Alafair Burke - Long Gone

“I’m leaving.”

“I can’t believe you would hurt Ben. He loved you.”

He breathed heavily, staring at her from across the table, then raised a single finger and pointed at her. “I did not harm your brother.”

“How about it, Godfather? Now that I know your secrets, will I be the next one they find dead in my bathroom?”

“Ben was using again. Ben was a spoiled junkie. And I would never, ever-no matter what-hurt you. I practically raised you.”

“Because I’m your daughter. I’m your flesh and blood.”

She could tell from his breathing that he was having a hard time maintaining his composure. He nodded, but she needed to hear him say it.

“Mia and I were a DNA match,” she continued. “I already know. I just want to hear it straight from you. That’s all I want, Art. And then if you want to make a run for it, I’m not going to stop you. But the truth will come out.”

When he finally spoke, he had regained the evenness of his breath. “I wanted Rose to leave him. When your mother found out she was pregnant, I mean. She said you could’ve been either of ours, but I knew how much he’d been gone. I could feel that you would be our child. And when you were born, oh, I was so certain. But Rose would never leave Frank. She worships your father. The artistry. The wit. The passion. She would taunt me with it when I pressed her too hard.”

“And that night with Christie Kinley?”

“That was not rape. And I had no idea that she was only fourteen.”

“You allowed my father to believe all these years that he was the one.”

“I also got the lawsuit settled with a confidentiality agreement. And, frankly, if it took a blacked-out night and a good scare to get your father to stop drinking, I might have done him a favor. Frank would’ve died by now at the rate he was going.”

She realized that the man could justify anything. “Please tell me the truth about Ben.”

“I swear to you, as God as my witness, I had nothing to do with that.”

“Did it ever dawn on you that what he learned from Robert Atkinson about our father was the breaking point for him? Maybe you were the one who put the needle in his arm, but indirectly.”

“I never meant to hurt either one of you.” He reached for his wallet, but she waved him off.

“My treat, remember? What are you going to do?”

He gave her a sad smile. “You know what? You would’ve made a good lawyer, Alice, because you’re right. I kept digging further and further, trying to bury the truth from twenty-five years ago, but I made too many mistakes. You got me. Maybe I’ll see you on the other side.”

He was surprisingly peaceful as he made his way to the exit, like a man who had already weighed his options and come to terms with his choice. But Alice would never learn what that decision might have been, because undercover police officers-dressed as waiters, busboys, and customers-swarmed Arthur Cronin before he could leave the restaurant.

Alice reached into her shirt and peeked at the microphone taped to her left breast. She could have sworn that Art threw her a wink as his handcuffs clicked shut.

Six Months Later

A lice was panting by the time she reached her turnoff from Council Crest Drive. The view from the backside of her rental house had made the west hills irresistible, but she had not taken into account the labor that would be required for even a twenty-minute jog in this neighborhood. She slowed to a leisurely walk, allowing her heart rate to return to normal and the breeze to dry the thin layer of perspiration around her neck.

Alice had always heard that the Pacific Northwest was the perfect place to spend a summer, but now she knew firsthand. She would never have dreamed of running outdoors in steamy New York City in August, but even uphill in Portland, Oregon, she had barely broken a sweat.

She pulled her mail from the curbside box. A.J. Benjamin. She’d changed her name six weeks ago but was still getting used to it. A.J. for her initials, Alice Janine. And of course Benjamin. A.J. Benjamin seemed like she’d be a brunette, so it was back to the Temptation Brown in a bottle. At least for now. Memories were short, though. In another year or two, when people had forgotten about that time a girl who looked just like her was in the news, she could go back to her natural hue. Maybe she’d even go back to the name Alice Humphrey. Until then, a name was just a name, as interchangeable as her hair color.

It was Tuesday, and she had just enjoyed an afternoon jog. In New York City, Alice had only been able to exercise in the middle of the day when she was unemployed. In Portland, she was now a once-a-week telecommuter. No pencil skirts and tailored blouses for this woman, at least not on Tuesdays. She ran her fingers across her laptop’s touchpad, bringing the screen back to life, and carried the computer out to the canvas chair she’d bought for her deck. Voilà, she was at work!

For the seventh time, she checked the flyer she had designed for errors. The Portland Art Museum’s distribution list was only a tiny percentage of the Met’s, and this show-an overview of Edward Hopper’s images of Portland-would not even warrant its own publicity campaign back in the city. But it would be one of Portland’s most attended exhibits of the year. She wanted the flyer to be perfect.

When she was absolutely certain she was satisfied, she e-mailed the file to her boss, reminding herself to sign the message A.J.

She found a message from her father waiting in her in-box.

She was still trying to convince him that the name change had not been a rejection of him. A.J. Benjamin on the West Coast was the fresh start she needed. Ironically, she actually spoke to her parents more now than she had when they’d lived in the same city. Maybe it was because they all knew they had to make an effort.

“Alice”-A.J. was only for people in her new life-“I thought this might interest you.”

It was a link to a wedding announcement from last weekend’s New York Times . Joann Stevenson to Jason Morhart. She was a medical billing technician. He was a police detective in Dover, New Jersey. These weren’t the kinds of top-tier pedigrees usually found in the Sunday Styles section, but no couple could top the poignancy of their backstory-falling in love as he risked his life investigating the tragic death of the bride’s daughter.

“Get this,” her father added. “Ron Howard’s trying to buy movie rights. Love, Dad.”

Her instant message account was blinking on-screen, one of the costs of telecommuting. But this message wasn’t from one of her coworkers at the museum. It was from Hank Beckman. His termination from the bureau was official. Brooklyn was a little pricey for the proportion of his pension he’d been able to salvage, but a friend had suggested Portland as a nice compromise between the big city and the Montana town where he’d been raised. He was thinking of flying out next week to check it out.

“A ‘friend’ suggested this, huh?” She hit the send key.

“Maybe you should’ve been the FBI agent.”

They had seen each other a few times before she’d been offered the job in Portland. But a few get-togethers that weren’t even officially dates could not be the reason she turned her back on the opportunity for a new life she so desperately needed.

“I’ll pick you up at the airport.” Send.

She typed the next sentence and reread it twice: “I have a guest room. It’s yours if you want it.” Send.

She tapped an impatient fingernail against the teak arm of her chair, waiting for his reply. “Sounds great. Thanks.”

Maybe the fresh start didn’t need to be entirely new. She knew she still needed to work through the lessons gleaned in the past year. Her understanding of family had been shaken. When her brother had learned what he thought was the truth about their father and that night in Bedford, he’d fallen back into addiction rather than turn to her. Now Ben was gone. So was the half sister she’d never even known she had. Art was still fighting the charges against him, but would likely die in prison. She tried not to feel sorry for the man who had raped Christie Kinley, and taken the life of his own daughter. But then she’d remember that Mia was not Art’s only daughter. No, she did not feel sorry for Art, but she might never be able to accept that her biological father was capable of the sins Arthur Cronin had committed.