Carly's Gift (37 page)

Carly swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat. “The doctor who told John that the odds were no higher for him and Steve to be suitable donors for my daughter than the rest of the population was missing an important genetic detail—their brother just happens to be Andrea's father.”

The confused frown that drew Hallie's eyebrows together slowly disappeared, replaced with a look of growing fury. “You little witch. How dare you accuse my son of such a thing?” She got up so fast the chair she'd been sitting in hit the wall behind her. She pointed toward the door and screamed, “Get out of here.”

“Not until I get what I came for,” Carly managed to say, still reeling from the fact that after almost eighteen years of self-enforced silence, she'd finally said out loud that her father had been the one who raped her. Where was the expected bolt of lightning? The thunderclap?

“If you don't get out of here right now, I'll have you thrown out.”

Carly stood, picked up the papers she'd brought with her from England and gathered from her father's file at the doctor's office, and put them in her pocket. With methodical movements, she placed her fists on the desk and leaned forward, her face threateningly close to her grandmother's. “If I leave here without your word that John and Steve will be tested first thing tomorrow morning, I'm taking the story straight to the newspaper. Think about it, Grandmother. Do you really want the people around here to remember your son that way?”

“Imagine what they could do with a story like this, Hallie,” Barbara said, breaking her silence. She rocked forward in her chair. “And deep in your heart you know it's true. You've always wondered why Frank committed suicide. Now you know.”

Hallie turned her fury on Barbara. “Shut up. I don't care what kind of proof you say you have, you'll never convince me Frank killed himself.”

Carly's heart skipped a beat. The Strongs had spent years trying to convince anyone who would listen that their son had not died by his own hand. Stories about their efforts still surfaced periodically at Baxter's sheriff's office, brought home by Wally and passed on to Carly by Barbara. “None of that matters now,” Carly insisted, frantic to get the conversation back to safer ground. “All you have to do is convince John and Steve to be tested and get them to agree to become a donor if either one of them is a match, and I promise I'll never see or talk to any of you again as long as I live.”

Conflicting emotions played across the old woman's face. “I'll call you,” she finally said.

“That's not good enough,” Carly told her.

“What do you want from me?”

Carly met her gaze unflinchingly. “Your cooperation.”

“First give me those papers.”

Carly took them out of her pocket and handed them to her. “They're only copies, easily reproduced. You can't change the facts, Grandmother.”

Hallie opened a drawer and shoved the papers inside. “Frank would never have done something like that unless—” She left the thought hanging.

“Unless what?” Carly demanded, the memories of that night rushing at her, swirling past her efforts to keep them buried.

“You must have done something that made him crazy. I remember how you used to wear your pants so tight there was nothing left to the imagination. A man can't be blamed for what he does to a woman like that.”

Barbara lunged forward. Hallie backed against the wall. “Your son got exactly what he deserved for what he did to my daughter,” Barbara screamed. “I would do it again, in a second.”

Carly grabbed her mother's arm. “Don't do this,” she pleaded, frantic to stop her mother before it was too late. “Don't let her win.”

Barbara shook her head as if to clear it. “Oh, my God,” she said to Carly, a sudden look of understanding flashing through her eyes.

Hallie's feral eyes darted from mother to daughter and back again. “It was you that killed my boy,” she said to Barbara.

“My father killed himself,” Carly insisted, watching Andrea's chances diminish before her eyes. “And the minute people around here learn what he did to me, they'll understand why he did it.”

“Get out,” Hallie hissed.

“Grandmother, please.” Carly couldn't let it go. “Uncle John and Uncle Steve are Andrea's best chance.” She held out her hands in a supplicating gesture. “She's going to die if we can't find a donor.”

“She's an abomination. She should never have been born.”

“She's your granddaughter, your last link with your son. Don't you understand that if she dies, it's going to be as if he were dying all over again.” With each sentence, bile rose higher in Carly's throat. “She looks just like him, Grandmother,” she said.

“It's no good, Carly,” Barbara said. “There's nothing you can say that will change her mind.” She fixed Hallie with a stare. “The real reason you hated me for marrying your son was that you wanted him for yourself. He used to tell me about the times you would take him to bed with you when his father was out of town.”

Hallie's eyes filled with venom. “He was a baby when I did that.”

“He was ten years old.”

Carly recoiled at the hatred flowing between her grandmother and mother. It had become a living, breathing presence that behaved as if it had been nurtured in the almost two decades they'd been apart instead of wasting away. Only this time there was a new victim—Andrea.

Without saying anything more, Carly stepped around her mother and headed for the door. It had been a mistake to try to reason with her grandmother. They should have gone straight to her father's brothers.

“Where do you think you're going?” Hallie said, springing after her, her speed and agility belying the fact she was less than a month away from her eighty-fifth birthday.

“To talk to Uncle John.”

“He isn't here.”

Carly reached the front door and whipped around to face her grandmother. “Then I'll wait.”

“It won't do you any good. John does what I tell him.”

“He might not be as willing for the entire county to know what his brother did as you are. He's going to be around to face the consequences a lot longer.” Carly took a step toward her grandmother. “Make no mistake about it, old woman, you've met your match in me. There is nothing I won't do to save my daughter.”

“Where in the hell have you been?” Wally asked, hurrying down the sidewalk to greet Carly and Barbara as they pulled into her mother's driveway. “You were supposed to be back four hours ago.”

“Mom will tell you about it,” Carly said, shifting the car into reverse in preparation to leave. “I want to get home before Ethan does.”

“I think you'd better come inside,” he told her.

Carly frowned. “Can't it wait?”

He shook his head. “I'm afraid not.”

“What is it, Wally?” Barbara asked getting out of the car and walking toward him.

“Not out here,” he said.

