The Fire Still Burns (27 page)

“My God, Mama.  You knew he raped women and you just let him do it?”  The room spun and he had to lean against the wall to keep from falling.

“Those women were jezebels, harlots, all of them.  They weakened him with their short skirts and seductive ways.  They brought it upon themselves.”

Adam shook his head in an attempt to clear it as he searched for words, but none would come.

He blinked rapidly, thinking he must have fallen asleep in the chair.  This must have been a nightmare.  It couldn't be real.  He just needed to wake up.

“Your brother repented his sins like a good Christian man.  Don't you dare look down on him, not when you've been too busy lusting after a whore to do your job and find his murderer.  I could have been killed because of your incompetence!” 

“Did Zeke kill Rachel Wood?”  Adam accepted that he wasn't dreaming, he'd just been blind to the fact that his family was really messed up.

Doris narrowed her eyes, twisting her mouth into a snarl.  “She was an unwed, pregnant whore.  She should have been stoned instead of strangled.”

Adam's mouth dropped open, shocked by the vehemence in his mother's tone, the callous way she spoke of the young woman's death.  This was the woman who had bandaged his knees and baked him cookies when he was a child, had dried his eyes when he cried and kissed his forehead when he went to bed at night…and she was cold as ice.

“You know who killed Zeke, don't you?”

“I do now.  The little tramp attacked me, blamed me for what happened to her sister, as though the slut wasn't responsible for her own death.”  Doris
humphed
, patting her curls into place.

“Riley Wood.”

“You know what you have to do, Adam.  She's leading the authorities right to the truth.  You can't let her do that.”

“What exactly are you saying?”  His blood chilled in his veins.

“Put an end to it.  Protect your family name.”

He studied the stone-face she wore, the fierce determination in her cold, uncaring eyes.  The woman bore the look of a hardened killer.

“You're crazy.”

“No, I'm a good mother.  I protected Zeke just as I've always protected you.”

“Protected me from what?” 

“Whores,” Doris yelled.  “That was the downfall for both of you.  Zeke had it worse, I'll admit, but you were no better.  If I hadn't stepped in, your whole life would have been over before it had a chance to begin.”

“What are you talking about?”  Adam stepped forward, his blood chilled.  “How could you have had anything to do with what happened between me and Brynn?'

“She tried to contact you, to throw that bastard child on you.  I made sure she knew that would never happen.”

“She tried to reach me after she left?”  Adam’s heart slammed against his ribcage.  She’d tried to reach him, she’d been willing to come back to him.

“Of course, she did.”  Doris rolled her eyes, gave a disgusted laugh.  “You were a sucker for her, but I made sure she couldn't reach you.  There are no bastards in my family.”

“A bastard?  That child knew who his father was, and, if Brynn needed my help in raising her son—”  The niggling feeling that had struck Adam when he'd seen Nathaniel in the woods hit him full force, nearly stealing his breath.

It all made sense now.  The blond hair, the build, the walk…Brynn's refusal to allow them to meet.

“Brynn wasn't pregnant with Cal's child when she left here, and, once she realized the truth, she tried to contact me, to make things right.”  He looked at his mother, his blood rushing in his ears as his fingers curled.  Keeping them from wrapping around her neck proved a tough task. 

“She tried to contact you to throw that abomination on you.”

“That's your grandson you're talking about,” Adam growled.  “Doesn't that mean anything to you?”

“That illegitimate piece of trash is not a part of this family,” Doris growled back.  “If you have any sense in your head, boy, you will see that.  That woman is evil and will only bring bad things upon our family.”

“Um, am I interrupting?”

Adam turned to see Sheriff Clarkson standing in the doorway, looking curiously between him and his mother.

“No, I was just leaving.”  Adam reeled from everything he'd learned in the last few minutes.

“You need to arrest Riley Wood for the arsons and for my brother's murder.”  He glanced back at his mother before adding, “Zeke killed Rachel.”

