Bear finally stopped outside Senator Rainsley’s office. A large symbol, the state seal of Texas, was mounted next to the doorway.
“You’ve been here before,” she said. “You knew the exact way to this office.”
He nodded. “Day before yesterday, as a matter of fact.”
She blinked. “In relation to this investigation?”
“That’s right.”
She frowned. “You’re not telling me everything.”
“Of course not, Carrie. I’m running this investigation. I brought you here as a favor. I’ll tell you what I can later, but don’t expect me to fill you in on all the details along the way.”
She shook her head. “I suppose I should thank you.” Instead, she opened the door and slipped into the office.
“Doctor Carrie Sherman,” she said to the twenty-something girl behind the counter. “I have an appointment with the Senator.”
The girl blinked, startled. “Yes, ma’am.” She instantly picked up her phone and spoke into it. “Doctor Sherman is here, Senator.”
“I think the Senator warned her to expect you,” Bear murmured. “I’m gonna sit out here and send some emails and get caught up on the investigation.”
“You don’t want to come in?”
“For your reunion with your long-lost birth father? I think I’d rather pluck out my eyebrows. You two have fun.”
The girl behind the counter followed the entire exchange; her eyes shifting back and forth like two undersized radar dishes. Carrie ignored her and turned toward the main office as the door opened.
A very tall, trim man stood in the doorway. At six-foot six-inches, he was Ray Sherman’s height, and somewhat taller than Carrie. His hair was steel grey, but might have once been dark brown like hers. His eyes were hazel. He looked like he might have a normally ready smile, but right now he wasn’t smiling. Instead, his expression was serious.
“Carrie Sherman,” he said. “Come in.” He stretched an arm out to invite her into his office.
She let out a breath, suddenly realizing that for the space of ten or more heartbeats, she hadn’t breathed at all. She stepped forward into the office, her eyes darting around. One wall was covered in memorabilia. Senator Rainsley in a basketball uniform, on the deck of an aircraft carrier, in a Marine Corps Colonel’s uniform.
One photograph caught her attention. Rainsley stood in the rain at a podium, the Founders Court at Rice University clearly visible behind him.
“I got my PhD at Rice,” she said.
“So you’re Adelina’s daughter,” he said, his voice low.
She turned toward him. His expression was unreadable, but it wasn’t what she expected. He didn’t show fear, as if he were concerned a fifteen-year affair was about to be revealed, or that she was going to demand blackmail or money. Nor did he look like he was about to welcome a long-lost daughter. She didn’t know what his expression meant.
“So you’re my father,” she said.
His eyebrows scrunched together. “Have you discussed this with your mother?”
“She’s missing.”
Finally an expression. Rainsley was stunned. “Missing?”
“Yes. She was last seen leaving a Catholic retreat center with one of my sisters sometime yesterday afternoon. Then she and Jessica called, and she told us to run. I have no idea why, and I don’t know whether she’s alive or dead.” Carrie’s tone was devoid of emotion as she spoke.
“Christ,” he said. “I didn’t know.”
“You should read the papers,” Carrie said.
Rainsley said, “I knew about the attack on your condo. But I’ve been in meetings all morning. As you may or may not know, yours wasn’t the only attack yesterday. The head of British intelligence was attacked in his home at the same time.”
She raised her eyebrows then shrugged that off. “I can’t even imagine what that has to do with me. But according to … according to my mother’s husband, you’ve got some explaining to do.”
“I’m not your father, Carrie.”
Carrie staggered a little.
He reached out a hand and took her arm. “Come. Sit.”
She did, sinking onto a long leather couch. He sat in the chair that cornered the couch.
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “Look at you.”
He sighed. “Believe me. I’m happy to discreetly get a DNA or blood test or whatever to prove it to you, if you like.”
“And my sister Andrea.”
“Your mother and I were never involved, Carrie.”
“Why does my father think you were?”
Rainsley sighed. Then he looked at her and said, “Are you sure you want to open this can of worms?”
Carrie laughed, a little hysterically. “You’re kidding, right? Did you just ask me that?”
He chuckled. “I guess you’re saying that ship has sailed.”
“Just … if you aren’t my father, then why did … The Secretary of Defense … why did he tell me you were? If you aren’t … then who is?”
Rainsley stood, stretching his long, lanky body. “Okay, first of all, I need to tell you that I don’t know all the details.”
Carrie crossed her arms over her breasts and raised an eyebrow.
“Fine,” he said, defensively. “I’ll tell you everything I can. Your mother and I have known each other since … oh … 1984 or so. She had just come to Washington, and your father—Richard Thompson, rather—had just come back from his tour in Afghanistan.”
“He was never stationed in Afghanistan. We didn’t even have an Embassy there in the 1980s.”
“Technically I’m breaking the law by telling you this. But Richard Thompson was a CIA covert operative and worked his entire career under diplomatic cover. He was a central figure in arming the Afghan resistance in the early 1980s.”
Carrie stiffened. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s true. Do you want to hear the story or do you want to argue with me?”
She snorted. “If you want to fill your office with bullshit, by all means, go right ahead.”
