[20]

Steven made sure Zeke was settled in the waiting room with Laila at his side. Her presence probably wasn’t needed, but he wanted to be sure before they pulled her off of him. An officer was still on Micah’s room, the crime scene cleanup crew still scrubbing up from the incident earlier. He checked in on Duncan and found the man sitting up in bed, looking much better than the last time he’d seen him. “Do you have a moment?”

Duncan waved a hand to the chair and Steven took it. “All I have are moments right now. What do you know?”

Steven decided he would fill the man in on what they’d learned about McCort. Christina had followed Haley to the post-op waiting room where he figured she would stay until her grandfather was out of surgery.

“We’ve learned a few things,” Steven said.

“What’s that?”

He explained about the money.

Duncan sat back with a wince. “Have you talked to McCort?”

“No, getting ready to do that in a few minutes. Haley’s with him now, I believe.”

“Will you talk to him, then come back and fill me in?”

“Of course.”

Steven left and went to find Haley. He found her just where she said she’d be.

Sitting next to Hugh McCort. She caught his eye as his phone rang. He saw that it was his dad and answered the call. “Hi, Dad.”

“Steven, is it a good time to talk?”

“Uh . . .” He looked over at Haley and saw her talking to Hugh. “Sure, Dad. What’s up?”

“I need to tell you something, but I don’t want you to tell your mother I told you.”

Now his dad had his full attention. “All right. What is it?”

“Walter Phillips is up for parole.”

“I know. Mom already told me.”

He heard his father sigh. “Did she tell you anything else?”

“No. Like what?”

“Like the fact that she supports his release.”

Steven froze. Then finally found his tongue. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I heard you right. Could you repeat that?”

“You heard me.”

Steven found a chair away from the others and lowered himself onto it. Haley caught his eye and raised a brow, but Steven looked away. “How . . . why . . . what . . .” He stopped and pulled in a breath. “I don’t understand. Is she having some sort of mental breakdown?”

His father laughed. Low and without humor. “No. When he was up for parole two years ago, the two of you fought hard to keep him behind bars.”

“And we succeeded.”

“Your mother has since had a change of heart.”

Steven rubbed his eyes, his brain spinning. “She’s been visiting him, hasn’t she?”

“Yes. Once a week.”

“Why?”

Haley whipped around to stare at him once more, and he realized he’d shouted the word.

He turned his back. “Why?” he asked again, more controlled this time.

“He asked . . . no begged . . . for her—our—forgiveness and she gave it.”

“And what about you?”

“I’m . . . still working on it.”

Steven couldn’t believe it. He had to be in the throes of a nightmare. “Dad, he killed Michael.”

“Son, he was a kid himself. Barely nineteen years old. Just a stupid kid,” he whispered. “Doing stupid stuff nineteen-year-olds do.”

“No, not all nineteen-year-olds. I never did that. You never did that.”

His father fell silent, then he cleared his throat. “Yes, that’s true. But . . . son, he made a horrible mistake. He went to prison at nineteen. He’s been there for twelve years. Should he have to pay for a mistake for the rest of his life?”

Familiar rage rose up in him, clawing its way from his gut to his throat. Steven stood and paced to the window. He kept his voice low and even. “Killing Michael wasn’t a mistake, Dad, it was murder. And I’ll never forgive Walter Phillips as long as there’s breath in my body.” He wanted to hit something. No, he wanted to pound on Walter Phillips until the man was as bruised, bloody, and broken as his brother had been when Steven had raced to his side and held him, knowing it was too late for him to do anything. Too late for anyone to do anything.

His father hadn’t responded to Steven’s heated vow.

“I’ve got to go, Dad. I’ll talk to you later.”

“All right, son. I understand.”

He hung up and let his chin touch his chest as he gathered his anger and hate and tucked it back into the neat little box he’d kept it in for the past twelve years. Then he turned and walked over to slip into the chair beside Haley.

“Are you all right?” she asked in a low whisper.

“Yes.” He paused for a beat. “No.” Another pause. “It doesn’t matter.” He leaned forward and nodded to Hugh. “Any news?” he asked softly.

“No.” Hugh shook his head and dropped his face into his hands.

Haley stared at him a moment longer but didn’t push him. Steven was grateful for that. The waiting room held three other people. They sat on the opposite end, so their area was fairly private.

