Perfect Victim, The (43 page)

"I should have been there for you
,
" he said
.

Jack tried to speak and ended up struggling with the respirator tube. Feeling awkward, knowing that somehow, this was humiliating for him, Randall turned away as the nurse checked the respirator and murmured something about relaxation
.

When he turned back, the nurse was gone and Jack's eyes
were closed. Randall crossed the room and pulled the ladder-back chair closer to the bed. "Jack?"

His brother's eyes opened and slowly focused on him.

“
What the hell happened?"

Jack raised his hand, jiggling the I.V. tubes before letting it fall back to the bed at his side. Even through the pain-killing drugs and the remnants of anesthesia, his eyes took on an intensity that told Randall he had something to tell him.

Randall leaned closer until his face was inches from his brother's. He held his breath against the garlicky odor of anesthesia and the unmistakable stench of singed hair and flesh. "What are you trying to say?"

Jack made a sound that was closer to a groan than an intelligible word.

Suddenly crushed by guilt, overwhelmed by exhaustion and the jagged remnants of his own rage, Randall pulled back and lowered his face into his hands. For the first time in a long time, he felt like crying. Christ, he hadn't even spoken with the doctor, yet here he was questioning a man who was too weak to breathe on his own.

For a moment, the surreal hiss of the respirator was the only sound. But it was the unmistakable sound of frustration that snapped Randall's head up. Jack raised his hand, flexing his bandaged knuckles. Only when his index finger and thumb came together did Randall realize what he wanted.

Heart pounding, he jumped up and reached for his parka, withdrawing his checkbook and pen. Never taking his eyes from Jack, Randall tore a blank deposit ticket from the book and carried the pen and paper back to his brother.

"Is this what you want?" he asked.

Jack nodded.

Randall put the pen in Jack's right hand, closing his fingers around it. Then he held the back of his checkbook to the paper. "What are you trying to tell me?"

Raising his head slightly, Jack scrawled something on the paper.

Randall looked at the paper. The name scrawled in black ink cut through him like a shotgun blast. Stukins had been right, he thought with disbelief. He stared, his brain refusing to acknowledge the implications or venture to imagine what the repercussions might be
.

When he
was able, Randall tore
his eyes away from the name and looked at Jack
.
"Addison's father?"

Hi
s
brother nodded once before closing his eyes and drifting off to a place Randall never wanted to go.

He was gripping his brother's hand when the nurse came in to escort him out
.
"He needs to rest, Mr. Talbot," she said softly, placing a tray of syringes on a nearby tray.

Barely hearing her for the thoughts rampaging through his beleaguered mind, Randall slipped the deposit ticket into his pocket
.
"When will the doctor be here?"

"Dr. Gregory usually gets in around six." She slid a needle into one of the I.V. lines. "He should be here in about an hour."

Feeling as though he'd stepped into someone else's nightmare
,
one that was terrifying and dangerous, Randall left the room, wondering how in the hell he was going to break the news to Addison.

Addison knew the moment she saw him that the visit had shaken him badly. "How is he?" she asked.

"Sleeping." It was the only answer she got
.
"Let's go get some coffee. We need to talk."

A stark sense of uneasiness settled over her as they made their way to the hospital cafeteria.
He knows something,
she thought
.
Something important
.
Something terrible
.

The cafeteria was a dreary basement room that smel
l
ed of vending machine coffee and yesterday's meat loaf. Randall bought two cups of coffee and ushered her to a comer table.

"What did you find out?" she asked when he was seated across from her.
"

"Jack told me who your birth father is."

The words struck her with physical force. She met his gaze. Cold wariness poured over her. There was something in his eyes she'd never seen before. Fear, she thought, only darker.

"Who?" She braced for the impending blow.

Randall withdrew the deposit ticket from his pocket and laid it on the table in front of them.

Heart pounding, she lowered her gaze.

Garrison Tate.

Shock spiraled through her. She stared, too stunned to feel anything but disbelief.

Garrison Tate. The name bespoke power and status. He was a political high roller. She'd seen him on television. Handsome. Charming.

A cold-blooded killer.

Her next thought was that Jack had made a mistake. His hacking programs had somehow failed him.

"Garrison Tate." Randall said the name aloud when she didn't speak. "He announced just last month that he would be running for a seat in the U.S. Senate."

