Born To Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

ting area complete with leather couch and matching side chairs. Through the glass wall behind him, she saw another duck pond and beyond, rising in the distance, the mountains, where the ridges seemed to scrape the graying sky. Snow had already begun to obliterate the view. All that was clearly visible was the edge of the parking lot, where she caught the noses of a Cadillac SUV, a BMW, and a Jaguar.

Not just a parking lot, she thought, but the executive lot.

“She told me that you didn’t know that I existed,” Kacey said.

“And you believed her.”

“Well, yeah. Now you’re telling me something else.”

He waved her toward him, where two visitor’s chairs were positioned on one side of his desk. Kacey removed her coat and draped it over one chair, settling cautiously in the other. On the side wall were awards, certificates, and his medical diplomas, prominently displayed.

“I assume my mother called and warned you that I intended to find you,” Kacey said.

“She did.”

“So all her secrets, her insistence that you be kept out of it, that was all just what? A smoke screen? Why?”

“Your mother tried to act as if the baby—you—were Stanley’s. I didn’t believe it, of course. She’d been trying to have a baby for years, and then, after we got ... close, she became pregnant, so I assumed the truth.” He drew a breath and exhaled it heavily. “Our affair was winding down at the time. I was going to move the company from Helena to here and ... so,” he said, leaning forward, hands clasped, forearms on the desk, “I saw no point in trying to keep what we had going. We were both married, neither wanted a divorce, and so . . . we let it die, and I allowed your mother the fantasy that I didn’t know about you. It was just simpler.”

“For whom?” she asked carefully.

“Everyone. Including you.”

“How thoughtful,” she said, hearing the anger rising in her own voice. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. Of course I found out about you, but I didn’t let on. Your mother and I were over, anyway, and we were both married, and at least one of us was happy.”

Kacey felt her jaw tighten. Gerald Johnson had a pretty high opinion of himself.

He lifted one shoulder. “I thought it was best if I pretended I didn’t think you were mine. I had a family, a wife, a company to run.”

“And Mom?”

“She got what she always wanted out of the deal. A child.” Gerald’s gaze held hers. “It worked out.”

“Did it?” Her stomach soured as she thought of all the lies that were her life. “What about my dad?” she said. “The one who raised me?”

Gerald’s lips flattened a little, and some of his equanimity seeped away. “What? Are you coming to me now because he’s gone? You’re looking for a new father figure? Or, maybe it isn’t even that altruistic. Perhaps you’re looking for something else?”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” she said, though she did, and it was pissing her off.

“Look around.” He gestured grandly.

“Get this straight, Mr. Johnson. I don’t want anything from you but the truth. People are dying, and I think you have the answer.”

“Dying? Good Lord, you’re as melodramatic as your mother.”

“Maybe. But it doesn’t alter the facts.” She stood up, unable to sit in front of him like a sycophant.

Deep furrows cleft his brow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Let’s start with Shelly Bonaventure.”

“Who? The ... actress? What about her?”

“You don’t know her?”

“Of course I don’t. Why would I? The only reason I know about her is that my daughter Clarissa reads those tabloids and the like.”