by Sandra Brown
Daniel doubted she knew. If she knew, she would have been reluctant to fall in love with Parker Evans. And she was in love. That became clearer by the day.
Daniel wanted to celebrate her newfound happiness, but he would be wary of the budding romance until he knew why Parker Evans had engineered this chain of events. He had been tempted to confront the man, either in person or through Sutherland, and demand to know just what kind of story he was plotting. But he couldn’t do that without tipping his hand to both Maris and Noah, and he wasn’t quite prepared to do that. Close, but not quite.
So he’d been forced to bide his time while Sutherland delved deeper.
It was possible that Evans’s motivation would come to light in another form—his manuscript. Having read the latest installment that Maris had shared with him, Daniel was convinced the writer was chronicling his rocky friendship with Noah. Depending on how long it took him to commit the story to paper, it might be told through the pages of his personal record before Sutherland could wade through the official one.
During the wait, Daniel’s primary concern was Maris. He’d known about Parker Evans before she returned to St. Anne. He could have stopped her. He didn’t. For one thing, it was clear to him that she yearned to go. He was also comforted by the fact that Parker Evans was spoken well of by the people who lived on St. Anne, who ordinarily resented the intrusion of outsiders, as Sutherland had discovered when he sent a man down there to ask questions.
Daniel had gambled that Maris, and her heart, would be safe with the writer. If his friendship with Noah had ended over a matter of honor, then Daniel must assume that Parker Evans was an honorable man.
Indisputably Noah Reed was not. Regardless of what else transpired, Noah’s affiliation with the Matherlys was about to come to an end. He thought he had smiled and cajoled himself into Daniel’s good graces with this male-bonding-weekend malarkey. Daniel had gone along for his own curiosity and amusement, secretly appalled by the extent of Noah’s deceit.
Unbeknownst to the self-assured and insufferably smug Mr. Reed, his head was on the chopping block and the axe was about to fall.
In a symbolic gesture, Daniel dusted bread crumbs off his hands and put his plate and empty brandy snifter in the sink. Contrary to his weather predictions, the storm had intensified. Flashes of lightning were closer, the thunder louder. One clap of thunder shook the house, causing Rosemary’s china plates to jingle in their cabinet.
Dear Rosemary. Twenty years she’d been gone, and he still missed her. This house made him particularly homesick for her. They’d spent such happy times here.
Switching off the kitchen light, he made his way through the dark house. As he climbed the staircase, he favored his arthritic joints by leaning heavily upon the balustrade. Damn, he hated getting old!
No sooner had the thought flashed through his mind than a voice came out of the darkness at the top of the stairs. “You forgot your cane.”
“Jesus!” Daniel raised his hand to his lurching heart. In a brief glare of blue-white lightning, he saw Noah on the landing. “You startled me.”
“It’s careless of you not to use your cane, Daniel.”
“I’m all right.” He continued up the stairs, having to put both feet on each tread before progressing to the next one. “Did the storm wake you?”
“I never went to sleep.”
Noah’s remote tone of voice gave Daniel pause, but he smiled up at his son-in-law with affected congeniality. “I was having trouble sleeping myself, so I took advantage of being away from Sergeant Maxine to eat a snack.”
By now he was only two steps below the landing, but Noah appeared to have taken root there. He made no attempt either to assist Daniel or to step aside. Indeed, he seemed to be blocking his path.
He disliked having Noah looming over him, but he tried to act casually as he indicated the sheets of paper Noah was holding at his side. “Reviewing the document I signed earlier?”
Let him, Daniel thought. Let him memorize it, for all the good it will do him. The document wasn’t worth spit except in Noah’s devious and disillusioned mind.
“No,” Noah replied calmly. “This is the report on me from your private investigator, Mr. William Sutherland.”
More than being shocked or alarmed, Daniel was angry that his privacy had been invaded. His lips narrowed into the firm thin line that anyone who had been subject to his stern disapproval would recognize. “That was locked in a drawer in my desk at home.”
