Beyond Innocence Page 39

  Marnie was thrilled to see the consternation on Tate’s face. “Louise,” he whispered with a sidelong glance at his visitors. “What are you doing here?”

  She picked up his wrist and began counting heartbeats. “It’s payback time, Tate.” Oblivious to the eyes that were trained on her she finished checking his pulse and flicked on a small flashlight. She checked Tate’s pupils and whispered, “It’s way overdue.” When she had finished her mini checkup she turned around to face the group. She grasped Tate’s hand and addressed herself to Pete. “Hello, Sergeant. It’s so nice to see you again.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was soft and sincere. “Don’t you remember me?”

  Pete’s grip on the bedrail loosened as he studied the mysterious doctor. “No. Should I?”

  “Well, I guess you came into the picture a little later. I was only with Tate for a few months that you could have seen me hanging around The Pit.”

  “With Tate? The Pit? What does that mean?”

  “Exactly what it sounds like. I used to work for him. I came very shortly after The Pit opened.”

  Tate tugged on her lab coat. “You don’t have to do this!”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Marnie decided it was time to fill in her part of the story. “When they brought Tate into the ER, Dr. Sail was the one who looked after him. I noticed that she seemed to show more than the usual degree of concern, and she called Tate by his first name immediately. I had my suspicions, but I spoke to her later to confirm them.”

  “Suspicions about what?” Pete threw up his hands. “What are you talking about? A doctor used to be a waitress in Tate’s bar? So?”

  “I didn’t waitress, Pete,” said Louise with a knowing smile. “I did things for him that I’ll never admit to in court.”

  Pete dropped into a chair behind him. If not for the setting, the befuddlement on his face would have been laughable. “So, what are you doing here? How did you go from whoring to doctoring?”

  Marnie piped up. “That’s where all Tate’s money has disappeared to.”

  “Can’t a man keep any secrets?” whined Tate. But everyone ignored him.

  Dr. Sail sighed deeply before launching into her explanation. “You know that Tate’s criteria for his girls was very specific. He looked for women who were on the brink of despair. When he found me I was eighteen and involved with an abusive pimp who beat us if we didn’t bring in more than three tricks a night. Tate paid him a thousand dollars for me.”

  “Christ,” muttered Pete.

  Elsie was watching stone-faced.

  “Don’t look so stricken, Pete. He wasn’t buying me—he was buying the other guy off. I worked for him for three years until I felt in control of my life and my speed habit. Eventually, I mentioned to Tate that I had often considered finishing my diploma and going to college. Three months later I had forty thousand dollars in my pocket, a new identity that no one would ever trace to my involvement at The Pit, and explicit instructions to come back and show him my degree when I was done.”

  The room was silent. Pete stared at Tate as if he had suddenly sprouted a second head. At the very least he must have thought Tate had sprouted a second personality. In many ways, he had.

  At last Pete spoke. “All of them? Do you do that for all of them?”

  Tate crossed his good arm in front of himself defensively. “No, only the ones that are interested in going back to school. Some of them have kids and eventually they leave with enough money to set up a decent home, and they work at McDonald’s or something. Some of them stay with me because they like the life. I have three women that have been with me for almost eleven years now. They just want to retire in a few years with a little nest egg.”

  “Do they get forty thousand too?” Pete seemed genuinely fascinated.

  “No. That money is reserved for the ones who have bigger dreams or special circumstances. The ones who plan to retire are saving on their own. I might give them a little bonus when they leave, but it won’t be anything that extravagant.”

  “Did Faye know about this?”

  “No. It was my pet project—a secret between me and the girls who got the special treatment. I never told Faye because she couldn’t have kept her mouth shut. I didn’t want it to get out because that would have influenced the girls, and their dreams had to be sincere.”

  Pete just kept staring.

  Tate took a deep breath and continued. “I never tell anyone when they first start that this is a possibility. I wait to see the spark, to see that they want something more. And then, when I’m sure that they’re serious about it, that’s when I drop the bomb.”