The last thing he heard before stepping out of the hospital room was his mother's cry of outrage.  

~~~

Brynn washed out her mug and put it in the drying rack.  The warm tea hadn't done anything to sooth her nerves. 

Thanks to the lost love and missing friends searches she'd acquired through her website, her stash of money grew.  With the money she was getting helping Adam with the arson case, she would soon have enough to afford a small apartment somewhere for her and Nathaniel.

They didn't need much, just to get out of Black Bear Gorge.  If they had to struggle for a while, so be it.  Anything was better than telling her son the truth, and, since she'd vowed to never lie to him again, she had no choice.

“I’m not running.  I’m protecting my loved ones.”  Despite what she told herself, she still felt like a coward.

Shaking her head, she pushed away from the kitchen sink, thoughts of Adam rolling through her mind.  What a mess.  She shouldn't have allowed him to make love to her, but she'd been greedy, wanting to be with him one last time before saying goodbye to him forever.

Sleeping with him only made it harder to do what she was inevitably going to have to do.  She felt guilty as sin, but, despite her love for him, her duty was to protect her son at all costs.  And she couldn't protect her son if she stayed in Black Bear Gorge.

The doorbell chimed as she stepped from the kitchen into the living room.  A glance at the clock filled her with alarm.  Anyone visiting at this hour was surely bringing bad news.

She opened the front door, half expecting to see Sheriff Clarkson, but instead found herself being pushed aside as Adam forced his way inside the house.

“Where is he?”  His tone sent shivers of fear down Brynn's spine.  He was a large and imposing man regardless of his demeanor, but Brynn had never truly feared him before that moment.

“Where's who?”  Her voice came out as a squeak.

Adam took in his surroundings, his gaze stopped on the mantel to his left.  Brynn found she couldn't breathe as he crossed the room, picked up a framed head shot of Nathaniel and turned to face her, holding the picture next to his own face.

“Adam, I can explain—”

“Good, because I'm not leaving here until you do.”  He looked at the picture briefly before replacing it on the mantel.

“I saw him in the woods, and I thought he had my hair, that he even walked like me,” he said with a mirthless laugh.  “I thought it was just me seeing what I wanted to see, my way of dealing with the fact you'd borne another man's child, but you didn't, did you?”

Brynn swallowed, willed her shaking legs not to give out.  “I don't know.”

“Oh, come off it, Brynn! He's mine.”  His loud voice echoed off the walls.

“Please, Adam, my mother and Nathaniel are sleeping.”  Brynn pleaded, understanding his anger but not ready to tell her son the truth…or her mother.

“Well, wake them up.”  Adam flung an arm out.  “The boy has a right to know who his real father is.  I had a right to raise him.”

“It's not like you think,” Brynn started but Adam quickly cut her off.

“In the last hour, I've learned that my brother was a drug-dealing, murdering rapist who videotaped his conquests.”

Brynn gasped.

“I’ve learned that my mother covered for him and even approved of him killing Rachel.  I understand you were raped by Cal and thought he'd fathered Nathaniel.  I understand you tried to contact me afterward, but my mother intercepted.  I understand all of that, Brynn, as fucked up as it is.  What I don't understand is why you didn't tell me about him the moment we were paired up to work this case.”

“You don't know the truth, Adam, you only think you do,” Brynn cried, glancing toward the staircase, praying she wouldn't see her son's face peeking over the banister.  “Please, let's not do this here.  Nathaniel can't know—”

“He's mine,” Adam cut in.

“I don't know that for sure.”  Tears rolled down her cheeks.

“The hell you don't,” Adam bit out, passing her on his way to the stairs.

Brynn grabbed his arm as he took the first step upward.  “Please don't do this, Adam.  I promised myself I'd never lie to him again.  Please don't tell him something we don't know to be true.”

He turned his head toward her, his body still prepared to climb the stairs and wake Nate.  “He looks just like me.”

“That doesn't mean he's your son,” Brynn cried, struggling to restrain him.

“He has my eyes, my hair, my build, he even walks like me,” Adam spat out.  “He has my whole damn face.  How could that be possible if he wasn't my son?”

“Because,” Brynn said, her whole body shook as she choked on a sob. “He might be your nephew.” 

Chapter Sixteen

Adam stumbled, then froze, turning incredulous eyes to Brynn.  It felt like he'd been sucker-punched in the gut.  He had only one brother, a brother he'd seen rape women on videotape.

He looked at Brynn, took in the tears sliding down her cheeks, a face red with shame, and fought past the urge to throw up as his head swam with the possibilities he imagined.

“What are you telling me?” he finally asked once he regained the ability to breathe.

“I'm sorry.”  Brynn’s voice a small whisper.  “I never wanted you to know.  I never wanted you to have to face what Zeke was.”

“Or what he did to you,” Adam said.  “I found tapes, videos of him raping women.”  His stomach churned again and he clamped his lips tightly together, fighting back the rising bile.

Thankful he hadn't seen Brynn in those images on the television screen, that he hadn't had to see the pain and horror on her face as his own brother violated her.  “Zeke did that to you, too, didn't he?  That's what you're saying.”

She broke out into heavy sobs, her response a slow nod.

“When?”

“At the party,” she answered, wiping the wetness from her face.

He blinked in confusion.  “I thought you said Cal raped you then.”

She hiccupped on a loud sob, struggled to look him in the eye and Adam dreaded her next words, seeing in her eyes it was not something he was going to want to hear.

“They both did.  First, Cal.  Then, Zeke.”

The room spun and Adam sat hard on the stairs.  His hands gripped the rails as he struggled to stay conscious.  The images that plowed into his mind were too much, more than he could bear.  He angrily shoved them away, refusing to create visual imagery of the horror that had occurred that night.

“Adam, are you all right?”  Brynn knelt before him, her pain forgotten as she worried about him.

It humbled and disgusted Adam at the same time.  Why should she care for him still?  What had he done to protect her?  To provide her with the security she'd needed?

“How can you even look at me?” he croaked, emotion thick in his throat.  “How can you stand to be in the same room with me knowing what monsters I come from?”

“It wasn't your fault.”  The earnest tone in her voice ripped at Adam's heart.  “Zeke was a bad man, an evil person, but he was your brother.  You had no reason to think he would do such a thing.”

“Why did he?” he voiced the question screaming in his mind.  He and Zeke had grown up together, played together, learned about life together.  He'd looked up to his big brother, idolized him.  He would never have done anything to hurt him.  “Why would Zeke do something so awful?”

Brynn sniffed, wiped her nose with the side of her hand as she perched on the bottom step of the staircase.  “Because he was jealous,” she answered.

“He was crazy about Stacy Willinger but she kept flirting with you, and she rubbed his face in it, loving how jealous he got.  I guess he felt you were stealing his girlfriend so he would steal yours.”

“He and Cal plotted this?”

“Cal told me Zeke had caught him kissing a boyfriend in Gatlinburg and held it over his head, threatening to tell his parents and show them the picture he'd taken of him with his boyfriend.”  She sighed.

“Zeke figured out that Cal was in love with you and taunted him with that, too.  He played mind games with Cal, feeding his own jealousy of our relationship.  He just kept pressing and pressing, until, finally, Cal broke.  He agreed to rape me and split us up if Zeke would destroy the picture.  They concocted the diversion, and Zeke dressed in a ninja suit.  When he appeared on the stairs, motioning for me to come to him, I thought he was you.”