The Mill River Redemption (42 page)

Emily trembled. With her eyes closed, she could almost feel Andy sitting on the bench beside her. The slight breeze carried a hint of his cologne, a whisper of his voice. He was with her.

And yet, he wasn’t.

Despite the time that had passed, despite having had other relationships after Andy’s death, her heart was still aching and empty, longing for what might have been. Even if she wanted to, how could she find in that heart the forgiveness to give Rose another chance?

N
EARLY THIRTY-SIX HOURS LATER
, I
VY WAS THE LAST TO ENTER
Alex’s room. The little boy was still unconscious and on a breathing machine, and the surgeon who had performed the operation was bent over him holding a penlight, gently pushing back one eyelid, then the other.

“He has normal pupillary response, which is a good sign,” the surgeon said. “His intracranial pressure has remained stable since the surgery, too. We’ve been tapering the sedatives all morning, and he’s not receiving any at all right now.”

“Why isn’t he awake, then?” Rose asked.

“It’ll take time for all of the drugs to clear his system,” the surgeon explained. “We’ll wait and continue to monitor him. If Alex regains consciousness, the nurses will immediately contact me or the resident on call.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Sheldon said. He put his arm around Rose’s shoulders as she kept her eyes on Alex. The surgeon gave a small smile and hurried from the room.

“Why don’t you take a break?” Sheldon quietly encouraged Rose. “You’ve barely left this room since you got here. Get something to eat, or go take a nap in the family room. Just keep your phone with you. I’ll call you if anything changes.”

“That’s a good idea,” Ivy said. “You’ll want to be alert and rested when he wakes up, but right now, you’re just exhausted.”

“I showered in the family room last night,” Emily said. “It’s a nice place.”

“And I just came from there,” Ivy said. “They’ve got private, sound-proofed rooms for sleeping, and I was able to reserve one for us. They’ve got some nice, soft couches, too, with TV and Internet access. Why don’t you come take a look?”

“Well, I suppose I could go for a little while,” Rose said, looking at Sheldon, “if you
promise
you’ll call me if anything changes.”

“I will,” Sheldon said.

“I’ll show you where it is,” Ivy said. “Father O’Brien, why don’t you come, too?”

“Thank you,” Father O’Brien said. “I suppose I wouldn’t mind sitting for a few minutes in a comfortable place.”

“If
anything
changes—” Rose said again to Sheldon as Father O’Brien, Emily, and Ivy filed out of the room.

“Don’t worry,” Sheldon said as he held up his phone. “I won’t leave his side.”

Ivy held the door open, waiting. Rose nodded, leaned over to kiss Alex’s cheek, and reluctantly followed her from the room. While needing to use a cane usually made her the slowest in a group, Ivy found herself leading the way as Father O’Brien and her great-nieces shuffled behind her. Of course, they were all exhausted, especially Rose. She only hoped that what awaited them in the family room would bring them some comfort, and maybe even joy, during such a trying time.

“Here we are,” Ivy said as they arrived at the entrance to the family room. She checked in with the volunteer at the front door and led everyone down a hallway with several closed doors off to the side. “This is our room,” she said before she took a deep breath and pushed the last door open.

The private sleeping room had no windows. There were two beautiful full-size beds, made up with crisp-looking white sheets and mounds of pillows and separated by a nightstand. A large sectional sofa was positioned in one corner. In the other corner, facing
away from the door, there was a floor lamp with a reading light next to a large rocking chair. A lamp on the nightstand and the floor lamp provided the only illumination in the room. Ivy waited as Rose, Emily, and Father O’Brien followed her inside before closing the door behind them.

“This
is
nice,” Rose said as she glanced around, but her breath caught in her throat as the rocking chair moved slightly. Ivy gripped her cane more tightly, watching as Emily and Father O’Brien followed Rose’s gaze. The only sound that disturbed the shocked silence in the room was the slight creak of the rocking chair.

Slowly, Josie DiSanti stood up and turned to face her family.

J
OSIE TREMBLED AS SHE LOOKED UPON HER DAUGHTERS FOR
the first time in months. They were as different and as beautiful as ever, even though both of them, especially Rose, had deep, dark circles under their wide-open eyes.

