The Signature (A Perfect Forever Novel)

by Ward, Susan

  That Katherine was Nick’s daughter was an insurmountable stronghold. That Nick was unfit was impossible, it seemed, to prove. Nick had evolved into some beast of undiluted violence towards the end of their life together, and the threat that all of his buried resentment and jealousies would find their release on Katherine in the end was real and terrifying.

  Krystal had argued her points in court and had lost. The visitation rights were upheld. Their meetings were always violent and ugly.

  Her final confrontation with Nick crystallized every fear and worry in a horrible light; Nick had nearly killed Krystal, and the act of turning Katherine over to his hands even one more time—court ordered or not—was impossible to obey.

  When she had failed to deliver Katherine on three consecutive visitations, she had been ordered to appear in court and then had lost her half of the joint custody. When she had failed to show in court a second time, she had been held in contempt and a warrant had been issued for her arrest.

  Krystal Stafford, desperate to protect herself and her child, became a fugitive. And a fugitive, of whatever circumstance, faced the same fate.

  Fame. Money. The truth. They proved no ally in her fight to protect Katherine from Nick’s craziness. The claim that Nick Stafford wanted his wife dead seemed a legal card not worth playing again. Nick could, at times, be a charming and convincing man. More than a few journalist had taken his side in their conflict and issued their viewpoint about Krystal’s fearful pleas for help.

  Her final stand to keep Katie from Nick and herself safe, by leaving the country with Morgan, had made it in print from coast to coast. “Another ugly episode in the Stafford Custody Case” was all that it had meant to most. That she feared for her life, no one took seriously. It had seemed impossible that she could ever convince anyone that her defiance had been an act of self-preservation and that Nick’s emotions were far from parental devotion.

  After all, it had taken seven years for Krystal to see what kind of man Nick was, to understand his dark human frailties; frailties that often existed unseen unless one lived and loved with a man. Krystal was not about to trust another to vivisect Nick’s character to see what she knew from firsthand experience, to see what laid just beneath the surface of his urbane charm. She had lived in the burning center of his strengths and his weaknesses; what came naturally to her would be impossible for anyone else to understand.

  The truth would never come to light in a few crafty, quickly answered questions in a court of law. Morgan had wanted her to go to the press. From the few hastily written paragraphs Krystal had read in the newspapers, she saw very little reason to hope that the press would help her.

  She knew how careless they could be in pursuit of the sensational. With sure, quick strokes of their pens they had all but demonized her. Dear heavens, what would they do with the truth?

  CHAPTER ONE

  Devon Howard parked across the street from the neat, framed building in the center of town. He did a quick double check of the name printed in curled, red lettering on the sign above the door against the notes jotted down in his own almost indecipherable script. Charming though it was, Devon was suspicious about what he’d find inside this gaily painted structure, with its wood plank walkway and odd assortment of musical instruments displayed in floor-to-ceiling front windows.

  So the store did exist, he acknowledged, more than mildly surprised, and yet logic rebelled. Would the rest would pan out as well?

  Devon was just about to reach for the double glass doors when a woman hurriedly brushed passed him, pushing her body through the doors first. She was halfway through when the strap of her purse caught on the crossbar, jerking her back. The heaping bundle in her arms scattered across the floor.

  “Good grief,” she groaned, sinking down gracefully to frantically shove the loose papers into a stack. “I’m always so clumsy when I’m in a hurry.”

  “Let me help you,” Devon said, lowering himself down beside her.

  “Thank you,” she answered in a pleasantly breathless voice. “There’s no point it trying to sort it out. I think its hopeless now!”

  “That’s quite a bundle you have there,” Devon said, helping to gather the wayward sheet music. “I’ve never run into a traveling sheet music saleswoman before. Don’t you think they could have found a better way for you to carry all this?”

  He heard a soft, throaty laughter float out from beneath her cloud of long, blond hair.

