The last time he’d seen his father, Lijah had punched him in the face and broken his nose, afterward telling him he never wanted to set eyes on him ever again, before walking out and never going back.
Elijah Barrington-Smythe had died that night and been resurrected as Lijah Smith. He would have preferred it remain that way.
Even so, he hadn’t hesitated in putting all that on the line for Peter. He owed the other man, more than he had ever been able to express in words. Peter had shown him there were decent men—and fathers—in the world, and that his own father wasn’t the norm.
And Callie? What did he owe Callie?
He didn’t owe her anything. Callie didn’t deserve any of the shit she had been through the past six months. Hell, most women—and a lot of men—would be cowering in a corner singing lullabies to themselves and denying any of it had ever happened. It had taken Callie a while to come round, but she had finally stood tall and decided enough was enough.
Only to be devastated by having her father die in her arms because of that decision.
She was here with him tonight because of that decision.
She had been surprised and then accepting of the announcement of his title because of that decision.
She was currently talking warmly with the British ambassador because she had made that decision.
And Lijah had just seen their quarry enter the room with his wife, son, and daughter-in-law.
Callie turned to smile at Lijah as he finally joined them, that smile turning to a look of concern as she saw beyond the politeness of his smile to the hard glitter of his eyes above. Something—or someone?—had him on edge.
Her breath caught in her throat as she glanced across the room and saw that Jacob Stockton and his family were now being greeted by the presidential couple.
The senator looked so…normal. So much like he did on television, a silver-haired and handsome man in his sixties, who was relaxed and happy in his own skin and with his life.
Lijah leaned close, as if he was brushing his lips against her cheek. “Even Sweeney Todd was pleasant to his victims before slitting their throats,” he reminded her.
Callie gave a brief nod before turning back to the other two men. “We really shouldn’t monopolize your attention,” she excused. “So lovely to have met you both,” she added as she and Lijah moved farther into the crowded room, Lijah’s hand once again beneath her elbow as she began to shake in reaction to seeing Jacob Stockton again.
He had been dressed very much the same that evening at the gallery as he was tonight, in formal evening clothes, silver hair brushed back from his tanned face, his smile relaxed and confident at the same time.
Could he really be a killer behind that outward warmth and charm?
That was what she and Lijah were here tonight to find out.
“Handsome bunch, aren’t they,” Lijah drawled as he looked across the room.
Callie turned her back on the Stockton family, in an effort to regain some of her lost composure, and also to ensure Jacob Stockton didn’t see her. “Looks can be deceptive.”
Lijah quirked one dark brow. “Is that another dig at me?”
She gave a rueful smile. “You most of all.”
“It’s just a title.”
It wasn’t, and they both knew it wasn’t. Just as they both knew now wasn’t the time to discuss it further. Later on tonight was a different matter, however.
He shrugged. “A title is useful for booking airline tickets and tables in exclusive restaurants—and as I rarely travel commercial or eat in exclusive restaurants, it’s totally superfluous.”
“You forgot to mention it’s also good for receiving invitations to the White House.”
“Smart ass.”
Callie eyed him speculatively. “Did you grow up in a castle?”
Lijah’s eyes narrowed with irritation. “What the hell difference does it make where I grew up?”
“You did,” she realized, slightly dazed by the difference in their upbringing. She was an army brat, brought up on army bases all her life, and Lijah had grown up living in a castle.
“The president and First Lady are moving to sit down now.” Lijah took a light grasp of her arm. “I suggest we do the same.”
End of subject, Callie guessed from his closed expression. There was most definitely a story there. One that Lijah was reluctant to talk about.
Lijah Smith was at least ten years older than her, not just in years but in experience, and now it turned out he was also titled and way out of her social bracket too.
So what had last night been to him?
The fact that he had been gone from her bed when she woke up this morning was probably answer enough to that question.
The next hour and a half was excruciating for Callie. Much as she might wish she could just relax and enjoy the music, she was far too aware of Jacob Stockton sitting a short distance away, next to the president and his wife, to be able to relax enough to enjoy anything.
It helped that Lijah had reached out and taken her hand in his within the first five minutes of them taking their seats, and that he had continued to hold on to it until the last of the music died away, and they both automatically joined in the applause for the talented musicians. Although Callie very much doubted that either of them had really heard much of the recital. Lijah seemed almost as tense as she was.
“Just a little longer, so that you can hear Stockton talk,” Lijah spoke softly as they stood up to move with the other guests through to the adjoining room, where the food and refreshments were being served. “Then we can leave.” He continued to hold Callie’s hand.
“Good God, it really is you, Elijah!”
Lijah closed his eyes briefly before turning to face the woman who had just spoken to him. Or rather, who had just spoken to Lord Elijah Barrington-Smythe, the Marquess of Stanford. Because the middle-aged and bejeweled woman bearing down on the two of them, with all the force of an ocean liner, wouldn’t have given the disreputable Lijah Smith the time of day.
“Aunt Katherine,” he greeted stiffly.
Narrowed brown eyes swept over him critically. “I hardly recognized you with all that hair!”
