Rumor had it the children were still out there, adults now, living, breathing time bombs somewhere in their mid-thirties. News reports claimed the missing children had grown up in adoptive families, with no awareness of their sordid background, superior strengths or potential for chaos.
The reporter whod been leading the charge, M. H. Cantrell, implied that Eric was one of the missing children, that hed used his superior intelligence to steal billions.
Leigh looked up at Eric, stricken. This is crazy.
Hes making me out to be some kind of superhuman freak just because I was adopted.
A small smile pushed aside the horror in Leighs gaze. I dont know, Eric, Ive always thought you were pretty extraordinary.
Not when it comes to computers. He didnt even come close to possessing the know-how to pull off a sophisticated, intricate crime like hacking into the World Bank.
Light twinkled in her eyes. So maybe my defense should center around proving youre just not that smart?
God help him, he laughed. His freedom, his future, hinged on proving he was just an average, ordinary guy. Eric Jones, too dumb to steal hundreds of billions of dollars from the World Bank.
This time, she laughed. Might not be so good for business, though.
Going to prison wouldnt be any better.
That sobered them good and quick. My God, Eric said, shoving a hand through his hair. He hadnt thought the situation could get any worse, but Cantrells article would add fuel to the fire.
And make it more difficult to get a fair trial.
I want this retracted, he said abruptly. How the hell can we expect jurors to forget garbage like this?
Youd be surprised how many people dont pay attention to the news, Leigh pointed out.
This is hard to ignore.
We can seek a retraction, but I doubt that will do any good. Our best shot is going for a change of venue.
Lets do it, then.
Or Leigh hesitated, chewing on her lip. Eric, have you ever looked for your birth parents?
The question zinged in from nowhere and stopped him cold. No.
Thats another angle, she said. If can prove youre not connected to Code Proteus, that will take away one form of ammunition.
No. The word came out hard and automatic. He hadnt been given up for adoption as a baby. His mother hadnt been a scared teenage girl. Whoever she was, shed kept him for two years before deciding she didnt want him anymore.
Eric didnt remember her, didnt want to. He didnt remember the orphanage where shed left him. The Joneses had adopted him six months later. They were the only parents hed known.
The only parents he wanted to know.
Leigh touched his arm. I know this is an emotional subject, but if we have any hope of squashing these ridiculous rumors
Ill take an IQ test.
Your IQ is through the roof, Eric. We both know that.
True enough. Never, however, had Eric imagined hed regret that fact. Then well come up with something else. Well focus on the theft itself, prove the evidence was planted.
Leigh sighed. Youre not betraying your adoptive parents by looking for your birth parents.
I know that, he bit out. He just didnt want to thrust himself back into the life of the woman whod made it clear she didnt want him in hers. This isnt about who gave birth to me. Thats just a smokescreen someones trying to create to distract everyone from the truth.
Why you, Eric? Why would someone target you?
Because Jake is getting too close and they need to discredit him. He filled her in on everything Jake had revealed about his investigation into the World Bank heist and his brothers kidnapping, the attempt on his life. With me under arrest, Jake loses credibility. The government will believe his attempts to steer the investigation in another direction are based on his friendship, not objectivity.
Leigh pushed the hair back from her face. Dark shadows circled her expressive brown eyes, reminding Eric that she was operating on virtually no sleep. This is crazy.
Welcome to my life.
Leigh glanced down at the picture of him handcuffed and being led from the squad car. Several seconds later she looked back at him. Theres something else you need to know.
He didnt like the gravity to her voice. What?
When the judge set bail at three million dollars, I called my banker to see how much available cash I had.
You shouldnt have done that, he said automatically.
Well, I did, Leigh said. And it seems a wire transfer had just been made for enough money to pay off my mortgage, my car, and send my She stopped abruptly, almost violently. Her eyes went dark. send my mother on that world tour shes always fantasized about.
Eric just stared at her. How much?
Half a million dollars.
Holy God. Implications twisted hard. Where the hell did that come from?
Thats the question, Leigh said.
Eric had heard about that kind of thing before in organized crime cases, where attorneys on the mobs payroll suddenly and inexplicably came into large sums of money. I had nothing to do with that, Leigh. You have to know that.
He wished he had that kind of money lying around.
Then again, maybe it was a good thing he didnt. The feds would no doubt allege his wealth came from crime, not hard work.
What I think doesnt matter, Leigh said. The prosecutor will see this in line with the charges against you. If you stole billions, it should be simple to drop a gift into your attorneys account.
If Eric had stolen three hundred fifty billion dollars, hed never do something that obvious.
