Thicker Than Water (26 page)

“I'd lose her, Sean. Maybe not to him, but I'd lose her. You don't know everything. I do.”

“Then tell me. For God's sake, Julie, give me a chance. After what happened between us last night…”

“What happened between us last night…” She choked on tears. “Sean, it was…it meant something to me. But it doesn't change anything.”

“You're a lousy liar, Jones.”

“You'd be surprised. I've been lying for years.”

“And you're lying now. It changed everything. It changed
me.
Us. I'm damned if I understand how just yet, but I'm goddamn determined to find out. I can't do that if you're not here.”

She drew a breath, forced down the emotions rising inside. “It's impossible,” she said. “I'm sorry, Sean. I'm so sorry.”

“I'm not.”

“Goodbye, Sean.”

“Wait, you have to know some things. There was a break-in at your house this morning. And Z's apparently left town. Julie, I'm worried about you.”

She shivered with dread, then shook her head slowly. “There was nothing in the house that could tell him where we are. But I'd better get moving, just in case.”

“Julie—”

She hung up the telephone, resting her forehead against it for just a moment, blinking away tears that had no business being there. Finally, pulling herself together, she straightened up and wiped away her tears with the sleeve of her jacket. She plastered a fake smile on her face for Dawn's sake and went back to the car.

Dawn had several flyers on her lap over the seat belt, which she'd dutifully fastened. “Did you look at any of these, Mom?”

“Hmm?”

“Flyers from that rack in the diner. They're rental cabins and inns and stuff. Right along the lakes. There are tons of them. We can take our pick.”

Julie glanced sideways as she pulled the car out onto the road and started northward again. She was going to have to tell her daughter the truth. She didn't want to, but Dawn was old enough, mature enough, to handle it. And she had a right to know. “Tell you what,” she said. “You pick.”

“Really? Any one I want?”

“Any one you want.”

Dawn smiled. “Did we bring a camera? If I come back home without pictures, Kayla will kill me!”

“We can pick up some of those disposable ones, once we find the perfect spot,” Julie said. “So where will it be?”

“Gosh, the pressure.” Dawn flipped through flyers one after the other, unfolding them and skimming their contents. Finally she picked one up with a flourish. “This one. ‘Deluxe private cabins with full kitchen and bath, each with its own hot tub and breathtaking view of Blue Mountain Lake.'”

“Sounds perfect. Hot tubs.”

Dawn read on, relaying information. “They have boat rentals and dinner cruises, hiking trails, horseback riding. It says the cabins are ‘widely spaced for maximum privacy. 'Not too shabby.”

“Not at all too shabby. How far is it?”

She glanced at the little map on the flyer, then yanked her road atlas from the dashboard. “Looks like about twenty miles ahead. We go left where Route 28 joins 30, and it's another few miles from there.”

“Then that's the one.” Julie licked her lips and glanced at her daughter, her Dawn. “Dawnie?”

“Hmm.”

She had to do this. She had to. “When we get there and get settled in…we need to have a long talk. About—about everything that's been going on.”

Dawn looked serious and maybe a little bit frightened. She slid her hand over her mom's on the wheel. “It's about me, isn't it?”

“About you, but not because of you. It's important to keep
that distinction straight in your mind.” Julie sighed. “It's way past time for this discussion. I just—I just—I guess I'm scared.”

“I can handle it, Mom. I promise.”

“I know you can. I'm just afraid…it'll change things. Between us.”

“Nothing could do that.”

Julie tried to believe that.

“It's pretty big, this thing you have to tell me. Isn't it?”

Julie nodded. “Pretty big.”

Dawn nodded. “You think I won't love you anymore, once you tell me.”

Julie snapped her head around sharply. “No. I just think you'll be very angry that I didn't tell you a whole lot sooner.”

Dawn nodded slowly. They drove in silence for a long while. Dawn found a radio station she liked and cranked the music up a little. But she seemed pensive and worried.

After ten minutes she reached up and turned the music down again. She looked at Julie, and she said, “I'm adopted, aren't I?”

S
ean couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this bad. No, he could remember one time. The day of that raid, when all those innocent kids had burned to death or been shot down at the Young Believers' compound, while he sat safely under cover, taping it all for posterity. The guilt, the horror, the unending nightmare of that day—that was the only place in his memory where he could find this kind of gut-deep ache.

But that had been different. He hadn't known any of those people. With Julie and Dawn, it was personal. And there was one other difference. With them, there was still hope. Because he was good at what he did. He was good, and it really didn't matter whether anyone else in the news biz ever acknowledged that. He knew it. And because of it, he was going to find Julie Jones and her daughter, and he was going to see them safe again.

When his cell phone rang again, he'd been driving back to WSNY. He'd pulled off onto the shoulder of the road. By the second ring, he was yanking a pen from his pocket, and searching for something to write on. It rang a third time, and he gave up the search, picked up the cell phone to read the number that appeared on its tiny screen and scribbled it on his hand. He was in a state of near panic, fearing that the caller was Jones and that she would hang up before he answered. It rang a fourth time, and he hit the button, brought the phone to his ear, said “Hello” and prayed it would be her. And it was.

