The Bourbon Thief(100)

“Do you love your daughter?”

“What kind of question is that?” he asked. “Of course I love my daughter.”

“I wonder if someone will tell someone else her story someday.”

“I hope it’s a happier story than that one,” McQueen said. A tight knot had formed in his stomach. He’d been drinking all night, but he was terribly sober and wished he wasn’t.

“Oh, but it is a happy story. I know that’s hard to believe. When justice is done, the people rejoice. When mercy has fallen, the angels rejoice.”

“Please... I’m begging you,” McQueen said, leaning forward and holding his hands open in supplication. “Tell me what happened to Tamara. Did she die?”

“We all die. Side effect of being born.”

McQueen let out an exasperated, “Fuck,” and stood up. He walked to the window and pulled the mirror away. He felt imprisoned in this room and the truth stood guard all around him. He stared out at the green lawn, neat as a chessboard. That wasn’t right, was it? If somebody had enough money to turn a wild wood into a chessboard, maybe they had too much money.

“You’re torturing me on purpose,” he said.

“Whoever tortured anyone by accident?”

“Are you trying to make me angry with you?”

“You caught me stealing a bottle of bourbon worth nearly a million dollars at auction and this is what makes you angry? That I won’t tell you more of Tamara’s story?”

“I listened to every word you said tonight. There were so many chances to end it before it started. If Nash hadn’t killed himself... If Virginia had told Tamara the truth instead of leaving it to George Maddox to tell her... If George had acknowledged his son... If Tamara had told her mother what her grandfather did to her instead of keeping it a secret... There were so many times someone could have done something or said something and then...”

“And then what? You think someone could have saved Tamara from Levi? Or saved Levi from Tamara? Or saved them both from George Maddox?” Paris shook her head like she was chiding a small child she’d caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I told you. Fate was what brought them together. Fate was what brought about the end of Red Thread. And fate is just another name for a train that cannot stop until it reaches its final destination.”

McQueen watched one green leaf catch an updraft. It fell up instead of down. When he slept again, later today or tomorrow night, he would dream of Tamara, and in his dream he would see her in a white dress running toward railroad tracks, and a train—red and black and made of unforgiving steel—charging toward her, and if she kept running, she would be hit. And in his dream he would run from nowhere and catch her in his arms at the last second before she ran onto the tracks. She’d giggle and laugh and wriggle like little girls do when you pick them up when they don’t want to be. We were just playing a game, Daddy, she would say, and he would have to chide her without scaring her because he didn’t want her doing it again, but he also didn’t want her to know how close she’d come to being hit. But that’s not a good game. Don’t play that game. You’ll get hurt, baby...

She was a baby, Tamara Maddox. Only gods and little children think they’re the center of the universe. Only gods and little children are right about that.

“There’s no way...” McQueen stopped, his throat inexplicably tight. “There’s no way to go through that and survive it and be okay after. Is there?”

“Why do you say that?” Paris asked, her voice a doctor’s voice now, searching for a diagnosis.

“Because I wouldn’t be able to deal, finding that out about the person I married. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t.”

“But you aren’t Tamara Maddox,” she said. “You aren’t Tamara Shelby.”

“No. I’m not.”

McQueen sat on the coffee table in front of Paris. He reached for her hands and she let him take them in his. He caressed her fingers, her palms, traced the long, curving lifeline down the base of her index finger to her wrist. The ring finger on her left hand retained the slightest indention from a wedding band taken off only recently.

“You loved your husband?”

Paris answered in a whisper. “I did, yes.”

He stroked her pulse point, the lightly throbbing veins.

“Paris...that was what Veritas named her child.”

“She did.”

“And you’re descended from her. That’s who you are, isn’t it? That’s why you say you’re a Maddox?”

“I am a Maddox. Veritas was my grandmother’s grandmother. And that makes Jacob Maddox my grandmother’s grandfather.”

“You drink bourbon.” He grinned at her, clutching her smaller left hand in both of his.

“It’s in my blood. Of course I do. And let’s be honest, it is some good shit, Cooper McQueen.”

McQueen laughed and so did she.

He lifted her wrist to his lips and kissed it.

Over the top of her hand at his mouth, he said to her, “Make me an offer.”

“I’ll tell you what happened to Tamara.”

He raised his eyebrow.

“You drive a hard bargain,” he said.

“Make me an offer,” she said.