A Risky Affair

by Maureen Smith

  Dane sat down on one of the straight-backed chairs that lined the walls of the reception area and stretched out his long legs. “What exactly do you want to know?”

  Crandall slowly removed his hat and set it on the small table beside him, next to a stack of glossy magazines and a glass bowl filled with pine potpourri that perfumed the air with a fresh, earthy scent.

  Turning back to Dane, he inquired, “How did she react to being asked to take the polygraph test?”

  Dane chuckled dryly. “She wasn’t too happy about it, I can tell you that. She kindly referred me to the Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988.”

  “Like a good little lawyer.” A sardonic smile curved Crandall’s mouth. “How did she perform on the test?”

  “What makes you so sure she agreed to take it?”

  Crandall gave him a don’t-insult-my-intelligence look. “I’ve been around a long time, son. Long enough to cultivate certain instincts about people. Miss Washington is a very smart woman, as I’m sure you realized within minutes of speaking with her. As you pointed out, she knew her legal rights concerning the polygraph exam, which means she knew I couldn’t decide not to hire her based on the test results. I believe she guessed—correctly—that it was more about testing her reaction to the request than actually determining whether she would pass the test. And, of course, I’m sure she wanted to prove to me she had nothing to hide.”

  “She may have mentioned something to that effect,” Dane said wryly.

  “So, are you going to show me the test results?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “I didn’t think so.” Crandall sent him an amused, knowing smile. “Mighty protective of her, aren’t you? That didn’t take very long.”

  Dane shrugged, crossing his booted feet at the ankles. “If anyone needs protection, it’s you,” he said idly. “We both know Miss Washington could cause trouble for you if she decided to challenge the legality of your request in court.”

  Crandall shook his head with a faintly mocking smile. “She’s not interested in causing me trouble,” he said so softly he might have been talking to himself.

  Not for the first time since starting the background check on Solange Washington, Dane wondered about the real reason behind Thorne’s preoccupation with her. He’d arrived at the office two days ago and specifically requested Dane, bypassing Noah and Kenneth Roarke, who’d established the private-detective agency.

  Once Dane and Crandall were behind closed doors, Thorne had proceeded to tell him about the woman he planned to hire as his personal assistant. He’d asked Dane to conduct a thorough background check on her, comparable to the screenings he performed for senior executives at the law firm. Now, two days later, Dane wasn’t buying the old man’s explanation that Solange warranted the same level of intense scrutiny because she’d have access to his personal information and material belongings, which included expensive jewelry, priceless heirlooms and a rare art collection. Dane had been with Roarke Investigations for a year, and in that time he’d never known Crandall Thorne to ask a prospective employee to submit to a polygraph test. This was also the first time Crandall had ever shown up at the office in the middle of the night to check on the status of an employee background investigation.

  He could deny it all he wanted, but Dane knew there was more at stake than Crandall hiring the most trustworthy personal assistant. The old man was hiding something, and Dane intended to find out what it was.

  Crandall was watching him expectantly. “Do you have some information for me?”

  Dane studied him in silence for several moments. Thorne’s expression was mildly inquisitive, his posture relaxed, but there was an alertness about him, a taut energy that thrummed in the air around him like an invisible force field. He was practically waiting with bated breath to hear what Dane had discovered about Solange Washington.

  “At the age of three,” Dane began, “she was adopted by George and Eleanor Washington, a middle-aged African-American couple from Haskell, Texas. They had already lost a child—a teenage son—and were unable to conceive any more children. They came to San Antonio hoping to adopt a child, preferably another boy. They found Miss Washington through a local adoption agency that has since closed down. She spent the first three years of her life in the foster care system. By the time she was adopted by the Washingtons, she’d lived with no less than ten different foster families. Thankfully, according to my source, she showed no visible signs of abuse or neglect. She simply hadn’t found a permanent home yet.”

