Don't Say a Word - Barbara Freethy [50]
She could see where he was going, and she didn't like it. "You think I'm blocking something out, don't you?" "It's just a thought."
"Fine. If you don't agree with my theory, what's yours?"
"About my father or your mother?"
"Both."
Alex rested his elbows on the railing. "It probably wouldn't have been unthinkable for my father to get caught up in some Moscow intrigue. I've been tempted a few times to step out from behind the camera. I just never knew he felt that way. He always told me that a good photographer stays detached, remains an observer. But if he saw something that bothered him, maybe that would have changed his mind."
"So you think he could have been spying for the government? Isn't that what Stan implied was going on?"
"I'm not willing to go that far. My dad loved photography. He was never without his camera. I don't believe it was just a front. It was a part of him. When he was shooting, he was in another world. I wanted to be a part of that world. I knew that from the time I was a little kid." Alex looked back down at the water and sighed heavily. "I thought I knew my father. All these years I thought I knew who he was. And now he seems like a stranger. How did that happen?"
She could hear the pain in his voice, and it touched her deeply. Alex had followed in his father's footsteps. Now those footsteps were taking him down a path he didn't want to go. He'd thought of his father in one way for so long, he couldn't think of him differently. Just as she couldn't think of her mother as anyone but the quiet, suburban mom she'd grown up with. Trying to picture her mother meeting a man in a Moscow square was impossible.
"At least I know one thing," Alex continued. "My dad's accident was no accident. I should have seen that years ago. One minute he was terrified. The next minute he was dead. That wasn't a coincidence. And it was all because of that damn picture."
A cold wind blew Julia's hair across her face. As she peeled the wet strands off her cheeks, she realized that the fog was coming in. The stars had disappeared. The moon was going into hiding, too, and they were being covered by an ice-cold blanket of mist. It was as if the universe were taunting them, telling them they would only see the truth when it was time, and not a second before. She moved closer to Alex, wanting his warmth, needing his strength. She felt suddenly afraid of what was coming.
She put a hand on his arm. She could feel the muscles bunched beneath his sleeve. He was as tense as she was. And angry, too, furious with himself. It wasn't a reasonable anger, but how could she convince him of that?
"You're not responsible," she told him again. "You were a little boy when you went to Moscow. You took a picture. That's all you did. You can't take the rest of it on."
"My dad told me not to play with his camera," he said, his voice rough and filled with contempt for his own actions. "I didn't listen. If I had, my father would still be alive."
"I know I can't make you feel better-"
"You can't," he said, cutting her off. "Don't even try, Julia. Just stop talking."
She stared at his hard profile. He looked so alone, so lost in his misery. She wanted to help him, but he wouldn't let her. He was a proud man who had high expectations for himself. He didn't tolerate failure or incompetence, and right now he was blaming himself for something he couldn't have prevented.
"It's a terrible feeling, isn't it? To suddenly realize that everything you thought you knew about yourself and your parent might be false."
"Hell of a feeling," he muttered.
"But you're not alone. I'm here. And I know what it's like to suddenly wonder if my life has been built on a lie."
He turned to look at her. She could barely see his face. The fog was thicker now. It surrounded them, dampening their clothes and their skin. She felt as if they were the only two people in the world, lost on an island of shifting