Chapter 6

Jarrod finally looked up at his brothers, straight and firm but with those eyes that blocked you out. "I can't tell you what Macklin had on me. Part of the deal was that nobody would ever say anything about it, not what I did, not what they did. Not even me. But don't go blaming my participation on blackmail. I'm responsible for what I did, nobody else."

Jarrod got up and walked across the room, leaning up against the fireplace mantle, staring at nothing. Nick and Heath looked at each other. "How are we supposed to forgive what we don't know we're forgiving?" Nick asked over his shoulder.

"I know it's a tall order," Jarrod said. "But a long time ago I did intelligence for the Union army. We're gonna have to leave it at that."

"It involved your intelligence work," Heath said.

Jarrod hesitated. They could almost hear the wheels turning, creaking, rusted old wheels that Jarrod hadn't oiled in years. "I'll have to let you draw your own conclusions," he said.

"Jarrod – " Nick started.

"Nick, I know you can't trust me again," Jarrod said, coming back to them, coming back to putting his desk between him and them but standing there, not sitting down. "I know it's stupid of me to think you can if I can't tell you everything, but it is what it is. Give me time and I'll do everything I can to earn your trust again. But I am who I am, Nick, and I was who I was. I have secrets I can't give up and I won't give them up. Did Macklin have something on me? Yes, he did. It's something I'm ashamed of and I'm sorry it happened, but Nick, it wasn't the only reason I did what I did to get Alderson. I had to get Alderson. He betrayed the Union. He betrayed the entire country. And it was important to me that he betrayed you."

Nick perked up curiously again.

"I could have fallen over when you and Heath came in," Jarrod said. "I worked hard to make sure everything happened when you wouldn't be there, because I didn't want you to get caught up in it for a dozen reasons. One of them was I wanted to get Alderson dealt with without you having that betrayal thrown right in your face. I wanted it to be over and done with without you being involved. But you and Heath came in early. I nearly called it off on the spot. I nearly let Macklin give away what I can't tell you, but I didn't. I stayed with it, not just for me and my secrets. To get Alderson. To get Alderson for all his betrayals, of the Union, of the country – and of you."

Jarrod turned away again, this time to look out of the window. It was starting to get dark now. He sipped the rest of his brandy.

Nick and Heath looked at each other. They didn't know what to say, either of them. But Nick put his glass down on the desk, got up, and went to his older brother. He put his hand on Jarrod's shoulder. Jarrod didn't turn around.

"All right," Nick said, "Maybe it's hard to swallow that you can't tell us what Macklin had on you, but you were a spy, and I'll live with that. I've been living with it since the war. I'll live with it some more. It's way past time to put this all away, and I will. I thought I already forgave you for Alderson but if I didn't I do now. And yes, I didn't trust you anymore but I'm willing to let you earn it again. You already started. You got to the bottom of Askin and I appreciate that. That's personal for me too, and I appreciate it. We'll work our way back to trust. And as for protecting me from having Alderson's betrayal thrown in my face – I appreciate that you did that, but you didn't have to. You've been protecting me all my life, Big Brother. You've earned the right to protect yourself, too, so we'll just let it all drop right now, right here, and work back to being who we always were, two brothers who have each other's backs."

Heath watched from his seat, not getting up, not wanting to get between these men who had spent a lifetime together, but Jarrod glanced his way. "Are you on board too, Heath?" Jarrod asked.

"Yeah, I am," Heath said. "Maybe we've all paid enough for this Alderson thing by now. I'm ready to let it go."

Jarrod turned to his middle brother. Nick held out his hand and gave a let's shake on it smile. Jarrod took his hand and nodded.

XXXXXXX

"Good," was all Victoria said when the men got home, explained everything that had happened with Askin and explained they had talked the rest of it out. "Come eat dinner," she said next, and that was the end of it.

