“I thought we’d start by talking about the last fourteen years.”

There was a pause as Liam Byrne drew underwear from a small, shabby suitcase. He started to collect the rest of his clothes scattered all about the room even as he collected his thoughts. When he spoke, finally, he did so without looking at his son.

“They were years in the wilderness, boyo. Fallow years. And believe it or not, I missed you more than you missed me.”

“I doubt it.”

“No, it’s truth, believe me.” He began to dress, a pair of boxers, his rumpled suit pants. “And your mother, I was so sad to hear of her passing. I loved her mightily.”

“Not enough to be there when she died.”

“Would it have helped? Would my presence have given her one more day?”

“She never dated, never saw another man.”

“One of a kind, your mother.”

“How could you leave her like that, by pretending to be dead? How could you leave me?”

Liam Byrne, still shirtless, stopped dressing and stared at his son for a moment before walking around to sit on the edge of the bed closest to Kyle. His face was drawn with seriousness. He leaned forward to put his hand on Kyle’s knee.

Kyle recoiled.

“I had no choice,” Liam Byrne said softly. “Believe me when I say this. They would have killed me if I stayed.”

“Who?”

“The same people who came after us last night. That’s why I left, that’s why I ran. You’ve seen them at work now, so you must understand. It was the file, don’t you understand? Now and then. Fourteen years ago they were killing everyone connected to it, and I was next.”

And then, in the somber tones of a lawyer laying out a case for a jury, he told Kyle the sad and harrowing truth behind the O’Malley file.

CHAPTER 33

IT BEGAN WITH A MEETING in his office. An older couple he knew from his old church, a fine upstanding couple, the O’Malleys, childless until they were graced in their later years with a daughter, a gift from God, Colleen.

Colleen had been dating a rich boy from the suburbs, but their romance was frowned on by both the families. The O’Malleys thought he was too fast, the boy’s parents thought she wasn’t good enough for him. The pressure grew too much for Colleen, and she broke it off. The boy wanted it to continue. He grew crazy, calling her at all hours, holding vigils outside her house, following her home from school, home from basketball games, following. Stalking, they call it now. And then one night he seized her arm. She struggled. It turned ugly. And with a hand pressed upon her mouth and amid whispers that she was trash and no one else would have her if he couldn’t, he pulled her into an alley.

“That was in 1979,” said Liam Byrne. “The parents wanted protection for their daughter and some sort of justice. But in those days it wasn’t the thing to testify. Reputations were easily ruined. Neither family wanted that. And the boy’s family had money. We could get far more by keeping it quiet than by making it public. So instead of going to the police and bringing charges, I advised a settlement, and the parents agreed. The amount was generous, more than enough for Colleen’s education, and as part of the settlement the boy was sent to counseling. I thought that was best for all, to set right two lives that had listed. I thought I was doing the correct thing. But I was wrong. Fifteen years later the boy, now working in the family’s investment bank, made his first run for public office.”

“Truscott,” said Kyle.

“Yes, that’s right,” said Liam Byrne. “This was in 1994, when the Republicans took over Congress and Truscott was aiming to be part of that wave, using a scad of his money to buy the seat. I thought the republic was in danger from a reactionary cadre of the moneyed elite and thought myself obligated to do something about it. So I went to that Truscott, no longer a kid but a hard and ambitious politician, and told him if he didn’t back out of the campaign, I would have no choice but to release the file. I thought I was doing the right thing for the country, but I didn’t anticipate the consequences. He didn’t back out of the campaign. He didn’t confess and move on. What he did was to start the killing.”

“Killing?”

“Colleen O’Malley, no longer a girl but a mother with two children living in Ohio. She drowned in a lake under unusual circumstances. I had kept in contact with her—both her parents had passed by then, and I felt a paternal obligation—and was horrified at the news. The funeral was a sad affair, such youth lost. But as I left the funeral, driving back to the airport, a car came from behind and rammed me off the road. My car tumbled twice before coming to rest in a ravine. I barely clambered out before it exploded. That’s when I finally understood what had happened to Colleen. And I knew that the next time I wouldn’t be so lucky.”

“Did you go to the police?”

“And say what? What did I know? The boy wasn’t doing it himself. He was all the time in Philadelphia, giving speeches. I would have been taken for a crackpot and been just as vulnerable.”

“What about the press? Why not just tell the story to the press and get it over with?”

“No one would print it. His family was too powerful. And without the girl there’d be no proof. I also knew that if I went to the press, it wasn’t just myself I’d be endangering but everyone close to me, including your mother and you.”

“A nd you r w ife.”

“Yes, well, her, too, of course. Maybe I panicked, maybe I was a fool, but I believed then that if ever I showed my face again in Philadelphia, I’d be killed right off. I found a man who could feign my death for a price, and I paid it. I paid it, and I ran, and I’ve been running ever since. Oh, boyo, you don’t know the torture of it to be an exile from your own life. But it was the only way.”

Kyle stared at his father, tried to see him fresh. For so long he had loomed huge over Kyle’s life. To see him reappear was almost fitting, as if he were a superman who could accomplish anything. But this tale about his fear and his decision to run from his former life brought him down to scale. Less than scale. For a moment he looked small and tragic, and Kyle’s heart reached out to him. But then Kyle thought of his mother.

“So you deserted us.”

“It was the only way, boyo. Otherwise you all would have been at risk. I gave up my life here to protect you.”

“How did you live?” said Kyle. “What did you do?”

“I wandered, picked up the documentation I needed to make a new life, settled down in California. I made do.”

“Were you alone?”

“What is this, a cross-examination?”

“Answer the question. Were you alone?”

“Have you ever thought of law school? It’s clearly in your blood. But think, boyo. Do you really want to be asking that question?”