A Family Affair: Winter: Truth in Lies, Book 1 (7 page)

“Your dad was mighty proud of you.”

It was a plain statement, meant as a compliment, but the mere fact that these intruders felt they had a right to an opinion concerning her father angered her. “Before my father died, he made mention of a collateral loan he’d signed for ND Manufacturing. Your name was listed on the correspondence as the contact person.”

Jack Finnegan scratched the back of his head. If he’d noticed the direct snub, he chose to ignore it. “That’s right,” he said slowly, “I’m the contact man.”

“Who’s the owner? I don’t have his name.”

His thin lips pulled into a smile. “No, you don’t now, do you?”

“Well, I’ll need his name so I can contact him.”

“Are you planning to call the loan, Christine? Shut the place down?”

“No, of course not.”

“’Cause I know that’s not what Charlie wanted and he’d be damned disappointed if he thought his daughter was doing this to spite him.”

“I have no intention of calling the loan or changing the agreement my father made.”

“Good.” He stroked his stubbled chin. “That’s good.”

“And that’s the reason I came here, to give my assurances that my father’s word would be honored.”

“Appreciate it. I’ll pass the word along.”

“Mr. Finnegan...Jack, what’s going on?”

“Charlie bailed this place out of a rough spot. If he hadn’t come through, a lot of people would have fallen on tough times, lost their jobs, their medical insurance, probably their homes. I don’t know how much you know about this town, but Magdalena doesn’t have an extra supply of jobs.”

“I gathered that.”

He nodded, pushed his cap further back on his head. “But some people don’t take kindly to accepting favors from anybody, especially if it’s somebody they ain’t too keen on.”

She forced herself to remain quiet. If she bided her time, eventually, in a roundabout, convoluted manner with hundreds of detours, Jack Finnegan would get to the crux of the matter, the truth.

“And then you got pride,” he went on. “That has to figure in somewheres, now don’t it? So, you take pride and somebody you ain’t too keen on, and then, you add a family member buttin’ in, and well, that just plain spells disaster.”

“Yes, it does.” Now they were getting somewhere.

“So, what’s a body to do? The boss still needs help, still has to find a way to come up with money he ain’t got and ain’t got no way of gettin’, leastways on time.” He leaned forward, planted his elbows on his bony knees. “I’ll tell you what you do. You find a body that can get the boss to take the money, but you can’t tell him where it came from—” he paused “—well, not 
exactly
 where it came from.”

She was starting to understand. “Are you saying the owner of this place doesn’t know my father put up the collateral for his business?”

“No, ma’am, he don’t know,” Jack Finnegan said, shaking his head. “And he ain’t gonna know, not now, not ever.”

“Just how do you plan on keeping all of this a secret?”

He shrugged. “Same way we been keepin’ it a secret for the past thirteen months.”

“And what way is that?”

“A member of the family loaned it out, said it was insurance money.”

“And does the owner believe that?”

“Ain’t got no reason not to. The man’s desperate. When people get like that, they don’t want to go lookin’ for the truth if it’s gonna cause them a grief they can’t handle. It’s easier to just shut out that little voice that’s sayin’ somethin’ ain’t quite right.”

“Well, there’s no reason not to tell me who the owner is. If I want to find out, all I have to do is look up the company in Dunn & Bradstreet and all of the officers are listed.”

She waited for him to say something but he just sat there watching her, fist balled under his chin, elbows on his knees.

“Are you going to tell me?”

“Guess I’m gonna have to now, ain’t I?” He let out a sigh. “You gave your word you ain’t gonna cause no trouble, Christine. You said you’d honor Charlie’s agreement.”

“Of course, I will.” She just wanted a name. As long as she received a monthly check, she didn’t care where it came from and if the old man wanted to keep ND Manufacturing’s benefactor a secret, fine.

“The boss’s old man and I went way back. I been with this company forty-three years.”

Oh, God, he was starting again with the stories.
 “Just give me the name Jack, okay? That’s all I want, so I know, and I promise it’ll stay between us. I give my word.”

“It’s Nate. Nate Desantro.”

It was snowing, gobs of white sticking everywhere: trees, animals, cars. But Nate and Lily were tucked away inside his log cabin two miles outside of Magdalena, a world away from the storm outside. The stone fireplace crackled, filling the room with what Lily called “tree heat.”

