“You don’t know everything there is to know about me, girl, even though you think you do. This goes at the top of that list I gave you. Nothing else matters as much as finding that boy. Nothing.”
She had stared at him for a long moment, her only coherent thought being that he’d done it this way on purpose, delivered the news of his impending death quickly, then followed it up with what he knew would be a shock that would take her mind off of that news before she could react with any kind of unwelcome emotion.
Then a series of things had clicked in her mind, like the last number of a combination causing the lock’s tumblers to fall into place. All the times when she’d come upon him sitting silently in his office long after the rest of the staff had gone home, looking at a photograph he always hid the moment she came in, all the times when she’d seen him searching crowds with eyes that had lost none of their quickness with age, when she’d seen him look sharply at a blond woman on the street, or in a restaurant, or a hotel . . . and what she had finally realized was a ritual on October twenty-seventh every year.
“The yellow roses,” she had whispered.
Aaron had stared at her as if stunned. “I swear, girl,” he’d muttered at last, “you’re as fey as that crazy grandmother of mine was.”
She wished it were true, she thought now. She could use some supernatural foresight. Or maybe a little magical help, out of one of Aaron’s Hawk family legends. Help to get this list of Aaron’s completed. To keep Alice at bay until she did. To figure out what she was going to do with her life now that Aaron was gone.
But she had a feeling she was going to need magic the most to deal with Aaron’s son.
“HE’S HERE.”
“Who’s here?”
Idiots, Alice Hawk thought. She was surrounded by them. And this lawyer was no different. “Aaron’s bastard,” she snapped.
“Oh?”
Alice’s grip tightened on the telephone receiver. She was paying Whitewood obscene amounts of money, and all she got was “Oh?” She reined in her fury; the man was the best she could do on such short notice.
“You’re certain it’s him?”
“Certain? Of course I’m certain. It was like looking at a young Aaron all over again. The eyes, the hair, the jaw, everything but the nose was Aaron—”
She broke off abruptly, hating herself for the pain that had crept into her voice. She steadied herself and went on.
“We have to move now, quickly.”
“Move? We have the will, and the—”
“I’m not talking about that, you fool. I want him followed. I want to know where he goes, what he does, why he’s here.”
“Wasn’t he here for the funeral?” Whitewood asked, sounding puzzled.
The man was a bigger idiot than she’d thought. “For a man he hasn’t seen in thirty years? If you think he doesn’t have more than that in mind, you’re a fool.”
“You think he’s after something?”
“I know he is. Especially after he talked to that bitch of Aaron’s.”
“Kendall?”
“Yes, Kendall,” Alice spat out, sick of the effect that woman seemed to have on men even as stupid as Whitewood.
“Do you think she told him?”
“I don’t know. They didn’t speak long. But I can’t take any chances. There is far too much at stake.”
There was a pause before the man said hesitantly, “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to use those contacts you’re always bragging about. Find someone to follow him. I want to know where he is at all times, in case we have to take action.”
Another pause before a nervous query. “Take action?”
“Yes,” she said, her tone biting. “A concept you’re no doubt unfamiliar with.”
“Well, I—”
“Never mind that. Just do it.”
“Why don’t you just hire someone to—”
“I have. You.”
“I meant—”
“I know what you meant. And I don’t care to discuss it. You’re being well paid, now earn it.”
Slamming down the receiver did little to ease her rage. If she’d been on her cell phone she probably would have thrown it across the room. The man was too dense to realize she couldn’t hire someone who might be compelled to reveal her involvement later, or be tempted to blackmail her. She couldn’t allow herself to be connected to this in any way. She shouldn’t have lost her temper with the bastard at the funeral, but she’d been so startled—and outraged—at his unexpected appearance that she had, for one of the few times in her life, reacted impulsively.
But now she was back to her cool, far-sighted self. She would be prepared for anything, and she would deal with this as she dealt with every roadblock. Swiftly. And if necessary, permanently. Aaron’s bastard had made a big mistake, coming here. He should have stayed away, stayed out of her life.
But then, he also should never have been born. And she just might have to see that he paid for that mistake, as well.
JASON DIDN’T KNOW why he was hanging around. He should have gone straight back to the motel after the funeral, packed his things, and headed right for the airport. Instead, he’d found himself driving around the small town, up and down streets he hadn’t seen since he was five years old. Not surprisingly, nothing looked familiar; even if the town hadn’t changed, the perspectives of a five-year-old and a thirty-six-year-old were very different.
And he wasn’t scared now.
It hit him strangely, that sudden gut-level realization. He didn’t know where it had come from. But he knew it was true, knew that the five-year-old he’d been when he’d left Sunridge had been frightened. Very frightened.
Why?
He sat at the stop sign he’d halted for, turning the sudden insight over in his mind dispassionately. He felt no particular empathy for that child, felt nothing but a scornful disdain for his foolishness and naiveté. His vague curiosity was as much about what had brought on the revelation as the cause of that long-ago fear.
