Birthright

by Nora Roberts

  “You don’t strike me as a man who’d waste time repeating himself.”

  “If it bears repeating. I sympathize with your situation, Dr. Dunbrook, Mr. Cullen. I know from my own verification of the documents and articles you left with me that your situation is both very real and very tragic. Even if I believed, which I do not, that my father was in any way involved, I couldn’t help you.”

  “If you’re so sure he wasn’t involved, why don’t you ask him?” Callie demanded. “Why don’t you show him the papers and ask him to explain?”

  “I’m afraid that’s just not possible. He’s dead. My father died ten days ago. In his home on Grand Cayman. I’ve just returned from there, from his funeral and from assisting his current wife with the disposition of his estate.”

  Callie felt the bottom drop out from under her. “We’re supposed to just take your word that he died? So conveniently?”

  “Hardly conveniently. He’d been ill for some time. But no, I don’t expect you to take my word for it.” He opened his briefcase, reached in for a file. “I have copies of his medical reports, his death certificate and his obituary.” Watching Callie, he passed them on to Lana. “You can easily have them substantiated.”

  “You told us you didn’t know where he was. If you lied then, this could just be another way to cover it all up.”

  “I didn’t lie. I hadn’t seen my father for years. He treated my mother shabbily. And, from all accounts, repeated the pattern with his second wife. His third? I can’t say. I was aware he was most likely in the Caymans or in Sardinia. He bought property in both places in one of his various mistresses’ names a number of years ago. But I didn’t feel I had any obligation to relay that assumption to you. My obligation is to protect my mother, my wife and children, my reputation and my practice. That’s exactly what I intend to do.”

  Carlyle got to his feet. “It’s over, Dr. Dunbrook. Whatever he did or didn’t do, he’s dead. He can’t answer your questions, explain or defend himself. And I won’t see my family punished. I won’t let that happen. Let the dead stay dead. I’ll show myself out.”

  Twenty-two

  Jake heard the deep, sorrowful sound of the cello. He couldn’t name the piece or the composer. He’d never had the ear for recognizing the classics. But he knew the mood, and therefore, Callie’s.

  She was sulking.

  He couldn’t blame her for it. As far as he was concerned, she’d had more than enough for one summer. He wished he could pack her up and off somewhere. Anywhere. They’d always been good at picking up stakes. Maybe a bit too good, he admitted, and shoved away from his computer.

  They’d never dug roots for themselves as a couple. And he, at least, hadn’t thought them important. Not then, he reflected as he got up to pace. Back then, it had been all about “the now.” No matter how determinedly the two of them had dug into the past of others, their own relationship had been steeped in the moment.

  They’d rarely spoken of their yesterdays and had given no thought to their future. He’d sure as hell had a lot of time to think about both over the past year. The single truth he’d come to was that he wanted plenty of tomorrows with Callie.

  One way to do that was to strip their yesterdays for each other and build a now instead of just riding on it.

  A good plan, he thought. Until her past had reared up and sucker-punched her.

  There was no moving on from this. No picking up stakes and playing nomads. They were both going to have to stick.

  He walked around to the kitchen, where Dory was working at the table. “We found some great stuff today. The hand ax Matt dug up was amazing,” she offered.

  “Yeah, a good find.” He opened the refrigerator, nearly reached for the beer, then passed it over for wine.

  “I’m, ah, coordinating Bill’s notes. I thought somebody should.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Dory. I’ll take care of it.”

  “No, I . . . I’d like to, if it’s okay. I wasn’t very nice to him. I mean I ragged on him a little—a lot,” she corrected. “About the way he trotted around after Callie. I feel so . . . I just feel so bad about it.”

  “You didn’t mean anything by it,” he replied.

  “We never mean most of the stupid stuff we do. Until it’s too late. I made fun of him, Jake. Right to his face.”

  “Would you feel better if you’d made fun of him behind his back?” He opened the wine, poured her a glass. “I gave him some grief myself.”

  “I know. Thanks.” She picked up the wine but didn’t drink. “I couldn’t blame you since you were both putting moves on Callie. In your own ways,” she added. She looked up at the ceiling. The music was soft and distant, almost like the night sounds whispering through the open window. “That’s pretty, but so damn sad.”

  “Cello never sounds very cheerful, if you ask me.”

  “I guess not. She’s really talented. Still, it’s kind of weird. An archaeologist who hauls a cello around to digs so she can play Beethoven.”

  “Yeah, she just couldn’t play the harmonica like everybody else. Don’t work too late.”

  He carried the rest of the wine and two glasses upstairs. He knew what it meant when Callie had her door closed, but he ignored the signal and opened it without knocking.

