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Monty took the mug of coffee Barbara handed him with a nod of thanks. He was far from immune to Karly’s story. But he’d seen this sick, vile pattern too many times in the past to be shocked. “Did your mother know?”
“What do you think?”
“I think she either looked the other way and said nothing, or accused you of lying and maligning her loving husband.”
“The latter,” Karly supplied. “I had to get out. So I ran away and came to New York.”
“But the baggage came with you.”
“Right. I managed to find every screwed-up guy in the city. I constantly reduced myself to the role of victim. It was a vicious cycle, one I couldn’t seem to break, which brings us to the point of this discussion. When I was sixteen, I reached an all-time low in my self-destructive spiral. I fell for a very charismatic, very powerful, very married older man. Talk about getting in over my head. But he was so good to me, so tender. He treated me like I was the most special woman on earth. To me, it was true love. To him, it was a hot, convenient affair.”
“To me, it was rape in the third degree,” Monty commented. “You were underage.”
“I know. But I didn’t want to bring him up on charges. I wanted him to love me. Now I understand how stupid that was. But back then, I thought we had a future, that he’d eventually leave his wife for me. I was a starstruck child. My only defense is that I wanted him, desperately, and he said he wanted me. I would have done anything for us to be together.”
“And then he dumped you.”
“Not just dumped me. Lied to me, paid me off, and ultimately threatened me. When it was just me whose well-being was at stake, I did what I had to and stayed away. But now it involves someone more important than me—my son. I won’t let anything happen to him.” Karly sank into a chair, pressed a trembling hand to her head. “I thought I’d already paid for my stupidity. But now I’m paying all over again, only worse. The whole damn scenario’s come back to haunt me. And the paradox is, the same man who can hurt my son might be the only one who can help him.”
Monty held up a deterring palm. “Back up. So you had a child with this guy. And he obviously didn’t break out the champagne when you told him you were pregnant.”
“Hardly. He gave me ten thousand dollars, told me to get an abortion, head to the West Coast, and go to the modeling school I’d dreamed of attending.”
“So you took the money and did as he asked—except that you didn’t have the abortion.”
“That’s where Lara came in. I met her at a coffee shop, and before I knew it, I was spilling my guts to her. She convinced me that I had options. I could have this baby, get the help and support I needed, and either raise it myself or give it to a loving family. Before I decided, I made one more attempt to convince the baby’s father to accept us, either to become a family or to make us a part of his life in some capacity. He nearly burst a gut. He grabbed me by the shoulders, stared me down, and demanded to know who’d been putting ideas in my head. I fell all over myself, but I didn’t tell him anything. Not that he believed me. He threatened to make me wish I was never born unless I followed through with our original agreement—including staying away from my newfound confidante and severing all contact with my current life once I left town.”
“Sounds like a real sweetheart.”
“I was scared to death. I promised to do as he asked. And I planned to. I even went to the clinic. But I couldn’t go through with it. It was my child growing inside me. So I went back to Lara one last time. She helped me. She introduced me to Barbara, and Barbara made arrangements for me to stay in a wonderful pregnancy care center until the baby was born, after which he’d be adopted by a loving family through a reputable adoption agency. Part of me wanted to keep him. But after the miserable childhood I’d had, I wanted more for him than a destitute, psychologically screwed-up single mother who was still a kid herself. So I gave him that chance. After he was born, I stayed in New York only long enough to finalize the adoption. Then I got on a plane for L.A. and made a fresh start, knowing my baby was doing the same.”
“And that was just shy of seventeen years ago. What made you come back—just the career move?”
“If you’re asking if a part of me wanted to be closer to my son, I don’t know. I didn’t think so at the time. Carol Fenton no longer existed. Karly Fontaine had been offered a fabulous career opportunity, and took it. If there was more to it than that, it was subconscious. But once I got back to New York, yes, the memories swamped me. I started wondering, aching, feeling a sense of emptiness that made me want to reach out and know my child. I had no idea if he and his family were even still living here. I called the adoption agency to see what I could do. I also met with Barbara; that’s the meeting I was racing to when that van hit Rachel Ogden. But my hands were tied. Given his age, he’d need parental consent to initiate any contact with me. And even that would be limited.”
“You implied your son’s in trouble.” Something about this story was bugging Monty. “Is that why you wanted to hire me—to find him?”
“No. I’ve already done that, as of a few hours ago. Actually, he found me, or rather, his adopted parents did. He’s in Maimonides Medical Center. He was rushed in with a ruptured spleen. He needs a transfusion. They called the adoption agency in the hopes of finding a biological parent. The agency called me. They knew how eager I was to connect with my son, that I would have done anything to help. But he’s got a rare blood type and I’m not compatible.”
Jonah. Monty’s coffee mug paused halfway to his lips. Her son was Jonah.
“I’ve got to contact his biological father,” Karly was continuing. “I’m the only one who knows who he is. But I’m terrified. The hospital said he could be cross-matched anonymously, but if word leaked out that he had a bastard son—” Her voice broke. “If he could hurt me before, he could destroy me now. Me and our son. He’s so entrenched in the public eye, he’s got the media in his face, and his future on the line. He stands to lose way too much, both personally and politically.”
“Jesus,” Monty bit out, his mug striking the table as the ugly reality clicked. “Your son’s father is Arthur Shore.”
“You got it, Detective.”
Monty sank back in his chair. The ramifications, the timing, it was all flashing through his mind, one prospect after another. There was no way Arthur knew he had a kid. If he did, he’d have taken some sort of protective, probably legal action, as soon as he found out. But he did know about the pregnancy, and that was one scandal Elyse and her father might not have tolerated.
Karly had left town just a few months after Lara and Jack were killed. In light of what Monty had just learned, that timing no longer seemed coincidental.
“Did you know L
ara Winter had been murdered before you left New York?” he asked.
“No.” Karly shook her head. “I was in a pretty isolated environment during my stay at the pregnancy care center. I had in-house counseling and childbirth lessons, made half-assed plans for modeling school in L.A., and mostly fought depression. I’m sure everyone purposely kept the news of Lara’s death from me. And I never tried to contact her—not after Arthur’s threats.”
“When did you find out?”
