Logan POV

This day seemed like a huge waste. For me, anyway.

Everyone else was tracking Rhonda.

I was sitting around like window dressing.

I'd parked a block away and made a slow stroll to the house, keeping my head down and my ears open. It really bugged me that I didn't know whether or not she was watching. That meant that I had to assume that she was.

I went inside and was struck by the silence. I'd moved into this place with Carolyn. I hated being here alone. Although at least I knew she was safe, which was more than I'd known the last time I'd been home.

I forced myself to move past the awkwardness and I went about making a few fake phone calls.

It was depressing as hell.

I talked about a memorial service for Carolyn.

Then I talked about how soon I should pack up her belongings. I, of course, wanted to wait but my imaginary antagonist insisted that it would be better if I got the task out of the way quickly, like removing a band-aid.

That conversation opened up the door for my response to Rhonda's text, which indicated that I'd found some reason to believe Carolyn had been cheating on me.

I swear, I deserved a damn Oscar for this performance.

But I toughed it out and got through the day.

A little while after Ross checked in with me, he sent me another message with a phone number, letting me know that he'd gotten Carolyn a new phone. I guess he wanted me to know that it wasn't Rhonda pretending to be her.

I thanked him and then sent her a text.

Are you okay?

Yes. But I've got some news. Can you go outside so that we can talk?

I can't risk it. Tell me.

Before she could reply, I got a text from Alex telling me to go to the morgue, so I sent another one to Carolyn.

I'm on my way there, but it'll take awhile. Tell me.

I think I found the connection to your mother. I need to confirm it. I'll tell you when you get here.

I could understand that she didn't want to tell me potentially upsetting news in a text message.

But now I had to drive a circuitous route through the city to keep from having a tail when all I really wanted to do was race there with lights flashing and siren wailing.

Patience wasn't my strong suit.

But I did it. I worked my way to the morgue in a fashion sure to lose anyone attempting to follow me. And while I did so, I tossed about possibilities.

By the time I got to the morgue, I had a feeling that I knew what was coming.

Neither Ross nor Liz said anything more than hello to me as I crossed the room and joined Carolyn in Liz's office. She closed the door behind me.

Despite my apprehension about her news, I was happy to see her.

And I'd waited this long. I could wait another minute.

I grabbed her into a tight hug and buried my face in her hair.

I couldn't wait to get her out of here.

I wanted to take her to the hotel and just be with her.

But first things first. I stepped back from her, but kept a hold of her hand.

"Just say it," I encouraged. And I knew that she would.

"One of Rhonda's targets is a casino owner in Atlantic City," she began slowly, but then she picked up momentum. "His mother was Shannon McMahon. He's your half brother."

Guessing that it was coming, and then hearing the words were two different things and the reality was like a punch in the gut.

Most of my life I'd been essentially alone. Until this past year, I'd never felt a familial connection to anyone. But now she was telling me that I had a brother.

I already have a brother, I reminded myself.

Goren was my brother. Not some millionaire from Jersey whom I'd never met.

"Show me," I replied firmly. I was struggling to stay calm because the last thing Carolyn needed was to have to deal with me in the midst of a meltdown.

But it was tough and I wasn't sure if I was strong enough to hold it inside.

She let go of my hand and picked up a picture from inside of a file. I took it from her, but I kept my eyes on hers until the last second. I didn't really want to look at it, but I had to.

And when I did, I was blown away by the similarities.

It was me in a few years. Well, not exactly. But sure as hell close enough.

Even without any documentation to back it up, I would believe it. And I knew Carolyn could back it up.

"Your mom was married before she married your father," she told me.

"Yeah, I know. James Malloy. And she never divorced him."

She nodded at me and then picked up a print out.

"The birth record for John Strathmore lists Shannon McMahon and Henry Strathmore. I couldn't find anything on him yet. I ran across several of them, but none seemed to fit the demographic. And Strathmore's date of birth occurred four months after her marriage to James Malloy."

"So she was pregnant when he married her."

"Yes, although why she didn't just list Malloy as the father, I have no idea."

"Money."

"What?"

"She probably wanted to get child support from this Henry Strathmore. She was marrying Malloy so she was already going to get everything he had."