“Yes, I know. It took some rifling, but eventually I found it. Interesting reading.”
“I thought so, too,” Daniel said stiffly.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t know I was being investigated?” Noah asked, laughing lightly. “Your bloodhound is good, Daniel. The best that money can buy, I’m sure. Secret Service training and all that. But he asked questions of one friend too many.”
“According to the report, you don’t have any friends.”
“Call my doubles tennis partner an acquaintance, then. Smart fellow. Smart enough to see through Sutherland’s lame reason for the inquiries.” His smile, which had been in place up to this point, vanished. “I’m curious to know only when the surveillance began.”
There was no reason now to play dumb or to equivocate. “I’d been deliberating it for months. It commenced shortly after your premature anniversary party.”
“Why then?”
“Because that was the night I became convinced that you are a seasoned deceiver and liar.”
Noah kept every urbane feature schooled, except one eyebrow. He raised it in query. “Really?”
“I don’t know if you’ve been deceiving us all along or if you’ve been walking the straight and narrow until only the last several months when Morris Blume approached you about selling my publishing company out from under me. I prefer to think the latter, because that would make me less of a fool for being taken in by you. But I fear that one could not acquire and perfect your skills for duplicity in such a short period of time. They’ve been cultivated, honed—”
“You’re becoming redundant, Daniel. You’ve already said I was a seasoned liar.”
“Quite right. The night of the party at the Chelsea apartment, I caught you in several lies. And while some could be explained as necessary for surprising Maris, others bothered me. It was also unlike you to think so far ahead and plan a celebration, when ordinarily you rely on your secretary to buy Maris’s gifts for every special occasion. So I began observing you carefully, looking beyond the obvious, beyond the man you show to the world. That’s when I began seeing you for who you really are.”
“How clever of you, Daniel.”
“No. If I’d been clever I wouldn’t have been duped at the start. You’re very good at the masquerade, Noah. Exceptional. You’ve also proved your mettle as a businessman and publisher. I had admired your abilities long before you came to Matherly Press. Like Maris, I was impressed by The Vanquished, and wrongly assumed that only a person with integrity could author a book of matching integrity.”
Noah folded his arms across his chest and smiled as he enunciated, “It’s fiction, Daniel. It wasn’t by accident that I wrote The Vanquished from that humble, hillbilly-righteous point of view. I created characters with high-minded ideals, not because I adhere to them, or even believe in them, but because I know that’s what sells books. The average Joe and Judy want to believe that valorous people do exist, that evil can be overcome by good, that virtue is a reward unto itself. They get off on that kind of bullshit.
“The Vanquished was bloated with the sentimental, southern sappiness that my parents spoon-fed me. I was forced to stomach it when I was growing up. So I used it. I poured it all into that novel so I could close the cover on it and leave it there forever.
“The dewy-eyed heroine,” he continued scornfully. “The flawed but valiant hero. Their blood-stirring, star-crossed love story. Every word of it was tripe disguised by pretty prose. It didn’t mean shit to me, excep
t for the royalties it earned and the reviews that brought me to the attention of publishers and ultimately paved the way into your office.”
“Why ultimately to me?”
“Because, Daniel, you were the only supremely successful publisher with a marriageable daughter, who, to my good fortune, had gone on record claiming that The Vanquished was her favorite book.”
Even knowing Noah’s true nature, Daniel was stunned by this declaration. “You freely confess to being that callous? Is that how you honestly feel about your profession, about people, and life in general?”
“And then some.”
Daniel shook his head sadly. “Such a sad waste of talent.”
“Come on, Daniel. Let’s not weep over my hypocrisy. We publish a gritty police series that’s written by a flaming fag. He takes breaks from writing about his tough, heterosexual hero to get fucked up the ass by his young assistant. One of our religious book authors has been convicted of tax evasion and insurance fraud.