  He delivered the news matter-of-factly, but the truth was he’d been moved with compassion and anger when he learned about Solange Washington’s past. He’d tried hard not to imagine the cherubic, frightened toddler she must have been, bounced around from one foster home to the next, wondering why no one wanted to keep her. It was a lousy way for any child to start a life, and it made him that much more grateful for the loving, nurturing home he’d been raised in.

  “What about her parents?” Crandall demanded gruffly. “Where were they? Who were they?”

  Dane grimaced slightly. “That’s where it gets a little tricky. Her birth records are sealed.”

  “Oh, you could get around that,” Crandall said with an impatient wave of his hand.

  “I could,” Dane slowly agreed, “but it would take more digging than usual. Her records are sealed tighter than any I’ve ever encountered.”

  Crandall frowned. “What are you suggesting, Roarke?”

  “I’m saying that someone went to a great deal of trouble to conceal the details of Solange Washington’s birth. Someone wanted to make sure the identities of her birth parents remained a secret from everyone—the adoption agency, George and Eleanor Washington, even Solange herself. Someone who had not only the means, but the motivation to make a child’s birth simply disappear like a puff of smoke from public record.” Dane paused, his eyes narrowed on Thorne’s stony face in silent appraisal. “Why do you suppose anyone would go to such extreme lengths?”

  Crandall lifted one broad shoulder in a shrug that struck Dane as a bit too cavalier. “People seal birth records for any number of reasons,” he replied blandly. “The main reason, of course, is that they don’t want to be contacted by the adoptive parents or the child. That’s probably what we’re dealing with in this particular case.”

  “Probably.” Dane offered a tight, grim smile. “At the very least, we can assume that one, or both, of Miss Washington’s parents were wealthy and powerful enough to call in such a big favor. It was either a birth parent—or an interfering, overprotective grandparent.”

  Crandall nodded slowly, then reached for his Stetson and settled it atop his head before rising from the sofa. “Thanks for your time, Roarke. I appreciate the information you’ve provided.”

  Dane stared at him. “That’s it? You don’t want me to dig deeper to learn the identity of her birth parents?”

  Crandall frowned. “There’s no need to further invade her privacy. As long as Miss Washington isn’t a criminal or working as a double agent for the government, I have no reason to continue probing into her background. You’ve satisfied my need to ascertain that she’s a safe hire.”

  Dane inclined his head. “Then I guess our business here is finished.”

  Crandall chuckled on his way to the door. “Don’t sound so relieved, Roarke. You’re not getting rid of me that easily. I enjoy working with you. You’re sharp, efficient and tenacious to the bone. Rest assured I’ll be sending more jobs your way in the future.”

  “Not too many,” Dane drawled humorously, “or my partners will get jealous.”

  Crandall laughed, framed in the open doorway. “Nothing wrong with a little healthy competition between partners. It’s good for business.” Tipping his head to Dane, he turned and sauntered into the dark night, looking, Dane thought, like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

  Dane wondered, once again, what the old man was hiding.

  Comfortably ensconced
in the backseat of his Rolls Royce limousine a few minutes later, Crandall Thorne felt the tension slowly ebb from his body.

  He was immensely relieved to know that Dane Roarke’s investigation had not yielded the identity of Solange Washington’s biological parents. Not that Crandall needed the private detective’s help to find out what he already knew.

  Twenty-four years ago, Crandall had been stunned to learn that the illegitimate daughter he’d once given up for adoption had become a mother at the age of fourteen. When Melanie, who’d been bounced around the foster-care system all her life, had discovered she was pregnant, she was terrified. After delivering a premature infant girl, she’d panicked and abandoned the baby at the hospital, fearing she’d get in trouble if her foster parents at the time found out about the birth.

  Solange, like her teenage mother, had become a ward of the state. But unlike Melanie, she’d eventually found a permanent home with what appeared to be a good, loving family.

