Bloodline (40 page)

Jack had removed the wig, the mustache, the nostril dilators, and the cotton pledgets from inside his cheeks. He hadn't been sure how well Dawn would remember him from their one meeting in Work, but decided not to take any chances.

What a stroke of luck that Bolton had left Dawn home alone on the first day of surveillance. He'd expected—and been mentally prepared for—a wait of up to a week.

He wondered what had drawn Bolton out tonight. Didn't matter—it had given Jack a chance to put the letter and test results in Dawn's hands. Whatever happened next would be a matter of luck and circumstance. Dawn's youth and naiveté would work in Jack's favor.

Ideally, she would swallow the whole story—why not? It was all true—and come running out of the house.

More than likely she'd be in complete denial at first; but after a while she'd start to recognize a few parallels between her experience and the letter.

Even if she was so enthralled with Bolton that she stayed in denial and showed the letter to lover boy, it would cause a major disruption in Bolton's life, maybe even enrage him enough or panic him enough to do something stupid enough to throw a big-enough monkey wrench into the Creighton clinical trial to shut it down.

One thing Jack knew he wouldn't do was hurt Dawn—because what hurt Dawn would hurt the baby.

But no matter what she did with it, that letter was going to rock Jeremy Bolton's world.

Jeremy sat at a corner table in Work sipping a Bud and waiting for Dirty Danny to show. The guy was usually here by now, bothering everybody to buy his shit. Where the fuck was he? An hour here and no sign of him. Jerry couldn't ask about him because that would connect him and Danny—the last thing he needed. But it hadn't stopped people from asking what had happened to him.

"How's the other guy look?"… "What happen? Step in front of a truck?"… "Dawn catch you with another babe?"… and on and on.

He felt like he was going to explode.

He didn't have a firm plan yet. He figured it best to play it by ear. Get Danny to meet him outside… tell him he had a customer for him, real paranoid but with a major jones. Anybody else and Danny might be suspicious. But he knew Jeremy, knew he wasn't hurting for dough or drugs. He'd come along. Drive him to a secluded spot, use the trusty tire iron—no surprises this time—then strip him of his wallet and of most of his stock. They'll call it a drug deal gone bad. Another pusher gone. No loss.

But the damn guy had to show first. And Jeremy had to wait. Couldn't risk putting it off till tomorrow. If word got out tonight that the cops found roofies in Moonglow, tomorrow would be too late.

Getting rid of Danny would do it. Then he'd be home free. Dawn was his alibi against any suspicions the cops might have about him and Moonglow, and even any she herself might have. He'd dropped the gloves in a strip mall trash bin; they were probably in the county dump by now. The roofies had gone down a storm drain. Nobody and nothing to connect him to the dead Mrs. Pickering.

Yep. Home free after tonight.

"Oh, God!" Dawn wailed. "Oh, NO!"

She knelt outside the closet in the extra bedroom—"the shit closet," he'd called it. Seconds ago she'd been on her feet, but her knees had given way.

She'd started going through Jerry's backpack, looking for roofies. She'd come up empty everywhere else, and then she'd unzipped the main compartment.

She hadn't found drugs. She'd found something a lot worse.

A Talbot's bag containing a quarter million in cash.

She'd seen it before. At Mom's place. Only one way Jerry could have got his hands on this.

She screamed.

Oh, God, he killed Mom. But she was already out of their lives. He had no reason to hurt her. Unless—

Oh,
shit
! If the letter was right about him killing Mom, it could be right about
why
he'd done it.

To keep her from finding out that he was her rapist, that he was Dawn's father.

My father?

This was a nightmare, a total nightmare. Had to be. She was going to wake up any second and find herself next to Jerry and write this off as the worst dream of her life.

But even if that happened, who
was
Jerry, really? She didn't know.

One thing she did know was that she could so not count on this being just a bad dream.

A line from the letter came back to her:
I suggest you vacate the premises
.

