Renee Simons Special Edition (18 page)

"You could've rung us up. That would've been something at least."

"I did." Drew spoke softly but emotion vibrated behind each word. "More than once - only to have the phone slammed down in my ear."

"What the bloody hell are you saying?"

"I'm saying that when I called and our father answered, he hung up without letting me speak. When our mother answered, at least she listened before hanging up with a 'sorry, you have the wrong number.' After a year, I stopped calling."

"Geez, Andy, they never said anything about the calls."

"You weren't meant to know."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"It does if you know why I didn't go with the family."

"Why?"

"I attended university on a full scholarship based on academic merit and financial need. I qualified for assistance as an independent student because I received no monetary support from my family."

"Dad wouldn't help you with your tuition?"

"He refused to acknowledge me as his son. He returned all letters and applications unanswered."

"Why?"

"I didn't fit the image he considered appropriate to a firstborn male of the
Caldwell
clan. He hated my clothes, my friends, my need to speak out on issues I believed important. Most of all, he hated what he euphemistically called my 'alternative lifestyle.' When I decided to major in literature instead of engineering, he refused to back me.

"The scholarship and work study got me through. The hard part came when he froze me out of the family. To keep me from being an unhealthy influence on you. I couldn't fight him, not back then..."

"This alternative lifestyle - didn't mean you were a hippie."

Drew chuckled. "No Ethan, not a hippie."

She didn't have the heart to listen further. Instead, she slipped out of bed and into the bathroom to shower and dress for the day.

Finally, she headed for the patio, nearly colliding with Drew, who’d just cleared the open French doors. He grabbed her hand and kissed it.

"Thank you for bringing about a reconciliation with Ethan. You have returned my family to me." Before she could protest, he was gone.

She joined Ethan. "Why was he in such a hurry?"

"All the police activity is driving our sedate neighbors bonkers. He’s repairing community relations." Ethan raised the china pot. "Tea?"

"Yes, thanks."

"We talked," Ethan said. "Trying to work out the problems, to figure out which ones are ours and which we inherited from others."

"He was ecstatic, so I guess it went well?"

"How does a peace treaty sound?" he asked.

"As a little girl I thought that if I had a sister, she'd be my best friend. That's all I want for the two of you."

Terence had spoken similar words to her. Now, she, too understood what it meant to care enough about someone to want good things for them.

"I'm glad," she said. "For all of us."

Mrs. Willis came out and handed her a small package. "This just came for you, miss."

She tore at the brown paper wrapping. "Is this from either of you?"

When she opened the box, the answer was obvious. Nestled in the bottom lay a mate to the first black leather wallet and a silver and gold shield with a badge number preceding her father's by one digit.

Confused, she unfolded the note that lined the box. "Keep this for me till I get back," it said. It had been signed with a large, gracefully formed T.

She looked from the note to the badge and back again. Terence had been a Federal agent, like her father. Only he had gone over to the other side. How had he been subverted? Did it matter?

Ethan took her hand. "What's wrong, love? Can I help?"

She gave him the shield in its holder. "This belongs to Terence Conlon. The other day he gave me one like it belonging to my father."

"Bloody unbelievable."

"For me, also." She took a sip of tea, welcoming its warmth. "Care to hear the VanDien saga?"

"Anything you care to tell me."

"I grew up knowing my father was different from those of my friends. He was handsome and polished in a way that you don't see very often, except among certain types of people - like Conlon.

"But it was more than that. There was an air of mystery about him and the others - my adored and adoring Uncle Dino and their business associates. They came for backyard barbecues, and Saturday night parties with their wives, laughing and joking while unsmiling men in dark suits stood guard with walkie-talkies and paced the boundaries of our property.

"Always, before the evening ended, the men moved behind closed doors. At those times, I felt the difference, the sinister quality beneath the joviality. There had to be a reason why two guards barred the way to a room where cigars and after dinner drinks were being served.

"My mother told me 'man's business' didn't concern her or me. 'You just pay attention to your school work,' she said, "and forget everything else."

"So I lived in our mansion, with its acres of manicured lawns and sumptuous gardens. I was pampered by the cook, the maids and the chauffeur who drove me back and forth to school. On Wednesdays I went to a friend's house to study. After supper, I was driven home by her father.

"One Wednesday I went to her house as usual. At the end of the visit, one of my father's friends came to her door to drive me home. He said my father had sent him. He'd been to our house often. I knew my father trusted him so I went."

Ethan held up a hand to ask, "Not Conlon?"

"Not Conlon. My life would have been very different if it had been him. I’m fairly certain of that." She took a minute to gather her memories together.

"Instead of going to my house, we drove for what seemed like hours. We got to a place I later learned was a farm owned by a member of the organization of which my father and my uncle were members."

She looked at her hands for a moment. "I didn’t lie, you know. I did grow up there."

Ethan took her hand. "I know, love. Go on."

"For 'organization' read 'mob.' It was a member of the mob who’d kidnapped me. And a low-level soldier who held me for thirty-six hours in a small shed. By the time it ended, I was no longer the pampered, favored niece, but a traumatized, brutalized child-woman who, in addition to everything else, had witnessed her father's death by his own hand."

Unable to look at Ethan, she focused on the back wall where black-eyed Susans and other wild flowers grew.