  She sat in the single chair, facing the window as she drew the bow over strings. Her profile was to him, that long line of cheek exposed with her hair bundled back.

  Her hands, he thought, always looked so delicate, so female, when she played. And whatever he’d said to Dory, he’d missed hearing her play.

  He walked to the desk, poured wine.

  “Go away.” She didn’t turn her head, just continued to stare out into the night and draw those thick, rich notes out of the air. “This isn’t a public concert.”

  “Take a break.” He crossed to her, held out good white wine in a cheap dime-store glass. “Beethoven can wait.”

  “How did you know it was Beethoven?”

  “You’re not the only one with an appreciation and knowledge of music.”

  “Since Willie Nelson is the epitome of an artist in your world—”

  “Watch it, babe. Don’t insult the greats or I won’t share my adult beverage.”

  “How come you brought me wine?”

  “Because I’m a selfless, considerate man.”

  “Who’s hoping to get me loose so he’ll get lucky.”

  “Naturally, but I’m still considerate.”

  She took the glass, sipped. “I see you went all out. It’s excellent wine.” She set the glass on the floor, then angling her head, studied him as she slid out the first bars of “Turkey in the Straw.” “More your speed, huh?”

  “Would you like to discuss the cultural and societal stages of folk music and its reflection in arts and tribal customs?”

  “Not tonight, professor.” She reached down, lifted the glass for another sip. “Thanks for the wine. Go away now and let me brood.”

  “You’ve exceeded your brooding limitations for the evening.”

  “I’m on overtime.” She set the glass down again. “Go away, Jake.”

  In response he sat down on the floor, leaned back against the wall and drank.

  Irritation flickered over her face, then smoothed out. She set the bow again, then played the two-toned warning notes from Jaws.

  “It’s not going to bother me.”

  Her lips curved, and she continued to play. He’d crack. He always did.

  He made it for nearly thirty seconds before his skin began to crawl. Leaning forward, he slapped a hand on her bow arm. “Cut it out.” But even as he fought off a shudder, he had to laugh. “You’re such a bitch.”

  “Damn right. Why won’t you go away?”

  “Last time I did that, I stayed mad, sad and lonely for the best part of a year. I didn’t like it.”

  She wanted to hunch her shoulders. “This isn’t about you.”

  “No, it’s about you. And you matter.”
<
br />   Weakened, she rested her forehead against the neck of the cello. “God, when did I get to the point where having you say something like that makes me stupid?”

  He ran his hand gently up and down her calf. “Why was I ever at the point where I couldn’t say it to you? But this time I’m not going away. I know what you’re thinking, what’s been stuck in your craw all day. The fucker had to go and die on you.”

  “Maybe Carlyle Junior’s lying. Maybe the death certificate’s bogus.”

  Jake kept his gaze steady on hers. “Maybe.”

  “And I know what you’re thinking. What would be the point? He knows we’ll have it checked. The bastard’s dead, and I’ll never look him in the eye and tell him who I am. Make him tell me what I want to know. He’ll never pay the price for what he did. There’s nothing I can do about it. Not a damn thing I can do.”

  “So, it stops here?”

  “That’s the logical conclusion. Carlyle’s dead. Simpson and his bitch of a wife are gone. Maybe if I had nothing but time and money I could keep an investigator or a team of them working indefinitely to track them down. But I don’t have that luxury.”

  “Whether or not you can look the bastard in the eye, you know who you are. Whatever price he’d pay wouldn’t change what he did to the Cullens, to your parents, to you. What you do now, for them and for yourself, is what counts.”

  Everything he was saying had already played through her head a dozen times. “What am I going to do, Jake? I can’t be Jessica for Suzanne and Jay. I can’t ease the guilt my parents feel for their part in all this. The one thing I felt I could do was get down to the answers, put the person responsible on trial.”

  “What answers do you need?”

  “The same I always need. All of them. How many others are there? Others like me, others like Barbara Halloway? Do I look for them? What do I do if I find them? Do I walk up to someone and turn their life into chaos, the way mine’s been for the last couple months? Or do I walk away, leave it alone. Let the lies stand. Let the dead stay dead.”

  He leaned back against the wall again, picked up his wine. “Since when have we ever let the dead stay dead?”

  “This could be the first.”

  “Why? Because you’re pissed off and depressed? You’ll get over it. Carlyle’s dead. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have the answers. You’re about the best I know at finding answers from the dead. With me being the best, of course.”

  “I’d laugh, but I’m busy being depressed.”

