The President's Daughter (32 page)

“Yep.”

“What are you planning to do?”

“Work-wise?” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well, I found I enjoyed writing the book on Hayward. I want to finish my own book, then maybe do another book or two. Actually, I have several other projects in mind that I’d like to work on.”

“Why here?” She suspected but wanted to hear him say it.

“Well, because after all . . . all that happened, after I realized that I would not be writing the story that would take the country by storm, I started to think a lot about what I really wanted out of life.” Simon stroked her arm slightly with his fingertips. “No matter what all I put on that list, I just kept coming back to you. I figure if I’m going to win your heart, it would be a lot easier if I’m in the neighborhood.”

“I’d love to have you in my neighborhood.” Dina kissed the tip of his nose. “And you’ve already won my heart.”

“Even though I ruined your life?”

“My life is far from ruined.” She flashed that megawatt smile and added, “As a matter of fact, it’s pretty damned great right now.”

“So you’re not going to blame me for rocking your boat?”

“Maybe it needed to be rocked. Jude’s did, anyway. It wasn’t right for her to keep that secret for so long. It wasn’t right to keep Betsy away for all those years. She’s my aunt. We have a right to know each other. Even Jude has come to accept that.”

“Oh. Speaking of your family . . .” Simon leaned on one elbow. “I think you may be hearing from Gray in the near future.”

“Why?”

“He wants to meet you.” Simon watched a cloud pass over her face. “After all, you are his half sister.”

“Who happened to kill his sister.” Dina bit her bottom lip. “What do you think he thinks of me?”

“Curious, maybe. But I think he might be just as concerned about what you think of him.”

“I guess we should meet sooner or later.” Dina nodded. “Maybe in a month or so. This whole thing has been so overwhelming, you know? And I still have so many questions.”

“Like what?” Simon raised himself up on one elbow.

“Like how did Sarah know about Blythe?”

“The best Philip and I can piece together from what we knew, and from what you told us about your conversation with Sarah while you were in the shed, is that Miles told her thinking that Sarah would go to her father and cry and beg him to give up Blythe and that Graham would feel so bad that he’d end the affair.”

“Why would Miles do that?”

“Because he was in love with Blythe himself.”

“So he thought that if Sarah talked her father into leaving Blythe and coming back to her mother, then he would have Blythe all to himself . . . ?”

“That’s the best we could come up with. But instead of going to her father—”

“Sarah went to Blythe . . .” Dina said softly.

“Miles had made some comments to me to the effect that he’d never meant for Blythe to die. That it wasn’t supposed to turn out the way it did, or something like that. And it all makes sense when you add it all together.”

“Hmmm.” Dina lay back and pondered it for a few minutes. “She must have hated Blythe terribly,” she said after a time.

“I imagine she did,” Simon agreed.

“I like to think that my father had Dr. Norton in the wings watching over me somehow,” she told him. Before he could respond, she added, “And that reminds me that I need to thank Dr. Norton for . . . well, you know, for what he did after. After . . . Sarah—well, there was a lot that never appeared in any official report that I saw. The fire, for one thing—”

“Philip’s ‘old friend’ at the Bureau turned out to be the director. And it’s amazing what a call from the director of the FBI can do, isn’t it? Your local police didn’t even seem upset when the Feds took over everything. Your chief seemed almost happy to have them involved.”

“Biggest moment of Tom’s life, I do believe. All he had to hear was ‘matter of national security’ and his lips were sealed. I didn’t even see a mention of the gun in the report.” Dina paused, then asked, “What do you suppose happened to Sarah’s gun?”

“What gun?”

“You know what gun. The gun Sarah shot at me with. Shot up Betsy’s Jeep with. The gun she had in her hand when she died.”

“There was no gun in her hand when the ambulance arrived.” Simon shrugged. “And there was nothing on the report about any damage to the Jeep.”

“Are people really that powerful, that they can hide things like that?” Dina half sat up.

Simon raised an amused eyebrow. “You have to ask me that? Sweetheart, they managed to hide you for almost thirty years. . . .”

“Do I look all right?” Dina had the car door half-opened, her legs poised to settle on the ground, an anxious look on her face.

