Sins of the Father (17 page)

He staggered, struggling to gain his
balance.

“Daddy!”

“I’m all right, Sprout, just a little
wobbly. That stuff packs a punch.”

I wrapped my arm around his waist and headed
around the corner of the van. Ronnie was peeling decals off the van
while his partner started throwing the faux medical guts onto the
runway.

“Is it wise to do that here?”

“We be back for them as soon as we ditch
van,” Ronnie grinned. “It is how you say, hot.”

“You promised me that you were staying out
of trouble, Ronnie!”

“And I do not want this coming back to my
house. It will be fine. We dump van, we come back. They look there
while we over here. Perfect!”

I pressed a thick envelope and the keys to
my rented vehicle into his hand. “Remember. You never saw me!”

He saluted and I half dragged Dad to the
staircase on the plane. I poised a step behind him and rested one
hand on the small of his back as he slowly began his ascent. Each
step I took was heavy, harder to take. Why? Guilt swirled with the
agony of what I had to leave behind in my gut. Could I really do
this?

A loud crash drew my attention behind us.
Ronnie tossed the emergency lights off the top of the van.

“Hurry, Dad!”

“Going as fast as I can.”

We got to the top of the stairs when I heard
it. Something different this time.

“What was that?”

“Oh my God. No!” I whipped around.

“
Helen!
”

“No, no, no! Daddy, get inside, you’ve got
to hurry!”

A murky shadow charged across a grassy field
toward the tarmac.

“Orion.”

“Daddy, you’ve got to get out of here.”

“Helen, stop!” Johnny’s voice somehow boomed
loudly over the noise of the jet engines.

“Get this plane off the ground, now!” I
screamed at the co-pilot.

“Helen, what’re you doing?”

“Buying you time.”

“Honey –”

“Daddy, I love you. Please go.”

“You can’t have gone through all of this to
turn back now. Get in the plane. He’ll never get here in time if we
pull up the…”

Our eyes met. Dad smiled. “Okay. Go be with
him, Sprout. I had to be sure. Go to him now.” He grabbed my hand
and kissed it hard. “Don’t worry about the rest, sweetheart.”

I dashed down the stairs, throwing one last
glance up at my father, who had miraculously recovered enough
strength to retract the stairs. No time. Damn you, Johnny
Orion!

The battle between head and heart kicked
into extreme warfare. Head said get away from him. Heart said run
to him.

They split the difference. I ran, all right.
Away from Johnny, away from the small jet that slowly began to taxi
down the runway.

I sprinted harder than I ever have in my
life. Occasional glances revealed the jet’s acceleration. “C’mon,”
I panted. “Pull up. Take off. Come on!”

“Helen, stop running!” The voice chasing me
was close, too close.

An instant later, the front wheels of the
jet lifted off the ground, just as Johnny manacled my arm and
jerked me backward. I hit his chest hard and knocked us both to the
ground. I jumped to my feet, ready to fight. Jet climbing. Just
minutes away from Canadian airspace.

Johnny was ready for me. He grabbed my upper
arms and shook me hard. “What the hell did you do?”

“Let me go!”

Hysterical command didn’t work. Maybe
jujitsu would. He easily sidestepped my maneuver and had me face
down in a field of scratchy something, arms twisted behind my back.
Something hard and cold snapped around my wrists.

“You’re
arresting
me?”

“I ought to blister your ass first,” he
snarled in my ear. “Tell me that wasn’t your father getting on that
jet, Helen.”

“All right. That wasn’t my father getting on
that jet.” In a purely technical sense, it was the truth. I was
certain that Aidan Conall wasn’t on a flight bound for Canada.

He jerked me to my feet.

“Easy!”

“So it wasn’t Wendell Eriksson’s face that I
clearly saw? Wrong, Helen. I know what you did tonight. This was
never about what’s going on in Darkwater Bay. You were
leaving
me.”

I bit back the overwhelming emotion. Johnny
started dragging me back to where he’d presumably parked his car.
My mind started racing. How had he figured it out? When did he put
it all together? There was no way…

“
Maya
.”

