not doing the right thing, so she was taking it out on all of us. Chet said he was going to go after it, get it back, that we couldn’t let her derail the plan—he called her a crazy bitch, I remember that.”

I just stared at him.

“Oh God, this feels like I’m in a confessional or something. You don’t know how hard this is to talk about.” He tapped the cup and sighed. “Chet was sure but I kind of never believed she would do that. She just wasn’t the type. She had the purest heart.”

“I guess you never know about people,” I said. I didn’t want to believe my mom would take all the money for herself, either, but what were the other possibilities?

He continued on, his tone high and defensive like he was making a case to a jury. “I felt so betrayed. I loved her. And worse than that, the plan would never work if our group was falling apart. And if I got into trouble, if it got traced back to me, I wouldn’t be able to help anyone. My whole mission would be over before it began. So I made an even bigger mistake. I let Chet do what he needed to do, to get the money back. I figured if I couldn’t have her, I could still have our plan, still change the world, which was almost as good.”

“So you let him kill her,” I said. “So you could be some sort of superhero.”

“No!” he yelled, and the force of it startled me.

“What, then?”

“I didn’t know it was going to end up like that.” He paused, shuddering, and closed his eyes slowly. “Not like that . . .”

Anger flared in my chest. He could apologize, do the sad act all he wanted to, but it didn’t mean anything to me. He’d killed my mother, maybe not with his own hands, but he’d stood by while it happened. And for that I could never ever forgive him.

“I’m so sorry, Willa. I never wanted it that way. It was like . . . a big ball of yarn, unraveling. The more I lied, the more I had to lie to cover my tracks. I guess I started to believe my own lies after a while.”

And what lies they were. I shook my head.

There was a sharp intake of breath before he continued. “You might as well know.
I
was driving the car, Willa. It was me who hit that kid.”

So the hit-and-run was his fault, too. I felt a tiny sense of relief that it wasn’t my mom, but it didn’t change the fact that an innocent person was hurt and never got justice.

“You,” I said, letting the idea settle between us.

He nodded.

“And you kept that little secret, too.” He couldn’t stop here. As angry as I was, as hard as all of this was to listen to, I had to hear him say it.

“Years passed.”

“You went legit,” I said.

“Well, I built my career. I swore off that other stuff. I figured I could give back, but do it the right way this time. Then one day, I was sitting in a hotel room after a campaign event, and I get this call from Chet. I haven’t talked to the guy in fifteen years. We’d gone our separate ways. He says he saw Leslie on the TV, that her daughter had gotten into trouble in Arizona for stealing.”

I nodded. That was me. Sly Fox. That part I knew. They were worried the cops knew of her whereabouts and it would only be a matter of time until Leslie’s real identity, her scam, was uncovered. The money would be traced back to them.

“Chet said he and Bailey wanted to go out there and get the money back. I was in the middle of this campaign; my hands were tied. I told him we should finally put all of this behind us. I told him they could keep the damn money. By then I realized that’s what they were in it for all along.”

“You were more interested in erasing your own tracks,” I said. “Looking out for yourself.”

“That’s right,” he snapped, looking mad for the first time since I’d sat down. “Look, you don’t know me. You think the worst. I’m not proud of my past, believe me. But I’ve always had a cause, at least. Unlike those guys. You have no idea the good I’ve been able to do for the people here. Is it wrong that I tried to keep at it? That I didn’t let some bad judgment I’d made when I was in my twenties ruin everything I’d worked for?”

“That bad judgment included the murder of my mother,” I broke in.

“And that’s haunted me every day of my life. You have no idea!” He hit the table and looked away then. “I’m trying to explain it to you, okay? I’m trying to be honest here. You could at least listen.”

He had me there. I twisted up my mouth and stacked my arms across my chest. “I’m listening. Go on.”

“So, you know what happens next. I did it again. I made the same mistake twice. Trusting these thugs, looking the other way.”

“But thankfully, they came back empty-handed. They never found the money. He never solved your problem or found Leslie.”

“That’s right. She was killed in the explosion in the trailer park. Another senseless loss.” He looked sickened.

I didn’t correct him. The fact that Leslie was alive was a secret to everyone except me and Corbin and Aidan and Tre. He didn’t need to know it. Sure, he was coming clean to me now, but I still didn’t trust the guy. How could I? He was a proven liar.

“We thought it was over, that the money must have gone up in flames with her in that trailer.”

“Until I showed up in St. Louis.”

“Exactly. After I saw you, I called Chet and told him about it. He was convinced it was a setup and Leslie was still alive. I told him he was crazy. He assured me you were Leslie’s daughter, that you were probably only coming after me with your story because you were on the run from the police and you thought you could get some kind of handout or legal protection from me. He said Leslie had lied to you, probably because she was ashamed of having a daughter so young. So she said you were Brianna’s daughter.”