She didn't ask Heath if Jarrod had told them whatever it was Macklin had hanging over him. If he had, it was between them. If he hadn't, that was between them, too. But dinner was cordial. Nick and Jarrod teased each other about something or other, and Heath chimed in now and then. That was enough. Victoria was willing to let it all go without knowing the answer to every question.

Late at night, though, after he turned in and put out the lights, Jarrod let himself think, remember, and understand what he still hadn't told anyone and never planned to. What Macklin had on him was the potential for disaster, or at least Macklin waved it around that way and Jarrod felt it that way. Macklin had access to intelligence agency records. Macklin knew what Jarrod had never admitted to anyone outside the agency. Everyone knew part of the story – no one knew it all.

Everyone knew about Matt Parker. Everyone knew he had shot himself, and everyone wondered if it had really been an accident, as his brothers presented it. As his best friend Jarrod presented it. Everyone wondered, though, if his death was really because of the court martial during the war, when he was charged with revealing secrets to a beautiful confederate spy. Jarrod had defended him and won the case, but everyone in Stockton wondered what really had happened. Did shame send Matt Parker over the edge? It certainly seemed to be what drove him to drink. Maybe the shame drove him to execute himself too.

What no one in the family or in Stockton knew – what Macklin held over Jarrod's head to get him to cooperate with the operation to get Alderson to confess his crimes - was that Jarrod had been involved with that same beautiful confederate spy. He'd never given over any secrets to her, but the intelligence agency knew he'd been involved with her romantically. No one in Stockton knew. No one in his family knew. But Macklin knew, and he knew no one outside the agency did.

Jarrod and Julia Saxon had kept their affair pretty quiet, but when she shifted her sites to Matt – when Matt had been caught with her and court martialed – Jarrod had to confess his involvement to the agency. The agency had investigated him and found him innocent of passing on any secret information, but it was a black mark on his record that cost him with the agency. Once the intricacies of his and Matt's involvement with Julia had come to the agency's attention, Jarrod's affair with Julia was over. Well over, because she disappeared. The only place what happened remained was in his memory, and hers, and in the agency records.

Macklin knew about the affair, and he held it over Jarrod's head, promising the file would be closed and any record of what happened between Jarrod and Julia would disappear if Jarrod helped him get Alderson. Cooperate with getting Alderson and it would all go away. Don't go along, and certain information might leak out. Jarrod knew how that worked. It was what secret agencies did. Spies were spies, and they used every bit of information they could to get what they wanted, even if the effort was unseemly.

Jarrod lay there and stared at the ceiling. Maybe he and Nick would repair their relationship now, but what he wouldn't tell anyone would continue to hang there even if Macklin got rid of the file. And it bothered Jarrod no end that he couldn't tell his family about Julia, about his guilty conscience for being involved with her and how all that had to do with Matt Parker's suicide. He had introduced Matt to Julia to begin with, and that started Matt's downhill slide into oblivion.

That was what Jarrod could never talk about – not only that he had an affair with a confederate spy during the war. The fact that he had loved Julia Saxon first, and that Matt Parker would never have met Julia Saxon if it hadn't been for him, was to him even worse. That was what hovered over that night of putting his family through hell to get Alderson. Not just Nick's bad memories, not just Mayville, and not even the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. All of that together drove Jarrod to do what he did, but the secret was one man's guilt for loving a woman and introducing a friend to that woman who betrayed him, shamed him, and led him to kill himself. Jarrod's guilt was what hung in the air over all of this. It was what Macklin had over him.

Jarrod closed his eyes, knowing this was never going to completely go away, knowing he could never tell anyone about it. Never. The best he could hope for was that Macklin would keep his mouth shut. He hoped that he could rebuild his trust with his family, and thereby, maybe, rebuild his trust in himself. Maybe now he had really settled things with Nick. Maybe now they could all go forward again and leave Alderson, Macklin, and Julia behind.

In this life, maybe that was the best you could do with your worst mistakes.

The End