“Is that why we’re going there tomorrow?” Jamie asked unhappily. “And why Sam and Tiger are coming in tonight and going with us?”
“Yes,” Leif said simply.
Tracy lifted her hands in her annoyance. “I still don’t see what you’re trying to prove.”
“Who had a motive?” Jamie demanded.
“Everyone,” Leif and Tracy replied simultaneously, bringing their eyes back to one another again.
“But I don’t—”
“Leif, Tiger, and Sam inherited Dad’s share of their mutual holdings,” Tracy said.
“Right. The three of us are broke,” Leif drawled sarcastically, “so we were after more money.”
Tracy ignored him. “Then there’s Lauren, the widow—she inherited the majority of his estate. And the last I heard, she’s writing a book on his one great and real love affair—theirs.”
“Don’t forget Jamie’s mother,” Leif reminded her. “Sorry, Jamie, things never did go smoothly after that divorce.”
“My mother didn’t—”
“I certainly don’t think that she did,” Tracy said softly, simply because she cared for him. She owed Carol nothing—Carol hadn’t wanted her around when she was a child.
“And then,” Leif announced, sitting across from Tracy and staring at her again, “then we have Tracy’s collection. Her grandfather—the great Arthur Kingsley. A man so irate that his daughter should fall in love with a penniless musician that he dragged her away and married her off to an accountant before the fruit of such an affair should appear. Only things backfired a bit because the steady and reliable accountant had a heart and a conscience. And we have Tracy’s mother—who never really forgave Jesse for not panting after her the rest of her life. Then there’s Tracy’s stepfather, Ted Blare himself. Perhaps he couldn’t bear the years of his wife yearning for the man she had lost.”
Tracy was on her feet by then, her palms flat on the table while she glared across at him in a red fury. “Then there’s Leif himself! Did he ever tell you, Jamie, that there was a whole year when he and Dad didn’t speak to one another? Did he ever tell you that it became violent and physical between them and he was flattened out on the floor!”
Leif was calmly watching Tracy, leisurely lighting a cigarette, inhaling, exhaling, and pointedly returning her stare. She was barely aware of what she was saying; he knew exactly what she was spewing, and was quite ready for Jamie’s natural question.
“Over what?”
Too late, she looked from Leif to her brother and saw his troubled frown. And, too late, she realized that she had practically spelled the whole thing out. She focused uneasily on Leif again and noted his satisfied smile and wondered suddenly if he hadn’t been maneuvering her into telling her brother exactly what he wanted her to tell him.
He inclined his head slightly toward her and said quietly, “Well, Tracy? Go on. He wants to know why I might have wanted to kill your father.”
What the hell was his game? she wondered. Should she call his bluff or what? She felt trapped, needed more time.
“All right, Tracy, I’ll tell him.” He smiled very politely at her and turned to Jamie. “Your sister—”
“We had an affair,” Tracy blurted out. God! She didn’t want Leif telling the story. Not from his point of view.
His lashes shielded his eyes; it still appeared that he was secretively smiling, as if she had played exactly into his hands.
He looked at her then and lifted his hands innocently. “Tracy, I was just going to say that we had a little tiff at the party and your father and mother’s family wound up involved.”
Jamie was staring back and forth between them. “Well?” He demanded.
Tracy realized that her fingers were wound into the snowy starch-ironed tablecloth. She was shaking horribly and still so angry that her head seemed to ring. Her vision was blurred and something seemed to burn in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to strangle Leif. She wanted to do something—anything!—to erase the cool satisfaction that touched his smoky eyes and grim smile.
“Well, what!” she snapped at Jamie.
“Did you or didn’t you have an affair?”
“I’ll let Tracy answer that,” Leif said.
She didn’t really intend to do anything violent; it was just that her fingers were so tightly wound into that cloth. She must have jerked from emotion and not logic—but whatever her intent, the outcome was tremendous. The cloth wrenched away—and the steaming chafing dishes filled with Jamie’s carefully planned breakfast goodies all went flying toward Leif.
He was up in a second, leaping away, so that only one of the silver dishes flew against his thigh. Coffee, silverware, and plates went everywhere. Jamie yelped and backed away—and stared at Tracy with a certain amount of awe and amazement.
“You did have an affair, huh?”
Tracy barely heard him; she was staring at the utter disaster she hadn’t meant to create. And then she stared from the chaos on the floor upward and into Leif’s eyes.
He didn’t say a word. He just looked at her with a cool gray assessment that was somehow more terrible than any oaths he could have flung her way.
He stepped over a chafing dish and came around the table, and she just watched him, unable to move. And then it was too late to move, because he was smiling at her distantly, but his hands were upon her shoulders like iron fists.
“Frankly, Tracy, I can’t understand why you get so angry over the past. I was the one taken for an idiot. However, I’m glad you had your little temper tantrum now—it could be lethal later. And it’s just as well—it was important that Jamie know now what happened for the same reason.”
“Why?” Tracy whispered thickly, thinking she would give anything to go back just five minutes—just long enough to undo this disaster! Anything to avoid his hold on her now and his eyes probing into her soul.
