The Unsung Hero Read online

  All he’d done was list his objections perhaps a little more strenuously than he normally might have.

  And for that, he’d lost another week of his life undergoing psych evaluations, as teams of medical doctors and psychiatrists tried to decide whether or not his outburst was directly related to his recent severe head injury.

  Tom had tried to assure them that, indeed, his loss of temper was merely a side effect of dealing with Tucker.

  But his doctor was a captain—Howard Eckert—who was up for promotion and eager to please Rear Admiral Tucker, and Tom’s excuses didn’t fly. Eckert gave him thirty days’ convalescent leave in an attempt to recover further from the head injury. The doctor and the shrinks warned Tom that with such an injury it wasn’t unusual to experience some temporary and slight changes in personality. Aggressive behavior. Feelings of persecution and paranoia. And of course there was the dizziness and headaches. He should try to stay calm and relaxed. Because after thirty days, when he returned to the naval base in Virginia, he would undergo a similar set of psychiatric tests, after which his fate would be decided.

  Would he be given a medical discharge and cut adrift, or would he be allowed to continue his career in the U.S. Navy?

  Tom didn’t want choice A, but he knew that Tucker would be pushing to have him safely retired. And that meant Tom needed to spend these next thirty days doing everything he could to get as rested and relaxed—and as sane—as possible.

  He knew himself well enough to know that going home for more than a long weekend would be a major mistake as far as staying sane went. And Tuesday through Sunday made for a very long weekend.

  But a short visit would be good. He wanted to see his great-uncle, Joe. He even wanted to see his sister, Angela, and his niece, Mallory. Mal had graduated from high school this year. Her teenage years were proving to be as rocky as his and Angie’s had been.

  Apparently it still wasn’t easy to be a Paoletti kid growing up in highbrow Baldwin’s Bridge, Massachusetts. Hell, there were members of the police force who still bristled when they saw Tom coming.

  He was thirty-six years old now, a highly decorated and respected commanding officer in the U.S. Navy SEALs, yet all those old labels—troublemaker, fuckup, “that wild Paoletti kid”—persevered.

  No, as much as he missed Joe’s solid company, a weekend in Baldwin’s Bridge would definitely be long enough. But maybe he could talk Joe into going to Bermuda with him for a week or two. That would be cool. And if Joe insisted, Tom would even bring Charles Ashton along on this trip.

  Mr. Ashton was Joe’s crotchety best friend or arch nemesis, depending on the two old men’s moods. He was a contender for Mr. Scrooge and the Grinch all rolled into one delightful, alcohol-soused package. But Joe had known the man since the Second World War. There was a lot of history behind his loyalty, and Tom could respect that. Besides, any man who’d managed to father Kelly Ashton couldn’t be that bad.

  Kelly Ashton. Tom thought of her every time he returned to Baldwin’s Bridge. Of course, he thought of her when he wasn’t there as well. In fact, he thought of her far too often, considering it had been more than sixteen years since he’d seen her last.

  What were the chances she’d be visiting her father this week, while Tom was in town?

  Slim to none. She was a doctor now, with a busy, full life that didn’t include sitting around, waiting for Tom to come home.

  And sixteen years was surely enough time for him to stop thinking about her. She’d obviously stopped thinking about him, considering she’d been married.

  Of course, now she was divorced.

  Which meant exactly nothing. For all he knew, she’d already remarried. Stop thinking about her. She wasn’t going to be there.

  Tom worked his way through the crowded airport, heading toward the overhang where the shuttle to the subway—called the T in Boston—would pick him up. He passed the luggage carousel, weaving his way through the throngs of people who were surging slightly forward now that the conveyor belt had started moving.

  The crowd was made up mostly of vacationing families and older travelers waiting for their suitcases. The businessmen and -women had all packed lightly enough to carry on their bags and they were long gone.

  But there was one dark-suited man in the crowd, about Tom’s height, his light brown hair streaked with gray. He reached down to pick up his bag from the conveyor belt, turning to hoist it up onto his shoulder in a strange twisting move that made Tom stop short.

