Genuine Lies

but he figured his mom was going to talk to him about it again.
    She kept holding his hand. Tight. And she was looking out into the dark to where you could just see the white foam of water run up on the sand. The lights were on in the house behind them so he could see her face, and the way the wind caught at the long blue robe she wore.
    “She was a nice lady,” Brandon began. “She used to talk to me, and ask me about school and stuff. And she’d laugh at my knock-knock jokes. I’m sorry she had to die.”
    “Oh, Brandon, so am I.” She drew a deep breath. “She was a very important person, and you’ll be hearing a lot of things about her—at school, on TV, in the papers.”
    “They say things like she was a goddess, but she was a real person.”
    “Yes, she was a real person. Real people do things, make decisions, mistakes. They fall in love.”
    He shifted. She knew he was at the age when talk of love made him uncomfortable. Ordinarily, it would have made her smile. “Eve fell in love a long time ago. And she had a baby. Things couldn’t be worked out between her and the man she loved, so she had to do what she thought was best for the baby. There are a lot of good people who aren’t able to have babies of their own.”
    “They adopt them, like Grandma and Granddad adopted you.”
    “That’s right. I loved your grandparents, and they loved me. And you.” She turned, crouching down to cup his face in her hands. “But I found out, just a few days ago, that the baby Eve gave away was me.”
    He didn’t recoil in shock, but shook his head as if trying to shake her words into order. “You mean Miss B. was your real mom?”
    “No, Grandma was my real mom, the person who raised me and loved me and cared for me. But Eve was the woman who gave birth to me. She was my biological mother.” With a sigh, Julia brushed a hand through his hair. “Your biological grandmother. You became very important to her once she got to know you. She was proud of you, and I know she wishes she’d had time to tell you that herself.”
    His lip quivered. “How come if you were her baby she didn’t keep you? She had a big house and money and everything.”
    “It isn’t always a big house and money, Brandon. There are other reasons, more important reasons, for making a decision like that.”
    “You didn’t give me away.”
    “No.” She laid her cheek on his and the love was there, as strong and steady as it had been when he’d been growing in her womb. “But what’s right for one person isn’t always right for another. She did what she felt was right, Brandon. How can I be sad about it when I got to belong to Grandma and Granddad?”
    With her hands resting on his shoulders, she sat back on her heels. “I’m telling you all this now because there’s going to be talk. I want you to know that you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to be sorry for. You can be proud that Eve Benedict was your grandmother.”
    “I liked her a lot.”
    “I know.” She smiled and led him over to the bench that was built into the rail. “There’s more, Brandon, and it’s going to be very hard. I need you to be brave, and I need you to believe that everything’s going to be all right.” She waited, her eyes on his, until she could be sure she could say it calmly. “The police think I killed Eve.”
    He didn’t even blink. Instead, his eyes filled with hot anger. His little mouth firmed. “That’s stupid.”
    Her relief came out in a laugh as she rested her cheek on his hair. “Yes. Yes, it is stupid.”
    “You don’t even kill spiders. I can tell them.”
    “They’re going to find out the truth. It may take a little time though. I might have to go to trial.”
    He buried his face at her breast. “Like with Judge Wapner?”
    When he trembled she began to rock him, as she had when he’d been just a baby, restless with colic “Not exactly. But I don’t want you to worry, because they will find out.”
    “Why can’t we just go away? Why can’t we just go home?”
    “We will. When it’s all over, we will.” She wrapped herself around him. “I promise.”
    In his bedroom where he’d crawled away to drink and sulk, Drake prepared to make a phone call. He was damn glad the bitch was up to her neck in trouble. Nothing could please him more than having his
cousin
going to the block for murder.
    But even with her out of the way, there was Paul standing between him and all that money. Maybe there was no way