“Mom?” Rose choked. Her older daughter gave a small cry and took a step forward before her knees buckled. Emily quickly reached down, grabbed Rose’s arm, and pulled her older sister back to her feet. Behind them, Father O’Brien made the sign of the cross and leaned on the doorknob for support.

“I know this is a terrible shock for you,” Josie said. She rushed forward, eager to touch her girls, to show them that she really was standing there before them. Rose was shaking, and Josie reached out and pulled her close. “I know about Alex. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen, for it all to turn out like this.” The tears were running down her face now, and when she stepped back and took Rose’s face in her hands, her older daughter’s eyes overflowed as well.

“You’re really alive?” Emily whispered. “You didn’t die?” Her complexion was pasty white, and when Josie turned from Rose to wrap her arms around Emily, her younger daughter began to sob. Josie held her tightly, steeling herself for the onslaught of questions that she knew would soon begin.

Sure enough, after a few minutes, Emily pulled away. “I don’t
understand. We had a wake for you. Your ashes … Daisy spilled your ashes. But, that wasn’t you?”

“No, baby, it wasn’t,” Josie said.

“Then … who?” Rose demanded. “God, there must’ve been a horrible mistake.”

“Well, yes, and no,” Josie said. “I swear, I never meant for anyone to get hurt.”

Emily looked at her, blinking rapidly. “
You
never meant for … you mean, you wanted us to think you were dead? On purpose?”

Josie opened and closed her mouth, struggling for the right words.

Rose’s swollen, teary eyes narrowed, and her breathing was ragged. “What the FUCK, Mom? Why would you ever do something like that to us? Faking your death? Really? Do you have any idea what you’ve put us through? We left our homes, came up here and put our lives on hold, and for what? There’s obviously no inheritance.” Rose put a hand on her forehead. “Did you do it to be able to see us set up house and torment each other? Or maybe so Alex could have an accident trying to help me meet your idiotic demands and end up in this hospital fighting for his life?” She whirled around to look at Father O’Brien. “Did you know about this?”

“I … I didn’t,” he stammered.

“Did
you
?” she asked, turning to Ivy.

“Unbelievable,” Emily muttered as Ivy stared at her shoes. Emily’s eyes drifted back and locked with Josie’s. She was shaking, wiping away tears, as she struggled to articulate her words. “How could you be so cruel? Why would you ever do something like this to us?”

Ivy looked at Emily. “Your mother has some explaining to do.”

“Yes, I do,” Josie said. “It’s time you knew everything.”

“I think we should all sit down,” Father O’Brien said. “At
least,
I
need to sit down.” He walked to the sofa and lowered himself onto the end cushion.

Ivy leaned back against one of the beds and rested her cane beside her. Josie took a daughter’s hand in each of her own and gently drew them forward, pulling them in the direction of the sofa. Rose and Emily sat together on one side of Father O’Brien, while Josie took a seat at the end of the sectional, facing all of them.

“I never meant for anything this bad to happen,” Josie began. “I wanted you girls to believe I was dead because it was the only way I could think to get you to come together and finally work through your differences. Whether you realize it or not, family is everything. I learned that the hard way. I never met my father. My mother was never there for me, and I had no other family while I was growing up. Do you know how much better my life would have been if I’d had one loving parent, or even a single family member who cared about me?

“Your father didn’t have many relatives, either—only an uncle and a few cousins on his mother’s side. When we got married, we looked forward to finally having a family of our own. You girls were everything to us. When your father was killed, I was all you had left. It was up to me to take care of you. It’s why we came to Vermont. The FBI said that we should leave New York, for our own protection, and that’s what I did.”

“What do you mean, the FBI?” Rose asked. “Dad died in a house fire. Why was the FBI involved?”

Josie began to feel jittery, as she always did when she recalled the day Tony died. “There are some things about your father’s death that I’ve never told you,” she said softly. “When it all happened, you were too young to understand. I was afraid to say anything later because I didn’t want you to be upset. Plus, the special agent in charge made it clear that the less I said about it in the beginning, the safer we’d be.

