For a moment, no one spoke. Studying their expressions, now quite composed, Adam felt a frisson-at the least, he sensed, someone at this table knew more than they wished to tell him. “In any event,” he said, “Dad named me executor of his will. That means I’m staying for a while.” His voice chilled. “He wanted to drag me into this. So now I’m in.”
Clarice gave him a complex look of worry and relief. After a moment, she reached across the table, touching Adam’s hand. “Whatever the reason,” she said in a husky voice, “I’m glad you’re not disappearing. The last time was hard enough.”
After dinner, Jack sat with Adam on the porch. It felt familiar and companionable, reminding Adam of the evenings they had spent a decade ago or more, when Ben was off-island and his uncle would come for dinner. Adam always cherished them, not least for the release of tension from his father’s oversized presence, the pleasant contrast of Jack’s solicitude and calm. Sometimes they would talk for hours.
But this evening Jack was quiet, the coffee cup untouched beside him. Finally, he asked, “You’re very worried about the police, aren’t you?”
Adam weighed his answer. “I don’t care if he was murdered, Jack. I just don’t want anyone in this family to pay for it. He did enough harm when he was alive.”
Jack studied him. “Teddy’s on to something, you know. Why would anyone kill a man whose death would ruin them?”
A shadow of memory crossed Adam’s mind. “Because sometimes hatred is enough. But you’re right, of course-motive is important. And there are people outside this family who stand to profit from his death. Mom certainly hasn’t.” Adam paused to sip his coffee, eyeing Jack over the rim. “Do you know why she signed that postnup?”
For a moment, Jack’s thoughts seemed to turn inward, and then he looked at Adam intently. “I know what your mother says. I think you should accept that. The shame she feels whenever you bring it up is painful to watch-”
“Not as painful as its consequences.”
“I can see that.” Jack paused. “I also understand why you’d want to help her. But will your firm allow you to stick around that long?”
“I’m not giving them a choice.”
The worry in Jack’s eyes deepened the gravity of his expression. “As your uncle, let me speak my piece. No matter what you say about it, I’m not happy with you going back to Afghanistan. But all of us except you got sucked into Ben’s orbit. At least you escaped-”
Richard North Patterson
Fall from Grace
“This is different, Jack.”
“So it is. But I don’t think you can change what happens here. Maybe you should go back to the life you’ve created for yourself. Or better, start a new one.”
Adam contemplated the coffee cup, cool now in his hands. “I can’t,” he answered simply. “I need to bury him for good.”
Before sunset, Adam climbed down the wooden stairway from the promontory to the beach. Gazing up at the cliff, he imagined the trajectory of his father’s fall. Beneath it he found a rock with a faint rust-colored stain that, a week before, must have been a pool of his father’s blood.
Adam closed his eyes. If someone had pushed him, they could be certain that he could not live to say who, or why. Perhaps no one but the murderer would ever know.
He sat down on a rock, contemplating a vivid sunset Ben would have loved, which now began to cast a shimmering orange glow on the darkening waters. Seeing his mother, uncle, and brother had reminded Adam, if he needed this, how deeply he loved them. But that did not mean he believed everything they said, any more than he would tell them the entire truth about himself and what he meant to do here. The last ten years had created a duality in his nature-he had learned the uses of dissembling, and how to wall off his emotions to survive. He could feel love and practice deceit in the same moment.
Glancing around him, he took out the untraceable cell phone he had not used since coming back. He punched in the number, imagining the man at his desk noting which telephone he had called on. When his superior picked up, he said, “It’s Blaine.”
“Where are you?”
“Still on the island. I have to stay here for a while. My father seems to have disinherited my mother.”
A moment’s pause. “Isn’t it a little late to change his mind?”
“There’s something off here, Frank. Several things. Don’t tell me a man of your broad interests doesn’t read the National Enquirer.”
Svitek laughed. “I have, actually. Sounds like your father’s interests were very broad indeed. But we need you back there, my son.”
The orange disk, Adam noticed, was swiftly vanishing. “They need me here much more,” he replied. “While I’m gone, you’ve got other people to do the work.”
“Starting from scratch? Come off it, Adam. We can’t just clone an operative with your exceptional skills-”
“Which are?”
“Deception. Manipulation. Withholding information. Knowing whom not to trust. Getting those who trust you to take risks on your behalf. And, of course, pretending to be someone you’re not.” His superior’s tone changed from ironic to practical. “The Afghans like you. You have a knack for inspiring confidence while telling your prey only what they need to know.”
Adam’s laugh was hollow. “As I consider it, Frank, those are the attributes of a sociopath.”
“In our line of work we call them ‘survival skills.’” Svitek paused, his voice admitting a note of compassion. “You’re hardly a sociopath, Adam-you care about people too much. That weakness aside, you’re the best we have.”
“By which you mean they haven’t killed me yet. Despite a dead man’s best efforts.”
“True enough. But that makes my point, doesn’t it?”
Adam’s tone hardened. “Given all that, I’ve earned myself a leave. As you suggest, working under cover gives us certain skills. One is a gift for changing outcomes in ways that can’t be seen. For the next little while, I mean to use those talents on behalf of the three people I most care about.”
Svitek was silent. “You’ve made a commitment to us,” he replied at length, “and your work is essential. Whatever you mean to do there, wrap it up in one month’s time. And don’t get yourself in trouble.”
“I won’t,” Adam said flatly. “Whomever or whatever I’m dealing with, at least it’s not the Taliban.”
He got off, then walked to the stairway. As he looked up, the promontory was shrouded in darkness. All he could see was the moon and stars.
That night Adam could not sleep. He tried to purge his mind and imagine himself as Benjamin Blaine in the last months of his life.
Brain cancer.
Did he know? If so, this could account for much of his behavior-in his son’s estimate, Ben’s deepest fear was of his own mortality. The spectre of death could explain his writing schedule-frenzied, drunken, and nocturnal-as he felt his powers flagging and his gifts slipping from his grasp. A desperate race against the last, eternal night.
The manuscript was locked in his desk.
Adam reached into the drawer for the Luger he had concealed, then attached the silencer to its barrel. Leaving his room, he crept past the bedroom where, he suspected, his mother slept as fitfully as he. Then he took the stairway to the first floor and entered his father’s study, gun in hand.
Turning on the desk lamp, he found the drawer where his father kept his final work in progress. Then he aimed the gun at its lock and fired. With a pneumatic hiss, the lock vanished.
Opening the drawer, Adam put the manuscript on the desk, and sat in his father’s chair. The title page read “Fall from Grace” and, beneath that, “A Novel by Benjamin Blaine.” Then he turned to the dedication page, and his hand froze.
“For Adam,” it said, “the missing son.”
Fingertips steepled, Adam stared at the words. Then he turned the page and forced himself to read.