  Louise laughed. “You could have scraped my jaw off the floor with a putty knife that day.” Suddenly her eyes filled and she stroked Tate’s hand affectionately. “I’d be dead now, if it weren’t for him. I believe that with all my heart. Instead, here I am, taking an active role in saving other people’s lives. I’ll never be able to repay him for that.” She swiped away a tear and glanced at Marnie. “Is there anything else?”

  Marnie fought the knot that seemed to be blocking her throat. She shook her head. “No.”

  Louise nodded and turned to give Tate a quick kiss on the cheek. She whispered something in his ear that made him smile before she finally headed for the door.

  “Louise,” called Marnie. “Thank you, and you know we’ll all keep your secret.”

  She stopped with her hand on the knob. “Thanks. I wish I could say that it wouldn’t matter anymore. But despite the fact that I have a good life and people who respect me, I’m afraid that kind of stereotype would be tough to live down. It’s tragic but it’s a truth that your past can haunt you…even to the grave.”

  Marnie sighed and watched Tate’s face as Louise left and the door swung closed behind her.

  “Well, thank you very much,” grumbled Tate with a sidelong glance at Marnie. He was trying very hard to sound annoyed, but at that moment he’d never loved her more. “You’ve completely blown my rat-boy image.”

  A grin was her only response.

  Pete shook his head in bafflement. “But why prostitution? You obviously weren’t doing it for greed, or because you despised these women. So why put them through it? You had a wonderful end in mind. Why choose that particular means?”

  Tate cocked his head in the way that he knew annoyed the hell out of Pete. “Are you asking me to admit to illicit activities, Officer?”

  Pete grinned. “Caught me. Okay, off the record. Nothing goes beyond these walls.”

  Tate sighed and tried to ignore the ache in his shoulder. He decided to trust Pete. But only so far. “Name me one other business venture that can gain that kind of capital that fast. I refused to deal in drugs. You probably guessed that was one condition imposed on all my girls. If I caught them with drugs they were out.” That was the one rule that he couldn’t carry over to Faye. She was his wife. He couldn’t just ditch her because it became inconvenient or difficult. He had made a greater commitment to that relationship, even if it had been grossly misplaced.

  He continued. “And I didn’t have the capital or the inclination to set up a casino. Besides,” he glanced at Elsie, “I didn’t really have those high ideals in mind when I started out. I was looking for a way to prove something. The rest of it just sort of…evolved.” Honestly, he hadn’t been able to face that enormous bank account. There was too much guilt associated with it. So, he had found a way to purge that guilt that only he would know about.

  There was a flicker of mischief in Pete’s eye. “Okay, fair enough. But as long as we’re off the record,” Pete leaned forward, gripping the bed rail for support, “what’s the code?”

  “Code?” Tate knew perfectly well what he was talking about but he loved egging Pete on.

  “Don’t play dumb with me. How did the tricks book in with the girls, and how did the money change hands?”

  “You can’t really expect me to divulge all my secrets, now, can you,
Pete?” He fought a grin. “I’m not as dumb as you look.”

  Pete landed an elbow solidly in his partner’s gut when a soft snicker emanated from Kyle’s general direction. The mood was buoyant, but Elsie interrupted the banter and her quiet words captured everyone’s attention. “I wish Sam could have heard this. It would have changed a lot of things.”

  “Yeah.” Tate fidgeted with the sheets that were tucked in snugly about him. “I know, and I’m sorry about that. You can’t know how sorry.”

  “Why, Tate? That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? You want to tell me what happened between you and Sam. What did you have to prove? I’d really like to hear it.”

  Tate had always liked Elsie and it had saddened him when her and Sam’s marriage bit the dust. He felt responsible for that as well, but had felt powerless to remedy it. “Nothing happened between us. It was me. Right from the beginning it was always me.”

