He’d known it was coming. Cosmic justice. He’d fallen for a woman who hated everything his life stood for—the wife of the man who’d taken Alicia’s life. Surely something stronger than human will created this twisted, farcical mess of coincidence, this confusion of identities, almost Shakespearean in its dimensions.
Were they laughing now, whoever had arranged this—to punish him?
Had he finally paid what he owed?
Did the bill ever get marked “paid in full?”
“How’d you find out?” It didn’t matter; he just didn’t know what else to say to fill the suffocating silence.
“I’ve been advising Susan regarding the paternity case.”
He thought he was beyond surprise. Apparently not.
“After the…accident…I saw Ali—your daughter’s obituary in the paper.” She looked at him over her hunched shoulder. “Her name wasn’t Chandler.”
“When Susan took her maiden name back, she gave it to Alicia, too. Said it was better that way for school records and such.”
“And let me guess, you didn’t fight her on it.”
“Nope.” Which was why even Alicia’s headstone bore no part of her father. Other than the roses he kept putting there.
“I saw that picture and couldn’t get her out of my mind,” she continued after a while in a faraway voice. “Eventually, I went to see Susan, to offer to help her. We kind of became friends. She used to call. I’d do what I could. What we had in common was horrible, but it was still something in common.”
At least now he understood the complete change in her. Not only had she found him out, but she’d heard it all from the tainted perspective of an emotionally disturbed woman.
“Do you want to hear any of this from my point of view?” he asked, although he wasn’t sure why. What could dragging this out possibly serve? Except to complete his penance and let him move on.
And maybe to help her see that, while he was definitely a bastard, she hadn’t slept with the devil himself, which was how Susan would surely have painted him.
“Okay.”
Her tone of voice, her hunched, dejected posture, her expression, were not encouraging. He’d been accused, tried and convicted.
For a crime he’d committed.
Telling himself it was for her sake, he tried anyway. He spared himself nothing as he told her about the years after college, the thrill of finally having a real challenge. The thrill of being in control. Of being the one with power, instead of the one being chained down by the power of others. And then he told her a bit about his life after the accident.
About the night Steve McDonald had stopped by and found him on the third day of a drunk that could eventually have killed him. And how, during the long hours of sobering up, his friend had talked to him and he’d begun to see a way to actually keep the promise he’d made to his dying daughter.
“What promise?”
Kirk leaned forward, elbows on his knees, turning his head to look at her. “That I’d lived my last day for me. That the rest of my life was going to be for others—for kids—who needed my help. That I’d give everything I had over to making sure that other children benefited from the drive and determination that had kept me from her life.”
She didn’t say anything, but he could sense a softening. And was pathetic enough to let it touch him.
Her silence was unnerving. But he couldn’t just walk away and leave her like this.
Yeah, and how much was he kidding himself to think he could walk away at all? Until she sent him out of her life.
He couldn’t believe she knew the man, had loved the man who’d killed Alicia.
Couldn’t believe he’d never made the connection before. Couldn’t believe he wasn’t more appalled by it. Except that he knew how Valerie felt about her ex-husband. And he also knew he and that man were alike.
It was probably just the shock, the blessed deadness inside him, but the bitterness, the vile acid, that normally ate him alive when he thought of Thomas Smith was not there.
How could he revile Thomas Smith when he, Kirk Chandler, had hurt his daughter so badly himself?
“So where are you?” he asked.