Chapter 42
Cyrus stared at what he had found in his son’s room.
His heart ached. Clay was his only child now. He couldn’t bear to lose him.
Cyrus closed his eyes to hold back the uncharacteristic tears. Irene was dead. Clay was all he had left in this world.
How much was one man supposed to endure?
Somehow, he had to stop this without revealing his son’s part in any of it. Clay could not go to prison. He’d made far too many enemies to survive in that shithole.
Cyrus opened his eyes and stared at the evidence he had discovered. As much as he loved his son, this had gone too far.
Irene was dead. The light of his life had been extinguished. But there was one thing he could do for his Irene. He could ensure that his son left Addy alone. Irene had loved her daughter so. She would want Cyrus to protect Addy.
He would not fail.
Cyrus had to stop this travesty before it was too late.
The front door slammed.
Clay was home.
Rather than bother with the elevator down to the first floor to meet him, Cyrus waited for his son in his room. Clay would grab a few beers from the refrigerator and then he would come here. After a shower and change of clothes he would go out again. To take care of business.
The business Cyrus had built. Bitter bile rose in his throat. A part of him understood that he was as much responsible for Gage’s death as the man who’d fired the weapon. Cyrus banished that truth. This day and time a man had to do what a man had to do.
Irene had held that necessity against him. But she hadn’t understood that after the accident, he’d been forced to resort to other means for maintaining his wealth. His medical bills had eaten through most of what he’d inherited.
And his very generous donation to the church had put their names at the top of the adoption list. That part she should have appreciated enough not to care where the money had come from. Cyrus had known that on some level she did, but she’d never said as much.
A Cooper always found a way to survive. No matter which side of the law it landed him on. His great-great-granddaddy had operated numerous bootlegging operations.
In times of need, it was what it was.
Survival of the fittest . . . of the most clever.
He would sorely miss his Irene. Just as he still missed his sweet brother. No Cooper before him had possessed the heart his younger brother had been born with. Perhaps God had ensured that Carl received Cyrus’s measure in addition to his own. A sort of balance to keep things interesting.
Clay stormed through the open door. “What the hell you doing in here, old man?” He turned his bottle of beer up and emptied half of it down his throat.
So young. So full of himself. He would be lucky to survive the stupidity of youth.
Cyrus gestured to the items he had spread on the bed. “What is all this?”
Clay froze, the bottle inches from his thirsty lips.
“Are you the one responsible for this?” Again he gestured to the words clipped from magazines, the glue and paper. All of it sickened Cyrus. He thought of how much pain this had caused Irene. Fury tore through him.
“Look.” Clay lowered the bottle, shrugged his shoulders. “It was a joke, okay? I heard about the letters that bitch was getting and I thought I’d mess with her head. I put one in her room and tore up some of her shit. That’s all.”
He was lying. Cyrus knew his son. He’d always been able to read the both of them.
Gage hadn’t been quite the liar that Clay was.
He was too focused on business to bother with getting into other kinds of trouble.
But Clay, dear Clay, had spent every moment since he was fifteen getting into some sort of mischief.
“I will not be able to protect you from this,” Cyrus warned, “unless it stops now. Henderson is not like Grider. He will not be bought.”
Clay expelled a disgusting belch. “Screw Henderson. I don’t need your protection. I’ve got it all under control.” He glared at his father. “I told you, it’s just a joke. Don’t get your panties in a wad. It’s no big deal.”
“Did you harm those women?” Cyrus demanded, the fury escalating inside him at his son’s cocky attitude.
He’d asked these questions before and Clay had adamantly denied any part in this. Any knowledge whatsoever of these events. But Cyrus had found evidence to indicate otherwise. Clay wouldn’t be playing him off so easily this time.
“Hell no!” Clay emptied the bottle in his right hand.
“Are you senile? I told you I ain’t got nothing to do with that.
A friend of mine who’s involved in the investigation told me about the letters and, like I said, I just wanted to mess with her head.
Get a little revenge for what she did to Gage. ”
“If you were half as smart as you think you are, you would have destroyed the evidence of your joke.”
Clay tossed the empty bottle onto his bed and opened the other one. “You don’t care what happens to me. You’re only trying to protect her damned momma. I know the deal.”
“Her mother is dead.” The need to shake him whipped through Cyrus. God, if he could climb out of this chair . . .
“I don’t know nothing about that, either.” He downed half the second bottle.
“Do you really expect me to believe you know nothing?” Cyrus growled. Before his son could come up with a response, he warned, “You stay away from Addy the rest of her time here. No more games. Do you understand me?”
“Yeah, yeah. I understand perfectly. You don’t have to worry, tonight is the end of this for me.”
He pushed between Cyrus’s wheelchair and his bed and started gathering the incriminating evidence.
“What does that mean?” Cyrus demanded, uncertainty niggling at him.
Clay twisted at the waist to look down at his father.
“Exactly what I said. I’m not playing no more. I had my fun. Now I’m done.”
If only he could trust his son’s word. Cyrus rolled to the door.
There was one more thing he intended to say.
“If I discover that you’ve been lying to me or that you had anything at all to do with Irene’s death, I will cut off all support.
There will be no forgiveness. This is your final warning.
” Perhaps the boy could benefit from eking out his own living.
Or perhaps Cyrus would just put him out of his misery.
Agony seized his insides once more. To some degree he now looked forward to his own death.
Without Irene . . . he wasn’t sure this pathetic life would be worth living.
He was certain it would not be.
Clay strode right up to him and braced his hands on the arms of the mobile chair.
He put his face in Cyrus’s. “This is your final warning, old man. You keep giving me shit and you will end up at the bottom of those stairs. And then it’ll all be mine and I won’t have to answer to you about any damned thing. ”
Cyrus produced a taunting smile. “You don’t have the guts to take a life, much less mine. You have no idea just what it takes to go that far.”
Clay didn’t flinch. He held Cyrus’s gaze. “You sure about that?”
Cyrus’s confidence in the matter drained away like the evening tide. Perhaps he didn’t fully comprehend what his son was capable of. Time would tell, he supposed.
“Test me again,” Cyrus cautioned, “and we will see who has the largest balls in this family.”