She was flat as a board.
Counting forward from that fateful night, she knew she wasn’t that far along. She wasn’t expecting to see a baby bump yet. Some women, she knew, really didn’t show, especially not with their first one. And she hadn’t been gaining weight. Since she’d gotten pregnant, she’d actually lost weight. That little accomplishment was due to the fact that everything that she ate came back up shortly thereafter.
Even water made her nauseous. And it didn’t happen just in the morning, but all day long.
At least that would keep her slim for the time being. With a little bit of luck, no one needed to know that she was in the family way, as they used to say half a century ago, she thought. And in a way, she supposed, it was a true assessment. This baby represented the only family she had, and most likely would ever have.
Still looking at herself critically, Elizabeth turned left, then right, then left again and this time moved ever so slowly to the right.
Not a thing, she silently declared in triumph.
As long as she looked like this, no one in their right mind would think that she was pregnant, so at least that aspect of this whole nerve-racking situation wasn’t going to be a problem yet—and perhaps, with any luck, it never would.
Now that she thought about it, there had been a number of stories over the years about women who gave birth whose parents or closest friends hadn’t even known they were pregnant.
All she needed, Elizabeth told herself, was a little bit of luck—and loose clothing.
Elizabeth went to get her sweater out of the closet. She intended to get a little air before dinner. Her clothing, she couldn’t help thinking as she opened the sliding door, looked lost in the cavernous walk-in closet. Landry had offered to lend her some of hers.
Elizabeth smiled to herself. While she’d acknowledged the offer as being very sweet, she tactfully pointed out that the younger woman was three inches taller than she was and her clothes just wouldn’t fit right.
Elizabeth reached for her sweater, which she’d left hanging on a hook on the left side of the closet.
The sweater wasn’t there.
Staring at the empty hook, she frowned. She’d hung her sweater up last night. She’d put it on the hook that was on the left-hand side. She specifically recalled that, because the left side was where that pretty padded pink hanger was.
The hanger was still there.
The sweater was not.
Was she losing her mind? Elizabeth wondered nervously, staring at the empty hook. Sweaters didn’t just vanish or walk away of their own volition. Besides, she could have sworn that she’d put the sweater right there.
Now it wasn’t anywhere.
Feeling edgy, Elizabeth looked carefully around the bedroom, just in case, but the sweater wasn’t anywhere to be seen. She wasn’t about to check around the house to see if it had gotten misplaced in one of the million other rooms that seemed to be in this house, because if she strayed off the beaten path that she had grown familiar with, she would be hopelessly lost.
If ever a house cried out for bread crumbs to be left behind, marking a path, it was this house.
A more important reason not to go looking for the sweater was that she wasn’t the type to just haphazardly toss off and leave a sweater—or any item of clothing—wherever the urge to discard hit. She valued everything she owned and treated it accordingly.
A last-ditch effort had Elizabeth looking on the floor of the closet to see if perhaps the sweater might have just fallen off and gotten inexplicably tangled amid her rather meager wardrobe.
Nothing.
An eerie feeling of déjà vu passed over her as she recalled other things that hadn’t been where she expected to find them.
The feeling that someone was touching her things, moving them around, reared its head again.
But why would someone take her sweater? It just didn’t make any sense to her. The sweater was far from unique or expensive and she had a feeling that the women who lived here, including the humble, exceptionally gentle Landry, were used to a far better quality of clothing than what she owned.
No, it just didn’t make any sense to her, she thought.
Just like those blocked calls that had been sporadically appearing on her cell phone. The phone rang incessantly until she either picked up or the call was sent to voice mail.
In any event, there was never anyone there on the other end. Or rather, there was never anyone there who spoke. But Elizabeth thought she did detect shallow breathing just before the connection was broken.
She had no idea what this was all about, but she suspected that someone, for whatever reason, was trying to drive her crazy—literally.
She was not about to take that drive, Elizabeth told herself firmly. She wasn’t, she silently swore this time around.
With a shrug, Elizabeth decided she’d just forego the sweater. She didn’t need it for her walk. It was winter, yes, but winter in San Diego was not like winter in Buffalo, New York. The winters here were chilly, she granted. Sometimes they were even downright cold, but it was Southern California cold, not Northeast cold, and that made all the difference in the world.
If she did feel chilly once she was outside, she’d just walk a little faster and get back to her guest room/prison a little quicker, she told herself.
But right now, she needed the morale-boosting feeling that she was going beyond the walls of her protection and could actually just go for a simple walk around the Adair compound.
Changing into a pair of jeans and a light blue sweatshirt that had AdAir’s logo on it, she slipped on a pair of sneakers and stopped to loosen the laces on them a little.
Her feet were swelling just a tiny bit.
The discovery bothered her.
She knew that some women complained about their feet and ankles swelling during their period of being the baby’s walking incubator, and she didn’t relish going through that.
