Thirty-five

A black sedan claimed Zoe’s usual spot in Pete’s driveway, so she parked at the curb and slid down from the driver’s seat, dragging a plastic bag of groceries with her. In spite of the May sunshine and birdsongs filling the air, she still couldn’t quite shake the cold or the heaviness that had enveloped her heart since that night over a month ago.

Pete’s kitchen door swung open before she had a chance to reach for the knob revealing a smiling Wayne Baronick.

He took the bag from her as she entered. Peering into it, he asked, “Buy me anything good?”

Zoe snatched it back. “I didn’t buy you anything at all.”

He pressed a hand to his heart. “I’m hurt.”

Pete hobbled into the kitchen on his crutches. “Get over it, Baronick.”

The detective chuckled.

“What are you doing here?” Zoe set the bag on the counter and started unloading the groceries. “You better not be trying to coerce Pete into going back to work early.”

Wayne held up both hands in surrender. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Besides, it seems Seth is getting pretty damn comfortable in Pete’s office.”

Zoe caught the smile on Pete’s face. If anything good had come out of his brush with death and shattered femur, it was Seth’s restored confidence and renewed passion for his job.

Or, as it turned out, for Pete’s job.

And, although no one really talked about it, Wayne’s sister. The budding intradepartmental romance was the worse-kept secret in the county.

Wayne crossed to the table and set a finger on the newspaper lying there. “You must be happy with the election results. Franklin won.”

“Yeah,” Zoe said, “but he still has to go against the pathologist guy in the general election this fall.” Franklin may have won his own party, but Dr. Charles Davis had run on both tickets and had been unopposed on the other. The campaigning would continue until November.

Provided Franklin’s health permitted.

She glared at the detective. “You didn’t come here to read the election results.”

Wayne shot a look at Pete and didn’t reply.

She planted a hand on her hip. “What?”

“We got DNA results back on the blood you found around the water faucet in your barn.” Wayne met her gaze. “It matched Kristopher O’Keefe.”

So, her theory had been right. Jason had stolen Boyd Anderson’s corn knife and had killed the professor with it. Since Professor K didn’t know Jason, it was probably an easy task for him to walk up to the man, flash that charismatic smile, and ram the blade home. And then go back to her barn to clean up.

“Show her the rest,” Pete said.

“There’s more?”

Wayne gave Pete a questioning look but shrugged, picked up an envelope she hadn’t noticed on the kitchen table, and handed it to her.

“What’s this?”

Neither man answered so she opened it.

The only thing she could make out from the bar graphs and percentages was the heading. “More DNA results?”

“Jason’s,” Pete said.

Wayne folded his arms. “It confirms that Jason Cox was not your biological brother.”

“Oh.” The weight on her heart continued to bear down. Pete had said as much that night in the barn. He’d elaborated later, in his hospital room after the surgery to repair the damage done by Jason’s bullet. Still, she’d had a hard time believing it.

She’d so easily and completely bought into the story of a long-lost brother. She’d convinced herself he looked and sounded like their father.

Her father.

Pete tried to be gentle, explaining she’d longed so badly for family that she’d seen what she wanted to see. And Jason played into that.

All to get close enough to take his revenge on Pete.

Even so, she’d still clung to a thread of hope that Jason had been her blood kin. It seemed like an outlandish hope even to her. But to let it go meant admitting she’d been a gullible fool.

As she continued to stare at the paperwork proving she was, indeed, just that, Wayne whispered something to Pete and slipped out the door

Pete hobbled over to her, tucked both crutches under one arm, and wrapped the other around her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he said into her hair.

“You? I’m the one who’s sorry. Because of my stupidity, you almost died.” Her voice broke, the crush of guilt becoming too much. She slipped her arms around him and hid from reality, burying her face against his chest.

He held her while she cried it out, soaking his shirt with tears of regret and—heaven help her—of grief for Jason.

And tears of self-loathing. How dare she grieve for Jason? A lying killer who wasn’t really her brother. Who had tried to take away the only man who’d ever been completely straight with her.

When the sobbing ebbed, she stayed there, afraid to let go.

“There’s something else about Jason I didn’t tell you before,” Pete said.

She waited, not sure she wanted to learn more.

“It’s true he concocted the brother story in order to get to me through you. But as much as you believed it because you wanted him to be family, he started to buy into it too. He admitted he’d come to love you like a sister. More than that, he came to love you more than he hated me.”

She drew back and looked up at Pete. “But he shot you. He planned to dump gasoline on you and burn the barn down to cover it up.”

“Only because I’d figured out who he was and what he’d done.” Pete lifted a hand to cup her cheek. “He’d decided to leave town and abandon his plan to pay me back. If I hadn’t tracked him down at the rental car lot, he may very well have disappeared forever.”

“And Elaine O’Keefe and Boyd Anderson may have gone to prison for murders they had nothing to do with.”

Pete shrugged. “I have enough faith in the judicial system to believe they’d have been cleared either way.”

Zoe mulled over the path not taken. Jason would be alive, out there somewhere. Pete wouldn’t have nearly lost his life. And she’d forever wonder what had happened to “her brother.”

“My point,” Pete said, “is that you have nothing to be sorry for. None of this was your fault. The responsibility lies solely with Jason. He had a lot of classic sociopathic characteristics. He was adept at lying and manipulating. And he could pour on the charm whenever it suited him.”

She wasn’t appeased. “Aren’t sociopaths incapable of emotion? He sure fooled me on that one.” The tears bubbled up through her chest again. “I thought—” She choked, unable to say the words.

Pete shook his head. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I don’t believe you were blinded by a man pretending to care for you. He did care for you. He loved you—in his own way—as much, or more, than a real brother.”

Zoe stared at the damp spot on Pete’s shirt and let his words sink in. Jason had loved her in his own way. And yet, she’d looked down the barrel of his gun knowing full well he’d have killed her if Seth and Abby hadn’t shown up when they did.

Pete thumbed the tears on her face. “Look how much money he spent on your house. I expected to learn he’d stolen or embezzled funds to pay for it. But there’s been no evidence of theft linked to him. Maybe spending his own cash was his attempt at retribution.”

She suspected Pete and Wayne were still investigating the money trail. But she was pretty sure she’d rather not know.

Her cell phone rang. She ignored it.

“Anyway,” Pete said, releasing her and repositioning the crutches, “I’ve managed to forgive the man. You should too.” He tipped his head. “You better answer that.”

Zoe watched him swing across the kitchen to the counter and the groceries before pulling her phone from her pocket. The familiar Floridian phone number on caller ID forced a groan.

“Hello, Mother.”

“I’ve reconsidered your request,” Kimberly said.

“Excuse me?”

“The photos you wanted. Of your father.”

Zoe had completely forgotten. She’d made the request five weeks ago.

“Do you still want them? To show that brother of yours.”

Zoe opened her mouth. Closed it.

“Well?”

She drew a deep breath. “Yes, I’d love to have the photos. But it turns out I don’t have a brother.”

“Of course, you do.”

“No, I—what?”

Kimberly’s exasperated sigh carried over the miles from Florida to Pennsylvania. “I’ve known all along that your father had a child before we were married. I didn’t know whether it was a boy or a girl. I didn’t want to know. I’d quite happily have lived the rest of my life and let that bastard child remain a secret. But since he’s crawled out from under some rock, you might as well have these pictures of your father. I certainly don’t need them.”

Zoe stood in stunned silence after her mother ended the call.

“What’s wrong?” Pete leaned on the kitchen counter munching a cookie from the package she’d bought.

She pocketed her phone. “Nothing.” She crossed to him and slipped back into his arms. “Absolutely nothing is wrong.”