It didn't surprise me to learn anything unsavory about my mother. The only thing I couldn't figure out was how she'd ended up with my dad, especially so soon after all of this. And why it had been so important to her to keep her past a secret.

"I'll do some more digging and see if I can find him," she told me. "Mike, are you okay?"

"This explains a lot, doesn't it?" I replied bitterly. "Rhonda found the connection already. She wanted to use me to help her get to his money."

"Mike…"

"I'm fine," I snapped out. And then I stopped and took a deep breath.

"I'm fine," I said again, this time keeping my tone even. "It doesn't change anything. I don't know him. I don't want to know him. The only thing this does is tell us more about Rhonda's motive. It'll help us catch her."

With the picture in hand, I opened up the door to the office.

"Why do you say that?" Alex was saying to Liz. "What did you find out?"

"Well, she's figured out part of the reason why Rhonda's after me," I stated.

"What is it?"

I held up the photo for the Gorens to look at.

"Meet John Strathmore. My half-brother."

I only halfway listened as conversation erupted about this latest development. I sat down at the table and flipped open the file that Carolyn had put together on Strathmore.

He was a little more than four years older than me and was born and raised in Long Island by his step-father James Malloy.

While he was attending Princeton, I was the flavor of the week for my priest.

He'd graduated near the top of his class. I'd almost flunked out of Catholic school, mostly due to truancy.

He'd gone on to Yale to get his MBA.

I'd moved out of my mother's house to escape her because she'd suddenly decided that I was too big to be beaten and so she'd pulled a gun on me instead.

And I hadn't left because I was afraid that she would shoot me. I'd left because I was afraid that I'd take it from her and kill her.

I shook off that vivid memory of her pointing a shotgun at my chest. It was in the past and I wasn't going to walk down that path again.

Instead, I flipped through another sheet and found the bank records.

According to what Carolyn had found, John had come into a large trust at the age of twenty-one, presumably something set up by his real father.

Seventy million dollars.

I read over that number eight times while my mind flashed onto what I'd been doing at that age. I was working my ass off to pay for my four years at CUNY, and even then, I'd been in debt with student loans for the next ten years.

This information just confirmed my initial reaction. He and I were nothing alike and I had no interest whatsoever in laying eyes on the man.

"I think we need to call it a day," Goren said loudly, pulling me from my thoughts. "We need to get some rest and start fresh on this tomorrow."

I looked up at him and found him watching me with worried eyes. Great, now he was concerned about me.

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Ross said. "It's been a long couple of days. We'll regroup in the morning. My office."

"It'll be like old times," Alex remarked wryly.

I didn't want old times. I wanted three days ago.

I had finally grown comfortable with Mike Logan. And yet somehow my mother had managed to come back from the grave to kick me in the teeth.

With a little help from Rhonda, of course.

I couldn't forget about her. And I wouldn't.

Because I absolutely could not wait to take that woman down.

Forty-five minutes later, I sat next to Goren at the bar in the Roosevelt.

Alex and Carolyn were still in the booth where we'd sat when we first came in, but then Goren had suggested that he and I go to the bar to order another round of drinks.

And I knew what that meant.

That was code for we need to talk.

Well, he could talk all he wanted to, but I didn't have anything to say.

And maybe I was spending too much time feeling sorry for myself, but I think I deserved a little pity party.

Didn't I? With the that day I'd had?

I'd spent the first half fake-mourning my pretend-dead wife. Less than a day after I'd thought she might be dead for real.

And then I'd found out that I had a brother with money falling out of his ass while I'd grown up alone, scratching and clawing my way into adulthood.

"So let's hear it," Goren said after taking a drink of his Scotch.

"Hear what?" I retorted smartly.

"Whatever is running through your head right now. I know you don't want to say it in front of Carolyn. She's having enough trouble dealing with herself. So say it to me."

I glanced past Bobby over to where the girls sat in the booth, and saw that they were engrossed in conversation. Maybe Alex had gotten her talking about the kidnapping.

I felt a wave of relief, immediately followed by shame. I'd practically ignored her since she gave me the news. As though it were her fault.

I wasn't doing it intentionally, but…like I said. I'd been busy feeling sorry for myself.

"They're fine," Goren remarked when he noticed the direction of my stare.

