A Man of Secrets

by Amanda Stevens

  Finally, Spence said, “It’s all right if you’re feeling a little scared about all this.”

  Kyle turned his green eyes on him but said nothing.

  “It’s even okay,” Spence added quietly, “if you feel like crying. It’s perfectly natural in this situation.”

  “But I don’t,” Kyle replied. His gaze dropped to his shoes. He studied them intently. “That’s the problem,” he muttered.

  “What is?”

  “I don’t feel like crying. I don’t feel sad or anything.”

  So that was it. Spence thought it was probably appropriate that Kyle was talking to him about all this. If anyone in the world could understand the boy’s confusion, his conflicting emotions about his father, it was Spence. Anthony’s brother.

  “I think I see what you mean,” he said. “You didn’t know your father very well, did you?”

  Kyle shook his head, his eyes still on his shoes.

  “That wasn’t your fault, you know. It was his. He chose not to be a part of your life for a very long time. There’s no reason for you to feel guilty. About anything. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I think so.” Kyle fell silent for a moment, then turned suddenly to Spence, squinting in the dappled sunlight. “Do you feel sad?”

  “In some ways,” he said honestly. Anthony hadn’t been an easy man to know or to love, but he’d still been Spence’s brother and, like it or not, there had still been a bond between them.

  A bond that Spence had been perfectly willing to break, all in the name of justice.

  “My mom’s sad,” Kyle was saying. “I heard her crying last night when she thought I was asleep.”

  Spence didn’t like to picture Natalie crying. He didn’t like to think about her alone and frightened, vulnerable.

  Better to remember the woman who had betrayed him. The woman who had chosen his brother over him.

  “Mom doesn’t like for me to see her cry,” Kyle said solemnly. “She doesn’t want me to worry about her.”

  “Well, that’s the way mothers are,” Spence said. He grinned, trying to lighten the moment. “It’s kind of a ‘mother thing,’ you know?”

  Kyle grinned back, displaying the gap created by his two missing front teeth. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s kind of a ‘mother thing.’” He started to say something else, then his eyes widened and he pointed over Spence’s shoulder. “Hey! There’s a guy hiding in the bushes over there! Look!”

  Spence whirled in time to see a man spring out of a clump of oleander and sprint toward the stone wall, a camera and an equipment bag slung over his shoulder.

  Without thinking, Spence took off after him. He caught the man before he could make his getaway.

  Spence whirled the man around, grabbing a fistful of his shirt. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Just taking a few pictures,” he gasped. “I work for the Scimitar. I didn’t mean any harm—just trying to get a story. That kid over there’s Anthony Bishop’s son, isn’t he?”

  “That kid over there is my nephew, and I don’t like scum like you sneaking around taking his picture.” Spence’s blood boiled at the thought of a stranger, a reporter bent only on getting a story, eavesdropping on his and Kyle’s private conversation. A conversation that had meant a lot to him, although he couldn’t say why, exactly.

  “Is it true the kid’s mother whacked Bishop?”

  The guy never even saw it coming. Spence’s fist shot out and connected with the reporter’s face. He fell sprawling to the ground. “My nose! You broke my nose, you son of a bitch!”

  Spence reached down and grabbed the camera.

  “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

  Calmly, Spence opened the back of the camera and removed the film, exposing it to light.

  Outraged, the reporter leaped to his feet. “You can’t do that!” he screamed, holding his nose.

  “I just did. Now you get the hell out of here and don’t ever let me catch you hanging around my nephew again.”

  “I’ll sue you for every penny you’ve got. Not even a Bishop can get away with this. You haven’t heard the last of me!” The man spouted a string of obscenities as he took his camera and ruined film and climbed over the wall with as much dignity as he could muster. Which wasn’t much, in Spence’s opinion.

  He walked back over to Kyle, who sat gazing up at him in awe. “Did that guy really take a picture of me? Is that really why you hit him?”

