Part 3 (2/2)

It made the research brought on by what Jessa had said quick and easy.

Alden, playing on the death of his first wife...

His first wife.

For all his talk about doing his homework, he'd failed miserably. He'd been in such a hurry to stop this abomination that he'd jumped the gun. Several guns. He, who prided himself on always being three steps ahead, who antic.i.p.ated every possibility, hadn't just fallen down on that job, he'd taken a nosedive.

And here of all places-here where he'd first realized that knowledge and preparation and prescience was safety, and that lack of it brought terror and pain-he should have been completely prepared.

But he wasn't. Which brought him back to the irksome realization that perhaps he hadn't vanquished those old demons as thoroughly as he thought he had.

Good thing you brought the laptop, he thought, still angry at himself, so you can do what you should have done before you ever left Redstone.

For shorter jobs, he usually relied on the efficient phone's browsing capabilities, but he'd had no idea how long this would take, so he'd packed up the equally efficient and also customized laptop that was now showing him what he should have known long ago.

Of course, knowing this evil as he did, he couldn't imagine Alden would find another woman to marry him. But he saw how ridiculous that was now; of course he had. To the outside world he was charming, polished, the most upstanding of citizens. Women had always fawned over him, a fact he'd never failed to rub in his wife's face to remind her of her own shortcomings.

St. John remembered once when he'd been about nine, overhearing his mother beg his father to divorce her. He would never forget the sound of the laugh that had burst from the man. It had sent s.h.i.+vers down his spine.

”You'd like that, wouldn't you?” his father had sneered. ”Get your hands on my money, so you and your brat can live high?”

”He's your son.” The protest had been feeble. Only later had St. John appreciated the courage even that much had taken.

”I won't let you embarra.s.s me in front of the whole town. They would never believe you, of course, but I don't want them knowing what a stupid, crazy, inadequate woman I had the misfortune to marry.”

”I don't want your money,” she'd said with a whimper, so belatedly responding to the original words that St. John, hiding in the crawl s.p.a.ce beneath the house where he often hid to avoid his father's wrath, wondered if she really was stupid, or at least very slow. ”Just let us go.”

The laugh, that hideous, stomach-roiling laugh, came again. ”The only way you'll leave is in a box,” he promised her. ”And I'll have a use for that boy, someday soon.”

He hadn't understood, at nine, the box reference. And in his innocent ignorance, he'd dared to hope his father truly might look at him differently, someday soon, when he'd said he'd have a use for him. ”d.a.m.n you!”

The words burst from him as a nausea he hadn't felt in years churned up his gut at the memory of just what that use had been. And he wasn't sure if the curse was aimed at his father or himself.

He went back to the screen, this time making himself read the entire piece that was dated three years ago.

How like the man, he thought, to turn what should be a private, personal celebration into a carnival. The wedding had been held in the public square, and the entire town had been invited. And many had apparently shown up, possibly, he thought sourly, as much for the elaborate catered banquet as anything else.

He wondered if any of them thought the ostentatious show in poor taste at the time. Or perhaps now, looking back, the cynical might think he'd done it to put himself in the public consciousness, already with an eye toward challenging the mayor in the next election. That it had come sooner than expected, with the death of Jesse Hill, would have just been a bonus.

He interrupted his reading to look again at the photograph; the woman was attractive enough-his father would settle for nothing less-and not particularly cowed or timid-looking. But perhaps that was how it started, perhaps the rest only came later, when she was so thoroughly broken and trapped there was no escape.

When had she discovered she had married, not the smooth, urbane, amiable man of her dreams, but a monster? Did she even know yet? Could Albert Alden keep his true nature hidden for so long?

He went back to the article, his mouth twisting into a grimace at the near gus.h.i.+ng tone of it; the writer had obviously been impressed. Awed, even. The list of notable guests included a couple of county officials, even a local congressman. And, of course, the mayor and his wife. Jessa's father and mother.

The list did not, however, include Jessa herself. An unlikely oversight in the exhaustively thorough article? Or had she purposefully not gone?

Had she even been around?

As often as he'd thought about her, the one memory he allowed himself from that time, he'd never checked on her. He'd never turned the prodigious network he'd built on her, never tried to trace or track her. He'd told himself he wanted the one, single, bright spot of that dark time to remain untarnished.

But even now, after he'd wondered if she was still here, he hadn't done the research to find out what she'd done in the intervening years. He wasn't certain why he was so reluctant, when the information might well be pertinent to why he was here. He was even more uncertain why he knew this reluctance was different than simply dodging old demons, which was, if humiliating, at least understandable.

He had no idea why he didn't want to probe into Jessa's life. Unless he was afraid of what he'd find. Which made no sense, either.

An image flashed through his head of that odd moment in the office when Jessa had looked at him so intently, her brows slightly furrowed, staring into his eyes as if she were searching for something.

As if she were searching for something she thought she should find.

Something familiar.

He'd stopped breathing for a moment, wondering if somehow, some way, she had recognized him. And his heart gave a ridiculous leap, as if impossibly in hope. He'd sneered at himself the instant he'd recognize the long-lost emotion; he didn't indulge in hope. It accomplished nothing, helped nothing, saved nothing.

But the moment had pa.s.sed. She had seemed to shake off whatever feeling had gripped her and moved on.

And he'd had to fight down the urge to tell her.

He swore under his breath again. Focus was his best skill, along with compartmentalization. Yet he seemed to have lost his grip on both. Compartment doors seemed to be springing open, and his brain was reeling under the impact of the chaos.

He quickly turned back to scan the rest of the report on the ”wedding of the century,” a piece of hyperbole that nearly made him gag.

And near the end of the glowing report, he did gag. Because he saw a single thing that made too much too clear.

Also in attendance was the bride's seven-year-old son, Tyler.

Seven. Three years ago. Ten now.

His stomach clenched violently.

The demons broke lose.

His father had a new target.

Chapter 6.

”We're small, but we can grow,” Albert Alden trumpeted from the gazebo in the town square to the gathered faithful. ”We can move ahead, leave the stubborn old ways behind, and prosper. We can make life better for everyone in Cedar.”

Listening from the back of the crowd, Jessa was thinking inevitably of her father. Her father had understood Cedar and its people. Had understood the stock from which they'd descended-hardworking, independent sorts, determined to make their own way. He'd been one of them. Stubborn? Perhaps they were. But as her father had been fond of saying, sometimes pure, cussed stubbornness was all that got you through.

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