  By the time Crandall learned about her existence, after Melanie’s untimely death, Solange was already five years old—a happy, precocious little girl who was the apple of her parents’ eyes, according to the private investigator Crandall had hired to find her. Over the next twenty-four years, he’d kept close tabs on her, content to watch her grow from afar. When George and Eleanor Washington died, he assumed it was only a matter of time before she’d attempt to locate her biological parents, which could lead her straight to his doorstep. Rather than take that chance, he’d continued monitoring her for several months while devising a scheme that would bring her to San Antonio.

  How fortuitous for him that her employer, Ted Crumley, happened to be a fellow law-school graduate, and that he’d thought nothing of Crandall seeking him out at the class reunion they’d attended in Austin during the summer. Ever the strategist, Crandall had befriended him over the next six months, so that by the time he contacted Ted to ask him to recommend candidates for a personal assistant position, he knew the benevolent country attorney would consider it his duty to hand over his best employee to someone who could offer her better career opportunities. He’d gambled on a hunch that Solange, still mourning the loss of her parents, would be ready for a change of scenery.

  His gamble had paid off.

  Solange had taken the bait, never suspecting that her new employer was the grandfather she never knew existed.

  It had been downright risky to ask Dane Roarke to conduct a thorough background check on her, but Crandall knew it was the only way to find out if the measures he’d put in place all those years ago to conceal the truth about the past withstood scrutiny. They had. Not even Roarke—a highly trained, seasoned investigator—had been able to crack the code to uncover the identity of Solange’s biological parents.

  But Crandall was nobody’s fool. He knew that with a little more time and effort, and with the right incentive, Roarke could expose the truth about everything.

  He couldn’t let that happen.

  Not until he’d gotten to know Solange better, to determine whether she could be trusted to be part of the family, to uphold the Thorne legacy.

  And not until he’d gotten his one true love back into his life.

  Hiring Solange as his personal assistant had been the first step. Setting up a meeting with Tessa Philbin would be the next.

  If all went according to plan, Crandall would not only have a chance to right past wrongs. He’d have a chance at something that had eluded him for decades: happiness.

  Chapter 5

  It was after 10 p.m. by the time Solange let herself into her room at the Alamo City Inn. Balancing a taco takeout dinner with a laundry basket teeming with freshly washed clothes, she bumped the door shut with her hip and crossed the room to deposit her meal on the living room table. It was a short walk from there to the queen-size bed, where she dumped the contents of the laundry basket on top of the floral-patterned spread. She knew if she left the clothes in the basket overnight, she’d procrastinate about folding and packing them away until the last minute. After a day spent running errands and waiting for hours in a crowded clinic to take a drug test, she wanted nothing more than to soak in a long, hot bath and go to bed. But she had too much packing to do, and Saturday—the day she was to report to Crandall Thorne’s ranch—was right around the corner.

  With a deep sigh, Solange toed off her low-heeled pumps, pinned up her shoulder-length hair and returned to the seating area, where dinner awaited her.

  She’d just bitten into a hot, spicy beef taco when her cell phone rang. She quickly fished it out of her purse and smiled at the familiar number displayed on the caller ID screen.

  “Hey girl,” she answered around a mouthful of food.

  She was greeted by the warm, vibrant laughter of her longtime best friend Jill Somerset. “Hey yourself. Kinda late to be eating dinner, isn’t it?”

  Solange grinned. “When has that ever stopped me? Besides, it couldn’t be helped this time. I’ve been running around all day trying to get things in order before I start my new job.”

  “When do you start?” Jill asked.

  “Monday, officially, but I move on Saturday.” Taking another bite of her taco, she glanced around the cramped suite she’d called home for the past week. With its dated yellow wallpaper, drab window treatments, cheap paintings and timeworn furniture, the extended-stay hotel room—while far from luxurious—had served its purpose. And, more importantly, it had been affordable. “Call me crazy,” Solange said with a wry smile, “but I think I might actually miss this place.”

