One Hour to Midnight (33 page)

But Leon's betrayal cut so much deeper. He'd considered he had the right to tell her what information he thought she should know and what he could with-hold.

"You knew this when I was pregnant? Living at Claremont?"

"I did."
 

"Why didn't you tell me all this, years ago?" Veronica stepped closer to him, clenching and unclenching her hand. "I was an adult."

"You were a child, a teenager."

Incensed, she stabbed a finger at his chest. "I was a woman and pregnant. It was my life, my baby."

Leon stepped back when she stabbed his chest again.

"Yannis my lover."
 
Another stab. "You had no right to decide what I should know."

Leon stood his ground.
 

"I promised Yannis I wouldn't tell you." Leon's grey eyes glittered as he caught her hand to prevent her jabbing him again. "You were only seventeen. He should never have seduced you."

Veronica laugh was filled with scorn. "Give the man top marks."

Leon knew of his brother's diabolical plan and considered it more important to honour a promise to his brother, a dead man, than allow the victim of his crimes to know the truth.

Unable to be so close to him, Veronica leaped down the steps and stalked off into the dusk and down the garden. At her clumsy approach, a mob of kangaroos drinking at the waterhole took fright, leaping away into the bush.

Her sense of anger and betrayal grew with every step. When she reached the edge of the waterhole, she stared at the brackish water.

"Veronica?"
 

When Leon spoke directly behind her, she turned on him.
 

"You adopted my son. You sought me out to save Jordan's life," she said from between clenched teeth. "You married me, for God's sake, and you thought I didn't need to know this?"

"I hoped you'd never need to know,"

The explanation merely served to increase her anger.
 
"It was my right to know, Leon, the good and the bad. It was my life."

"Look, perhaps I made a mistake." He raked a hand through his hair. "When you were pregnant, I didn't think you needed the added burden."

She turned on him. "And when you brought me here? Married me?"

"Jordan's life was at stake," he said grimly.

"And you actually thought that if I knew the full details of your brother's villainy, I would refuse to help my son?"
 

He remained silent, spreading his hand in a helpless gesture.
 

Well now I know. He thought me so lacking in parental skills, I was capable of turning my back on my own flesh and blood.
 

"You Leon Karvasis, are a real bastard."

Veronica walked further down into the rough grass. Leon caught her arm and hauled her back. "For God's sake, Veronica, Take care. That's the ideal habitat for snakes."

That brought her up short. In her anger she'd not even considered the possibility of snakes. Supressing a shudder, she walked back to the mown strip.
 

"Look Veronica, Yannis knew he'd screwed up, but he wanted you to find someone else and get on with your life."

For a long moment Veronica just stared at Leon in stunned silence, and then she started to laugh. Hysterical, high pitched laughter.

It was either laugh or race off into the bush screaming.
 

"What's so amusing?" he asked eyes narrowed.

"And look where I've ended up? Married to you."

Chapter Twenty-One

A
s Leon watched, the video surveillance inside the bush chalet blacked out.

Watching Veronica's distress in the night and being powerless to comfort her, ripped at his gut, but no longer being able to see her sent him into blind panic. Without giving himself time to think it through, he picked up the two way radio.

Flynn answered immediately. "I was expecting your call."

The unruffled words stirred Leon's anger. "What's gone wrong with the surveillance?"

"Nothing. I've just turned the monitors off inside the chalet, is all."

"Why?"
 

Flynn's rough sigh was loud. "Veronica needs some privacy, okay? She's safe enough, all the exterior and access monitors are working and in place."

"Is that your call to make?"

"When I undertook this assignment, Leon, you agreed to let me handle it. At the moment Veronica is fragile. You dumped one hell of a lot on her. Give her the courtesy of time and space."

"Meaning?" The question came out on an explosive huff.
 

"If you want a future with your wife, Leon, don't crowd her."

"Too much time to brood isn't in her best interests."

Flynn heavy sigh came across the transceiver. "I thought you'd have learned by now that you can't control everything. Veronica should have been given a copy of that coroner's report years ago. I warned you it was a ticking time bomb."

"Okay, okay. I know. You do what you think best, over and out."

When the transmission was cut, Leon walked to the library window, raking a hand through his hair. Flynn was right. And knowing this didn't sit easy with him.
 

He had dumped a lot on Veronica.

But her decision not to return with him to Claremont came as a shock. He'd thought he'd be able to sit down and discuss that goddam coroner's report with her.

As if there hadn't been plenty of time. I've sat on that damned report for damn near eight years.

The uncomfortable thought sent him striding to the sideboard. He poured himself a whiskey and knocked it back in one swallow.

You adopted my son. You sought me out to save Jordan's life, you married me. And you thought I didn't need to know this?

Unable to escape the echo of his wife's scathing words, Leon poured a second whiskey. As he sipped it, he walked to the window and stared out at the garden.

It was my right to know, Leon, the good and the bad. It was my life.

It was her life. And he'd taken it upon himself to deny her the closure he'd gained by attending the Coroner's inquest into his brother's death.
 