He'd expected the sound of her voice to get to him, but not quite the way it did. He got choked up, and dammit, he
never
got choked up. But he found himself wishing she was closer, wishing he could touch her, hating that he had to settle instead for a five-minute conversation.

His efforts at talking her down hadn't worked. He didn't think she'd taken his warning about Nathan Z being on the lam seriously at all. When she hung up, the finality of the click felt like a bullet in the chest. But he stiffened his jaw, told himself it was far from over. He couldn't talk her down. Fine. He would just have to fall back on his skills. His ability to track things down, to find the truth in people's garbage, to uncover the lies they told. Jones had been telling lies. She'd admitted as much. And those lies were the key to what was driving her away. He was good at exposing people's lies. Now he was going to expose hers.

He dialed the number back, but there was no answer, so he phoned the most unscrupulous P. I. he knew, one of his many valuable connections. He'd hired Tommy Warren many times in the past, and the man had always come through. His one fault was that he would sell your information to anyone
who came along and offered him more money than you'd given him to keep quiet.

In this case, that didn't matter. Time was what mattered.

“I need you to track down a phone number for me,” he told Tommy, skipping the usual greetings and smalltalk. “A pay phone, I think. And I need it yesterday.”

“Shoot.”

Sean read the number from his hand into the phone. Then he drove back to the station and gave his boss the okay to answer his own calls again.

“You heard from Julie, didn't you?” Westcott asked.

“Yeah, I did.”

“Where the hell is she?”

Sean pressed his lips together. He wanted Jones back, and his chances were better if he made an effort to see to it she still had a job to come back to. “She's in trouble, Allan. I don't know what kind, exactly, and I don't know where she is…yet. But I promise you, I'm going to find out, and then I'm going to fix it.”

Westcott's brows went up. “Fix it?”

Sean nodded.

“You two, uh, have gotten past your animosity, I take it?”

“Right now I'm the best friend she has. I don't know if she knows it yet. But she will.”

Westcott smiled and slapped Sean on the shoulder. “Do what you need to. I don't want to lose her.”

As he walked away, Sean muttered, “Neither do I.” Then he went to his own office and placed a call to Nathan Z's PR person, wheedling and bluffing until he got the make and model of the man's car out of her. He drove a late-model black Jaguar. She flat out refused to give him the plate number.

Black Jag. So Julie had been right. It
had
been him following Dawn that day.

Sean wanted to throttle the son of a bitch. Hell. What to do next? He couldn't go hunting for Jones until he had a starting place, at the very least. Okay, then. He would just wait here for his P. I. friend to call with the address. Until then…He swallowed hard, wishing to Christ he knew where to begin looking for Julie and Dawn.

He was afraid for them. Whoever had been in their house, he realized with a sick feeling in his stomach, might very well already know where they were headed. And he was afraid for himself, because he wasn't sure he could handle it if anything happened to those two.

* * *

Dawn's question shocked Julie to the soul, but she should have been expecting it. Dawn was sharp, savvy, too smart to be fooled for very long. She'd hinted that she had an inkling of this in the past. Hell, she would have to be blind not to have had an inkling. She was as pale and blond as Julie was dark and bronze. But she'd never come right out and asked.

Julie didn't answer right away. She pulled the car off the road, killed the engine and fought to control her emotions.

“I've suspected it for a long time now, Mom.”

“Why?”

Dawn shrugged. “I don't know. The fact that we look nothing alike. I mean, not even things that should be passed down. And then there were the things you told me about my father. That he was a high school boy who was killed in a car accident before you ever told him you were pregnant. That his family was ultrareligious and telling them about me would only have made them feel worse. That you had no living rel
atives of your own.” She shrugged. “I just started adding it up. I've been trying to work up the courage to come out and ask for a while now.”

Licking her lips, Julie met her daughter's eyes. “I didn't give birth to you. But I was there when you were born. I delivered you, Dawnie. I was the first person to hold you. To feed you. To bathe you. Your…mother…” She had to force the word out. It was not easy to refer to another woman as her daughter's mother. “She was my best friend.”

“Was?”

“She died when you were only a few months old. The last thing she asked me to do was to take care of you.”

“And you agreed.”

“It wasn't even a question, Dawn. I loved you as if you were my own already. I did from the moment you opened your little eyes and looked into mine. Lizzie and I, we used to say you were our baby. Both of ours. That's how we thought of you.”

“Her name…was Lizzie?” Dawn smiled through gathering tears.

Julie nodded. “She was wonderful, Dawn. A wonderful, smart, beautiful woman. She loved you so much.”

“What was her last name?”

Lowering her head, Julie sighed. “We never shared last names. We were both runaways, and…last names were something we avoided using at all.”

“You were runaways?”

Julie nodded.

“How old?”

“I was seventeen. I think she was about the same.”

Dawn seemed to absorb that slowly, to let it sink in.

“You look like her,” Julie said. “Sometimes, when I look at you, I think I'm seeing her again.”