  No way.

  There was no way that, out of all the places in the world, Tom should run into the man known only as “the Merchant” in Logan Airport.

  His hair was too light, although that’d be easy enough to change.

  His face was different—although it was roughly the same shape. But his nose and cheekbones were softer, less pronounced, his chin slightly weaker than Tom remembered. Could a plastic surgeon do all that? Was it even possible?

  Tom moved closer to the man, trying to get a better look.

  His eyes. The color was different. They were a muddy shade of blue and brown—that funky no-single-color that brown-eyed people could get when they bought blue-tinted contact lenses. But it didn’t matter what color they were. Tom would have recognized those eyes anywhere. Still, he’d only gotten a glimpse.

  God, was it possible? . . .

  The man moved with his duffel bag still on his shoulder, heading for the door, and Tom followed more slowly, hampered by the crowd.

  Now that he was walking, the man moved differently than the Merchant had, but a man who was the subject of an international manhunt would no doubt have worked to change his walk along with his face and his hair color. Still, that one twisting move . . . Tom had seen that many times on several different pieces of video—rare footage of the Merchant in action. And as for his eyes . . .

  Tom still saw the Merchant’s eyes in his sleep.

  As Tom followed him, the man pushed open the door, heading toward a taxicab waiting at the curb.

  Tom tried to get outside, doing some fancy footwork to keep from stepping on a toddler who’d escaped from his parents, then dancing around a pair of elderly ladies.

  By the time he reached the door, his head was throbbing and the Merchant had gotten into the taxi and was driving away.

  What now? Follow that cab?

  There were no other cabs available.

  Strains of the rock song “Paranoia” echoed in Tom’s head as he made a mental note of the departing taxi’s ID number—5768—stenciled in black letters on its trunk. He glanced at his watch. Nearly 0800.

  But if this really was the Merchant, calling the cab company to find out where cab number 5768 dropped his 0800 fare from Logan wasn’t going to do a hell of a lot of good.

  The Merchant wouldn’t go directly from the airport to his final location. He would make sure he was dropped downtown, he’d wander a few blocks, then pick up another cab. He’d do this several times until he was certain he wasn’t being followed, that his path couldn’t be traced.

  On the other side of the overhang, the shuttle to the T was pulling up.

  “Paranoia” played a little bit louder until Tom shook his head, pushing away both it and the dizziness that still seemed to intervene whenever he stood up for too long.

  Yes, it was going to sound frigging crazy when he tried to explain. “Hi, I think I just saw the international terrorist that I spent four months tracking in ’96 taking a cab out of Logan Airport. Yeah, that’s in Boston, Massachusetts, that teeming hotbed of international intrigue. . . .”

  Yeah, right.

  Tom got on the shuttle.

  He would call. Crazy as it all sounded, he had to call someone. He’d call Admiral Crowley—a man who’d trusted Tom’s crazy instincts before. But Tom would make the call from the comfort and privacy of his uncle Joe’s cottage in Baldwin’s Bridge.

  He jammed his bag beneath his feet and sat near the window, putting his head back and closing his eyes.
Rest and relaxation.

  He could assume the position, but he couldn’t keep his mind from racing.

  Tom had no clue—no clue—what he was going to do if Tucker got what he wanted and kicked him out of the Navy.

  The tile was cold against his cheek.

  It actually felt rather nice, but Charles Ashton didn’t want to die, like Elvis, on the bathroom floor, with his pajama bottoms down around his ankles.

  Where was the dignity in that?

  “Come on, God,” he said, struggling to pull his pants up his legs. “Give a guy a break.”

  He’d been on a first-name basis with God ever since that day Joe Paoletti had driven him to Dr. Grant’s and the much too young physician had used the words you and have and terminal and cancer in the very same sentence. Charles had figured his and God’s relationship was going to become far more personal and hands on in the very near future, so he might as well get friendly with the guy.

  Death.

