“I’m kidding. Don’t screw up this stupid will clause because of me. I’m fine. Really. I’m not Mom. I’m not going to kill myself.”
A chill raced over him. There were some things they had never discussed. Their mother’s death was one of them. His gaze shot to the open door between his office and Tara’s. He rose, crossed the room and closed it. “What are you talking about?”
Silence greeted him. His mother’s and Serita’s faces flashed like strobe lights in his mind.
“Nadia, talk to me.”
“You didn’t know?” she asked in a quiet, tentative tone.
A sick feeling churned in his stomach. “Know what?”
“That mom was…unstable.”
“You were only eight when Mom died. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Dad told me. After Lucas…”
The lying son of a bitch. Rand fought to keep his fury out of his voice. “After Lucas and your baby died.”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Rand. I thought you knew. Everybody said you were the closest to Mom. After…my accident Dad sent me to a shrink. He was afraid Mom’s illness ran in the family and that I wouldn’t be able to deal with losing Lucas and our baby. At Dad’s insistence I’ve been seeing a shrink monthly ever since. I guess that’s one thing I won’t miss now that Dad’s gone. I can finally get out of therapy.”
Her laugh sounded hollow.
The pain in his jaw made Rand unclench his teeth. “Our mother’s only problem was him. The lying, cheating jerk she married.”
More silence. “No, Rand, Mom was manic depressive with a touch of paranoia thrown in. I know because after the accident the doctors tested me every which way but Sunday to make sure I wasn’t the same. When I realized they were giving me a mental health exam I clammed up and refused to answer any more questions until they leveled with me. Dad allowed them to tell me about Mom.”
Rand closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Denial steamed through every pore. “That sounds like some of Dad’s usual manipulative bull.”
“It’s not. According to the doctor Mom was fine when she stayed on her meds, but sometimes she’d become convinced Dad was trying to control her by drugging her and she’d go off them.”
If that were true, then it explained some of his mother’s erratic behavior. Most of the time she’d be a happy and normal mom, other times she’d be a clingy and morose woman who tearfully railed about her husband’s sins to her oldest son. Had her conviction that her husband was cheating on her been paranoia or fact? His father had certainly tomcatted around since her death.
“I’m sorry if I tainted your memories of Mom.”
“You didn’t. I knew—” He swallowed. After years of secrecy, it was time to come clean. “I knew hitting the tree wasn’t an accident. I didn’t realize anyone else knew.”
“I suspect that’s because to Dad appearances were everything. Like that stupid portrait hanging in the living room at Kincaid Manor, we always had to look and act like the perfect family. And Rand, from the conversations I’ve overheard over the years, Dad knew. I think he might have paid someone to make sure the police reports said ‘accident,’ but I’m not sure. You know how he was. He always refused to discuss anything with me.”
“Bribing someone and refusing to admit it sounds like him.” Rand shoved a hand through his hair and paced. “I should have stopped her that night, Nadia. I knew Mom was drunk and upset over Dad’s latest bimbo. I should have taken the keys to all the cars to bed with me. Not just her keys.”
Nadia’s gasp carried down the line as clearly as if she’d been in the room beside him. “How can you blame yourself? Rand, you were fourteen. And she was determined. If you’d stopped her that night then there would have been another night.”
“No. I could have stopped her,” he repeated.
“God, I hate doing this,” she muttered almost inaudibly.
“Do you know how many times she tried to kill herself?”
Rand’s heart slammed hard against his ribs. His fingernails dug into his palms. “She tried more than once?”
“Yes. Do you remember the vacations she’d go on alone?”
Everything seemed to slow to a crawl, even the KCL ship he could see departing port via Government Cut moved in slow motion.
Memories flashed through his mind. Your father thinks I need time away. I think he just wants me out of the house so he can entertain his girlfriend.
He wiped a hand down his face. “Yes.”
“Apparently, those were inpatient treatments.”
“You don’t know that. You were too young. It started before you were out of diapers.”
“I know what my doctors told me.”
A fist closed in his gut. He should have known. “I should have done something.”
“Rand, listen to yourself. You were the kid. She was the adult. She was supposed to be responsible for you. Not the other way around. And since Mom apparently wasn’t capable, we had Mrs. Duncan.”
Mrs. Duncan, the housekeeper/guard dog who, as far as he knew, still ruled Kincaid Manor. “If I’d told Dad—”
“God, Rand Kincaid, you are just like him.”
Not what he wanted to hear.
“You want to control the world. Well, you can’t.”
