A Man of Secrets

by Amanda Stevens

  In spite of her previous thoughts, Natalie’s hackles rose. “He’s just a little boy! You’re not suggesting—” Her hand flew to her mouth. She looked up at Spence. “My God,” she whispered. “He went back to the workroom to get a present I’d boxed for his teacher.”

  “In the same kind of box Anthony’s music box was in?”

  She nodded.

  “Same size?”

  She swallowed and nodded again.

  “What happened to the box he brought home?”

  “I assumed he put it under the tree.” They both turned and stared at the ravaged presents under her tree. In unison, they crossed the floor and began to scavenge through the opened boxes and ripped paper.

  After a few moments, Natalie sat back. “It isn’t here.”

  “What do you think he could have done with it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “You said it was a present for his teacher. Is there a possibility he already gave it to her?”

  Natalie shook her head. “He hasn’t been back to school since that day. And besides, he wouldn’t have taken it until the Christmas party, which is tomorrow.”

  “Then there’s only one thing to do,” Spence said.

  They both turned and headed for the front door.

  * * *

  KYLE SAT ON THE SOFA, one knee drawn up as he picked at a scab on the top of his foot. It was late, and Natalie had awakened him from a deep sleep. He wore Wolverine pajamas, his dark hair was tousled—cowlicks sticking out in all directions—and the look on his face was anything but that of a happy camper.

  “What’d I do?” he asked, his gaze bouncing back and forth from Natalie to Spence.

  “Maybe nothing,” Natalie said, trying to ignore the wide, innocent eyes he turned on her. “We just need to ask you a few questions.”

  “Have you ever heard of the FBI?” Spence asked, taking out his badge and showing it to Kyle.

  Kyle’s green eyes widened. “Am I under arrest?”

  Natalie saw Spence smother a quick grin as he sat down in the chair across from them. “No, you’re not under arrest. I need your help with one of my investigations.”

  Kyle sat up straighter, suddenly looking wide-awake. “No kidding? Really?” When Spence nodded, Kyle asked, “Do I get a gun?”

  “Absolutely not,” Natalie said.

  Kyle turned back to Spence. “Do you have a gun? Can I see it?”

  “Maybe later,” Spence replied, flashing Natalie an apologetic glance. “What I want to do now is ask you a few questions.”

  “Oh.” Kyle looked thoroughly disappointed. “But I don’t think I should talk to you.”

  Again, Natalie caught the surprise in Spence’s eyes. Obviously he hadn’t been around six-year-old boys very much if he thought interrogating one would be easy. Kyle was always one step ahead of her, and she suspected he would be no different with Spence, FBI agent or not.

  “Why not?” Spence asked.

  “I heard my dad tell someone on the phone that you should never talk to the cops unless you have your attorney with you.”

  “I hear you,” Spence said. “But your mother can represent you. You trust her, don’t you?”

  Kyle rubbed his nose and considered. “Okay.”

  For the next several minutes, Spence questioned Kyle gently about the day Anthony was killed. When he came to the subject of the teacher’s present, Kyle suddenly became fascinated once again with the scab on his foot.

  “Kyle,” Natalie said. “What did you do with Miss Riley’s present? It’s not under the tree.”

  “I hid it,” Kyle said. “Because I didn’t want robbers stealing it.”

  The irony of his words was not something Natalie could appreciate at the moment.

  “Where did you hide it?” she asked.

  “I forget.”

  Natalie held her breath, waiting for Spence’s temper to erupt or, at the very least, for his patience to wear thin, but he merely said softly, “Think real hard, Kyle. This is important. Remember, I need your help.”

  Kyle seemed to take this under advisement. He scratched his head, then turned to stare up at Natalie. “What do you think I should do, Mom?”

  “If you know where the present is, I think you should tell him, Kyle. He’s right. This is very important.”

  “Will it help you?”

  “It might.”

  He nodded, then turned back to Spence without hesitation. “It’s in my tree house.”