They sat next to each other on the old piano bench that had once belonged to their mother. The piano, too, had been hers, but she’d given it up years ago in favor of a paintbrush and router. And Nate had gladly accepted it into his home, found solace in the sound his fingers extricated from the keys.

He reached over and grasped Lily’s hands, gently placing her index fingers on the keys. “Now, when I point to you, I want you to tap the keys three times in a row, got it?”

Lily giggled.
“Got it.”

“Okay. I put a red mark on the ones I want you to hit. Here we go.” He played the first few chords of
 
Jingle Bells
, watched her face split into a smile as she waited for her part. Then he pointed to her.

Lily giggled again, raised her fingers high, aiming for the marked keys. She hit the edges of them. Once, twice, three times.

“How was that?”

“That was good, Lily.
Very good.”

She threw her arms around his waist, hugged him tight. “I love you, Nate.”

He brushed his beard over the top of her head. “I love you, too.”

“Play
 
Santa Claus is Coming to Town
.”

“Why?” He paused, his fingers resting lightly on the keys. “Santa Claus already came to town, and he brought a whole sack of goodies for Lily Desantro.”

She laughed. “A lot of stuff,” she said, nuzzling against his flannel shirt.

“Too much.
You’re going to have to move to a bigger house just to find a place for all your junk.”

“It’s not junk, Nate.”

“Okay, then, toys. Bicycle. Dollhouse. CD-player. CDs.”

She squeezed her hands tighter around his middle. “Santa didn’t bring me the bike. Daddy did.”

He stroked her hair. “You’re right. He did.”

She sniffed into his shirt and whispered, “I miss him.”

“I know you do.”

“I don’t want him to be in Heaven.”

“I know.”

“Why did God have to take him?” She eased her hands from around his waist, looked up at him, her blue eyes shiny behind thick glasses. “Why, Nate?”

He was not the most God-fearing person in the world. Hell, he wondered sometimes if he even believed in God despite his twelve years at St. Gertrude’s and his altar boy duty. Maybe God was just a form to curse for the pain and suffering in the world, kind of like shooting practice with a billboard target.

Nate’s life sucked. Here he was, alone at thirty-five, divorced, no children, not even a relationship with a woman that brought him gratification past a one-night stand. The only ones who brought slivers of light into his life were Lily and his mother.

The only other times he experienced anything close to joy was when he was making furniture. The feel of the wood in his hands, the smell of a fresh cut of oak or mahogany, the planning and design of a chair, a desk, a dresser, all of this brought him peace and made him forget the unfortunate circumstances of his life: the near bankruptcy of his business, the duty to his dead father that would not permit him to leave the company, the self-imposed solitude, the plight of his mother, the hatred toward Charles Blacksworth.

Even dead, Nate hated the man. The bastard had been a coward, leading two separate lives, refusing to choose one over the other. He’d stolen the best of both worlds: wealth and prestige from one, refuge from the other.
Goddamn Charles Blacksworth and his weakness to hell.

Nate knew about duty, knew what it meant to forge ahead when the last drops of sweat were wrung out and all a person wanted to do was scream “Enough.” His own father died when he was twelve, left Jack Finnegan to teach Nate about the business. And he’d wanted that connection with his father, wanted it so badly that he’d gone to the shop every day, stuck his hands in oil and learned the machines, all of them, working until the smoky oil smell saturated his clothes, seeped into his pores, and there was no way out, not even when he discovered the love of crafting wood.

His mother told him that he and Charles Blacksworth were more alike than he knew. She said they were both too bound by duty to live their own lives. But she’d been wrong. He was nothing like that sonofabitch.

“Nate? Nate?”

“Huh?” He looked down at his sister, tried to clear his head.

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

She nudged him in the shoulder. “Do you think Christine is sad like me?”

Christine.
 “I’m sure she’s sad.”

“Probably crying, too.”
A tear trickled down her cheek.

“Probably.”
He wrapped his arms around her, wishing he’d never heard the Blacksworth name.

“She’s so pretty, isn’t she?”

“Yeah, she’s pretty.” Lily was in awe of Christine Blacksworth; hero worship was a better term. Ever since the day she’d opened Charles’s briefcase and found the picture of her older half sister sitting on a white horse decked out in fancy riding gear, she’d been obsessed with her. There was an album by her nightstand filled with pictures: Christine at eight, holding a black puppy; Christine at fifteen, singing in the high school choir; Christine at sixteen, in a long dress standing next to a gangly boy in braces; Christine at seventeen, holding a golf club; Christine at twenty-one, on vacation in Rome.