"Bloody hell." She turned to him and the anger burning behind his eyes. "What made you think your father took his own life?"

"I saw it happen, or at least enough to figure out the rest. I grew up believing he'd done it because he was ashamed of me, of what had happened to me. I hated his memory and despite a mostly successful therapy hated myself. I never fully accepted that I wasn’t responsible."

"That was your unfinished business, was it?"

She nodded. "When Drew told me about your trouble, I realized that Conlon was a partner in VolTerre." She glanced up at Ethan. "That's why I went to see him that first time. To make sure he was who I thought he was.

"Yesterday, he told me the truth about my father. That he didn’t take his own life. That he’d been under deep cover to expose the activities of the organization and bring down its leaders, including my uncle. It was Dino who gave the order for my abduction."

She sighed and fought back the tears filling her eyes. "My mother and I should have been safe from the harm that came to my father. Conlon said my uncle was so angry about having taken my father into his family, he used me to punish my parents."

She picked up the badge holder and stared at it for a moment, then looked at Ethan. "Now he sends me this. Obviously, he ended up working for those people instead of against them. Is he telling me that despite the corruption, I should trust him?"

Out of words, she could only look at Ethan, who reached across the table and took her hand as it lay beside her empty cup. "Maybe he's only saying he cares about you, and would like to know you feel the same about him."

"What do you think about that? Now?"

He hunkered down beside her and laced his fingers through hers. "If he can help you free yourself from the past, the bloke has my vote.” He kissed her palm. “My feelings for you are stronger than ever."

Chapter 10

A.D.A. Santorelli focused on making a case against Reiner-Lopes from the tape Terence had given
Jordan
, putting everything else on hold. Left with endless time and no way to fill it, Ethan got permission to go out every day with one surveillance team or another.

Jordan
returned to her duties as Drew's assistant with new incentive. In her spare time she’d been putting down on paper the facts culled from her conversations with Terence. Notes made after each session helped her fill in the gaps. She gave this material to Drew who added her information to his.

At first, the work filled her hours, keeping her mind off things she preferred to ignore. As the days piled one on the other, however, her restlessness increased. The image of Tony Vee's face in the binoculars returned with regularity to haunt her, leading inevitably to the picture of her dead father. With all the mental and emotional barriers gone, the memories taunted her, though she had spent years sealing them off from her conscious mind. Outwardly calm and in control, inside, she seethed with a fury she'd never suspected could live within her. Something must be done - and soon. She just didn't know what.

Drew gave her the first clue when he wistfully declared, "Tony Vee is the key, you know." He sipped his after dinner liqueur and added, "I'd love to interview him the way you interviewed Conlon."

"You'd never get him to tell you anything," Ethan said. He shuffled manuscript pages Drew had given him to review for accuracy.

"I'm not so sure. Sometimes a man such as he has a tremendous ego and is flattered by the attention."

"Not him,”
Jordan
said.

"Why do you say that?"

"If he liked the attention, he wouldn't work so hard to stay anonymous." She shook her head. "You know he rarely leaves his house, and even if you managed to track him, he's unapproachable."

Ethan shook his head. "I wonder. Since Conlon's been away, Tony's been showing up at the office every day." He grinned. "Just like an ordinary businessman, a businessman named Anthony Volpe."

Jordan
warmed her hands around a mug of steaming Earl Gray. "Strange to know his real name after so long."

Ethan nodded. "Once the police had his photo, the rest fell into place.”

Drew lifted a cigarette from a silver box and put it back without lighting it. “I wonder if it would be that simple to get past his secretary."

"I don't think you need to worry about her,”
Jordan
said. “The Terrible Twosome is the problem."

Drew laughed and tipped his chin at his brother. "Ethan calls them '
Romulus
and Remus.'"

She joined his laughter. "I think that refers to two other guys, doesn't it?"

Drew nodded. "My kid brother relishes the irony."

Ethan’s expression of mock indignation dissolved into laughter they had no choice but to join.

"We’ll need a diversion to draw them away,” Drew said, “so we can get to Volpe."

"I can do that."

"No," the men chorused loudly.

“You must stay out of the way,” Drew insisted. "I've handled difficult interviews in the past. I'll have at him. His vanity will provide access." He ran his fingers through his hair. "I've got one question in particular I'd like to ask."

Ethan put aside the pages. "What’s so important you have to confront that sleeze?"

"Do you recall what Mahan said at the last meeting? Tony and Allen Blakeley were longtime friends before the Senator's death two years ago."

"No, but my mind probably was focused elsewhere. Wasn't Blakeley the guy who ran for the Presidency?"

Drew nodded. "More like a potential candidate. He didn't live long enough. I should give my right arm to know what Volpe knows."

They agreed to discuss their ideas at breakfast, but the next morning, a phone call interrupted them. An emergency meeting of the Civic Association would occupy Drew for most of the day.

"We'll do it tomorrow," he said. "This will give me more time to work up a ripping good plan."

She nodded while silently vowing that her totally sleepless night would not go to waste. She had a ripping good plan of her own, that didn’t involve either brother.

Once she was alone, she went up to her room, showered and dressed carefully. She styled her hair to sweep back from her face in a flamboyant golden mane. Keeping her makeup subtle yet dramatic, she accentuated her cheekbones and eyes and defined her mouth and nose in a technique designed for her during a brief stint as a model.