“You saw her? When? Where?”
“In our suite. In my bedroom. I saw her lift Samantha out of her crib.”
There were collective gasps from around the room.
“How could you have seen anything?” Rain asked. “You were asleep.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were awake?” Hunter said, his voice barely audible.
“I saw everything.”
“This is unconscionable,” Steve protested. “It was fifteen years ago. You were a child. It was dark. Even if you were awake, who knows what you really saw?”
“I know what I saw.”
“And you kept quiet about it for fifteen years?”
Michelle looked toward her grandmother. Her grandmother looked toward the floor. “I repressed it…”
“You repressed it? How convenient.”
“Steve…”
“For God’s sake, Caroline. To do something like that, Becky would have had to more than resent you. She’d have had to hate you. You visited her in the hospice. You saw how much she cared about you. Do you really think she was capable of doing what you’re accusing her of?”
“I don’t think she hated me. I do think she was desperate and probably more than a little afraid.”
“Desperate about what? Afraid of what?”
“In the hospice, she kept apologizing,” Caroline continued, ignoring Steve’s questions, “telling me how sorry she was. I assumed she was talking about our estrangement, how she hadn’t been there for me after Mexico. But now I realize she was talking about her part in the kidnapping.”
“Her part in the…What are you…?” Steve rose from his seat, then sat back down, throwing his hands in the air. “Will you just listen to yourself? Do you hear what you’re saying?”
“I know exactly what I’m saying.”
“That your former sister-in-law, my ex-wife, kidnapped your daughter. That’s what you honestly believe?”
“She knew Samantha hadn’t been taken by some pervert. She knew she was alive. She told me as much, said she was certain Samantha was with people who loved her…I thought she was just trying to give me hope. But now I know she was trying to tell me the truth.”
“The truth? She had a brain tumor. She didn’t know what she was saying half the time.”
“And you took care of the other half, didn’t you?”
Another silence. Another collective intake of breath.
“Excuse me?”
“Keeping her stoned, staying by her bedside every minute. I always thought it was so strange, your sudden turnaround when Becky came back to town. You were so miserable to each other when you were married. You didn’t speak after your divorce. When I think of the vile things you said about her…And then she gets a brain tumor, comes back to San Diego, and checks into Peggy’s hospice. And calls you, of all people. Do you want to know why I think she did that?”
“By all means,” Steve said. “Enlighten me.”
“I think she was going to come clean about what happened and she wanted to give you fair warning. She told me she owed you that.”
“Why would I need fair warning?”
“Because you were there with Becky. Because taking my daughter was your idea.”
“Oh, my God,” Peggy whispered into the stunned silence that followed.
“Now you’re accusing me?” Steve jumped to his feet. “You know what? I’ve had enough of this crap…”
“Sit down,” Greg Fisher told him in no uncertain terms.
“This is absurd,” Mary sputtered.
“You knew,” Caroline said, spinning toward her.
“What? I knew no such thing.”
“Michelle told you what she saw.”
“A five-year-old child told me what she dreamt,” Mary insisted with such vehemence Caroline almost believed her. “She was confused. She was hysterical. There was no way your brother had anything to do with what happened that night. I didn’t believe it then. I certainly don’t believe it now.”
“It was Uncle Steve, Grandma. I saw him.”
“You imagined it.”
“No.”
“This is preposterous. Why would he do such a thing?”
“My guess?” Caroline asked. “He needed money. Isn’t that what these things usually come down to? He’s a gambler. Becky had lost her job. He was strapped for cash.”
“You’re crazy,” Steve said. “The real estate market was booming in those days. I was making a fortune in commissions.”
“And losing it just as fast. What happened, Steve? You bet on the wrong horse? You owe the wrong people money? They threaten you? You offer them something in trade? Ultimately convinced Becky to go along with you or risk being the target of a mob hit?”
“A mob hit?” Steve laughed. “I think you’ve been watching way too much TV.”
“I think you’d been planning this for quite a while, that you bided your time, waiting for the right opportunity.”
“And I think you’re forgetting a little something,” Steve said, turning around in hapless circles, as if appealing to everyone’s better judgment. “I was with you guys when Samantha was taken.”