  Jill snorted loudly. “Puh-leeze. You won’t think twice about that dump once you’re comfortably situated in your boss’s lavish country estate. Girl, I read the article about him in Black Enterprise, and the way his ranch was described made me want to pack up and move to San Antonio to try and get a job with him. Does he need another housekeeper or personal assistant?”

  Solange snickered, taking a sip of her Coke. “You know your family would have a royal fit if you even thought about leaving Haskell. And they’d blame me for putting the crazy idea in your head, just like they blamed me when you broke up with Wyatt, the man everyone expected you to marry and have ten children with.”

  “You’ve got a point there,” Jill agreed, and Solange could almost see the rueful, dimpled grin on her friend’s gently rounded face. “They did blame you for the breakup—like it was your fault I walked in on Wyatt and that little hussy he’d been seeing behind my back for months. If you hadn’t canceled our dinner plans in order to work late that night, I wouldn’t have gone over to Wyatt’s house and caught him red-handed. So I thank you for being a workaholic, even if my family didn’t see it that way at the time. And it was eight children they expected us to have, not ten.”

  Solange chuckled dryly. “I stand corrected.”

  Jill laughed, sobering after another moment. “Seriously, though, Solange. Is Crandall Thorne’s ranch as beautiful as it was described in the magazine article?”

  “Definitely. And I can say that without having seen every room in the house. But before you even reach the property, the scenery alone takes your breath away.”

  Jill heaved a long, wistful sigh. “You are so lucky, having an opportunity to live in a place like that. Maybe I’ll come for a visit during Christmastime.”

  “I wish you would,” Solange murmured. “The holidays won’t be the same without you around—and my parents, too. I miss them so much.”

  “I know,” Jill said quietly.

  A mournful silence fell between the two women. It had been almost a year since Solange’s parents were killed in a fire that swept through their farmhouse late one night while they were sleeping. The arson investigator had ruled the fire an accident, caused by a leak in the gasoline generator they’d been using to heat the old house that chilly January evening. If Solange had not been out of town on a business trip that week, she, too, might have died in the inferno that claimed the lives of George and Eleanor Washington and reduced her childh
ood home to a blackened, burned-out shell. The fact that she’d escaped the horrible tragedy haunted her every day of her life, along with memories of her adoptive parents. After their funeral, she’d moved in with Jill and her older sister Theresa, who’d always treated Solange like a member of their large, boisterous family. She honestly didn’t know how she could have survived those dark, devastating days without the friendship and support of the Somerset sisters.

  “They would have wanted you to move on,” Jill said gently, rousing Solange from her painful reverie. “They would have approved of your decision to leave Haskell and start a new life someplace else. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I think so.” Solange swallowed past the tight ache in her throat and blinked back tears. Suddenly she had no appetite for the half-eaten taco dinner on the table before her. Not for the first time since arriving in San Antonio a week ago, she wondered if she had done the right thing by leaving her hometown and all that was familiar to her. San Antonio was a big, bustling city, nothing at all like the small, quiet town to which she’d grown accustomed, where everyone knew their neighbors by first name and traffic was considered an urban legend.

  “How long do you think you’ll have to work for Crandall Thorne to save up enough for law school?” Jill asked curiously.

  Solange began packing away her unfinished meal. “Two years, ideally. He’s paying me sixty thousand dollars, plus providing room and board, so that should really cut down on my expenses and allow me to save plenty of money. I’ve been doing some research on the law programs at St. Mary’s University here in town and UT in Austin, and they’re both pretty expensive. But I’d be happy attending either school.”

  “I read that Crandall Thorne’s son teaches at St. Mary’s, so maybe you’d be better off going there so he could take you under his wing and show you the ropes.”

  “That might not be a bad idea.” Solange chuckled dryly. “Assuming I ever get a chance to meet him, that is. The way Crandall Thorne described the position to me, come Monday I’ll be working so hard this may be the last time you ever speak to me again.”