Yannis's nefarious activities still left Leon sickened and shamed.
 

He raised his eyes skywards.

Yannis had had such a huge impact on her life; she had the right to be apprised of the facts.
 
Why had he not listened to Flynn? Cassie and McKenna had torn a strip off his sorry hide over it as well.

Hell, the other girls they'd rescued had been subpoenaed to give evidence at the inquest. Veronica had been spared this ordeal, only because he and his legal team kept her name and her pregnancy under the radar.
 

And were my motives so altruistic?

He closed his eyes but nothing could dim the image of Veronica's burning anger, her hurt and disillusionment.
 

Julia conspired with your brother.

Did his late wife conspire with his brother? Was Julia so distressed at not being able to conceive that she'd resorted to such desperate measures?

Hell, Julia was so anxious to become pregnant. I knew first-hand the strain that put on our marriage.

Leon shook his head, dismissing the thought.
 

The woman he'd known and loved would never consent to such a scheme. Once the specialists explained in-vitro was not possible for Julia, they'd openly discussed surrogacy.

And then he'd received Yannis's frantic late night call, Julia had a pregnant houseguest at Claremont, and there was an expected Karvasis baby that Julia was hell bent and determined to claim as her own.
 

Did Julia conspire with my brother?

No matter how hard Leon tried, the kernel of doubt refused to be dislodged. Veronica is right, it all fits. It's far too neat to be co-incidence.

He walked to the sideboard to pour another whiskey.

For the first time in years, he had the overwhelming urge to get thoroughly, absolutely, stoned-out-of-his-mind, rotten drunk.
 

There was a knock on the door and Cassie entered.
 

"Sonia and the Police Inspector are here. I've shown them into the rose sitting room"

"Thanks, Cassie." A sigh escaped Leon.
 

Getting drunk was not an option.

The last thing he wanted to deal with was Andreas, Sonia or the Feds. But it was a necessary evil. "Where's Jordan?"

"He's resting on Veronica's bed. If he's not asleep, he soon will be."

"Why Veronica's bed?"

"That's something you need to ask him."

Not at all sure what to make of that cryptic comment he merely said, "Keep an eye on him for me, will you. The less he knows about this the better."

"Sure."

As he watched Cassie leave, favouring one leg, it suddenly hit him that this past week had really upset her. She looked all of her sixty years.
 

He picked up the folder with Veronica's written statement, the enrolment forms from Craven, and Andreas's school transcripts. He gripped the back of his neck with a hand, breathing deeply. He did not relish this unpleasant task.

As he approached the room, he was thankful Cassie's intuitive insight ensured this meeting would be conducted in one of the least used room of Claremont.

He knocked on the door and opened it.
 

~***~

Veronica watched two King Parrots circle and come into the bird feeder in a blur of crimson and green. They settled down to eat while a pair of grey and pink galahs hovered in a nearby gum tree.
 

Eucalyptus hung heavy in the hot afternoon air.
 

From the trees overhead came the cooing of mourning doves. The serenity here soothed her battered soul.

In the week since Leon and Sonia left, Veronica spent almost every hour on the veranda. What sleep she'd managed had been in a deck chair, being inside gave her claustrophobia. Every time she lay down and closed her eyes she heard Leon and Sonia laying out his brother's diabolical plan for her and Jordan overlaid with her own, almost manic laughter.

Leon was outraged when she refused to return to Claremont. His retreat beyond an icy façade left her chilled to the bone. Once alone, she'd spent the night alternately vomiting and pacing.
 

But she hadn't cried. The hurt went too deep for tears.

Near dawn, Flynn had propelled her into a chair, put two pills and a glass of water in her hand, made her take them and insisted she drink a nip of whiskey.

Then I promptly passed out.

She woke late the next afternoon, on the bed covered with a sheet. Since then she'd only slept in snatches.
 

She shivered and looked up at the cloudless sky.

Had Andreas not pulled this stunt, Veronica knew she would never have learned any of this.
 
Had she known of Yannis' diabolical plan, she could have been spared so much anguish wondering where she'd failed.
 

The answer was simple. She hadn't failed.

She'd been the victim of an unscrupulous man.

Telling her now, at this late date, confirmed how little she mattered to Leon. Other than the help she could give his son, she meant almost nothing. And she'd thought he would learn to love her?
 

That thought almost set her off into another burst of hysterical laughter.

Nothing in the past tension laden weeks was in any way amusing, least of all marriage to a man still in love with his dead wife.
 
Why had she imagined she could supplant Julia in Leon's affections?
 

He at least had been honest.
 

He'd offered a marriage of convenience, another child and a secure future. It was her, as usual, who'd somehow expected her marriage to Leon to deliver so much more.
   

There was only one thing she was definite about.
 

She needed time away from Leon, away from Claremont, Julia's ghost and all the associated pressures. Too much had happened in too short a space of time. Now she needed time alone to find herself, to find her way through the deceit, the lies and the betrayal. She needed to find a way to face a future that stretched out in front of her as empty as a barren plain.

Veronica turned from watching the birds and walked indoors.