Cameron brandished the weapon, but before he could do anything foolish, Candy and Maggie both intervened, hands out. “Cameron, calm down!” Candy shouted, positioning herself between Sebastian and the teen.
“Put that rifle down!” Maggie insisted, her fury sharpening as she marched straight toward Cameron and jerked the weapon from his hands. “We’ll have no more of this, mister!” She turned abruptly and walked to Amanda, handing the rifle over to her. “Take this out to Candy’s car and lock it inside,” she instructed, and when Amanda started to protest, she added sharply, “Now!”
Amanda complied. With the weapon gone and the situation neutralized, Maggie turned to Sebastian. “Now we’re going to call the police, and then we’re going to get to the bottom of this.”
She turned and walked to the phone, but before she could pick up the receiver, Sebastian called out. “Wait! Wait!” He struggled against his bonds again, his frustration evident. “I can explain everything… just… no police.”
Candy wheeled on him. “Why not? Talk fast, Sebastian, or I swear, I’ll get that rifle again and shoot you myself.”
“Okay, okay, okay.” Properly chastised, Sebastian settled back in the chair, his fear gone and a strange grin coming to his face. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“You’d better. This is your last chance. Now, why was Sapphire blackmailing you? What did she have on you?”
“I’ll tell you,” Sebastian said, “but you have to understand… Susan, um, Sapphire, and I had a long history together… we go way back… and yes, I hated her… and I suppose she hated me too… but despite all that, I didn’t kill her. You must believe that.”
“We don’t know what to believe until you tell us what happened,” Maggie said testily, still standing near the phone, “and our patience has run out. Talk.”
Sebastian settled back into his chair, apparently resigned to his fate. He sighed, turned his head first one direction, then the other, as if considering how to proceed. Finally he closed his eyes and leaned back his head, and then, almost imperceptively, he nodded. “All right. I’ll talk.”
THIRTY-THREE
“This whole thing goes back about eighteen years,” Sebastian began, “when we all were at the University of Southern Maine -myself and Sapphire-er, Susan-and David, Susan’s boyfriend… his father.” Sebastian nodded toward Cameron. “Susan and David were students in one of my English classes-I suppose that’s where they might have met, for I seem to recall they started the class as strangers, or at least as only casual acquaintances. I didn’t notice Susan much at first, but I certainly noticed David, almost immediately. He was a fairly decent poet-quite creative and passionate, though at times he could become too sentimental for my tastes. His writing was raw and undisciplined. Still, he showed incredible promise…”
“Until you killed him,” Cameron cut in.
“That’s nonsense!” Sebastian replied firmly, his heavy brows falling together. “Utter nonsense. I don’t know where you heard that, but it’s just not true.”
“You killed him for his poetry,” Cameron continued.
“I did no such thing.”
“You killed him and stole his poetry!”
Sebastian gave a sarcastic laugh. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You weren’t there. How could you know anything about what happened back then?”
Cameron pointed toward the file on the desk. “It’s all in there. I’ve read it all. Do you want me to tell you what really happened?”
Sebastian’s face hardened. “Very well. You have the floor, young man. Illuminate us.”
“Okay. Okay, I will.” Cameron looked over for a moment as Amanda reentered the room. Outside, fierce gusts of wind were whipping the sea into a frenzied roar. Cameron glanced out at the darkness beyond the windows, gathering his thoughts, then turned his gaze back to Sebastian. “My mother and father met at USM, just like you said, though not in your class. They knew each other before that. They met at a freshman dance. He was a poor kid from Presque Isle, she was the daughter of a boat-builder from Bath. They were inseparable from the start-and from what I can tell, by the time they started your class, she was already pregnant-with me.”
“Oh my God,” Maggie cut in. “That’s why Sapphire looked so happy in that photo! And so heavy. She wasn’t overweight. She was pregnant!”
Cameron nodded sadly. “Yeah, she showed that photo to me. It was taken right before my father died.”
“What happened to him?” Maggie asked softly.
“I… I don’t know. She never told me-and there’s nothing in the file…”
Maggie gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. Candy only had to glance at her to know instantly what she was thinking, for the same realization had just come to her. “The obituary… the one we found in the book last night in Sapphire’s attic?”
Maggie nodded, unable to speak.
“What obituary?” Cameron asked.
Briefly Candy explained, and Sebastian confirmed the story. “Your father died in a car accident. Drunk driver. I remember it well. A tragic affair.” He shook his head, then looked over at Candy. “You’ve seen the clipping?”
“I have.” She glanced at Maggie. “We both have. Sapphire kept a copy of it stashed away.”
“Then you know I’m telling the truth, right?”
Candy said nothing, but after a moment she gave a faint nod. Sebastian let out a breath of air, while Cameron took this news with his lips pursed tight, his eyes glassy with emotion. Sebastian thought he still saw disbelief in those eyes. “I didn’t kill your father, kid,” he said again for emphasis. “It’s the truth, I tell you.”
Cameron’s faced hardened again. “If you didn’t kill him, then why did you steal his poetry?”
It took a long time for Sebastian to work around to answering that question. His jaws tightened and his brow furrowed as he weighed his options. But something inside him must have made him realize that it was time for the truth-all of it. “There was nothing calculated about it, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he began. “It just… happened. After your father died, your mother went into a deep depression. I watched it happen from a distance and even tried to intervene. But nothing could be done. She dropped out of school and I lost touch with her.”
Cameron let out a breath and lowered his head. After a moment, he said, “She wound up in an institution in Portland and stayed there for six months. That’s where I was born, but she gave me up for adoption. That’s how I wound up with the Zimmermans.”
“And what happened to your mother after that?” Candy asked.
“I’m not really sure about everything that happened back then,” Cameron answered quietly, “but some time in the years after she left that place, she changed her name, started a new life, and tried to find out what happened to me. It took her a few years, but she finally traced me here, to Cape Willington and the Zimmermans. That’s why she moved up here five years ago-so she could keep an eye on me, she said. The Zimmermans told me I was adopted but they never told me who my birth parents were. Now I know. She waited until my eighteenth birthday to tell me who she really was.”
Cameron paused, looking back at Sebastian. “She also told me what you did.”
“And what is that?” Sebastian asked defiantly.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know. She told me all about it-how one day, years ago, she was browsing through a library in Portland and found a book of poetry with your name on it-Sebastian J. Quinn. She remembered you from USM, so she checked it out and read it that night. She was shocked. She knew almost immediately that the poems weren’t written by you, were they? They were all written by my father! You stole his poetry and published it under your own name!”