“Because you are coming to Connecticut with us.”
“No—I’m not.”
“Sure you are, Tracy. Arthur is going to come, and Audrey is going to come—and Ted is going to bring her.”
She shook her head vehemently. “They’ll never come, Leif—you’re crazy! Not after—”
“Oh, don’t kid yourself. Your mother and I always got along fine. She called me and apologized after everything. You didn’t know that? Well, it doesn’t really matter. They’re all coming.”
“I still don’t believe you! There’s nothing you could have said to convince them all to come to a memorial service for Jesse!”
His gaze fell over the mess on the floor; he stared at Jamie, who was still surveying them both in stunned silence. Then he smiled coolly back at Tracy.
“Yes, there was something. It worked like a charm.”
“What—what are you talking about?” Tracy asked uneasily. She tried to wrench free from his hold, but it was too firm—her effort went barely noticed. Then he quite suddenly released her, but only to set his arms about her and pull her tightly to his chest with his chin resting atop her head, his hands locked just below her breasts.
“We do make a charming couple, don’t we, Jamie?”
“I—uh—” Jamie began.
Tracy interrupted him, swearing rather elaborately, but once again her fervent efforts against him went unnoticed. He spun her around grimly; her fists were useless because they were too tightly crushed against his chest as he stared down at her. “I told them that you were living with me again, Tracy. And the amazing thing is that they believed it. So, I would say, most obviously, my love, that they have been kept in the dark about your movements the same as everyone else. I could tell that your mother was shocked—but, of course, I reminded her that you were quite of age now and could live anywhere you desired. I also said that we wanted peace among all of us, of course.”
“You what!” Tracy got out at last, livid. Oh, so much for control and poise and sophistication. “You’re crazy! I won’t have any part of it! I will never go near that house again as long a
s I live!”
He raised a dark brow to her, pleasantly, but didn’t release her. Her heels didn’t help her at all; she felt small and powerless and she hated him for it. Just like she hated the way that he made her feel, holding her, after all these years. Holding her with what felt like latent anger, an anger that had simmered and brewed and waited and now.
He had her.
No, he did not. Because she would never go to his house. She would never live his lie.
“Why on earth should I do this?” she railed, near hysteria. “I don’t believe my family had anything to do with it.”
“Then you’re a coward. You’re afraid to prove that what you’re saying is true.”
“You’ll never prove anything—”
“Tracy!”
It was Jamie who called out her name. She turned to him, unaware that Leif’s grip eased enough for her to slide within his arms, yet remain against him.
And she wasn’t really aware then of Leif’s arms still about her, for one thing was true—Jamie had every bit of his father’s haunting sensitivity in his features. He swallowed miserably as he stared at her, then spoke with a hoarse croak in his throat. “Tracy, maybe it’s our only chance. I didn’t know anything—you came to me. But now that I know, Tracy—by God! We’ve got to have the truth! Tracy, we’re his children! We can’t let his real murderer go free. And if that means my family or your family, we both have to know, whatever the truth is.”
She shook her head, denying the pain that swelled within her. “Jamie, this is crazy!”
“It could work! Ah, come on, Tracy—you just admitted it. You’ve already slept with Leif—how hard can it be just to stay in his house?”
“Oh!” Tracy gasped out, stunned by his casual acceptance of everything. Some blood brother!—standing there while Leif manhandled her and acting as if it were fine. How typically male, how typically—like her father, and Leif.
She wrenched away from the latter with a sudden spurt of fury and approached Jamie with fire flaring brightly in her eyes. He, too, stood way taller than she, but he backed away as she came near.
“Jamie, don’t you dare ever assume that everything in life is casual. Don’t sentence yourself to a life like Dad’s, where nothing ever meant anything because he had too much! Oh, never mind! I’ll never get through to any of you!”
She went flying out of the suite then, amazed that a simple breakfast could have gone so badly.
Why not? Leif had been there, and she had played right into his hands. She had said and done exactly what he wanted; he had her in a position where she would be pressured to play his game his way—to trap her grandfather.
Tracy didn’t quite make it to her suite’s door; she spun back and slammed back into Jamie’s.
He and Leif were righting the chafing dishes. “This is just great!” Jamie was complaining. “The hotel will blame me for being young and wild when my sister threw the food at you!”
“I didn’t throw food at anyone!” Tracy protested.
“Oh?” Leif inquired casually. “You could have fooled me.”
“Yes, and you can fool anyone, can’t you? You’re trying to sizzle my grandfather. Well, I’m sorry, I haven’t vindicated you as yet, Mr. Johnston.”
“Tracy, you don’t believe that.”
“No? I should believe my mother is a murderess?”
He shook his head and stooped to pick up the coffeepot. “Tracy, I merely said—”
“You didn’t ‘merely’ say anything. You were vicious.”
“Wait a minute!”
Jamie paused in his endeavors and lifted his hand, a pained expression on his face. He smiled ruefully at them both.
“I’m just going to go lock myself in my closet for a while, huh? I—uh—well, I love you both, and I’m not so sure I want to be a part of this. Settle things between you, huh?”
