Red Silk Scarf (25 page)

 
          
Jonathan was frowning, deep in thought.
 
“Your brothers and I are rooting for you,
baby girl.
 
Hang in there.
 
Keep your chin up.”
 
Like the softest silk, his voice lowered a
notch or two to a dangerous all-knowing level.
 
“Now, tell me what's really bothering you.”

           
Cassidy
should have known three thousand miles made no difference, bluffing Jonathan
Brady was impossible.
 
He always
knew.
 
“I can't talk about it, daddy.
 
I can't.”
 
Shit, what a whimpering sissy she had become.

           
Straightening
his slouching shoulders, forehead furrowed, “You mean you won't.
 
Dammit, at least try.”

           
Silence grew
pregnant until, “There are people I've come to know, care about, who will pay
dearly for my actions.
 
I don't know if I
can tear their world apart,” she confessed.

Eyebrows
crashing together, stiffening in his chair, “Someone in particular,” Jonathan
pried.
 
God Dammit, his suspicions were
being confirmed.

           
Dear God, he
didn’t know about Sullivan, could he, Cassidy cringed.
 
No, impossible, yet Cassidy wasn't sure.
 
“Daddy please, you've never pried
before.
 
This is not the time to start.”

           
Sure as hell,
it was Sullivan, goddamn him, the plans didn't include a drug addict and
whoremonger becoming emotionally involved with his daughter.
 
A matter Jonathan intended to take up first
hand with the bastard.
  

  
        
Trying to calm his own riotous
emotions, “You'll do what's right when its time, Casey.
 
I have faith in you.
 
It will be hard, may hurt for a while, but in
time you'll come to realize everything you have to do is for the best.
 
Do you want us to come out there?”
 
At the mere suggestion, Jonathan knew his
daughter would straighten a considerably fractured posture.

           
There was no
hesitation, just mere panic.
 
“No!
 
Please!
 
Give me time to pull myself together.
 
I can do this.
 
I have to.
 
I know I can,” she practically shrieked.

Chuckling
inwardly, “That sounds more like my baby girl.”
 

“Daddy,
I’m a woman now, can't you see that?”

           
“No, and never
will, end of conversation.
  
Call
me.
 
Promise you'll call if you need
me.
 
Promise you'll trust your instincts.
 
Watch your back,” he grimaced at the
thought.
 

           
Jonathan
Brady was beyond worry more like terrified.
 
His behavior was completely out of the ordinary; Cassidy sensed it as if
he were standing before her.
  
What did
he know?
 
What was he not telling
her?
 
Summoning a reassuring lilt to her
voice, “I promise, daddy.”

“I
love you Casey, the whole wide world and back again,” he said as fingers
squeezed his forehead.

           
“Love you
too, daddy,” her voice more like, a little girl than a woman.
 
She would have said more like, don't worry,
I'll be fine, I'll make you proud.
 
The
click on the other end did not permit the opportunity.

           
The phone seemed
permanently affixed to Cassidy's limp hand, the only link between herself and a
father she desperately needed and loved.
 
What she wouldn't give to rush into the steal arms that, forever
welcomed her, always bear hugged her blue, arms filled with warmth and
tenderness. Brady's stick together through the best of times, the worst of
times, he perpetually harped.
 
This was
definitely the worst, she sobbed.
 
Wringing her emotions was necessary, getting it all out, ridding herself
of sentiments that might get in the way.
 

           
How her
father always knew when she needed him, Cassidy would never know.
 
The sound of his voice, talking to him,
knowing he cared, had faith in her all she ever needed before. . . Sullivan.
  
If rock bottom were like this, she'd never
touch it again.
 
Somehow, someway,
tomorrow she'd be fine, tomorrow.

____________

           
Jonathan
Brady clung to the phone as if sensing Cassidy doing the same.
 
Hanging up was necessary to free the hand
required to catch the flood in his eyes spilling over.
 
Now they were searching those of three
sons.
 
Pain etched the elders face as his
glance plummeted to the floor.
 
Hearing
his daughters' agony, despair, her heart reaching out for him made guilt flare
high.

           
Soon Cassidy
would learn the truth.
 
The waiting and
worrying that had further grayed his hair, added wrinkles to a face still
considered handsome despite its wear, would end.
 
Problem was the truth might create a fault
that would tear apart a bond forged over twenty-six years widening it to a point
of no repair between a daughter and a father.

           
Whatever made
him believe she'd ask for help, Cassidy Ilene Brady, never!
 
Her family was more than ready, but no,
dammit all, as always she had to do it alone.
 
Thanks to him.
 

           
Oh, Jonathan did
his job well by raising her like a “son.”
 
Lacking the knowledge of the female gender, honestly, he did the best he
knew how.
 
Only recently did he admit
he'd gone too far by teaching Casey to be proud and independent by instilling
so much self-esteem she gambled against all odds.
 
Having always been a winner, she didn't know
how to lose.
  
Problem was, this time
Cassidy was gambling with something far too precious to him, her life.

           
Then there
were matters of the heart.
 