“Hugh,” Haley said softly, “I need to ask you something.”

The man looked up at her. “Of course.”

“Did your son have anything to do with the murder of my family twenty-five years ago?”

The old man paled. Alarmingly so. “Why would you ask me that?”

“Because we’ve discovered a money trail that leads to him—and on to you,” Steven said.

McCort shut his eyes. “Twenty-five years. I wondered when this moment would happen.”

Steven saw Haley’s eyes widen and anger flash. But she drew in a breath and fell silent. He figured she was choosing her words.

“So, he had something to do with their deaths?” she asked.

“Indirectly.”

“What did he do?”

Hugh swallowed and looked away. Steven wanted to push him, but Haley sat statue still, just watching the man.

Steven shot Haley a look, but she didn’t blink. Hugh met her eyes, then looked away again. “He never expected them to die.” His shoulders rose and fell. He met her gaze once more. “You have to believe me. He never knew what they had planned.”

“Please explain,” Haley said, her voice soft. Lethal.

“About two weeks before the attack, my son came to me. He was living in Dublin at the time, but drove to see me. He arrived about midnight and spent the night. The next morning he explained that he was heavy in debt to a bookie. Many thousands of pounds.”

“The equivalent of twenty thousand dollars?”

He blanched. “That’s the amount. I didn’t have it, of course. I had a nice little savings account, but not that much.” He paused as though gathering his thoughts. “My wife and I lived simple lives,” he finally said. “She stayed home with Connor, our son, when he was a wee one and never went back to work. She didn’t want to and I didn’t see any reason why she should. So, I gave Connor what I could and told him to tell them that he would get them the rest a little later. I was just trying to buy him some time. Buy me some time so I could figure out what to do, how to get the rest of the money.”

“Were they satisfied with that?”

Hugh let out a watery, humorless laugh. “Well, they didn’t kill him, but they broke his arm and his nose, a few ribs, and knocked out three teeth. He was in the hospital in Dublin for a few days, and during that time I got a phone call from him saying he needed my help.”

“Help with what?”

“He wanted me to leave the door open to the Burke castle because he had some friends who were going to rob the place. Just take enough jewelry or whatnot to pay off his debt. The Burkes had insurance, he argued, they had plenty of money and would never miss it. And he could pay me back what I’d already given him.”

“What did you say?”

“I refused. Flat-out refused. I loved my job, I loved that family. I’m an honorable man.” Tears clouded his eyes, but he blinked and he shook his head. “He screamed at me. He said they were going to kill him if I didn’t comply. He said they had someone at the hospital at that very moment ready to kill him. So I said I’d do it, but—”

“But?”

“But I couldn’t. Once my son was released from the hospital, I went to Dublin, picked him up, and took him home.”

“And?” Haley asked.

“And then I told him he needed to run. Run as far away as he possibly could and start over. I even offered to purchase him a plane ticket to anywhere he wanted to go.”

“And he agreed?”

“That he did. To my face. But apparently, they not only wiped his debt clean but paid him another $20K on his assurances that the door would be open.”

“Then there was no turning back for him,” Haley murmured.

“To be sure. There was no turning back. I later figured out that he had stolen my keys, made an impression of them, then returned them to my dresser. I never knew. But he left the day before the attack. He’d called a cab and just disappeared. I thought he’d taken my advice and run.”

“But he hadn’t?” Steven asked.

Hugh pressed his fingers against his eyes. “Here’s where things get a bit fuzzy for me. He left in a cab and I’m not exactly sure what happened after that. I’ve pieced it together as best I can. The only thing that makes sense is that he dropped the key off to whoever he owed the money to. I didn’t hear from him until after the murders. He just showed up in our kitchen, weeping and muttering about being responsible for the Burke family’s deaths.” He rubbed a shaking hand down his wrinkled cheek. “I can’t tell you how I felt when I heard about it. I insisted that he go straight to the Gardaí, that he turn himself in. I said I’d go with him, help him confess what he’d done.” He swallowed and swiped a tear that had trickled onto his cheek. “What I’d done,” he whispered.

“What had you done?”