The sun broke through the haze and burned down on them, working its way through the branches of the elm under which they stood. But everything inside Eric felt cold. Horribly, insidiously cold. He, better than most, knew how cruelly one moment could change everything. And it was happening again. One moment, one piece of bad luck. And once again, Leigh was the one standing by his side. Hed never stopped missing her, her warm smile and soft laughter, her quiet intelligence, but good God, he didnt want her back in his life like this. Someone knew his every move. Someone was playing games with him, dark, dangerous games that could cost him his freedom.
He didnt want her involved. He didnt want her hurt.
All his life hed taken care of others, protected them, worked to keep them out of harms way. And all his life hed been the one with the answers. He didnt have those answers now, but he would find them and crush whoever had done this to him, no matter how powerful Jake said they were.
He would not let Leigh get bruised in the process.
I should never have come to your office yesterday, he said. At the time, he hadnt expected Jakes warning to come true. Hed just been taking a precaution. And hed wanted to see Leigh. I dont want you involved with this mess.
Leigh went very still, save for the glitter in her eyes. Its too late for that, she said, sounding eerily like the girl he remembered and the attorney hed met the day before. I am involved and youre not getting
rid of me that easily.
Like he had before.
She didnt say the words, but they cut through him all the same.
Its too dangerous. Powerful forces were working against him. Theyd already created a trail of falsified evidence strong enough to sway the FBI. Instinct warned they were just getting started.
He took her hand and squeezed, looked into her eyes and tried to make her understand. I could never live with myself if something happened to you.
She stood a little straighter, smiled a little stronger. Im not the girl you remember, Eric. Im not a wilting wallflower. Im a woman and an attorney and I can take care of myself. Ive worked nasty cases before.
Eric frowned, for the first time seeing Leigh Montgomery as the woman shed become. The echo of the girl shed been glowed in her eyes, merging with the gutsy, polished attorney in the tailored pantsuit to create a woman he wanted to know a hell of a lot better. The thought of her practicing criminal law, of her interacting daily with dangerous scum made his blood run cold. Protective instincts surged. How nasty?
She blinked. What?
You said youve worked nasty cases before. I asked how nasty.
That doesnt matter, she said dismissively. I know my way around a courtroom. I can handle whatever someone throws at us.
He lifted a hand and eased the thick dark hair back from her face. Thats not what I meant. The images wouldnt stop. They pounded through him, dark and ugly. Leigh meeting with murderers. Leigh alone in an interrogation cell with a rapist. Leigh putting her life on the line in the name of justice. The thought of something happening to you twists me up inside.
Her eyes flared wide. She lifted her hand to his, still cupped against her jaw, and stepped closer. Nothing is going to happen to me, and nothing is going to happen to you. Were going to prove this case against you is malarkey and then life will get back to normal. You have to trust me on that.
Normal. He didnt know what that was anymore. Standing there in the midday sun with Leigh Montgomery gazing up at him through those amazing, calm, reassuring eyes of hers, he knew nothing would ever be normal again. Even if charges were dropped before sunset, he couldnt go back to life as it had been two days before. Everything had changed. Hed found Leigh again. Nothing, not the FBI nor the sinister cowards who wanted him to take a fall, would take this chance from him.
I dont like it. I dont like it one damn bit. But he also knew how stubborn she was. Now that hed dragged her into this mess, she wouldnt back down, even if that meant working behind his back. And that was one thing he couldnt allow her to do.
A slow, womanly smile curved her lips. Dont get any macho ideas, Indy. Have you ever known me to change my mind?
Very rarely. Only once, actually. Have you forgotten that stogie I talked you into trying?
She laughed, swatting his hand from her face. What choice did I have? You were on your knee and you were begging. It was pathetic. I couldnt let Matt and Ethan find you like that.
So shed taken his Churchill and put it to her mouth. But instead of just taking a puff, shed inhaled.
Her subsequent coughing fit had scared Eric half to death.
Would that still work? he asked now. Getting down on my knee and begging?
He meant the question in jest, but the light drained from her eyes with the abruptness of a sudden power failure. Then came the sheen of moisture. Its too late for that.
The quiet statement landed like a punch to the gut. Long after theyd said goodbye and shed driven away, Eric was left wondering just what the hell shed meant. Too late to remove her from the case?
Or too late to make amends for the past?
He stood in the shadows, watching. Always watching.
Jones is out on bail, he reported, moments later.
The mobile phone reception crackled, but the hard voice on the other end defied static. And Ingram? asked the superior he knew by number and not by name.
