“And she was subverting your character. After your infatuation faded, you would have returned to normal. Of course we knew that. But we saved you a lot of wasted time and money.”
Her gall flabbergasted him. “You murdered her.”
“If she didn’t die, it wasn’t murder,” Rose snapped in her take-charge-of-the-boardroom voice.
“Merry would have died if I hadn’t been there.”
“Exactly.” Her voice smoothed again, soothed again. “We made up an excuse to pull you away from the airport. We didn’t want you to get hurt. When we heard you were there … do you know how much anxiety you caused us when you were unconscious for so long?”
He noted her move from justifying attempted homicide to blaming him for being in the blast zone.
She continued, “The doctors told us you would never recover. They said even if you woke up, you’d have brain damage! Do you think we wanted that?”
“I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t press a pillow to my face to save you any trouble.”
Her voice sharpened. “Trouble? You were our only chance to pass the business into responsible hands.”
She had just skipped over assuring him they would never smother him while he was in a coma to … to rationalizing their motives. Their motives for … what? More murder?
“Your father was … well, you remember him.” She huffed in disbelief. “Irresponsible was a kind term. But you … when you were a boy and visited us, you impressed Albert and me with how clever you were, how quick to learn, how eager to serve. Even at seven you understood what the business meant to the family, and you looked at your father with such wonderment as if you couldn’t believe he could throw it all away.”
Benedict gripped the phone so hard, his fingertips grew cold. “I loved my father.”
“Of course you did, but it all came out for the best.”
“What came out for the best?”
“All of it. Their deaths, you coming to us, Merry Byrd being hurt and you being hurt, too. Who could have imagined that would happen, or that you would have had such a difficult recovery?”
He breathed carefully, in and out, regulating his intake and his outflow. “It all came out for the best because it gave you time to get her away?”
“Oh, please. As soon as Nauplius Brassard went to her and offered to make her pretty, she leaped at the deal. Look where she is now—a beautiful, wealthy widow! If the two of you had stayed together, she would be nothing but a frumpy do-gooder and you would be frustrated with her lack of foresight.”
His door opened.
The beautiful, wealthy widow walked in, and quietly shut and locked the door behind her.
Rose continued harping in his ear. “You’d be always holding some snotty-nosed baby, or opening some women’s shelter or giving money to a homeless bum. No, dear, after the air had cleared, your uncle and I were satisfied we had made the right decision in regards to your little infatuation with Merry Byrd.”
She had not only admitted to attempted homicide, she justified it, and now she waited for him to agree. What kind of man was he that she thought such a thing? If he hadn’t seen Merida Falcon on that transatlantic crossing, recognized her on some primal level, pursued her and recovered the woman he loved … would he someday have become the man Albert and Rose wanted him to be? A man like them: merciless, amoral, loving profit above all things?
Merida looked at him, looked hard at him, then went to the electric tea kettle. Still watching him, she filled it with water, plugged it in and turned it on.
“Benedict? Are you there?” Rose asked.
“I’m here.” With Merry—but he wouldn’t tell Rose that.
“Did you discover what is going on with our business accounts?”
He laughed once, a guard dog’s bark of a laugh. “Aunt Rose, I think I did discover what’s wrong with our business accounts.”
Merida looked surprised, but not alarmed.
With complete assurance, he said, “In fact, I know I did. Let me do more fact-checking and you’ll have all the information you need.”
“That’s good, dear.” Rose sounded satisfied, as if she believed she’d talked sense into her nephew. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m old and tired, and Albert and I need our beauty sleep.”
“Yes, Aunt Rose. Of course. Sleep now.” He hung up, dropped the phone on the floor and sat down in the easy chair next to the bed. His hands dangled between his knees, and he flexed his fingers, trying to get the circulation flowing.
Merry came to him, knelt in front of him exactly as he had knelt in front of her. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything … has changed. I’ve been … a fool. I didn’t recognize you and I didn’t realize … all these years I didn’t know…” He looked down at Merida. “Aunt Rose. She said … they tried to kill you. And I think … I suspect they killed my parents.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Merry made Benedict a cup of herbal tea. She brought it to him, wrapped his hands around it and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of him.
He took one sip and flinched. “What is this?”
“It’s chamomile. It’s late and you’re upset. You can’t process caffeine efficiently, not so late at night. Just drink it.”
He laughed, stopped, laughed again. “How could I have not recognized you? You’re the same as you always were.”
“No, I’m not.” This scene wasn’t how she’d pictured this at all. She had thought she would be a supplicant, asking for the truth. Instead, he looked like ten miles of bad road.
“Organic. Homemade. Herbal. Meditation.” He imitated her voice. “‘Everyone can in their own way make a difference.’”
She was embarrassed to look him in the face. “What a dumbass I was.”
“No. No, you were wonderful.” He smiled at her with such charm. “You reminded me that life could be joyous. You taught me I shouldn’t give people a handout, but a hand up. You believed in the inherent goodness of mankind.”
He had not convinced her. “Then someone tried to kill me. As I said, a dumbass.”
His smile vanished. “Not someone. My aunt and uncle.”
