Don't Say a Word - Barbara Freethy [148]
She nodded slowly. "I'm going to try. Sarah gave me a wonderful life. And my parents were already gone. Who knows what would have happened to me without her? I think Sarah hurt her parents more than she hurt me. Like you, they had to believe someone they loved was dead. Which reminds me. Susan isn't my biological grandmother. I hate to take that away from her, too."
"At least she has Liz."
"That's my next goal-to persuade Liz to see her. I'm going to blend these families together if it's the last thing I do."
He smiled at her determination. "I don't have any doubts that you'll succeed. You're a strong woman, Julia."
"Stronger now, I think. You helped, you know. I couldn't have survived this past week without you."
The wheels of the plane touched down on the ground, and within minutes they were parked at the gate.
"I'll catch a cab home," Julia said as she released her seat belt.
He was surprised by her words, having been sure he would face the inevitable good-bye at her apartment.
"I can give you a ride," he said halfheartedly. "My car is here. It's no problem."
"That's all right. I can see that you want to be on your way."
She looked at him with her beautiful blue eyes, and it took every ounce of strength he possessed not to weaken. "All right," he said. "If that's the way you want it."
"Thanks again, Alex."
"I don't need your thanks."
Her smile grew sad. "I know. You don't need anything from me. You made that really clear. And it's okay. I don't have any regrets." She got up and joined the crowd of people leaving the plane.
Alex sat in his seat until everyone was gone. She might not have regrets, but he certainly did.
When Alex pulled up in front of his mother's house an hour later, he was stunned to see a man walking up the steps. Damn him!
Alex jumped out of the car and caught up to his father before he rang the bell. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to tell your mother the truth," Charles said, his words heavy and filled with emotion.
His father had cleaned up a bit and was wearing slacks and a brown sport coat over a white shirt, but Alex knew that his appearance would still scare the life out of his mother. "You can't just show up at her door," he told him. "You might give her a heart attack. Let me prepare her."
"It's my lie, not yours. I thought you were still in Washington."
"I just got back," Alex said. His father had been part of several conference calls the day before, so he was completely up to speed on everything that had gone down. "By the way, have you spoken to Stan?"
"No. I haven't been able to reach him."
"How come no one talked about him yesterday?"
His father appeared taken aback at his question. "I don't know. I never thought about it."
"Maybe you should. Stan's the one who connected me to Brady in the first place."
"If you think they were working together, you're wrong," Charles said. "Stan would never have gone along with stealing my life and yours and your mother's. Nor would he have ever killed in the first place, not for jewels or money. He's not that kind of person."
"You didn't think Brady was that kind of person, either."
His father's face paled and his jaw tightened. "You're right. He conned me. I just wish he wasn't dead. I would have enjoyed killing him myself."
He'd never thought his father capable of murder, but Alex was beginning to realize that he hadn't known Charles Manning at all, not the real man, not the man who'd gotten involved in a Russian defection plot or the man who had gone underground and lived his whole life in the shadow of the family he'd left behind. The question was-did he want to know him?
"There is something else I've been wondering about," Alex said. "Why did Brady force you to go underground and fake your death? He was the one who killed the Markovs. And he knew you didn't know anything about the girls or about the treasure. I don't get it. How were you a threat to him?"
"It was part of the plot. Brady had to continue to make our government believe that the Russians had killed Natalia and Sergei, that I was in danger. He faked the