He shook his head. “Adelina—your mother—was really quite amazing. I won’t lie to you, I was taken with her enough that Brianna had words with me the night we met. She was nineteen, I found out later, but told everyone she was older. Spirited, and clearly afraid of Richard. For a while there, when your father was traveling—which was often—she spent a lot of time with Brianna. They grew to be close friends—or as close as anyone can get to Adelina.”
“Wait,” Carrie said. “What do you mean … nineteen … in ’84?” She shook her head. “That’s not possible. Julia was born in ’81.”
“Funny how that works, isn’t it? Richard Thompson was on a tour in Spain that year—the year there was a right wing coup attempt. He marries a visibly pregnant sixteen-year-old, then whisks her back to the States and disappears for a tour in a backwater in Central Asia.”
“Jesus Christ,” Carrie said. “He would have been late twenties then? Early thirties?”
Rainsley shrugged and sank down into his seat. “Yeah. I felt bad for her. She was afraid of him, no question there. I never saw any signs of physical abuse, but who the hell knows? Her fear of him had to be based on something. Brianna saw it too, and insisted we have her over as often as possible.”
Carrie’s stomach turned. She couldn’t reconcile that idea with the passionless, cold man who had raised her. But even though he was remote, controlling, she’d never seen him as cruel. She’s always seen him as her father.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Any of this.”
“Yeah. Well … I’ll be honest with you. I was on a crusade then. Planning to run for the Senate. I’d seen my entire command wiped out in Beirut. Largely because of inept pencil necks from Washington like Richard Thompson. So I may have been a little too sympathetic to his wife.”
“What happened?”
“She fell in love.”
Car
rie sat up straight. “What? With you?”
He shook his head. “No. Not me … I don’t know who. She never told me. But it was clear. She had a beautiful light in her eyes. And a lot of fear. So when she came to us—I guess it was January 1990—she told us she was in danger. And begged me that if Richard demanded to know—if he accused me of having an affair with her, of being your father—then I was to admit to it.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. But I wasn’t going to tell her no. I wasn’t—look. I don’t know how to explain it. She sounded desperate. Brianna and I both worried about her, but she clearly wasn’t ready to leave him. She begged me. So when Richard called me about it—”
“He called you?”
“Yes. Mid February of 1990.”
“Okay. What happened?”
“He called. He demanded that I stay away from his wife. He threatened me, and he threatened to hurt her. It was an ugly conversation. But I kept my promise.”
Rainsley turned and stared out the window. His shoulders sagged.
Carrie whispered, “You loved her?”
Rainsley shrugged. “I’m happily married, Carrie. But Brianna and I both cared for her.”
“Enough that you risked your career for her.”
He kept his back to her and waved a hand in the air dismissively. “I’m a Marine. This Senate stuff is all bullshit. It’s like retirement, but more interesting than golf. Brianna wasn’t happy, but she agreed it was necessary.”
Carrie sighed. Then she whispered, “I’m glad she had someone to love her.”
He turned toward her. “She had somebody,” he said. “I just don’t know who it was.”
“Who does?” Carrie asked.
“Her priest maybe? Or God. I wish I knew.”
Adelina. May 2. 9:15 am Pacific
Jessica bit into her third burrito as Adelina carefully took another bite of her first. “How come we never drove up here before?” she asked. “It’s beautiful.”
She was right. They’d just passed over a river in coastal Oregon, and to their right was the exit for Rocky Point County Park. All morning, they’d been driving slowly up U.S. 101 along the coast. There were occasional flashes of ocean as the highway twisted and turned¸ following the Pacific Coast. Adelina had been following the gas station map she’d picked up somewhere north of Oakland—their cell phones were somewhere in the bottom of San Francisco Bay. That Jessica hadn’t really noticed or objected to losing her phone was a sign of how profoundly depressed she was.
The heavy rain that fell overnight had passed, leaving the sky cloudless and blue.
Adelina sighed. “It’s complicated.”
“You’ve said that about every question I’ve asked you this morning.”
Adelina sighed. “Can I be honest with you, Jessica?”
Her daughter blinked. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re eighteen years old now. I’ve been keeping secrets since long before you were born. But this one—I’m afraid if I start to tell you, you’ll panic on me. I’m afraid if I tell you too much, you’ll go right back to the drugs.”
Jessica flinched. She curled up a little in her seat, drawing her legs close to her, and she whispered, “I guess I deserved that.”
“The only thing you deserved is love, Jessica. You deserved … parents who weren’t crazy.” She shook her head, trying to shake off the regret clouding her vision. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you that.”
Jessica shrugged and took another huge bite. Adelina had never seen anyone eat so much in her entire life. She hoped she had enough money to keep feeding her daughter. The cash she grabbed from the bank had to last indefinitely, but they were going through it far faster than she’d imagined.
Finally Jessica swallowed and said, “Tell me. Please. I don’t care how bad it hurts. It won’t hurt as bad as a lie.”
Adelina sucked in a breath, trying to hold back a mix of grief and a sad, knee-jerk anger. The accusation was true enough. She had lied. She’d lied to her daughters, and she’d lied to herself.
