She’d realized the maggot who had spawned her was Gerald Johnson, and now they were having a showdown.
He should have killed her sooner!
All of his work… about to be destroyed.
All of his planning, how careful he’d been, about to be exposed.
Taking several calming breaths, he told himself that this was just another small challenge, a bump in the road. He could handle this, he could.
He blinked his eyes.
But he didn’t let up on the accelerator as he passed a long, nearly empty van marked ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S HOSPITAL heading the opposite way, toward Grizzly Falls.
Within minutes he was forced to slow for traffic as he guided his Lexus through the streets of Missoula.
Inside his driving gloves, his hands were clammy, and nervous sweat dampened his shirt though the temperature in the car read only sixty-seven degrees and outside snow was beginning to stick in earnest on the roads again.
Glancing into the rearview mirror, he saw no car hanging back, as if following him, no sinister driver hiding behind aviator shades. Nor was there anyone in a long trench coat leaning on a lamppost while observing him, no man on a park bench ostensibly reading a newspaper, while, in fact, surveying his every move.
Of course not!
That was just the stuff of movies!
He counted his heartbeats and punched the accelerator the second the light turned green.
The rest of the drive was excruciatingly slow, while his thoughts were flying through his head a mile a minute. Short, sharp bits of mental movies of those he called his siblings, of those who were now dead, and of the bitch who was currently hell-bent on destroying it all.
Forcing a calm he didn’t feel, he drove the Lexus into the parking lot of his father’s business and spotted her car parked near the administration building.
His stomach clenched, and he had to remind himself that all was not lost.
Yet.
CHAPTER 28
“ You were expecting me?” Kacey stared at the man who, if only by the chance of genetics, was her father. Hadn’t Maribelle said Gerald Johnson didn’t know about her? Then again, hadn’t her mother been known to lie? To keep secrets? “So you know I’m your biological daughter? I thought it was all a big secret.”
“Is that what Maribelle said?” He almost seemed amused as he waved her into the large office with its oversized desk, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a sitting area complete with leather couch and matching side chairs. Through the glass wall behind him, she saw another duck pond and beyond, rising in the distance, the mountains, where the ridges seemed to scrape the graying sky. Snow had already begun to obliterate the view. All that was clearly visible was the edge of the parking lot, where she caught the noses of a Cadillac SUV, a BMW, and a Jaguar.
“She told me that you didn’t know that I existed,” Kacey said.
“And you believed her.”
“Well, yeah. Now you’re telling me something else.”
He waved her toward him, where two visitor’s chairs were positioned on one side of his desk. Kacey removed her coat and draped it over one chair, settling cautiously in the other. On the side wall were awards, certificates, and his medical diplomas, prominently displayed.
“I assume my mother called and warned you that I intended to find you,” Kacey said.
“She did.”
“So all her secrets, her insistence that you be kept out of it, that was all just what? A smoke screen? Why?”
“Your mother tried to act as if the baby — you — were Stanley’s. I didn’t believe it, of course. She’d been trying to have a baby for years, and then, after we got… close, she became pregnant, so I assumed the truth.” He drew a breath and exhaled it heavily. “Our affair was winding down at the time. I was going to move the company from Helena to here and… so,” he said, leaning forward, hands clasped, forearms on the desk, “I saw no point in trying to keep what we had going. We were both married, neither wanted a divorce, and so. . we let it die, and I allowed your mother the fantasy that I didn’t know about you. It was just simpler.”
“For whom?” she asked carefully.
“Everyone. Including you.”
“How thoughtful,” she said, hearing the anger rising in her own voice. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Of course I found out about you, but I didn’t let on. Your mother and I were over, anyway, and we were both married, and at least one of us was happy.”
Kacey felt her jaw tighten. Gerald Johnson had a pretty high opinion of himself.
He lifted one shoulder. “I thought it was best if I pretended I didn’t think you were mine. I had a family, a wife, a company to run.”
“And Mom?”
“She got what she always wanted out of the deal. A child.” Gerald’s gaze held hers. “It worked out.”
“Did it?” Her stomach soured as she thought of all the lies that were her life. “What about my dad?” she said. “The one who raised me?”
Gerald’s lips flattened a little, and some of his equanimity seeped away. “What? Are you coming to me now because he’s gone? You’re looking for a new father figure? Or, maybe it isn’t even that altruistic. Perhaps you’re looking for something else?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” she said, though she did, and it was pissing her off.
“Look around.” He gestured grandly.
“Get this straight, Mr. Johnson. I don’t want anything from you but the truth. People are dying, and I think you have the answer.”
“Dying? Good Lord, you’re as melodramatic as your mother.”
“Maybe. But it doesn’t alter the facts.” She stood up, unable to sit in front of him like a sycophant.
Deep furrows cleft his brow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Let’s start with Shelly Bonaventure.”
“Who? The… actress? What about her?”
“You don’t know her?”
“Of course I don’t. Why would I? The only reason I know about her is that my daughter Clarissa reads those tabloids and the like.”
“She was born in Helena.”
“All right.”
She felt herself falter inside a little. Could she be mistaken? He seemed genuinely at a loss. “Did you know Jocelyn Wallis?”
“Jocelyn who? I have no idea what you’re talking about!” Then something sparked. “Wait a minute. I read something about a woman who died recently. She fell while jogging?”