“Why? I didn’t do anything to them.”
“They had chosen me to inherit the family business and to carry the torch of brutal industrialization and profitable exploitation into the future. You changed me.”
“Not for long. Aren’t you still their chosen one?” Before he could speak, she said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I appreciate you trying to make me feel better about myself, but your aunt and uncle succeeded. Merry Byrd is dead and she left nothing. Nothing. I should be grateful to them for killing her before she screwed up her life any more. Or yours.”
He picked up his phone off the floor and pushed a few buttons. “Video call,” he told Merida.
Merida heard a woman’s weary voice say, “Hello,” and in the background, a chorus of crying children.
He said, “Sounds like we’re having an evening there.”
“The identical twins are identically teething and everyone wants to cry about it.” The voice sounded familiar to Merida.
“Where’s your help?” he asked.
“Everyone is here who is scheduled to be here. It’s simply one of those nights.” The familiar voice called, “Larry, do we have any more cold teething rings?”
“I won’t keep you long, but I have a friend here who would like to meet you.” He turned the phone to face Merida. “Ms. Sandvig, this is Merida. Merida, this is Ms. Sandvig. Ms. Sandvig directs the Baltimore Inner City Day Care and Preschool.”
“I know.” Merida tried to speak, to express her delight at seeing her old friend once more. When no sound came out—she should be used to that by now!—she gestured, nodded and smiled.
Ms. Sandvig smiled back. “Are you Benedict’s new friend? I’m delighted that he found you at last. He was so upset when you disappeared.”
Benedict turned the phone toward his face and looked meaningfu
lly at the screen. “Ms. Sandvig. I was hoping you could tell Merida about the work we’re doing in Baltimore.”
“Oh! Yes, right, Benedict. Merida, I don’t know if Benedict has told you anything about our operations, but we provide twenty-four-hour day care for parents in need. Not just women, we help single fathers, too.”
“I know.” Merida’s fingers shook as she spelled. “I used to live in Baltimore.”
“Do you know we care for over one hundred children twenty-four/seven? We have our new preschool and after-school programs.”
“One hundred?” Merida couldn’t believe it. When she had been there, they had never been able to care for more than ten at a time, and turning desperate parents away had been heartbreaking.
“We teach the children so much. When our children go to public school, they perform so much better than their similarly underprivileged counterparts and—”
Benedict turned the phone toward him and made the cut-off gesture.
Ms. Sandvig laughed ruefully. “I’m sorry, Merida, I do tend to get carried away. We can always use help and of course if you can’t help in person I promise your donation will be used in ways that will make you proud.”
Merida nodded and indicated she would send money.
Ms. Sandvig sobered. “I don’t know if you realize how much of our work is possible because of the man sitting next to you. He has given his time and influence in every way, and every penny it took to construct the Merry Byrd Classroom Facility was his and his alone.”
Again Benedict made the cut-off gesture.
“All anonymously,” Ms. Sandvig said hurriedly.
Merida’s lower lip quivered.
Benedict brought the phone back to his face. “Thank you, Ms. Sandvig. I think you convinced her.”
“That you’re a wonderful man?”
“My secret plan all along.” Benedict hung up and said to Merida, “Actually, my secret plan was to convince you that Merry Byrd left a great legacy behind. I would never have helped those people without the lessons Merry Byrd taught me. All these years, I have missed her so much.”
“How did you know…?” Such an embarrassing question! But she had to know. “When we had sex, how did you know it was me?”
“All cats are not gray in the dark. All women are not the same while making love. I simply had to forsake the visible and recognize the union of the soul.”
She flung herself at him.
He toppled over onto the floor, lost the phone, held her and rubbed her back while she cried. When she’d caught her breath, she signed, “I’ve been so angry at you. What happened that day? Please tell me what happened.”
“You really don’t remember?”
She shook her head.
He settled his back against the ottoman and pulled her into his arms as if he needed to have her close. “I wanted to go up with you. It was your solo fight; I wanted to see your face while you were at the controls. I knew you would … look like you did when we made love.” He smiled at her, smoothed her hair off her forehead. “I got a couple of calls. One from Bob. He told me you had to be alone on your solo flight; I couldn’t go up with you.”
“True,” she signed.
“I said I’d come down to see you off. About fifteen minutes later I got another call. Emergency, business, they needed me, they had to have me. I was so used to doing whatever had to be done I sent a message to you and the flowers and headed over to corporate headquarters to put out the fire. About halfway there, I thought—what am I doing? This relationship is first in my life. Not the business.” He took a shaky breath. “So I turned and came to the airport. You had just finished the walk-around check and were ready to climb in for the cockpit check when I caught you…”
“Benedict! You’re here.”
He held two gift boxes. “I couldn’t miss this.”
They smiled into each other’s eyes, two fools in love.
“I brought you a present to celebrate your inaugural flight.” He offered her the box.
She lifted the lid and looked. Inside were two crumpled pieces of worn leather. She lifted one out; it was an early-twentieth-century flying helmet with flaps that draped over the ears and a strap under the neck.
