“I figured you’d think it was Jake,” he went on. “Contacting you like this was a rotten thing to do, and I apologize.”
“But…but if you’re alive, is anyone buried in your casket? And what was in the house that you kept trying to find? It was you all these times, wasn’t it?”
Doug put up his hand to stop her. “Maybe I’d better tell this from the beginning.”
“Please,” Joe said, gesturing toward the kitchen table. They all sat down.
Doug, who faced the window, stared sightlessly into the distance. “It started just before you went to France, Susannah, when Jake came to me. He needed money and needed it fast. He was desperate to keep you from leaving, and he’d gotten involved in a drug deal to make some quick cash. He ended up in Idaho, where he got into trouble with some not very nice guys, and asked me for help. I don’t know what he thought I could do, but I went back with him in the hope of straightening everything out.”
“Were you selling drugs?” Susannah asked.
“No,” Doug returned adamantly. “I had no idea what I was getting into. Jake, either. By the time we knew, it was too late. We were part of a sting operation designed to catch the big-time suppliers, the guys Jake had gotten himself mixed up with. We were just some of the little fish caught in that net. But both of our names were on the arrest warrant.”
“So you fled.” Susannah didn’t understand why, if he was innocent, her brother hadn’t simply faced the authorities.
“Jake and I hightailed it out of Idaho, and it was the stupidest mistake of my life,” her brother said. “I didn’t realize that when I returned to Washington, a minor drug bust became a federal crime. All I could think of was to get to Dad and ask for his help.”
Susannah nodded, but she still didn’t grasp how the situation had gotten so quickly out of hand. “I was ready to give up, take my punishment,” he said. “I even had a date with Patricia the night we got home, but then Jake panicked and went to Sharon Nance. Apparently she couldn’t or wouldn’t help him, so he stole my car.”
“Did Jake resume his relationship with Sharon while I was in France?” Susannah asked.
“No,” Doug said.
“Later then. He must have if she had a son by him.”
“No,” Doug told her again. “There wouldn’t have been time. As I said, he stole my car and made a run for it.”
“And got himself killed,” Joe supplied, figuring that part out before Susannah did.
“Jake is…dead?” Susannah was having trouble taking this in. “But that’s impossible! Sharon said he’s Troy’s father and that she’s been in touch with him.”
Her brother’s smile was grim. “She lied.”
“But…why?”
“She obviously resented you,” Joe said, reaching for her hand and gently squeezing her fingers. “For some messed-up reason of her own. She refused to help him—and never saw him again. This summer, when she learned you were looking for Jake, she told you all those lies. She obviously wanted you to think the worst of him. And Suze—it means he wasn’t Troy’s father.”
Susannah could barely take that in, but her heart lightened. Jake had been true to her, true to the end of his life.
Doug sipped his coffee and went back to his story then. “With Jake dead, it all came down on me. Proof of my innocence had been destroyed. Dad had got hold of Sheriff Dalton before we learned about the accident. He knew he could trust his friend, but because everything had been turned over to the FBI, there was nothing the sheriff could do.”
“Oh, no.”
“It was Dad’s idea to bury Jake in my stead.” He spoke in a low voice. “He knew the chances of me getting off were slim, despite my innocence. After all the men he’d sent to prison, he feared it would be hell on earth for me there.”
“What about Jake’s father? Did he ever know?”
Doug shook his head. “To the best of my knowledge, he didn’t. He took the money Dad gave him, and from what I understand, Jake and his dad had a falling out before the move. His father was living in Oregon, and Jake said he was finished with him.” Doug paused for a moment. “Allan was the one who went to Dad, you know. When Jake found out, he was furious. Jake tried to be the man you wanted him to be, Susannah. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out for him.”
Despite Allan Presley’s inadequacy as a father and a human being, she found it sad that he never knew his only son was dead.
“How did they ever manage to bury Jake and pass him off as you?” Joe demanded.
“Sheriff Dalton had Jake placed in a body bag at the scene of the accident, and he took him to Uncle Henry’s.”
“Uncle Henry?” Joe asked, frowning.
“My dad’s brother owned the town mortuary,” Susannah said. “He died years ago and it was sold.”
“The funeral was closed casket,” Doug went on, “and that was understandable with the type of accident it’d been. No one questioned any part of it. Jake was buried, and I was dead to my family.” He paused for a moment. “Dad was able to get me new identification papers, and a social security number. He had the connections.” He stared down at his hands. “Dad found out about a baby born the same year I was, a baby who died at six months of age. David Langevin. That’s who I became.”
“All this time Mom thought you were Dad.”