  Spence and Natalie exchanged glances. Spence stood and offered Kyle his hand. “You’ve been a big help,” he said solemnly. “If I crack this case, I’ll put your name in for a citation.”

  “Okay,” Kyle said, shaking Spence’s hand. “But I’d rather have a Super Nintendo.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  In the moonlight, the diamonds winked at them. Perched in Kyle’s tree house, Natalie stared in fascination at the flash and sparkle of the gemstones. The half dozen or so—a mere sampling of what they had found in the music box—nestled in Spence’s palm were each several karats in weight and more brilliant than wildfire at midnight.

  Natalie caught her breath. To think that lives had been lost because of those diamonds. To think that she and Kyle were still in mortal peril because of those bits of cold stone glittering against Spence’s palm.

  They had found the music box, along with an odd assortment of action figures, broken pencils and crayons, and a few items Natalie had yet to identify, inside the old metal army locker her father had given to Kyle. The two of them had hauled it up to Kyle’s tree house one afternoon, and Kyle called it his treasure chest—an apt description, considering.

  Using the flashlight they’d brought along, Natalie rummaged inside the locker, wondering what else Kyle might have squirreled away up here and forgotten about. She examined and discarded several items, then, toward the bottom, saw something that looked familiar to her.

  “What is it?” Spence asked, still cradling the diamonds in his fist.

  “It’s an antique ivory comb,” Natalie said, holding it out to him.

  Spence took the comb and studied it briefly before handing it back. “Looks expensive.”

  “It is. It belongs to Blanche. I can’t imagine how Kyle got it.”

  Spence glanced up. “You don’t think he stole it, do you?”

  Natalie winced at his bluntness. “No. He wouldn’t do that. He may hide things and forget where he puts them, but he would never intentionally take something that didn’t belong to him.” Natalie frowned as she slipped the comb into her pocket. Blanche must be worried sick about it. The comb had belonged to her grandmother, and was one of Blanche’s most prized possessions.

  Tomorrow, Natalie would have to find out how her son got that comb, and then she would make sure it was returned to Blanche, safe and sound. But for now, there was still the matter of the diamonds and Jack Russo to worry about.

  Spence opened the velvet pouch, and Natalie caught the flash of fire as he let the stones slide back inside.

  She looked up and met his gaze. “What do we do now?”

  “We have our bait,” he said, stuffing the diamonds into his jacket pocket. “Now we set our trap.”

  * * *

  “WHAT HAPPENS IF RUSSO doesn’t call?”

  “He’ll call,” Spence said. “Those diamonds can buy him a new life.”

  “But what if he finds out who you are? What if he thinks I’ve gone to the FBI? He specifically warned me not to go to the police,” Natalie reminded him.

  “Even if Anthony told him I’m with the Bureau, there’s still no reason for Russo to be overly suspicious of my presence. As Anthony’s brother, I have a legitimate reason for being in San Antonio. And for being around you,” he added, gazing down at her.

  Natalie shivered. They were standing on the balcony of Spence’s hotel room overlooking the Riverwalk. After finding the diamonds, they’d both agreed that it wasn’t a good idea for her to go back to her parents’ house. She
was the one Russo was after, and the farther she stayed away from Kyle, the better.

  But gazing up at Spence now, seeing the reflection of moonlight in his eyes, she wasn’t so sure this was such a good idea, either. The danger and drama of the last few days had drawn them closer together, rekindled an old flame Natalie had hoped was long dead.

  She’d tried to deny it—to herself and to Spence—but now she couldn’t, and for the first time in a long time, she allowed herself to wish for the impossible. She wished they could go back seven years and start all over.

  For a while, neither of them said anything. A breeze gusted across the balcony and Natalie wrapped her arms around herself as she stared down at the Christmas lights reflected on the river.

  A thousand regrets washed over her. She’d made so many mistakes. Trusted the wrong people. And now she’d come full circle. Spencer Bishop was back in her life, and she was feeling things she had no business feeling; wishing for things that could never be.