“The auction house claimed it was verified to be one of Amelia Earhart’s flying helmets.” He set down the box, took the leather out of her hands and fitted it over her head. “Merry Byrd, Aunt Amelia would be proud of you.”
Joy choked her; she couldn’t speak. But she knew a little sign language, so in a precursor of the future, she used her hands to say, “Thank you!”
“You’re welcome,” he said. Leaning down, he pulled another leather helmet out of the box. “I got one, too. It’s not from a famous flyer, but it does have a fleece lining. Apparently it was pretty cold in those old cockpits.” He pulled it on and wrapped his arm around her. He pulled her close for a photo, then showed it to her.
She was blushing bright red and irrepressibly beaming. “Get rid of that!” she said. “Geeze, how embarrassing. I look like a kid getting a treat.”
“All we need are goggles and a scarf.” He opened the other box. “Here they are!”
She laughed at him, at how happy giving her this stuff made him. “Hang on to those. I was heading into the cockpit for the preflight checks.”
“I’ll wait here.”
She climbed into the well-used, much-loved four-passenger Cessna 182 Skyland. The door sealed well, the seat was adjusted correctly. She ducked her head to get into the cockpit, slipped into the pilot’s seat, holding her checklist in one hand, and began her preflight cockpit check. The engine fired quickly, the fuel tank was full, the radio cooling fans and instrument gyros sounded normal. She checked the flaps. “That’s it.” She marveled at how calm she could act when her heart beat so wildly. She climbed down the stairs, removed the wing tie downs and the wheel chocks, and walked to the front of the plane to do the final visual.
He offered her the goggles and the wool scarf.
“Okay.” She felt silly, but she donned them. She sniffed. Frowned. She filled her lungs. “Benedict, do you smell that?”
“Yes,” he said. “Smells like a fuel leak.”
“The engine was fine a minute ago. I checked. I’m going to kill the motor.” She climbed back into the plane, turned off the ignition.
Nothing changed. The engine continued to run.
Benedict appeared at the open door, watched her.
She pulled the mixture control all the way to the lean.
The engine ran. The smell got stronger.
Suddenly, decisively, Benedict said, “We need to get out of here.”
“But we’ve got to get the motor to turn off. This is Bob’s living. He trusts me to—”
“Smell the gas? Something is very wrong. Merry Byrd, out of the plane. Now!”
She stopped fussing with the gauges, looked at Benedict, looked at the curl of smoke rising from the engine compartment and realized—he was right. Thank God she hadn’t released the parking brakes, because the two of them needed to get free of the area.
She jumped onto the tarmac. She sucked in fresh air; the fumes in the cockpit had been thick and getting thicker. Out here, her mind cleared. “Run!”
He grabbed her hand. “Come on!”
He started toward the terminal.
She ran with him, caught up in his alarm, progressing through all the scenarios in her mind. Fuel pump leakage? Wrong fuel? Malfunctioning starter? Damn it, she had checked everything.
He glanced back. “Faster!” He stepped behind her, pushed at her.
She sprinted. Then—
The fireball slammed him into her back, lifted them both off their feet, tossed them through the air. She landed facedown on the asphalt. She felt every tooth and bone break. She felt his dead weight on her back.
Then … there was nothing.
* * *
“Your aunt and uncle sabotaged the plane?”
“Yes.”
“
In the hopes of killing me.”
“Yes.”
“And they got you, too.”
“Yes. But as Aunt Rose so blithely announced tonight, it all came out for the best.” His voice held a snap, a whiplash of anger that boded ill for Aunt Rose.
“No.” Merida wrapped her arms around his neck. “All would have been best if we’d been together.”
He rolled her beneath him, kissed her until they had no breath left.
“Come to bed with me,” he whispered.
“Of course. I have all the time in the world.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Benedict flipped on the light beside the bed. “The trouble is, we don’t have all the time in the world. My aunt and uncle know I’ve found you and their aims haven’t changed. They want me to tend the family fortune and they see no reason they should be thwarted.”
Merida’s afterglow faded all too rapidly. She sighed and signed, “What do you want?”
“I want revenge on the people who killed my parents.”
She had to be the voice of reason. “You don’t know that they did.”
“My parents died in a yachting accident, an explosion blamed on a leak in the fuel pump. What do you suppose the report on the airplane explosion said?”
“Fuel pump leak?”
“My aunt and uncle are the kind of people who believe that what worked before will work again. They were almost right.”
Merida sat up, sheet to her bosom, and looked down at him sprawled on the pillow. Signing slowly, reluctantly, she said, “I have a confession to make.”
“Do you?”
“I believed Nauplius Brassard when he told me you had tried to kill me.”
“I know you did.”
“Your aunt Rose confirmed Brassard’s report.”
Benedict got an ugly expression on his face. “Did she?”
She fussed with the ruffles on the pillowcases, gathering her courage, then she signed, “I wanted revenge on you very much. For all the years of my marriage, through all the surgeries and pain of recovery, I made plans. I studied and consulted experts and created a software program that would create a false report of embezzlement in your business and pin the blame on you.”