remainder of his life in prison, but his insistence on never seeing his daughter again gnawed at me. He wanted, I assume, to protect his child. He felt, again I assumed, that the girl was best off without him.
I say 'assumed' because I could not ask him. Once in custody, Ken had refused to see me too. I did not know why, but his whispered words…
You I've hurt and betrayed more than anyone. kept echoing inside me, shredding with razor talons, inescapable.
Squares stayed outside. Nora and I rushed in. She was wearing the engagement ring. We were early, of course. We found the incoming gate and hurried down the corridor. Nora put her purse into the X-ray machine. I set the metal detector off, but it was just my watch. We rushed to the gate, though the plane was not due to touch down for another fifteen minutes.
We sat and held hands and waited. Melissa had decided to stay in town for a little while. She was nursing my father back to health. Yvonne Sterno had, as promised, gotten the exclusive story. I don't know what it will do for her career. I had not yet contacted Edna Rogers. I would soon, I guessed.
As for Katy, no charges had been filed following the shooting. I thought about how much she needed closure, and I wondered if that night had helped her or not. I think maybe it did.
Assistant Director in Charge Joe Pistillo had recently announced that he would retire at the end of the year. I now understood only too well why he was so eager for me to keep Katy Miller out of this not just for her health but because of what she had seen. I don't know if Pistillo truly doubted the testimony of a six-year-old girl or if his sister's grieving face made him twist Katy's words to suit his purposes. I do know that the feds had kept Katy's old testimony under wraps, supposedly because they were trying to protect a little girl. But I have my doubts.
I had, of course, been crushed to learn the truth about my brother, and yet this is going to sound odd it was somehow okay. The ugliest truth, in the end, was still better than the prettiest of lies. My world was darker, but it was back on its axis.
Nora leaned over. 'You okay?'
'Scared,' I said.
'I love you,' she said. 'Carly will love you too.'
We stared up at the arrivals monitor. It began to blink. The Continental Airlines gatekeeper picked up the micro phone and announced that Flight had landed. Carly's flight. I turned to Nora. She smiled and gave my hand another squeeze.
I let my eyes travel then. My gaze floated across the waiting passengers, the men in suits, the women with carry-ons, the families heading for vacation, the delayed, the frustrated, the worn. I casually swept over their faces and that was when I saw him looking at me. My heart stopped.
The Ghost.
A spasm ripped through me.
Nora said, 'What?'
'Nothing.'
The Ghost beckoned me toward him. I stood as though in a trance.
'Where are you going?'
'I'll be right back,' I said.
'But she's going to be here.'
'I just need to run to the bathroom.'
I kissed the top of Nora's head gently. She looked concerned. She glanced across the gate, but the Ghost was no longer in sight. I knew better. If I walked, he would find me. Ignoring him would only make it worse. Running would be futile. He would ultimately find us.
I had to face him.
I started walking in the direction where he'd been. My legs felt rubbery, but I kept going. When I passed a long row of abandoned pay phones, I heard him.
'Will?'
I turned and he was there. He motioned for me to sit next to him. I did. We both faced the plate glass window rather than each other. The window magnified the rays. The heat was stifling. I squinted my eyes. So did he.
'I didn't come back for your brother,' the Ghost said. 'I came back for Carly.'
His words turned me to stone. I said, 'You can't have her.'
He smiled. 'You don't understand.'
'Then tell me.'
The Ghost shifted his body toward me. 'You want people lined up, Will. You want the good guys on one side, the bad on the other. It doesn't work that way, does it? It is never that simple. Love, for example, leads to hate. I think that was what started it all. Primitive love.'
'I don't know what you're talking about.'
'Your father,' he said. 'He loved Ken too much. I look for the seed, Will. And that's where I find it. In your father's love.'
'I still don't know what you're talking about.'
'What I'm about to say,' the Ghost continued, 'I've only told one other person. Do you understand?'
I said that I did.
'You have to go back to when Ken and I were in the fourth grade,' he said. 'You see, I didn't stab Daniel Skinner. Ken did. But your father loved him so much that he protected him. He bought off my old man. Paid him five grand. Believe it or not, your father almost saw himself as charitable. My old man beat me all the time. Most people said I should be in foster care anyway. The way your father saw it, I would either get off on self-defense or end up getting therapy and three square meals a day.'
I was stunned silent. I thought about our meeting up at the Little League field. My father's crippling fear, his icy silence when we got back, his telling Asselta, 'You want someone, you take me.' Once again it all made terrible sense.
'I only told one person the truth,' he said. 'Any guesses?'
Something else fell into place. 'Julie,' I said.
He nodded. The bond. It explained a lot about their strange bond.
'So why are you here?' I asked. 'To take vengeance on Ken's daughter?'
'No,' the Ghost said with a small laugh. 'There is no easy way to tell you this, Will, but maybe science can help.'
He handed me a folder. I looked down at it. 'Open it,' he said.
I did as he asked.
'It's the autopsy of the recently departed Sheila Rogers,' he said.
I frowned. I didn't wonder how he got it. I was sure he had his sources. 'What does this have to do with anything?'
'Look here.' The Ghost pointed with a thin finger to an entry midway down. 'You see down at the bottom? No scars on the pubic bone from the tears of the periosteum. No comments about pale striations over the breast and abdominal wall. Not unusual, of course. It wouldn't mean anything, unless you were looking for it.'
'Looking for what?'
He closed the file. 'Signs that the victim had given birth.' He saw the look of confusion on my face and added, 'Put simply, Sheila Rogers could not have been Carly's mother.'
I was about to say something but the Ghost handed me another file. I looked at the name on it.
Julie Miller.
The cold spread inside me. He flipped it open and pointed to an entry and started reading, 'Pubic scars, pale striations, changes in the microscopic architecture of the breast and uterine tissues,' he said. 'And the trauma was recent. See here? The scar from the episiotomy was still pronounced.'
I stared at the words.
'Julie did not come home just to meet up with Ken. She was getting her act together after a very bad spell. She was finding herself again, Will. She wanted to tell you the truth.'
'What truth?'
But he shook his head and continued. 'She would have told you earlier, but she wasn't sure how you'd react. The way you so easily let her break up with you… that was what I meant when I said you were supposed to fight
