Playing Dead_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [88]
“We have to talk, Claire.”
“You can’t be here. The FBI could be watching the house. They could—”
“They’re not. Believe me, I’ve become very good at spotting surveillance.”
She remembered when he’d told her yesterday morning that the Feds were watching her. He’d been right, and she’d thought he was being paranoid.
Her dad looked tired. Worn down. Defeated. She glanced at the woman. Who was she?
“I heard about Oliver on the news tonight,” he said, his voice thick and troubled. “I had to see you. One last time.”
“I don’t understand. I’m getting close, Dad. I can feel it.”
“Close?”
She swallowed her emotion. She’d spent all her tears on Mitch, and she wished she hadn’t. Her father deserved more of her pain than a lying FBI agent.
“I am so s-sorry.” She stuttered and swallowed. “I should have believed you. Then. But I know you didn’t kill Mom.”
His face twisted in surprise and hope. “Who did?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you know I didn’t?” He sounded skeptical.
“Yes. If I had only listened to Oliver Maddox when he came to me in January, he might still be alive, and you would be truly a free man. I should have known in my heart that you were innocent. And now . . . I’m sorry I needed something more than your word. I don’t know why, I don’t know how I let it come to this, but—”
He stepped toward her and she stumbled into his arms. “Daddy.”
He held her for the first time in fifteen years. Her father. She felt like a little girl again. She clung to him. “Please forgive me.”
He stroked her hair. “There’s nothing to forgive, Claire.”
He held her and Claire breathed in the familiar—and unfamiliar—scent. He was her father, but time had wedged between them. She stepped back. Looked at Nelia Kincaid again.
“Nelia saved my life. She found me in Idaho after Aaron Doherty—another escaped convict—shot me and left me for dead.”
Claire didn’t know what she could say.
“I’ve been in Idaho for the better part of four months. I was in no condition to come back here. In some ways, I wish I hadn’t, but I’m glad I did—just to see you again.” He touched her face. “To know that you believe I’m innocent. You’ve given me my life back, Claire. And I mean that. I came back to Sacramento for you. I couldn’t face my own death with you believing I was guilty.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “Don’t talk that way.”
“I’m surrendering tomorrow.”
“No! Why?”
“When I heard that Oliver Maddox was dead and had been for months, I realized he had to have been killed because he was helping me. Helping prove I was innocent. When he first visited me in Quentin, I—”
“Why were you even at San Quentin in the first place?” she asked. “You were supposed to be at Folsom.”
“I wrote to Bill about it.”
“Bill?”
“Bill and I corresponded regularly. He told me everything about you. Everything that I wished I’d seen for myself.”
“Bill?” she repeated. He’d never let on. How could Bill have kept something so important from Claire?
“I told him not to tell you. You didn’t want to hear from me. I understood that. Hated it, but understood it. I guess I’d hoped that Bill would find a way through that thick head of yours.” He laughed, but the joke fell flat.
“You’re like me, Claire,” Tom said. “I was so certain of everything back then. I was positive that I would be exonerated. Because I was innocent. I was cocky for the longest time, worried more about how I was going to get my job back and take care of you. It took me a long time to realize that I was going to stay in prison until they killed me.”
He looked around, motioned toward the couch. “Let’s sit.”
Nelia said, “I’ll make some coffee.”
“Tea,” Claire and her father said simultaneously.
Nelia smiled. “Tea.” She went to the kitchen.
“Who is she?” Claire asked quietly.
“The woman I love. She saved me in more ways than one, Claire. I want to live now. But I don’t know that it will happen. But what I won’t do is be gunned down in the street like a criminal. This has to end. I didn’t realize until yesterday that