“Tracy, if you really want the truth, you’ll do as I ask you.”
“You’re brutal.”
“I don’t mean to be. It’s just that you want to open a Pandora’s box. If you’re going to do that, you have to be willing to accept the consequences. You think I’m wrong. I’ve no set decisions made. Prove to me that I’m wrong. I had to say what I did to your family. It was the only way to make sure that we would have a full house—and a full house is necessary.”
He didn’t wait for her answer; he turned around and headed for his room. Tracy watched him, then on impulse started after him, surprising herself when she caught his arm and spun him around to stare down at her once more.
“Leif, you’re not telling me everything and that isn’t fair. You want to use me to trap my family, but there’s more to this, isn’t there? You know something that—”
“I don’t ‘know’ anything, Tracy.”
“But—”
“There’s more to this, yes.”
“What?” she begged him.
He stared down at her so intently then, searching out her eyes, and she felt again that he was desperately trying to read her mind. Why?
But then he pulled away with dry skepticism, twisting his jaw, shaking his head. “You play it my way, first, Tracy. We’ll see where we go from there.”
“That’s not f—”
“Fair. Maybe not. But that’s the way it’s going to be. My way or not at all, for the moment. So what’s it going to be, Tracy?”
She stepped back, frustrated, growing angry again. She crossed her arms over her chest and stubbornly narrowed her eyes at him.
“Why was it so important for you to know where I went after—when-—after—”
He arched a brow with slow, bitter amusement. “After you seduced me to get to your father?”
“Why was it important to know where I went?” she persisted.
“What happened between you and your family, Tracy? Why don’t they know where you are? Why was it so easy for your mother to believe that you had been living with me?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“I think that it is.”
“Why?”
He smiled and turned around.
“Leif!”
At his door he turned back to her. “Maybe none of it is important at all, Tracy. I don’t know yet. But you’ll never find out if you don’t play things my way.”
She locked her jaw tightly and stared at him.
“What’s it going to be, Tracy? Are you going to move in with me for our game of charades?”
She wasn’t sure that she could do it. She would probably reach his house and break down screaming on the lawn, unable to go inside.
“Tracy?”
“All right,” she said coolly.
“Good.”
His door started to close; he came back around the corner, smiling sardonically.
“Just remember, Tracy—you’ve got to make it look good. Don’t throw food at me in front of the others, huh? But then, like Jamie said, it should be easy. After all, you’ve already slept with me.”
The door closed then. Her fingers closed around the coffeepot—and it was all she could do to keep herself from throwing it against the door.
She concentrated and loosened her fingers. She had to learn to control herself! She had just agreed to go back to the scene of both her sweetest and most bitter memories.
To find a murderer, she warned herself. The murderer who had taken her father’s life.
She shivered suddenly, acutely aware that there was danger involved. In many, many ways.
CHAPTER FOUR
From the wings of the concert hall, the sound of the music was so loud that it was almost deafening, yet Tracy was glad that she had come. It was wonderful to watch Jamie, yet it was painful, too. Certain inflections, certain words were so like his father’s. Their father’s.
But Jamie was his own man; he was singing his own tunes and those that Leif had bought from her. And he was doing them well. He not only had musical ability—a nice husky tenor—but a definite showmanship that would take him far.
“The kid is great!”
Sam Nagel shouted the words in her ear, and she turned to grin out her agreement, then paused, studying Sam. Her first instinct was one of warmth—Sam, the oldest Limelight at forty-four, was as bald as a buzzard, husky as a teddy bear, and adorned as he had been forever with a huge gold hoop earring in one ear. She’d always liked Sam—he had bright blue eyes and was quite handsome in his unique way, easily prone to good-natured affability and prone to giving lots and lots of hugs. Right before her father had died, she had seen Sam when he was with Jesse and they had all worked together on Jesse’s last album. She really liked Sam.
Except now she wasn’t able to look at anyone without silently demanding, Did you kill my father?