“Hypocrisy? On your Christmas party list are several hopeless alcoholics, a brother-and-sister writing team whose oh-so-close relationship would scandalize the mothers who read their books aloud to their children. We publish one cocaine addict for whom you’ve footed the bill of a rehab clinic at least twice that I know of.
“All of them write very good books, and we publish them. I don’t see you getting squeamish over their addictions and aberrations when the profits come rolling in. Those profits pay for your weekly massages, and this house, and chauffeured limousines, and all the other niceties you pompously enjoy up there in your ivory tower.”
“You’ve made your point,” Daniel conceded angrily. “I’ve never denied keeping an eye on the bottom line. I pride myself on having been a good businessman. I’ve fought countless corporate battles against unscrupulous foes and outlasted economic crises that naysayers predicted could not be withstood.
“And yes, there have been times when, for the good of Matherly Press, I’ve had to be disingenuous. I’ve resorted to guile when I felt it was necessary.” His eyes pierced through the darkness separating them. “That’s why I was able to detect it in you, Noah. And once I got a whiff of it, it became obvious to me that you reek of it.”
Noah crossed his legs at the ankles and leaned indolently against the newel post. He looked over the sheets in his hand, although he couldn’t have actually been reading them. Except for flashes of lightning, it was too dark to read. “I’ll admit that some of this is less than flattering.”
Daniel wondered how much he knew. Was this only the initial report? He couldn’t remember what had been committed to paper and what the investigator had told him over the telephone that morning, promising that he would receive a written update as soon as it was available.
Noah said, “If you believe this, I’m a wretched human being. I actually admire your ability to keep a civil tongue when speaking to me.”
“It hasn’t been easy.”
“No, I suppose not. I assume you’re most upset over my traitorous alliance with WorldView?”
Daniel chose not to disabuse him. Better to let him continue entertaining his misconceptions. “I can forgive that before I can forgive your mistreatment of Maris.”
“She knows, by the way,” he said placidly, dropping the sheets and letting them scatter. “About the affair with Nadia.”
“I know.”
He was obviously taken aback. “She told you?”
“No, but her unhappiness with you and your marriage has been apparent for some time.”
“She’s been happy enough,” he said with a blasé flick of his hand. “She loves her work more than ever, now that she’s working with this new author. He’s handicapped, and that really appeals to her. It’s important to her to feel needed.”
So he didn’t know about Parker Evans! Daniel happily clung to that secret knowledge.
“Maybe I didn’t cater to the nurturing aspect of Maris’s personality,” Noah continued with a nonchalance that Daniel found nauseating. “I’m self-sufficient to a fault. That caused a few minor tiffs. But your precious daughter wasn’t too dissatisfied with her life. Not until she caught me with Nadia.”
“Her happiness came from within herself. She was happy in spite of you, Noah, not because of you. You even sabotaged her chance of being truly happy.”
Noah snapped his fingers. “You’re referring to the vasectomy.”
“Yes,” Daniel said bitterly. That had been one of the most disheartening discoveries to come from Sutherland’s report. “The secret vasectomy. As I recall, you cited business obligations as your reason for not accompanying us to Greece.”
“Maris had in mind for us to screw our way through the Mediterranean and return pregnant. I invented a plausible excuse for wiggling out of the trip and used the time you were away to have the procedure that ensured I wouldn’t have to worry about birth control again.”
“I was puzzled when I first read about the vasectomy,” Daniel admitted. “Wouldn’t a child have secured your ties to us and the Matherly fortune? And therein lay the answer.” He looked Noah full in the face. “You didn’t want a child competing with you for a share.”
Noah uncrossed his ankles. “That’s the first thing you’ve said during this conversation that’s incorrect, Daniel.”
“You deny it?”
“Not at all,” he said blandly. “You’re wrong in that I’d ever settle for a measly share.”
Daniel snorted with contempt. “Don’t count your chickens yet, Noah. That document I signed tonight is worthless.”
