Maggy's Child (41 page)

For a moment there was profound silence. Maggy searched Nick’s face, hoping against hope for some small sign that he understood why she had done what she had, and what she’d been through. But she searched in vain.

“You let that sick bastard Lyle Forrest bring up my son.” For all its quietness, Nick’s voice was terrible, and his face was no less so. Maggy despaired. There was no pity for her, no understanding whatsoever, in his hard green eyes.

“I meant it for the best.” Her answer sounded lame, even to her own ears.

“You married another man, knowing you were pregnant with my child, hid the fact that I had a son from me for twelve years, and let the boy grow up thinking that that scumbag Lyle Forrest is his dad, and you
meant it for the best
?” Nick’s voice rose incredulously on the last words, and he drew in a ragged breath. “I can’t believe I ever thought I knew you. The girl I thought I knew was incapable of something like this.”

With that he released her elbows as if touching her had become distasteful and turned his back on her, walking out the door. Feeling as if she had been stabbed through the heart, Maggy watched him go, one hand lifting in a futile effort to summon him back. In a choked voice, she said, “Nick …”

But he kept walking, his tense back as rejecting as a slap in the face. As he disappeared down the hall she screamed after him, “Don’t you judge me, Nick King! Don’t you dare presume to judge me!”

The sound of the front door opening and closing a few seconds later was her answer.

“You’d best leave him be for now.” Link’s face was as unforgiving as Nick’s back had been as he brushed by her, heading after his brother. “He ain’t gonna be too happy with you for a while. And I can’t say that I blame him.”

Then Link, too, disappeared down the hall. Seconds later, Maggy heard him leave the house. Moments after that the roar of an engine starting told her that one or both of the brothers was taking the Corvette.

Maggy stood numbly in the center of the kitchen for some little while longer. Then, when it became clear that
neither one of them was coming back right away, she walked into the living room, collapsed facedown on the ancient velveteen couch, and wept.

It must have been about four thirty that afternoon when Maggy heard the front door open at last. She had been on tenterhooks for hours, waiting for Nick to come home. After she had cried all the tears she had to cry, she had lain on the couch in abject misery for a while. Then she had got up, put on another of Nick’s baggy sweat suits, this one a dark charcoal gray that exactly matched her mood, and waited. While she had waited, she had cleaned the entire house from top to bottom. She was just starting to rearrange the spices in the rack in the kitchen when she heard the front door open.

Wiping her hands on a dish towel, she hurried toward the front door. As she neared her destination, her steps slowed infinitesimally. She loved Nick so much. He was going to have to understand and forgive her. There was no other option she was prepared to accept.

Girding herself for battle, she stepped into the entry-way. And stopped dead.

“There you are, Mrs. Forrest,” Tipton said politely. “I was afraid I was going to have to search the house. Mr. Forrest sent me to bring you home.”

As she gaped at him, Tipton reached into the pocket of his dripping trench coat and produced a small but very serviceable-looking pistol.

B
ecause of the rain, it was fully dark by the time they reached Windermere, and Tipton escorted her inside. The house was quiet, the hall deserted. The chandelier was on, lending icy grandeur to the scene as Tipton, holding Maggy’s elbow, propelled her toward the back of the house.

Lyle was downstairs, in his office, seated behind his desk in his big green leather chair. He was, as always, immaculately turned out, in an ivory cashmere sweater over a blue button-down shirt and navy slacks. His fair hair gleamed in the light of the green desk lamp that was the room’s only illumination. He didn’t stand up—he had long since stopped performing that courtesy for his wife—but merely eyed her up and down as Tipton pushed her into the room. His pale blue eyes glowed with barely suppressed excitement.

Maggy felt a frisson of pure fear and in defiance of it lifted her chin and stiffened her spine as she met her husband’s gaze.

“How dare you send this—scumball—after me with a gun! He’ll be lucky if I don’t go straight to the police and swear out a complaint against him for menacing!”

Maggy’s angry outburst rolled off the two men like water off an oiled surface.

