by Lisa Jackson
Outside, a salt-laden breeze pushed a few clouds across the blue sky. Seagulls called and swooped at the glassy surface of the Bay and the air held an icy chill of winter. Crisp. Cold. Cutting.
“Conrad always was a miserable old bastard,” Nick said as they walked along a sidewalk to the parking lot.
“He’s ill.”
“And he wasn’t much better when he was healthy, believe me.”
At the door of his truck, Marla finally glanced up at him. She’d regained her composure to some extent, but two points of color still stained her cheeks. “The next time I get a brilliant idea to meet my relatives without an invitation, just shoot me, okay?” she suggested.
“I’ll try to remember.” Nick opened the door and Marla hitched herself onto the old bench seat.
Nick climbed behind the wheel and fired the engine. “He didn’t think you were Marla.”
“I caught that.” She snorted. “But then, can you blame him? Even I doubt it at times.” Squinting against the sunlight piercing the windshield, she added, “And he called me Kylie.” Her fingers drummed on the armrest as he pulled out of the parking lot. “Kylie.” The name sounded familiar. But why? Was it hers? No . . . it couldn’t be. Did she know someone with that name? She concentrated so hard, her eyebrows slammed together as she tried to recall a past that was beginning to appear to her. It was still shadowy and dark, as if veiled, the final curtain not yet lifted.
Nick sliced her a glance as he guided the truck toward the highway. “Does that name mean anything to you?”
“Yes—I mean, maybe.” Blowing out a breath, she reached for the purse she’d taken from her closet, found the sunglasses and slid them onto her nose. “It seemed . . . oh, I don’t know.” She wiggled her fingers as if trying to grasp something elusive, then concentrated so hard trying to recall anything about her life before the accident that her head ached. “It’s all a jumble in my mind, but I’m sure I’ve heard the name before . . . that . . . oh, this sounds crazy, but at some level, deep down, I felt that Conrad knew who I was more than I do. Isn’t that weird?” She rolled her eyes and cracked her window, letting in the salty air. “It’s so odd. Everything about my life seems out of kilter. Sometimes I don’t know what’s real and what’s not, but the animosity he felt for me, the pure hatred on his face, that seemed more like the truth than all the other things I’ve heard.”
“He wasn’t too keen on seeing you.”
“He hates me.”
“At least he does today,” Nick allowed.
Marla stared out the window, to the green hills. “So what’s with all this talk about how close I was with my father, how he showered me with gifts, how I was basically the light of his life? As far as I’m concerned it’s all fake and way overblown. Or maybe even downright wrong. Ever since I woke from the coma I’ve had this gut feeling, this intuition, that he and I didn’t see eye to eye. That we really didn’t like each other.” She slid Nick a look. “I guess that’s putting it mildly, huh?” She almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation. Except that it was too painful. The sorry truth was that she was related to so many people and felt connected to none. Except the baby and Nick. Not even her own daughter. Not her husband. “So much for fatherly affection,” she muttered, then asked, “Why did he think I’d been there earlier with Alex?”
“The nurse said he’s in and out of reality because of his drugs.” Nick shifted down as the truck took a sweeping corner where the road rimmed the Bay.
“Are you buying that?” She stared at him hard.
“I don’t know, but something’s not right.”
“Amen.”
“I guess we’ll ask Alex.”
“It should make interesting dinner conversation,” she said, then lapsed into silence. Her father thought her a fake, an interloper, an imposter. He acted as if she was someone else, someone who a woman he referred to as a whore had tried to pass off as his daughter. Did he dream it? Or was it part of his past?
“Did you know that most of Conrad’s estate will go to James when he dies?” Nick asked.
“The baby? My father’s estate goes to my son?” That was crazy.
“Yep.”
“Now, wait a minute,” she said, holding up a hand in protest. “How do you know this?”
“I’ve been doing my homework.”
“Prying, you mean.”
He switched on the radio. A commercial for cellular phones blasted through the speakers. Nick found another station. Soft rock of some sort. An old Billy Joel tune. “Call it what you will, but I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on down here.”