“Fabulous,” Tiger stated then, giving Tracy a quick hug. “Tiger” was really Jim Smith. Maybe the simplicity of Jim Smith had caused him to adopt the nickname years ago—or maybe it was because he had a natural platinum streak in his dusty-blond hair. Tracy didn’t really know. He had always been “Tiger.” She hadn’t seen Tiger in seven years, but Tiger, too, resembled somewhat “A Picture of Dorian Gray.” He was the shortest of the old group at about five-ten and he looked like something out of a Civil War flick with his drooping but elegant mustache and over-the-collar curling hair, but he, too, could have easily passed for thirty. Had they all sold their souls to the devil? Tracy wondered whimsically. Even her father, Jesse, could have passed for a kid on the street the day he had died.
It was really impossible to talk while the concert was going on. Tracy turned back around to watch her brother, and she was surprised at her own feelings of absolute pride. The audience was wild—and Jamie was brilliant, standing entirely on his own. When his song ended—one of the softer ballads that had been her own creation—the cheering seemed louder than the final drumbeats that had preceded it. Jamie, sweaty but beaming, stood and began to talk.
Sam and Tiger were into a discussion on Jamie’s equipment. Tracy idly glanced around and saw that Leif had been cornered by a reporter in the wings. She couldn’t help but watch him, nor could she control the physical reactions that rose within her. She felt shaky as if breathing had suddenly become a little more difficult, as if her heart had forgotten how to beat in its proper fashion. Leif was striking—had always been, would always be. So straight, so tall, so dark, and with those wonderful smoky eyes. Tonight he was in a soft leather fawn jacket, no tie, but a chocolate silk shirt and light trousers. She smiled, thinking that when she had been eight and in a childish state of adoration over Jesse before she had learned who he was, the Limelights had performed in tricorns and frock coats. Then they’d gone through a Nehru jacket stage—then coats and ties—then whatever anyone felt like wearing.
“Oh, my God!” Tiger groaned suddenly. “What a thing to do to us!”
Startled, Tracy gave him her attention. He was looking at her, but staring over her head. She followed his gaze and saw that Jamie was reaching out a hand to the wings entreatingly.
“What’ll we do?” Sam asked.
“Ask Leif.”
“Ask Leif what?”
He was with them, hands in his pockets as he came between the two other men to smile down at Tracy. “I don’t know how he got back here”—he cast his head in the reporter’s direction—“but I had to promise him an interview later. Will you mind waiting?”
She shook her head, wondering why he had asked her. She had ridden over with him and Jamie—she’d return with them both when they were ready. And it was more than obvious that Jamie would be inundated by the media.
“Leif!” Tiger persisted. “Did you know anything about this? He’s calling us out there!”
Leif frowned and shook his head and realized that Jamie was onstage, his hand still outstretched. And the audience was chanting; thousands of feet were stamping in unison.
Jamie crooked a finger at Leif.
Leif crooked a finger back at Jamie.
Jamie shook his head, smiled at the audience, then shrugged and walked into the wings.
“What are you doing?” Leif demanded. “I promised to manage the tour for you—not perform on it!”
“Ah, Leif, come on! When will we all be together again? Probably never. Listen to them out there. Please— it will be an historical event.”
“He thinks we’re history,” Sam groaned.
“We are history,” Tiger said.
“Please, Leif?” Jamie begged.
Leif stared at him a long moment and Tracy saw all the things that passed between them—the depth of affection, the give and take. Again, despite herself, she was glad that Jamie had Leif.
“All—right,” Leif said at last.
Jamie screamed out some kind of cry of triumph, then went rushing back out. Sam and Tiger looked at one another and grinned, and followed him. Leif was following behind them, but suddenly he caught Tracy’s hand and started dragging her with him.
“Leif!” she cried out in blind panic, fighting the pull of his long fingers around her wrist. “What are you doing?”
“The old stuff, Tracy. We always hired vocalists. You know all the parts—come on.”