  “You found out that you were brothers and that’s why you approached Sam,” stated Pete matter-of-factly. “We figured that much out.”

  Tate nodded. He allowed himself to relive those days when he was nineteen. He had been young and arrogant and angry. He thought life had dealt him a crappy hand, and then things had gone from bad to worse. “My mom left a note under my pillow the day she killed herself. It explained everything and urged me to contact my real mother and the half-brother I had never known.”

  “So, Sam’s mother, Nadine, was the link.”

  “Yes. Nadine Riven and Rosie Barton had gotten to know each other at school.”

  Tate hesitated. He had never shared this story with another living soul, and here he was playing to a full house. Every thought in his head, every muscle in his body, every instinct screamed for him to stop. His natural reaction was to hoard his pain, hold it close to his heart, and cherish it. Embrace it. But he knew that the time had come to share it. It was time to let it go.

  He took a steadying breath and plowed on. “Nadine had a taste for adventure that her parents didn’t approve of. They didn’t approve of Rosie, either, but they stayed friends anyway. I guess as they got close to graduation they started to realize they would probably end up going their separate ways, having come from such vastly different backgrounds.”

  He had saved the detailed letter and gone over it many times in the years since. He knew all the facts—had committed almost every word to memory. He had found that letter at one of the lowest moments in his life. It had affected him deeply because in it he found hope—hope that maybe he was destined for something better than the dreary world that had been his home. He suddenly saw exciting possibilities and new alternatives for his life. Maybe he’d found a new road that would lead to a life beyond the gutter. But, in the end, all he found was a different gutter, and somehow this one had seemed deeper and more inescapable than ever before.

  “Rosie and Nadine ran away together.” It was Elsie’s quiet contribution.

  Tate nodded and smiled. “Very good. They took off for the Great White North and ended up in Toronto. Things didn’t go quite like they planned, and soon they were out of money, far from home, and unwilling to ask their parents for help.” His smile was slow and ironic. “They took to the streets and started hooking to get by.” He glanced at Marnie, and her face assured him that at least she understood the significance of that.

  “Nadine got pregnant with you.”

  Now Tate focused exclusively on Elsie. This was really for her—for her and Sam’s son. “Yes. And at that point she finally decided she’d had enough. She called her parents and begged for forgiveness. They took her back, and brought Rosie along too. They agreed very early on that my mother would have the baby secretly and give it to Rosie to raise as her own.”

  “Why? Why would Rosie agree to that, and why couldn’t Nadine keep you?”

  He laughed sardonically. “Are you kidding? I was conceived under the most heinous circumstances imaginable. All my mother knew about my father was that he was in Toronto on business.”

  “He was from Calgary, wasn’t he?” asked Marnie.

  Tate chuckled. “However did you guess?” He reached for the cup of water beside the bed. He took a sip of the icy liquid and tried to let it cool the burning in his gut. “Rosie took me because she wanted someone to love. She didn’t want to be alone, and she thought a baby would fit the bill. Nadine was in contact with her only a few times over the years, but the letter didn’t mention whether she was interested in me or was merely rekindling her relationship with Rosie. All I know is I had never seen her before.”

  “Before? Before what?” But Elsie’s brow was smooth. She knew the answer.

  “Before the day I broke into her house and confronted her.”

  * * * * *

  Tate regarded the imposing structure with a writhing combination of awe and resentment. This should have been his home, his yard, his goddamn treehouse in the back.

  The Rivens obviously weren’t wealthy, but they were comfortable, with a spacious three-bedroom Cape Cod-style home and a little Chevette sitting in the driveway. It was a second vehicle—the one that the lady of the house puttered around in as she attended to endless errands and outings. Hubby dearest drove an Oldsmobile Cutlass that was the size of a small country and was, no doubt, the envy of the entire block.

  A lush carpet of green spread out before the house, and flowerbeds boasted a vivid array of pinks and blues. Tate didn’t know the names of the flowers but that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate their beauty. Purple blossoms hung heavily from a bush by the front steps. The sweet, heady fragrance reached him even in his hiding place beside the huge oak tree that shaded the front porch.