How to be made to feel ten years old again.
His father was definitely going to hear of Lijah’s presence at the White House this evening, and sooner rather than later. His Aunt Katherine would be on the phone to her sister, Lijah’s mother, the moment she was out of here and able to turn on her cell phone.
If only his mother had possessed even half the backbone of her sister Katherine.
He sensed Callie looking at him curiously. Just as his Aunt Katherine had now turned her critical gaze onto Callie. His fingers tightened reassuringly about Callie’s. “This is my aunt, Lady Katherine Walters. Aunt Katherine, Caroline Morgan.”
Callie was aware Lijah made no effort to explain who or what she was to him, further increasing the speculation in Lady Katherine’s shrewd brown eyes as the two women shook hands. “Did you enjoy the evening?” she enquired politely.
“I’m enjoying seeing my nephew again more,” the older woman came back bluntly.
Callie felt a little uncomfortable at this sharp dismissal of her attempt at politeness, and Lijah looked far from happy at seeing and speaking to the other woman. His aunt. Lady Katherine Walters.
Poor Lijah, this evening really had opened up a personal nest of vipers for him, one he would obviously had rather never seen the light of day.
Callie tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. “I happen to like Lijah’s hair longer.”
The older woman looked unimpressed by Callie’s opinion as she continued to look critically at her nephew. “You do know your mother isn’t at all well?”
Callie felt Lijah’s increased tension beneath her hand resting on his forearm.
“And how would I know that?” he bit out.
“Well, she isn’t,” his aunt snapped. “Isn’t it time you got over this childish spat and went to s
ee her.”
Lijah bit back a harsh laugh at hearing his estrangement from his parents described as a childish spat, when his childhood had been nothing but a nightmare from which he couldn’t wait to escape. “Perhaps it would be for the best if you kept your nose out of my affairs, Aunt Katherine,” he stated aloofly.
“Don’t dare take that tone with me, young man—”
“I’ll take any tone I damn well please!” he lashed out with cold viciousness. “I didn’t ask to see you this evening. I certainly have no wish to engage in conversation with you. Now, if you’ll excuse us?” He didn’t wait for his aunt to reply before walking away, Callie anchored to his side by her arm through the crook of his.
Of all the people he could have bumped into this evening!
He had admired his Aunt Katherine when he was growing up, wished his mother could have been more like her. There was no way that Katherine would have tolerated Robert Barrington-Smythe’s brutish behavior.
Except she had tolerated it.
The whole family had.
Because they all had to have known of the duke’s harsh treatment of his wife and physical abuse of his son, and they had done nothing to try to prevent or stop it. Their silence made them all complicit as far as Lijah was concerned.
He wanted nothing to do with any of them.
“Would you like to leave?”
Lijah drew in a deep and controlled breath before looking down at Callie. Her face was pale and her eyes dark with concern. For him. Because she had guessed—knew, how much of an ordeal seeing his aunt again had been for him.
He forced the tension to leave his shoulders. “No, we’re here now, so we might as well see this thing through to the bitter end. I certainly don’t intend repeating the experience.”
Callie felt a little like that silver ball in a pinball machine, being bounced from one obstacle to another, never quite regaining her balance before she bounced off another one. Lijah probably felt the same way, after that strained and unexpected conversation with his aunt.
“—wonderful, Mr. President.”
She had been so caught up in thoughts of the previous encounter and the questions it posed about the man at her side that she hadn’t realized Lijah had now walked them both across the room so that she stood with her back to where the Stockton family was once again in conversation with the president.
Allowing her to hear and recognize a voice she would never ever forget.
Callie had absolutely no doubt it was the same voice that had whispered those threats in her ear six months ago after Michael had been shot.
She turned quickly to look at the man who had just spoken, the very sharpness of her movement seeming to alert him to her presence as he looked across at her admiringly, a half smile of flirtation on his lips—as evidence that his marriage wasn’t quite the ideal he and his family liked to give the impression it was?
That smile began to fade as a slight frown now marred the smoothness of his brow, as if he was trying to place where he knew her from.
Callie’s hand shook as she clutched blindly for Lijah’s arm. “Get me out of here, Lijah. Now!” she added urgently.
“What—” Lijah took one look at Callie’s deathly white face before putting his arm about her waist as he turned on his heel and headed toward the door and the staircase that would take them downstairs and out of the White House. The protocol of waiting until the president had left the room be damned.
“Miss Morgan isn’t feeling well,” he snapped imperiously at the man standing just outside.
“Certainly, my lord.” The man took one look at Callie’s face and immediately spoke into his mouthpiece, no doubt requesting that the Marquess of Stanford’s driver be informed his employer was leaving.
“You’re very good at the haughty thing,” Callie remarked shakily as he helped support her down the wide staircase.
Lijah shrugged. “The title and all that private education has to be good for something.”
Callie was feeling too numb to raise so much as a smile at his attempt at humor.
It had been him.
The man who had shot and killed Michael.
The same man who had also shot and killed her father?