He turned around, walked away—and pointedly closed the door to his bedroom.
Both Leif and Tracy were silent for several seconds. Leif continued picking things up—it was still going to look bad when room service showed up.
Tracy really didn’t feel very guilty—he had been baiting her, and they both knew it. But in the stiff silence that followed her brother’s departure, she swallowed hard and set to replacing the now ragged tablecloth. To her great discomfort, she paused, aware that Leif had done so, that he was quietly watching her.
“He’s right, you know. This isn’t fair to him,” said Leif.
“This isn’t fair to anyone,” Tracy retorted sharply. She set a pile of silverware back on the table, then paused again, her fingers shaking. He hadn’t ceased watching her—not for one moment—and she had that feeling again that he was after something more.
She looked up at him; shadowed smoky eyes shielded all his thoughts again.
“Well,” he murmured, “I’ve got a few calls to make before tonight. Jamie has to be at setup by nine.”'
He didn’t move though. Tracy lowered her eyes and went back to righting the positions of things on the table. “You’ve been with him all through the tour?”
“It hasn’t been that long a tour. Three months. Paris, London, Rome, Atlanta, Chicago, L.A., and New York. A nice roundup for his first time out.”
She found herself looking at him again. “You always hated to tour.”
“Yeah. Well, it was his first time out. He’s only twenty. I wanted to see him come out of it as a level-headed human being. Jamie is a real nice kid. And talented.”
“And everyone is comparing him to our father.”
“That’s natural.”
“I suppose.”
“How can it be that none of the tabloids have picked up on you?”
“I stay in the background.”
“You’re still working. I saw your last video. It was good.”
“Thanks. And by the way, I’m the one who bought your last set of songs. You’ll hear some of them tonight.”
Her head shot up at that. “What?”
“Tracy—I am L & L Incorporated. I’m the one who bought your last set of songs. I gave them to Jamie— they’ll be his next album.”
“But—”
“You are T. B. Decker—among your other names. I do know that much. But you’ve also got one terrific agent—I was ready to beg, borrow, or steal for your address.”
She gasped, stunned that he knew that much. “She never told me that you were looking for me.”
He grimaced. “I never gave her a name, either. If you had known that I was looking for you, you would have dug yourself into an even deeper burrow. What is it, Tracy? You never wanted to be compared to your father? Is that why everything is under a pen name?”
She shook her head. She was afraid that she’d cry in front of him, and that was something she never wanted. She wished that she could explain. She didn’t know if she could or not—or if the feelings were so deep that she simply couldn’t ever share them with anyone. All of her life had been chaotic—all of it filled with trauma. She didn’t want that anymore. She didn’t want the things that came with fame and fortune—different lovers every week, failed marriages, children who were ignored.
“I don’t care for publicity,” she said simply.
He didn’t refute her. And she found herself watching him as he watched her. And remembering. All the things she had cared about so much. The way he locked his jaw and dug his thumbs into his pockets when he was determined. The way his eyes could change from a glistening silver to a deep, dusky charcoal. The way his hair fell across his forehead and the way he could push it back impatiently.
The sound of his voice, the way he laughed, and even the way he could rage in righteous fury. The way that he could talk about the world, the past and the future…
The way that he whispered when he made love to her, touching her, enchanting her…
He is seven years older, she thought. And so am I.
She should have forgotten him completely, but that had been impossible. The
Limelights had broken up for that year in which Jesse and Leif had been at total odds.
But they had gotten back together, and for the next three years their work had topped the charts. There had been videos and music scores—and no matter where she had traveled, she had seen him on television and in newspapers. When Celia had died, the event had been covered in newspapers and magazines the world over; not even in grief had he received any privacy from the media. One of the major weeklies had carried a haunting picture of Leif and his son at the church, the little boy gripping his father’s hands—a little boy with his father’s glistening gray eyes—placing a rose upon his mother’s coffin.
“I’m very sorry about Celia,” she said suddenly, remembering that picture.
“Thank you.”
“How could you have traveled with Jamie? Where’s your little boy?”
He smiled suddenly—the rakish smile that had stirred the imaginations of many a lonely heart.
“Blake is coming in later. He’s been with my sister at home in Connecticut. They’re coming in for the final show—I promised him that he could see Jamie’s last show.”
Tracy nodded. She suddenly wanted to run from the room and from Leif. She didn’t want to see the sensuous smile that had captured her teenage heart so long ago.
“You’ll meet him tonight.”
“Oh, no. I’m not going to the concert.”
“You have to. Jamie will be terribly hurt if you don’t go.”
She lowered her eyes instantly, wishing she had never decided it mandatory to seek her brother out and crawl from balcony to balcony in an attempt to meet him alone. It hadn’t worked. She had drawn him into a murder investigation but he was inadvertently drawing her into a nightmare.
“It’s not so bad—just stay in the wings,” Leif told her. “Well, I’ve got to make those phone calls. Why don’t you tell Jamie that it’s safe to come out?”
“Is it?” she asked him.
He hesitated. For a second she thought he was going to come to her again. He didn’t.
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