Chapter 10
Mac went for a sunrise walk along the beach, wishing he could have gone for a run.
An explosive device in Afghanistan had destroyed his foot, and he wore a prosthesis on that leg that took the joy out of running.
Still, his head was clearing of the thoughts that plagued him during the night, and he wondered if the dreams that haunted his sleep would disappear if Ellie were back by his side.
The thought of her made him smile. A gull dove for the water, cackling, and a big wave made it up to his feet, splashing his calves in cool water.
This was the life. He and Ellie had dreamed of visiting someplace like this, now she lived close enough to the beach to see it every day if she so desired.
And while he was happy for her, he wanted to be a part of that life she’d created.
Not that he deserved it. He knew for a fact he did not. But he and Ellie had planned a beautiful life, and he wanted to live that life with her, now.
His thoughts shifted to Turner. That man left a bad taste in his mouth, especially after what Moto had found. Yet Ellie was considering marrying him. Was it just jealousy that had him feeling this way about the other man, or did he have cause to be concerned?
And speaking of being concerned, he needed to check in with Ursula’s husband and see how he was doing.
Godak’s final stunt had left them all stunned, the families devastated, as if Godak had reached into this world from the great beyond and taken just one more life to keep him company on the trip down to hell.
Obviously, he’d had an accomplice on the outside, someone willing to kill for him. That didn’t make it any better, only increasing Mac’s concern, though it did make him wonder if Godak had help all along.
Mac was nearly back to his hotel when he saw a man running toward him, someone with his same height and build.
And beyond the most basic similarities, the other man ran with Mac’s exact stride.
It was like watching in a mirror as this image of himself came closer and closer, a strange and unsettling feeling.
It took a second for him to recognize the doppelg?nger as his own son.
“Lewis,” he called, and the boy stopped, resting his hands on his hips as he panted.
“What?”
Hard to believe it was just last night Lewis was drunk off his rocker. Now he was running along the humid beach as if last night hadn’t even happened. Oh, to be young again.
“I was hoping we could talk,” said Mac. “Maybe grab a bite to eat.”
“No, thanks.” Lewis moved to run again, and Mac held out his hand.
“It’s just breakfast. It would mean a lot to your mother if we could talk.”
Lewis blew out air. “You don’t get to tell me what would mean a lot to her.”
Mac nodded. “Fine. Then it would mean a lot to me. Have breakfast with your old man. A cup of coffee. That’s all.”
Lewis stared at him too long, then shrugged, which Mac figured was the closest to a yes he was going to get this morning.
The two of them made their way in silence, over the bridge and dunes which separated the beach from the hotel. Finally, they settled at an outdoor table in the shade.
“Let’s get this over with,” declared Lewis. “Go ahead. Tell me what you want to say, so you can go back to wherever you came from and we can go back to real life.”
Mac narrowed his eyes. “I’m not leaving. Let’s start there.”
“Why not?”
“I love your mother. I’ve been looking for her for years. I’m not just going to walk away.”
“What makes you think she loves you?”
“That’s between your mother and me. I want to talk about you. How long have you been drinking that much?”
Lewis rolled his eyes. “It was a wedding. My sister got married. Everyone else was celebrating, too.”
“No one else was as drunk as you.”
“Sure, they were.”
“No, you just think they were. I could bring that bartender out here and she’d tell you herself, no one else at that reception was drinking the way you were.”
“This is a lot like the pot calling the kettle black.”
“More like the pot warning the kettle there’s no going back.” Mac shook his head. “The biggest regrets of my life have to do with alcohol. Losing your mother. Losing you and your sisters. Losing everything that mattered in my entire life, until I didn’t even want to live anymore.”
Lewis’s eyes were molten with anger. “Fucking boo-hoo. You didn’t give a shit then, and you sure as fuck don’t give a shit now.”
Mac felt like he was beating his head against a wall, but he would continue to do it over and over again if it meant he might eventually get through to his son.
He tried a different tactic. “You’re right.
I loved getting drunk more than I loved anyone or anything else.
That’s what alcohol does. It makes you love it, and only it.