  “I don’t sell music. I teach it. This mess was my carefully organized lessons for today.” She brushed back her disheveled, golden strands. An unexpectedly beautiful face tipped towards him. “Excuse me, but you’re mixing up my Indian Tom-Tom Song for my tiny tots class with my Mozart.”

  “Sorry, I thought you said not to sort. Besides, this all looks Greek to me. I wouldn’t know Mozart from...”

  “An Indian Tom-Tom song,” the woman finished, reaching out a delicate hand to pluck two sheets from his fingers.

  Her eyes lingered on him for a moment as she smiled. Devon froze, meeting her clear, blue stare with a mixture of shock and excitement. Those eyes...

  Devon frowned. “Excuse me, but haven’t we met somewhere before?”

  Her expression changed in a flash from friendliness to wariness. “No, I’m positive we haven’t.”

  “Are you sure? I could have sworn we had.” Her reaction to his question was very telling. Devon felt his pulse take an anxious leap. “Why don’t you let me help you with all this?”

  “Thank you, but I have it,” she said stiffly, scooping the contents into her arms.

  She was through the door so quickly that Devon could only catch her slim figure disappearing toward the back of the store.

  He stood rooted in place just inside the shop, watching her depart.

  “You’ll have to talk faster than that if you hope to pin down that one. Not that I’d fault you for trying. Half the young men in town have a thing for Christine Dillon. But the lady has proven too quick by half for any of them.”

  Turning, Devon came face-to-face with a man with a bushy gray beard and mustache. He was in his late fifties or perhaps early sixties, and he was dressed in a worn flannel shirt and jeans. He was grinning.

  Devon glanced at the back of the store. “Your daughter?”

  The old man laughed heartily. “Daughter? No, Christine works for me. She teaches music classes for the children in the studio in back and helps in the store when I need it.”

  “You must be Fritz, then. The proprietor.”

  “Yes. Fritz McCaffery is my name.” The old man extended his hand.

  “Devon,” he said.

  “Passing through or do you plan to stay a while?”

  “I’m renting a place on the north edge of town. Jamaica Avenue. I don’t know how long I intend to stay. I’m here for some much needed rest and relaxation. Getting away from the city. Los Angeles. A friend suggested Coos Bay.”

  “Jamaica? Then you and Christine will be neighbors. She lives in a small cottage up there herself. Pretty far out of the heart of town. If you’re looking for quiet, you’ve found the perfect spot. Not much ever happens up there. Couldn’t stand living up there myself. Too quiet. But Christine loves the place. She’s a bit of a recluse.”

  Somehow during their discussion, they had moved to the back of the store near a window set into the wall that provided viewing into the music studio.

  Staring through the glass, Devon’s eyes locked on the woman standing in the center surrounded by eager, waist-high children. Lithe and willowy in a pale pink t-shirt and cut-off Levi shorts, her arms were outstretched and she was swaying in easy rhythm to the music as the little ones fluttered in a blur of waving limbs.

  Devon smiled. Her face was a study of innocence and youthful prettiness, and he tried to imagine this woman with bleached, short cropped locks and exotically applied makeup. Her waist length hair was falling across her cheeks, and he wondered if it could have grown so much in two years, matching the sh
ade he had seen on her father. A near perfect match, he was certain. And those eyes. He wasn’t wrong about those. No amount of careful alteration could change their rich color, their shape.

  They were her signature feature. He wondered why she had ever tampered with such natural perfection. He had admired the pictures he’d seen of Krystal Stafford, but that was all. It couldn’t compare to this ethereal beauty, this enchanting blend of sensuality and dewy loveliness. Christine Dillon? Devon would have bet a fortune that this woman was Krystal Stafford.

  She was smiling at the kids, arms stretched wide, telling them to feel the music, to act out what it made them think. He was no expert, but wasn’t that Vivaldi she was playing for them on the sound system? A pop star dancing to Vivaldi?

  “The tiny tots?” Devon asked, remembering what she had said.

  Fritz laughed, nodding. “I don’t pretend to understand what she’s trying to do with them, but the kids seem to enjoy it and the parents are all for it. At what she charges, one hour three mornings a week is less than it would cost for a babysitter. This is our most successful class. We’ve even got a waiting list to get in.”

