"I thought you might bring my son with you." He tilts his head to the right to look over my shoulder. "I don't see him anywhere."

"He wants nothing to do with you." I tilt my head as well to block his field of vision. "I don't think he'll ever come to see you."

His lips purse together. "Time has a way of healing. Landon will find it in his heart to forgive me."

The arrogance oozing from every single one of his pores is nauseating. The man upended the lives of both of his sons and his wife and it doesn't seem to faze him.

"You came to see me." He claps his hands together. "I had a feeling that if I whistled, you'd run."

I bite my bottom lip to stave off the urge to tell him to go to hell. He wants that from me. It's how he controls his world. He pushes, others respond, and when it all becomes too much, he's the one who runs.

"I'll never be able to run as fast, or as far, as you. Wait. I meant swim."

His eyes narrow. "You're a spitfire. I can see the attraction. My son may have chosen wisely after all."

I can literally feel my skin crawling at the mention of Landon being his son. I don't understand how he's cut from the same cloth as this. I haven't spent five minutes with the man and it's already too long. "Why am I here?"

"You're curious. You have questions that only I can answer."

The fact that he's right doesn't stifle my desire to reach over the table to slap him. I'm not violent. I don't ever feel that type of rage burning within me, but the unyielding yearning to be the source of even a brief flash of his pain is overwhelming.

"Does she want to talk about her father," his voice trails as he upturns his palms in the air and holds them level. "Or does Ms. Marlow want to talk about my son first?"

I watch in silence as he moves first his right hand and then the left as if he's balancing a weight in mid-air.

"If you're not going to choose, I'll do it for you." He claps his hands together so loudly that a guard takes two heavy steps towards the table before he realizes the source of the noise.

I lean back in the uncomfortable chair I'm sitting in. "I want to know about my dad."

"Otis Marlow, the inept insurance representative who mistakenly thought a woman like Lydia Keeley could love him. Let's begin there."

***

As he told me about his relationship with Lydia, there were brief flashes of compassion in his tone. They had met while in line at a grocery store. He had been taken by the color of her eyes and the way she looked at him.

Their affair had been passionate and reckless. In the beginning they had been mindful of being caught so they'd arrange to meet in hotels just outside the city. Things grew more brazen as their attraction increased and by the time they had plotted out a plan to be together, their trysts were taking place in his car or in a hidden alcove at his office.

She wanted him to leave his wife, and when he refused, Lydia hinted at an affair with another man. She spoke of his kindness and his incessant need to please her. She told Frederick that the man was willing to risk his own freedom to help her financially.

The draw towards the man was the easy money he could provide. Once she realized how simple her plan was to forge insurance documents using the names of deceased clients, she pulled more men into her web. The operation grew and as it did, Frederick joined her at the reins.

She cashed in dozens of the policies over a three month period before her disappearance. She'd covered her tracks well by using the men willing to do her biding for her. They set up bank accounts in other countries and used fake documents to create companies that never existed.

By the time she drove her car to the spot it was found, she had accumulated enough wealth to take care of Frederick and her forever. She'd hid in plain sight in a motel near Logan Airport. A quick change of hair color and a new identity was all she needed.

"Why didn't you just leave your wife?"

He looks down to examine the fingernails on his right hand. "Greed."

"Greed?" I parrot back. "In what sense?"

"The more you have, the more you want," he says the words without looking at me. "Before Lydia disappeared, she'd set up two life insurance policies for me, or I thought she had."

I can't contain the grin I feel pulling at the corners of my mouth." You thought she had?"

He nods slowly. "By the time I'd worked my way back to the hotel after the boating accident, Lydia was gone. All that was left was a suitcase filled with documents. I never saw her again."

Chapter 17

I take a small sip of water from a plastic cup I'd filled at a fountain in the corner of the visitor hall. I'd told Frederick that I had to stretch my legs. I actually just needed a few minutes to process everything he's told me.

"I saw you on that flight from Milan." He taps his fingers against the table. "I saw my son stop in the terminal to look at you."

I wasn't sure if he'd remember me. I highly doubted it based on the fact that I couldn't remember any faces from that day other than Landon's and Gianna's. If Frederick would have stood in front of me I doubt I would have given him a second glance.

His eyes don't hold the same quiet calmness that my father's do. His expression is empty. It's different than what I remember from the photographs in Landon's apartment. The carefree happiness that was present in his face in those pictures isn't there now.

"I don't remember seeing you," I say honestly. "You were on that flight because you knew your son was the pilot?"

"It was the seventh flight this year that I've taken with my son at the controls."

I'm surprised. I'm so surprised that my mouth falls open. "Seventh?"

"I was on four last year, three the year prior."

"He never noticed you?" I ask because I'm shocked based on what Landon told me about searching crowds for his father's face.

"I stayed out of view for the most part." He scratches the wrinkled skin near the corner of his left eye. "I didn't want to risk the consequences of him seeing me."

He wasn't ready to be caught yet.

"What changed?" I bring the plastic cup to my mouth to finish the rest of the water. "Why did you step into full view now?"

He bites the corner of his lip. I can't tell whether it's to quell his emotions or not. "I saw something horrific a few months ago. It was when I was watching my other son."

"Dane? You were watching him?"

"He's a fireman." His shoulders push forward as a smile flashes across his lips. "His Engine Company is number thirty-four."

The words, along with the knowledge they contain, feels misplaced. This is a man who willingly hid from the lives of his children for close to fifteen years. The fact that he casually points out what his son does for a living, including details about which fire station he works out of, makes me uncomfortable.

"He was called out to a building when some utility workers became trapped in the basement. I was there, standing in the crowd when I saw him running across the street."

I lean back in the chair as I listen to him. I've seen Dane recently. He looked fine. Whatever Frederick saw was obviously life altering if it pushed him to reveal himself to Landon.

"What happened?"

"A young woman was hit by a police car."

"What?" My hands leap to my chest. "That artist? Are you talking about when that artist got hit?"