Betrayals by Carla Neggers (32)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

One of the great terrors of Annette’s life was when her nephew had arrived in Boston after his close call in Saigon. She hadn’t necessarily intended Jared or Rebecca to die that night. Her specific instructions to the man Kim had hired were to locate the Jupiter Stones and to make absolutely certain that Tam and her baby—Annette didn’t even know if she’d had it yet—didn’t leave the country. She had told him to use his discretion regarding anything unforeseen that came up. There were a variety of ways he could have dealt with two American witnesses, although, of course, shooting them was by far the surest.

Annette had no idea what Jean-Paul might have told Jared and Rebecca while they were in the Tu Do Street apartment together, or even before that terrible night. Jean-Paul could have told Jared everything during her nephew’s eleven months in Saigon. Jean-Paul could have gone to Rebecca and boasted about being Stephen Blackburn’s friend. Annette didn’t know what the Frenchman had done, and that bothered her.

With Jared in Boston, Annette had dispatched Quentin immediately to Europe, out of his cousin’s path. As a further precautionary measure, she had had Kim follow Jared and thus knew he’d gone straight to Thomas.

That only augmented her fear.

As much as she could explain away the ambushes, affairs, robberies, Jupiter Stones and whatnot, Annette couldn’t deny she had deliberately misled her son into believing Jared had fathered Tam’s baby. She supposed she could admit she’d made a mistake—but then what? More questions? More accusations? A son who no longer believed in her?

And there was Mai, of course. Knowing Quentin as she did, Annette assumed he’d never forgive her for having ruined any hope of his and Tam having a life together in Boston. And he didn’t even realize Annette had had the manipulative little bitch killed.

She still had the note Tam had written her:

Tam had kept her silence anyway, hadn’t she?

Annette had suffered the threat of Jean-Paul Gerard for too many years not to know how to deal with another schemer swiftly and surely.

She wasn’t sure what her nephew would prove to be.

He never did try to see Quentin or her. Instead he announced that Mai was his daughter by Tam, a tragic victim of those last violent, wrenching days of South Vietnam, and returned to San Francisco.

His mother mentioned that Jared had papers for the baby, and Annette entertained the possibility that Jared and Tam had slept together and he believed Mai was, in fact, their daughter. It would have had to be a casual fling. Jared was another honorable sort, and he and Rebecca had been so in love that a full-blown affair seemed unlikely.

But Rebecca apparently believed Mai was Tam and Jared’s child, and no one was more surprised than Annette when Rebecca and Jared split up.

Taking the bull by the horns, Annette decided it would be prudent to do her part in keeping him out of Boston. She made it clear she objected to his fathering an illegitimate half-Vietnamese child and didn’t want anything to do with her. He’d responded exactly as she’d hoped he would; she hadn’t heard from him in fourteen years.

But if Annette had any lingering uncertainty over whether Jared or Quentin had fathered Tam’s baby, seeing Mai at fourteen ended that.

She brought the girl into her home and silently prayed Quentin had taken the opportunity of his mother’s absence to leave.

He hadn’t.

He was in the kitchen when Mai smiled at him in the way that reminded Annette so much of Benjamin.

“Mai,” Annette said, holding the girl by the shoulders, “this is your father’s cousin, Quentin.”

* * *

Mai…

Relieved and somewhat surprised by his mother’s cheerful welcome of Jared’s daughter, Quentin held his breath and stared at the girl, fighting to keep from crying. Everything about her reminded him of Tam—of how much he’d missed his cousin Jared being a part of his life. This is their daughter, Jared and Tam’s. Quentin had long since forgiven them. He’d abandoned Tam, after all, at least in her eyes. He’d told her a thousand times he would love her forever, that no matter what happened when he went back to Boston to crawl on his belly for his mother’s help, she should not give up on him. He’d be back or he’d get her to Boston. They must have been meaningless words to her. How many American men had made similar promises to her friends over the years? Perhaps she’d understood him at twenty-two better than he’d understood himself and had realized he’d never come back—not that he’d had the chance. How many days before she and Jared were at it?

When his mother told him Tam was pregnant and had moved in with Jared, his fantasies of swooping into Saigon and bringing Tam home abruptly ceased.

But he hadn’t wanted anything to happen to her, and he hadn’t wanted to lose Jared. He had been like a big brother to Quentin.

In a way, he supposed he’d abandoned Jared, as well as Tam. He could have gone to San Francisco anytime, defied his mother’s wishes and risked Jared’s throwing him out for what he’d done to Tam—risked his own discomfort at seeing Mai. Of course, Jared had shown no indication of wanting to see Quentin in the last fourteen years, either. Did Jared blame him for Tam’s death? Did he think Tam would be alive if only Quentin had gone ahead and married her?

But Jean-Paul Gerard had tested Quentin’s courage in 1974, and it had come up lacking.

“It’s good to meet you,” he said to his pretty cousin, his voice cracking as he vainly tried to sound cheerful, “finally.”

* * *

Annette and Quentin were friendlier than Mai had expected from her father’s rare descriptions of them and seemed genuinely glad to see her. Mai gratefully accepted a warm muffin and milk while her great-aunt busily rinsed the breakfast dishes and put them in the dishwasher. She was so different from Mai’s grandmother, who’d once explained that her younger sister Annette had taken no interest in Mai for her own selfish reasons, not because of anything Mai was or had done. Annette, her sister had said, was essentially an insecure woman who desperately needed recognition and affirmation from everyone around her, but was also incapable of seeing her own weaknesses. Mai’s grandmother talked a lot about the importance of self-understanding.

“Quentin, there’s no need for you to waste your weekend hanging around here,” Annette said. “I’ve got a lot to do.”

“What about Mai?”

“Your father knows you’re here?” Annette asked.

Mai made a guilty face. “Well…”

“He doesn’t.”

Mai nodded and admitted her father might not even know she was in Boston. She added, “Do you know where he’s staying?”

“I’m afraid not, but we’ll work something out. In fact—” Annette turned to her son. “Quentin, I know this will come as a shock, but Thomas Blackburn called earlier and said he’d like to meet me in Marblehead. Please don’t interrupt and just listen. Thomas indicated Jared would be there, as well. I’m hoping this means we can work something out to make peace between our families. It’s going to be a tight squeeze for me to get up there and back before I leave later this afternoon, but why don’t I take Mai along? I can just turn her over to her father when he arrives.”

“All right, but why don’t I join you?”

“Perhaps you should keep an eye out for Jared and let him know I’ve got Mai and everything’s okay. We’ll see him in Marblehead.” She turned to Mai and smiled reassuringly. “How does that sound to you?”

“Okay, but I guess I should let my dad know I’m all right…as soon as possible.”

“I know several places he might be staying. We can try to call him on the car phone. How’s that? And we know he’ll be in Marblehead before too long—has he or your grandmother ever told you about the Winston house there? Your dad and cousin Quentin used to play there all the time when they were just boys.”

“Grandmum showed me pictures of it.” Mai beamed, remembering how much she’d wanted to visit the huge, rambling house. “I’d love to see it.”

Annette dried her hands and then put one out for Mai to take. “Then let’s go.”