“No!” she cried, still panicked. “Leif—”
“Tracy, I know you know all the vocals. I know that you worked with your father. The old songs—the new ones. You know by heart everything that your father and the Limelights ever did.”
“But I don’t—”
“Just this once, Tracy. I dare you. Come on. Feel it. If you do, maybe you’ll understand your father better—and your brother.”
“But they’ll know, Leif! I’ve kept my privacy—”
He suddenly pulled her against his chest. She felt the power of will, the force of his eyes. It seemed that for long moments she didn’t even know what she said; she found herself lost in thought. Every man had a unique scent. Usually subtle, usually clean, but a scent as individual as eyes and faces and minds. And just like a face, like eyes, like strong, tapering fingers, it could be something that seeped into the memory—and beckoned one back.
“Tracy, you can’t hide forever.”
“That’s not—”
“Tracy, I didn’t plan this, but it might be good.”
“Leif—”
It was a shriek that she cut off abruptly because she couldn’t escape him—and she was suddenly just behind the footlights with the globe strobes ricocheting all around her.
On stage, with her brother and the Limelights.
Minus only Jesse Kuger…
It seemed that pandemonium broke out; Tracy had never heard such a cacophony of sound. Sam went up behind the drums, Tiger took over from Jamie’s bass player, Leif was at the keyboard, and Jamie had the lead guitar.
And Tracy had a mike stuck into her hand; she was ridiculously center with Jamie on one side of her, Leif on the other.
They hadn’t discussed what they were going to do; it was instinctive, like stepping into comfortable, worn jeans. She heard the count from Leif and instantly knew that they were doing “Sunset Paradise”—the Limelights’ first top-of-the-charts single, a song nearly twenty-five years old.
And still as fresh as a new day.
Her father’s song. His first.
And to Tracy’s amazement, she did feel it. The roar, the adulation of the audience. The beat of the music that shivered through the floorboards, that echoed all around her, that permeated her entire being. It lifted her above herself. It was chilling, it was wonderful—it was being outside of her body and into a magical chasm. This was it; it was what they had lived for—what, Jamie, too, meant to make his life.
Perhaps it was good that she was so awestruck; when her harmony and solo parts came, they came naturally to her. She knew the song so well. Anything that Jesse had touched she had made her own. She was his blood, and she had strived so hard to touch him…
“Sunset Paradise” moved into “Man with a Mind”— Leif’s song. Then Tiger’s lighter “Red Letter Lady.”
On and on…
Until her father’s “When Night Comes”—a poignant piece on life and death, soft and haunting. A memorial to the man, if ever there could be one.
And that was it. Tracy, suddenly confused, stepped backward, refusing to take part as they bowed, accepting the hysterical laud and praise that came their way. Leif led the way off; Tracy followed him blindly. Jamie was still on stage, his concert having been handed back to him. He was talking again with his pleasant banter, Tracy was vaguely aware—he would do one more number, and then it would all be ended.
But for Tracy the awesome thrill departed as quickly as it had come. The feeling was something like an all-consuming lust for gold. She understood it—yes! The invasion of the heart and soul—the horrendous power. But she hated it; despised it. Despised what it had done to Jesse. He had become something quite similar to a god, and in so being, he hadn’t felt the need to conform to conscience or consideration. No one love could mean anything—because love was something captured by the moment, taken, discarded, abused. She didn’t want any of it! She didn’t want the publicity—she didn’t want the tabloids digging into the circumstances of her birth, or her life, or—her affair with Leif.
And, she realized, it was all going to happen now. Because Jamie was out there telling everyone that she was Tracy Kuger, his sister, Jesse Kuger’s daughter.
She slammed into something hard suddenly and realized that it was Leif’s back. She was very close to tears and ready to light into him vehemently for what he had forced her to do. She wanted to plummet her fists against his back in sheer rage and frustration, and she was so upset she might well have done it.
