Secrets Rising (36 page)

"I ought to let you burn in your own hell, Morton!" Jake leaned down, reaching a hand toward the man on the floor.

Charles yanked a small automatic from a holster on his leg and came to his feet in a single motion, knocking Jake backward and spinning toward Mary.

Jake grabbed Rebecca's arm and pulled Mary and her out the door as the roof behind them toppled with a crash, sending a burst of searing heat over them with leaping flames right behind.

They sprinted across the porch, toward Doris and Gates who waited in the yard.

Doris must have shot Charles, Rebecca thought.

The five of them ran through the weeds until they were far enough away from the fire to be able to breathe again. When Rebecca turned to look, all that remained of the house where Ben had died was a raging orange inferno. Her father's murder had been avenged.

"It's over. He's really gone," Mary whispered. "Isn't he?"

"Yeah," Gates said, his voice tired. For the first time Rebecca noticed that the chief of police had his gun back. He held it up and studied it. "The bastard's really gone. Even a monster can't survive a head shot from a .45 and a fire like that. And you were right. He was a monster."

"You shot him?" Jake asked and placed a hand on his gun where he'd again stuck it into his belt.

Farley nodded and offered his weapon, butt first. Jake took it.

"Yeah, I shot him. To protect my son, I did a lot of things for Morton. I thought I could do this, help him commit murder...to protect my son." He shook his head and looked toward the fire. "But it was all so pointless, everything he did. You're not even his daughter."

He turned away, his shoulders slumped, walked slowly toward his squad car, then stopped and looked back. "I'm going to his office before word gets out that he's dead. I found the combination to his safe a few months ago, and I've just been waiting for my chance. I'm going to clean it out and burn everything in there, and a whole lot of people will sleep a whole lot better tonight. If you folks could give me about an hour before you report this, I'd sure appreciate it."

Jake nodded. "I don't think an hour's going to make any difference one way or the other. You file the report and call us when you need us. If you need us."

Gates nodded. "Sorry about the headlight."

"Did you cut Rebecca's brake line?"

"No. I didn't stop Charles from doing it, but I followed you." He shrugged, looking at the ground. "I guess I thought I could pick up some of the pieces when you crashed. I'm sorry. He didn't give me much choice."

"We always have a choice. At least you made the right one in the end." Jake lifted the hand that held Gates' gun. "Here. You don't want to have to explain how you lost this." Jake tossed Gates his gun.

"Thanks." Gates got in his car and drove away.

Mary dropped her face into her hands and began to sob.

Doris laid one arm about Mary's shoulders and the other about Rebecca's. "Mary, I'd like you to meet your daughter. Rebecca, this is your mother."

Mary looked up. "My baby." Timidly, she touched Rebecca's face, drawing her fingers along her daughter's chin, then smiled shyly, her eyes shiny with tears and wonder. "You have my chin and your father's mouth." She reached down and took Rebecca's hands in hers, touching each finger in turn, then raised her eyes again. "Ten. I counted them over and over when you were a baby. I couldn't believe you were so perfect. You still are."

Rebecca opened her mouth to speak, to say something though she had no idea exactly what, but all that came out was a sob. And then she was in her mother's arms as they both laughed and cried.

Love and let go
.

She was safe. Her case was closed. He was walking away.

She should have been prepared, but she wasn't. The bleak shadow of sadness, of loneliness, fell over her happiness. She had made peace with her feelings for Brenda and Jerry and now she'd found the birth mother that a part of her heart must have remembered and loved all these years.

But it wasn't enough. Jake had become a part of her life, had stolen a place in her heart even though he'd never intended to.

If she'd never stopped loving her mother even when she couldn't remember her on a conscious level, how much harder would it be to stop loving Jake when she'd remember him every day for the rest of her life?

"You will come by when you're finished, won't you?" Mary asked Jake, and Rebecca knew that her mother had guessed how she felt. Just as she'd known Jake's thoughts when he'd wanted her to tackle Gates, so her mother knew her thoughts. Through the telepathic bonding of love.

They both laughed, and Rebecca reminded herself that she should be grateful for the love she'd found and not grieve for what she'd lost.

Jake heard the soft laughter of mother and daughter as he yanked open his car door. Rebecca had found what she'd set out to find...a mother who loved her beyond all reason. Though her father was dead, at least she knew who he was, and Mary and Doris would tell her all about him. They'd make him real for her. She had a family.