So urbane, so smooth, so confident—and beneath it all, the man was a cold-blooded killer.
“You’re sure it was him?” Lijah turned to her once they were seated in the privacy of the back of the car and driving away from the White House. “Absolutely sure that Senator Stockton is our man? No…?” He looked at Callie searchingly as she began to shake her head. “Talk to me?”
“It wasn’t Senator Stockton’s voice I heard just now, or recognized from the gallery that night.” She breathed deeply in an effort to keep down the nausea threatening to engulf her. “It was the senator’s son, Richard Stockton.”
Chapter 13
“I had forgotten until I heard him speak tonight that Richard Stockton was with his father that night.” Callie paced the sitting room of the Washington home of Lucien Wynter, far too agitated to sit in one of the armchairs, as Lijah was. “But I remember why now, that it was a last-minute change to the guest list. One of the senator’s aides contacted Michael that afternoon and said Mrs. Stockton had been delayed on her trip to Paris, and Michael—Michael approved their son Richard as the second guest.”
And Callie was absolutely sure he had died because of it.
She had been aware of the conversation between the president and the Stockton family as she and Lijah stood close to the group, but it had only been background noise until Richard Stockton answered something the president said to him. As soon as he spoke, Callie had recognized his voice.
Richard Stockton, not Jacob Stockton.
The son, not the father.
Was that really possible?
The look on Lijah’s face, as he sat forward tensely in the armchair, seemed to say he wasn’t sure of the accuracy of her claim either. “Richard Stockton is as respectable and respected as the senior Stockton. He’s been groomed from birth to take over from his father in politics and business. The president is his godfather.”
Callie’s mouth tightened. “I don’t care how respectable he might appear, or who his godfather is, when I know he’s a thief and also responsible for murdering Michael and my father!”
Lijah had no reason to doubt Callie’s word, but he had done his homework on the Stockton family during the last twelve hours, and if anything, Stockton the younger was even more upstanding than his father.
Richard had studied at Harvard for a law degree, but he had also been a sports jock at school and university. He had married his childhood sweetheart at the age of twenty-five, and the two of them had three children, two boys and a girl. His wife, as was the case with the older Mrs. Stockton, divided her time between caring for her husband and children, and numerous charitable works.
They were the perfect political family.
So much so, gossip said Richard was a distinct possibility as becoming a future senator and president of the United States.
Except Callie seemed convinced that he was something else entirely.
Lijah thought of his own childhood, of what it was like to know from birth that you were destined to become something or someone, and not necessarily of your own choosing. How stifling it could be to be molded into that persona, whether you wanted it or not.
His own father had used his fists to enforce that persona on Lijah. He wondered what methods Jacob Stockton had used on his own son.
Or maybe it was enough that Richard had always known his parents had those expectations of him. The unblemished reputation. The happy marriage. The perfect son, husband, and father.
Were those things enough to cause the other man to secretly seek the thrill of committing robbery and murder, in the same way that Lijah had channeled his own frustrations into the military life?
Lijah had a feeling they were.
“It gets worse.” Callie’s voice was husky. “I’m pretty sure
he recognized me too,” she revealed as he looked at her in inquiry.
“Shit!” He scowled as he stood up. “What makes you think that?”
She gave a shaky sigh. “The way he looked at me. He was all warmth and smiles when our gazes first met—I’m not sure his marriage is as perfect as the media report that it is, because there was a definite look of interest in his eyes when he looked at me.” She gave a shudder of revulsion. “Then he looked slightly puzzled, as if he knew me but couldn’t place me, and then his eyes—his eyes turned a pale and icy blue and… He recognized me, Lijah, I’m sure of it,” she stated flatly.
Lijah had absolutely no reason to doubt Callie. But it was certainly going to complicate the situation if Richard Stockton was now aware of Callie Morgan’s presence in Washington.
Maybe I should have thought of that before taking her to the White House?
Maybe. But he hadn’t been able to think of any other way to confirm or deny Senator Stockton’s possible involvement in the robbery and two murders. He would certainly have taken it if there had been.
His Aunt Katherine would have informed his parents by now that she had seen him tonight. In doing so, seventeen years of ignoring his parents’ existence, of his father having absolutely no idea where he was, would be wiped out. Not that Lijah wasn’t now perfectly capable of verbally wiping the floor with his father again if he had to; he would just prefer not to be put in the position of needing to do so.
He also had absolutely no idea how he was going to go about proving Richard Stockton’s guilt.
It would have been so much easier if Callie hadn’t recognized one of the two Stockton men as being Michael and Peter’s murderer. Easier for Lijah, that is.
But when had his life ever been easy?
Never, came the immediate answer.
And he wouldn’t want it any other way.
“Okay.” Lijah nodded briskly. “You’ve identified the guilty party, now I suggest you leave the rest to me and I get you back to England and under protective care until—”
“Absolutely not!” Callie looked at him as if he had just suggested she jump off the top of the Washington Monument. “I’m not leaving here until we’ve nailed the bastard’s head to a wall.”
Renegade Alpha (ALPHA 5) Page 13