“I’d kept silent. I didn’t warn them, but I thought . . . I really thought he had run. I thought it was just all . . . talk. That he was just desperate, that once I told him I wouldn’t help him rob the family, he’d decide to run. And then the next thing I know . . . they’re dead and he’s weeping on my kitchen floor.” He rubbed a hand across his eyes. “I wanted to confess to the Gardaí that I was guilty. As guilty as if I’d carried a gun myself. Connor said he would go confess the next morning. When I woke the next day, he was gone.”

“Where?”

“I thought he’d run away. I thought . . .” He rubbed his head. “I thought a lot of things, but they were all wrong. My son had gone to his home. He’d committed suicide two days after the attack. At least it looked like suicide. There was no note, nothing. My wife—” He choked up and his throat worked before he could gather control to speak once again.

Steven glanced at Haley. Her blank face told him nothing of what was going on behind her green eyes. “Go on,” she said.

“My wife was inconsolable. Connor was our only child. She was worried about him because he hadn’t answered our calls and drove to Dublin to see if he was all right. He’d hung himself in his closet and she found him. She had to be sedated for weeks, and even after she was weaned from the drugs, she wasn’t right. She kept looking for him to come home.”

“To your home?”

“Yes. ’Twas like she’d put the entire thing out of her mind and he was just off somewhere working. By the time I could even get myself together to think straight, the investigation had come to a halt. The authorities blamed it on the mafia, who appeared to have a score to settle with Ian, and I . . . just . . . never told them what I knew. Instead I dedicated my life to taking care of my wife and Ian, doing my best to make up for something that can never be made up for.” He swallowed. “I saved his life, so I did,” he whispered.

Haley shifted, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. Steven wondered if it was so she wouldn’t strangle the old man. If only he’d said something . . .

“When someone later tried to kill him?” Haley asked.

“’Twas a couple of weeks after the funerals. He was at the office. He didn’t like to drive, so I chauffeured him everywhere most of the time. He said he was ready to leave and I went to get the car. When I went around to open the door for him, I caught a glimpse of someone on the roof across the street. A wink of the sun off something. Maybe it was my military training, maybe it was just paranoia after everything, but I shoved him in the car, slammed the door, and hit the ground just as the bullet plowed into the space where Ian had been standing.”

Haley stood and paced away from them, then back. She stood in front of Hugh. “You saved him and I’m glad, but that doesn’t bring them back. If you had only told my grandfather—”

Hugh shook his head. A lone tear coursed down his cheek. “I know. I think about them every day. I see them in my dreams, begging me to turn myself in, to do the right thing. I can’t live with this anymore.” He shuddered. “I’ll tell Ian as soon as he wakes.”

“If he wakes,” Haley murmured.

“True. If he wakes.” He looked at her. “Do you hate me?”

Haley bit her lip and Steven squeezed her hand. She rubbed her eyes with her free hand, then dropped it to her lap. “I think you miscalculated and that miscalculation, that lapse in judgment, had extreme consequences that you couldn’t foresee. Then again, if you’d spoken up immediately after the deaths, you may have been taken into custody and not had the opportunity to save him. Who knows?” She looked away for a long minute, then sighed. “But no,” she said softly. “I don’t hate you.”

She didn’t, she really didn’t hate him, but the anguish ran deep. Even if he hadn’t believed his son would actually do anything, if only he’d told someone what Connor had said, threatened—

But no. She knew what it was like to make a stupid decision and have it blow up in your face. And have someone, several someones, die because of it.

Christina stood at the door watching them. Haley caught her eye and shook her head. She nodded and turned her attention back to the hall while Haley kept looping the conversation with Hugh through her mind.

She wished he’d done things differently, but he hadn’t, and what happened had happened. She couldn’t change the past, but what she knew could possibly change her future. Haley sat and watched the minutes tick past. Hugh leaned his head back and dozed. The fact that she’d said she didn’t hate him seemed to free him of something.

She rose and paced, then she sat and checked her email. She requested an update about Gerald Forsythe and got nothing more than she already knew. She walked over to the desk to check in on Belinda, then paced back to the chair next to Steven and dropped into it.

“How is she?” he asked.

“She’s through surgery and is in post-op ICU. She’s in critical condition—the bullet punctured a lung and did some other damage. The fact that it happened here in the hospital with no wait time for an ambulance saved her. She’s got a good medical team and she’s fighting.”

“Her last words were for us to take care of her boys. She thought she was going to die.”