Some people did, after all, love forever. All those years Mary had stayed away from the child she loved because she loved her. That was a forever kind of love.

Rebecca didn't need him anymore. He'd helped her find that love, and now he was free to be on his way, back to his real life. Back to being free.

The loving was over. Now it was time for the letting go.

Chapter 26

The square, ivory envelope, hand addressed, came to Jake's office, mixed in with bills and solicitations.

Noreen laid it on his desk in front of him. "Sorry," she said. "I didn't know it was personal. I opened it with the rest of the mail. It's just a wedding invitation, not a letter or anything."

"No problem."

A wedding invitation?

He recognized the neat, precise handwriting instantly. It was the same as he'd seen two months ago on the faded note Rebecca Patterson had handed him. Mary Jordan's handwriting.

He heard the door close quietly and knew Noreen was gone, but he didn't look up. He couldn't seem to tear his gaze away from that ivory envelope.

Was Mary inviting him to her daughter's wedding?

And if she was? What did he care? Why had his gut suddenly clenched into a knot? Why was perspiration breaking out on his upper lip? Why did his chest feel empty and hollow?

He'd almost forgotten about Rebecca.

Well, maybe he hadn't actually almost forgotten about her. The truth was, she'd been in his thoughts pretty often. Constantly, actually. But he hadn't seen her since the night of the fire.

After an off-the-record conversation with Gates, he'd given his statement concerning the events of that night over the phone. He'd corroborated Gates' story detailing how Gates had followed Charles to the old farmhouse, overheard him threaten to kill Mary and Rebecca, then shot Charles before he could shoot Mary. The story was factual; it just left out a few things, like Mary's attempt to kill Charles and Gates' initial complicity with Charles. Jake had no problem with that. Gates had redeemed himself in the end. It was a fair trade-off—to cover Gates' actions in return for covering Mary's.

So it hadn't been necessary to see or talk to Rebecca again. She'd called his office once asking for her bill, but he'd been out and Noreen had taken the call. He'd sent a bill and she'd paid it. End of story.

What the hell was the matter with him? What he and Rebecca had shared had been wonderful...at the time. But that time was past. It was over.

Love and let go.

He stared down at the printed script, forcing himself to read it, to prove that it didn't bother him that Rebecca was going to marry somebody else.

Mary Elizabeth Jordan and David Carl Baldwin request the honor of your presence at the celebration of their marriage on October 14
.

He stood, shoved his hands into his pockets and strode over to look out the window. In his mind's eye he saw Rebecca walking across the parking lot the way she had the first day she'd come to his office three months ago—fragile, vulnerable, needy. He'd thought of her then as bent to the ground like a willow branch. But like the willow, she'd proved amazingly tough. She'd withstood attacks on her life as well as on her emotions and emerged a stronger person.

A stronger person who didn't need him.

But he needed her.

Try as he might, he hadn't been able to forget about her. For the first time in his life, he remembered every detail of a woman's face, of her walk, of her touch, of the scent of summer flowers that surrounded her, her blue-green eyes. Every minute of every day since he'd walked away from her at the fire, he'd thought about her and missed her.

The way he'd felt when he'd thought it was Rebecca getting married had forced him to confront that fact, to stop lying and trying to tell himself he was going to forget about her any day now.

He'd fallen in love with Rebecca, and that love wasn't going away.

He sat down at his desk again and picked up the invitation. Mary had probably sent it as a courtesy. She probably didn't expect him to attend the wedding.

But he was going.

He'd done his best to get Rebecca out of his mind and out of his heart, and he'd failed miserably. There was only one thing he could do now.

In a painful burst of self-revelation, he recognized what he was doing. What he'd been doing for years. He'd learned early in life the necessity of maintaining his emotions in a temporary mode. As an adult, he'd left people before they could leave him. Just the way he'd left Rebecca. Only it hadn't worked this time. He'd left her physically, but his heart had stayed with her.

Love and let go.

What self-delusionary crap.

However fragile Rebecca had been when she'd come to his office, she'd had the strength to institute a search for her birth parents, to confront them no matter how things turned out, and for a while it had seemed they were going to turn out pretty bad.

Now he, a cynical, worldly-wise, battle-scarred veteran of life had to dig way down deep inside and find the strength Rebecca had had all along, even when neither she nor he had realized it.

Without the risk of rejection, he had no chance for happiness.