Second Nature

Chapter 44

44 

Cade kept his foot heavy on the gas pedal, ignoring the speed limit on the two-lane from Tallahassee to Apalachicola. A late afternoon downpour slowed to a drizzle and steam wafted from the crushed-shell roadway. He and Lana talked in low voices about the ghastly implications of their discovery. 

"It shocks me to the bottom of my soul," she said shakily. "Could Weston really have gone that far? Could he have ordered four people murdered?" 

"Five," Cade said. "When he ordered Mom killed, he didn't care who was in the van with her. He couldn't have known you were going to survive the wreck. That's five people." 

Lana shook her head. "I knew he was cold and greedy, but I never realized just how ruthless. God help us, Cade. Are we sure about this?" 

"Look, Mom was afraid of what he might do, or she wouldn't have tried to keep her research a secret," Cade said. "Weston had everything to lose if she found hard proof the island belongs to the Seabornes. His entire fortune came from developing land that wasn't his. A man like him-" 

"But his own daughter? He had his own daughter killed?" 

"He despised her. He'd already disowned her. In his eyes she was dead." 

"Our grandfather!" Lana looked at him, tears brimming. "Our grandfather killed our mother, our father. And Mike." 

Cade gripped the wheel tighter. The truth was impossible to swallow, like trying to choke down a hot iron ball. 

Lana gagged. "Stop the car, quick. I'm going to throw up." 

He braked, downshifted, and pulled over. Lana unbuckled her seatbelt and lurched out the door, vomited in the palmettos.  

Cade stared at a raindrop snaking down the windshield, wondering what they were going to do with their flimsy information. They couldn't go to the police. What real evidence did they have that Weston Fairchild was a murderer?  

Lana climbed back into the Land Rover. She covered her face in her hands as Cade pulled back onto the roadway. "A part of me wishes we had never learned any of this," she said. "I don't know if I can handle it." 

"Don't say that. We needed to know. We needed... fuck. But now we know. The truth is liberating." 

"Liberating? What do we do now? I'm not even sure I can make it home without liberating the insides of my guts again." 

"No, listen to me," he said. "I was angry as hell at Mike for being so careless. Any idiot knows not to run a gas-powered compressor in the same hold as the air tanks you're filling. Carbon monoxide. Duh. I used to think, 'You dumb fuck, if you're gonna be that stupid, why couldn't you have just filled your own tank, and not Dad's too?'" 

Lana looked at him. 

"I hated him. Took me years to forgive him. But now I see what really happened. The whole thing was rigged to make Mike look bad, so their drowning would seem an accident." 

"That's why you knocked over his gravestone." 

He hesitated. "You knew that was me?" 

She nodded. 

"And you didn't kick my butt out of the house?" 

"You were just a kid; you were hurting bad," she said. "And in my worst moments, I was really pissed at Mike, too." She wiped at a tear that started down. "God, Cade, he was only twenty-two. I thought he'd gotten sloppy." 

"Everybody thought so. The perfect set-up." He slapped the steering wheel with his palms. "We fell for it."  

They drove along in tense silence. The Apalachicola National Forest rushed by on both sides, a shade greener from the fresh rain. A trio of deer darted across the road a quarter-mile ahead. 

"So what do we do?" he said at last. "Weston plays golf with big shots, including the governor and attorney-general and half the Florida legislature. Do we go to the cops? We have no proof."  

"Maybe we should talk to a lawyer, get some advice." 

He shook his head. "The more I think about it, the more our position sucks," he said. "This time next week, they smash the Inn. There's only one thing to do: I'm going to have to find the ironclad. We know it sank on Devil's Backbone. Dad must have the wreck site marked on one of his salvage charts. I need to find it, dive it, and bring up the hard, legal proof that the land is ours-the brass plaque." 

"Omigod, Cade. What if Weston finds out?" 

He nodded. "You and Haven should leave the island tonight. Jimi will stay and help me dive." 

"But-" 

"It's the only way, Lana." 

"No. Let him have the inn. I don't want anyone else hurt or killed." 

"I can't just fucking let this go, and you know it," he said. "Look here, look at me." He waited until she met his eyes. "I can't let this go. So I'm going to bring up the plaque. Okay?" 

She nodded slowly, chewing her lip. 

Cade glanced at his dive watch. "Shit and goddam, I gotta step on it if we're going to make the early ferry." 

"Cade?" 

"What?" 

"Please don't curse."