  It wasn’t a very fun or happy word, with any particularly appealing images attached. Charles preferred the more euphemistic expressions. Kicking the bucket. Belly-up—that was a particularly bouncy, friendly-sounding one. And then there was the perennial favorite: shitting the bed.

  No, strike that. He preferred the bare bones dying over that most unpleasant image.

  The doctor had estimated that Charles had about four months before he’d pass on. Pass on—that was a stupid one. It made him think of passing gas, like dying was one giant, last-blast fart.

  Of course, the precocious youngster with the medical degree had warned, he could be wrong and the moment of truth could be far sooner than four months.

  Like maybe this morning.

  Charles wasn’t afraid to die. Not anymore. Well, wait, strike that, too. He was afraid to die—on the bathroom floor. A thing like that would stay with a guy damn near forever.

  “Remember Charles Ashton?” someone would say. “Yeah, right, Ashton,” would be the reply. “He died in his bathroom with his big bare ass hanging out of his pants.”

  Forget about all the money he’d given to charity, all his philanthropic works. Forget the branch of the Baldwin’s Bridge hospital dedicated to children’s medicine, given in honor of both his own son who died from a ruptured appendix in 1947 as well as a little French boy killed by the Nazis, a little boy he’d never actually met. Forget about the war he’d helped to win. Forget about the trust funds he’d set up so that each year three promising young students from Baldwin’s Bridge could attend the colleges of their choice.

  Forget about everything but his big bare ass, dead as a doornail on the bathroom floor.

  Dead.

  It was a cold word.

  Charles had suspected the news was coming when he’d first met the doctor, even before he’d had the full barrage of tests.

  “When you’re so old and your doctor is so young that you look at him and know you haven’t had sex since before he was born, chances are, he’s not going to have a whole hell of a lot of good news,” he’d told Joe grumpily as they’d driven home.

  Joe hadn’t said much—but then again, Joe wasn’t a huge talker. Young Joe Paoletti—he was only seventy-six to Charles’s exalted eighty—merely gave Charles a long look as they’d stopped at a red light.

  And Charles had wisely shut up. It hadn’t been the most considerate thing to say, considering Joe hadn’t had sexual relations since 1944. The crazy bastard. He’d been a heartbreaker, with a face like a matinee idol. He could have had a different woman for every night of the week. Yet he’d lived like a monk since they both had returned to Baldwin’s Bridge after the War.

  The War. The one against the Nazis. Double-yew, double-yew, eye, eye.

  He and Joe had met in France, of all places. Just after Normandy, that hell on earth. Joe hadn’t really been much of a talker back then, either.

  Theirs had become the kind of friendship that only a war could make. It was like something out of a storybook. Two men from completely different walks of life. One the poor son of a hardworking Italian immigrant from New York City, the other the wealthy son of a wealthy son from an old Boston family used to summers spent relaxing in the cool ocean breezes of the North Shore town of Baldwin’s Bridge, Massachusetts. They’d fought together against Nazi Germany, and their relationship solidified into something beyond permanent, bonded together with Winston Churchill’s own recipe for an indestructible tabby: blood, toil, tears, and sweat.

  Tears.

  Joe had wept when the doctor told Charles the C-word. He’d tried to hide it, but Charles had known.

  You didn’t spend nearly sixty years as someone’s best friend—even though you tried to deny it, even though you sometimes pretended he was only the gardener or the hired help or even just that stupid bum who’d followed you home from the War—and not know when he was hurting.

  “You should’ve taken him first,” Charles scolded God now. “I could’ve handled it.”

  With the last ounce of his strength, he heaved his pajama pants up around his waist. He lay there on the cool tile floor, his ass safely covered, coughing from the exertion, wondering if God could tell when he was lying.

  Dr. Kelly Ashton was running out of time.

  She parked her subcompact in her father’s driveway, next to Joe’s four-hundred-year-old but still pristine Buick station wagon, and turned off the engine, sitting for a moment, her head on her arms, against the steering wheel.