He lifted his foot from the brake and let the car begin to roll forward so he could see past the bus stop on his right. The street he was at was a small, narrow one, and he didn’t expect much in the way of cross traffic, but—
Gray Street.
The name fairly leapt off the street sign at him, triggering a surge of memories. Down two blocks to Simpson, just past the brick hardware store building and the chain-link fence that held back Monty, the German shepherd that had—
The German shepherd that had no doubt been dead for decades, Jason thought wryly, shaking his head to clear away the unexpected rush of remembered images. One of his earliest memories was toddling over to that fence, fascinated by the big black dog he’d seen romping with the owner of the building, tongue lolling joyously. He’d been lured by the sense of fun, a rare occurrence in his young life. But his adventure had taken a nasty turn when as he rattled the fence to get the dog’s attention, the animal charged him, barely missing his outstretched fingers with snapping teeth.
His mother had explained carefully that the dog was a guard dog, and that he hadn’t understood Jason had meant to be friendly, but it was a lesson that had stayed with him a long time: beware of smiling creatures of any kind. He’d encountered many friendlier dogs since then—more dogs than people—but the wariness remained. He figured it a blessing that he’d learned so early what many learned in a much harder way later in life, in a lesson that usually chewed them to bits.
And some, he thought as he made the turn, never learned at all. Some went through life trusting, giving, loving, never giving up even when it was all thrown back in their faces.
He hadn’t meant to do this, hadn’t meant to make this turn, hadn’t made a conscious decision to follow this old route. But now that he
had, he kept going. He kept going, remembering the day his mother had been so furious with him because he’d slipped away from old Mrs. Brooks, who watched him during the day, and had gone down to meet her at the bus stop. The bus stop he’d just driven past. It had only been three blocks from their apartment, but she’d been alarmed when she’d seen him there. He’d been very proud of himself, until he realized that he’d somehow badly frightened her. Or something had.
And she’d been frightened from then on.
He wasn’t sure how he knew that; he’d been too young to really understand, but he didn’t doubt it. It made too much sense. It must have been her fear he’d been feeding on; at barely five, he hadn’t known enough to be afraid of anything except Monty. And the nights when he heard his mother crying in the dark.
The hardware store was still there, and a dog that could be Monty’s twin, and probably was a descendant, raced along the fence line, barking at him warningly as the gray coupe he’d rented at the airport slowed to make the turn onto Simpson Avenue. He suppressed an instinctive shiver that made his lip curl in self-disgust, and kept going. He pulled to a halt in front of the small, four-unit apartment building on the corner, and for a time just sat there, staring. The building was obviously old, the yellowing stucco that had once been pristine white was laced with cracks like meandering lines on a road map, and the narrow walkway that led around the corner to the tiny back unit where they’d lived was broken and overgrown with weeds.
It had been shortly after the day he’d sneaked out to the bus stop that they had left Sunridge. It had been a rushed episode, carried out in the night, when he was too sleepy to even respond to his mother’s attempts to make a game out of it. But even then he had sensed her fear, her desperation as she told him he had to be very quiet, because no one must know they were leaving. And her fear had transmitted itself to him, scaring him as only a child realizing an all-powerful parent is frightened can be scared.
He had his hand on the door lever, in his mind already out of the car and walking up to the building, before he realized what he was doing and slumped back in the seat.
“Jesus, West, you’ve really lost it,” he muttered under his breath.
Going to indulge in a little sentimental nostalgia after thirty years? Maybe go knock on the door and do one of those emotional little displays human interest reporters loved?
“Hi, I used to live here, do you mind if I look around?”
Hell, anybody who opened their door to that line deserved what they got, which was more often than not a burglary later on.
Shaking his head in disgust at this unusual bout of reminiscence, he made himself look at the dreary little building clearly. It was dreary, old and run-down. It hadn’t been new when he’d lived here; now it was a ramshackle structure that looked on the verge of collapse. And his mother had worked herself ragged to pay the rent for this place.
While his father had lived in the huge, expensive house on the hill, with the big circular driveway, servants to cater to his every whim, a fancy car to drive . . . and Alice Hawk to come home to.
Jason chuckled in savage satisfaction. Perhaps the old man had paid after all, he thought, remembering the furious, embittered woman who had confronted him at the cemetery. She was a forceful old broad, he admitted. She had to be—what—seventy something? Aaron had been sixty-eight, the newspaper had said, and he knew she was older. But she was as arrogant as her husband had been. More, even, judging from the imperious way she had ordered him thrown out. He hoped the old bitch had made Aaron Hawk miserable every day of his life.
And he wished he hadn’t left his own little piece of retribution until it was too late.
Chapter Three
“HOW DARE YOU!” Alice Hawk said imperiously.
Kendall’s jaw tightened as she stared at the woman glaring at her. It was all she could do not to turn her back and walk out, but she knew she couldn’t. She had to see this through. It was going to be ugly, she could sense that. Long and ugly. But she had to do it. For Aaron. No matter what it took.
“How dare you!” she retorted. She gestured at the sheaf of papers the older woman held. “This is a lie, and you know it!”
