Mad, Bad and Blonde - Cathie Linz [87]
“What exactly did Fred Jr. tell you?”
She’d repeated the words as she remembered them. “That his father confessed on his deathbed that he’d been the one to give your father an overdose, making it look like a suicide. He wasn’t sure if his father was hallucinating because of the brain tumor, but when he checked out the bank account his father told him about, he found the money. That Fred did all that because he was angry with ARC for giving him a brain tumor. Not wanting to get caught, he used your dad as a cover for his own crime.”
Caine had yet to say anything about his feelings regarding the revelation that his father hadn’t committed suicide after all but had been murdered by Fred Belkin. But then Caine rarely shared his feelings. He buried them. When he put that war face on, there was no telling what his thoughts were.
Caine stood near the entrance to the ER bay where Faith’s dad was situated, as if he’d rather not enter.
“Are you okay?” she asked him.
“Hey, I’m the one with the concussion,” her dad said with a weak smile.
“You’re the one who botched the investigation,” Caine said.
Uh-oh. Faith hoped the two men she loved wouldn’t stage a High Noon showdown here in the middle of the emergency room. Her knees started shaking. Not because she was afraid of a showdown, but because this was the first time she’d really acknowledged that she loved Caine.
She’d heard stories about near-death experiences changing you, making you reassess your life, stripping away your defenses and forcing you to face the truth.
She loved Caine. He hated her father. Not a good mix.
“Guilty as charged. We messed up,” Faith’s father said. “I’m sorry, Caine. You have every right to be angry. I should have verified the investigation myself instead of delegating it to someone else. That was a mistake.”
“One of many.” Caine’s voice was curt.
“So what do you intend to do?”
“I don’t know yet.” Caine turned on his heel and walked out.
A hard rain started to fall as Caine stood above his father’s grave. The flowers he’d brought bowed beneath the force of the sheets of water. Rain ran down his face, soaking his clothes. He didn’t mind the discomfort. He welcomed it.
Pain is just weakness leaving your body.
The Marine Corps had taught him that. Taught him how to deal with death too.
Yet here he was, at a complete loss, not knowing how to express the explosion of feelings ripping him up inside. Still, he felt he needed to say something to his father.
“I don’t know if it’s better that you were murdered and didn’t commit suicide. How sick is that?”
Caine scrubbed his hand across his face. Those weren’t tears, dammit. It was the rain. Just the rain.
“I totally bought the story that you’d taken that overdose. I knew you didn’t do what they accused you of as far as the money and all that shit. But I thought you really had committed suicide, and I felt guilty as hell that I didn’t save you from that. I promised Mom on her deathbed I’d take care of you. Did you know that?” His voice cracked, and his throat clamped shut as he tried to regain control. “I failed you.”
He scrubbed his face again. “I’m sorry, Dad.” Bending his head, he slowly dropped to his knees. Lightning flashed above him, and thunder shook his world.
Caine traced his father’s name carved into the granite headstone. The man responsible for his death was already dead, so Caine could find no revenge there.
Caine had set out to clear his father’s name, never guessing what that mission would entail. Everything had seemed so black and white in the beginning. Faith’s father had driven Caine’s dad to kill himself. No apology could make up for that. No amount of regret.
But now he knew that wasn’t really what happened after all. Yes, Faith’s father still bore some responsibility for botching the investigation. But Faith was the one who’d uncovered the truth. She’d continued asking questions, even when Caine had tried to get rid of her, to scare her away.
Instead, he was the one who’d been scared shitless when he’d heard that gunshot outside Nolan Parker