  What she was doing was stupid. She was stupid. Trying to maintain her pediatrics practice in Boston while living here, an hour north of the city at her father’s house in Baldwin’s Bridge, proved it. She should give the Harvard diploma back. Obviously it was a mistake. She was too stupid to have earned it.

  And she was doubly stupid since her father made it painstakingly clear that he really didn’t want her here.

  He didn’t need her help. He’d rather die alone.

  Kelly pushed open the car door, gathering the bag from the drugstore and the sack of groceries she’d picked up from the Stop & Shop on her way home. This was supposed to be one of her days here in Baldwin’s Bridge, but she’d gotten up at 4:30 to drive into Boston before the rush, to get some paperwork done. With her new schedule, she barely had time to think let alone do paperwork, and this morning she’d only managed to put a dent in the piles on her desk.

  She’d also gone in early hoping that Betsy McKenna’s test results would be in first thing.

  Kelly suspected the frail six-year-old had leukemia. And if that was the case, she wanted to be the one to tell Betsy’s parents, to talk about treatment, and to introduce them to the oncologist.

  But at nine she’d called the lab and found out that Betsy’s blood sample had been shipped in a van that had been totaled in an accident. In fact, the entire day’s blood tests had to be redone. All those patients—Betsy included—would have to come back in. The results would be returned to Kelly stat. Tomorrow, they’d promised. Provided a new blood sample got to them today.

  It was at that point she’d put the entire matter into the very capable hands of Pat Geary, her administrative assistant. And Kelly had given up on the paperwork and headed back here, to be near her father.

  Who wanted nothing more than for her to leave him alone.

  So she’d probably spend her day at home running around town, doing errands, trying to show him that she loved him in the only way she knew how. By being dutiful and obedient. By staying out of his way.

  She gave the car door a hard push with her rear end, slamming it shut.

  He’d always been a selfish bastard. What had he been thinking, anyway, having a kid when he was so damn old? He’d always been old—old and cynical and so jaded and sarcastic.

  Kelly couldn’t imagine what he’d seen in Tina, her mother, other than her youthful body and pretty face. She knew, however, what Tina had seen in him. Charles Ashton was an elegant, beautiful, seemingly sophisticated, and very, very wealthy man. Even now, at eighty, he was r
emarkably handsome. He still had a thick shock of hair—though pure white now instead of golden blond. And his eyes were still a bright piercing blue, though by all rights they should be bleary, watery, and shot with red, thanks to the gallons of alcohol he’d consumed through the years.

  It was only his soul that was ugly and shriveled.

  And it was only now, when he was dying, that he’d finally stopped drinking. Not because he wanted to be sober, but because he was having trouble eating or drinking just about everything. The whiskey that had once been his cure-all now was too harsh on his cancer-ridden stomach.

  The irony was intense.

  It took looming, imminent death by cancer to remove him from the clutches of the alcoholism that had been slowly but surely killing him. At one point, Kelly had been sure the DTs would do him in, but the old man was tough and he’d made it through.

  And now, for the first time since Kelly could remember, her father was sober all the time and capable of carrying on meaningful conversations.

  Except he didn’t want to talk to her.

  Charles didn’t need her, but dammit, she needed him. He had three months left—if that. And she needed to use that time to reach some kind of an understanding, if not with him, then at least about him. Even if all they managed to do was sit in a room together without one of them getting a rash, that would be more than they’d shared in the recent past.

  He might be stubborn, but she was stubborn, too. It wouldn’t be easy, because she was, after all, an Ashton—raised to keep every emotion she was feeling carefully, politely inside.

  Kelly went into the house and put down all her bags on the kitchen table.

  The place was silent, but that didn’t mean a thing. This monstrosity that had been the Ashton summer home for the past hundred and fifty years was so vast that Charles could be in his TV room with the set turned up deafeningly, and she wouldn’t hear it in the kitchen.

  Kelly began putting the groceries away as loudly as she possibly could, hoping—as futilely as the little girl she’d once been had hoped that her straight As on her report card would make her worthy of her father’s love—that for once Charles would hear that she was home and come say good morning.