She’s still so beautiful, Spence thought, watching her. He’d once thought her the most beautiful woman in the world. Her figure was still straight and slender, her hair still thick and lush. The only thing that gave away her age was the blue-veined hand that trembled on the curtain.
He remembered how unblemished and elegant her hands had once been. How, as a child, he had admired the way her diamond rings sparkled against their ivory smoothness. How he had longed to have those hands smooth back his hair, soothe away his tears…
Irene let the curtain fall back into place and turned to him. “It may surprise you to learn that I’ve kept abreast of your career, Spencer. I know you’ve done quite well for yourself with the FBI. I’m told you’re a very good agent.”
Spence lifted an eyebrow at her placating tone, automatically suspicious of his mother’s motives. Across the room, Anthea watched him carefully, her expression grim.
“Of course, it certainly isn’t the profession your father or I would have chosen for you,” Irene continued. “But you always were headstrong. You always did have your own way of doing things. You never wanted to listen to your father or to me about anything.”
Maybe because you never listened to me. But that was old ground and Spence had no intention of covering it again. “I made the decision that was right for me,” he said. “I was never cut out to be a lawyer.”
A spark of something that might have been anger flashed in Irene’s light blue eyes. As if to hide the betraying emotion, she turned back to the window. “Ironically, it’s because of your job, Spencer, because of who you are and what you do, that makes me ask this of you now. I want you to move back into this house until after the trial. I want you to promise me that you will do everything you can to bring Natalie Silver to justice.”
Spence stared at his mother’s back, telling himself he was a fool to feel disappointed. What had he thought? That she’d wanted him to move back home so she could take some measure of comfort or solace from his presence? That in losing one son, she’d realized she still had another?
He should have known better.
“I don’t trust the local authorities,” she said. “Neither your father nor your brother had the slightest bit of confidence in the police department. There has always been too much corruption, too many officers willing to take a bribe—or have their heads turned by a pretty face. I won’t allow that to happen in this case.”
It was pointless to argue with her, so all Spence said was, “And where do I come in?”
She faced him. “You have experience dealing with this sort of thing. In your line of work, you’ve conducted investigations not unlike the one involving Anthony’s murder.”
He waited, saying nothing. He could feel Anthea’s eyes, boring into his back, and he wondered what she thought. Had she known Irene’s intentions? Or was all this as much a surprise to her as it was to Spence?
He glanced at her, but her expression gave away nothing.
Suddenly Irene’s composure snapped. She took a step toward him, her eyes blazing with rage. “I want you to follow this investigation yourself, Spencer. I want you to use your contacts in the police department to find out everything you can about this case. I want you to make sure that woman doesn’t get off on some kind of trumped-up technicality.”
Irene lifted her wrinkled hand, as if to touch him, and the emerald-cut diamond on her finger emitted a cold, white light. Once he would have been mesmerized by the movement of her hand reaching out to him, but now Spence saw no beauty in the gesture at all, just a grotesque reminder of what might have been.
As if realizing the same thing, Irene let her hand fall back to her side.
“I want that woman put away for life,” she said. “I want her confined to a cold, dark cell with no hope of salvation. I want her to spend every waking hour remembering what she did to my son. What she did to this family. I want her to suffer, Spencer. I want to take her son from her just like she took mine.”
Spence glared down at her. “What are you saying?”
“The boy. Kyle. I want to take him away from her. I want that woman to know what it’s like to lose her only son.”
“Anthony wasn’t your only son, Mother,” Spence replied, his voice taut with anger.
“Of course not,” Irene said, having the grace at least to look slightly ruffled at her slip, but she almost immediately regained her composure. “You are my son, too, Spencer. My only son now, and I’m counting on you to help me. Natalie Silver will rot in prison for the rest of her life. And, just like me, she will never see her son again.”
* * *
“WHAT A DILEMMA this must be for you.”