Rand bristled at the words she practically shouted at him, but before he could object, Nadia continued, “Look, I know you probably won’t believe this, but Dad loved Mom, and he did everything within his power to keep her from hurting herself. I don’t think he cheated on her.”
No, Rand didn’t believe it. Not after hearing his mother’s tearful rants. He’d borne the guilt over his mother’s death for so long he couldn’t shirk it that easily, and he didn’t want to trust this new information. “I repeat, you can’t know that. You were only a kid.”
“Maybe I don’t have the memories of Mom that you have, but I know firsthand that Dad was almost obsessive about making sure we were mentally tougher than she was. I dealt with his smothering watchdog approach after my accident. I know that was ten years after Mom’s death, but still, the protective trait was there.”
His father had an obsession over their mental health? Was that why he’d tested Rand at every turn? Or had Everett Kincaid pushed his oldest son because the Kincaid patriarch was a twisted tyrant? Rand would never know. The only one with the answers had been cremated and had his ashes scattered in the Gulf Stream.
“I want to talk to Mom’s doctors. Give me their names.”
“You can’t. They’re dead. But mine has Mom’s medical records and I’ve read them. That’s how I know about every conversation Dad had with her doctor and every hospitalization. They’re all documented. I can get a copy for you if you insist.”
The story was too far from what he’d believed for years for him to swallow it so easily. “Her doctor shared confidential records?”
“I convinced my shrink that I needed to be informed and educated so I’d know what behaviors to look for if I started slipping.”
Fear raced up his spine like an electric current, and the back of his neck prickled. “Is that likely? You slipping?”
“No, Rand, I’m okay. Really, truly okay. We all are. I just needed to understand why sometimes my mother loved me and sometimes she couldn’t seem to stand the sight of me.”
A crushing sensation settled on his chest. Why hadn’t they had this discussion years ago? “I know what you mean.”
“And while I’m rocking your world, I guess I should tell you Dad admitted ‘Uncle Robert’ was really a pediatric shrink, and he came around to make sure we were okay after Mom died and that we hadn’t inherited her illness. As you said, I was only eight, so I barely remember him, but you probably do.”
Rand recalled the gray-haired man who’d come to dinner often over a period of months and asked a lot of questions. Rand had believed it was because their father’s friend was genuinely interested in the Kincaid siblings’ comings and goings—more so than their own father, who’d usually remained mute and steely-eyed during the long meals.
“The one Dad said was a friend from college.” And now that Rand thought about it, the guy was pretty old to be one of their father’s classmates.
“Yes, he’s the one. Now can we switch to a less morose subject? Like how is my replacement working out?”
Rand had more questions. And he would ask them. Another time. After he’d digested this series of bombshells. Nadia’s revelations had tilted his whole world on its axis and jeopardized everything he thought he knew.
“Julie’s good, Nadia. But we have another problem.” His new leather chair creaked as he sat at his desk and pulled the data Tara had gathered forward.
He outlined the investigation and his suspicions. For several moments the discussion focused on areas Nadia suggested he examine more closely. She spoke so fast Rand hoped he could decipher his hastily written notes later.
And then she paused. “I can hear by the way you talk about Tara that you’re falling for her again.”
His pen stabbed a hole in the legal pad. “You’re mistaken.”
He didn’t do love and the idea of letting Tara love him scared the hell out of him.
“Please don’t hurt her again, Rand. She’s deserves better than the way you treated her last time.”
He bit his tongue on telling Nadia exactly what her friend had done.
“You know I can’t risk anything permanent with her. Not with my track record.”
“You mean Serita?”
“Yes.”
“Call her, Rand. Get Serita’s side of the story. I think you’ll be surprised at what she has to say about that night.”
He balked. “I don’t want to reopen old wounds.”
“Trust me on this. You need to call her.”
This morning Tara had tried to get into his head with her nonsense about claustrophobia, and now Nadia wanted to probe his psyche. Not his idea of fun.
He ended his discussion with Nadia and sat staring at the phone number she’d given him as if it were a coiled snake. His mind grappled with the possibility that his mother’s death might not have been his fault and that his father might not have been the most unfaithful ass east of the Mississippi.
If he’d been wrong about those—and he wasn’t convinced he was—then what else might he be wrong about?
It had taken Rand twenty-four hours to admit Nadia was right. Until he resolved his past it would govern his future.He reached for the phone and punched in Serita’s number with an unsteady hand. Dread weighted his gut like ballast.
“Serita’s zoo.”
The familiar cheerful voice hit him like a sucker punch, knocking the words from his tongue.
“Hello? Anyone there?”
He could hear children in the background. He cleared his throat. “Serita, it’s Rand Kincaid.”