  The house he had grown up in was surrounded by concrete and dirt. No pretty little flowerboxes adorned the windows and no fancy brickwork lined the walkway. Jeremiah drove a beat-up pickup truck that had rusted through the floor, and their house smelled of smoke and garlic, not lilacs and perfume. He had traveled a measly half-hour to reach this neighborhood, but he might as well be on the other side of the world.

  He had been watching this place for days, waiting for the right moment. And at last, that morning, Daddy and his gangly son had set off with suitcases and fishing rods in tow. They were going to be gone for at least one night, and that was all Tate needed.

  The night was dark and starless. The only light came from the blue-white street lamps that lined the boulevard. The lantern by the front door had long since been extinguished, and the light in the master bedroom had flicked off twenty minutes ago.

  The street was silent save for the chirp of the crickets, and Tate decided he’d waited long enough. The sound of the blood rushing in his ears was deafening and his pulse felt like a drumbeat in his throat, but he forced his limbs into motion and crept around the back of the house.

  Within moments he had cracked the deadbolt and had entered through the back door off the kitchen. He tried not to look at the polished hardwood floor or notice the plush carpets beneath his feet as he passed silently through the house. He concentrated only on where he was going and what he had to do.

  He ascended the stairs, trailing his hand along the smooth maple of the banister. His sneakers padded noiselessly on the Persian-style runner that lined the staircase. He stopped outside the master suite and took a deep breath before gently easing the door open.

  He heard a faint rustle of linens and a soft voice echoed in the stillness like the tinkle of crystal. “Evan? Is that you? You’re home early.” Again a rustle of fabric. “Is something wrong? Is Sam all right?”

  Tate stopped at the foot of the bed and regarded the woman in the dim half-light that washed through the sheer curtains. “It’s not Evan.”

  Her voice changed to a hoarse whisper. “Oh my God!”

  “It’s your son.”

  She said nothing. He could feel her eyes on him in the darkness and the silence. The silence grew and stretched…around him, inside him, through him. It seemed only a moment, and it seemed an eternity befo
re she flicked on the bedside lamp. She had sat up in bed, her dark hair already bed-tousled and her nightgown rumpled. Her eyes were still heavy with sleep and her skin looked unnaturally pale.

  Why did she have to be so beautiful? So fragile? Why couldn’t she have been fat and frumpy? Why couldn’t her voice have had the texture of gravel rather than crystal? It would have been so much easier to hate a cow. How could he possibly hate a wood nymph?

  “Tate?” she said at last.

  The fact that she knew his name melted a little bit of the steel core he had forged in preparation for this meeting. “You know me?”

  “I’ve seen pictures over the years. Rosie sent me one almost every year.”

  Pictures. She had never managed to see him in person. It shouldn’t have surprised him, but it hurt regardless. He focused on something else. “She’s dead, you know.”

  “Yes. I was very sad to hear it.”

  He forced his breathing to remain deep and even. “You weren’t at the funeral. I would have noticed someone like you.”

  “It wouldn’t have been appropriate for me to attend.”

  He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. The words came out much harsher and angrier than he intended. “Appropriate? My mother killed herself after raising your son for nineteen years and you couldn’t even manage to show her the courtesy of attending her funeral?”

  “She told you,” was her only response. “Did she tell you everything?”

  He opened his eyes again, but now he gripped the thick oak rail at the foot of the bed to keep himself from sinking through the floor. Suddenly, his legs seemed loath to support him. “I don’t know. She told me about how I was conceived and how you decided you couldn’t keep me. Is that everything? Is there more I should know?”

  She moved as if to speak, but he wasn’t finished.

  “Like why you chose to let your own flesh and blood live in a home with a man like Jeremiah Barton? Didn’t you care that he beat me and your supposed friend as regular as clockwork?”