  Spence grinned and shrugged. “Yeah. I guess you could say it was kind of an ‘uncle thing’ to do.”

  “Awesome,” Kyle said. “I sure hope I get to be an uncle someday.”

  * * *

  KYLE HAD BEEN GONE little more than an hour when the phone rang. Thinking it was probably her mother or possibly her attorney, Natalie picked up without hesitation.

  “Hello?”

  There was a pause, then a male voice said gruffly, “You’ve got something of mine, lady.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. You’ve got something of mine, and I want them back.”

  A finger of dread crawled up Natalie’s spine. “How did you get this number?”

  “Let’s just say, I’ve got friends in high places.”

  “Who are you?”

  “You don’t need to know who I am. It’s enough that I know who you are. I know all about you, Natalie, because I’ve been watching you. I know where you live, I know where you work, and I know where your kid is at this very moment.”

  Natalie gasped. “Who are you?” she cried. “What do you want?”

  “You know what I want. I want what’s mine. Cooperate, and nobody else has to get hurt.”

  The phone clicked, then went dead in her ear.

  Natalie sat holding the receiver for a long moment, her hand shaking in fear. She wanted to believe it was just another crank call, but she didn’t dare. Not when her son had just been threatened.

  Natalie started to panic. How could she have let Kyle out of her sight for even a minute? What had she been thinking? What if someone came up to him at the funeral, threatened him somehow? There would be no one around to protect him. Certainly not Irene or Anthea—two colder women Natalie had never had the misfortune of knowing. And Spence? He was a Bishop, wasn’t he? She couldn’t exactly rely on him.

  She thought about calling the police, but what if they didn’t believe her? What if they thought she’d made the whole thing up, just to try and throw suspicion off herself? They didn’t even believe Anthony had ransacked her workroom that night. Sergeant Phillips had suggested she’d done it herself, just to throw them off track.

  No, she couldn’t call the police. She wasn’t even sure there was cause for alarm, but before she had time to talk herself out of what she was contemplating, Natalie grabbed her purse and car keys and headed for the garage. Within minutes she was driving out of her neighborhood, fighting the heavy Christmas-shopping traffic on the freeway.

  She glanced at her watch. The church service would be over, and the mourners would be on their way to the cemetery by now. But as she pulled into the parking area at Oak Lawn Cemetery, where the Bishops had an enormous mausoleum, she saw that the funeral procession had already arrived.

  Natalie got out of her car and walked toward the gates. She had no intention of interrupting the service. She only wanted to see Kyle from a distance, make sure he was okay. She could remain where she was and watch over him, and no one would ever have to know.

  But as she stood there in the cool shade of a water oak, a chill crept over her. She turned and saw that she was the one who was being watched.

  For a moment, he looked so much like Anthony that Natalie’s breath rushed out of her in a painful gasp. Then she realized it was Spence, and her heartbeat slowed. But only temporarily. The moment he started toward her, her blood began to pound again.

  He looked so menacing, she thought. So…dangerous. His green eyes flashed with anger, and his
heavy eyebrows were drawn together in a scowl. Although it was early, she could see the faint trace of beard that shadowed his face, making him seem even darker. More threatening. Never had his presence affected her more powerfully than it did at that moment. Natalie stared up at him, as if mesmerized.

  But when he spoke, his voice, as threatening as his thunderous appearance, broke the spell. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I…came to see Kyle,” she said. “I wanted to make sure he was all right.”

  “Why wouldn’t he be all right?”

  “Reporters have been hounding us since I got out of jail. We’ve been getting a lot of prank calls. I didn’t want him to get upset if…someone said something to him. About what happened.”

  Spence glared at her. “I don’t have to tell you how upset my family would be if they saw you here. This wasn’t a good idea, Natalie.”

  “Maybe not,” she retorted. “But I’ve done a lot of things in my life that weren’t such hot ideas. That’s never stopped me before.”

  He lifted his eyebrows in a challenge. “Like killing my brother?”

