Page 66 of Stolen Goods
“I can’t believe you lied!” she shouted at their mother and flung her notebooks from the table. They sailed into the wall and sank to the floor. Homework, he presumed. “I could’ve met my father? I could’ve had a brother? I can’t— I can’t—”
Emma lost her voice to tears. She ran around the table, lifting one hand to her lips, trying to fight the water pooling in her eyes. Thad caught her arm as she rounded the table, forcing her to stop. He slid his hand down until he found her fingers, slipping a little paper into her palm. Emma looked up, meeting his eyes as her fist closed around the note. Her brows twitched together. Curiosity brightened her gray eyes, little spots of sunlight breaking through the clouds.
“I know what it was like to grow up with questions, and I don’t want that for you,” Thad said, still holding her hand. The Feds watching from the sidelines didn’t see the exchange. If they had, they would’ve stepped in. Emma was a natural. Deception was in their blood. “If you never want to speak to me again, that’s fine. I understand. But if you want to know more about me, about our father, I’ll tell you the truth, whether you’ll like it or not. I won’t sugarcoat. I’d like nothing more than to get to know you, for you to get to know me, but for once in this family, I’d like a relationship based on honesty.” He let her go. Then he glanced around, meeting the eyes of some of the agents watching from the hall. “The Feds will know how you can contact me.”
Emma held his gaze a moment longer, a silent understanding passing between them. He already knew how to read her, maybe because their eyes were so similar it was like looking into a mirror, or maybe because of something deeper, something innate. He wanted to believe the latter, that there was some invisible bond stretching between them, a connection between siblings, but it was difficult to hold on to that hope as she turned and fled up the stairs. Her feet pounded. A door slammed. Muffled music trickled down in her wake, reminding them all that she was just a teenage girl whose whole life had flipped upside down. But it was okay. He’d done what he came here to do.
He met her.
He told her the truth.
He gave her the secret email address Jo had helped him set up ages ago.
And now the rest was up to her.
“I’m ready,” Thad said, turning toward Agent Parker. The Fed stepped forward, but a feminine voice stopped him.
“Thad, don’t just…”
“What, Mom?” he snapped, his emotions finally too strong to control now that Emma was gone and he didn’t have to hold back. He turned and looked his mom dead in the eyes, a snarl on his lips. “Leave?”
She recoiled as though hit.
He stood his ground.
“Please, just, let me look at you,” she murmured, one hand clutching her throat, the other wrapped around her midsection. “You look so…so…”
“Much like him?” The words slipped out before he could stop them, echoing her final words to him seventeen years before.
His mom sucked in a sharp breath and closed her eyes. As the air slowly released, her whole body fell, arching in on itself. She blinked a few times. “I was going to say grown up.”
“That’s what happens when you abandon someone for seventeen years.” Thad shrugged, trying hard to pretend it didn’t hurt. “They get older.”
“Oh, Thad.” She sighed, a sad, sorry sound. “Do you know how much it hurt to see your face for the first time as the breaking story on the nightly news? Do you know what it was like to see all my darkest fears come true? I never wanted to leave you, but I had to. Can’t you understand that? For Emma, for her future, I had to.”
He swallowed, not responding, but he didn’t look away either. As much as he willed his body to turn, to walk away, to deny her the explanation she didn’t deserve, he was frozen solid.
“I never knew what your father did for a living. I was from a poor family. I was young and naïve. He seduced me with his money and his charm, and it wasn’t until you were born that I began to see past the mystique. I overheard him and Robert talking. I snuck into his vault when they were traveling. I realized he wasn’t a businessman, and there was no family money, only the stolen kind. I didn’t want to bring any more children into his web. I was going to stay with him until you grew up, so you had a chance to be different, to be better. Then Emma happened. As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I knew I had to run. I had to give her a chance at a better life, and I knew your father would never let his only son go. Never. After I left, I tried to negotiate visitation rights into the divorce agreement, but he would only let me see you if I also let him see her. And I thought it would be better if she thought he was dead. If she was free from his influence. So she didn’t, so she wouldn’t—”
“End up like me?” He laughed under his breath, a dark, ugly sound. “I know. You don’t have to explain. I figured that out for myself. You sacrificed one child to save the other—I get it. It just wasn’t so easy being the one you left behind.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“Well, you did.” He started to turn and then paused. Like he’d said to Emma, he knew what it was like to live with questions, and this might be his only chance to get answers. “And if you were so bent out of shape about it, why didn’t you find me after he died? You had five long years to make up for lost time. I know Robert contacted you to tell you about the funeral. He wouldn’t have lied to me about that.”
“He did contact me.” She glanced at the floor, ashamed. “But Emma was so young, so fragile.”
“You could’ve come alone.”
“I thought about it.” Her face twisted with pain. “But I didn’t think you’d want to see me, and I didn’t want to cause more pain. I wanted to rebuild—I just didn’t know where to start.”
He’d spent most of the funeral searching for her face in the crowd. The second taste of her rejection was almost as painful as the first. And after five years of wondering, her answer did little to absolve the hurt. “Showing up, Mom. Showing up would’ve been a helluva place to start.”
He turned and walked out of the dining room. Agent Parker watched him with the barest hint of pity in his eyes. All the Feds did. Thad kept his head down. He didn’t want their sympathy or their understanding. He wanted to be alone, the way he should be—so he couldn’t hurt anyone and no one could hurt him. Lonely was easier than gutted. At least there was peace to be found in melancholy, instead of the raging storm that came with pain.
“Thad!” she called down the hall as he made his way to the front door. “The biggest regret of my life is not fighting for you harder.”
Yeah?he thought, reaching for the knob, not bothering to turn around.The biggest regret of my life is wasting so much time wishing you had.