“Just before Christmas 1983, I put you girls down for your nap and left to run some errands. Your dad was home that day, so he stayed with you. When I came home, I found our house on fire. I ran inside, screaming for all of you. I found him in the kitchen, propped up in a chair. I remember shaking him, trying to wake him. He didn’t respond, because he was already dead … not because of the fire, but because he’d been shot in the chest.”

Josie paused to gather her thoughts. Her daughters were staring at her, shock having replaced the anger on their faces, and her heart ached, knowing she was wreaking havoc with their emotions.

“When I realized he was gone, the only thing that kept me going was hearing you girls crying upstairs. To this day, I can still smell the smoke. The whole house was filled with it, and the heat from the fire was overpowering.

“Somehow, I got up the stairs to your room and wrapped you both in blankets. I was still wearing my heavy wool coat, and I put one of you on each hip and started back down. By that time, I couldn’t see the floor through the smoke, and there were flames crawling up the walls to the second floor. You girls were screaming and coughing, and I just kept telling myself that that was a good thing. It meant you were still with me. We finally got down to the front door and outside, but I don’t remember much right after that. It’s still a blur of sirens and smoke. I woke up in the hospital a few days later. They told me that we’d all been admitted for smoke inhalation, but you girls were fine, and I was healing well. I cried then, being so happy about that, but also devastated, knowing that your father was gone.”

“Why would someone have wanted to kill Dad?” Rose asked in a whisper.

Josie took a moment to steady her voice. “Your father worked as an accountant at a big jewelry import-export company in Manhattan. He was hired right out of school and did very well. In fact, he’d been promoted twice by the time you were born, Rose. As
time went on, though, and your father became more involved with the company, he started to find discrepancies in the books. He was afraid to tell me much about it, only that he suspected the company was laundering money and dealing in black market diamonds, and that a lot of powerful people were involved.

“The night before the fire, he came home late and said that we had to take you girls and leave town. His company execs knew the FBI was on to them and planning to execute a warrant, and they were pressuring your father to ‘play ball.’ I asked him if they’d threatened him, and he clammed up, but he wasn’t the kind of man who could be intimidated into doing the wrong thing. No, your father said we were going to go away for a few days, long enough for the feds to move in and clean house, and then he’d seek protective custody for all of us in exchange for his testimony. We packed up some things and planned to leave the next evening, at nightfall. I ran out during the afternoon to get some traveler’s checks at the bank and more diapers for Emily.”

Josie shook her head before she continued. “I didn’t know if they’d ever find who was responsible for the fire and your father’s murder. The fire destroyed everything, including any physical evidence that might have existed. That was back before DNA analysis and other fancy techniques were routinely used in criminal investigations, you know. All they could do was have your father’s remains cremated and sent to me after we’d moved in with Ivy.

“I was scared for a long time after we moved to Mill River, worrying that whoever had killed your father would find us. I finally got a letter from the U.S. attorney a couple years later telling me that they’d made an arrest in the case based on testimony from another criminal as part of a plea deal. Peter Salvucci the guy’s name was. He was eventually convicted of arson and first-degree murder, and he’s still in prison today. The long and short of it is that someone in your father’s company decided he couldn’t be
trusted, and a hit man, Salvucci, came for him while I was out. Either he didn’t know you girls were upstairs napping or decided not to shoot you, but he did set the house on fire. It was a miracle I arrived home when I did.”

Rose, Emily, and Father O’Brien were listening intently. Josie looked at each of them in turn as she spoke, and she was surprised when Emily, who was seated closest to her, reached out and took one of her hands.

“The witness protection program was fairly new back then,” Josie said. “The FBI wouldn’t take anyone into the program who wasn’t testifying in a trial or a relative of such a person. Your father was dead, so he couldn’t testify and we didn’t qualify. But, with his killer still at large, the detective in charge of the arson investigation told me I should leave the city and not reveal to anyone that we were going or where we were headed. I was totally alone, terrified and grieving, with two little girls. Aunt Ivy’s was the only place I could think to take us, even though I hardly knew her back then. Thank God she was there for me, for us, when we first came to Mill River. Without Ivy, I never would have been able to survive losing your father and raise you girls. She just reinforced my belief that your family is more important than anything.”