Читать книгу Andrew Gross 3-Book Thriller Collection 1: The Dark Tide, Don’t Look Twice, Relentless - Andrew Gross, Andrew Gross - Страница 76

The house was dark. Karen sat in Charlie’s office. The kids had long since closed their doors and gone to sleep.

Karen stared over and over at the e-mail address. Oilman0716.

Waves of anger and uncertainty coursed through her veins. Anger mixed with accusation, uncertainty at what she should do. She wasn’t sure if she even knew what she was feeling inside, but the more she stared at the familiar number, the more all doubt was gone. She knew it had to be Charlie.

And that took something out of her. The last ember of faith she still had in him. In the life they’d led. Her last hope.

You bastard, Charlie …

Contact him? She didn’t know what she could possibly even say to him.

How could you, Charlie? How could you have left us like that? We were a team. We were soul mates, right? Didn’t we always say how we completed each other? How could you have done these horrible things?

Karen’s head felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. She thought of AJ Raymond and Jonathan Lauer. Deaths her husband was tied to. It repulsed her, sickened her.

Is it all true?

Over the past year, she had learned to make her peace with the fact that her husband had died. She’d done whatever it had taken. And now he was back. Alive—just as she was alive.

She could confront him.

Oilman0716.

What could she possibly say?

Are you alive, Charlie? Are you reading this? Do you know how I feel? How we would all feel if the children even knew? How badly you’ve hurt me? How you cheapened all those years we spent together. Charlie, how …?

She logged on to her own AOL account. KFried111. Twice she even summoned the courage to go as far as type in his address. Oilman.

Then stopped herself.

What was there to be gained from opening this all up? To have him say he was sorry. To have him admit to her that he was someone other than the person she knew. That he had done these things—while living with her, sleeping with her. Planned his way out. To hear the pretense that he had once loved her, loved them …

Why? What was to be gained? To drag her family through it all over again. This time it would be much worse.

A tear burned down Karen’s cheek. A tear filled with doubt and accusation. She stared at the address on the screen and started to cry.

“Mom?”

Karen looked up. Samantha was in the doorway, in her oversize Michigan T-shirt and panties. “Mom, what’s going on? What are you doing here sitting in the dark?”

Karen brushed away the tear. “I don’t know, baby.”

“Mom, what’s happening?” Sam came over to the desk and knelt next to her. “What are you doing at Dad’s desk? You can’t tell me it’s nothing—something’s been bothering you for over two weeks.” She put her hand on Karen’s shoulder. “It’s about Dad, isn’t it? I know it. That detective was here again. Now there’s a car outside down the street. What the hell’s going on, Mom? Look at you—you’re in here crying. Those people are bothering us again, aren’t they, Mom?”

Karen nodded, drawing in a breath. “They sent another note,” she said, wiping the wetness out of her eyes. “I just want you to have a day to yourself we’ll all be proud of, honey. You deserve that. And then go on that trip.”

“And then what happens, Mom? What the hell has Dad done? You can tell me, Mom. I’m not six.”

How? How could she tell her? Tell her all? It would be like stealing her daughter’s innocence in a way, the warm memory she carried of her father. They had mourned him, laid him to rest. Learned to live without him. Damn you, Charlie, Karen seethed. Why are you making me do this now?

She cuddled Sam by the waist and took a breath. “Daddy may have done some things, Sam. He may have run some people’s money. Bad people, honey. Offshore. Illegally. I don’t know who they were. All I know is now they want it.”

“Want what, Mom?”

“Money that’s unaccounted for, honey. That Daddy may have lost. That’s the message they wanted you to pass along to me.”

“What do you mean, they want it, Mom? He’s dead.”

Karen brought her daughter to her lap and squeezed her, the way she did when she was little, even drawing in a breath of Sam’s familiar fresh-scrubbed scent. She shuddered against what she was about to say.

“Yes, honey, he’s dead.” Karen nodded against her.

“There’s stuff you’re not telling me, isn’t there? I know, Mom. Lately you’re always down there rifling through his old things. Now you’re here, in the middle of the night, in his office, in front of his computer. Daddy wouldn’t do something wrong. He was a good man. I saw the way he worked. I saw the way the two of you were with each other. He’s not here to defend himself, so it’s up to us. He would never have done anything that would cause us harm. He may have been your husband, Mom, but he was our dad. I knew him, too.”

“Yes, baby, you’re right.” Karen hugged her. “It is up to us.” She stroked Sam’s hair as her daughter folded into her.

It’s up to us that this has to end. Whatever it was these people wanted from her. Sam had a life to live. They all did. What was this nightmare going to do—follow them forever?

Would you really want to know, baby, if I told you? What he’d done. Would you really want your memories and love destroyed? Like mine. Wouldn’t it just be better, simply to love him, to remember him as you do? Taking you to skating practice, helping you with your math. Being there in your heart, as he was now?

“This is scaring me a little, Mom,” Sam said, pulling close.

“Don’t let it, honey.” Karen kissed her hair. But inside, she said to herself, It scares me, too.

Damn you, Charlie. Why did I ever have to see your face on that screen?

Look at what you’ve done.