“Miles did not do this,” Henry said after casting a brief glance at the pictures.
“He’ll have a chance to prove that at his trial,” Philips said.
“Now you’re threatening my son?” Van Meter asked, outraged.
“I’m not threatening anyone. I’m just making certain that you understand that many people will be hurt and embarrassed if you continue to deny the truth. I would think that you’d be happy to have this problem off your hands. You might even have a personal interest in the child’s welfare, Mr. Van Meter. The baby will be your grandchild.”
Philips paused for a moment to let what he’d said sink in.
“Would you step outside for a moment so I can confer with my client?” Brucher asked.
“Sure.”
Ken Philips smoked a cigarette in the hall while Brucher and Van Meter conferred. They called him back twenty minutes later.
“We don’t concede that there is any merit to your claim, Ken,” Brucher said, “but, hypothetically, if Casey is pregnant and agreed to let Mr. Spencer adopt her baby, would Mr. Spencer be willing to refrain from any future contact with the Van Meters and to agree to keep the identity of the child’s mother secret?”
“Let me talk to my client.”
Chapter Nineteen
Your father agreed to Henry Van Meter’s terms,” Jerry Philips explained to Ashley. “His parents helped him raise you. Norman worked during the day and went to Portland State at night to get a degree. That’s where he met Terri. They fell in love and Norman told her about you. Getting a ready-made family wasn’t something Terri had bargained for, but she loved Norman and she fell in love with you.”
“How do you know all this stuff about my parents’ private life?” Ashley asked.
“My father had notes of interviews with your father in his files, and Henry told me a lot. My dad’s point about you being his grandchild hit home. Henry was a bastard, but he was a bastard who wanted his line to continue. He assumed that Miles or Casey would have other children somewhere down the line, but you were his first grandchild, and he had an investigator from Brucher’s law firm keep track of you and Norman.”
“He spied on us?”
Jerry shrugged. “I don’t know if he thought of it that way. At some point he realized that neither of his children was going to give him another grandchild anytime soon, maybe ever. Then he became ill. Once he decided that you were the last of his line, he watched you more closely.”
Ashley sat back. Her life had been an illusion orchestrated by her father, Henry Van Meter, and men she’d never met. How could her father and Terri have lied to her all these years?
“Does Miles know about this?”
“Only Henry, Anton Brucher, my father, Norman, his parents, and Terri knew until Henry told me.”
“So Dean Van Meter never knew I was her daughter?”
“As far as I know, Casey never learned who adopted her child.”
“Then how did I get the scholarship to the Academy? After what you’ve told me, I don’t believe it was chance.”
“Henry arranged for the scholarship after your father was murdered. He also talked to someone at Brucher, Platt about putting you in his will shortly before your father was murdered, but he had his stroke and Casey was hurt and he never got around to it. He asked me about drafting a new will for him when he hired me to find you. Then he died.”
“Why would he care about me all of a sudden? He’d never done anything for me before.”
“He changed after the stroke almost killed him. He became very religious and he developed a social conscience. When he was younger, Henry had no sympathy for or interest in the poor. He believed in a class system run by men like his father who had started with nothing and became rich. The Academy started as an elite boys’ school and he didn’t let in girls until Casey was old enough to attend. In recent years, he started giving scholarships to deserving minority students and children of the poor.”
“That was big of him,” Ashley said bitterly. “And now he’s trying to manipulate me from the grave to get me to rescue a selfish bitch who thought nothing of giving me away so I wouldn’t interfere with her fucking and partying.”
“Like it or not, Casey Van Meter is your mother. If she comes out of her coma who knows what might happen between you.”
“Why should I care if anything happens? She never gave a damn about me.”
“Ashley, I know this has hit you hard. It’s overwhelming. Don’t make any decisions now. Give yourself some time to think it through. The hearing is next week. We’ve got some time.”
“If I go back, Joshua Maxfield will know where I am. Why should I risk that? What’s the chance that she’ll come out of her coma, anyway?”
“Henry invested a lot in a biotech company that’s working on a drug that offers some hope. It’s being administered to Casey as part of a trial.”
Ashley’s face was tight with anger.
“She gave me away, Jerry. I was nothing to her. Did she ever even try to find out what happened to me? Has she ever shown any interest in me at all?”
“I don’t know,” Jerry answered softly. “Look, you’re right. Casey was selfish…”
“Is selfish. Being unconscious doesn’t change her. She’s a self-centered bitch. I’m not going to risk my life to save her. I don’t care if she dies.”
Jerry could think of no argument to persuade her, so he said nothing.
“And my father, Terri… They lied to me my whole life. How could they do that?”
“They did it because they loved you. Don’t let your anger poison you. Your father was courageous. Think about it. He could have forgotten about you. It would have been easy. I bet you ninety-nine out of a hundred guys in his situation would have breathed a big sigh of relief when they found out that Henry Van Meter was tidying up their mistake and it wasn’t going to cost them a penny.
“He was poor, Ashley. To finish school he had to work all day and go nights. He gave up his scholarship, his normal life. He did it all for you. And Terri came through for you, too. How many young women would have run as soon as Norman told them that he had a kid? But she didn’t. She took you in, she made you her daughter.”
As Jerry talked about her family, Ashley’s anger faded. When he finished, she looked exhausted.
“It’s been so hard, Jerry, hiding all the time, living from moment to moment. Now this.”
“I know. I can’t imagine what you’ve been going through.”
The waiter walked out with their dinner, and they stopped talking. As soon as the waiter left, Jerry dove into his food. He was famished and he wanted to give Ashley time to think. Ashley picked at her dinner, as she tried to grasp what Jerry had just told her.
“This was good,” Jerry said when he was finished.
Ashley snapped out of her trance and looked at Jerry’s plate. There wasn’t a strand of pasta left.
“I guess you were hungry,” she said.
Jerry smiled sheepishly. “I told you I was starving.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin and drank some more wine. “I need a place to stay. Is there a hotel you can recommend?”
“I have an apartment just north of Siena. It’s not far away. You could stay with me. There’s a guest room.”
“I don’t want to impose.”
“I’d really like it if you stayed. I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
“That settles it then.”
“You’re very kind, do you know that?”
Jerry blushed. “I’m just doing this so I can up my billable hours. I’ve got to pay the rent, you know.”
Now it was Ashley’s turn to reach across the table and lay her hand on top of Jerry’s.
“Thank you,” she said.
It was dark by the time they arrived at Ashley’s apartment. It was above a butcher shop, and the butcher was her landlord. She gave Jerry a tour. There was a small front room, a smaller kitchen, a bathroom with a narrow shower, a bedroom, and another room with a pullout sofa and a small dresser.