“Me, too,” she admitted though she was a little disconcerted to think that Nick might know more about her life than she did. “You’re sure about the will?”
“As sure as I am about anything. I’ve got a private investigator working for me.”
“So?”
“He’s got connections, or so he says. The upshot of the will is that everyone else gets a pittance, but the baby is the primary beneficiary.”
“For God’s sake, why?”
“Seems your father always wanted a namesake. The will originally stated that a male heir would inherit most of everything and since Rory is severely handicapped, the onus was on you to produce a son.”
“Even though his last name isn’t Amhurst.”
“Hence the James Amhurst Cahill.”
“I can’t believe that. It’s . . . it’s so archaic. So . . . so . . . sick.” But then she remembered the man who was her father. Somehow, it fit.
“It’s the old man’s money, he can do with it what he wants,” Nick pointed out as Marla watched a jet slice across the sky.
“But James is barely nine weeks old.”
“And damned lucky to be a male.”
“Or cursed.” She didn’t like the feeling that had been with her since seeing her father lying in his bed, a shell of the man he’d once been, a skeleton filled with hate and suspicion. So where was the doting father who gave out stock certificates and expensive rings like candy? Where was the man who raised her and nurtured her and looked forward to her bringing him grandchildren . . . ?
“Who is Kylie?” Nick asked suddenly.
“I wish I knew. But I know I’ve heard the name before . . . seen or heard it somewhere. I just can’t remember where.”
He tapped his fingers on the gearshift as he thought. His eyes narrowed on the road and he said, “Maybe you do have a sister after all. A half-sister.”
“It’s a possibility I suppose,” she agreed as he’d echoed her own suspicions. “But why doesn’t anyone know about her?”
“Because it was his nasty little secret. It could be that it’s all twisted in his mind and he’s confusing you with her.”
“Maybe,” she allowed though the idea seemed far-fetched and disjointed. But why else would he call her by another name? “Or maybe I am Kylie. How would I know?” She offered him a lift of one brow.
“Then where’s Marla, and why does everyone think you’re Conrad’s princess of a daughter?”
“Not everyone does,” she pointed out, watching as fence posts and grassy fields gave way to houses dotting the landscape, flying by in a blur as the truck roared down the narrow road. “Cissy doesn’t. Conrad doesn’t. I’m not even sure if I do. What about you?” She twisted her head to stare directly at him. “You knew her. Very well from the sounds of it.” His fingers curled over the wheel. “Do you think I’m Marla?” she asked. His lips thinned. The skin stretched tight over his cheekbones.
“Yes.”
“Why? My face has changed a lot. I’ve been through hell in that wreck, then had plastic surgery. You haven’t seen me in what—over a dozen years?”
The veins in the back of his hands stood out. His knuckles turned white. “That’s true.”
“Then how would you know?”
When he didn’t answer, she touched his arm. “How, Nick?”
“Because of my reaction to you, da
mn it!” He slid her a glance that cut right to the quick. “Let’s start with last night,” he suggested as the tires sang against the pavement. “You were there, you know what happened.”
“Y—yes,” she said, dropping her hand.
“I usually don’t lose control, Marla,” he said earnestly. “It’s not my style.” His gaze, so blue, so cutting, so damned intense drilled into hers and she wanted to shrink away. Instead she met it straight on. “It only happened once before. A long time ago.” His smile twisted with self-loathing. “It’s a pity you don’t remember it.”
Her stomach did a slow roll and she notched up her chin. “Damned right it’s a pity,” she said. “I don’t care what happened between us, Nick, I just want to remember.”
“Well I do, lady. I care and I remember and I’ll be damned if I’m going through that hell all over again.”
He shifted down and roared past a sedan that was slowing for a turn.
She flopped back against the seat, her emotions ripped and raw. There was so much of life that was disconnected, jagged little bits and pieces that just didn’t fit. And her relationship with Nick was so volatile, so worrisome, so damned intense it scared the hell out of her. “Then I guess we’d better find this Kylie person.”
