Sins of the Father Read Online Free PDF Page B

abduct Sofia Datello again
too. Would someone come after me again? It sparked a sense of
urgency in my heart, to get the person behind what happened to me
and make him pay. If Johnny knew that I feared another abduction,
he wouldn’t have let me out of his sight for a second. It would
seriously hamper the vengeance that simmered inside me.
    There would be justice, but it wouldn’t come
from the court. There would be an end to the threat, but the police
wouldn’t be the ones to protect me and facilitate an arrest. I
didn’t fight the instinct within me. I would never fight it
again.
    I am my father’s child. Wendell’s child.
Biology means nothing. He’s my father.
    But learning the truth about my first
moments on earth was the best way I could think of to find out who
continued to pull strings in my life. If that meant that I had to
learn that my gene pool came from Aidan and Kathleen Conall instead
of Wendell and Marie Eriksson, that’s what I would do.
    Maya met me in front of the same furniture
store where I had purchased most of what was in my house in Beach
Cliffs now. She held two cups of coffee in her hands.
    “It’s decaf,” she thrust one forward. “Can’t
have you overloading on caffeine in your condition.”
    I laughed. “I’m assuming that the content
would meet Johnny’s exacting standards for my calorie
consumption.”
    “Loaded with fat and sugar. I’m surprised he
didn’t talk you into letting him tag along, Helen. Aside from the
fact that I’ve never seen anybody so frantic as he was after it
happened, he seems like he’s going to be the ultimate hands on
partner during this pregnancy.”
    “And beyond,” I grinned. “He hasn’t said a
whole lot about it yet, but I know he’s dying to jump in and be a
dad. Super Dad.”
    “He loves you, my friend.”
    I nodded soberly. “Yeah, I know he does.” It
was knowledge that would make decisions difficult for me. “He had a
hard time letting me leave the house this morning.” We sat on a
large planter outside the store while the last filaments of morning
fog burned off in the bright sunshine.
    “How are you handling this, Helen? I mean
really handling it, not just what you know everyone wants to
hear.”
    I shrugged. “I have good days and bad days,
I suppose. It gets a little easier every day. At first I wasn’t
sure any of this was real. I thought maybe I’d lost my mind and was
only imagining that Johnny found me.”
    “He warned all of us not to talk about what
happened out there, Helen, but there’s something I think you should
know.”
    “Tell me.”
    “Are you sure? I don’t want to be
responsible for a setback.”
    “I’m positive.”
    She nodded slowly. “All right. They had
Gillette’s body shipped back here, since that’s where the crime
took place and the investigation belonged to OSI.”
    “You did the autopsy?”
    “Yes,” she said. “Honey, when you put your
mind to killing someone, you really get the job done.”
    “I broke his neck.”
    “His neck, severed his spinal cord, crushed
his larynx, you name it. Johnny said they had your ankles in irons.
Yet I didn’t find a single ligature mark on his throat.”
    “He’d been dead for a few days, Maya. I’d
imagine it compromised some of the physical findings you might’ve
otherwise observed.”
    “You’d think, wouldn’t you? I found your
skin under his fingernails and your footprints – at least from the
balls of your feet – on his chest.”
    “I thought I was standing on his arm. Funny
how my perceptions of all that were so skewed.” Another thought
occurred to me. “You have my DNA on file now?”
    “It’s not being entered into the system if
that’s what your worried about.”
    “Can I trust you to keep my confidence,
Maya? I mean, no matter what, would you keep a secret if I asked
you to?”
    “We’re not talking something illegal are
we?”
    “No, of course not. I freely admit that I
killed Gillette. I don’t feel the slightest