“You look beautiful,” Simon assured her. “You have nothing to worry about. Just be yourself.”

“What if this doesn’t go well? Or if they don’t like me?”

“Hey, what if you don’t like them?” Simon took Dina’s arm and led her up to the front door of Jen and Gray Hayward’s Rhode Island home. “Now’s as good a time as any to find out. Come on.”

It was almost three months since Sarah Decker’s death, six weeks since Simon Keller had found the perfect bungalow to rent on a road right outside of Henderson. One month since he’d moved in and one week from the day that he’d started working on his first novel, the story of a young reporter who was tracking a dream of a story.

Jen Hayward was the first to greet Simon and Dina, and she did so warmly.

“Come in, please. Gray’s out back with Dr. Norton.” She escorted them through the house and out onto the patio. “Gray has been pacing all day, waiting for you to arrive. . . .”

The congressman from Rhode Island stepped forward and shook Simon’s hand, all the while looking beyond him to Dina.

“You must be Dina,” he said.

“Yes.” Dina wasn’t sure if she should offer her hand and was happy when Gray offered his.

“Did you have an enjoyable trip?” If anything, Gray appeared more nervous than Dina.

“Yes. It was a nice drive. I haven’t been in this part of the country before. It’s beautiful.” Dina nodded.

“You’ll have to see the view from the cliffs.” Gray turned toward the sea. “It’s spectacular.”

“I’ll be sure to do that before we leave.”

“Let me get you something to drink.” Gray gestured to the small bar where Philip Norton stood, watching the interaction. “What would you like?”

“Whatever white wine you have on hand would be lovely.”

“I have just the thing.” Gray patted her shoulder. “Simon? Your pleasure?”

“A cold beer would be fine.”

“Philip.” Simon nodded a greeting.

“Simon.” Norton nodded back. “Dina, it’s a pleasure to see you again,” Norton said as he took her hand in his own and held it.

“Dr. Norton, I’d been hoping for an opportunity to thank you for all you did for me. For all of us.”

“It was merely a matter of keeping a trust, my dear.” Norton leaned toward her, so that no one other than Dina could hear. “As I promised your father I would always do.”

Dina folded her arms over her chest and studied the older man who stood before her. Simon had been right on the money. Sean Connery without the accent. Definitely . . .

“Might we have a few minutes alone?” Gray handed Dina a glass of pale wine that sparkled just slightly.

“Of course.” Dina nodded, then looked up at Norton. “If you’ll excuse me. I know there are other things I’d like to talk to you about.”

“Whenever you’re ready, my dear.”

Dina squeezed Simon’s hand for luck and said, “I’ll be back.”

“I’ll be here.”

Dina followed Gray into the cool of the house.

“How about here, in the den?” Gray held the door for her, and she smiled tentatively.

“That’s fine.” Dina followed him into the room.

“I’m so grateful that you agreed to come here today, Dina. I’ve been wanting to meet you ever since . . . well, since . . .”

“I’m surprised you’d want to meet me at all.” Dina looked up at him. “Since I am, after all, responsible for your sister’s death.”

“My sister took your mother’s life.” Gray met her gaze head-on. “And, from what I understand, tried her best to take yours. My family and I were stunned. Never in a million years could we have imagined that Sarah would do such things. None of us were prepared for the truth, especially my mother. Sarah had been . . . very ill . . . emotionally . . . on and off as a young girl, but she’d received the very finest treatment. We’d been assured that her illness was far behind her. None of us could ever have guessed that it was still there, under the surface. Dr. Norton thinks that Sarah found out about you from the tape she stole from Simon’s apartment—we found it in the glove box of her car—and apparently, the discovery triggered a relapse. . . .”

“But no one had noticed any change in her behavior?”

“Actually, yes, Julian had. He’d spoken to my mother about a month earlier, about Sarah’s mood swings and sudden bursts of anger. He’d tried to get her to return to the doctor, but she refused. Julian was hoping that Mother could convince her to go.”

“I’m assuming she declined.”

“She did. Unfortunately, no one realized just how deeply ill she was.”

“How is your mother doing?” Dina asked gently.

