I Will Find You(92)

He wasn’t wrong.

As she slipped out of the water, Stephano was holding a towel for her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Rachel Anderson has just arrived.”

He filled her in on Hayden’s call with his old college chum. They’d been monitoring Hayden’s calls since Burroughs had broken out of prison. Hayden could be irrational and childlike. He worked off emotion and could vacillate with the best of them.

When he finished, Pixie said, “What should we do?”

“This is spinning out of control,” Stephano said.

“You don’t buy that she wants his help identifying someone in the photograph?”

Stephano frowned. “Do you?”

“No. Do you have a plan?”

“According to the news reports, Rachel Anderson is aiding and abetting a convicted child killer with his escape from a federal penitentiary,” Stephano began in his customary matter-of-fact way. He never raised or lowered his voice. He was always calm, always in control, never flustered or ruffled, no matter how dire the situation. “I will put this coldly. We should grab her when she is here. We find out where David Burroughs is hiding. She has to know. We find him. We make them both vanish. For good. I get one of my people to drive her car out so if the police find out she was here, we have evidence she drove out. If asked, we say she asked to see some photographs.”

“So they just…vanish?” Gertrude said.

“Yes.”

“The police will think, what, that they escaped?”

“Probably. They will continue their search, of course.”

“But they will never find them.”

“Never,” Stephano said.

“Suppose they told someone already.”

Stephano smiled. “No one would believe it. And even if they did, between your attorneys and my work, we would shut it down hard.”

Gertrude thought about it. In a way, this was not unique. The best way to get rid of any problem is to get rid of the problem.

“There really is no other way, is there?”

Stephano did not reply. There was no need.

“So when does Rachel arrive?”

“She’s just pulled in,” Stephano said. “I’m just waiting for your approval.”

“You have it.”

*



Hayden stepped outside and hugged Rachel. She let him, doing her best not to squirm away or even cringe. But now she knew. There was no question about it. She could feel it in him now—the lies, the deception, the evil. He had hinted at it to her so often over the years. His propensity for violence. The times his family had covered it up. She had accepted it, embraced it even, because it had benefited her. He had saved her that night. She knew that. And so her vision of him became skewed. Part of her knew that. Part of her could feel something wrong in him, but she’d allowed herself to be deceived. He had helped her. He was also rich and powerful and in truth, being around that was fun and exciting.

“It’s good to have you here again,” Hayden said, still holding her against him. “It’s been too long since you’ve been to Payne.”

When he backed away and looked at her face, she tried to smile through it.

“What’s wrong?” Hayden asked.

“Can we just take a walk through the gardens?”

“Of course. I thought you had photographs you wanted to show me.”

“I’ll show you in a bit. I want to talk first, if that’s okay.”

Hayden nodded. “That would be nice.”

They walked in silence toward the side yard. Up ahead, Rachel could see the mirrored-head fountain and hear the ocean in the background.

“Beautiful, isn’t he?” he said.

“Yes.”

“You are seeing it the same as I am, aren’t you?”

“I’m not sure what you mean, Hayden.”

“We both see this beauty. We both experience the same thing. We have employees here. We have people who work inside the house and outside the house. They have eyes, just like mine, and see the same view I do. We experience it the same. There’s no special platform here just for the rich. So why are they so envious? We see the same thing. We can experience the same pleasure.”

Hayden liked to do this, she knew—justify his wealth in various ways. This was not a rabbit hole she wanted to go down right now. She scanned down the row of hedges looking for David, but he was either well hidden or not there.

“Hayden?”

“Yes?”

“I know.”

“Know what?”

“You have Matthew.”

“Pardon?”

“Can we just skip the denials? I know, okay? You made up the Italian actress. You moved overseas so no one would see the boy. Your family is uber rich, but you’re not gossip fodder, so it isn’t as though paparazzi are dying to take pictures of this son you’re supposedly raising.”

Hayden walked with his hands behind his back. He looked up at the sky and squinted.

“I was able to get the digital file of that photograph and blow it up,” she continued. “The boy in the picture is holding a man’s hand. The hand is yours, Hayden.”

“And you can tell that how?”

“Your ring.”