The Devil Went Down to Austin - By Rick Riordan Page 0,124
family, wasn't it? They forced her to give the baby away. W.B.'s father made the arrangements - no paperwork, no embarrassment, just discreet payments to a family that would keep the secret and ask no questions as long as the money kept coming.
The Doeblers either didn't know or didn't care what kind of operation the Hayeses were running - what kind of hell they inflicted on their charges. But you found out. You'd watched Clara unravel - you knew that she was unfit to take care of herself, much less a child, but you also knew her misery. You resented the family for what they'd done to her."
Faye pressed her lips tight, turned her face toward the door jamb. "I never married, Tres, never had children. I saw how the family's expectations destroyed my sister - how she kept giving them more rope to strangle her with."
"But you found a way to save something of your sister. You found a way to have a family, too. By the time your nephew was six, it was clear to you what kind of monsters the Hayeses were. Their own son Dwight was being twisted, misshaped by an abusive father and a dangerously unstable mother. Your nephew was not faring much better.
In one incident, he almost died. That decided you. You rescued the child, kidnapped him. You placed him in a home of your choosing, supported by your money, and you made sure he was treated well. He became your son more than Clara's, and as he grew, you were not about to tell your sister - to see the one good deed of your life be tainted by the Doeblers. They would find a way to interfere again. Clara would insist on raising the child, and she would screw it up, the way she'd screwed up everything in her life. The child was yours now. That's why the payments to the Hayeses stopped.
Because the child was no longer there."
In the kitchen, a coffee machine gurgled and steamed as it let out the last of its water into the filter. Faye clutched her apron. One tear was making its way down her cheek.
Her mascara streaked like a smear of ashes.
"He warned me. He said the best we could hope for was a few more quiet days. I so hoped - Oh, Tres. You don't understand. Until Clara's death, we had so many good years. Even after, when he was worried for my safety, when he was so busy guarding our lives and our secret that he could barely enjoy my company - even then, every day was a gift. I would give anything to protect him. Everything else failed to matter long ago."
I could barely speak. The unequivocal love in her voice was humbling. "We need to see him, Ms. Ingram."
She hesitated, then nodded, resigned to the inevitable. She led us through the kitchen and into the yard.
The grass was dappled with light through the oak tree. A new jar of sun tea glowed on the sidewalk. Another Jimmy Doebler coffee cup and two plates of cinnamon toast sat on the patio table.
He was working near the tomato cages, cutting dead sunflower stalks with a machete.
Nearby on the grass, a flat of lantana waited, ready to be planted in the sunflowers'
place.
He wore swim trunks, flipflops, a plain white Tshirt smeared with dirt and sweat and plant pigments. When he turned, expecting to see only Faye, his face was the most content I'd ever seen it - calm, happy, at peace with his morning's work.
Then his expression went absolutely blank.
"Hello, Vic," I said.
Vic Lopez raised his machete hand, used the back of his glove to wipe a sweat droplet off his chin. He studied us, the blade of the machete hovering over his left shoulder like an insect wing.
"Navarre. Maia. I was just giving Ms. Ingram a hand. Amazing the things you can do once you quit the day job."
"He knows," Faye told him.
Lopez met her eyes, had a silent conversation, looked back at us.
"Dwight's revenge," I said. "It wasn't against his family - it was against yours."
Faye moved to the patio table, sank into one of the chairs. She began putting the shards of the broken cup on the table.
"You're the friend Dwight lost," I said. "You were snatched out of the Hayes house when you and he were only six. You were rescued, and Dwight was left behind. He never forgot."