Totally.

Clutching the wall for support, she struggled to her feet and lurched toward the hall. Thoughts cascaded through her brain in a jumbled avalanche, tumbling, bouncing off each other without connecting, without coherence. She had to get out, find a place away from here to think, sift out truth from lies, if she could.

If she could…

But how could she know—ever really
know
the truth about this?

What I'm telling you is easily verifiable. Simply bring samples of his hair.
..
and yours to any commercial lab and ask for a paternity DNA analysis
.

Just what she'd do. Because she totally had to know.

She stumbled to the bathroom and found his hairbrush. He used it a lot, saying he was afraid it was thinning on him and he'd read where regular brushing would stimulate it. She used to think it was cute, but now nothing seemed cute.

She grabbed a comb and cleaned the brush, removing a lot more than a dozen strands. She stared at the tangle in her hand.

What if this proved that Jerry was really her father?

For God's sake, Dawn, he's old enough to be your father!

How many times had Mom said that?

Other memories followed… straddling him in ecstasy, sucking his—

She leaned over the toilet and vomited.

Had to get out of here. But Jerry had her car. So what? She'd take his. Do anything to get away and stay away until she'd figured this out.

But stay where? Her house was out. A motel? But she didn't have much money.

The bag.

She rushed back to the shit closet and grabbed the bag from where she'd dropped it, then hurried down to the main floor. She grabbed a set of Jerry's keys from the bowl and was heading for the door when she saw lights sweep across the windows. She peeked out and saw her Jeep pulling into the driveway.

No! No. she couldn't confront him, couldn't even face him or stand being in the same room with him until she knew the truth. Had to get out.

Since she couldn't take his car, her first thought was to run—go out the back door and keep on going. But that wasn't going to work. And even if she could somehow get to her car, he'd only chase after her in his.

She looked down at the bowl where they tossed their keys when they came in, and had an idea.

Jeremy sat behind the wheel of the Jeep and composed himself. Had to be cool and calm and pretend like nothing was wrong.

That asshole Dirty Danny hadn't shown. Jeremy had finally broke down and asked for him. Nobody had seen nothing of him today.

Damn it!

Okay. Be cool.

He'd work things out. Who knew? Maybe Danny was already dead, killed in a real drug deal gone bad.

Wouldn't that be a kick?

He got out and took deep breaths all the way to the front door. By the time he let himself in he was the Jerry Bethlehem everyone knew and loved. Well, not everyone.

"I'm home, darlin."

No answer.

His foot kicked a piece of paper. He looked down and saw a torn-open envelope. He picked it up. Dawn's name on the front and…

His mouth went dry and his heart stuttered when he saw the return address: Creighton Institute. And Vecca's name.

What the—?

Dawn! Where was she? He limped up to the main floor calling her name, but still no answer.

Was she gone? What had been in that fuckin envelope?

He made it up to the second floor, going from room to room. All empty. He checked the bathroom last and found two sheets of paper on the floor. As he bent to snag them, he heard a car engine roar to life outside.

"No!"

He hurried downstairs as fast as his damn knee would allow and reached the front door just as Dawn and her Jeep reached the curb.

"Dawn! Wait!"

He went to run after her but his knee crumbled beneath him and he tumbled to the grass in a blaze of pain.

Dawn never looked back… just raced away.

"Shit!"

He pushed himself off the lawn, regained his feet, and hobbled back inside. He went straight for the key bowl. The Miata would be murder on his knee but he'd have to grit his teeth and put up with it. Couldn't let Dawn get too much of a head start. Had to chase her down and—

The keys! Where were his keys? Both sets were gone.

The bitch! She'd taken both sets to the Miata, leaving him just the cycle, but that was out of the question. He was stranded.

Fuck!

What was going on?

He had a pretty good idea how to answer that.

He found the sheets he'd dropped on his way outside. He sat on the stairs with his bad leg stuck straight out, and began to read.