  Finally, unable to bear the silence any longer, she asked, “Why did you never marry, Spence?”

  She wasn’t looking at him, but she sensed his surprise at the question. Sensed his shrug. “In my line of work, it’s easier not to be tied down.”

  He said it so flatly, with no trace of emotion, that the line sounded practiced, as if he’d been telling himself that same thing for a long, long time. She gave him a sidelong glance. “Is that why you didn’t marry…her? Because of your job?”

  He frowned in the moonlight. “Her? I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  Natalie turned to face him. “I’m talking about her. The woman you were engaged to while you were…seeing me,” she said, more bitterly than she’d intended.

  Spence looked genuinely perplexed. “I repeat, I don’t know who or what you’re talking about, Natalie. Why do you think I was engaged?”

  “I…was told you were.”

  “By whom?”

  “Anthony.”

  She saw him stiffen. Saw his eyes darken with anger and something else she couldn’t quite define. “Then he lied to you. I wasn’t seeing anyone but you. There was never anyone else.”

  Natalie’s breath backed up in her throat. She didn’t dare believe what he was telling her could be true. “But he showed me pictures—”

  “You mentioned something about pictures that day at his funeral,” Spence interrupted. “What kind of pictures?”

  Natalie’s hand was shaking as she lifted it to push back her windblown hair. “Pictures of you…and a woman. A beautiful woman. Anthony said she was your fiancée.”

  A muscle in Spence’s jaw tightened. “When did all this happen?” His voice was edged with an emotion that almost frightened Natalie, and his eyes deepened with an intensity that took her breath away.

  “It was a few weeks after you’d left,” she said. “He came to me at work one day and said he needed to talk to me. He took me to lunch and told me very gently that you weren’t the man I thought you were. When he saw how upset I was, he got angry at you and he said I shouldn’t blame myself, because you had a history of using women—pretending to care about them until you got what you wanted—and then just leaving them. He said the reason you left San Antonio so abruptly wasn’t because you had an assignment back in Washington, but because you had a fiancée. He showed me pictures of you and her together and then he said…he said she was the reason why I couldn’t call you. And why you never called me.”

  “I did call you,” Spence said. “At work one day. Anthony answered the phone. I gave him a number to give to you. He said he would.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “I wondered why you didn’t call,” Spence said. “So I called you another time, at your apartment. Anthony answered again.”

  “It must have been one of the days he took me home from work. I was sick….” Natalie trailed off, not wanting to explain further, then asked, “What did he tell you?”

  Spence’s voice was like ice. “He said he’d given you the number and you’d thrown it away. He said you didn’t want to talk to me, because the two of you…the two of you were together.”

  Natalie gasped. “No! We weren’t. Not then…not until…”

  “Until when?” If possible, his eyes grew even icier.

  Natalie said in a rush, “He never gave me your phone number. I didn’t know how to get in touch with you, and the longer you were gone, the more everything he said made sense. I started to believe that you had lied to me, that you had used me, and I felt so humiliated. So ashamed.”

  Spence’s hands balled into fists at his sides. He said very quietly, “If Anthony wasn’t already dead, I believe I could kill him. My own brother.”

  Natalie’s heart started pounding painfully inside her. Anthony was the one who had lied to her. He was the one who had used her. Not Spence.

  She should have known. Somehow she should have known, but even after she’d learned what kind of man Anthony really was, even when she’d questioned whether what he’d told her about Spence was true, she’d done nothing about it, because by that time, she hadn’t trusted any of the Bishops. She’d been hurt too deeply, and by that time, there had been too much at stake to allow her feelings to cloud her judgment.

  Dear God, she thought. How could I have been so wrong?

  She closed her eyes against the wave of emotion rolling over her. “Why?” she whispered. “Why did he go to all that trouble to keep us apart?”

