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And suddenly she knew, knew it in her heart. “When did Gemma first talk to you, Rich, ask for your help? At the funeral?”
“What? Are you accusing me of something now? What’s wrong with you, Rebekah?”
She looked up into his face. She saw impatience, calculation. She said slowly, “You and I talked much more about my father and his stories after he died. I thought you were being thoughtful and supportive, because I was grieving for him. I’ve been quite an idiot, haven’t I? Gemma knew I would never tell her, but she knew you from way back in the nineties when you interned for my father. Did she see you as a kindred spirit, smart enough, sly enough, to help her find that money without my even knowing about it? Is that what you did to me, Rich?”
He fanned his hands in front of him, a gesture meant to reassure. “Whatever Gemma did, sweetheart, you mustn’t ever doubt I love you. I asked you to marry me because I wanted you in my life forever, and I still do.”
“You can’t hide talking with her, Rich. There’ll be phone records, emails.”
“I’m not going to hide anything, Rebekah. Yes, Gemma did call me, told me about what one of the private duty nurses had told her about this poem you’d recited to your dad. Listen to me, Rebekah, Gemma knew you would never talk to her about it, and she doubted you’d say the poem again to anyone. And yes, she assured me a great deal of money was at stake. She didn’t know how much, but she thought it was immense. Believe me, I thought long and hard about what to do, and in the end I decided it was in everyone’s interest to find that money. It’s meant for you, Rebekah, all of it.”
She said dispassionately, “The séance with Zoltan, that would have been Gemma’s idea. But I remember how supportive you were when Zoltan asked to see me. I was expecting you to resist my going, but you didn’t; you encouraged me. You knew, didn’t you? You knew Gemma hired Zoltan to try to manipulate me into believing I was speaking to my dead father, in her ridiculous living room.”
“You never spoke of the poem, and Gemma believed Zoltan could convince anyone of anything. I saw no harm in it, though I warned her you have no belief in the occult, mediums in particular.”
“Zoltan didn’t believe I’d return, but I told you that, Rich, that same night. And the very next day, those two men tried to kidnap me. Was it you who hired those men so they could force me to tell them?”
He looked appalled, angry. “Listen to me, that’s crazy. I love you. I’m your husband. I never hired anyone to kidnap you. I had nothing to do with that. I knew nothing about it, and after I found out what happened, I called Gemma. She denied it. All right, I didn’t believe her. But you can believe this. I told her if anything like that ever happened again, I’d tell you everything. You’re my wife. I protected you.”
“You said you didn’t believe her, yet you still didn’t tell me?”
He said nothing. Rebekah looked at the face of the man she thought she loved, and now that face was someone else entirely, a stranger, a lying stranger.
“And then Zoltan was attacked, after the FBI was onto her. Which of you arranged for her to be shot?”
Was that fear in his eyes? He was shaking his head at her, back and forth, thinking hard, she could see it, and when he finally spoke, he sounded horrified. “Not me! You must stop this now. I knew nothing about that Zoltan shooting. Nothing. What I’ve done, what I’ve tried to do, has only been in your own interest. All right, in both of our interests.”
She marveled at him. Which were the truths, which were the lies? She no longer cared. He’d betrayed her, the man she’d given her love, her future. He’d betrayed her with Gemma. He’d betrayed her for money. There was simply nothing more left between them.
“Give me the key, Rich. It’s mine, not yours. If you don’t, I will tell Agent Savich what you’ve done, how you schemed to steal that money and failed. He’s very good. He’ll find a way to connect you to those crimes, you and Gemma both. Can you imagine the headlines when Congressman Manvers is indicted?”
“I want you to tell me what this key belongs to, Rebekah.”
“What I know or don’t know about that key is no longer any of your concern.”
He cursed in a low voice, threw the key at her. It fell on the sofa beside her. “Keep the bloody thing. I don’t care. I was an idiot to get involved in any of this with Gemma. An idiot. But if you accuse me to Savich, I will tell the world your father, the esteemed Congressman John Clarkson, stole ninety million dollars from the government. Your daddy doesn’t deserve to be remembered as a criminal, does he?”
She saw the banked rage in his eyes fade the moment he realized they were deadlocked.
He gave a bitter laugh and shrugged. “You do know where the bonds are, don’t you?”
She said, “I want you to leave the house now. No, I don’t want your house. I’ll move out tomorrow. But I want you to leave now.”
“Rebekah, you have to believe me—”
“Do you know, I’m understanding Beck better with each passing minute in your company.” She didn’t look at him again, walked out of the living room, her head held high, carrying the small brass key and her father’s letter, and climbed up the wide staircase.
She heard the front door slam. She slowly walked back down the stairs and turned the dead bolt, remembered Beck, sighed, and flipped it off. It didn’t matter if Rich came back. What could he do?
When she stepped into her bedroom, she looked toward the bed where she’d slept beside her husband for six months, a man she’d married and trusted, counted on. She looked at her father’s letter again. Life is an incredible gift, regardless of its unexpected tragedies.
A gift. Perhaps someday she’d believe it. She looked down at the key and smiled.
