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Rabid dogs couldn’t get a secret out of Josie. “You were right about Galen Reynolds,” Twyla said. “He was buying and selling girls. Nasty Nick Ludwig babbled on like a baby just learning to talk.”
“Norma Rose told me that.”
“Were you scared when you were arrested?”
“Partly.”
Twyla stood and squeezed herself onto the bench near Josie’s drawn-up legs. She took Josie’s hands, holding them tightly between her own. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Josie shook her head and closed her eyes.
“Are you scared now?” Twyla asked.
Josie nodded and a single tear slipped out beneath one closed lid.
Twyla let go of Josie’s hands to wrap her arms around her sister’s shoulders. She couldn’t think of the right words, so she went with what was in her heart. “I wish someone like Forrest had been with you, Josie, someone who can erase fears even when you’re being shot at.”
Chapter Fourteen
Forrest paced the well-worn painted floor in the hovel his mother called an apartment. Over the years he’d lived in many places, but few could compare to this. Yet she refused to leave it.
“You heard the authorities, Mother,” he said. Two days with little to no sleep was enough to make him testy, but she was making him angry. “There is no reason for us to remain here. The evidence the authorities now have will put Galen in federal prison for life, with no chance of parole.”
“I have to talk to him one last time,” she insisted from where she sat on a lumpy and tattered sofa. “In person.”
“Why?” Forrest demanded. “You tried today, he refused. He’s going to go on refusing just to keep you here.” Running both hands through his hair, Forrest tried to calm his temper. “It makes no sense, Mother. I don’t understand—” Taking a breath, he said, “I’ve never understood the control Galen has over you.”
She bowed her head.
“Mother,” he said, then stopped, having no idea what to say next. He’d tried everything.
She looked up at him then, her brown eyes welling with tears that slowly escaped. “Your father’s not dead.”
“Galen’s not my—”
“Not Galen,” she said. “Your real father.”
So taken aback that his lungs locked, Forrest had to force out the air. “What?”
He couldn’t help but notice how gray her blond hair had become as she hooked it behind both ears. Then she wiped her nose on the back of her hand and sniffed. “I lied to you.” She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped her nose again. “I’ve been lying to you for twenty-seven years.”
Forrest sat down beside her and tugged her head onto his shoulder, giving her and himself a moment to collect their thoughts.
“I’m sorry, Forrest, very sorry.”
A twinge of guilt flared inside him for not being as upset as she thought he should be. “Well,” he said, “why don’t you start over? Tell me the truth this time, from the beginning.”
She nodded and sat up, but still leaned against him. “I was young, and fell in love with your father so swiftly. I’d gone to New York to attend finishing school. Back then there weren’t colleges like there are now. It was more of a prep school to prepare a girl for marriage. A well-to-do marriage. Which is what my father, your grandfather, wanted. It was the same school where Aunt Shirley met Uncle Silas. A few of us girls snuck out one night to attend a party at the home of one of the local girls. Her family was extremely wealthy and there was an enormous number of people there. I got scared that I might get caught, or... I don’t know— But I left the party.”
She sat forward and wiped her eyes with both hands. “There was another girl with me, from the school, and your father was one of the young men parking coaches. There were very few cars back then. Anyway, he offered us a ride home. It was a long walk, and dark, so we agreed, but we gave him false names and an address a block away from the school. A couple of weeks later, quite by accident, I bumped into him again.”
Pushing off the couch, she rose and walked to the kitchen, where she poured herself a glass of water. “All the minor details aren’t important,” she said. “Suffice to say, I snuck out to meet him several times, but never once told him my real name or where I lived. He was very poor, and I knew my father would never approve of him.”
“So what happened?” Forrest asked, feeling more than a bit detached. Or maybe he wanted to be detached because he remembered his mother telling him many times as a young man that money didn’t matter when it came to love, yet she’d always acted as if it did.
