Until Dark - Mariah Stewart [108]
He smiled with satisfaction at her use of the word you, but did not comment on it.
“That wasn’t the reason. It wasn’t the age difference. Admit it. He just wasn’t . . .” he sighed, “well, let’s call a spade a spade. He just wasn’t a Smith.”
“What are you talking about, he wasn’t a Smith? His mother was as much a Smith as my father was.”
My instead of our rankled, and he frowned, but chose to ignore it.
“His mother was a junkie, Kendra. A junkie whore who didn’t give a shit about him. She never did.”
“What?” Kendra’s jaw dropped.
“Never. Our dear Aunt Sierra shoved a great deal of her share of Grampa’s estate up her nose. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I spoke with her when she wasn’t stoned.”
Kendra sank into the nearest chair.
“When my mother agreed to send Ian out to Arizona, Sierra told us all that was behind her. That she’d been off drugs for a long time. Why didn’t we know this? Why didn’t you tell us? And if she wasn’t treating Zach well, why didn’t he say so? Why didn’t we see it?”
“Are you crazy? You think Mom would have let me get within a hundred miles of the ranch if she’d had a clue of what was going on?” He laughed. “I liked it, Kenny. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I could smoke more weed in the two weeks I was out there than I could get my hands on the other fifty weeks out of the year.”
“You were just a child. . . .”
“Right, and kids don’t do drugs?” He chuckled. “Please. Why do you think I went there, Kenny? To share quality family time with my beloved aunt and cousin? To keep the Smith family ties strong?”
Kendra stared at the stranger who sat across from her. She’d never suspected that her little brother had been involved with drugs. Had her mother known? Had that been one of the reasons Elisa had sent Ian for counseling that year?
“Sierra’s ranch was one happening place, let me tell you. No restriction, no rules. No one to answer to. We just did what we pleased, went where we pleased.”
“If that’s all true, I can’t believe that no one knew . . . that Zach’s father . . .” Kendra tried to comprehend how a child like Zach could have been left in such a situation.
He laughed out loud.
“Zach’s father? He could have been any one of a dozen men who stayed on the ranch from time to time.”
“But surely someone . . .”
“Someone like who? Zach never went to school, Kenny. Sierra didn’t even care enough about him to make the effort to make sure he got to school. She told Mom that he was being home-schooled. What a laugh.” He leaned across the table and said, very deliberately, “No one even knew he was alive.”
“How can that be?” Kendra held her head in her hands. “Surely, he had medical treatment at some time.”
“Holistic,” he told her. “There was a woman on the ranch who was part Native American. She grew herbs and treated everyone with some concoctions she mixed up.”
“But there were other children there, on the ranch.”
“From time to time, yes. No one ever stayed all that long. Except for Zach.”
“He was twelve years old that last summer,” she recalled. “How could he have lived for twelve years without someone knowing he was there?”
“There was no reason why anyone should,” he shrugged. “He was born on the ranch. He told me one time that he didn’t even have a birth certificate.”
“Poor Zach . . .” Kendra’s eyes filled with tears. “Why didn’t he tell us? Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Maybe he didn’t say anything because he was too embarrassed. And frankly, I think he might have been afraid of the consequences. His mother was, well, what she was, but she was still his mother, I guess.” He shrugged. “And I didn’t say anything ’cause, well, hell, Kenny, what do you think she would have done? Gone to court, gotten custody, probably send Sierra to jail.”
“If by she, you mean Mom, you’re damned right she would have.” Kendra’s voice shook with indignation. “She would have done all those things. She would have fought to bring Zach out here.”
“Oh, and wouldn’t that have just been swell