“If she exists.”
“Right.”
Lapsing into silence, he rammed the truck into fourth and stepped on the gas. Marla folded her arms on her chest and wiggled her foot nervously. He was her only ally and sometimes her worst enemy. She felt as if she could trust him and reminded herself he was probably the last person she should have faith in. He had an old grudge against her, a personal axe to grind.
“I want to show you something,” he said, taking the turn to Sausalito rather than connecting with the highway leading back to San Francisco. Tucked on the interior side of the peninsula at the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, the small community was spread upon the hillside, pastel houses, flowers and shrubs climbing the hills for views of the sparkling water.
“Show me what? Where are we going?”
“I thought we’d check out Pam Delacroix’s address.”
“Why?”
“To try to jog your memory,” he said, some of his animosity fading. “Is that okay with you?”
“Anything’s worth a try.”
He pulled into a marina on Richardson Bay and parked in a lot designated for residents. “She lived in a houseboat?” Marla asked, eyeing the floating homes docked along wide wooden piers.
“Ever since her divorce.” Nick pointed out a sun-bleached dock near a two-story floating home and Marla felt as if a ghost had slid through her soul. She tried to imagine the woman she’d seen in the snapshots living here day to day, carrying groceries, calling her daughter on the phone, making plans to sell houses . . . and yet she remembered nothing.
Determined to remember something, anything about the woman who’d given up her life in the wreck, Marla hopped out of the truck and slammed the door. Though the day was bright, the sky clear aside from the clouds rolling in from the west, Marla felt as if she should be skulking in shadows, hiding from the eyes of neighbors if they chanced to peer through the blinds. The wind blew in chilly, November gusts as she approached the front door where a carved wooden heron with glassy eyes held a welcome sign in its long beak. Nick rapped hard. Waited. No one stirred within. No one answered. The blinds didn’t move. Using his hand as a visor, Nick tried to peer inside.
“You really weren’t expecting anyone to be here, were you?” she asked, shoving her hands deep into the pockets of her coat.
“No, but I thought seeing this might trigger something for you, ignite some memory.”
“I wish.” She studied the two-storied house, the pilings, the decking and the empty terra cotta pots positioned near the door. No flowers bloomed now, the pots empty aside from a few dried stems. Just like the house. A chill swept through Marla as she stepped across the deck where Pam had walked hundreds of times before, watering her plants, or painting the trim, or sunbathing in the patio chairs that had been stacked beneath the overhang of an upper deck. Climbing the staircase, she felt a deep sadness for the woman she couldn’t remember.
On the second floor, too, the blinds were shut. “I feel like I’m treading on her grave,” Marla said, wrapping her arms around herself and hearing the water lap at the pilings and shore. She stared across the bay toward Angel Island and thought of the woman who had been with her in the car, the woman whose face she’d seen in the photographs Nick had shown her. But there was nothing. Nothing but the questions that had tormented her since first waking from her coma.
Shaking her head, Marla squinted up at Nick. “I’m sorry. This isn’t doing it for me. If you say it’s Pam’s house, I’ll believe you, but you couldn’t prove it by me.”
“It was just an idea. A shot in the dark.”
“Guess it was a blank,” Marla teased. She was starting to trust Nick. Rely upon him. Confide in him. Which was just plain nuts.
Think about last night, Marla. You can’t trust him and you damned sure can’t trust yourself with him. At least not emotionally. He was leaning against the railing, staring across the water, his back to her, one hip thrust out. The wind caught in his black hair, his jacket had risen above his jeans, allowing her a glimpse of his leather belt and the faded denim of his low slung Levis stretched over firm, taut buttocks.
He glanced over his shoulder and she looked sharply away. “I think we should go,” she said, and from the corner of her eye caught his sexy smile. Damn him. He’d known she was staring. Probably even posed on purpose. Sometimes he could be so cocky. So arrogant. Such a bastard. She started for the pickup and called herself a dozen kinds of fool. What the hell was there about him that caused her to forever wonder about making love to him—even while they were trying to unravel the mystery that was her life?