Christine, Christine, Christine
. He knew all about her, more than he’d ever cared to, and it all came from Lily. She’d pump Charles every month, eager to glean a tidbit, mix new findings to old, constructing a heroine in the likeness of Christine Blacksworth.

And until a few weeks ago, Christine Blacksworth hadn’t even known Lily existed.

“Do you think Mom will ever let me get a horse?”

She meant, like the one in Christine’s picture. “I don’t know, Lily. Animals are a lot of work.”

“I want a white one, and a fancy hat with boots.”

He stroked her hair and said nothing.

“A black hat.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And I’ll zoom, fast.”

“You will, huh?”

She pulled away, her thick black hair bobbing up and down as she nodded. “Uh-huh.” She clapped her hands together, yelled, “Fast!”

Nate laughed, too. “Why don’t you go fast”—he paused, smacked his own hands together— “and put on those little dance slippers you got for Christmas and I’ll play while you twirl around the room?”

Lily giggled, clapped her hands. “And then can we have hot chocolate with marshmallows by the fire?”

“Are you sure you don’t just come here for the hot chocolate?”

She let out a half-giggle, wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a kiss on the cheek, her lips moist, smelling faintly of peanut butter. “I love you, Nate.”

“I love you, too, Lily.”

“Be right back.” She pulled away, moved across the room in a clumsy half-gait, legs slightly unsteady, arms swinging from side to side.

She was all that was good and pure and innocent in this world and he’d be damned if Christine Blacksworth was going to get near her.

***

She watched the house from down the street, her car tucked between a Chevy Blazer and a Ford Astrovan. It was 7:15
 
a.m
., cold, bleak, cloudless. She’d been parked three houses from the Desantro home for over an hour, even though the woman at Magdalena Middle School had informed her that classes didn’t start until 7:45. She wasn’t taking any chances; she was going to see Lily Desantro.

The decision to stay and meet the girl had come to her in the middle of the night. This other life made up only a fraction of her father’s existence, four days a month, forty-eight days a year. If she did the math, and she’d done it enough these past few days to know it was only 672 days in comparison to 4348 days.

Why not just bleep it out of her memory, pay the Desantros their money, and forget about them? It would be so much easier.

No.

Truth settled in her gut, crawled upward, pumping through her heart, migrating to her brain. She had to meet Lily to see what she looked like, how she spoke, what she wore; she had to know everything about her.

But not as her half sister; she was Nate Desantro’s half sister. She hoped the girl didn’t have the same black hair, the same blue eyes as she did. Let her be tall and slim like her mother, with hazel eyes and a thin, straight nose.
 
Do not let her look like me; do not let her look like a Blacksworth.

She heard the bus before she saw it; the unmistakable shifting of gears, the low rumble of brakes as it slowed, moved past her, slush splattering the windshield of the BMW. Then the lights came on, first yellow, followed by red as the bus stopped three houses from the Desantro residence.

Now she was going to get her first glimpse of the girl. Two gangly boys emerged from the house to the right of the Desantros’, backpacks flung over their shoulders, heads bare, they sauntered toward the bus. When they’d climbed the steps, the yellow doors closed, the lights disappeared, and the bus moved down Artisdale Street, turning left at the stop sign.

Damn, she’d wanted to be done with this. Christine drained the last of her coffee, settled back in her seat to consider Lily’s absence. A familiar grinding sound caught her attention and she glanced in the rearview mirror. A school bus approached, this one a smaller, compact version of the earlier one. It moved past the BMW, splashing a fraction of the slush its larger counterpart had, and came to a stop in front of the Desantro home.

The screen door opened and a young girl, dressed in a red parka, hood up, bustled out of the house, bookbag strapped to her back. 
Lily.
 Christine leaned forward, soaking in every detail: the short, bulky frame stuffed into the jacket, the oversized red mittens, the jeans, the ankle high snow boots…the awkward gait.

A swirl of wind gusted around the girl just as she was getting ready to step on the bus. The hood of her parka blew back, exposing a tangle of black hair. She turned then, full face, to wave good-bye to her mother.

Christine stared, tried to comprehend what she was seeing. Then she sank back in her seat and closed her eyes.