Max doesn’t miss a beat. “I went down to the employee lot and found a guy dropping off his wife for a shift. I waved two hundred-dollar bills in his face and asked if he could get me to Bienville in thirty minutes.” Max touches the wrecked left side of his face. “I think this got me the ride. The guy felt bad taking my money. He drove eighty-five all the way to my house, and I got my truck there.”
While Paul digests this, Max sweeps his eyes over the room, taking in the scene with military efficiency. He and Paul are on the far side of the table, Jet and I between the table and the island. Max looks surprised to find us alive.
“I thought for sure you’d shot this Jody bastard,” he says, waving his gun at me. “Did you show them the video?”
Paul answers without looking at him. “Yeah.”
“And?”
I slide the pistol a little farther behind my leg.
“And what?” Paul says.
“What did they say about it?”
Paul shrugs. “Doesn’t matter.”
Max’s eyes narrow. “Doesn’t matter? What are you talking about?”
“I been thinking, Pop. I think the best thing is to get a DNA test on Kevin. I won’t tell him what it is. Just routine blood work for a sports physical.”
Max’s face betrays astonishment. “Why the hell would you do that? I told you where that’ll lead. Them taking Kevin from us. From you. They’re playing you, son. A DNA test is a bell you can’t un-ring.”
Paul nods as though he understands, but his voice remains firm. “Still . . . I think it’s the best thing. Just to be sure.”
I take a chance by speaking to bolster Paul’s position. “A DNA test is the only thing that can settle this beyond doubt. And it will prove Jet and I are telling the truth.”
“Of course he’d say that,” Max argues. “He’ll tell any lie he can think of to get out of this room. And remember, the DNA test tricks you into proving Kevin belongs to him. You’ve got to end this now. If you don’t have the sand for it, I’ll do it for you.”
Paul faces his father with surprising grit. “Two minutes ago, I was an inch from killing Marshall. If it turns out he’s been lying to me all this time—if he’s Kevin’s father—I’ll kill him. But I want to be sure.”
Anxiety bleeds into Max’s face. He’s shifting his weight from foot to foot, and his eyes flit from Paul to me and back.
“What about you, Pop?” Paul asks in an eerily calm voice. “You fine with a DNA test?”
Max stops shifting. “I’ve told you how I feel about that.”
“I mean a DNA test on you. You and Kevin.”
Max Matheson was always the coolest customer I ever knew. But in this moment, his legendary composure deserts him. The truth in his eyes is beyond concealment. He has wanted his illegitimate son for so long that he can’t hide what he feels—and it’s not the emotion of a grandfather. Tallulah’s words come back to me in a rush: You can’t hide the sun behind a candle—
“What the hell have these two been saying?” Max demands.
Paul shrugs again. “I’m just asking a question.”
“You’re wasting time is what you’re doing! Marshall’s got a gun right there behind his leg. He’s just waiting for his chance.”
In what may be the last risk I’ll ever take, I toss Nadine’s pistol onto the floor near the table. “I don’t want to hurt anybody,” I say evenly. “All I want is the truth to come out. And I don’t think we should have a conversation about paternity while everybody’s armed.”
“What do you think about that, Pop?” Paul asks. “You gonna drop your gun, too?”
A nervous laugh from Max. “Hell, no. Marshall’s probably got another pistol in one of these cabinets. You’re not thinking straight, boy.”
I take a step toward the table. “Why don’t you own up to what you did, Max? For once in your life? Thirteen years ago you raped Jet in the guest room of your house, while Paul was passed out in the den.”
Max blanches. “That’s a goddamn lie! Is that what she said? It was rape?”
“You’re damn right,” Jet says with unalloyed hatred.
Max knows we’re lying, and that knowledge has driven him to rage. But by responding instinctively, he’s acknowledged that he had sex with Jet. I need to keep pushing him in that direction. On the other hand, if Paul’s not ready to defend us, pushing Max could get us all killed.
Paul is staring at his father the way a bull once stared at me when I slipped through a fence and tried to sneak past him to a pond. I’m not sure Paul caught the full implication of what Max said, but he senses that his father has been lying to him.
“I hate to say it,” Paul says, “but I can see that happening. I’ve seen you watch Jet’s ass while she walked, concentrating so hard you don’t even know where you are.”
Max turns up his hands. “She’s got a great ass. So what?”
Paul rocks back and forth like a man who wants to pace but has no room to do it. “Jet says you raped her,” he intones, not taking his eyes from Max’s face. “Marshall says the same thing.”
Max shifts his gun to his left hand, then holds up his right as though taking an oath in court. “On your mother’s name, Paul—it’s a lie.”
Truth has its own power, and Max spoke it with a prophet’s conviction. But while our accusation of rape is technically a lie, the truth of Max’s obsession with Jet is not. Max is consumed by a hunger—a sort of blood greed—to possess both Kevin and his mother. Paul may not know this at a conscious level, but the most primal region of his brain is pulsing with new awareness. He studies his father for a while longer, then looks back at Jet.
“That was either a damn good performance, or he’s telling the truth.”
Jet’s face has regained some color, and her dark eyes move from man to man. When her gaze finally settles on Paul, she holds her hands out before her, almost like an enchantress casting a spell.
“Think about our life together,” she says. “Think of everything you know about me. Then think about your father. Who’s the liar, Paul?”
His bloodshot eyes betray deep conflict. “Until tonight, I’d have said Pop. But you’ve lied from the beginning about Marshall.”
“Damn right she has!” Max exults. “She’s been whoring for him ever since high school. Junior high, probably.”
Paul’s gaze remains on Jet. “You still say he raped you?”
“Think how Max treated your mother,” she goes on. “There aren’t many ladies like Sally left in this world. But Max screwed every woman who’d lie down for him, even her close friends. And think how he treated you. Always tearing you down, cutting your legs out from under you—”
“Don’t listen to that!” Max roars, and his gun rises as he glares at Jet. “I won’t apologize for being a man. But I loved your mother, goddamn it. You know that. Sally knew it!”
“He killed her, Paul,” Jet says with pitiless conviction. “He either shot her or drove her to suicide. Whichever it was, he had the same motive—to silence her forever. Sally had figured out the truth about Kevin. I hate to admit that to myself. It kills me. But she knew Max had fathered Kevin. She saw that he wanted Kevin to raise as his own, and he wanted me for a wife. Sally would never let that happen. That’s why she created that cache everybody’s after. She couldn’t bring herself to kill Max in cold blood, so she did the next best thing. She protected you and Kevin the only way she knew how. She gave her life to protect you, Paul.”