  “You know where he was living. Find out what he was doing there. Who he knew, kept in contact with. How he lived. Explore his stratigraphy and extrapolate your data from the layers.”

  “Do you think I haven’t considered all that?” She rose to set her cello back in its case. “I turned it over in my head and looked at it from every angle after we went back to the dig this afternoon. And none of those angles gives me a reason. Nothing I can think of tells me what good it would do, for anyone. If I keep at this now, without Carlyle as a focal point—or more, a target—it’s only prolonging the anxiety for my parents, and the unhappiness for the Cullens.”

  “You left yourself out of the equation again.”

  Never missed a trick, she thought. “So, I’d get some personal satisfaction from it. Personal and intellectual satisfaction from finishing the pattern. When I weigh that against everything else, it’s just not heavy enough.”

  She bent over to pick up her wine. “Two people are dead, but I can’t be sure they’re connected to this now. I can’t even be certain Lana’s fire’s a part of it. By all accounts Carlyle was old and sick. He sure as hell didn’t bop up to rural Maryland and kill two people, shoot at you, knock me unconscious and burn down Lana’s office.”

  “Must’ve made a hell of a lot of money selling babies over the years.” Jake studied the wine in his glass. “Enough to hire the kind of people who kill, knock women out and burn down buildings.”

  “You’re just not going to let me off the hook here, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Why?” Torn between frustration and curiosity, she kicked him lightly in the ankle. “Why do you want me obsessing on this?”

  “I don’t. You won’t stop obsessing until you finish it.”

  She kicked him again, for the hell of it, then paced away. “When did you get to know me so well?”

  “I always knew you pretty well. I just didn’t always give what I knew the right priority.”

  “I can’t figure out what you’re looking for. You already know I’ll have sex with you.”

  “Want a surprise?” He picked up the bottle, filled his glass nearly to the rim. And he drank half before he spoke again. “I want you to be happy. I want that more than I realized. Because . . .” He paused, drank deep again. “I love you more than I realized.”

  She felt the shock of it, and the thrill, blast straight through her heart and down to her toes. “You need to guzzle wine before you can say that?”

  “Yeah. Give me a break, I’m new at this.”

  She walked back, crouched down so they were level. “Do you mean it?”

  “Yeah, a little wine helps the words slide out. Yes, I mean it.”

  “Why?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t let it be simple. How the hell do I know why? I do, that’s all. Since I do, I want you to be happy. You’re not going to be happy until you finish this out. So I’m going to hound you, and I’m going to help you. Then when it’s finished we can deal with you and me.”

  “And that’s the way things are.”

  “That’s the way they are.” He took her glass, filled it. “Now catch up,” he ordered and pushed the glass back into her hand. “So I can get you into that sleeping bag.”

  “I’ve got a better idea.” She drank the wine down, set the glass aside. “I’ll get you in the sleeping bag.”

  “Just got to have it all your way, don’t you?” He let her take his hand, tug him to his feet. “Be gentle with me.”

  “Yeah, sure, right.” And yanked his shirt over his head.

  Later, when she lay sprawled beside him, her breath still choppy, her skin slicked with sweat, she smiled into the dark. “Feeling pretty happy.”

  He traced the curve of her hip, her waist, with his hand. “It’s a start.”

  “I want to tell you something.”

  “It can’t be that you were once a man, which is something I once feared and suspected given your very sensible attitude toward sex.”

  “No, and that’s a really stupid and sexist remark.”

  “Sexist, but not stupid. A number of attitudes no longer considered politically correct are actually realistic when considered within the—”

  “Shut up, Graystone.”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  “Roll over the other way. I don’t want you to look at me.”

  “I’m not looking at you. I have my eyes closed.” But he grumbled and shifted onto his side when she poked and pinched.

  “You said, a couple of times, that I didn’t need you. Before. That wasn’t completely accurate. No, don’t turn around.”

  “You didn’t need me. You made sure I knew it.”

  “I thought you’d run for the hills if you thought I did. You weren’t known for your long-term commitments. Neither was I.”

  “It was different for us.”

  “I knew it was different for me. And it scared me. If you turn over, I’m not saying another word.”

  Cursing under his breath, he settled down again. “Fine.”

  “I never expected to feel what I felt with you. I don’t think people, even people who have a romantic bent, expect to be consumed that way.

  “I could read you perfectly, when it came to the work, or other people, general stuff.” She sighed. “But I could never read you when it came to us. Anyway, some of it has to do with what you’d call my family culture. I don’t know a couple more devoted to each other than my parents. As in tune. And still, I a
lways saw that it was my mother who had the need.

  “She gave up her music, moved away from her family, made