Page 31

TWENTY-NINE

I showered, dressed, and turned on ESPN. It was week fourteen of the football season, and both New York teams were on TV. The Jets were playing Buffalo at one o’clock, and the Giants were playing Tampa Bay at four. McCormick’s, with its state-of-the-art thirty-two-inch SONY TV sets, would be wall-to-wall with hungry, thirsty, rowdy fans, so I knew my father would take an early-morning train back to Heartstone.

He called from the bar at eleven. “You and Lizzie okay?”

“Another boring night in suburbia,” I said. “How was the big city?”

“Crowded and expensive, but we had a good time. I’ll be working late. I should be home around ten. Call me if you need me.”

My plan was to confront his jailbird girlfriend. I doubted if I’d need him.

“You bet,” I said. “Love you, Dad.”

“Love you too.”

He hung up without saying, “Oh, by the way, I bought Connie this incredible engagement ring at Tiffany’s,” so I knew two things. There was still time to put an end to their relationship, and nobody else was going to be able to do it but me.

I waited till two o’clock before I drove over to Connie’s house. I rang the doorbell, and I heard her yell from inside. “I’ll be right there.”

She must have been upstairs in the loft working, because it took a while for her to get to the door, and when she opened it, she was wearing a paint-stained Hunter College sweatshirt.

“Maggie,” she said, surprised to see me. “Come in, come in.”

I stepped inside; she closed the door, led me into the living room, and pointed me to the sofa.

“Sit down. Make yourself comfortable,” she said.

“I’ll stand. This won’t take long.”

“Suit yourself,” she said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“This is not a social call. It’s business.”

“Oh my. You sound serious. What can I do for you?”

“I want you to stay away from my father.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I know how difficult it’s been for you to lose your mother. And I’m sure it’s confusing for you to see your father with another woman. But can’t you see how happy he is?”

“Is he as happy as Mr. Lowry was?” I said.

She didn’t blink.

“Or Dr. Tanner?”

She stood there, stone-faced.

“Or how about victim number three, Malcolm Griffin?”

“Well, well, well,” she said, dropping the deadpan expression. “If it isn’t Nancy Drew, girl detective. I wondered who had been snooping around my house, rifling through my things. Take a tip from a professional, missy. Next time tell your boyfriend to put the toilet seat back down. Did you find what you were looking for?”

“You know I did. And you heard what I said. Stay away from my father.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Your father’s a grown man. He makes his own decisions.”

“You’re right. He does. But he hasn’t been making informed decisions. What do you think he’ll say when he finds out you did prison time for stealing from your ex-husbands?”

“That was the old me. I paid my debt, and I got my life straightened out. And what happened? I moved to small-town America, I met a nice guy, and his daughter and her hoodlum boyfriend broke into my house. You’re the one who committed the crime here. Not me. So get your facts straight.”

“You want the facts?” I said. “You moved to small-town America, you tracked the obituaries in the local paper, you targeted my widowed father, then you walked into his bar one night and suckered him in with a sob story about a dead husband who never existed. And I’ll bet your pioneering grandmother, Marie Curie, doesn’t exist either, but you sure conned my sister into buying your bullshit.

“If you want to report me to the cops for breaking into your house, be my guest. I’ll be happy to sit on the witness stand sobbing my heart out to the jury that I would do it all over again, because that’s what a loving daughter does to protect her father from a predator.

“As for my hoodlum boyfriend, he may not be smart enough to put down the toilet seat, but he knows a lot about the life you live. Here’s what he told me: ‘Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes you get lucky and someone gives you the chance to cut your losses before the cops show up.’ I’m that someone, and I’m giving you twenty-four hours to tell my father you’re done with him. Dump him, shit on him, break his heart—I don’t care. Just end it, or I will expose you for the bottom-feeding phony that you are.”

I had her, and she knew it. But I could tell by her scowling eyes and sneering lips that she wouldn’t go gently.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll leave him alone. Although somehow I doubt that he’s your biological father.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I said.

She looked at me with sheer contempt. “I know Finn McCormick,” she said. “He’s a good man, a gentle soul. He couldn’t possibly have fathered a piece of shit like you. My best guess—you’re the product of some lowlife dirtbag who fucked your worthless tramp of a mother. I hope she rots in hell.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks. I knew I’d won. I knew my threats had scared her off. But the price of victory was more pain than I could bear.