Susannah's Garden (Blossom Street #3)(97)

Before, when Susannah had visited her father’s grave, she’d felt nothing but anger, venting her frustration at him. Her attitude was vastly different now. She smiled down at the gravestone, her heart filled with renewed love for him, and a sense of loss for the wasted years.

Joe’s hand tightened around hers. When she glanced up, she gasped. It seemed as if her heart had suddenly stopped. The world started to spin. No, this couldn’t be right—she must be seeing things. It was because she’d been thinking about her father….

Stepping out from behind the mausoleum and walking toward her was…George Leary. Only he was younger, handsomer.

“Dad?” she whispered, her voice cracking.

“Susannah,” Joe said softly. “It’s Doug, your brother.”

“Doug?” Tears flooded her eyes and her knees went out from under her. Her brother had been dead for over thirty years. She would have collapsed onto the freshly mowed lawn if Joe hadn’t grabbed her waist and kept her upright.

“I’m sorry to shock you,” Doug said, rushing forward, “but I didn’t know any other way to do this.”

“How…why…when?”

“Perhaps we should go back to the house and talk about this,” Joe suggested.

Doug frowned, looking uncertain. “Your daughter’s staying with you?”

“She’s gone back to Seattle.”

Doug nodded. “Good. I’ll meet you there.”

Susannah continued to tremble once they were inside the car. “He looks so much like my father.” Then it came to her. “Oh, my goodness, Mom…” Her mother had repeatedly told Susannah that she’d seen George, and she had seen him, a younger version of her dead husband. Her son. With her mind befuddled by grief and disorientation, Vivian must have believed that George had come back from the dead to be with her. It explained so much of what her mother had told her. How quick Susannah had been to dismiss her claims.

Doug arrived at the house five minutes after Susannah and Joe, and surreal though it seemed, introductions were made. Susannah brewed a pot of strong coffee. She needed it. Had it been later in the day, she would’ve reached for a shot glass. There were times the body needed that kind of jolt to cope with shock.

Doug was about to take a seat at the table when Susannah began to speak. “I thought Jake was the one who left me the notes,” she told him. “How did you get into the house the last time? I had the security alarm on.”

Her brother smiled apologetically at her. “I turned off the alarm. The code was easy enough to figure out. You used your birthdate, and I had the key from inside the brick.”

Of course. That was how Chrissie had gotten inside the house that first evening. Chrissie had put it back and neither of them had ever checked again. Susannah had forgotten all about it.

“I figured you’d think it was Jake,” he went on. “Contacting you like this was a rotten thing to do, and I apologize.”

“But…but if you’re alive, is anyone buried in your casket? And what was in the house that you kept trying to find? It was you all these times, wasn’t it?”

Doug put up his hand to stop her. “Maybe I’d better tell this from the beginning.”

“Please,” Joe said, gesturing toward the kitchen table. They all sat down.

Doug, who faced the window, stared sightlessly into the distance. “It started just before you went to France, Susannah, when Jake came to me. He needed money and needed it fast. He was desperate to keep you from leaving, and he’d gotten involved in a drug deal to make some quick cash. He ended up in Idaho, where he got into trouble with some not very nice guys, and asked me for help. I don’t know what he thought I could do, but I went back with him in the hope of straightening everything out.”

“Were you selling drugs?” Susannah asked.

“No,” Doug returned adamantly. “I had no idea what I was getting into. Jake, either. By the time we knew, it was too late. We were part of a sting operation designed to catch the big-time suppliers, the guys Jake had gotten himself mixed up with. We were just some of the little fish caught in that net. But both of our names were on the arrest warrant.”

“So you fled.” Susannah didn’t understand why, if he was innocent, her brother hadn’t simply faced the authorities.

“Jake and I hightailed it out of Idaho, and it was the stupidest mistake of my life,” her brother said. “I didn’t realize that when I returned to Washington, a minor drug bust became a federal crime. All I could think of was to get to Dad and ask for his help.”

Susannah nodded, but she still didn’t grasp how the situation had gotten so quickly out of hand. “I was ready to give up, take my punishment,” he said. “I even had a date with Patricia the night we got home, but then Jake panicked and went to Sharon Nance. Apparently she couldn’t or wouldn’t help him, so he stole my car.”

“Did Jake resume his relationship with Sharon while I was in France?” Susannah asked.

“No,” Doug said.

“Later then. He must have if she had a son by him.”

“No,” Doug told her again. “There wouldn’t have been time. As I said, he stole my car and made a run for it.”

“And got himself killed,” Joe supplied, figuring that part out before Susannah did.