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Rebekah blinked back tears and read the letter again, more slowly. All those wasted years when he was in the sanitarium, all the lies and deceptions that had molded her life. When she finished reading the second time, all she could think about was that her mother’s name was Constance. She looked mutely up at her husband, unaware tears were slowly running down her face.
Rich pulled her against him, his voice warm against her cheek. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. May I read it?”
She couldn’t speak, only nodded and swiped her hands over her eyes. “What he wrote—I loved him so much, it got to me. Yes, read it, Rich, you’ll see.”
He hugged her again, took the pages from her hands, and stepped away. She expected to see concern in his eyes as he read, and she did, but she saw something else, too. Eagerness? Barely banked excitement? She swiped her hand across her eyes, turned to the fireplace, and stuck out her hands to warm them, but there was little warmth, only her mother’s name. Constance Riley. She felt like a blind person suddenly granted sight, but what she knew now gave her no comfort. Gemma had murdered Nate and gotten away with it. Her father and Nate had stolen ninety million dollars in bearer bonds. And her mother—no, not her mother; Caitlin was her half sister. Nothing she’d believed was real. She couldn’t take it all in. No wonder Gemma had her attacked to get her hands on those bearer bonds. She was nothing to Gemma. She waited, watched her husband’s face as he read the letter again, just as she’d done.
Rich looked up from the letter, and said, his voice gentle, honest, “Listen to me, Rebekah. John Clarkson loved you more than anyone in this world. Never forget that. And he tells you everything in this letter. He would have told you years ago if he could, when he thought you were old enough to know. He was trying to protect you.”
“Yes,” she said finally, her voice flat, “he would have told me himself. When I was eighteen? Twenty-one?”
Rich looked down at the pages again and slowly shook his head. “I never doubted he was brilliant at getting whatever he thought was right. He was a man I admired. What he writes, Rebekah, it’s hard to take in, to believe. What he and Nate did, taking that money, he actually believed he’d done an honorable thing, the right thing. He thought it was justified.”
She said in the same flat voice, “Even if that’s true, he and Nate still stole a fortune in bearer bonds, and they kept it. He knew Gemma killed Nate and said nothing, hid the knowledge away. And he regrets Nate didn’t get justice because of the agreement he made with Gemma? It was his doing, though Nate was the man he professed to love from boyhood. What kind of man was he, really?”
“I agree with you. There was no justice and never will be for Nate. Still, your father and Nate managed to steal ninety million dollars meant for Iraqi militias, and no one else was ever the wiser. Remember, Rebekah, he didn’t spend the money; he hid it. He left it for you to decide what to do with it.”
At her silence, he continued, “He gives you the name of your birth mother, Constance Riley.” He smiled at her, stroked her arm. “Do you think you might be half Irish?”
What a thought for Rich to have, as if it were important. She looked up at him, saw his half smile. He was only trying to make her feel better. So she smiled back at him. “Maybe,” she said.
He said thoughtfully, “I remember there were some rumors your father had killed his longtime friend, but very few believed them. But Rebekah, that’s all over, and he’s left it up to you and me, sweetheart, to take the next step. Think, Rebekah, ninety million dollars in bearer bonds, hidden somewhere, and your father writes what you already know will lead you to where he and Nate hid them. It’s the poem. I think if you and I go over the poem again—” He paused, studied her set face. “Rebekah, think of what good we could do with ninety million dollars. You and I can work on it together, leave the FBI out of it, just us.”
She looked up at him for a moment, then turned away from him toward the sluggish flames. “Zoltan believed the poem was the key to finding the Big Take, but you’ve heard it now and you know as much as I do, which is nothing. And I’ve told you I don’t want to pursue it.” She looked back at his face, the lines softened in the firelight. Such a handsome face, she’d thought when she’d seen him that first time at Lincoln Center. She said slowly, “You really want to find those bearer bonds, don’t you, Rich?”
He cocked his head at her. “Well, of course. It’s an immense amount of money. As I said, there is so much good we could do with it, you and I. The letter points back to the poem, the answer’s got to be there—” He broke off, stared at the bubble-wrapped package sitting on the coffee table where Rebekah had placed it. “We need to open the package, see what’s inside, see if that key in the poem is in there.”
“I told you, Rich, I want nothing to do with the bearer bonds.” She picked up the bubble-wrapped package and held it to her chest. “Whatever is inside this bubble wrap is meant for me. Not you. Not us.”
He grabbed her arm. “Rebekah, how can you think you still need to keep his secrets from me? That man lied to you your whole life, and I’m your husband. If you’re concerned about ethics, what about our vows to each other? I hope you’ll honor those, rather than a child’s promise to a dead man. Give me the package, Rebekah.”
She shook her head, held the package tighter.
“Give it to me, Rebekah.”
She shook her head again. “No.”
He moved fast, pulled the package out of her arms, and stepped back. He walked quickly to the marquetry table, picked a pair of scissors out of the drawer, and began cutting the bubble wrap, peeling it away. He said without looking up, “There’s no need to get hysterical, Rebekah. We’re only going to see what your dad sent you.”
He lifted a plaster of paris bust of her father from its nest of padding, held it up to the light. “A bust of your father? Wait, I see now. The poem said the key is in his head.”
Rebekah said quietly, “The bust is mine, Rich, not yours. Don’t smash it.”
“That’s exactly what we need to do.”
“Rich, no!”
He slammed the bust against the marble apron in front of the fireplace. It shattered loud as a gunshot, spewing up shards of plaster.
Rebekah cried out, dropped to her knees, and began to pick through the plaster pieces. He saw the key first, leaned down, and grabbed it. “The key was in the old man’s head. How very fitting. Without the poem, we would never have known it was there, and the bust might have stayed whole forever.” He left her there, on her knees, her father’s bust in pieces around her.
Slowly, Rebekah got to her feet. She watched him examine the key under a table lamp. He looked up, saw her, and smiled. “It’s a small brass key, common, nothing on it, no indication what it’s to, maybe a safe-deposit key, but there’s no ID, no serial numbers.” Still smiling, he carried the key to where she stood stiff, so angry she had no words. “Do you know what this key is to, Rebekah?”
She could make out two tiny wavy lines along the curved top of the key, one red, the other blue, barely visible to the naked eye. She felt her heart leap. She knew, yes, she knew exactly where those bearer bonds were hidden. She looked up at her husband, kept her voice calm, submissive. “It is what you see, Rich, a plain little brass key. I have no idea what it opens.”
“Another secret inside a secret? That’s a lot like him. Will they ever stop?” He paused a moment, studied her face, studied the key again. He said slowly, “But I don’t believe you, Rebekah.”
