by Lisa Jackson
Jason slid onto the couch next to her.
Zachary looked bored. He leaned against the stones of the fireplace, his features composed, his gaze fixed on her, his jaw looking as if it hadn’t seen a razor for a couple of days.
Adria shifted a little and watched as Nelson slung a leg over his mother’s chair, positioning himself near her. Nicole, after delivering the drink to her mother-in-law, caught her husband’s commanding gaze and hastily said something about checking on her daughter before hurrying up the stairs. Trisha didn’t join the rest of the group, but preferred to sit on a stool at the bar, where she smoked and drank and observed everyone from a distance. There was a bitterness to her, a hardness Adria couldn’t comprehend.
“No one here believes you,” Eunice stated flatly.
“I expected as much.”
“So you came ready to accept defeat.”
“I came for—”
“I know, I know.” Eunice waved in the air, as if swatting a bothersome insect. “The truth. Listen,” she leaned closer, “let’s get past all this talk about the truth, all right? It’s tedious. Noble, I suppose, but tedious just the same, and we all know it’s a lie. What you really want is to be taken seriously enough so that the family scrambles around and offers you a decent amount of money to go back to wherever it is you came from.”
“I didn’t—”
“Cut the crap,” Nelson said quietly. “We’re prepared to pay you, but you’d have to sign a document—”
“Aren’t any of you interested in the fact that I could, just could, be your sister?” Adria asked. “I know you’re worried about the estate, but think about it, what if I really am London?”
“Doesn’t make any difference,” Trisha said through a cloud of smoke. “To us, you’re a stranger, and if you fell off the earth, we wouldn’t care.” Her lips curved up just a little. “In fact, a few of us might celebrate.”
“Trisha!” Eunice said sharply, then turned her attention from her daughter to Adria. “She’s a little harsh.”
“Look, I don’t need this. I thought you called me here to talk to me, to ask me questions, to help me find out the truth, but I guess I was wrong.” She stood and slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder. “Believe it or not, I didn’t drive to Portland to wreak havoc on your lives, or steal your fortune, or hurt anyone in any way.”
“Of course you did,” Trisha said.
Adria’s back stiffened. “I won’t give up.”
Trisha, with her cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth, clapped her hands. “Bravo! What a fine performance!”
“Stop it, Trisha!” Zachary said so vehemently that Eunice’s eyes narrowed on her second son.
Jason ignored the outburst. “We could make it worth your while.”
“You still want to pay me off?” She picked up her glass and sipped.
“Mmm. Say twenty-five thousand?”
She almost choked on a swallow of wine. She had expected a bribe, but the amount staggered her. “I—I don’t think so.”
Jason’s smile tightened. “We’d be willing to go up to fifty.”
Nelson visibly blanched and when Adria shot a glance in Zach’s direction, he returned her stare impassively. He was in on it! He wanted to buy her out, too. Her blood boiled silently because she’d told herself that he was different, that he would help her, that he, the rebel, cared. Obviously she’d been mistaken.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, setting her drink on the table with trembling fingers, “I think I’ll go pack.”
Jason was on his feet. “You don’t have to move out of the hotel—”
“Of course I do. Staying there was a mistake. Only one of many.” Her gaze swiveled once again to Zachary’s and this time she saw a little spark of the fire in his gray eyes. She thought about their kisses in his Jeep, the anger and passion that had radiated from him. Had it all been part of the plan to break down her defenses? Would he stoop low enough to try and seduce her, just to scare her off? Sick at the thought, she squared her shoulders, turned on her heel, and marched up the stairs. As far as she was concerned, the battle lines had been drawn. The Danvers family could rot in hell for all she cared.
The locket glittered and spun, catching the light as it dangled from a worn gold chain. Cheap. A fake. Like the woman who owned it.
It had been a big risk sneaking into Adria’s hotel room, but sometimes risks were necessary. And look what the spoils were—a cheap piece of jewelry and an even cheaper pair of panties. Oh, they were sexy enough. Black lace and not much of it.
