Until You Loved Me (Silver Springs #3)(86)

“When they found you, it was on the news and in all the papers, like I said,” Cort was explaining. “So I knew. The police even questioned me, asked if I’d seen or heard anything unusual in the neighborhood that day.”

“And you lied, of course. But...they didn’t question your daughter—even though she’d just had a baby?”

“They didn’t know about that. She quit school as soon as she found out she was pregnant, hardly left the house. Right after you were born, we moved.”

This was so surreal Hudson was tempted to think he was having a nightmare. He shook his head in astonishment.

“I was glad you were okay,” Matisson added, “even though letting you live put me at risk.”

Hudson barked out a humorless laugh. “Oh! How generous of you to be glad I didn’t die! Am I supposed to admire you for that?”

“I didn’t mean... No, of course not. It’s just... I had nothing against you personally.”

“Nice to hear, Dad. I’ve been worried all these years about what I could possibly have done wrong—at birth.”

Matisson flinched at the heavy sarcasm, but Hudson didn’t care. He wanted to lash out in worse ways, make this man hurt as badly as he’d hurt for so long. “Once your daughter came forward and told the police she’d had your baby, quite a few years had passed. Why didn’t you do the right thing and confess—for her sake?” he asked. “If you felt any remorse whatsoever, that’s how you should’ve handled it. Instead, you admitted there was a baby but told the police what you’d told her—that the child was stillborn and you couldn’t remember where you buried it.” Jones had said the police had been skeptical of Cort Matisson’s story. But they’d never connected Matisson to the abandoned newborn in Bel Air. Matisson and his daughter lived in Arizona by the time she went to the authorities. Instead, they’d suspected he’d killed the baby, but without a body, they couldn’t prove it.

Matisson shoved his hands in the pockets of his worn jeans. “Admitting anything else would’ve gotten me more time. I served ten years as it was.”

Hudson sank onto the couch. “Why are you here now?” he asked dully. “You have to know that what I’d like to do to you would be far worse than anything you might’ve endured in prison.”

“I understand that, yes, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir, as if you have some respect for me. You don’t respect anyone.”

“I knew how you’d feel about me, Hudson.”

Hudson didn’t like this guy using his name, either. But what he really objected to was being related to this dirtbag in the first place. “And yet you came in spite of that.”

“I wouldn’t have come for my own sake. I’m here because I don’t have any choice.”

“Bullshit. No one dragged you here.”

“You’re my only hope.”

Hudson jumped to his feet and grabbed the old man by the shirt collar, dragging him forward until they were nose to nose. “You’d better not be here to ask me for money,” he ground out.

The color drained from Matisson’s face. “No. N-not for myself. It’s for your mother.”

His mother had been a sixteen-year-old girl victimized by her own father. Hudson had refused to let himself think about her, had refused to fully accept what the PI had told him. “This Julia person you mentioned that I’ve never met. You’re here for her.”

“Yes. She was married once. Has a couple of other kids—two boys, one ten and one eight. But she’s divorced now, and her ex can’t keep a job. Won’t keep a job, I should say. She hasn’t even seen him for over a year, doesn’t know where he’s at, so it’s not like she can count on him for any support.”

“You expect me to step in and fill that gap—knowing what I know? I realize she wasn’t at fault, that she’s as much a victim in this as I am, but what makes you think I’d ever want to claim either one of you?”

“I was hoping you might have some compassion—for Julia, not me,” he said. “She has cancer. Can’t cover her bills while she’s off work to get treatment. With how well you’re doing, I thought maybe you could help her out a little. That’s all. She was just an innocent girl who...who trusted the wrong person.”

Was this some kind of scam? Cort’s daughter had eventually turned him in, but there was no saying what their relationship was like now. Had they reconciled and concocted this story between them, hoping to cash in on Hudson’s success? “So she knows I’m alive.”

“No. I haven’t told anyone yet. I wanted to...to have some money to give her, so she’d at least talk to me. She won’t answer my calls, won’t let me in when I go over to see how she’s doing.”

“So money from me would be your peace offering.”

“I only want to help her.”

“But I’m sure she’s needed things all along, things you knew I could provide.”

“She’s never been this desperate. When I caught someone going through my garbage, picking out the beer bottles, I realized the truth was about to come out, anyway. I’m not the smartest man in the world, but I knew what that PI was after as soon as I walked out to confront him.”