The headache that had been threatening all afternoon, finally hit Carly. She squinted against the throbbing in her left temple as she shut off the car and grabbed her purse.

“We've spent the past three hours trying to chase John and Steve down,” Barbara said, standing on tiptoe to give Wally a kiss.

“You weren't looking in the right place,” he said ominously. “You should have tried the sheriff's office.”

Carly put her hand to her temple. “I didn't believe she'd do it.”

“I think you'd better tell me exactly what happened today,” he said, opening Carly's door.

Half an hour later, when Carly had finished relaying the details of Barbara's and her meeting with Hallie, and had answered all of Wally's questions, he sat back in his chair and with a heavy sigh told them, “I'm afraid the shit has hit the fan, ladies.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Barbara demanded, her nervousness manifesting itself in a short fuse.

“A couple of hours ago, I got a call from a friend of mine who works in the sheriff's office in Boehm County. He told me the Strong family was pulling in every political favor they ever handed out in order to get the investigation into Frank's death reopened.”

“They don't have any proof,” Carly said, hoping she sounded more convincing to them than she did herself.

“Maybe not,” Wally said gently. “But they have a motive.”

“Andrea,” Carly breathed.

“Did you leave the lab results behind?” he asked.

Carly nodded.

Wally groaned. “I wish you'd told me you intended to do that.”

“It was the only way I could think to convince her.”

“You weren't there, Wally,” Barbara said. “You can't imagine what that woman is like.”

“What's going to happen?” Carly asked.

Wally stood and went over to the sink to start a pot of coffee. He insisted that he thought better when he was doing something. “If the Strongs were anyone else, I'd say they were spinning their wheels. But when you've got half the people in the county owing you, that gives you clout.”

“But he didn't die in Boehm County,” Carly said.

“That will only slow things down some,” Wally said. “What I can't understand is Hallie wanting everyone to find out what a son of a bitch her boy was.”

“That's easy,” Carly responded. “She's already made him the victim. The whole thing was my fault. I drove him to it.”

“Jesus, she didn't say that.”

“And more,” Barbara told him.

Wally dropped the measuring spoon filled with coffee on the counter. “The woman's crazy.”

“Now you have some idea what we're dealing with.”

“She's not going to be talked out of this,” he said, more to himself than the two women sitting at the table.

Carly buried her face in her hands. “I'm sorry. I should have known what would happen, but I was so sure Grandmother Hallie would do anything to keep people from finding out.”

“You did what you had to do,” Barbara said. “And now I'm going to do what I have to do.”

“Which is?” Wally asked, suspicious.

“I'm going to drive back up there tomorrow and tell them what they've undoubtedly already figured out for themselves—how and why I shot Frank. I'll tell them I was scared and decided to make it look like a suicide because I didn't want Carly to go through any more than she already had.” She sent a pleading look to Wally. “It's the truth. They'll have to believe me.”

Wally went over to Barbara and knelt down in front of her. “I know what you're trying to do, but there's no way you're going to keep me out of this,” he told her. “A rookie could put the pieces together once he saw the name of the responding officer.”

Carly felt herself being dragged back to that night. It had taken years, but in the end time had done what determination could not—given her occasional respite from the night Andrea had been conceived. Gradually she'd been able to get through each new day a little better than the last. At least that was how it had been until David showed up three years ago.

And now it was as if it were happening all over again—her father finding the birth control pills in her purse and attacking her in a drunken fury, his anger turning to lust, her mother coming home and discovering them, the flash of fire from her father's gun, the blood, her mother holding her, their tears mixing, and then the panic.

Wally had been her father's deputy and the first to arrive at the house. It hadn't taken him five minutes to see through their story about suicide and figure out for himself what had taken place. Without comment he'd changed the position of her father's body, placed the gun in his hand, and told Carly to get out of the house and not come back until the ambulance and coroner were gone.

That night had been their secret since, love binding them as tightly as fear of discovery and retribution. And now there was no way to protect each other anymore, and no way to keep Andrea from learning the truth.

Carly had come home to save her daughter. If there was a deity somewhere in charge of cruel jokes, he was undoubtedly laughing his head off at that one.

“How long do we have?” Carly asked Wally.

He turned his attention from Barbara. “It's hard to say. Gossip moves pretty fast around here. Especially when it's this good.”

Reluctantly, weary almost to the point of collapse, Carly stood. “Could you watch the boys tonight while I tell Ethan?”

“Of course,” Barbara said.

“Do you want us to tell them for you?” Wally added. “They might take it better coming from us.”

Every instinct told Carly she should be the one to break the news, but there just wasn't time. She couldn't take the chance of waiting another day, and Ethan would be all she could handle that night. “Would you mind if they stayed with you and I came over to tell them in the morning?”

“Why do you insist on carrying the whole burden yourself?” Barbara asked. “Let us help you.”

“If it weren't for me, none of this would be happening.”

Barbara and Wally sat in stunned silence for several seconds. “What in the hell are you talking about?” Wally finally managed to get out.

For the first time that day, tears filled Carly's eyes. “I've gone over and over it in my mind,” she said, her lip trembling with the effort to get the words out. “I must have done something that night, I must have acted in some way that gave him the idea he could . . .” A tear broke free and rolled down her cheek. “Don't you see? It's all my fault. Everything. Your lives, everything you've worked so hard to achieve is going to be taken away from you because of me.”

“My God,” Barbara said, stunned. “I had no idea you felt this way.”

Wally raked his hand through his hair, then stood, rocking back and forth from his heels to his toes. “How could I have been so goddamned blind? I've seen it a hundred times and it still blows me away—some no-good bastard rapes a woman and she falls all over herself trying to figure out what she did to deserve it.” He slowly turned his head to look at Carly. “I'm sorry I failed you, missy. I should've known you would take this on yourself.”