Through dark sunglasses, he watched Eric Jones take Leigh Montgomerys hand and practically drag her toward the alley leading to his brownstone. Still here. Still living under the delusion that he can make a difference.
He can make a difference. He can lead us straight to the answers we need.
That was the only reason the ridiculously celebrated Texas banker was still free to come and go as he pleased. Ingrams crusade for the truth made him more valuable as a scout than a captive.
You know what to do next, the man on the phone instructed.
Yes. Not only did he know, he relished. Opportunities like this didnt come knocking every day. Jake Ingram was a marked man, and those whod marked him had deep, deep pockets.
Make it fast. And make it clean.
Like disinfectant, he said, then brought the call to a close. Anticipation flooded him. Hed grown up in a household where his father worked backbreaking hours for pennies. Hed been a miserable man, living a miserable life. Work came first, hed taught his only son. Work defined a man. Work meant theyd always have food on the table.
But food didnt matter when a heart-attack claimed you at the age of thirty-seven.
The old man had been wrong. Dead wrong.
Work didnt just put food on the table. The right work afforded you any table you wanted, in any house you could imagine. And the right work was so much more than a job.
The right work was like making love to a beautiful, willing womanerotic, creative and undeniably satisfying.
Late-afternoon sun poured through the wall of windows in Leighs office. She sat at her desk, staring at a grainy photo of Eric shaking hands with a tall, darkly handsome man clad in a white tuxedo. The two looked casual and relaxed, Erics smile warm and sincere, the other mans pleased. The picture looked like so many others Leigh had in a scrapbook from her college years of Eric and his buddies laughing and cutting up.
Except the man in the photo was not Jake Ingram, Matt Tynan or Ethan Williams. The man in the photo was Nikoli Dusek, eastern European financier and playboy, and alleged emissary for General Bruno DeBruzkya, the militant leader of Rebelia and suspected benefactor of the World Bank heist. And the blurry photo that had popped up on Internet news sites less than thirty minutes before firmly established a link between Eric and Rebelia.
Not good.
But not all bad, either. The picture gave Leigh another critical piece of the evidence being compiled against Eric. After her fruitless meeting with the federal prosecutor earlier in the afternoon, Leigh knew the ambitious, not-willing-to-budge Rebecca Salinger would have someones head for leaking the photo to the press.
It was a cocktail party. Eric leaned over Leighs massive leather chair, his face so close to hers she didnt dare turn his way. Theyd be nose to nose then. Mouth to mouth. As it was, the masculine scent of sandalwood efficiently and effectively slipped through the concentration she tried to hold in place.
I dont remember who introduced us, he added, and the man sure as hell didnt tell me his real name. Yuri, I think he said. Yuri Bozk-something.
Leigh minimized her browser and swiveled her chair to the left, allowing her to stand without brushing against Eric. Theyve been planning this a while, she said, hoping that if she moved away from her desk, he would follow. Shed put the pictu
re of Connor in a drawer and made sure no notes about PTA meetings or baseball games were lying around, but having Eric in her personal space disturbed her. Better her office, however, than her house. Or his. Homes were too personal, too intimate. And for the foreseeable future, she had to remain as professional and objective as possible.
The time for the personal would come later.
How long did you and Dusek talk? she asked.
Eric joined her at the window overlooking Lake Michigan. Long enough for that picture to be taken.
Contact since then?
None.
Leigh looked out over the impossibly blue lake, instinctively counting the sailboats drifting like toys in a bathtub. The sight normally soothed, but not now. Adrenaline and concern and fatigue jammed inside her like the gnarled traffic below. She hadnt slept in over thirty-six hours. Shed barely had time to eat. To think. Eric Jones was back, God help her, not just in her life, but accused of what the press dubbed the crime of the century. A crime the president had demanded solved as part of his Fight Fear initiative.
The major networks are calling, Eric said. They want me on the morning talk shows.
Not a good idea. Anything he said would be analyzed and scrutinized, twisted and contorted. Cantrell had called, as well, at both her office and Erics home. He wanted an exclusive, saying hed give Erics voice a chance to be heard. The statement we released this morning will have to satisfy them for now.
Anything else was too risky.
Then what?
Steeling herself against the impact of Erics piercing eyes, she turned toward him. He stood in the wash of late-afternoon sun, looking every bit as rough around the edges as she felt, despite the fact hed showered and changed into khakis and a black golf shirt. Shadows darkened his normally piercing eyes, whiskers his jaw. The hard lines to his face told her he was working hard to hold anger and frustration in check.
Family Secrets: Books 5-8 Page 30