Mercedes took a deep swallow of water, and Lex noticed her hands were trembling. “It…it was a really foolish thing for Tony to do, but he was growing more and more irrational, and violent, and the excessive drinking and drugs he was taking didn’t help.” She hesitated, looked Lex directly in the eyes. “If you know who Tony Ciccone was, Lexington, as you say you do, then you’ll know the history and the rumors that circulated around him. You will know what people say he did. Frank needed to distance himself from all that, because he ran a clean operation.”
Like hell. Lex glared at her. “Go on.”
“But the kidnapping went wrong. Sara apparently hid you and shot and injured Tony’s man, and he fled when he heard the police coming.”
“Did this…man survive his gunshot injury?” Lex asked, seeing in his mind a replay…the checkered pants, the man’s hairy hands, the glint of the knife. His mother’s blood.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re not telling the truth.”
“I have nothing I want to hide, Lexington. I am telling you this because I need to. I am ill—seriously ill—and the prognosis is grave. I might have only days left, weeks at the most. When things start to go wrong in my body, it will be fast. My husband doesn’t know I am sick. He doesn’t know any of what I am telling you.”
“Then why are you telling me.”
“I need to,” she said simply. She walked across the room, almost took a seat on a white chair, but restrained herself from showing weakness. Instead she forced her spine straight again. A proud woman, no doubt, but now that Lex looked carefully, under it, he could see a frailty. Under her artfully applied makeup was a face that was pale. Sick.
“When you approach the end of life, Lexington, and you look back over all that you have done…I…I just need to make peace with my God.” Her eyes glimmered again. “And to do this, I needed to see you, to look into the eyes of my son, and to tell you the truth. It’s my atonement. My absolution. This one thing I must do before I pass from this world.”
“So it’s for your own satisfaction. Because it’s clearly not for mine.”
“The truth, Lexington, it sets one free.”
“And this truth of your affair, what do you expect it will do to Frank?”
“You don’t need to tell him,” she stated.
“So the truth sets only certain people free?”
She said nothing.
Lex walked to the window, looked down at the city of sin and light. Of illusions, deception. Of promise, fate, fortune. And ruin.
“Will you tell him?” she asked very quietly.
“I’m a federal agent, Mrs. Epstein. You’ve just told me who is behind the unsolved murder of a woman. It’s a thirty-yearold cold case that could now, finally, find its way to closure. Frank will become part of that investigation, given his alliances with Ciccone, and the fact he is your husband.”
“Frank had nothing to do with Sara’s murder.”
“He did, Mrs. Epstein. He was the target of the kidnapping attempt that went wrong. He was the reason for it all.”
“And who would you see prosecuted at the end of it?” she asked. “Exactly who would stand trial—a dead man?”
“Justice must be done.”
“Tony Ciccone is dead, Lexington. Gone. There’s no one to arrest, no one to try in court. No need to bring it all up.”
“It never ceases to amaze me,” Lex said slowly, “how the Epsteins, the Rothchilds, the Schaeffers of this world truly think the rules apply differently to them—that you’re somehow above it all.”
She glanced at the street way below. “We are above it, Lexington,” she said softly. “It’s the way the world works. Money is power. Especially if you know how to use it.”
“Like Frank does.”
“Yes, like my husband. And all you will do is hurt him if you tell him about my infidelity. And he has infinite—and I mean infinite—power to hurt you back.”
“A threat?” Lex snorted derisively. “You have this desperate need to tell me that I am your son, to atone with your God, but you must threaten me at the same time?” He spun, strode toward the exit. “You people make me sick. Besides, you have no proof you are my mother. I have no reason to believe it.”
“DNA will prove—”
“There’s no way in hell I’m taking a DNA test to find out you are my mother.” He stalked into the lobby, rammed the elevator button.
“Would it help if I told you where Tony Ciccone’s body is?” she called out.