“There was no trouble, sir.” Tipton spoke from behind her without inflection.

“I didn’t expect any. Timing is everything, as always.
Go upstairs and bring down her luggage, and David’s, please. We’ll be leaving in fifteen minutes.”

“Yes, sir.” Tipton vanished, closing the door behind him.

“Leaving?” Maggy’s voice was sharp. That Lyle had approved Tipton’s use of the gun she had never doubted—frightening and humiliating her in such a way was classic Lyle—but she had thought that the weapon was merely to insure that she went with Tipton without a struggle. Now she began to wonder just what, exactly, was going on. Something was, without a doubt.

“We’re going on a nice little trip, darling. To South America. You and David and I.”

Maggy’s impulse was to scream at him that she wasn’t going as far as the backyard, much less South America, with him, but instinct made her cautious.

“To South America? Why?”

“Now, that is for me to know, and you to worry about. And you should worry.” Lyle gave a little chuckle that made the hair rise on the back of Maggy’s neck. He was high on excitement, tense with it, near to bursting with it. He looked different, somehow, harder, less the gentleman than usual. The idea that he was planning to whisk her and David off to South America, far away from any chance of getting help from anybody they knew, frightened her. Suddenly
Tia
Gloria’s message popped into her mind: “Danger is at hand. Beware of harm …” All at once Maggy was very much on her guard.

“What about Derby? Have you forgotten about the party Saturday night?” Maggy grasped for the first thing she could think of that might make him think twice about spiriting them out of the country on such short notice. Derby, which would fall on the following Saturday, was a huge event at Windermere, with all of the Forrest clan in their special box at Churchill Downs for the race itself and the blue-blooded socializing that preceded it. Afterward
they hosted, at Windermere, the annual Diamonds and Pearls Ball. The tradition dated back twenty-five years. Only the direst of circumstances would force Lyle to miss it.

“Are you implying that I’m getting senile, Maggy? Of course I haven’t forgotten about the ball. Mother and Lucy can handle it, in our absence. They’re not here, by the way. At my urging, Lucy has taken Mother to New York, to be seen by specialists. And Louella’s gone home. We’re all alone here in the house tonight, you and David and I—and Tipton. Just in case you should be thinking about making one of your trademark tacky scenes.” He smiled at her, that crocodile’s smile that had always put the fear of God into her, and came around the desk toward her. To Maggy’s relief, he stopped before he reached her and leaned back against the desk, placing his hands flat on its smooth mahogany surface as he surveyed her from head to toe.

“Tell me, darling, have you had a nice little vacation, balling your lover’s brains out while I was out of town?”

His tone chilled her blood. Maggy watched him with wary attention and said nothing.

Lyle nodded approvingly. “Smart of you not to deny it. Did you think I wouldn’t find out? No, of course you knew I would. I must say, I applaud your taste in men. He’s an impressive physical specimen. You don’t suppose he’d be willing to put on a little performance for me, do you, if I offered to pay him well? I’d like to watch him getting screwed in the ass.” Lyle’s eyes wandered over her again. “Did you tell him that he is David’s father?”

The question was tossed at her almost casually. As it hit, Maggy drew in her breath and paled. She could feel the color receding from her face. Every warning signal her body possessed went on red alert. For the first time, she realized that Lyle was truly dangerous. What awaited her was not more of the same that she had endured throughout her marriage. It was as if he’d been wearing a
mask all those years, a civilized mask that had allowed only glimpses of the monster that he truly was to peek through. Now the monster was out in plain sight, no longer bothering to hide itself. The knowledge with all its implications was terrifying.

“You did.” Lyle didn’t need a verbal answer. “Well, that might almost be a good thing. It gives me another hold over him—besides you. Were you careful about birth control this time, Maggy? I hope not. I rather fancy giving David a sibling, don’t you? Maybe we’ll work on it, once we get to where we’re going.”

