All Who Are Lost (Ashmore's Folly Book 1) (76 page)

And then he kept forgetting to bring it home.

Only after the night of the alarming phone call from Laura, when Meg had heard her reserved mother fall apart without warning, did Mark finally remember. He pulled the briefcase from the trunk of his car, and then – Mark being Mark – he made a big production out of handing Cameron St. Bride’s laptop over to her.

Like it held the meaning of life, or something.

~•~

Throwing a “Thanks, Mark!” over her shoulder, Meg raced upstairs to her room, settled the laptop on her desk, and looked over her new toy. It wasn’t
new
new, of course; her father had bought it just a few weeks before – well,
before
, and it had been top-of-the-line then. Of course, it too was obsolete now, surpassed by ever-evolving technology, but still it had all the bells and whistles that her father had put on it
before
.

It would do. For the time being.

She spent several hours setting everything up. Email, IM, Degas’
Green Dancer
as her wallpaper, her screen saver of family photos – and then she had to transfer all her games and files from her old computer.

It took
forever
.

Finally she had it just the way she liked it, just in time for Emma to call her down to dinner. She had to endure almost an hour of polite conversation over one of her aunt’s gourmet meals, since Emma insisted on dining like they were royals, but finally she was excused, and she raced back up to her room.

Time to go exploring. See what treasures her father had left that Mark hadn’t deleted.

~•~

An hour later, Meg looked around her room, a stranger in her own home, her world, her identity, everything she knew about herself tumbled into the abyss.

Gone forever, like the tower that had entombed her father.

A letter written to Mark in the late hours of September 10, over the ocean en route to New York. Saved in a hidden folder, overlooked by the tech who had cleaned off the machine for her use. She’d seen the date stamp and opened it, and read it, and the world had changed.

She might live to ninety, but she would never forget those words.

This man has cast a long shadow over my marriage. His name is Richard Ashmore, and he is an architect in Williamsburg, VA. He is married to Laura’s sister Diana, and he is Meg’s biological father.

Shock. Horror. Disbelief. And, in the midst of her instinctive protest – not true, not true,
not true!
– the thought that why would her father have written this to his brother if it wasn’t true?

And the realization that, if he
had
told the truth to his brother—

Then her mother had lied to her.

Do not immediately assume the worst about Laura. She did not trick me or cheat on me, and she did not betray her sister. She is not Meg’s biological mother.

Her mother had lied to her.

You’re in shock. Close your mouth, get some coffee, and keep reading.

He’d meant those words for Mark. Meg closed her mouth and kept on reading.

She needed our marriage because she needed money. I knew, and I didn’t care. I knew, the night I met her, that she was the finest woman I would ever meet, and I was willing to take her any way I could get her. I’ve never changed my mind. I’d do it again.

Her mother had lied to her.

Francesca got some kind of infection and went into premature labor. By “premature,” I mean that Meg was three months early, weighed only two pounds, and had very little chance to live. She was immediately put into intensive care with round-the-clock monitoring.

Her mother had lied to her.

But no, not her mother.

When she wasn’t singing, she was sitting at Meg’s side in the nursery, willing the baby to survive. I asked her why, when it wasn’t even her child, and all she said was “I had to.” It never occurred to her to leave and get on with her own life.

The B, Fran
ces
ca – she’d come out of her. Laura St. Bride, the woman she’d always called Mommy, who kissed her and grounded her and rocked her through illness and grief – not her mother, not really. She hadn’t grown inside the young Laura, who had gotten pregnant and run away with her boyfriend, who had refused to get married because marriage was only a piece of paper.

Francesca did not want to admit she even had a child. She seemed to think she could wish the child away if she never saw her. It fell to Laura to bring Meg home and give her a name.

Her mother had lied to her.

And, she realized with a sickening crash, so had her father.

She told me that she was planning to take the child and leave. She has never gone into detail, but I sensed she felt Francesca was a danger to Meg.

Danger? What danger could a mother be to her baby?

But then
–
that lady down in Houston, the year before, who had drowned her kids. All of Texas was still reeling from that.

I asked how much money she had, and she said, with a defiance that showed just how young she was, that she had $33 but she’d survive.

She’d heard Mark and Emma downstairs, arguing about remodeling the kitchen. Who cared about a kitchen? Who cared about anything at all?

Dr. Ashmore was a true gentleman – polished, urbane, and not above blasting me to bits about my behavior. Like an idiot, Francesca had blabbed everything to him, and he gave me a dressing down that, believe me, put Dad’s lectures in the shade. He told me that I was a damn fool if I couldn’t tell the difference between a girl like Laura and a girl like Francesca. He also warned me that, if he ever heard of anyone in the family mistreating Laura or Meg, he would tell his son about Meg and force a paternity test.

Dr. Ashmore? It had dawned on her, only gradually, that this must be her grandfather.

No, not her grandfather. She knew her grandpa. His name was Matthew St. Bride and he rode a motorcycle and owned a bank and slipped her money for candy whenever he saw her. And she was the apple of his eye. She had cried and cried when he died in his sleep. She still missed him.

I didn’t doubt him for a second. Something about him made you believe every word he said. He said that he did not want to hurt Laura or disrupt Meg’s family life unless it became necessary, but he left no doubt in my mind about the alternative. I promised to mend my ways and take better care of Laura, and I meant it. I did not want my marriage to fail over Francesca.

WTF? Her dad and Fran
ces
ca?

I could not pretend that Laura had nowhere else to go – Dr. Ashmore told me flat out that he and his wife would take her and Meg to live with them if I didn’t shape up.