I still love alcohol. The difference is, I know alcohol no longer loves me.
It’s out to destroy me. To take everything that matters away from me.
And I’m not going to let that happen ever again. ”
Lewis rolled his eyes. “Spare me the lectures.”
Mac pounded his fist on the table, making the silverware rattle.
Other patrons turned their heads to stare,and he moderated his voice down from where he’d originally wanted to pitch it.
“Listen to me! I might be the only person in your life who understands what’s happening to you.
You don’t understand it. You’re watching it happen like it’s happening to someone else.
You tell yourself it was just this one occasion, just this one circumstance that it got away from you.
But this wasn’t the first time you’ve done something you regret.
And you’re ignoring the bigger picture. I can help you, Lewis. ”
Lewis leaned forward and said in a harsh whisper, “I don’t want your fucking help, do you understand me?
When you left, you forfeited being my father.
Callie and Shonda might let you back in their lives, but you don’t get to decide what happens with mine.
I do.” He stood abruptly and stormed out of the restaurant.
Mac folded his hands on the table in front of him, his muscles tense, and watched his son walk away. The waitress appeared beside him. “Can I get you anything to start off, sir?” she asked. “A bloody Mary? A mimosa?”
“Black coffee and a water.” He handed her his menu. “And I’d like the number one special.”
She walked away, giving him a clear sightline to the hostess stand where Ellie stood. He raised his hand and called her name, delighted when her face lit up and she crossed to him. Maybe this would be easier than he imagined.
He stood and pulled back the chair on the opposite side of the table. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” She sat down. “I was supposed to meet Turner for breakfast.”
Mac’s stomach fell, but he forced himself not to show it as he took his own seat. “Tell me you don’t want to eat with me, without saying you don’t want to eat with me.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
He waved her away. “How did you two meet?”
She looked at him skeptically. “You really want to know?”
He nodded, and she began. “The kids and I were living in Mobile with my cousin, Ursula, and her husband, Roger. I was going to nursing school during the day and waitressing at night to pay the bills. Ursula had gotten me the job. It wasn’t far from the house.”
A far-away look came over her face. “One night, Ursula was walking home from work alone. We both did it all the time. It wasn’t far, but women had been going missing, black women from that side of town.”
She stared at her hands in her lap. “Ursula never made it home. She disappeared. For months and months everyone was looking for her. We just got confirmation this past year she was one of Arnold Godak’s victims.”
Mac nodded. He knew all about it. There’d been a time he feared Ellie had been killed by Godak, because her trail had gone cold in Mobile at the same time Godak was active in the area.
It was Mac who’d interviewed Godak repeatedly at the prison, and who had gotten the location where the bodies were buried.
He’d done it to look for Ellie. He had no desire to take credit for that work, his role seeming trivial when Ellie had lost someone important to her.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Ursula was a special person. ”
Ellie smiled. “She was, wasn’t she? I loved that woman.” She shook her head. “Took us in without hesitation. Just wanted to know what we needed, and she’d do her best to provide.”
“I’m glad you had somewhere to go.”
“Anyway, Turner was the lead detective on her missing persons case. He kept me up to date on what was happening with the search, and when they thought she’d fallen victim to the serial killer who was terrorizing the city, he comforted me. He’s a good man, Mac.”
His stomach twisted with his need to contradict her. “If he was in Mobile, how did he end up with you here?”
“He’s the reason we went here.” She frowned almost imperceptibly, a look he knew well. “There was some speculation the killer was trying to take me, not Ursula.”
Mac kept quiet and waited for her to continue.
She lifted eyes glassy with unshed tears to the sky.
“We changed shifts that night. Lewis had a fever and I didn’t want to leave him.
Ursula agreed to cover for me. Turner said Godak stalked his victims for weeks before he made his move.
He would have known my whole schedule, exactly where to find me alone. Ursula and I looked a lot alike.”
A tear ran down her face and she swiped at it. “After she was abducted, I didn’t feel safe in Mobile anymore. Turner helped us set up new identities. Start fresh.”
That explained why Ellie had been so hard to find.