Except that his back wasn’t there anymore. He’d let out a little cry and stepped into the wings, and it seemed that a little tornado was racing toward him—catapulting suddenly and winding up in his arms.
“Daddy! Daddy! You were neat!”
“Was I, Blake? Well, if you thought so, it was worth it!”
The anger drained from Tracy; she stepped backward, feeling as if she had stepped into a frozen void. It was as if she watched a movie, a performance, a play—some action that evolved before her with no connection to her. Leif had the little boy up in his arms; the child had his arms wrapped around Leif’s neck and Leif wore the most tender smile Tracy had ever seen curve his lip. The boy’s large gray eyes, as deep as his father’s, sparkled hints of silver with eager love and total affection.
“When did you get here? Where is Aunt Liz?”
“Right there—talking to Tiger.”
Blake Johnston suddenly looked past his father and saw Tracy. She saw his blunt and curious, innocent child’s stare, and for an instant the pain that assailed her was incredible, as if she’d received a physical blow against the chest. He was just about the same age as… the same age…
As her child would have been—their child—had it lived.
In that moment, in that bitter realization, she knew that half the hostility she had harbored against Leif all the years had been borne of that simple fact. None of the events that had taken place between them had been his fault.
But after she had been taken away, he had gone right back to Celia. Gone right back to her and married her. And produced, nine months later, a beautiful little boy.
While Tracy had been virtually held prisoner by her grandfather. Hounded to have an abortion. Told over and over again that she had never meant a thing to Leif— hadn’t he proven it? He had gone on to marry Celia.
She’d refused. Absolutely refused. Even when she had seen Leif’s wedding pictures plastered across every morning paper, she had fought for the child. She was a “mistake” herself—she wasn’t about to let her infant perish for being nothing but a victim of her own vindictiveness.
In the end, it hadn’t mattered. Arthur Kingsley had paid for all the medical care one cou
ld buy in Switzerland —and her child had died anyway.
But here was Leif’s other son. A first-grader, now, surely. Bright and solid and beautiful and staring at her.
He clapped his hands together suddenly. “Tracy! You were great, too!”
She felt so brittle that if she smiled her face would crack like a china plate. Mechanically, she smiled back anyway.
“You’re Jamie’s sister?” Blake asked. “I didn’t know that!”
Leif chuckled softly. “Of course! If she’s Jesse’s daughter, son, she’s Jamie’s sister.”
“Oh. I guess. I didn’t know.”
“Well, you’re only six years old!” Leif said lightly. “You’re not supposed to know everything yet.”
“Do you know everything?”
Leif chuckled. “No, Blake. We never get to know everything. But we do get to know more and more.”
He turned around at last. “It seems Blake knows you.” He paused, continuing a little dryly, “Jesse talked about you—quite frequently. But you don’t know Blake. Tracy Kuger, Blake Johnston. Blake, Miss Tracy Kuger, Uncle Jesse’s daughter.”
Blake stuck a hand out over his father’s shoulder, still watching her with unabashed and blunt curiosity. “How do you do, Tracy?” He said very politely and solemnly.
She discovered that she could talk after all, that she could give him a deep and natural smile.
“Very well, thank you, Blake. How are you?”
“Super! I missed my daddy, but we’re back together, and it’s really okay, you know, because I know that Jamie needed him.”
“Hey, Leif!” Tiger called out suddenly. “Leif, the press is tearing up the place back here. You want to take a minute and say something so we can get out of here.”
“Uh—yeah.”
Leif turned around, setting Blake down. He gazed up at Tracy questioningly, then looked back to his son. “Will you stay with Tracy for just a minute and then I promise I’ll be right back?”
Blake nodded solemnly. Leif walked away. Tracy felt a little hand fit snugly into hers.
“I’m sorry about your daddy, Tracy. I loved Uncle Jesse a whole lot. But you mustn’t worry about him, you know. He went up to heaven to live with the angels, and my mother is there, too, so I’m sure he won’t be lonely.”
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