  Her face colored with anger. “Like marrying him,” she countered. “Like getting involved with you.” The moment the words were out, she regretted them. Regretted the power they gave him over her. Because now he knew she hadn’t forgotten him or the brief relationship they’d once shared. Now he knew that he had once hurt her deeply, and that she had never gotten over it.

  “Involved?” He laughed. “Your memories are kinder than mine. I thought we had an affair. A one-night stand.”

  Before she thought, Natalie’s hand lifted to slap him, but he caught her wrist in mid-swing and stood staring down at her, his green eyes blazing with anger. “Do you think our involvement meant anything to me? Do you think I’ve wasted one minute thinking about you? Thinking about the way you married my brother the minute my back was turned? You and Anthony deserved each other. You were perfect for each other. You both knew exactly what you wanted and how to get it, and you didn’t care who you stepped on in the process.”

  His words would have been like nails hammered into her heart, except for one thing—except for the glimmer of hurt in the depths of his eyes, belying his bitter words.

  Natalie saw that hurt and recognized it for what it was, because she’d seen it in her own eyes. More times than she cared to remember.

  “You’re the one who left,” she whispered.

  “Not that it matters,” he said, “but I left because I had an assignment. I was called back to Washington. I told you that. I told you I wouldn’t be able to see you for a while—”

  “Because you were working under cover?”

  He frowned at her sarcastic emphasis. “Yes.”

  She laughed bitterly. “It may surprise you to learn that I knew all about that little undercover assignment of yours. I even saw pictures.”

  He gazed down at her in astonishment. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Anthony told me all about it. He said—”

  Although Spence had been gazing at her intently, his attention suddenly shifted to somewhere over her right shoulder. A commotion sounded behind her—fierce whispers, the rustle of silk—and Natalie whirled, coming face-to-face with the three Bishop women leaving the cemetery.

  They were all dressed in black, all wore veils, and as she gazed at them, a line from Macbeth flashed through Natalie’s mind: “By the pricking of my thumbs,/ Something wicked this way comes.”

  Enter three witches.

  Irene, the undisputed leader of the coven, stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Natalie. She lifted her veil to rake her former daughter-in-law with icy contempt. The black dress she wore was stark, except for the pearl choker, trimmed with diamonds, that glittered at her throat.

  Beside Irene, clad in a short black dress that displayed a shocking amount of black-stockinged leg, Melinda Bishop, the grieving widow, clutched Irene’s arm with one gloved hand. Her red curls were piled under a wide-brimmed black hat, and dark glasses shielded her eyes. Natalie couldn’t tell if Melinda was looking at her or not.

  On the other side of Irene stood Anthea, also dressed in black, but her face and her bearing held none of her mother’s regal elegance. Instead, Anthea looked like a pale copy of Anthony.

  Once Natalie had gotten to know the Bishops, she’d learned quickly that Anthony was the only offspring who meant anything to Irene. She’d adored her eldest son while merely tolerating Anthea who, in spite of her brilliance, was obviously a huge disappointment.

  Spence, Anthony had once told Natalie, had been disowned by the time he was eighteen because of his failure to conform to Bishop standards.

  And yet, here he was today, the very picture of solidarity as he walked over to his mother. For some reason she couldn’t fathom, Natalie felt oddly betrayed.

  When Kyle saw Natalie, he rushed toward her. “Mommy!”

  Natalie met him, bending to wrap her arms around him. He clung to her for a moment, then gazed up at her. “Can we go home now? Please?”

  She smoothed back his hair. “Yes.”

  Melinda took off her dark glasses, her gaze scouring Natalie with scorn. “How dare you come here like this? Have you no shame?”

  Natalie stood, clutching Kyle’s hand. “I might ask you the same thing.” She met Melinda’s gaze evenly, until the grieving widow had to look away. Natalie thought she detected a hint of a blush on Melinda’s face beneath the veil, but that was probably assuming too much. That was assuming Melinda Bishop had a conscience, and obviously she never had. How else could she have let her best friend pour out her heart and soul, while all the time having an affair with that same best friend’s husband?