Spence turned from the window where he’d been standing since his mother had left a few minutes ago to go upstairs and rest. Anthea had gone, too, but now she was back, and by the sound of the sarcasm in her voice, she was spoiling for a fight.
“What do you mean?”
She smiled smugly, reminding him of Anthony. “I mean, considering how you felt about ‘that woman.’ I remember when you first met her. I saw the way you looked at her that day, the way you couldn’t take your eyes off her. Still can’t, for all we know.”
Spence remembered the day he’d met Natalie, too. She’d been nineteen, a student working her way through Trinity University with a part-time job at his family’s law firm. And Spence had been twenty-three, fresh out of Quantico, a rookie agent out to make a name for himself on his first big case.
He was on assignment in San Antonio, and word had reached his father that he was in town. Anthony, Sr., had summoned Spence to his law office, and he’d reluctantly gone.
Natalie had been working with his father’s assistant in the outer office, and from the moment Spence had laid eyes on her, he’d known there was something very special about Natalie Silver, something so appealing about the way her soft, brown hair framed her lovely face and the way her blue eyes shimmered behind the wire-rimmed glasses she wore. And her smile. That shy, sweet smile that stole his breath away.
The chemistry between them had been immediate and explosive, leading to the inevitable. But their brief affair might have become, after all these years, nothing more than a bittersweet memory…if Natalie hadn’t gone and done the unforgivable.
If she hadn’t betrayed him with his own brother.
His voice took on a bitter edge when he said, “You’ve got this all wrong, Anthea. Natalie Silver means nothing to me. She never did.”
“Oh, really? Then why did you bail her out of jail? Oh, yes, I know all about that.” Anthea gloated, her green eyes gleaming with satisfaction. “You’re not the only one with connections at the police department, you know.”
“Why didn’t you tell Mother?” Spence demanded, studying his sister carefully. Something had changed about Anthea, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
“Oh, I plan to,” she said. “When it suits me. If it suits me.” She smiled again, and suddenly Spence knew what it was that was different about his sister. Her defiance. Her confidence. Her whole demeanor. Anthea was no longer the meek, mild sister who had lived all her life in her brother’s shadow. She was no longer a pale, faded copy of her twin but was now the only original.
And she liked it, Spence realized. She liked it very much.
“Just think about it,” Anthea told him. “For the first time in your life, you have a chance to win our dear mother’s undying gratitude and admiration. And all you have to do is put away for life a woman you were once in love with. All you have to do is take away Natalie Silver’s son.”
She laughed, lifting her hands to study them intently. “Now, granted, that would have been a piece of cake for Anthony, but what about you, Spencer? Can you keep an open mind about this case? Or will you let your feelings for ‘that woman’ undermine your loyalty to your family?”
Her voice had turned into a taunt, grating on Spence’s nerves. He gave her a cool, cynical appraisal that did justice to his last name. “You don�
��t have to worry about me, Anthea. No one could ever make me change the way I feel about my family.”
* * *
THE DAY OF ANTHONY’S funeral dawned warm and sunny with the high expected to be around eighty. It didn’t seem at all like Christmas to Natalie, but she knew her flagging spirits had very little to do with the soaring temperature, and everything to do with the fact that she’d been charged with her ex-husband’s murder.
She was truly sorry Anthony was dead. At times, she’d hated him during their short marriage. She’d despised his coldness and the cruel streak he kept so cleverly hidden. Later, she’d detested his careless disregard for her son’s feelings. But no matter what Anthony had done, no matter how bitterly they had disagreed on just about everything, she had never wanted him dead.
The house seemed so silent this morning, Natalie thought, wrapping her arms around herself as she stared out the window. She saw her neighbor pass by, walking her dog, and gaze toward Natalie’s house. But instead of waving when she saw Natalie at the window, the woman turned and hurried down the street.
She thinks I did it, Natalie thought numbly. She’s known me for almost five years, and now, suddenly, she thinks I’m a cold-blooded killer.