“That’s right,” he sneered into my ear.
“Maya. Care to tell me who you really put on that flight,
Helen?”

“My father.”

“Not even close. I can’t decide what pisses
me off the most, the fact that you kept the truth from me about
what Gillette said to you, or that you planned to just fly off with
daddy dearest and take
my
children away from me!”

“Johnny, I wasn’t –”

“Don’t you fucking lie to me, ever again!”
He shook me hard enough to rattle my teeth. “From now on, you do
exactly what I say, when I say it. If you want to stay out of
prison for helping a convicted felon escape, you’ll face the
facts.”

“What facts?” I said.

“You belong to me, Helen. My game, my rules
from now on. Are we clear?”

A sob choked me.

“Don’t you dare cry. It won’t work this
time. That ploy won’t ever work with me again.”

My chest shuddered with the effort of
holding back what I felt. Tears streamed silently.

“This is what’s going to happen, Helen.
We’re going to the FBI and you’re making a statement about where I
found you.”

“Johnny, no! I will not betray my
father!”

“About the fact that I found you in a
warehouse in Jersey owned by Sully Marcos. There are exactly three
people who know why you left town, Helen.”

Him, Maya and me. My heart wilted. “But
Marcos doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“Doesn’t he? I can’t think of anyone better
to point the finger at to explain why I had to fly out here to haul
your ass back home, and it sure as hell beats explaining why you
were on the coast the night your so-called father found himself
suddenly liberated from prison. I realize that wasn’t part of the
plan, you staying behind to buy time so he could escape. But now
you’ve got to deal with reality, Helen.”

“So arrest me! Do you think I care? I don’t!
It was worth the risk to set him free.”

Johnny jerked the front door of his car open
and shoved me inside, hands still cuffed behind my back. “I realize
that,
sweetheart
. What you don’t seem to comprehend is that
while you might be more than willing to give birth to my children
from the confines of jail, where I might add, you so justly belong,
but I am not. Do you hear me?” His eyes burned into mine, mere
inches from my face. “I will not allow my children to be born in
prison! So we’re doing this my way, and if in the end, you can’t
live with your non-existent conscience, you can turn yourself in.
But that day won’t come until my children are safely born.”

“Johnny, you can’t take me back. They’re not
going to stop coming after –”

“They’ll stop. They’ll stop because you’re
no longer for sale, Helen. You’re mine, remember? My game. My
rules.”

I shrank into the door the second it
slammed. I’d never seen Johnny this angry before, certainly never
directed at me. Was this how Devlin felt when Johnny threatened to
rip his hand off and feed it to him? If so, I no longer questioned
Devlin’s reticence. That didn’t mean I was willing to give up
without a fight.

Johnny slammed his door, fastened his
seatbelt and started the car. His white knuckles gleamed in the
moonlight over their perch on the steering wheel.

“You could at least let me explain.”

“Lies,” he whispered. “That’s all I’ve ever
gotten from you, Helen. Lie after lie after lie. Never an ounce of
honesty. I suppose that should be expected, considering that you
were raised by the scum of the earth.”

“Don’t you talk about him that way! You
don’t know my father at all!”

“I know enough. He’s a liar. He’s a thief.
He might well be the person responsible for the mess back home, and
you
let him go. Unbelievable. You actually picked that
corrupt son of a bitch who destroyed a family over me, someone who
did nothing but love you and try to protect you.”

“Great job, Johnny. How many times have I
been assaulted because you were off doing something else?”

He slammed his fist against the steering
wheel. “Is that what you really think? Because I remember it a
little differently, Helen. I seem to recall that every time you got
hurt it was a direct result of running off alone, a glaring lack of
trust in the people who have done nothing but embrace you with open
arms. Oh, except last time. That one was Mackenzie’s fault, but I
don’t see you hurling any blame at him.”

“You’re not half the man he is,” I cried.
“Devlin would never treat me like I’m his fucking property!”

His jaw clenched. Direct hit.

“My biggest mistake was not throwing you out
on your ass. I should’ve never broken Devlin’s heart.”

