“Say something,” she pleaded.
When Violet finally spoke, her voice was cold and incredulous. “That is the reason you didn’t tell me—or the FBI, or anyone—you knew where my son was days ago? Days that I’ve spent curled up in his bed and crying, thinking my life was over? Days that he’s spent crying for me?”
“I know it sounds selfish.” Caitlin started to cry again. “I know. It’s just … this isn’t just any male ego we’re talking about here. It’s George. His father has plans for him, you know, and he has plans for his sons…” Her voice trailed off, but she knew Violet knew their family well enough to know the rest. With the long history of the Bryce-Daniels name, it was important to have a lineage. That was a part of the reason she’d never understood George’s refusal to undergo testing. But it was also a part of the reason she knew that he could never, ever find out about what she had done. It wasn’t just the infidelity that would turn him against her—sometimes she even wondered if he half expected that, traveling as much as he did, though her own thoughts of the opportunities he must have had on the road were usually fleeting and easily dismissed. They loved each other. But if he were ever to find out that the twins weren’t his, and if his parents were ever to find out, or if the media were ever to find out—
“Caitlin.” Violet didn’t just sound furious, she sounded annoyed. “George already knows the twins aren’t his. For God’s sake.”
33
AUGUST 2016
Finn raised the glass to his lips, then hesitated. George seemed unhinged enough that Finn didn’t want to test him. Yet he knew that if he allowed himself to go under again, there was no telling what he might wake up to. “Before I drink this,” he said. “Just … thank you.”
The hand holding the gun didn’t move. “For?”
“For not calling the cops. Yet, anyway. I know I messed up. I never meant to put you in this situation.”
“To which situation would you be referring?”
Finn was taken aback by the solid ice in George’s voice. He gestured to the cabin around him, indicating the obvious circumstances at hand.
George stood and paced across the room, then back again. “I know what all of you think of me,” he bristled. “That I’m just this entitled rich kid. But I didn’t get to where I am because of my dad. I happen to have a good head for business. My clients trust me implicitly. My colleagues would say I’m smart. Which is why it amazes me that when I’m not on the clock, everyone else seems to think I’m so stupid.”
Finn squinted at George in confusion.
“I don’t think ‘everyone’ thinks of you that way at all,” Finn said carefully. “Not me. Not Caitlin.”
“Oh, especially Caitlin,” George snapped. “And you. You know what, I wasn’t going to get into it—I was just going to wait the two of you out, like I always do. But you have the audacity to thank me? Do you think if it were up to me, I would even be here right now? Don’t you think I would have turned you in the second I found out about all this nonsense?” George gestured wildly with the gun. “I wanted to call the FBI from the hospital!”
“The hospital?” Finn tried to keep the alarm from his voice.
George went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “But it’s not only up to me. I have to look out for Caitlin. And the boys. I might be at my limit as far as how long I can go along with this ridiculous charade, but that doesn’t mean I want them growing up with their father in jail.”
Finn wished the drug would clear from his brain. This mess he’d made was a lot of things, but was it really a charade? “I won’t let you go to jail, George. If I get caught—” George opened his mouth to speak, and Finn held up a hand. “I mean, when you turn me in, I’ll tell them you didn’t have anything to do with this. I’ll tell them I threatened Caitlin. Which I did, by the way. I’m sorry. I never expected her to follow me down here…”
“Why the hell not? Do you think she’s going to just let you disappear on Bear and the boys?”
“You keep saying ‘the boys.’ This doesn’t have anything to do with the boys.”
“STOP already!” George’s voice thundered through the high-ceilinged living room. “It has everything to do with the boys.” His eyes were reckless, unfocused.
Finn raised both hands, as if he were under arrest. He had to hold off whatever this was until Caitlin got back. “Whoa, man. Listen, forget the juice. Why don’t we have a drink together, okay? Relax for a minute.”
“We aren’t friends, Finn. We never were.”
Finn cringed. Of course George wouldn’t take this lightly, Finn getting his wife and sons involved in his own mistake. Still, something deeper seemed to be fueling his fury. Something dangerous. He’d never seen George quite like this, like something pent up under pressure was about to burst loose. He had to keep him talking.
“You only drink with friends?” Finn asked, keeping his voice jovial, calm. “Those are pretty stringent standards.”
George’s eyes rested on a framed photo on the mantel. In it, he was a teenager, and his dad’s face was tanned and smooth, and the two were wearing matching fishing vests down at the dock. “My dad always said, ‘Never drink to feel better—only drink to feel even better.’”
“Oh, come on. That sounds good on paper, but I can think of plenty of times you haven’t followed that.”
“I think I’ll start today. Because this is going to be the day all the nonsense stops and we start doing things the Bryce-Daniels way. No more going along with whatever imaginary rules the rest of you keep putting into play.”
Rules? Finn tilted his head. “George, I have to tell you, I’m feeling a little lost here. It’s like we’re dancing around some kind of elephant in the room, but I honestly have no idea what the elephant is. You care to enlighten me?”
“Why don’t you tell me. I’d like to hear you say it.”
Finn took a breath. There was so much he hadn’t ever said aloud. So much he probably should have. George had chosen the right words after all. His whole life was a ridiculous charade. “I ran out on my wife? I appear to have abducted my son?” Finn began ticking off points on his fingertips. “I should have been charged with involuntary manslaughter—or negligence, or something? I should have been convicted? I can’t seem to stop being in love with my dead fiancée? I feel guilty every time I catch myself feeling happy with my wife? I don’t know how to live a life I don’t deserve?” He raised his eyes to George. “Which thing?”
“An impressive résumé. You just forgot a line.”
Finn threw up his hands. “References?”
“The part where you fathered my children.”
34
AUGUST 2016
“What do you mean George knows?” Caitlin felt sick, but also skeptical. Violet was hurt. It would be natural to lash out with the first thing that came to mind. That didn’t mean it was true.
“He told me himself. I mean, not about Super Sperm—God, what a stupid name. Honestly, Caitlin, I expected something classier. But that the boys weren’t his.”
“When?”