“I wish I'd known her.” Then she shook her head slowly. “God, seventeen. I'll be seventeen next summer. I can't even imagine having a baby—much less taking care of someone else's.”

“You were never someone else's,” Julie insisted. “We were like sisters, Lizzie and I. I loved you, Dawn. I would have fought anyone who tried to take you away. No one had to force me to take care of you.”

Tears welling in her big eyes, Dawn said, “Oh, Mom, how could you think I would feel differently about you because of this?”

Julie stroked Dawn's hair, then pulled her closer and held her. “Because I should have told you sooner. Because you had every right to know.”

Dawn nodded. “You should have told me sooner.” She returned Julie's fierce hug. “And now that you've started, Mom, you have to tell me the rest.”

Julie stiffened.

Dawn pulled away and looked her in the eyes. “All of it, Mom. I know there's more. I know all this has something to do with what's been going on. And you have to tell me. No matter what it is, it's about me, and you have to tell me.”

Julie nodded, wiping tears from her eyes. A car passed them, a dark car with tinted windows, enough like the car Dawn had described following her before that it reminded Julie how exposed they were out here on the roadside. “I'll tell you all of it, honey.” She put her own car into gear and pulled back onto the road, picking up speed as she went. “But let's get to that cabin first, okay?”

“Okay. But as soon as we do…”

She never finished the sentence. The car that had just passed them slammed on its brakes and spun in a complete circle in the road.

“Dawnie?”

“Mom?”

“Honey, did you tell anyone we were leaving before we left this morning?”

The black car was speeding back toward them. God, it was going to hit them head-on!

“Oh, God. I'm sorry, Mom. I did. I e-mailed Kayla. Mom, look out!”

Julie jerked the wheel to avoid the oncoming car and hit the brakes, but the car skidded out of control. And then Julie lost all sense of direction as her world spun around, to the sounds of crushing metal, shattering glass and her daughter's scream.

* * *

Sean felt a full-body shudder ripple through him for no good reason the instant before his desk phone rang and he grabbed it.

“Got that number for you, MacKenzie. It came from a diner called Jenny's, up in the Adirondacks.”

“Address?”

“The address will tell you nothing. I got directions instead. Take the thruway to 365 and cut through Rome. From there, take 28 North into the Adirondacks. Start looking once you see Raquette Lake. It'll be on the right-hand side, on the stretch between Raquette and Blue Mountain Lake. It's only a twelve-or thirteen-mile stretch. You should be able to locate it.”

Sean yanked one of the maps from his top drawer. He kept a bunch of them, as most reporters did, just in case he had to cover a story in an area unfamiliar to him. He wrestled the map of the Adirondack Region open and traced the route with his fingertip. “That's gotta be over a hundred miles,” he said.

“Yeah. Take you two hours.”

“The hell it will.” Sean hung up the phone, refolded the map incorrectly and headed outside to his Porsche.

* * *

Dawn lifted her head and tried to take stock. Everything hurt. Moving hurt more.

She pressed a hand to her forehead, hissed and pulled it away again. Blinking, she looked around her. Her lap was full of tiny bits of shattered glass and coated in powder from the deflated air bag. She seemed to be at an odd angle, as if the nose of the car were pointing downward, while the back was up. Her seat belt was the only thing that kept her from falling forward against the dash.

Then she caught sight of her mom, slumped over the steering wheel, and it all came clear. The car, the wreck. She reached out a hand, touching her mother's shoulder, shaking her gently. “Mom? Are you okay?”

Her mother made no reply. Dawn shook her a little harder, realizing that once again her mother had forgotten to buckle up. Her throat closed up tight. “Mom?” There was still no response, and Dawn gently pushed the hair away from her mother's face, the better to see her. Her head was bleeding.

God, she was hurt—they needed help. Dawn had to find help. She tore her attention from her mother to look beyond the car. It wasn't easy to see through the spiderwebbed wind
shield, but her own side window was completely demolished, probably thanks to the tree limb sticking in through it. The car was nosedown at a sharp angle. Swallowing hard, Dawn tried to open her door, but the tree was blocking it. She looked again at her mother, tried again to rouse her, and battled the tears and panic that were trying hard to take over. Her mom needed help, and there was no one but Dawn to get it for her.

She freed herself from her seat belt and climbed over the seat, into the back of the car. That door opened without resistance, so she got out, shocked when she took a look around. The car was partway down a steep wooded hillside and could easily have plummeted a lot further if not for the tree that had stopped it. The nose of the car was caved in against the trunk of a giant pine. That tree had probably saved their lives.

Turning, Dawn looked upward, to where the road must be. It surprised her how far away it was, but she almost sagged in relief when she saw someone standing up there, looking down at them.

She cried out, waving her arms. “Help! We need help down here!”

The person—whoever it was—started down the hill, slipping and sliding a lot of the way. As he drew closer, she saw that he was completely bald and dressed all in white. It didn't take him long to reach her, and only then did Dawn gasp in surprise and relief. Nathan Z himself smiled at her, like an angel sent from heaven to rescue her. It was a reassuring smile meant to offer comfort, and it worked.