Noisy air huffed through flared nostrils.
“Is that so?”

“Yes. I never ran away from him, did I?”

“You sure as hell didn’t. Guess that’s how
you treat the one you really love, keep him at arm’s length so he
doesn’t end up hating you in the end.”

“I’ve never lied to him, and I never
will.”

“You goddamn well will. You’ll lie to him
and everybody else, starting with the FBI first thing in the
morning. Then again, maybe a prison delivery isn’t such a bad idea
after all. At least I’ll know where you are when you go into labor.
No messy custody battle. I’d get the kids hands down. It’s not like
the state of New York would let you raise them behind bars.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Test me. See how far you get. It’s time you
realized there are limits to what I’ll tolerate, Helen. This far,
no farther.”

I turned away from him as much as possible,
leaned my throbbing head against the window and cried myself to
sleep.

Bright lights woke me. I lifted my head and
glanced to my left. Alone. Outside, bright overhead glare came from
an all night gas station. I widened the field of vision around me
trying to orient myself to our current location. How long had I
slept?

Binghamton Gas-n-Shop.

My eyes skidded to a halt. Binghamton? We
were headed east instead of south?

Johnny opened the door and slid into the
seat beside me.

“We’re going east.”

“No, really?” he sneered.

“I thought you were taking me to
Washington.”

“Change of plans,” he said. “I’ve decided
that forcing a little bit of honesty from you is a very good
idea.”

“What does that mean?” Suspicious? You bet I
was. Johnny’s anger hadn’t begun to cool down to a mere simmer yet.
Frankly, it was getting a little old.

“It means that you still own your parent’s
home on Long Island, correct?”

“Yes… why?”

“You’re going to tell the truth – partially,
which should come easily for you. In fact I’m not sure you’re
capable of the whole truth. You escaped your abductors and ran off
to hide in the last place you figured anybody would look for you.
As for
Mr. Fields
and the vehicle he rented in D.C., nobody
will be the wiser, thanks to your unparalleled skills covering your
tracks.”

I glared. “Certainly not unparalleled.
You
figured it out. This must be what they mean by pregnancy
brain. I have truly slipped to a new low of stupidity. Yours.”

Johnny reached behind me and jerked my right
arm until I turned 90 degrees. I felt him fumble with the handcuffs
for a moment before blood rushed back into my numbed hands. I cried
out softly.

“Or I could tell people that you had a
hateful change of heart and staged the whole thing, giving yourself
a perfect out so you could run home to New York and have our
children scraped out of your womb with no one the wiser.” He paused
and shook his head. “Come to think of it, that wouldn’t surprise me
one bit. You still pregnant, Helen?”

I burst into tears. “You bastard!”

“Apparently you are. Well, I guess we’ll
just have to stick with the half truth then.”

“You’d really love it if I did have an
abortion, wouldn’t you? Then you could drop the pretenses and send
me straight to jail. Saint Johnny of Darkwater Bay would be coddled
and pitied by all of his precious city for being duped by the evil
outsider.”

“Don’t tell me the thought never occurred to
you. You’ve been, how shall I say, far less than enthusiastic about
having children. Or is it simply because they’re
my
children
and not Devlin’s? Are they really mine, Helen? Or did you have a
little fun with the man of your dreams before you decided I was a
better bet?”

My hand flew over my belly in an automatic
gesture. Protective. Covering their tiny ears if you will. “You
know they’re yours. You monster!”

“Put your seatbelt on. We’re going
home.”

Chapter 16

I resisted for as long as humanly possible.
My stoic posture crumbled and I started squirming.

“Be still.”

“I can’t.”

“What, now I’m guilty of hurting
you
?
I realize that you can fob off your condition to others in order to
appear more delicate, but I know you, Doc. You killed two men with
your bare hands a couple of weeks ago. A tumble through the dirt
isn’t gonna break your stride.”

I gritted my teeth. “I have to pee. And
don’t call me that.”

“You should’ve said something back at the
gas station.”

“Well pardon me for not needing to go
then.”

“Ten minutes and suddenly this is an
emergency of epic proportion?”