Adria Nash was obviously into carnal pleasures, or perhaps she was a tease.
So much like Kat.
In the privacy of a hotel room, Katherine’s killer clenched Adria’s personal items in angry hands and tried to calm down. It was impossible. Unwanted memories of Kat continued to haunt and torment the one person who had so desperately wanted to bury Katherine LaRouche Danvers forever.
Even now, as Katherine’s killer stood near the windows of a penthouse suite with a view of Portland’s city lights, the panorama was lost beneath visions of long black hair that gleamed blue as it fell down an unmarred back, breasts that were full and high, long legs that promised men dangerous pleasures.
Kat.
Would she never die?
Would her image never fade?
Dear God, how long would this torment go on?
As long as the family is threatened. As long as there is a chance Kat’s child is alive; as long as London walks this earth.
Rage coursed through the blood of Katherine’s killer. The locket, clenched so tightly, cut into a palm, drawing blood that was wiped with the scrap of lace Adria Nash called underwear.
No, this job was far from finished. The threat still existed.
Because of Adria Nash.
Because of London.
But that would change.
Soon.
Very, very soon.
14
No one believed her. She’d told the front desk, the man in charge of security, and even Zachary Danvers himself that she’d felt someone had been in her room. Even though she’d insisted that she was missing her locket and probably a few other things as well, that they had been stolen, she’d been dismissed.
“You think I set you up to be ripped off?” Zach had asked when she’d called him.
“I’m just telling you what happened.”
“While you were dozing in the Jacuzzi,” he’d clarified, unable or unwilling to keep the disbelief from his voice.
“Yes.”
“And you think someone—no, make that the Danvers family—is spying on you, is that it? That we put you into a room filled with all kinds of electronic surveillance equipment, then sent a burglar up when we caught you sleeping in the tub?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but—”
“But nothing. It is crazy, Adria.”
“It happened, Zach.”
“Fine. I’ll talk with Security.” His voice was filled with disbelief. He was placating her.
“I should go to the police.”
“Please. Do. Tell them what you just told me. Have them search the room and dust for prints, if they’re not too busy. Tell them they didn’t take your credit cards or your money, that nothing but a few personal things were lifted—and while you’re at it, you may as well let them know that you think you’re London. Let them know that they can close the books on that open kidnapping file.”
She’d gritted her teeth. “I’ll think about it,” she assured him as she’d hung up, but, of course, she wouldn’t call the local authorities. Not yet. Not before she hired herself a lawyer and knew her legal rights. She’d talked to an attorney in Bozeman before she’d come to Portland, but decided not to have him take any legal action. Not until she knew what she was up against.
And now she did.
She was up against the entire Danvers clan. The proverbial brick wall. And that wall was covered with spools of barbed wire
, the kind that was certain to cut a person to ribbons if they tried to scale the barricade.
So who would take the locket she’d gotten from her adoptive father on her thirteenth birthday? Or a pair of panties. A sick feeling curled inside her stomach and her skin crawled. What kind of a creep was she up against?
It may not be as bad as you think. Someone may be just trying to freak you out, to force you to back off.
Or whoever took the objects was a real whacko. Someone with several screws loose.
Either way, she’d decided to move out of the Hotel Danvers, away from curious glances, raised eyebrows, and the feeling that she was being spied upon. Away from the chance that whoever had been bold enough to break into her room would return.
Putting some distance between herself and the family was just as well, she told herself, as she found a room in the Orion Hotel just a few blocks away. The Orion intrigued her because it was the hotel where Zachary was supposed to have been beaten up and left for dead on the night London had been abducted.
The Orion had changed hands several times in the last few years and had been updated. Whereas the Hotel Danvers had been refurbished to offer a charming glimpse of Victorian Portland, the Orion was modern with plush beige carpeting, recessed lighting, and walls tinged a subtle shade of gold. What it lacked in character, the Orion made up for in convenience with three restaurants, a pool, weight room, and sauna.