  In some ways, Melinda’s betrayal had hurt worse than Anthony’s, because Natalie hadn’t seen it coming. Right up to the bitter end, Melinda had pretended to care about Natalie, until she’d finally gotten what she wanted.

  Natalie turned to Irene. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude. I only wanted to make sure my son was okay.”

  Kyle tugged frantically on Natalie’s hand. “I want to go home, Mommy.”

  “We are, sweetheart.” She turned to leave.

  “One moment,” Irene said.

  Although the words were spoken softly, something in her tone stopped Natalie. She glanced back. Melinda was climbing into the back of the waiting limo, but Anthea remained at her mother’s side, still as a statue. Her eyes—those Bishop eyes—bored into Natalie with open hostility.

  For a moment, they all seemed frozen in time. Then Irene said, “I have something to say to you.”

  Spence was still standing beside Irene, but now he stepped forward, placing himself between her and Natalie. “This is not the time or place,” he said harshly.

  Irene spared him a brief glance. “It is exactly the time and place.”

  “Don’t do this,” Spence warned.

  His voice sent shivers of alarm up Natalie’s spine. Kyle pulled harder on her arm, as if he, too, sensed something was about to happen. “Mommy!”

  Natalie put her arm around him, drawing him close. “It’s okay, Kyle. Go wait for me in the car.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll be there in one minute. I promise.”

  Reluctantly, he did as he was told. Natalie could see her car from where she stood, and she watched as Kyle opened the door and climbed inside. Then she turned back to Irene.

  “You were wise to wait and hear me out,” Irene said. “I wouldn’t have been pleased to have had to track you down to say what I have to say to you.”

  “Then say it,” Natalie returned, bracing herself for another assault.

  “Have you any idea what I’m feeling at this moment?” Irene asked, her cold blue eyes fixed on Natalie.

  “I can only imagine,” Natalie replied. “But I am truly sorry for your loss.”

  “Are you?”

  “I didn’t kill Anthony, Mrs. Bishop.”

  “Your innoce
nce—or guilt—will be decided in a court of law. But even if a jury were to convict you, even if you were to spend the rest of your life behind bars, you still wouldn’t know what I’m feeling. The kind of pain I’ve had to endure. The torment I’ve been put through. There’s only one way that could happen.”

  Natalie’s throat closed in fear. “What do you mean?”

  Irene smiled slightly. “If you were to lose your child, your son, you would know then what I’m feeling at this moment.”

  Dear God, what was she saying? What was she threatening? Natalie’s heart raced wildly. “You wouldn’t hurt Kyle. He’s just a baby—”

  “You’re right,” Irene agreed, but there was something in her voice that chilled Natalie’s blood. “I wouldn’t hurt Kyle. He’s my only grandson, my only link to Anthony. I wouldn’t harm a single hair on his head, nor would I allow anyone else to.”

  Natalie wanted to feel relief, but the icy blue eyes had narrowed to menacing slits. The blue-veined hands at Irene’s sides balled into fists as her aristocratic face flashed with fury.

  “I won’t harm your son,” she said softly. “But I will take him away from you. Only then will you know the pain and torment I’ve been put through. Only then will you have some inkling of the hell I’m going through now—and all because of you.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Natalie!”

  “Stay away from me!” she warned as she hurried across the parking lot to her car.

  Spence caught up with her. “Wait a minute.”

  She spun to face him. “What for? So you can attack me again? So you and your mother can team up against me? You two make quite a pair.”

  “Look,” he said, running his fingers through his dark hair. “Can we go somewhere and talk about this?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can see you’re upset.”

  “Upset?” She gazed at him in astonishment. “You think that’s all I am? Your mother just threatened to take my son away from me. I’m a little more than upset.”