  “For the money,” Spence said flatly. “He saw that you and I were getting close, that what we had…was something special, and he was probably worried that when I came back, we might eventually marry. He must have thought that he not only had to get a wife of his own, but that he had to somehow keep you and me apart.” He had been pacing the balcony, but now he spun to face her. His green eyes flashed with unexpected fire. “And you made it easy for him, didn’t you? What did you think, Natalie? That if you couldn’t have one brother, you’d take the other? The richer, more powerful Bishop?”

  His words stung her to the quick. “No! It wasn’t like that. I thought I’d lost you. I thought you’d lied to me, used me—”

  “And so you fell into Anthony’s arms the moment my back was turned.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Natalie repeated, trying to calm her racing heart, trying to stem the rising tide of her own anger. “I married Anthony for all the wrong reasons. I admit that. I was hurt and ashamed and…on the rebound from you. But from the very first, I knew what a horrible mistake I’d made. I paid dearly for what I did.” Her eyes flooded with tears and she turned away quickly, before Spence could see how deeply his words had wounded her.

  There was a long silence, then Spence asked, “If the marriage was such a mistake, why didn’t you leave him? Why didn’t you get an annulment?”

  “I tried to, but you don’t just walk out on a Bishop,” Natalie said bitterly. “There were…complications.”

  “Kyle?”

  She nodded, still not daring to look at him. “He threatened to take the baby away from me if I didn’t agree to stay with him, at least until after Kyle was born. He said he would prove in court I was an unfit mother. He said evidence could be created and judges could be bought, and I believed him. I knew he could do it, because by that time, I’d found out what kind of man he really was. I’d seen just what he was capable of.” Impatiently, she wiped the back of her hand across her wet cheek.

  “If you knew what kind of man he was, you never thought to doubt what he’d told you about me?” The question compelled her to face him. His eyes burned into hers, and Natalie wanted to look away again. To run away before his accusations turned into something darker.

  But she couldn’t, because she knew if she left now, there would be no coming back. No second chances. And even though something told her that might be for the best, she couldn’t bring herself to leave him. Not like this. Not with the ugliness Anthony had created still wedged between them.

  She took a deep
breath. “I might have doubted what he told me…if it hadn’t been for Anthea.”

  “What did she have to do with it?”

  “She told me virtually the same thing Anthony had. That you were about to be married, and that your…fling with me wasn’t your first and probably wouldn’t be your last.”

  “So he got her to lie for him,” Spence said, his voice more resigned now than angry. He turned and rested his forearms against the balcony railing, gazing down at the water. “Anthea always did whatever Anthony asked of her. Her devotion to him—and her contempt for me—was the only thing that ever endeared her to our mother, and Anthea knew it. She knew how to play the game. I never learned.”

  “I’m sorry,” Natalie said, not knowing what else to say. She ached to touch him, to comfort him, but he seemed so remote. So…cold.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  But Natalie sensed that it did still matter to him. A great deal. Not for the first time, she tried to imagine what it had been like for him, growing up in that cold, dismal household, knowing there was no one he could turn to, no one who cared about him. He had never been taught how to love, and Natalie thought that was the saddest legacy of all.

  She stared at his silent profile, wondering what he would do if she wrapped her arms around him and laid her head against his shoulder. Would he push her away? Somehow she didn’t think he would, but it was a chance she wasn’t yet willing to take.

  After a few moments, he started talking again, but he didn’t look at her. Instead he continued to stare out into the darkness. “When I came back and found out that you had married Anthony, I could have strangled you both with my bare hands.” She saw his knuckles whiten on the railing. “But even then, as angry as I was, I was still so crazy about you I wanted to come to you and ask you to leave him, to give us a second chance.”

  Natalie’s heart skipped a beat. Her breath tightened in her throat. “Why didn’t you?” she whispered. Her hand touched his sleeve before she could stop herself, and he turned suddenly to stare down at her.

  “Because Anthony got to me first. He told me you were the one who came on to him, the moment I’d left town. He said the marriage was your idea.”