  “How long has she been teaching here?”

  “A year and a half now. She started working for me a month before that. I’m ashamed to admit that I wasn’t all for the idea when she suggested we convert this back room into a studio. It’s really made a difference in the bottom line.”

  “Spring,” Devon said absently, remembering which of Vivaldi’s seasons he was hearing. He smiled again. It suited her.

  “What’s that?”

  “She’s having them act out spring. The music. Teaching them to feel and appreciate the music through movement.”

  “She does this at the beginning of every lesson. I always thought it was to use up some of their energy so they’d be easier to handle while she attempts to teach them the basics. I figure she must know what she’s doing. She’s a graduate of that fancy women’s college down in California. Mills College I think she said. Has a degree in Classical piano.”

  “Really? She told you that?”

  “Back when she first started trying to convince me to let her give lessons. She wanted me to know that she was qualified to teach. Knew that without her telling me. She knows more about music than I ever did. Don’t know how I’ll replace her when she decides to move on. She’s worth ten times what I pay her and a heck of a lot more than she charges for her lessons.”

  Devon frowned. “What makes you think she’ll leave?”

  “Anyone with eyes can see that this store isn’t where she belongs. She doesn’t talk very much about her past, but something tells me that it was a lot better off than this.” Fritz’s heavy brows crinkled as he gave Devon a careful once over. “Something tells me you know all this without me telling you.”

  Devon laughed quickly. “How could I? I just met the woman today.”

  The old man was shrewder than he looked, and Devon had pushed it, asking so many questions. He didn’t want to blow his hand this early. Better watch it, Howard.

  “Is there anything I can help you find?” Fritz asked.

  “The Miller house has an excellent stereo system, but they didn’t leave any music behind. I thought I’d pick up some CDs while I’m here. The radio reception is terrible up there.”

  “It’s being back in that canyon. If there was cable run way out there, you could hook it up. That does the trick with bad radio reception. But the cable company hasn’t gotten around to running lines out there yet. Not enough people.”

  “I’ll just browse for a while, if you don’t mind,” Devon said.

  The music section, although not large by the standards of the stores Devon was used to in the city, was very good. He went to the section marked S, surprised to find copies of the two releases Krystal Stafford had completed before her disappearance. He grabbed those CDs and a few others from artists he preferred.

  As he carried them toward the register, he didn’t wonder why no one recognized the woman in back. It was hard to reconcile the figure beneath the cellophane wrapper, dressed in ragged-jeans and a leather jacket, to the woman surrounded by friendly cherubs. If he hadn’t met her father, if he hadn’t seen those famous eyes firsthand...well, stills couldn’t do them justice; film could never capture their rich color or their mosaic of flecked light.

  “I was just pulling your whiskers,” Fritz McCaffery said, laughing. “You don’t have to purchase all these to prove you didn’t have another motive for coming into my store.”

  Devon shook his head. “I’m not looking for what you think I’m looking for.”

  Devon said goodbye and went out to his car. Driving up the narrow highway toward his house, he ripped open the plastic covering and popped in one of her CDs. He’d never been a fan of Krystal Stafford’s music. He turned up the volume. Her voice was low, throaty when she spoke. It was lower, throatier when she sang. It made him shiver; erotic and caressing were the words that came to his mind.

  Someone...he flipped through his notes...Jake her bass player, had told him each song Krystal wrote was a snapshot of her life. The words bit like vinegar, the lyrics full of hopelessness and pain. The sound that carried them ran through his veins like warm honey. As they whispered through him, it took him a moment to realize what this snapshot was; it could be easily missed in the seductive beauty of her voice, the poetic collections of words and the haunting strains of her music.

  He lifted the CD case to the steering wheel, carefully balancing it in his hands before he shifted his gaze from the road to the cover. She’d titled this song The Shattering, and Devon knew with a sudden unsettling awareness that this chilling and moving ballad was Krystal Palmer Stafford singing about her turbulent marriage to Nick Stafford.