Maybe it wouldn’t get any worse than this, she thought as she rose back up to her feet.
And if her feet were the only thing that did swell, she told herself, she would be very happy.
About to go down the stairs, she looked down and saw that one of the laces had come undone again.
She did better with Velcro, Elizabeth thought critically. Some mother she was going to make, she upbraided herself. She couldn’t even tie a proper bow on her sneakers.
Taking a deep breath as she strove for patience, Elizabeth bent down. She thought she detected a faint scent of perfume as she was retying the wayward laces. She’d smelled that just recently—but where?
Just as she was getting back up on her feet, Elizabeth thought she felt someone’s hands dead center on her back. The next second she was flying down the stairs—and not of her own volition.
Remembering something she had once read in a magazine article about fatal household accidents, she tucked herself into a ball as much as she could. She felt as though she was tumbling down the stairs head over heels.
The scream was totally involuntary.
* * *
Whit was in another section of the house, talking to his brother. Since that faith-shaking discovery of the possible existence of another older sibling, Carson had done his best to try to locate the missing heir or to find some record of his death, if this Jackson was no longer alive.
So far, Carson had just been spinning his wheels, going nowhere.
Until he had conducted an in-depth search of their late father’s bedroom. Specifically, of their late father’s walk-in closet.
“There were a whole bunch of business papers in his safe,” Carson continued.
“You know the combination of his safe?” Whit asked, surprised.
Carson gave a half-careless shrug as he answered, “No.”
; Whit looked at him, perplexed. “Then how—?”
“You pick things up as a marine,” Carson told him evasively.
“Safecracking?” Whit asked incredulously.
“Better you don’t know,” his brother said, then went back to telling Whit what he’d found. “There wasn’t anything of interest in his safe, but in the space that was blocked off just behind it, I found this.”
“This” turned out to be an ordinary shoe box filled with candid photographs of an infant, either sleeping or smiling, as well as a handful of other items, such as a teething ring, a few articles of tiny clothing and a small lop-eared teddy bear.
Whit looked at them in wonder. “Who would have thought that our father had a softer side?” he marveled, taking out a couple of the pictures to look over. “Anything in here to give you a clue what happened to our so-called big brother?”
Carson shook his head. “Not that I can see, although if we ever find a likely candidate, that teething ring might give us some DNA to work with.”
He looked at the teething ring. “Provided it wasn’t washed before it was put into this box of treasures,” he pointed out.
Just then, they heard the loud scream, instantly followed by a loud thud.
“What the hell was that?” Carson asked, jumping to his feet.
Whit was already racing for the door. “Elizabeth!” was all he said as he tore out.
* * *
It was over before she knew it.
The awful sound of her body hitting the steps as she went down the full flight still echoed in her brain. A sense of disbelief permeated all through her.
Elizabeth didn’t get up immediately because she didn’t want to know immediately.
Didn’t want to know if anything had been broken in that frightening fall down the entire length of the staircase.
Less than a minute later, both the landing above her and the first floor began filling with household help as well as members of the family.
Sound traveled very well in this house, Elizabeth thought, just now realizing that she must have screamed when she felt herself falling.
The first one to reach her was Whit.
Upstairs with Carson when it happened, he all but flew down the stairs. He was kneeling beside her now, extremely concerned.
“Elizabeth, Elizabeth, are you all right?” he wanted to know. When he’d found her, her eyes were shut. But they fluttered open now.
“I’ve been better,” she quipped. The next second, she was trying to sit up. Trying and failing, because Whit’s hands were holding her in place, not allowing her to budge. Frustration filled her. “Let me up, Whit,” she requested, her voice shaking.
His hands remained on her shoulders. “You might have broken something.”
“Fastest way to find out whether I did or not is by letting me get up,” she told him. Without waiting for his verbal compliance, Elizabeth grabbed hold of his arm and pulled herself up into a sitting position. “So far, so good,” she told Whit, then winced as she started to drag herself all the way up to her feet.
Again, she failed.
“Stay down,” Whit ordered. “You just winced when you moved.”
“I’m wincing because it hurts,” she informed him, annoyed at herself for being so clumsy, for attracting undue attention to herself when she wanted to slide under the radar and figure out just what the hell was going on. “You try going down that flight of stairs and not feel like a tennis ball after a championship match played out in the hot sun.”
“I see your point,” Whit conceded. Getting up to his feet, he took her hand in his and coaxed, “Slowly, very slowly.”
She humored him, although she wanted nothing more than to just pop up like a piece of well-done toast.
Whit watched her carefully, studying every movement as well as every expression that crossed her face. “Can you stand?” he asked her.
“Stand? Yes,” Elizabeth answered and to prove that she could, she let go of Whit’s hand and continued to stand on her own.
He nodded at this minor accomplishment. “How about walk. Can you walk?” he wanted to know.