She pored over her notes until two in the morning and tried to shove all thoughts of her meeting with the family out of her mind. At least she knew where she stood and she didn’t have an ally in the lot of them.
Even Zachary. Some rebel he’d turned out to be. When it came to the Danvers fortune, he was as greedy as the rest. He seemed anxious to be out of town and rid of her and away from the problems of the estate.
As she curled up on the queen-size bed, she wondered about him. He’d kissed her as if he meant it, and yet it had been nothing more than a test. She’d nearly been duped into thinking that he cared for her, but that notion was foolish. If she were London Danvers, then he was her half-brother and a romance was out of the question. If she wasn’t London, then he’d expose her as a fraud and a romance would be out of the question.
Not that she wanted a romance, she told herself. She’d learned that lesson the hard way and she wasn’t going to fall for Zachary. Not even if he wasn’t related to her.
No, all she wanted was to find out who she was. She’d fight tooth and nail to discover the truth, no matter how deeply the Danvers kin had buried it.
As his Jeep crested the Santiam Pass, Zachary reached into his pocket for a cigarette, then frowned at himself and scowled at the twin beams his headlights threw on the asphalt slipping beneath the rig’s tires. He’d stopped smoking years ago, but since he’d first set eyes on Adria, he’d felt a growing restlessness gnawing at him—a restlessness nicotine wouldn’t satisfy. Nothing could drive away the feeling except one thing—sex with Adria Nash. His lips tightened at the thought and his jeans felt suddenly tight.
She was definitely off limits.
For Christ’s sake, she could be your half-sister!
He gnashed his teeth and shifted into fourth.
The truth of the matter was that Adria or London or whoever the hell she was just happened to be the most attractive woman he’d seen in a long, long while. Beautiful, sexy as hell, with a quiet confidence and sharp tongue that should have repelled him, he found her more fascinating than any of the women he’d known. Even Kat. There had been a predatory edge to his stepmother that he hadn’t liked and during the time she’d set out to seduce him, Zachary had felt manipulated. While in Kat’s bed he’d felt primal and lost himself in her eroticism, but after the hot sex was over, he’d been empty, emotionally drained and left with the uneasy sensation that he was being used.
He’d tried to avoid women after Kat, but it had been difficult as the more aloof he’d become, the more female attention he attracted. The hell of it was, he loved sex. It was just that simple. He just didn’t need the emotional entanglements that came with a night in a woman’s bed, so he’d made a stab at celibacy. It hadn’t worked and he’d eventually married.
He’d met Joanna Whitby shortly after Kat jumped to her death. In retrospect, the relationship had been doomed from the beginning. Zach, carrying a truckload of guilt around with him, had been devastated when Kat had committed suicide and Joanna had been there. With her magical hands, soothing words, and compliant body, she’d helped him forget. He’d married her. He hadn’t even suspected that she was after her slice of the Danvers family pie, but of course that had been her motive. When he’d told her he wasn’t interested in the fortune, she hadn’t believed him. “You can’t be serious,” she’d said with one of her beautiful smiles. “Zach, that’s crazy!”
“No more crazy than it is to sit around here and kiss up to the old man, just hoping that he cuts me into the will.”
When she’d finally figured out that Zach wasn’t going to beg Witt to leave him so much as a dime, she’d found a reason to divorce him and had moved on. Word had it that she’d remarried an older man in Seattle, a widower with no children, and now she was fixed for life.
Zach hoped so. He’d learned his lesson about what women really wanted out of life and it seemed to revolve around dollar signs. Adria wasn’t any different. And she looked so damned much like Kat it was scary.
Jack Logan wouldn’t give Adria the time of day. Retired from the police department, he lived in Sellwood, a small community wedged between southeast Portland and Milwaukie. His cottage was one block off Thirteenth, behind a warehouse that had been converted into one of the antique shops for which Sellwood was famous.
Adria had called and left messages on his answering machine and, when he hadn’t called her back, she’d decided to visit him. But she couldn’t get past the gate at the front walk where a snarling German shepherd stood guard.
