know you will,” Gray remarked, smiling a little because at that moment, sitting behind Gray’s polished desk, in Gray’s executive chair, Billy exhibited both his father’s likability and Cecil’s steely resolve. “Okay, let’s run through it one more time. All you have to do is tell Mitchell that your father’s body has been discovered and his killer has confessed—”
it.”
you’ll tell him your grandfather and your mother have taken the news very badly, and you need him to come back here because you’re really, really scared.”
,” Billy said; then he added, with a twinge of touching ingenuousness, know I can do the last part, Gray, because I am—really, really scared.”
to be as convincing as you can about all of it.”
will.”
Satisfied, Gray leaned across the desk to his telephone and pressed the intercom button. the call, Paula.” Trying not to do anything to unnerve the fourteen-year-old more than he already was, Gray reached slowly behind him and flipped the switch on the tape recorder; then he glanced at his watch. It was one-thirty in St. Maarten, and according to Childress, Mitchell Wyatt was in his suite at the hotel.
IN AN EFFORTto make time pass more quickly and to distract himself from thoughts of the ordeal Kate was facing, Mitchell had phoned his New York office and asked his assistant to fax some documents that Stavros had asked him to go over.
When his cell phone rang, Mitchell continued reading the documents in his right hand and reached absently toward his cell phone on the coffee table with his left.
Mitchell, it’s me. It’s Billy,” the boy clarified needlessly in a voice so shaken he was nearly stuttering.
’s wrong?” Mitchell asked, rising slowly to his feet in anticipation of very bad news.
’s my dad—”
Closing his eyes, Mitchell waited for what he’d known he would hear someday.
’ve f-found my dad’s body in a well out near the farm.”
’m so sorry,” Mitchell said hoarsely; then he opened his eyes and shook his head to clear it. well? He fell into a well?”
, he didn’t fall; he was murdered. He was shot in the chest.”
Afraid to say the wrong thing, Mitchell waited helplessly for the boy to say more. on, Billy, I’m right here. I’m listening.”
Udalls’ caretaker shot him. He—he’s confessed. He’s a filthy old drunk, and he admitted everything to the police when they finally came down hard on him. That worthless old bastard—he shot my father! Please, Uncle Mitchell, can you come home? My mom is locked in her room, and I don’t know if she’s okay, and Grandpa Cecil—they’re taking him to the hospital with angina.”
’ll come home,” Mitchell promised.
? Please say you’ll come tonight. I’m trying to be brave and be the man of the family, like Grandpa Cecil said I should do, until you got here to take care of things.” His voice broke, and Mitchell’s heart squeezed in sympathy. Mitchell, I’m really scared for my mom. She has sleeping pills up there and she isn’t answering me.”
’ll be there.”
you leave right away?”
Mitchell glanced at his watch. ’ll leave here around five, that’s three your time. I should be there by eight.”
,” he said meekly. Mitchell?”
, son?” Mitchell said.
dad really loved you. He said—said—thatyou madehim proud to be a Wyatt.”
Mitchell swallowed over an unfamiliar constriction in his throat and stared out the windows. you for telling me that.”
In Chicago, Billy leaned back in Gray’s chair and grinned broadly at his mesmerized audience. did I do?” he asked, tapping his pencil on the yellow pad like a drumstick on a drum. “It was a bunch of bullshit, but I think it did the job, don’t you? I thought the way I improvised about the ‘old drunk’ had a nice touch.”
On the other side of the office, Lily Reardon suppressed a shiver and avoided meeting her colleague’s eyes.
’re amazing, Billy,” Gray said proudly, and stood up. are absolutely amazing.”
Chapter Twenty-six
FOR SEVERAL MINUTESafter Billy hung up, Mitchell stood beside the coffee table, immobilized, his head bent, his forehead furrowed, trying to cope with the flood of grief he felt at the loss of a half brother he scarcely knew, and whose death he’d only just accepted.
Until eight months ago, he couldn’t even have conceived of how it felt to have a relative, let alone how it felt to lose one. Now he understood a little of both, and the emotions running through him were poignant and painful.
In his mind, he saw William standing in his London living room with Caroline and Billy in tow. understand why you haven’t returned my phone calls and letters, Mitchell,” William had said with a smile when Mitchell stalked angrily into the living room, intending to throw them out once and for all, you cannot choose your relatives, so I’m afraid you’re stuck with us.”
Despite the fact that he’d been determined to reject this long-overdue overture from his family when he strode into the living room that day, Mitchell experienced a shock at coming face-to-face with a man who bore an indefinable but definite resemblance to him. ’m not interested in acquiring a brother,” Mitchell snapped.
am,” William replied with that combination of warmth, friendliness, and surprisingly strong will that was uniquely his. we sit down?”
The wordno was on Mitchell’s tongue, but Billy was there watching him closely, and Caroline was smiling at him as if to say, know how you must feel; this is awkward for us, too.”
Before he knew it, he’d agreed to see them the next day, and the next, and the next.
William was eager to get to know Mitchell personally, even though he already knew more about Mitchell than Mitchell knew about himself. Besides possessing all the facts surrounding Mitchell’s conception and birth, he’d also gone through all the old files he’d discovered in Cecil’s safe, including letters and reports from Mitchell’s schools—none of which had been opened, William had frankly admitted.
What William couldn’t find out from those files, he’d discovered by researching Mitchell on the Internet. He knew about Mitchell’s degrees from Oxford and Cambridge, and about Stavros Konstantatos and about Mitchell’s marriage to Anastasia. He even teased Mitchell about several of his highly publicized flings over the years.
Mitchell hadn’t wanted to hear anything about his father or grandfather, who had not made a similar overture, and William seemed to accept that at first, but as Mitchell soon discovered, his older brother was like a silent locomotive who couldn’t be derailed and whose arrival at any given point couldn’t be anticipated.