With each sentence his fury grew… fury mingled with disbelief… and fear.

I have initiated procedures to rescind his release and return him to this facility
.

What was Vecca thinking? Had she lost her fucking mind? What about her precious clinical trial? She was throwing it away. Why? Because she suspected he'd offed Moonglow? Gerhard hadn't bothered her. Why Moonglow?

But far worse was telling Dawn he was her father. Vecca had no business doing that. And how the hell did she know? How had she found out?

That was the same question he'd asked about the detective—where had he got his info? Now he knew: Vecca. Vecca had been working with him, feeding him all along. It didn't make any sense, but who could figure Vecca? She always seemed to have a hidden agenda.

Thing was, he didn't care
why
. He knew
what
Vecca had done—it was all here in black and white—and that was enough.

He'd have to pay her a little visit. But not until he'd made things right with Dawn. He didn't know how he was going to do that—yeah, swear everything in the letter's a lie, but how to prove that? He had a gut sense in this case he'd be guilty until proven innocent.

You'd think she could have given him the benefit of the doubt, given him a chance to explain. But no, she'd upped and run without even—

His mind flashed back to the spare bedroom when he'd peeked in while searching for her. The closet door had been open with his backpack sitting on the floor.

"Shit!"

A painful rush back upstairs to check again. There it was, everything unzipped.

She'd found the money. Never mind how, it had iced the case against him.

Again, he could explain, he could talk his way out of it—out of just about anything with that girl—if only he could find her. That had to be priority number one. But he had no fucking car!

Wait. The spare key he'd stuck in the wheel well after that time he'd locked himself out. He'd forgotten about that.

Down the steps again and outside. He reached up into the well and yanked out the little magnetized box. Opened it, pulled out the key, and he was on his way.

He had a pretty good idea where Dawn would go to ground.

The chain of events puzzled Jack.

First Bolton had come home and gone inside. Then Dawn appeared on the far side of the garage, coming around from the backyard. She got in her Jeep, started it up, and raced off, leaving Bolton facedown in the turf. When Bolton limped-hopped back inside, Jack expected him to return right away and take off after her.

But he didn't.

Which left Jack in a quandary: Go after Dawn or wait for Bolton's next move.

The issue was solved when Bolton came back outside holding a couple of sheets of paper. That explained the delay. He'd found the letter. Jack had printed up a couple of extra copies just in case Dawn never showed it to him. Because a big part of Jack's plan hinged on Bolton seeing the letter.

This was working out better than he'd hoped.

He watched him remove something from his wheel well, then ease into the car and drive off.

Jack followed. He was pretty sure Bolton wouldn't hurt Dawn, not when she was carrying the baby he'd worked so hard to create. As long as the baby's life was linked to hers, she was safe from harm. At least physical harm. He wasn't so sure about abduction and imprisonment, though.

Bolton made a beeline for Christy's house and parked in the driveway. Jack slowed as he passed. The house was dark—not a single light on inside or out. No sign of Dawn's car either, but it could be in the garage. Bolton didn't even check. He walked to the front door, unlocked it, and stepped inside.

Back to the scene of the crime.

Seemed awfully risky. Yeah, Dawn was undoubtedly worth it to him, but no sign she was there.

Jack went to the end of the block, hung a U, and cruised back. He needed a place to park but didn't want Bolton to see his car. Needed to know if Dawn was inside, though.

Hell with it.

He parked at the other end of the block and quick-walked back. Slipped around back and blinked his key-chain flash through the window.

No Jeep.

Okay. Good. That meant Dawn had gone somewhere else. As for what Bolton was up to inside, as long as he wasn't in the same house as Dawn, Jack didn't much care.

He headed back to his car. Figured he'd do some cruising, pass the house every so often, and follow Bolton when he left. No telling which way he'd tip but, sure as night followed day, Bolton was going to tip.