Cassidy’s
intellect and abilities intimidated any man who might be interested.
 
Most felt inferior. The path her life was
plowing frightened the hell out of him. One day she'd be an old maid who never
experienced a lasting love, the kind that provides all the riches in life.
 
That is if she survived.

           
Knowing the
thoughts scrambling his father’s mind, Christopher's hand finding Jonathan's
shoulder, squeezed, relaxed, and squeezed again.
 

           
“She'll never
forgive me for what I've done, son,” Jonathan mumbled, his gaze locking on an
aged photo he’d been rubbing between his fingers and thumb.
 
“The older Casey gets, the more she resembles
her mother.
 
A woman we had to give up
much too early in life, much too young.
 
Someone I couldn't protect.
 
You
must understand, my son's, I can't do it again,” he confessed as old wounds
began to bleed.
 

           
The eldest
son, Todd stationed by a window was staring at Jonathan.
 
Unable to bare his father’s present emotional
state, he repositioned his glance to examine L.A.'s nightly show of lights.
 
Under different circumstances, the twentieth
floor offered a splendid view that would be hypnotizing.
 
Tonight the lights seemed dim.
 
Exhaustion had shriveled his height somewhat.
 
Missing his wife and children caused
homesickness to build sediment deep in his gut.
 
Regardless, he missed Cassidy more. Unbearable was his need to draw her
into his arms, kiss her forehead, knuckle rub her skull like always.
 

           
A heavy mist
curtained Todd’s eyes.
 
Baby sister was
in a great deal of trouble, sandwiched into something he wasn't all that sure
she'd survive.
 
Like other family
members, it was pure torture knowing that all they could do was watch and
wait.
 
During the past week’s each took
turn’s providing backup for those assigned to protect her.
 
Now, after what happened to Ben, suddenly his
trust was wavering in a father whose master plans never failed.
 
Todd couldn't help but wonder if this were
the one time, his father might be wrong.

           
Todd's
perplexed gaze found his younger brother, Paul, slumped over in a chair kneading
his hands between his knees one minute, the next, holding his head rocking back
and forth.
 
Feeling Todd's stare, the
young man raised his eyes to meet his brothers' as though sensing the same
defeat.

           
Following the
sound of a cell phone crashing to the floor shattering into pieces was an awful
cracking noise of flesh and bone splintering wood.
 
All eyes turned on a man standing in the
doorway of the bedroom. From the very beginning, he protested the plan, almost
folded in front of Cassidy several times.
  
He hated himself for his betrayal, hated everyone in the room for their
part of the deception.
 
How could
they?
 
How could he have agreed?
 
Enough was enough.
 
They'd carried this farce of a charade too
far.
 
Nevertheless, scanning the faces,
the eyes piercing him, said he was out numbered.
 
Fighting one Brady would be a feat, four,
impossible.

CHAPTER 19

           
Alone, Vera cleared the table,
listlessly sealing untouched food into containers.
 
For the first time in three years, Pamela
went out for the evening with a female acquaintance she'd met at school.
 
Patrick calling to say he would not be home
didn’t come as a surprise.
  

           
Sluggish from worry, Vera had all
she could do to wash a few dishes, and put them away.
 
Then, with no rhyme or reason, she puttered
around the kitchen doing mindless chores to help stay building anxiety.
  

           
Beneath an appearance of false calm,
worry festered, not because of Mark; a call to the hospital satisfied her
concerns when she learned he was out of intensive care.
 
The infection stemmed from fretting over
Patrick.
 
Spreading out the front page of
the evening newspaper on the counter enabled her to re-examine the headlines
whenever she needed reassurance.
 
Killed
in a drive by shooting was a pimp by the name of DeMarco, the “Serial Killer”
who held L.A. in captivity for so long.
 
“Thank God,” Vera whimpered, better him than . . . after all, DeMarco
was a stranger, someone who meant nothing to her.

A hand flew to
her breast to clutch a sudden stabbing pain that had been reoccurring all too
frequently recently.
 
Another hand
grabbed the counter to prevent giving into an influx of dizziness.
 
A few minutes rest managed to stabilize her
balance enough for her to retrieve from her blouse pocket the hanky ritually
used to absorb her sorrow, one that remained damp from tears she’d earlier over
Mark, then later soaked with those shed over Patrick.
 
God forgive her there were none for DeMarco,
a cold-heartedness that shook her head in disbelief.

A feeling of
inadequacy set up residency inside her three years ago when she began
struggling with the reality that a mother can never replace a father in a son's
eyes, particularly Patrick's.
 
Shawn was
everything to him; understandably, he was everything to her as well. Not only
was the course of their lives changed by Death's hand, but now leading her only
son down a dark, forbidden pathway.
  

Patrick must
believe her to be blind, or an imbecile; then again, wives and mothers rarely
receive any credit.
 
Just like her
husband, Patrick's downfall had always been under estimating a woman’s
abilities and intelligence.
 
Therefore,
never in a million years would she measure up to Shawn in Patrick’s eyes.