Chapter 3 - THE MAN WHO RAN
Walter Russo had not fled Boston.
He had gone to a hospital.
Anthony found him sitting beside a sleeping woman in a private room.
Walter did not look surprised.
“You found me.”
Anthony closed the door.
“Who is she?”
Walter looked at the woman.
“My daughter.”
Anthony stared.
“You don’t have children.”
“That’s what everyone believes.”
The woman was fifty-one.
Her name was Rebecca.
Terminal cancer.
Walter had hidden her existence for decades.
“Why?”
“Because your father knew.”
Anthony’s expression hardened.
Walter continued.
“Rebecca’s mother was married to another man. Salvatore discovered the affair. He used it to control me.”
“You’re blaming my father?”
“I’m telling you he was not the saint your mother remembers.”
“I never thought he was.”
Walter looked surprised.
Anthony placed the microfilm photographs on the table.
Walter’s face drained of color.
“Nathan.”
“What did you pay for on April seventeenth?”
Walter said nothing.
Anthony leaned closer.
“Did you kill my father?”
“No.”
“Did you know the bomb was coming?”
Walter closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Anthony struck him.
Once.
Walter fell against the wall.
Anthony grabbed his collar.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“And you let him get into that car?”
“I tried to stop it.”
“Twenty-six years!”
“I KNOW!”
Rebecca woke.
“Dad?”
Anthony released him.
Walter turned instantly.
“It’s okay.”
The tenderness in his voice confused Anthony more than any lie.
Rebecca looked at Anthony.
“You’re Salvatore’s boy.”
Anthony froze.
“You know me?”
“My father talked about you.”
Walter closed his eyes.
Rebecca continued.
“He said you were the son he got to raise.”
Anthony looked at Walter.
Twenty-six years of birthdays.
Funerals.
Advice.
Arguments.
Walter teaching him to drive.
Walter sitting beside him when Eleanor underwent heart surgery.
Walter putting a hand on his shoulder before his wedding that never happened.
Was all of it a lie?
“Tell me everything.”
Walter sat.
“The payment wasn’t for killing Salvatore.”
“What was it for?”
“To make him disappear.”
Anthony stared.
Walter said the impossible.
May you like
“Your father was supposed to survive the explosion.”
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