“But he still thought I had the money?”

“I was there at the casino, you know.”

“I didn’t. I didn’t know lots of things, clearly. And no, I don’t know what he thought. That’s when it gets hazy. They went rogue. They were trying to blackmail me. Bailey was going to double-cross us both. All I know is that by that time, Chet wanted to get the money and kill you. He figured I wouldn’t say anything because he’d be doing what I wanted in the first place, which was to erase the history.”

“Unless you realized the truth about me.” I couldn’t say the exact words out loud.

“Right.”

“But he knew?”

“I think he suspected. I think he was watching your mom for a while before he made his move. He must have seen you as a baby, all those years ago. Maybe he didn’t know for sure until he actually met you.”

I remembered, again, the moment when Bailey and Chet were chasing us through the Painted Hills, threatening to kill us. When Chet glared at me with disgust and said, “You’re just like her.” At the time, I’d thought he meant Leslie. But he meant Brianna.

“If I’d known, everything would be different, Willa.” So he was going there. “I’m still adjusting to this idea that I’m someone’s father. I mean, I would’ve been in your life all this time, helping raise you. I wouldn’t have let you go. I certainly wouldn’t have let any of this happen.”

It was hard to hear, this admission. Because what did it matter? What had happened was done. I’d never had a father. I pictured briefly, what it would have been like to grow up with a famous politician for a dad, a real mother, a real sister. All of the luxuries I could have had. All of the holidays and celebrations. A steady home.

But I’d had a great childhood with Leslie. I had my adopted family of friends in Paradise Valley. I wouldn’t trade that for anything. In the end, cause or no cause, my real mom and Granger were thieves—and liars, too.

He was still lying, for all I knew. It was easy for him to say all this stuff now, wasn’t it?

Still. I could see the pleading in his eyes, the tight clasp of his hands, held together almost in prayer. I could see some of the conviction I’d seen in his commercials and when he spoke at the rally. He seemed to believe what he was saying. Maybe he wasn’t a bad man. Maybe he was a good man who’d made bad decisions. I, out of everyone, could understand that, couldn’t I?

And yet, he’d lied. About lots of things. He was a criminal. He was also my dad.

It was very confusing.

“So what were you doing in a casino, anyway, after all of that?”

“They’re my biggest donors,” he said.

“Hypocritical much?”

“Sometimes you make compromises.”

“I don’t,” I said flatly.

“No. Maybe you don’t.” He shook his head. “Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. My political career is probably over. I’ll most likely have to serve some time. And I know there’s no way to make up for all the lost years we’ve missed. But I’d like it if we can leave the lines of communication open in the future.”

“I can’t promise anything,” I said. “I’m headed to juvie myself.” And beyond that, my future was blank.

“You don’t have to promise me now.” His voice was quiet and small and I remembered that for all of his power and scheming he was human, like the rest of us. “Just think about it, okay? That’s all I ask.”

“Yeah. Okay,” I said, getting up from my seat. Was I supposed to shake his handcuffed hand? Hug him? It was too weird. Instead, I gave him a smile. He smiled back, for the first time.

“Good-bye, Willa. Good luck,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said, feeling tension in my throat again. No, it was more like a fluttery feeling. Anxiety, maybe, of losing something I never knew I had. “Take care of yourself.”

The officer opened the door and led me back out into the hall, and I left Granger behind.

Back in the conference room, Corbin had a small box in front of him.

“One more thing we need to take care of, as per our deal,” he said.

He opened the box and pulled out some purple latex gloves, which he slid on his hands. Then he produced a cotton swab with a plastic cap. He popped off the cap and said, “Open up.”

I opened my mouth and he rubbed the swab on the inside of my cheek, then covered it again with the cap, detaching the handle from the cotton and covering up the plastic with a plug.

“We’ll send it off to the lab this afternoon,” he said.

I watched as he took the vial, no bigger than a large pill, and put it in an envelope. There it was. The scientific proof. The answers to all of my questions. Some lady in a white coat would make a determination within hours. But it didn’t matter at this point. I knew in my heart of hearts, what the truth was.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

TWENTY

AT TWO
P
.
M
.,
Corbin went to make some calls and Tre stepped out to go get some cash. That left me and Aidan in the conference room. It was the first time we’d been alone together since the trunk. His hair was still long and shaggy, but he’d gotten a shave and his face looked soft and pink. He was wearing some fresh clothes, too, a clean white T-shirt and jeans supplied by FBI.

“So how are you doing?” he asked. “It’s been a lot at once.”

“I’m okay,” I said, sitting across from him. “You?”