“I need you to hear me, Jessica. I know you think it won’t hurt as bad, but if I tell you the whole story, you’re going to feel like someone died.”
She looked to her right, meeting her daughter’s eyes for just a moment. Jessica nodded, and Adelina looked back to the road.
“Well, then. The first thing you need to understand is that everything you know about your father, and how we met, is a lie, mixed with truth, and mixed with more lies.”
“I don’t understand.”
Adelina sighed with relief when she saw a sign for a scenic overlook. She needed to stop and tell this story when she wasn’t driving. She swallowed, took the exit, and two minutes later pulled to a stop in a parking lot overlooking the ocean. Below them, at the bottom of a long steep hill, was the ocean, spreading out before them.
“I was sixteen when I met your father, not eighteen.”
“Oh…” Jessica said.
Adelina wished she could think of a way to soften the blow. But she was coming to realize that it was secrets that had poisoned all of her daughters in one way or another. It was lies that had kept them from having a whole mother. So, for the first time, she told the unvarnished truth.
“He raped and impregnated me. He may have killed my father. He certainly made me believe he had. And then my mother forced me to marry him.”
Jessica sat, staring at Adelina. She shook her head slightly, dazed. “That’s utter bullshit,” she said.
“No, unfortunately. It’s true.”
“Why did you stay with him?”
“I was trapped, Jessica. He threatened to hurt me, and more importantly, he threatened to kill Luis.”
“Your brother?”
Adelina nodded. “Luis was two at the time. And my father was dead. I … I didn’t have anywhere I could turn.”
Abruptly, Jessica opened the passenger side door, flooding the car with a cool breeze and the scent of the sea, and dropped out of her seat to the ground, nearly staggering. Adelina sat. She’d just told her already fragile daughter that her father was a rapist and a liar. Should she have hidden it? Should she have kept her secrets longer?
Jessica sat down on the low stone wall that edged the parking lot. She pulled her legs up close and wrapped her arms around them, then lowered her face so she was resting it against her knees.
Adelina wanted to weep at the sight. She’d spent so many years trying to protect herself and her daughters, and she’d failed them one by one. Every single one of her daughters.
Slowly, she opened the van door and stood. Jessica’s shoulders were shaking. A pit of anxiety in her stomach, Adelina walked to her daughter and sat on the wall next to her.
Without raising her face from her knees, Jessica said, “Either I believe you and lose my father, or I assume you’re crazy, and I’m stuck in a car with a crazy person.”
Adelina slowly nodded her head and picked at her fingertips, knowing that Jessica’s accusations were deserved.
“Father was the only normality we had, you know. Carrie used to sneak us out of the house and take us to the zoo or the park or the pool or the movies or anywhere she could think of, just to get us out of your way. Because you were crazy. You were always screaming or crying or falling apart.”
Adelina closed her eyes. Then she whispered, “It’s true. Carrie was your mom because I couldn’t be.”
“Yeah, but who took care of her? Who took care of Julia?”
“I think maybe God protected them,” Adelina said. “I couldn’t. You’re right. I was literally out of my mind with fear. All the time. I’m so sorry, Jessica. I’m sorry I failed you.”
Jessica choked a sob. “Are you kidding me?” she spit out. “You’re sorry? Do you know what it’s like to not be able to bring your friends home because you think your mother might be having a freak out? Do you know what it’s like to grow up in a house where everyone goes from cold to hateful in just a second?”
Adelina took Jessica’s hands in hers. She looked her daughter in the eyes and whispered, “If I could take it all back, I would. If I could make it better, I would.”
Jessica’s eyes welled up, and tears began to run down her face. “Mama,” she whispered, reaching out.
Adelina pulled her daughter close. Jessica began to cry. First a thin, reedy cry, but soon she was wailing in great open-throated sobs, her shoulders shaking, her face buried in her mother’s shoulder. Adelina knew it wasn’t just this revelation she was crying for. She was crying for her lost love. She was crying for her twin, still recovering from an accident thousands of miles away. She was crying for all of the lost moments, the isolation and the quiet cold in their home. She was crying for the father she was losing, the father she’d never had.
Adelina. February 12, 1984
The alarm blared in a grating, angry tone, startling Adelina awake. She rolled over, groggy. She’d been awakened twice the night before by a dream of choking. More specifically, it was a dream that Richard was choking her.
It wasn’t the first time, not by any means. But she hadn’t had the dream in some time. Partly, she thought, because he’d made no physical demands of her since their first night in Bethesda.
That night, he’d been insistent. He’d arrived home from Pakistan and made arrangements to purchase a brand new condominium in Bethesda, Maryland, right around the corner from the Metro station that was under construction.
“The location will be really valuable once the station is opened,” he’d said, droning mindlessly about matters she’d cared little about.
She didn’t care how his real estate investments did. She didn’t care how his career did. She hated him and how he’d destroyed her life.
Her disinterest had antagonized him, and he’d forced himself on her that first night back, then not allowed her to leave the room, even when Julia’s cries from down the hall indicated their daughter had wet her diaper.