  Devon was not a man he would term to have a reaction to music. It was not a strong cord in his soul. Music was more an accessory in his life than a passion for him. For creating ambiance. Or to fill the void of sound in his car when he drove. Nothing more. But his reaction to this was powerful. Part of him wanted to make love to her. Part of him wanted to cry.

  Glaring at the quickly rising mercury on her outdoor thermometer, Krystal wiped her clammy forehead against her t-shirt and scanned her backyard for Katie. Her last piano lesson had gone badly. An hour shut away in a stuffy house with a fidgety five-year-old was a grueling test of anyone’s dedication.

  Krystal did a quick search of the yard for Katie. Her daughter’s homework folder lay abandoned on the redwood patio table and her daughter was nowhere in sight.

  Stepping out onto the sun-drenched lawn, she spotted Katie at the far side of the yard, curled in the hammock and gazing dreamily up at the sky.

  “Katie? Why aren’t you doing your homework, sweetie?”

  “It’s too hot.” Katie turned her flushed face. “Why does he sit up there staring at me? Do you think he’s sad or lonely?”

  “Katie, what are you talking about?” Krystal wiped the dark bangs from her daughter’s eyes. “Who’s staring at you?”

  “That man,” Katie said softly.

  Man? What sort of fantasy was Katie going about now? Krystal looked around her yard. There was a six foot fence encircling her property and there certainly wasn’t a man anywhere in sight.

  “I don’t see anyone, sweetheart. Is he a real man or pretend?”

  “Up there,” Katie insisted spiritedly. “He looks so sad, Mommy. I don’t like to see people sad. Do you think he’s lonely? He just stands there, staring at me. Maybe he wants to be friends.”

  Krystal’s eyes followed the line of Katie’s outstretched arm. Her first thought was How the devil had Katie noticed him way up there on the second story balcony of the house behind here? Then she felt concern and wariness, for it did seem as though he were staring down at Katie.

  “Has he been up there for long, Katie?”

  “Forever!” the girl exclaimed anxiously.

  Krystal sighed. From Katie, forever could mean anything from f
ive minutes to all afternoon. She cautioned herself not to overreact. After all, it was hot and that second story balcony was probably a cool respite from the heat.

  Strange, she had never noticed anyone in that house before. The Millers had moved away over a year ago, and as far as she knew the house hadn’t been sold. Without any reason, she had assumed it would remain vacant. Obviously, it was not.

  Squinting, she lifted a hand to shield her eyes and tried to get a better look. She couldn’t make out more than the vaguest of details. Golden hair, tan skin, a lean build. He was dressed only in a pair of tan shorts, giving every indication that it was the heat that had sent him out-of-doors. But something about him standing up there made her unaccountably nervous.

  Who was this man? Strangers were rare in this part of town.

  Krystal shook her head. Good grief, what’s the matter with you? You’re as bad as Katie! Imagining goblins and weaving fairy stories. From this distance, she wasn’t even certain it was her he was watching.

  “I think he needs a friend,” Katie said pensively.

  Krystal smiled. Katie was so kindhearted.

  “Why don’t you come inside with me? I’m finished with my lessons for today. I can help you with your homework, if you like?” Krystal said softly.

  Reluctantly, Katie nodded her head. Krystal held the screen door open as Katie filed into their tiny kitchen. Once she was inside, she couldn’t stop herself from looking back over her shoulder.

  The second story balcony was empty now. He was gone. Coincidence or not? Annoyed with herself for being so suspicious, she shook her tawny head. It was foolish for her to let Katie’s fantasies get the better of her. It had been the heat that had brought their mysterious neighbor outdoors. And there were a hundred reasons why he could have gone back inside.

  It had been more than two years. Surely Nick’s detectives and the police wouldn’t find her now. Even the press had long since given up interest in her story. It was crazy to let Katie’s daydreams unsettle her now. But why, then, did she still feel like someone was watching her?