Her neighbor wasn’t the only one who thought so. Yesterday, when Natalie and Kyle had moved back to their own house, the phone had rung nonstop. Some of the callers were well-wishers—friends and family who still had faith in her—but most of the calls had been from reporters wanting a sensational story, or from crackpots who wanted the perverse thrill of talking to someone they thought was a murderer.
Natalie shuddered. She’d called the phone company to get an unlisted number to try and halt the barrage. Only her parents and her attorney knew her new number, and so far, the morning had been blessedly quiet.
Almost too quiet. She wished she could go back to work, but her shop was still considered a crime scene. No one except authorized police personnel were allowed in or out, while Silver Bells’s Christmas sales slowly went down the drain.
The period between Thanksgiving and Christmas comprised a good thirty-five percent of Natalie’s annual sales. The last week of November and the first two weeks of December had been so promising this year, and she’d hoped to show her biggest profit ever.
But even when she was allowed to reopen the store, what then? Would the customers come back? Or had the publicity surrounding Anthony’s murder and her arrest driven them all away?
Don’t think about that now, Natalie advised herself sternly as she heard Kyle walk into the room. There was nothing she could do about it, so why waste time worrying? Especially when she had so many other things to worry about.
She forced herself to smile as Kyle came to stand in front of her for inspection. She bent to adjust his tie.
“It’s choking me,” he complained, pulling on the tie the moment Natalie finished straightening it.
“Leave it alone, Kyle,” she said in exasperation. “Pulling on it just makes it tighter.” She gave it another adjustment, then stood back and studied him. “You look very handsome.”
Kyle screwed up his freshly scrubbed face. The freckles on his nose stood out like tiny copper coins. “I look like a dork.”
“No, you don’t. And quit messing with your hair. It took me ten minutes to get all the cowlicks to lie down.”
“Well, what can I do?” he asked in frustration. “I can’t ride my bike. I can’t go skating. I can’t even go to school.”
“You can sit there and wait for your grandmother’s car to come pick you up,” Natalie said, trying to keep the heaviness out of her voice.
When Irene Bishop had called yesterday, before Natalie’s number was changed, to say that she wanted Kyle to accompany the family to the funeral today, Natalie’s first instinct had been to refuse. But then, she knew that wouldn’t be right. Later, Kyle might have wondered why she had kept him from Anthony’s funeral. He might have one day regretted it, and Natalie didn’t want that. Letting Kyle go to the funeral was the decent thing to do, and so she’d finally agreed.
Irene told her that Anthea would accompany their driver to pick Kyle up this morning, and they would deliver him home again after the service. Then she had hung up without another word.
As if sensing his mother’s dread, Kyle said, “I don’t want to go.”
“I know, but we talked about this last night, remember? It’s the right thing to do.” Natalie took his hand and held it between hers. “Your grandmother needs you. Your being there today will help her a lot.”
“Why can’t you go with me?”
“Because…that wouldn’t be the right thing to do.”
“Because you and my dad were divorced?”
“That’s…part of it.”
“Because you don’t like Grandmother Bishop?”
Natalie looked at him in shock. “I never said that.”
He shrugged. “It’s okay. I don’t like her, neither.”
“Kyle!”
“Well, I don’t,” he said defiantly. “And she can’t make me like her.”
“Oh, Kyle.” Natalie didn’t know what to say to her son; how to explain to him the difficulties she had with the Bishops. She’d told him very little of the ordeal she’d been through since Anthony’s death, only that the police had wanted to ask her some questions because they were trying to figure out exactly what had happened to Anthony.
But children were a lot smarter and more perceptive than adults gave them credit for, and Kyle was no exception. Natalie had a feeling he knew a good deal more about what was going on than he was letting on, and she thought that he was probably a lot more upset than he seemed. But he was a Bishop. He didn’t like to show emotion.