They fell silent for a moment, then Haley sighed. “She’s made some rotten mistakes, but she learned from them. She was trying to do better. Zeke told me she was doing online school. She wants to become a nurse.” She drew in a breath and ran a hand through her hair. “Have you checked on Carter James?”

“I have. My mother’s been keeping in touch with his wife and texted as we walked into the waiting room. He’s improving and his wife hasn’t left his side.”

“They set him up.”

“What?”

“Whoever carjacked him. They didn’t want him found for a while. Why?”

Steven gave a slow nod. “Because they didn’t want us to know the man in the trunk wasn’t him until it didn’t matter anymore if we knew or not.”

“He’s taunting me. He doesn’t want me to find out what really happened twenty-five years ago. He wants to guilt me into letting it go.” She rubbed her eyes. “And maybe I should.”

“No, you shouldn’t.”

“Too many innocent people have been hurt already. Carter James, Duncan—”

“You.”

She lifted a shoulder in small shrug. “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

“But you sure don’t want him to get away with killing Gerald Forsythe or shooting Duncan. So what’s the alternative?”

“There isn’t one.” She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she focused on the far wall. “Carter James was convenient, an easy target. That’s the only reason they picked him. And they needed a rich man’s fancy car to make the dead body in the trunk look like all the other incidents. They took the keys and parked the car in a poor area.”

“Just like the others so they could go about with their intended agenda without raising any red flags.”

“Yeah. Targeting me,” she said. “But they didn’t have to kill someone to do that. So why Forsythe? They obviously didn’t want anyone identifying him for a while.” She pursed her lips and stood, hands on her hips. “Unless . . .”

“Unless?”

“The text said Forsythe was dead because of me.” Sorrow pierced her, but it wasn’t her fault. Mentally, she knew that. She just hated that an innocent man had gotten caught up in whatever deadly game this killer was intent on playing.

“So, what’s the connection?”

“It’s suddenly obvious and I feel rather like an idiot for not seeing it sooner.”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, everything started going wonky when Duncan began looking for me, right?”

“Apparently.”

“Do you remember that he said he hired someone to find me here in the States, and once he got word that I was found, he told the guy not to contact me, but instead hopped a plane and took over following me?”

“Right.”

“So, who was the guy he hired?”

“You think he was Forsythe, the guy in the trunk?”

“It’s plausible, don’t you think? I mean, I get a text from some anonymous person telling me who the man is and that it’s my fault he’s dead. It’s the only possible connection I can think of.”

“They needed to kill Gerald Forsythe because he’d found you and they didn’t want him telling you.” Steven stroked a hand across his jaw. A nice firm jaw that showed strength and character.

Haley blinked at her thoughts. Now was not the time to notice anything about him, but sometimes random thoughts happened as though protecting the brain from what it didn’t want to think about.

“I think you’re probably on to something,” Steven said. “If it’s him, he left the car at the airport for Duncan.”

She straightened. “So where did he go after he left the airport?”

“And who did he go with?”

“You think there’s some security footage at the airport?” she asked. Renewed energy perked her up.

“I think we need to find out.” Steven texted Quinn and asked him to look into it. Then he looked at Haley. “Want to go find Duncan and ask him about Gerald Forsythe?”

She hesitated and glanced at the lightly snoring Irish man beside her. “You think he’ll leave or run or . . . anything?” she asked softly.

“No, but I can’t guarantee it, of course.”

“He thought it was just crazy talk. He thought his son was just desperate and wouldn’t act on his words.”

“Yes.” Steven tilted his head and studied the man who was oblivious to the conversation. “He’s lived a quarter of a century blaming himself for keeping quiet. He could have prevented their deaths and . . . he didn’t.”

“He didn’t know. At least I don’t think he did. I’m not sure if he truly didn’t know or not. He may have thought his son would steal, but . . .” She stopped, a deep sadness invading her.

“What can I do to help you?” he whispered.

She looked into his eyes and the compassion there nearly undid her. She wanted to embrace what she read there. Wished she could just let him hold her and be her shelter from it all right now. But she couldn’t. “His remorse is genuine and the regret he feels, the guilt and self-recrimination . . . it’s all there.”

“What do you think your grandfather is going to say?”

“I . . .” She shrugged. “I couldn’t even begin to guess.” She paused. “Then again maybe I can. He’ll probably feel betrayed and betrayal is a hard thing to get past.”