Damn. Damn. Damn.
She sat as far from him as she could when he got into the truck. “I need to see Paterno,” she said as he threw the rig into gear. “I promised to make a statement.”
He looked at his watch. “How about one more stop first?”
“Where?”
Slicing her a bad-boy smile, he said, “I think it’s time you and I found a little religion.” His eyes twinkled with wicked pleasure as he drove a few blocks toward the center of town then took a side street. Five blocks later, he shifted down, slowing to a crawl. “This is where Cherise and Donald hang out,” he said, pointing to a modern-looking church. Painted slate gray, with a swooping roof that pinnacled in a copper spire, the church was the most imposing building on the block. A fluorescent sign near the street announced the times of the next week’s services. The Reverend Donald Favier was going to speak on the wages of sin. Beneath the announcement a verse from Psalms was quoted. The asphalt parking lot looked new and was sparsely occupied with a couple of sedans, a shiny Volvo wagon and a dark Jeep.
As Nick slowed, Marla studied the wide front porch and carved double doors. “I think I’ve been here,” she said, the hint of a memory teasing her brain. She bit her lip and tried to pierce the fog in her mind.
“Let’s go inside. See what’s up.” He turned into the parking lot and Marla’s feet were on the asphalt before he’d shut the door and pocketed his key. The closer they got to the church, the more certain she was that she’d been on these grounds, but not in the light of day singing hymns with a large congregation, or listening to the reverend spread the good word. No. The images that toyed with her mind were watery but dark and she had the feeling that she’d met someone here.
With Nick at her heels, she hurried up the few wide steps to the porch. He reached around her, intent on yanking open the door.
It remained firmly in place. Bolted shut.
“Shit,” Nick growled.
“The story of my life,” she said, and when he looked at her she waved off his questions. “I’ve been dealing with a lot of locked doors lately.”
“I guess God d
oesn’t work nine to five,” he observed.
Marla rewarded him with a pained expression. “Or maybe He’s just out to lunch.”
“Very funny.”
“I thought so.”
She sent him a scathing look. “This isn’t the place for your irreverence.” But she couldn’t maintain her stern expression and chuckled as they clambered down the stairs.
“Just trying to lighten the mood.”
“Okay so you are funny.”
They took a flagstone path to the rear of the building where an etched sign on the door indicated they’d found the office. Nick knocked, then twisted the knob. No luck. The door didn’t so much as budge.
“So far we’re batting a thousand,” Nick observed as they heard the sound of an engine roaring to life. Tires screeched loudly from the other side of the church. “You don’t suppose we scared someone off?” Nick asked taking off at a dead run.
Marla raced after him, struggling to keep up with his longer strides as he circled the church, then stopped short in the parking lot.
Nick’s truck was where they’d left it and the two sedans and wagon were still parked in their spots. “There was a Jeep here a few minutes ago. Right?”
“I think so. Yes.” She nodded, trying to catch her breath as the short sprint had winded her. “It was parked over there, by that bush.” She flung a hand toward a scraggly forsythia, and took in deep breaths. Lord, she was out of shape.
“That’s what I thought.” Nick’s eyes narrowed on the empty spot.
“It could just be coincidence that the driver decided to leave—”
“My ass.” His lips compressed and he looked up and down the street, searching the slow-moving traffic. “Damn!” He kicked at a pebble and sent it careening into the tire of a Pontiac. “I saw a rig like that before. The night Cherise came to visit me at the hotel. Someone picked her up in a dark Jeep.” Nick squinted down the road, as if willing the escaping vehicle into his field of vision.
“There are thousands of SUVs in the Bay area,” Marla said, shading her eyes as she looked west, into the lowering sun. “It wouldn’t be that much of a stretch for the same one to have picked up Cherise and then been parked here. Maybe it belongs to her husband, or the church or a friend.”