Private Entrance (The Butterfly Trilogy) (47 page)

     He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. "You and I haven't been living in the present, Abby, but in a twisted sort of combined past and future.
When a question arose, we would say we would cross that bridge when we came to it. Always with an eye on those bridges. But you know what? Not a single person in the history of mankind has yet managed to cross a bridge before he or she came to it. We are both going to have to learn to live for today and let tomorrow take care of itself."

     He drew her into his arms and kissed her, in the desert sunshine, in front of Zeb and Vanessa and Uri Edelstein and Francesca and the sheriffs.

     Abby looked over at the caves, where weary men were coming out with dusty faces. "Do you think they'll ever find him?"

     Jack shook his head. "The desert has claimed him." Jack suspected something else about Michael Fallon—that he was the man behind Nina's murder. Now that Jack had a solid suspect, he would be able to follow evidence and clues, and certain of Nina's notes that had been undecipherable—a notation: "MF"—and Jack had no doubt that they would all lead to Mike Fallon. Her case, and Nina, would be laid to rest at last.

     Jack's gaze went to Francesca, who had a white bandage on her forehead. He foresaw a long and joyful road ahead for her and Abby.

     Thanking the nurse, Francesca turned to her father's lifelong friend and said, "Uncle Uri, did you know?" But her eyes were on Abby, who was looking back at her. Mother and daughter, spellbound in the moment, each wondering how to cover the distance between them.

     Uri Edelstein had not lasted long out in the storm, forced to take shelter until it was over. He was dust-covered and fatigued. And he had lost his best friend. "That you weren't Michael's real daughter? No. He didn't tell anyone. But I had my suspicions a few months ago, when an informant told us that a woman named Abby Tyler was asking questions about Michael's past. We got hold of an old photograph of her. I saw the resemblance, but I didn't say anything. But when we arrived here, the minute I saw Abby in person, I realized the truth. And I understood why Michael had come here. Tyler's existence threatened his plans."

     Jack and Abby walked up then. "Miss Tyler," Uri said, "there is a special safe in Michael Fallon's office at the Atlantis. I don't know what's in it, he never showed me the contents. But he called it insurance, and told me that in the event of his death, I was to burn the contents of that safe and make
sure the information did not fall into other people's hands. I have a feeling, Miss Tyler, that the adoption records you are seeking are in there. I will turn everything over to you."

     "Thank you, Mr. Edelstein."

     Abby turned to Francesca, tremulous with love and anticipation. How beautiful her daughter was! "How do you feel?"

     "Better, thank you. The nurse gave me something." She held her green eyes on Abby. "I still can't believe it. You being my mother..."

     "Would you believe me," Abby said, "if I told you I have a picture of you, taken when you were sixteen years old?"

     Francesca gave her a surprised look.

     Reaching under her hair, Abby lifted the gold chain from around her neck and brought it into the sunlight. At the end of the chain was a gold locket. She snapped it open to reveal the face of a smiling girl. Francesca's eyes widened. "Where did you get this?"

     "It is you, is it not?"

     "Yes! It was taken at Lake Mead, one summer..."

     Abby shook her head. "That isn't you, Francesca. It's my mother. Your grandmother, who died when I was very young."

     Francesca stared at the picture.

     "I'm sorry," Abby whispered. "You were taken from me but I never gave up looking for you." Abby reached out and touched Francesca's red-gold hair. "Underneath the brunette dye, my hair is the same color as yours. With a touch of gray," she added with a smile.

     With tear-filled eyes, Francesca handed back the locket, but Abby said, "Keep it."

     "Tell me," Francesca said, suddenly needing to know, "tell me about my real father."

     Abby stared at her. This was a moment she had known must someday come. For thirty-three years she had played it in her mind, over and over, scripted and rehearsed, each time with changes, trying different beginnings and endings—"Your father was a cold-blooded murderer,"—trying to strike a balance between truth and hurt feelings, "Your father was handsome and exciting."
"I knew your father for only a few weeks. I slept with him and never
even knew his name."
Finally, Abby said, "I loved him very much," and, at the time, it was true.

     Francesca turned her face into the wind. The day was clear, the sky blue, the storm long gone. "I can't believe my father stole babies. But then, he wasn't really my father." Things started to fall into place. The rumors she had heard over the years, things other kids had said to her, cruel and taunting...her father a gangster...

     Suddenly, her whole life was a lie. Everything had been taken from her. And yet, strangely, a new life had been given to her in its place. As if, the instant one door was closed, another opened up.

     This woman...this strong, courageous woman...her mother. And suddenly they were in each other's arms, Abby holding her child at last, Francesca feeling the love and warmth of a mother she never knew. They cried together, and laughed, and then drew back to touch each other's hair, study each other's face, to let the tears run freely, until finally Francesca broke down and sobbed into her hands. "Daddy is gone." And Abby held her and comforted her in the soft desert wind and sunshine.

     "Francesca!"

     They turned to see a Maserati come speeding toward the rocks, the driver waving an arm and shouting.

     "Stephen!"

     They ran to each other and met in a crushing embrace. "Francesca, thank God you're okay, I was so worried about you in that storm! I got here as fast as I could but I had to pull over until the sandstorm passed, my God I've been worried sick!" He kissed her hard, held her tight, then drew back to inspect the bandage on her forehead.

     "I'm all right. Stephen, why are you here?"

     He spoke in hurried, disjointed sentences, about a letter his parents had received from her father, threatening to reveal something from their past if they did not go through with the wedding. "Francesca, I don't care what my parents think. I'm going to marry you, whether they approve or not." He took her face in his hands. "When I was in college I was arrested for drug dealing. It was no big thing, a little pot, but it's on my record and my parents are very straight-laced and think if word got out it would be the end of the
world. Your father was afraid my mother was going to force me to back out of the wedding—"

     Francesca silenced him with a kiss. "I have a lot to tell you, too," she said. "About my mother. And about my father." As they held tightly to each other beneath the warm desert sun, she realized that, when they were all trapped in the tunnels, her main fear was that she would not live to see Stephen again. Not that her doubts about loving Stephen had vanished in an instant. But at least from now on she would know that whatever she felt for Stephen, it would be for himself, not to please her father. And she also realized something else: the fear that she could die in childbirth, because her mother had, was gone.

     Jack took Abby by the hand and led her away from the others. He said, "I am going to continue to search for Nina's birth parents. And when I find them, and if Nina was kidnapped, I am going to tell them all about her, what a wonderful person she was, and bring closure for them."

     Then he took out the brochure for Crystal Creek Winery. "Charles Darwin said that it's not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. I have made no progress, Abby. When Nina died, I died too. I haven't been living. I
want
to survive. I want to live. Starting now, with you."

     She looked over at Francesca, red-gold hair shimmering in the afternoon sun, and the handsome young man embracing her; and she thought of Jack Burns, the most exciting man she had ever met, and Abby knew that the life of Emily Louise Pagan, put on hold for thirty-three years, was about to begin again.