Читать книгу Andrew Gross 3-Book Thriller Collection 2: 15 Seconds, Killing Hour, The Blue Zone - Andrew Gross, Andrew Gross - Страница 49

In the bedroom of her white clapboard house, Sharon began typing the words into her computer. “Kate …”

There were about a thousand things she wanted to say.

“First, I want to tell you how much I miss you and love you—and how very sad I am that we have put you at risk. But there are things, things I had almost forgotten myself, that I have to say. Time does that, you know. Time and hope. The hope that the past is the past—which it never is. And that the person you will become is different from the person you are now.”

A cold wind blew off the bay, rattling the window. “It’s late. Justin and Em are asleep. This time of night, Kate, I feel like it’s just you and me.”

Downstairs, a female agent stayed awake through the night. There was a tracer on their phones. Across the street there was always a car.

“The kids are holding up well, I guess. They miss their father. They miss a lot of things. Their life. You. They’re young, and they’re confused. They have every right to be. As I’m sure you are, too.

“Your father may be dead—or not, I don’t know. But I am sure I will never see him again. Whatever he’s done, do not judge him too harshly. He loves you. He has always loved you. He’s loved all of you. He’s tried to protect you, all these years. Secrets are hard to keep. They burn a hole in the lining of your soul. It’s so much easier to forget.

“So let me tell you, Kate … now.”

Sharon wrote. She wrote it all out, all the things she felt compelled to say. The meaning of the pendant she had left with Kate. All the things Kate had to know. About her father.

She even told her where they were living.

How much she wanted to say, The hell with it—come, Kate, come. We miss you so much. We need to be together. I don’t care about the goddamned rules. Find us, honey. Come. You need to know the truth.…

Everything came rushing out. “I’m sorry, Kate. For keeping things secret. That you have to feel afraid. For Tina. For keeping our family apart.”

She felt like a true mother again, for the first time in a year.

Suddenly a light flashed in the window. It always scared her. She glanced at the clock and knew it was time.

The government vehicle pulled up the long driveway. As it did every night. She heard the driver’s door open, the agent step out, utter a couple of unintelligible words to his colleague. The changing of the guard.

Sharon stared at the screen. She read over what she had written. A sadness began to tug at her heart.

“Yes, baby, you should know it all.” She read it over again. It was all there. She poised her finger over the “send” icon.

Then she hesitated.

“Live your life,” she’d told her daughter. And she meant it with all her heart. Live your life. You don’t have to know. There’s hope there.

Sharon shut her eyes, as she had a hundred times over the same message she had written out a hundred nights before. She knew that Kate would never get to read it. She knew she mustn’t get her involved.

“Live your life,” she whispered again, aloud.

And she pressed “delete.”

The letter disappeared. Sharon sat there facing a blank screen. She typed four more words, then let her forehead sink to the table as she wiped a tear off her cheek.

The same words she wrote every night before she went to sleep.

“I love you, Mom.”