Born to Die - Lisa Jackson [132]
She’d decided to meet Gerald Johnson face-to-face, see what her newfound dad had to say for himself, and try to figure out why her mother held him in such reverent esteem.
Theirs, it seemed, at least in Maribelle’s nostalgic mind, was an affair that transcended all others, a star-crossed, tragic love story that was equal to or more intense than Antony and Cleopatra, or Romeo and Juliet.
The incredibly pathos-riddled tale of Gerald and Maribelle.
“Give me a break,” she muttered under her breath as she moved her all-wheel drive onto I-90. In her head she mapped out what she might say to the father who, according to Maribelle, had never known she existed.
Great.
Some of her courage seeped away as the tires of her Ford ate up the miles. She’d done her research. All Gerald’s legitimate children lived within fifty miles of their parents. No offspring going to college on the East Coast and putting down roots, or marrying and taking a job in San Francisco or Birmingham or Chicago.
No, all of those who had survived still lived close to Daddy and, she suspected, the fortune he’d amassed. She chastised herself mentally for her suspicions as she reached the city limits of Missoula, but she’d done her research: Gerald Johnson was a very wealthy man.
As she’d gathered information on him, Kacey had also learned that most of his surviving children worked for him. The oldest, Clarissa, had an MBA from Stanford, and she was in charge of marketing. Married, with a couple of kids, she’d been with the company for years. After Clarissa, Gerald had sired two sons in three years, Judd and Thane. Both of them were lawyers: Judd worked for the company, and Thane consulted from his own firm. Neither was married. Then came the twins, Cameron and Colt. Kacey hadn’t found out much about them, but they, too, lived in the area, and she would bet they were on the company payroll in some capacity. The last of Gerald’s children had been the ill-fated Kathleen, who’d died right before her pending marriage.
There had been a few mentions of seven children, however, so Kacey had scoured deeper. When she’d looked through the archived obituaries, she’d discovered an earlier daughter, Agatha-Rae, “Aggie,” who had died at the age of eight from a fall. Agatha-Rae’s birthday was exactly one week before her own, so she and Kacey would have been the same age, had she lived. Inwardly, Kacey shuddered and gripped the wheel of her car a little more tightly. No wonder her mother had been vague about Gerald’s children.
Snow was beginning to fall again, and she flipped on her wipers. Using her portable GPS as a guide, she made her way through Missoula, a larger city by Montana standards that lay in a valley near the river and was rimmed in snow-covered mountains. She drove past restaurants and storefronts, and an old lumber mill turned into several individual shops now, and then finally crossed a wide bridge to discover Johnson Industrial Park. Newly shoveled pathways cut through the low-lying buildings and rimmed a series of icy ponds complete with cattails and ducks. The new snowfall was already covering the cement.
Though the structures seemed identical, they looked to be built in pods, each grouping housing a different piece of Gerald Johnson’s empire and connected by breezeways edging several parking lots.
Money, she thought uneasily, easing along the winding road and spying areas marked MANUFACTURING, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, TECHNOLOGY, and finally, ADMINISTRATION.
“Bingo,” she whispered as she pulled into a parking spot marked for visitors and cut the engine. Giving herself one quick, final pep talk, she grabbed her briefcase.
Outside, the wind was brisk, carrying tiny, hard snowflakes that caught in her hair and seemed to cut into her cheeks. Quickly, she made her way along the aggregate walkway to the door and stepped inside to a vast reception area where yards of gray, industrial-grade carpet swept across the floor and the white walls were covered with awards and pictures.
A wide counter separated those who were visiting from the