"This can't be. There's got to be a mistake." She couldn't tear her eyes away from the scrawling letters. "This is insane. He's a respected politician, for chrissake."

Randall looked over his shoulder in a gesture that sent an icy finger gliding up her back. "Old man Stukins mentioned Yale. We can check to see if Tate went to Yale."

"A crazy old man's ranting doesn't prove anything," Addison snapped back. She refused to believe that such a powerful and respected man would go to such violent lengths to hide his past.

Randall slapped his palm against the table. "Dammit, think about it. Your parents. Agnes Beckett. Jim Bernstein. Jesus, Addison, it fits."

She could only stare at him as the horror seeped into her.

Deep inside, she knew he was right. But the truth was so ugly, she couldn't bring herself to acknowledge it. "I can't
believe a respected politician would resort to murder to
hide the fact that he has an illegitimate daughter
.
"

"You were conceived through an act of rape. Agnes Beckett was a minor. She was fucking brutalized. You saw the emergency room invoice. God only knows how badly she was hurt, or what else was done to her. That changes everything."

Her stomach clenched. Bile rose in her throat as the reality of his words struck her. She hugged herself against the sudden chill that enveloped her
.

"He battered and raped a sixteen-year-old girl
,
" he said harshly
.
"He bought and paid for McEvoy. He destroyed your birth mother's reputation and the entire
,
stinking crime was swept under the rug."

Outrage and sadness and an acute sense of injustice sent her heart hammering against her ribs
.
The pain was so intense, it hurt to draw a breath
.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she thought of he
r
birth mother
.
Sixteen years old. Poor. Uneducated
.
But with dreams as big as the sky was endless. She would have been dazzled by a handsome young student from Yale. She would have been vulnerable. She would have been without credibility because of her lack of social status.

The perfect victim.

Garrison Tate had forever and irrevocably changed Agnes Beckett
'
s life. In a single, violent act, he had ripped her dreams away and then systematically destroyed her.

Addison choked back a sob. Vaguely, she was aware of Randall reaching for her. Taking her hand. Squeezing.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She lowered her face into her hands
.
She felt sick inside. Sickened by the fact that she was the product of such a vile act
.
"God, Randall, it hurts."

"I know, honey. I'm sorry
.
"

"Agnes Beckett didn't deserve that
.
My parents. Jim
.
Jack. None of them deserved what happened."

"Neither do you
.
That's why I'm going to nail that slimy son of a bitch
.
"

She raised her eyes to his. "We need proof. We can't do anything without proof."

Randall scrubbed his hand over his face. "Maybe Bernstein has something in his office we can get our hands on. Whatever Jack was able to come up with was probably burned in the fire. I'll check it out, but it's probably gone."

"What about the newspaper clipping?"

"It's something. It will help. But Stukins will never hold up in court."

"Surely there was some kind of police report—"

"McEvoy said the police records were destroyed. As far as we know that son of a bitch is in Tate's hip pocket."

For the first time Addison felt the full force of the fury burning inside her. So many innocent people senselessly murdered. So many lives destroyed. All so one evil man could get away with his sins.

"We can't let him get away with this," she choked. "I want the bastard to pay."

Randall reached across the table and took her hands in his. "It's going to be a while before the doctor gets here. I need to talk to him. I've got to take care of Jack. In the interim, I'm going to get you checked into a hotel."

"I'm not leaving you. I'm not leaving Jack—"

"You need to sleep." He squeezed her hands. "Neither of us is going to be worth a damn if we don't get some sleep."

She didn't like the idea of separating, but she saw the logic behind it. She wouldn't last much longer without sleep. Neither would he. "You need sleep, too."

"I've got to talk to the doctor first. Then I'm going to check out the office and meet with Van-Dyne. I'll meet you at the hotel in a few hours."

"What are you going to tell Van-Dyne?"

"Everything except that we suspect Tate is involved. We need an ally, and I'll take whoever I can get at this point."

"What if he doesn't believe you?" she asked. "Let's face it. We're making some wild allegations. The only piece of hard evidence we've got is a twenty-six-year-old newspaper
cli
p
ping that doesn't n
a
me names
.
Pretty
f
limsy, c
ons
ideri
n
g wh
o
we're going up against
.
"