“His condition is not good. If we can’t get the transplant done soon, he might not be strong enough to even have it, if we ever find a match.” Corrine was on a rant to someone on the phone.
Byron walked by her office and stopped to listen to the conversation. No doubt she was talking to one of her tennis or golf buddies. Doing her best to garner sympathy.
“Yes, Byron has been using his position, and a number of people have been tested, but none of them match, not even close enough to try a transplant. He’s appealed to the student body at Georgetown but the response hasn’t been what he’d hoped.”
That’s because most of the campus thinks Jack’s a prick, Maxwell thought and continued on to his office. He’d heard enough of his wife’s BS, contrived phone conversation. He marveled at the fact that she had never shared their marital discord with anyone. Probably knew if she did, it would be all over Washington.
The results of Nathan Held’s test should be in tomorrow afternoon or the next morning.
Byron wanted out from under everything. Maybe he should write a book and become a newscaster like Morris suggested. Shit, if Sarah Palin and Eliot Spitzer could do it, so could he. He laughed to himself.
Maxwell brought up his e-mail. There was one without a subject that contained an attachment. He opened it. It was a picture of Nathan Held. That’s all there was. It was sent from zipperdown.com.
“What the hell,” he said louder than he intended.
“Problem?” Corrine asked as she passed his office.
“Uh, no. Don’t trouble yourself, dear.”
Fucking bitch, he thought. But he’d made her into one, or at least their life circumstances had. His father, hers, their lifestyle. Guilt—that was the overriding feeling he had toward his wife—guilt mixed with loathing. Guilt edged out the loathing a notch.
Question was whom did the e-mail photo come from? He’d send it to Morris’s Seeker computer and see if he could find out. He would have his address deactivated tomorrow, although Gerald might think it better to leave it active.
But he was certainly going to get a new computer and e-mail address, one that no one knew.
He stared at his son’s picture a few moments longer, then closed down his computer.
There was no mistaking them for close family members, if not father and son, though that would be anyone’s first guess.
What would life have been like if Lenore had been his wife, and he’d been around to help her raise Nathan? Would they have had more children? Lived happily ever after? He’d often wondered.
He’d loved her. Maybe he still did. Her body attracted him, but her youthful enthusiasm and brains, an odd combination, had captivated him. Truth was, he’d been thinking of leaving Corrine behind and losing her family’s money. He had wanted to run away with Lenore and may have until Rin turned up pregnant after the night he took her. That night had changed so many futures. It still was, he thought.
The picture of Nathan showing up on his personal computer was a warning, but from whom? His logical choice was Corrine, followed by Jack, then Morris.
Jack had more money than he did and could easily afford to have a PI follow him. The money came from a trust set up by Jack’s maternal grandfather, and when Carter died, the money that was in his trust had reverted to Jack as well.
Everyone thought Byron had financed the abortions for Jack’s girlfriends but, in actuality, Jack had paid for them himself. Jack perpetuated the story of Maxwell taking care of it. He had never known of the abortions until after the fact.
It had taken some fancy footwork to keep them undercover. Maxwell even believed his son had impregnated the girls in hopes it would go public and come back to haunt his father. Morris had taken steps to make sure it hadn’t, paying one young woman off and getting the other a high-paying job. But Jack had made sure the rumor was out there.
Then there was Morris. While a long shot, Gerald could have sent the photo to yank his chain. More than anything, Morris thrived on the power his position gave him. It was that fact that made him discount Morris. Plus, Morris knew all of his dark secrets and did not need to send photos to taunt him.
Not many people had his personal e-mail, so that limited the list of possibilities as well. No, he’d bet it was Rin or Jack who sent the picture, or someone hired by them.
He’d wait to see what Morris turned up on Seeker tomorrow. Meanwhile, Maxwell got up to pour himself a double scotch.