Richard Patterson - Fall from Grace

“But you didn’t just sit here, did you? You called Teddy and told him what Ben had said.”

“Yes,” Clarice admitted. “I’ve been lying to protect him.”

“But not just Teddy,” Adam continued. “First, you called Jack.”

Surprised, she glanced at him sideways, then turned away. “He didn’t answer,” she murmured. “So I left him a message, telling him what Ben had said and done.”

“And where he’d gone,” Adam said crisply. “Then you lied to the police about both calls. Do you realize what trouble that caused for Teddy?”

Clarice straightened. “What on earth do you mean?”

For the first time Adam was surprised. He gazed into her eyes, and saw nothing but confusion. “What do you suppose he did that night?”

“Nothing.” Clarice paused, eyes filling with doubt. “Isn’t that what he told the police?”

Adam weighed the possibilities: that she knew nothing of Teddy’s actions, or that she had caused Ben’s death-or both. “Maybe he thought he was protecting you. But here’s what I think, Mother. You couldn’t reach Jack, and felt certain that Teddy couldn’t help you. And you were ignorant of one crucial fact-that Ben had already changed his will.” Adam forced a new harshness into his tone. “In desperation, you went to the promontory. You found him weak and drunk and disoriented, like a man who’d suffered a stroke. So you pushed him off the cliff, hoping to preserve the prior will. The one that gave you everything.”

“No,” his mother cried out. “I never went there, I swear it. As far as I know, Ben fell.”

“True enough. But one of you helped him.” Abruptly, Adam stood. “Call Jack,” he finished. “Tell him to meet me where Ben went off the cliff.”

Adam stood alone in the darkness. The moon was full, and a fitful breeze came off the water. For a half hour he thought about his father.

From behind him he heard footsteps on the trail. Turning he saw the outline of a man for whom, Adam realized, he had been waiting all his life. Then Jack stepped into the pale light.

“Hello, Jack,” Adam said with tenuous calm. “Is there anything in particular you’d care to say?”

Jack’s face was worn, his eyes somber. “That I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I always loved you, Adam. For years my reason for staying was to watch you grow.”

Abruptly, Adam felt his self-control strip away. “As Benjamin Blaine’s son?” he asked with incredulity. “You and my mother trapped me in a love-hate relationship with a man who resented me for reasons I couldn’t know. Then you pitted me against him in that last racing season. Do you have a fucking clue what came from that? Or do you give a damn?”

Though shaken, Jack refused to look away. “I never thought you’d leave,” he said in a low voice. “I still don’t know why you did.”

“The reasons are my own, and you’ve got no right to know them.” Adam caught himself, voice husky with emotion. “There were times, growing up, when I wished you were my father. Now I wish you’d been as strong as the man who pretended I was his son. But for better or worse, I absorbed Ben’s will, his nerve, and his talent for survival. Along the way I learned to trust absolutely no one. A useful trait in a family like ours.” Adam paused, then finished with weary fatalism. “On balance, I suppose, I’d rather have you as a father. Yet right now I look at you and Mother, and all I want is to vanish off the face of the earth. But I can’t, because the two of you have created a mess I plan to straighten out.”

Jack cocked his head. “What do you have in mind?”

“We’re starting where you and Ben left off,” Adam responded coldly. “Tell me how you killed him, Jack.”

Jack hunched a little, hands jammed in his pockets. “So now you’re the avenging angel, or perhaps the hanging judge. You seemed to have developed the soul for that.”

“No doubt. But not without help.”

Jack seemed to flinch. “Maybe I deserve that. But before you judge me, listen.”

He found his brother sitting slumped on the rock, his eyes bloodshot, his gaze unfocused. With terrible effort, Ben sat straighter. “I’m taking a rest,” he said tiredly. “I can only assume she called you.”

Jack knelt by him, staring into his face. “You can’t do this to her,” he told Ben. “Not after all these years.”

Ben’s face darkened, and then he bit off a burst of laughter. “So I should leave everything to Clarice? Then you could move into my house, claim my wife, and take the fruits of all I’ve done. You may have lived for that, Jack. But by God, I did not.” Ben lowered his voice. “I’ve found someone who loves me, a woman with grace and grit who’ll give me a son that’s actually mine. They’re what my life comes down to, and where my money is going. You and Clarice can do what you please.”

Filled with anger, Jack leaned forward, his face inches from Ben’s. “This is her home, Ben. You can’t take that from her.”

Ben smiled a little. “I already have,” he answered calmly. “I gave you a home, Jack-our parents’ cracker box. Ask Clarice if she wants to live there with you. But I suppose you learned her answer long ago. All these years she preferred to live with me than in the mediocrity that is your birthright-”

Filled with hatred, Jack grabbed his shirt. “She can file for divorce, and challenge the agreement you forced on her.”

Despite the violence of Jack’s actions, Ben’s face revealed nothing but mild interest. “Not a bad idea,” he remarked. “That’s what I’d have done in her place, many moons ago.” He paused, gathering strength. “Unfortunately for you both, I’m dying. She can’t divorce me fast enough. So unless she wins a will contest, which I believe she can’t, she’ll have nothing but the deathless love you’ve imagined sharing. She’ll be looking for a rich man by Thanksgiving.”

Overcome by rage, Jack wrenched him upright, ripping a button off Ben’s shirt. In two steps he held his brother over the edge of the cliff, staring into the face he had always loathed. “I can kill you now,” he said in a strangled voice. “I’ve wanted to for years.”

Ben stared at him with contempt. “So did Adam. But even he couldn’t, and I don’t think you have the guts for it. He got all that from me.”

Jack thrust his brother forward, his grip all that kept Ben from falling over the precipice. Ben looked back at him, speaking with his last reserves of will. “You’re a loser, Jack. And you’re about to lose again.”

Jack held Ben’s face an inch from his. “Do you think I can’t do this, Ben?”

Smiling with disdain, Ben spat into his face.

Jack felt the spittle on his cheek. A surge of insanity seized his body and soul. He stared into his brother’s adamantine eyes, then felt his hands let go.

Frozen in time, Ben filled a space above the void. Then he hurtled toward the rocks. For an instant, Jack swore that his feeble cry turned into laughter. Then a distant thud echoed in the dark, marking the death of his brother.

Facing Jack, Adam felt his skin crawl. Perhaps, as Ben had implied to Teddy, he might have provided for his family had he lived a day longer. Perhaps the laughter Jack imagined hearing had been real.

“You held him over a cliff,” Adam managed to say, “then let him fall. Murder, plain and simple.”

Jack’s voice shook. “He’d been spitting in my face ever since he learned to walk. For that one instant, I could do what I’d imagined all my life.”

“And save my mother from humiliation in the bargain. Or so you thought.” Adam heard the horror in his voice mingling with despair. “You helped him commit suicide and lock in the new will, putting yourself at risk. No wonder he died laughing.”