Beverly Barton - Silent Killer

“He offered to marry me and take me with him when he left town so that no one would ever know the truth.”

Jack stared at her, clearly puzzled.

“I was seventeen, had just graduated from high school, and suddenly I was pregnant and unmarried and I’d just been told that my baby’s father was missing in action in the Middle East and presumed dead.”

She waited for the information to sink in and for Jack to realize that he was her child’s father.

“You were pregnant?” His voice lowered to a deep huskiness. “With my baby?”

She nodded. Please, God, let him understand. Let him forgive me.

“You married Mark Cantrell because you were pregnant with my child and thought I was dead.”

“Yes. After you left, I received only one letter from you, and then I didn’t hear from you again. When I found out I was pregnant, I went to see your mother. She told me what had happened to you.”

“Did you tell her that you were pregnant?”

“No. No, I didn’t tell her.”

“So Mark Cantrell offered to marry you and take on the responsibility of another man’s child. He must have loved you a great deal to-”

“Mark was still in love with his wife, and I was in love with you. In his profession, he needed a wife, a helpmate, and…He knew he could never father a child of his own. When he and his wife had tried to have a baby and she didn’t get pregnant, they underwent numerous tests and discovered that Mark was sterile.”

“If Mark was sterile, then what about Seth?”

Hadn’t he understood what she’d said? Hadn’t she told him that he was Seth’s biological father, not Mark? Oh God, no. She hadn’t mentioned Seth. Did he think she had lost that baby-his baby-and gotten pregnant again by Mark?

Apparently the shocked expression on her face revealed the truth as surely as a verbal confession. “You didn’t lose my child, did you? Seth was that baby. Seth is my son.”

“Yes, Seth is yours.”

Jack stood there and stared at her, but didn’t say another word, not for several minutes. Cathy wanted to beg him to say something, but she waited patiently, allowing him time to absorb the information.

“I understand,” he said. “Under the circumstances, it makes sense that you’d agree to marry Mark. What I don’t understand is why, after you found out that I was alive, you never contacted me to tell me I had a son.”

“I didn’t know for quite some time. My mother chose not to inform me when she learned, through local Dunmore gossip, that you were alive. Mark and I lived out of state, and it wasn’t until Seth was nearly two years old and we were visiting that I ran into Mike and he mentioned you.”

“That was fourteen years ago. For the love of God, Cathy, why didn’t you tell me then?”

“I didn’t know what to do,” she admitted. “I wanted to tell you, but…My mother and Mark convinced me that it wouldn’t be fair to any of us if I did. Mark and I had just begun to have a real marriage, and he’d been so good to me. He thought of Seth as his, and Seth, even at two, adored his father.” When she saw the hurt look in Jack’s eyes, she corrected herself. “He adored Mark.”

“If you ever loved me, how could you have kept the truth from me? I had a right to know that I had a son.” He paused for a gasping breath. “I have a son.” He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth.

She moved toward him, but when she reached out to touch him, he flinched.

“Please, Jack, try to understand how it was. Try to see my side of things. I was young and stupid and let Mark and my mother make all my decisions. I was wrong, so very wrong for keeping Seth from you. If I had it to do all over again, I’d-”

“You’d do what?” He opened his eyes and glared at her. “You wouldn’t do a damn thing differently, because you wouldn’t have the backbone to stand up to your mother or anyone else for that matter. Weak, spineless, helpless Cathy. Damn you!”

“I am not that same easily manipulated girl I was. I’ve changed. I’ve grown a backbone. If not, do you think I’d be standing here telling you the truth?”

“Lady, you’re a day late and a dollar short!”

He marched past her, ignoring her outstretched hands, flung open the back door and stomped outside. Cathy ran after him, catching up with him in the driveway. She grabbed for him. He shoved her aside and got in his car.

“Jack, don’t leave like this. Stay, please. Let’s talk this out. Don’t go.” Tears sprung to her eyes.

Jack started the car and backed out of the drive. Cathy followed him for half a block until his car disappeared as he turned at the end of the street several blocks away. Then, barefoot and wearing only her robe, she stood on the sidewalk and cried.

Tasha and Dewan hosted an informal get-together the first Sunday night of each month, with the deacons and their wives and children coming to their house for coffee and dessert. During their years in Dunmore, they had made many friends, but none as dear to them as Dionne and Perry Fuqua, a couple only a few years older than they were. Dionne was an elementary school teacher and Perry the high school football coach. They had married young, had children in their early twenties and were now parents to a twelve-year-old and a fourteen-year-old, both boys.

While the boys watched TV in the den, the adults sat in the living room talking, discussing everything from local politics to global warming.

“It’s getting late,” Dionne said, interrupting her husband midsentence in his tirade against irresponsible fathers missing from their children’s lives, a pet-peeve with the devoted father of two. “It’s nearly ten-thirty.”

“Stay for a while longer. I want to discuss plans for adding on a Sunday school wing to the church and expanding the sanctuary,” Dewan said. “Tasha just put on a fresh pot of decaf coffee.”

“Yes, do stay. The boys will want to see the end of their program before y’all leave.” Tasha stood and gathered up the empty dessert plates. “Honey, would you get the cups for me?”

Perry glanced at his wife. “Mind if we stay until eleven?”

She smiled. “Okay, but only until eleven. Remember, I’m teaching summer school, and I can’t sleep late tomorrow.”

Dewan gathered up the cups and saucers from the coffee and end tables and placed them on the tray where Tasha had set the plates. As he lifted the tray, he asked, “Anybody want more pie?”

“Not me,” Dionne answered.

“Maybe just a small slice,” Perry said. “Tasha makes the best blueberry pie I’ve ever tasted.”

Dionne shook her finger at him. “What happened to that diet you were planning to go on?”

“I’ll do that tomorrow,” he told her.

Both couples laughed.

“I’ll check on the boys and let them know we’re leaving in thirty minutes,” Dionne said as Dewan carried the tray into the kitchen.

“I’ll cut you a small piece of pie and bring it with the fresh coffee,” Tasha said. “When we come back, you and Dewan can discuss building plans while I show Dionne what I’ve done to the nursery.”

Even though the baby wasn’t due until early September, she had been unable to wait to redecorate their third bedroom. Dewan had painted the walls a pale yellow, and they had bought white furniture, including one of those new round baby beds. They had waited such a long time for this child, a child conceived in love and wanted so desperately.

“We should discuss baby-shower plans,” Dionne said. “Several of the ladies have already mentioned it to me. Your child is going to be surrounded by a congregation of honorary aunts and uncles.”

She had been watching the house for nearly an hour, waiting for the lights to go out so that when she rang the doorbell the odds were that Reverend Phillips would be the one to open the door. There was a chance he would recognize her, but what did that matter? If something went wrong, and she was unable to follow through with the Lord’s plans to punish the reverend, then she could come up with some excuse for being in his neighborhood and ringing his doorbell. But if things went well, Dewan Phillips wouldn’t be able to identify her, because he would be dead.