“So I called Thomas up to thank him. We had lunch and then dinner and, well, it’s been wonderful. Extraordinarily wonderful. Thomas is a noble man with a noble purpose in life.”
“Like Father?” Jackson’s mouth curled into a smirk.
“Very much like him,” she said indignantly.
“It’s truly a small world.” He shook his head at the irony.
“Why do you say that?”
Jackson stood up and spread his arms to show the entire sweep of the room. “Alicia, where exactly do you think all of this came from?”
“Why, from the family money, of course.”
“The family money? That was gone. All of it. Has been for years.”
“What are you talking about? I know that Father ran into some financial difficulties along the way, but he recovered. He always did.”
Jackson looked at her with contempt. “He recovered shit, Alicia. He didn’t earn a dime of it. It was all made long before he was around. All he did was blow it. My inheritance, your inheritance. He pissed it away on himself and his lousy dreams of greatness. He was a fake and a loser.”
She jumped up and slapped his face. “How dare you! Everything you have is because of him.”
Jackson slowly rubbed his skin where she had hit him. His real skin was pale, smooth as though he had lived his life in a temple like a Buddhist monk, which in one sense he had.
“Ten years ago, I fixed the national lottery,” he said quietly, his dark eyes glittery as he stared at her small, stunned face. “All that money, everything you have came from that money. From me. Not dear old Dad.”
“What do you mean? How could you—”
Jackson pushed her down on the sofa as he interrupted.
“I collected almost one billion dollars from twelve lottery winners, the very same ones Donovan was investigating. I took their winnings and I invested the money. You remember Grandfather’s network of Wall Street elite? He actually earned his money. I maintained those contacts over the years for a very specific purpose. With the fortune I amassed from the lottery winners, which Wall Street assumed came from the ‘family money,’ I was one of their preferred customers. I negotiated the best deals, was given first choice of all the initial public offerings, the sure-fire winners. That’s a well-kept secret of the rich, Alicia. They get first dibs on everything: A stock that I get at ten dollars a share right before it hits the market goes to seventy dollars a share in the twenty-four hours after it hits the market. I sell it to the ordinary folks, collect my six hundred percent return, and move on to the next windfall. It was like printing money; it’s all in who you know and what you bring to the table. When you bring a billion dollars, believe me, everybody sits up and takes notice. The rich get richer and the poor never will.”
Alicia’s lips had begun trembling halfway through her brother’s explanation, as his speech and mannerisms grew more and more intense, more and more feverish. “Where is Thomas?” Her question was barely audible.
Jackson looked away and licked his dry lips. “He was no good for you, Alicia. No good at all. An opportunist. And I’m sure he loved all of this. All that you had. All that I had given you.”
“Was? Was no good?” Alicia stood up, her hands clamped so tightly together the skin looked boiled.
“Where is he? What have you done to him?”
Jackson stared at her, searching her features for something. It suddenly occurred to him that he was looking for some redeeming quality. From afar he had long held idyllic visions of his only sister, putting her perhaps on a pedestal. Face-to-face with her he found that image was unsustainable. The tone of his response was casual, his words far from casual, as he finally made up his mind.
“I killed him, Alicia.”
She stood there frozen for an instant and then started toppling to the floor. He grabbed her and laid her on the couch, this time not so gently. “Now don’t be this way. There will be other men, I can assure you of that. You can walk the earth searching for Father. Donovan wasn’t him, but I’m sure you’ll keep trying.” He didn’t try to hide the sarcasm.
She wasn’t listening to him, however. The tears stained her cheeks.
He continued despite her tears, pacing in front of her, the professor in front of his class of one. “You’ll have to leave the country, Alicia. I erased your phone message to Donovan, so the police won’t have that to go on. However, since your relationship has endured for a year, it must be well known to others. The police will come calling at some point. I’ll make all the arrangements. As I recall, you’ve always loved New Zealand. Or perhaps Austria. We had several lovely times there as children.”
“Stop it! Stop it, you animal.”
He turned to find her on her feet.
“Alicia—”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Let me be quite clear. You know too much. The police will ask questions. You have no experience in these matters. They will get the truth from you quite easily.”
“You’re right about that. I intend to call them right now and tell them everything.”
She started for the phone, but he blocked her way. “Alicia, be reasonable.”
She hit him with her fists as violently as she could. They did no physical damage to him; however, the blows conjured up the memory of another violent confrontation with another family member. His father, back then, had been physically stronger than he, was able to dominate him in ways that Jackson had never let himself be dominated since.
“I loved him, damn you! I loved Thomas,” Alicia shrieked in his face.
Jackson focused a pair of watery eyes upon her. “I loved someone too,” he said. “Someone who should have loved me back, respected me, but who didn’t.” Despite the years of pain, of guilt and embarrassment, Jack’s son still held long-buried feelings for the old man. Feelings that he had never dwelt upon or vocalized until now. The resurgence of this emotional maelstrom had a violent impact on him.
He grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her roughly on the sofa.
“Peter—”
“Shut up, Alicia.” He sat down next to her. “You’re leaving the country. You are not going to call the police. Do you understand?”
“You’re crazy, you’re insane. Oh, God, I don’t believe this is happening.”
“Actually, right now, I’m absolutely certain I’m the most rational member in the family.” He stared into her eyes and repeated the words very slowly: “You’re not talking to anyone, Alicia, do you understand?”
She looked at his eyes and suddenly shivered to the depths of her soul. For the first time during this confrontation, terror had suddenly replaced her anger. It had been a long time since she had seen her brother. The boy she had happily romped with, and whose maturity and intelligence she had been fascinated by, was now unrecognizable to her. The man across from her was not her brother. This manifestation was something else altogether.
She hastily changed course and spoke as calmly as she could. “Yes, Peter, I understand. I... I’ll pack tonight.”
Jackson’s face took on a level of despair that it had not carried for many years. He had read her thoughts, her fears; they were so plainly written on the thin parchment of her soft features. His fingers clutched the large throw pillow on the sofa between them.
“Where would you like to go, Alicia?”
“Anywhere, Peter, anywhere you say. New Zealand, you mentioned New Zealand. That would be fine.”
“It is a beautiful country. Or Austria, as I said, we had good times there, didn’t we?” He tightened his grip on the pillow. “Didn’t we?” he asked again.