I sighed and picked up my drink, stalling my reply by sipping on the bourbon.

I was at once annoyed and grateful that Goren knew me so well. He was going to poke at me until I talked. And he wouldn't put up with any psycho-babble bullshit. He wanted gut feelings, but that was a hard thing for me to put into words.

"I had a crappy childhood. That's no secret," I said at last. "And to find out that my mother had another son…one who seems to have lived a storybook life…well, that's a little hard to swallow."

"But he didn't have a mother."

"He didn't have a drunk, abusive mother?" I retorted, barking out a derisive laugh. "No. No, you're right about that."

"Which part is it that bothers you? That she never told you about him? Or that he seems to have had a better life? Because from where I'm sitting, you've got a pretty good life going on right now."

I thought about that for a minute. Three or four minutes actually.

Was that what irked me so much? That he was rich? That would be pretty shallow. And honestly, even though I liked having money to pay the bills, I'd never worried too much about having more than that. No, I didn't think that was it.

So then it was because my mother had kept him a secret. But why did I care about that? She'd apparently had a lot of secrets. And it wasn't like she and I had a close relationship anyway.

"I'm not sure," I admitted at last. But then I added, "I don't care that he has money."

"I didn't think that you did," he replied easily. "Did I ever tell you that my father left me a plot of land upstate?"

I looked at him quickly, unsure where he was going with the statement.

"No."

"I don't mean my dad," he clarified. "I mean my father, Mark Ford Brady."

I nodded slowly. We'd danced around this topic a few times, but we'd never jumped into the heart of it. I knew that he'd found out awhile back, before we were as close as we are now, so at the time I didn't feel right asking him about it.

"He left you land?"

"Quite a bit of it. I had the lawyer sell it and then give the money to charity. This was at a time when I wasn't earning a paycheck. But I didn't want one cent from that man."

I finished off my drink and realized that I had relaxed marginally. The conversation had shifted slightly so that I didn't feel like I was under a spotlight.

Goren's family had secrets. Lots of them, some of which were downright scandalous.

"It bothered me that I didn't find out until I was a grown man," he continued. "And for awhile, I wondered what would've changed if I'd known sooner."

"What did you come up with?"

"Nothing. I don't know what it would've changed. What do you think would've been different if you'd known about Strathmore sooner?"

Good question. Obviously my mother had no ties to him. She'd rarely left our home so she certainly wasn't humping out to Long Island to visit her other family.

"Um…I don't know. I guess maybe I wouldn't have felt so alone."

I hadn't realized that I was going to say the words until I actually heard them coming out of my mouth. And to my horror, my voice cracked on the final word.

I am not going to cry about this, and especially not in front of Goren.

I took several deep breaths in an effort to settle my over-active tear ducts.

"I can understand that," he replied, ignoring my show of emotion. "You went through a lot and you did it with the impression that no one else was going through what you were."

"Which," I began, understanding suddenly dawning on me. "Even had I known would have still been true because he wasn't dealing with any of those things either."

He nodded at me and caught my eye again after having given me the chance to regain my composure.

"All he shares with you is a little of your DNA," he told me. "And if you want to meet him, then by all means, check him out. I'll go with you if you want. But if you don't, I wouldn't give it a second thought. And if seeing him in person becomes a necessity to this case, then I'll handle it."

"I don't know why I'm letting this get to me," I admitted. "I've been acting like a jerk the past few hours."

"It's hard to stand in quick sand. Rhonda's been keeping the ground moving beneath your feet. She wanted you to find this. That's why she used your mother's name. She wanted to be in your head."

"And I've let her," I answered.

"Well, I think we've all had just about enough of Rhonda Hagen. It's time we turn the tables on her. You're going to tell her that you found out about Strathmore. And you're going to be pissed that he has all that money."

"Between that, and my hints today about being over Carolyn…"

Goren nodded firmly and held up his glass.

I clinked my tumbler against his, silently thanking whoever was listening for this brother, my true brother. He was the one who understood what I'd been through and stood beside me no matter what. He was the one who mattered.

"She'll come out from under her rock," he concluded with a grin. I smiled at the thought, revenge scenarios running rampant through my brain.

"And that's when the real fun will begin."

TBC...