It was Ursula’s husband Roger who knew the aliases the family was living under.
But before that, every road Mac tried had been a dead end.
He’d been looking for Ellie O’Brady, but she’d been living as Ellie Hearst. “And Turner decided to come with you.”
The shitty little opportunist.
“Not at first,” she said. She had the decency to look offended, and he wondered if she’d been sleeping with him at that point.
“It was almost a year later. We’d kept in touch, just so he could fill me in on the investigation, you know, that sort of thing.
But he called me up and said he was struggling in Mobile after a messy divorce, and he wanted a new beginning.
He said he’d heard this was a good place for new beginnings.
Not too far from home, but just far enough.
So, I helped him get settled, and we became friends. ”
“Friends.” The way he said it was full of sexual connotation, and Ellie jerked her head back.
“That’s right, friends. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Sorry. I’m just playing catch up.” And I’m a jealous son of a bitch. “I want to know what these years have been like for you.”
She shrugged. “I finished my nursing degree. I work in the pediatric emergency room, and I love it.” Her face lit up when she talked about it.
Ellie was one of the most caring people he’d ever known, and smart as a whip. “I’ll bet you’re really good at that.”
“I am.” She grinned proudly. “What about you? Are you still living in France?”
He shook his head. “Nah. Been working up in New York City for a few years now.”
“New York City? You?” She laughed, and he completely understood why.
“Hard to picture, isn’t it? Me and all them yuppies up there, runnin’ in their rat races and shit.” He laughed too. “A friend of mine from the teams looked me up in France.”
He considered how truthful he wanted to be, and decided she deserved every bit of honesty he could muster. “I was in pretty bad shape, drinking, just like when you left. Worse, even. After you were gone, I didn’t have any reason left not to.”
Just thinking back on it was emotional for him. He owed Hawk one hell of a debt for not giving up on him, for holding out an opportunity that could give Mac a new life. Make him useful again.
He continued past the knot in his throat, thinking he’d cried—or damn near cried—too many times in the past two days.
Perhaps more than in the last ten years combined.
“He offered me a job running a new office of HERO Force. That’s the Hands-on Engagement and Reconnaissance Operations team. Like SEALs for hire.”
“Let me get this straight. You were drunk, worse than when I left you, and he offered you a job?”
He nodded. “Said I had to get sober, of course. So I said no. Then he pointed out I’d have access to a ton of information I could use to find you.”
She looked mildly uncomfortable, but he went on. “Computers, databases, and agencies willing to talk… if I sobered up and came out of hiding. And if I did, I might be able to get back the woman I loved. So I said, fine.”
He took a sip of his coffee, smiling at her over the cup. “Would have been good to know you’d changed your name all those years I was looking for you.”
“I wasn’t trying to hide.”
“Didn’t say you were. You just didn’t expect me to come looking.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to show up at Shonda’s wedding, either.”
“I hope I didn’t ruin anything for you, or for her.”
Ellie shook her head. “You saved the day. Shonda wouldn’t have even been there if it weren’t for you talking her off the ledge she was on.”
“I was also the reason she ran away from the altar.”
She shrugged. “We all make mistakes.”
He reached for her hand, and she gave it to him. “Could it be that easy, Ellie? Can you give me another chance, just like that?”
She squeezed his hand and released it, lowering her eyes. “It’s complicated. I’m all but engaged to marry Turner.”
“But you didn’t know I’d show up at the eleventh hour and tell you I still love you.”
Her eyes shot to his. “Do you? Still love me?”
The fifty-thousand-dollar question. The only thing that mattered in the whole damn world.
“Would I be here if I didn’t? You are the only woman I’ve ever loved, and if you give me the chance, I promise I’ll make things good between us again.
Better than they were the last time, when I came home from my tour.
I was a different man then. Fucked up. Broken.
But I’m me again, Ellie. If you give me a chance, I’ll show you exactly who I am. ”
Her chin puckered, and he knew she was trying not to cry. “I’m scared.”
“Me, too.”
She shook her head. “I have to think about it.”
“Take all the time you need.”
She stood up and walked away, leaving Mac alone at the table.