Maggy hoped her inner shudder didn’t show. “Where
is
David?” she asked, trying to change the subject. Lyle was scaring her. Every bit of a sixth sense she possessed screamed that she was in acute physical danger. Nick had promised that he would keep her safe from Lyle—but where was Nick? Nowhere near enough to intervene. Whatever he and Link had been planning for Lyle would come too late. A whole week too late to help her or David.

“David’s here.” Lyle smiled at her. “Was your boyfriend very upset when you told him about David? Are you on the outs with him over it?”

“Nick was—understanding.” It was a lie, but an innate protectiveness of the man she loved forbade her to reveal just how upset Nick had been. Nick’s reaction was a private matter, to be shared with no one who had not witnessed it.

“Was he now?” Lyle chuckled hugely. “I doubt it. I think he was very, very angry. Your boyfriend is an emotional fool, I saw it twelve years ago when he had the gall to come sniffing around here after you. A bloody romantic emotional fool. I doubt he’s gotten any wiser over the last twelve years, certainly not wise enough to appreciate what you’ve done for his seed by giving the child born of it to me to raise. Come now, Maggy, tell the truth. You told him this morning and he was furious, wasn’t he? I
know perfectly well that he went stomping out of that farmhouse you two were holed up in and roared off in that gaudy car of his. I’ve had people watching you for days, you know, waiting for the chance to bring you home where you belong. You weren’t expecting that, were you, either of you?” Lyle shook his head at her. “So you told him this morning, and he got mad. Isn’t that the way it happened?”

“What if it did?”

“Don’t take that tone with me, Maggy my love.” The look Lyle turned on her was suddenly ugly, so ugly that Maggy could not control her reflexive shrinking. A satisfied light appeared in his eyes as he saw her cringe. The tension that had infused his body left it again, and he relaxed against the desk.

“All right, so he was a little angry.” Maggy made the admission to pacify him.

“I thought so. His kind of people have trouble controlling their emotions. He’s poor white trash, you know. He was poor white trash twelve years ago, and he’s poor white trash now. It’s in his blood. In your blood, too. But I think I’ve educated it out of David. You know the perennial debate, nature or nurture? With David, I think we’ve definitively proved the case for nurture, don’t you? David’s a Forrest through and through, because I’ve worked hard to make him one. He’s my son. Mine.”

“I would never dispute that he loves you, Lyle.”

“Yes, he does, doesn’t he? So you see, I can’t be all bad, my darling, can I?” Lyle chuckled again. “What does your boyfriend think he’s going to do now that he knows, I wonder—waltz in here and steal my son and my wife out from under my nose? Yes, that’s what he thinks, and I know how he thinks he’s going to do it. But it’s not going to work, because the three of us are going to fly the coop. Tonight.”

What was he talking about? There was something going on here, some drama being played out between Lyle
and Nick that Maggy was not privy to. It was as if they each knew something about the other that she did not know.…

Before she could puzzle over it any longer, a discreet knock sounded on the door. “Suitcases are in the car, Mr. Forrest.”

Lyle raised his voice. “Thank you, Tipton. Now, go get David, would you? He’s in his room, playing Nintendo, I think. Tell him it’s time to go.”

“Yes, sir.”

Maggy heard Tipton’s footsteps receding. Lyle’s attention shifted back to her.

“You know, I’m almost glad that your boyfriend knows that he sired David, because it’s going to eat at him for the rest of his life. He can’t make any legal claim to the boy—did you know that, Maggy? Did you know that since you and I were married when David was born, and since I acknowledge him as my son, in the eyes of the law he
is
my son? No?” Lyle shook his head reprovingly. “You should really check with lawyers before you get into these things, my love.”

“What about David’s school? You can’t just pull him out. There is still a month to go in the semester, and he’s just missed two weeks.” Again, Maggy was grasping at straws, but panic was clouding her mind so that she could hardly think. In a few minutes, they would be on their way to the airport, where she did not doubt that Lyle had a private jet waiting to whisk them out of the country. She would be completely at his mercy then—and Nick would never find them.