“You think so?” he asked smoothly.
“I was only playing along, seeing how far you would go. What I really find galling is that you attached Howard Bancroft’s name to that document. He would never have drawn up a—”
“Oh, but he would,” Noah said, interrupting. “He did. Rather than let it be circulated that his father was a Nazi officer who was personally responsible for exterminating thousands of his kindred.”
Daniel received that news like a punch to the gut. “You used that to coerce him?”
“So,” Noah said with a slow smile, “you knew about his whoring mother?”
“Howard was my friend.” Daniel practically strained the words through his clenched teeth. “He confided in me years ago. I admired him for making his life into what it was instead of letting what he couldn’t change defeat him.”
“Well, it did, didn’t it? In the long run, he couldn’t live with the tragic truth.”
“A truth you threatened to spread,” Daniel said, seeing the clear picture now.
Noah shrugged and smiled beatifically. “See, that’s the difference between you and me, Daniel. Come to think of it, between me and just about everybody. You go after what you want, but you fall short of total commitment. Your conscience has drawn an invisible line, and you never step across it. You’re shackled by principles and ethics. And while that moral demarcation is admired, it’s terribly restricting.
“I, on the other hand, suffer no such impediment. I am willing to do whatever it takes to get what I want. I stop at nothing, and I let nothing stand in my way. My credo is: Find a man’s weakness, and you own him. To achieve the goal I’ve set for myself, I’ll go to any lengths.”
“Even to talking a man, a good man, into committing suicide.”
“I didn’t talk Howard into anything. He thought that up all by himself. Although I’ll admit that he did me a huge favor when he stuck that pistol in his mouth. What do you suppose he was thinking about when he pulled the trigger? Heaven? Hell? His mother with her legs spread? What?”
Daniel’s beloved friend Howard had suffered untold heartache over his terrible secret. All his life he had tried to atone for it with good deeds, kindness, and tolerance. At last, he had come to terms with it.
Then this travesty of a human being had tortured him with it. Worse yet, he could stand there and smile about it.
Daniel realized he was looking into the face of
a pure, unrepentant depravity. Noah’s indifference to the evil he had done enraged him. Tears of godly wrath blurred his vision. Heat blasted through his veins as though the temperature of his blood had reached the boiling point in a matter of heartbeats.
“You are despicable,” he growled, and charged up the last two steps.
Chapter 30
Parker was the first thing Maris saw when she opened her eyes, and nothing could have pleased her more. He was sitting in his wheelchair beside the bed watching her while she slept. Even before stirring, she smiled into her pillow and asked drowsily, “How’d you manage to get up and into your chair without waking me?”
“Practice.”
She sighed and stretched luxuriously, then sat up and drew the sheet as high as her collarbone. “What time is it?”
“Time for you to clear out. Unless you want Mike to catch you flagrante delicto.”
He was wearing only a pair of boxer shorts. His shoulders and arms, as she knew, were well formed, the muscles taut and defined. His belly was flat, and beneath it, his sex was appreciably full, even while relaxed.
Beyond his lap were his legs. Last night she had made a point to show no interest in them because of his self-consciousness. Apparently, their lovemaking had convinced him that his apprehension was unnecessary. He wouldn’t be sitting here now with his legs exposed, making no attempt to cover them, if he didn’t want her to see them.
So she looked.
And it was impossible to conceal her reaction. She stopped just short of gasping out loud, but the sudden catch in her breath couldn’t have been missed, especially since he was watching her so closely.
His features were rigidly set. His eyes were shuttered. His voice sliced like a razor. “I warned you that it wasn’t pretty.”
“Oh, my darling, you were terribly, horribly hurt.”
She slid from the bed to kneel in front of him. Shark attack was the first thing that came to mind. She’d seen pictures of victims who’d barely escaped with their lives, having huge chunks of their flesh mangled or ripped away. Parker’s scars could be compared only to something that vicious.