“Kyle—” She wasn’t sure what she’d been about to say to him, but just then she heard a car outside. She got up and went to the window. A black limo pulled up to the curb and the driver got out to open the back door.
Natalie turned back to Kyle. “Your aunt’s here to pick you up.” She knelt to straighten his tie once again. “Now, I want you to be a good boy, okay?”
He nodded. Suddenly, his green eyes looked suspiciously bright. “Why can’t you come with me?” he asked again.
“It’ll be okay,” she promised. “I’ll be here waiting for you when you get back.”
She stood then and went to answer the doorbell. When she drew back the door, her hand flew to her heart in surprise. “Oh! It’s…you. I was expecting Anthea.”
“Something came up,” Spence said. “Anthea couldn’t make it.”
Natalie wondered uneasily if something had really come up, or if Spence had engineered this whole thing himself, just to be with Kyle. But then, why would he? He didn’t even know her son.
She chided herself for her suspicions, but like it or not, she didn’t trust Spencer Bishop. He’d bailed her out of jail, and Natalie still couldn’t help wondering why.
Reluctantly, she let her gaze travel over him. He was dressed in a dark suit, a white shirt, and a somber silk tie. Like Kyle, his dark hair looked freshly dampened and combed, as tamed as it probably ever would be. He wore it a little shorter than she remembered, but it was still thick, without a trace of gray, and she wondered suddenly if he remembered the way she had once run her fingers through those dark, unruly strands. If he remembered the way—
She stopped, gazing up at him. Her pulse hammered in her throat, for she suddenly remembered something else about Spence—that he had always been able to read her thoughts.
“No one told me about this change of plans,” she said coldly.
“Is there a problem?” Spence asked. “What difference does it make who takes him to the church?”
“It makes a difference to me. I should have been told.”
“Why? Don’t you trust me with your son?”
Before she could answer, Natalie felt Kyle lean against her leg, and she reached down automatically to put her arm around his shoulders—to draw him close, to protect him.
> “Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” Spence said.
“Do I get to ride in that big car out there?”
“You sure do. That is, if your mother says it’s okay.” Spence’s gaze challenged hers.
“Does it have a TV?” Kyle asked.
“Yeah, it does.”
“Wow,” Kyle said, taking a step or two away from Natalie to stare out the door at the big black limo waiting at the curb.
Resentment flooded through her. It was so easy to turn a young boy’s head with a fancy car. She wondered if Spence had deliberately tried to do just that.
She lifted her chin and met Spence’s gaze. “I want him home as soon as the service is over.”
Something flashed in Spence’s eyes. Something that made Natalie want to snatch her son back inside, and never let him go. Then Spence said, “You don’t have to worry about Kyle. I’ll take good care of him.”
Leaning down, she gave her son a quick hug. “I’ll see you in a little while,” she whispered.
“Okay.” He hugged her back, then, without another word, followed Spence outside.
Natalie stood at the door and watched the two of them walk away. Spence and her son.
It’ll only be for an hour or two, she told herself. What could happen in such a short time? Kyle would go to Anthony’s funeral, and then her son would come back home to her and the two of them would get on with their lives and never have to deal with the Bishops again.
But as she watched Spence and Kyle disappear inside the car, Natalie was suddenly overcome by a premonition, a dark feeling that her son was in danger…and there was nothing she could do about it.
* * *
THE MOMENT THEY JOINED the rest of the family at the church, Spence sensed Kyle’s panic. Everyone kept staring at him, shaking their heads and whispering behind gloved hands. No wonder the little guy looked a little green around the gills, Spence thought. The Bishops and their entourage were a bit much for anyone to take.
He bent down and said in Kyle’s ear, “Let’s get some air.”
Kyle nodded, obviously relieved. He followed Spence outside into a walled courtyard. Spence sat down on a stone bench near a fountain and Kyle did the same. For several moments they said nothing, just sat there staring into the water.
A Man of Secrets Page 6