Obviously the ex-police detective wanted his privacy.
She didn’t have any better luck with Roger Phelps, a private investigator Witt had used in trying to locate his daughter twenty years ago. Phelps was retired, living in Tacoma, and when Adria had reached him by phone, he told her he never discussed his clients’ cases. She’d explained who she was and he’d laughed, telling her to “join the club.” Apparently he’d seen more than his share of would-be London Danverses when Witt had posted the million-dollar reward.
“Strike two,” she told herself as she hung up the phone in her hotel room. Another reason she’d stayed at the Orion was in the hopes that there might be someone working in the old building who would remember back to the night when London Danvers had been kidnapped and Zachary Danvers had been nearly killed.
Most of the people who had worked there had long since left the employ of the hotel. Only a middle-aged Thai woman and a man who ran the magazine shop in the lobby remained. The maid wouldn’t talk to her, explaining in halting English that she didn’t understand, but the man who sold candy, cigarettes, and magazines enjoyed reminiscing.
“Sure, I remember,” he said when she approached him. “Hell, I was right here in this very booth when I saw Witt’s kid stumble out of the elevator. I knew right away somethin’ was wrong with him. ’Course, I didn’t realize who he was at the time, not until the next day, when the word hit the street.” With a gnarled hand, he slapped a stack of newspapers under the counter. “The talk was fast and wild about a kidnapping or a murder of some big heist, but no one knew the real scoop.
“Rumor had it that the Danvers kid had been with some call girl. Room 317—no, that ain’t right. 307. That was it, 307. The manager took the police up there and I guess they found booze and drugs and a pool of blood stainin’ the carpet, but no whore and no sign of the two guys who were supposed to have roughed Danvers up.”
“Who was the room registered to?” she asked, leaning over the counter.
“That was the hell of it. Get this. The name on the guest register was Danver
s. Witt Danvers.”
“Witt?” she said, stunned. “But—”
“Isn’t that a hoot?” He cackled. “While Witt’s up at his own hotel havin’ the time of his life, someone steals his name and uses the room as a damned whorehouse.” He scratched his head above one ear and turned his attention to a man in a dark suit who wanted a copy of the Wall Street Journal. After handing the guy his change, he turned back to Adria. “If ya ask me, Anthony Polidori was behind the whole setup. There was always bad blood between the Polidoris and the Danverses. Had been for generations. It just seemed to explode about the time Witt lost his little girl, and Zach Danvers, if you can believe what he says, claims the guys who roughed him up worked for Polidori.”
The man’s silvery eyebrows lifted behind the thick rim of his glasses. “Seems like it was more than coincidence.”
She knew there had been some sort of feud between the wealthy Italian family and the Danvers clan, but didn’t understand how the feud affected the kidnapping. After asking a few more questions and getting nowhere, she purchased a couple of candy bars and two magazines about Portland, then checked with the clerk at the desk for messages before heading up to her room.
On impulse, she stopped at the third floor and walked the corridor, pausing at room 307. So this was Zach’s alibi. A tryst with an Italian prostitute. Adria smiled. He’d been little more than a kid at the time—seventeen. What was he doing with a whore?
Stupidly, she felt a touch of jealousy for the woman he had planned to meet. What could it possibly matter to her—she’d been only five at the time! And his half-sister! Damn it all, this was more complicated than she’d thought. She hadn’t planned on being attracted to Zachary. She’d hoped he would become her friend, perhaps even her accomplice, and eventually prove to be her blood kin…but nothing romantic, nothing dangerous, nothing so sinful. For a second she thought of her mother and what she would have said had she known the path Adria had taken. The wages of sin are—“Stop it!” she whispered harshly to herself. She’d already convinced herself to forget Zachary. Aside from the fact that he might be her half-brother, he wasn’t the kind of man to get involved with, a rawhide-tough man who dared cross the line to the wrong side of the law, who didn’t give two cents about what other people thought, who ran the world the way he thought it should be run, rather than the way it was. A good man to avoid.