She had a grandmother too. Not Kate St. Bride, who took her to tea like a real lady and set her up with an easel in the studio. She had splashed watercolors all over a canvas and all over herself, having a hugely good time while Kate painted a real painting beside her.

Richard Ashmore never gave up his paternal rights because he never knew he had any. He could invalidate the adoption and sever my rights. Given my track record, I won’t father a living child. Even if I did, Meg is mine. I don’t give a damn about his rights. He will never get his hands on my daughter.

Her family wasn’t really her family, after all. She’d grown up, the center of the universe, the darling of their hearts, and never questioned her place in this Viking brood.
I’d never miss your recital
, Emma had said after flying in from New York.
How could I forget my best girl?
Mark had said, and brought her back a present from a business trip.
You’re the best thing I’ve ever done
, her father had said, and twirled her around.

You are the light of my life
, her mother had whispered, tucking her in bed.

Lies, all of it, and liars, all of them. She wasn’t one of them. They were all strangers to her.

Well, all but one of them. She had a connection to one. She was the niece of the girl who had sat at her side and willed her to live. Who had tried to save her from unknown danger on $33, who had married her father so that she could keep her.

And she was connected to this unknown man in Virginia, this Richard Ashmore.

She had decided, right then and there, to confront Mark. He’d tell her the truth. Or he’d lie so badly that she’d know anyway. He wasn’t a great liar.

Not like her mother and her father.

~•~

But when she charged downstairs, ready to break up that stupid argument about the kitchen, she heard words even more shocking. Even more world-shattering.

Why her mother sometimes had that other-life look in her eyes.

Why her mother cared about her father, but never seemed to be
with
him.

Why she had never met her mother’s sisters, or her father, or this cousin she already couldn’t stand.

~•~

She didn’t bother to confront Mark, who would probably just get mad at her for reading a private letter written for his eyes only. She’d get nothing out of him.

Nothing more.

She crept back upstairs and sat on her bed, lights off, thinking.

~•~

Through the night, she sat there.

Mourning the loss of her old world, her old life.

Trying not to think about
him
.

Trying not to imagine her mother with
him
.

Unable to escape that indisputable truth.

Her mother had lied to her.

~•~

At dawn, she pulled her laptop to her.

Her father – her
real
father, the man who had swung her up on his shoulders, laughed at her knock-knock jokes, taught her how to hack into every computer but his own – her father had also taught her how to get the jump on any opponent.

Do your research.

Gather your intelligence.

Know your enemy.

She opened the search engine and typed her search term.

Richard Ashmore.

~•~

End of Ashmore’s Folly Trilogy: Book One

To be continued in:

All That Lies Broken

Ashmore’s Folly Trilogy: Book Two

~•~

Historical and Architectural Note

ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, THE COMPANY I worked for lost 16 people: 15 in the Twin Towers and one on American 11. Like so many of us, I found myself haunted for years by the recurring specter of the falling towers, and eventually I found myself integrating the events of that day into a rewrite of a novel I had been working on for many years.

When I decided to write about that September morning, I determined up front that I would not alter history and I would not take anything from those who died that day. So where to place Cameron St. Bride in his final hour?

•
     
Not in the Pentagon where, despite the horrendous damage, only (
only!
) 120 people died on the ground. I felt that, given his business interests, I could have made a believable case for his presence, but I did not want to alter history by adding a victim or dishonor someone by having my fictional character take his place.

•
     
Not on United 93 – he would not replace one of those 39 brave passengers who saved so many more with their sacrifice.

•
     
Not on any of the other three planes, since the passenger lists encompassed a finite group of people. Besides, someone like Cam St. Bride would certainly not be traveling commercially if he could help it, and I knew that the presence of a private corporate jet would come in handy later on. (Plus, I work across the street from the airport where St. Bride Data keeps its jet!)

So that left the Twin Towers.
Which
tower became a matter of character, because Cam would have assessed the situation and gotten the hell out of Dodge (the South Tower) as soon as he saw the smoke pouring from the North Tower. Most people in the South Tower did not know that a plane had hit the other tower, since the damage occurred on the side of the building away from them, but they certainly saw the smoke and knew that
something
had happened. In fact, even in the North Tower, many people did not know that a plane had hit the tower; they thought a bomb had gone off. Those who had worked in the World Trade Center in 1993 remembered the earlier bombing, and many people chose to leave as a precaution. Although the occupants of the South Tower didn’t know what was coming at 9:03 a.m., and in spite of the building announcement that everything was under control, many decided to evacuate and thus survived. Because of this precaution, the South Tower saw far fewer casualties, even though the strike zone in the South Tower was lower and the hit destabilized the building more severely (which is why it fell first). The cool and rational Cam would have disregarded the announcement, factored in the disruption to his travel plans of the emergency vehicles already gathering on the streets, and left the building as quickly as he could.

Then I learned about the restaurant at the top of the North Tower. No one in the restaurant at 8:46 a.m. had a chance once the hijackers rammed the 767 into the building. All the stairwells were blocked, and the elevator shafts were either damaged or completely destroyed, so no one above the 91st floor made it out alive. Add in that the Windows on the World restaurant was exactly the sort of place where Cam St. Bride might conduct a breakfast business meeting, and his final destination was decided.

Remember that, even though there is an
official
total number of victims from the towers, no one really knows how many souls were actually trapped there, because very few bodies were recovered intact and many, many remain unidentified to this day. So Cam St. Bride does not replace anyone.