“She’s not been at all well since Sarah’s death. It’s all been such a horror for her. To find out that her daughter was a murderer, that she’d harbored such a terrible secret for so many years . . .”

“I’m so very sorry.”

“I appreciate that. This has all been too much for a woman of her age to deal with.” Gray appeared to swallow hard. “It’s been too much for all of us. Sarah deeply hurt so many people. Her children. Julian. Even his sister feels betrayed. You’ve heard, I suppose, that Sarah’d been driving Carolyn’s car the night of the accident. Sarah told her that she’d hit a deer on one of the back roads around the school. Finding out what really happened has been a terrible shock to everyone.”

“Why did you invite me here, Gray?”

“Because I felt that we needed to meet, at the very least. Because I felt you were due an apology on behalf of my family. Because I think my father would have wanted me to know you. And because there is the matter of needing to know how much information you’re comfortable with ultimately being shared with the public.”

Dina sat back on the arm of a wingback chair placed to one side of a small brick fireplace, Gray sat on the arm of the chair facing hers.

“None,” Dina said adamantly.

“You mean you’re not planning on going on
Oprah
?” He tried to force a smile.

“No. As a matter of fact, I’m not planning on telling anyone.”

“You could make a great deal of money from this.”

“Are you crazy? Do you know what would happen to my life?” Dina stood, horrified at the thought.

“Yes. You’ll be invited onto all the talk shows; you’ll have people falling all over themselves to help you write your book.”

“Stop it.” Dina glared at him as if he were a mad-man. “That’s the last thing I want.”

“Well, that makes it easy,” he said softly.

“To do what?”

“I’m sure that Simon has mentioned that I’ve been thinking about running for the presidency.”

Dina nodded.

“If I do, my party will expect me to remind the public that my father was the embodiment of morality, just as Simon’s book would do. I haven’t yet decided if I can, in good conscience, do that.” He looked up at the portrait that hung over the mantel. “At the same time, I have to know how you feel about having the truth come out.”

“I don’t want it to,” Dina said bluntly.

“Then I will honor that. You’ve made this decision much easier for me”—he smiled at her—“since I do not believe I can run for that office without being truthful to the voters. I thank you for being honest with me. I know now exactly what I have to do.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“If I run, I will have a very difficult time not telling the truth about my father. He was a wonderful man, a wonderful President, but he was not perfect and he was not a saint. I cannot run for that office and pretend that he was. But at the same time, I cannot make this story public without bringing you into the fray. Since this affects your life, too, I feel you are entitled to decide whether or not you want your privacy invaded. I will respect that at any cost.”

“Are you saying that you would give up an opportunity to be the President of the United States?” Dina’s jaw dropped.

“My father took this secret to his grave. Maybe that’s where it should stay.”

“Gray, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say. This is a tremendous sacrifice to make for someone you don’t know.”

“My family owes you much more than our silence, Dina. So much was taken from you.” Gray tried to smile. “And besides, we may not know each other, you and I, but we are flesh and blood. That needs to be honored. We share the same father. Whatever else has come to light over these past few months cannot take away the fact that he was a wonderful father. I loved him very much.”

Gray’s eyes clouded, teared. “I had the privilege of knowing him. You were denied that. I’d like to tell you about him, if you’d care to hear.”

“That’s very, very generous of you,” Dina whispered, touched deeply by Gray’s effort.

“I understand that he loved your mother very much.” Gray stood and looked out the window.

“So they tell me.”

“He loved mine, once, too,” he said softly.

“Then we have that in common.” Tears formed in Dina’s eyes without her realizing it.

“That painting, there over the fireplace, was done only weeks before he died.” Gray turned and pointed to the portrait.

“You look like him.” Dina looked up at the painting of the handsome man with the silver hair and the direct gaze and the smile that tilted the left side of his mouth. So like his son’s.

Gray went to the desk and opened the top drawer, took out a small wrapped package, and offered it to Dina.

“I thought you might like to have this.”

Dina unwrapped the tissue paper and removed the picture frame within, turned it over to find a photograph of the late President. He wore a polo shirt over a plaid bathing suit and looked back over his shoulder from the prow of a handsome sailboat.