Ever so slowly, Elizabeth tested that out, too. Her gait was a little off, but not nearly as bad as it could have been. She did what she could to hang on to the positive side, declaring, “I can walk.”
“Good,” he pronounced with a nod of his head, still watching her. “Then walk with me out the door. Carson—” he turned toward his brother “—pull the car around.”
Elizabeth looked from Whit to his brother. “Are we going somewhere?” she wanted to know. Maybe he was taking her to AdAir Corp so that she could do the transfer to her laptop right there.
But wouldn’t he tell her she needed her laptop with her? Something was off.
The next moment, she found out what.
“Yes,” Whit answered, taking one minuscule step at a time so as not to tax her. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“Hospital?” Elizabeth stopped the little bit of progress she was making. “I’m not sick.”
“No,” he agreed, “but you might be broken.” He saw Carson driving up the winding driveway with his sports car.
“But I’m standing up!” Elizabeth protested, sweeping her hand down along her body to drive home her point.
“People have been known to stand on a broken leg or broken ankle or broken thigh—want me to go on?” he asked, looking into her eyes.
The man definitely had a way of getting to her, she thought. “You could, couldn’t you?”
Rather than say yes, he threw more facts at her. “Or a broken big toe. That, however, can generally heal itself unless—”
Elizabeth held up her hand, surrendering in order to stop the flow of words. She had no idea he could talk even half that fast. The man had hidden talents. “Okay, you got me. I’ll go.”
“We’ll go,” he corrected her, stepping outside and holding the door open for her. He waited as she hobbled outside.
We’ll go. He said we, not you.
Elizabeth savored the difference. It almost made falling down the stairs worth it, she thought.
The next moment, the little voice inside her suggested that perhaps she’d hit her head in the fall, as well.
Annoyed, Elizabeth shut down the voice. Leaning on Whit’s arm, she made her way outside.
“What happened?” Whit asked her once they were in the car and he was driving to the hospital. “How did you fall down the stairs?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to say she thought that someone had pushed her. But that would only result in one of two things. Either he’d think that she was paranoid and creating unlikely scenarios in her head—after all, why would someone push her? Or, he would believe her and conclude—as she had—that someone in the house was responsible for her unexpected tumble. Most likely he’d start questioning everyone to find whoever did this and he’d wind up alienating a lot of people who he needed to have on his side.
So she murmured that she had tripped and hoped that would be the end of it.
She could see by the look on his face that he didn’t believe her. But for now, he was letting it go.
Chapter 12
Some bodyguard he made, Whit thought angrily.
Waiting for the orderly to bring Elizabeth back from Radiology was making him grow increasingly restless and fidgety.
What was taking them so damn long?
He should have been more alert, he criticized himself. Granted, he couldn’t have foreseen her being clumsy and taking a header down the stairs, but if he had been with her instead of talking to Carson about their so-far fruitless efforts to locate this mysterious missing older brother of theirs, he might have been able to make a grab for her and keep her from tumbling down the stairs.
Falling that way, Elizabeth could have seriously injured herself. She might have broken an arm or a leg. Or her neck.
Hell, he thought, closing his eyes as if to squeeze away the thought, she could have been killed—and under his watch.
She would have been safer rollerblading in freeway traffic than staying with him at the ranch, Whit thought bitterly.
Unable to remain seated after Elizabeth had been taken for tests, he paced around the small empty space. The orderly had taken her to be x-rayed while she was still on the hospital gurney, leaving behind only a chair and the instruments that measured her vital signs to occupy the space.
He’d been too lax, Whit silently lectured. Both about protecting her and about putting the screws to the police department to step up the search for his father’s killer. He had the gnawing feeling that Elizabeth wouldn’t be entirely safe until his father’s killer was behind bars. But the police were getting nowhere with the investigation.
Maybe he should hire the services of a security firm. Or better still—
Whit abruptly stopped pacing as the drape that had been enclosed around Elizabeth’s space for privacy was suddenly drawn back. The next moment, the orderly was maneuvering Elizabeth’s bed back to its initial position—with Elizabeth in it.
“Hi,” she murmured almost shyly, as if this was an impromptu meeting between them and he hadn’t been slowly going out of his mind, waiting.
Whit immediately approached the orderly. “How is she?” he wanted to know.
“Still in one piece,” Elizabeth said, speaking up.
“The doctor will be by shortly to speak to you,” the orderly told him politely.
Just about at the end of his supply of patience, Whit asked irritably, “Didn’t they tell you anything when they were finished taking X-rays?”
“I just take the gurneys out and then bring them back, sir,” the stocky young man told him. There was an apologetic note in his voice. However, there was no more information forthcoming.
Dragging a hand through his hair, Whit blew out a breath as he turned toward Elizabeth. He assumed she was as much in the dark as he was. He didn’t understand why she wasn’t as frustrated as he was.
Carrying His Secret Page 13