A smooth masculine voice interrupted. “I beg your pardon, Miss Chase, but—”
“As well you should,” Kendall snapped, wheeling on the polished, good-looking man. He was sitting to the right of Alice Hawk, who had wasted no time in moving herself into Aaron’s seat at the mahogany table in the formal dining room of the big house. “Are you a party to this?”
“Perhaps you should explain,” the man said, carefully shooting the cuffs of his white shirt out from the sleeves of his blue silk suit coat, so the heavy gold cuff links were more visible, “what you mean by ‘this,’ Miss Chase.”
Kendall suppressed a grimace. Darren Whitewood reminded her of Mrs. McCurdy, the woman she’d lived with during her high school years. Not because of any physical resemblance, but because the gruff but kindhearted woman had always judged people by a simple rule: if their eyes were too close together, she didn’t trust them. She never would have trusted Darren Whitewood.
“You know exactly what I mean, Mr. Whitewood. You are not Aaron Hawk’s attorney, and this will does not represent Aaron’s final wishes.”
“But of course it does,” Whitewood said smoothly. “It’s in the correct format for the state of California; it’s been signed, witnessed, and properly filed. And I’ve been appointed executor.”
“Aaron wouldn’t appoint you to clean his windows.” Kendall eyed the man disdainfully. “Charles Wellford was Aaron’s attorney for years. He is the executor of Aaron’s estate.”
Flushing at the insult, Whitewood glared at her. She smiled sweetly back at him. So much for the halfhearted pass he’d made at her when Alice had first brought him to the house, supposedly to deal with a little “personal problem.” Personal indeed, Kendall thought.
“He was the executor,” Whitewood said with exaggerated dignity. “I’m in charge now, at Mrs. Hawk’s request. And it is now my duty to see this will executed properly. When Mr. Hawk passed on, Mr. Wellford wasn’t available. He’s in Europe on an extended trip.” His lip curled. “But I’m sure you know that. Mrs. Hawk has told me repeatedly how . . . efficient you are.”
“Thank you. How sweet of you to notice,” Kendall made her response intentionally effusive; she knew his words had been meant as an insult to her femininity—Whitewood appeared to be the type of man who thought femininity and any kind of competence were mutually exclusive—but she refused to rise to the bait.
And she found herself thinking of Jason West. I never insult a woman who’s earned a position of power, because I know she probably had to work twice as hard as any man to get there.
Although he’d followed those words up with more of his distasteful insinuations, she found Jason’s assumptions, rising out of his anger and his hatred for his father, and his not knowing anything about her, easier to stomach.
“I also know,” she said, “that Aaron made an addendum to his will, negating several clauses and adding a new one, just three weeks ago.”
“Oh, really?”
Kendall turned slowly. She recognized Alice’s tone; she’d heard it before when the woman had succeeded in backing some hapless victim into an inescapable corner. It made the skin on her arms crawl to hear it directed at her.
“Yes,” she said carefully. “I wrote it at his dictation, and witnessed it.”
And she had been absurdly pleased that Aaron, even at this late date, had seen fit to acknowledge and bequeath a more than sizable piece of his personal fortune to his son.
“Did you?” Alice asked.
Kendall stared at Aaron’s widow; the woman’s eyes were dark and cold and radiated a force that made Kendall shiver. Evil, she thought, then laughed inwardly at her own fancy.
&n
bsp; “Yes, I did,” she said determinedly. If this was to be the first of her battles to carry out Aaron’s wishes, then she wasn’t about to start out faltering.
“Produce it.”
“Mr. Wellford is Aaron’s attorney. And his executor. The codicil to the will was sent to his office to be filed. So this will just have to wait until he can be reached in Europe.”
“Do you, by chance, mean this?”
Kendall’s breath caught as Alice lifted something from beneath the stack of papers before her. It was the brightly colored pasteboard envelope of the express delivery service she had used to send the hard copies of the signed and notarized codicil to Charles Wellford office. Aaron had demanded that; he put little trust in the security of electronic documents for things of this importance. She leaned closer and saw that the address label was the one she’d hastily handwritten before the courier had arrived to pick it up.
Her gaze went to Alice Hawk’s face. The moment she looked into those eyes she lost all doubt that the woman had indeed intercepted the document; too much gloating triumph gleamed there for her to be bluffing. Kendall’s hands curled into fists. She’d never trusted Alice, had always been wary of the bitter enmity she sensed every time she felt the woman watching her, but she hadn’t thought she’d go this far.
“If you think that’s the only copy, you’re underestimating Aaron,” she said.
“In forty-two years, I’ve never underestimated my fool of a husband,” Alice said, not bothering to hide the acid in her tone. “But he often made the mistake of underestimating me. As have you, Miss Chase. You have the stock Aaron left you, and that trust fund he set up. Yes,” the woman said as Kendall blinked, “I know about it. And what you no doubt did to get it.”
She wasn’t surprised that Alice knew of the fund Aaron had established, over her protests, but the accusation startled her. God, Kendall thought, her, too? She’d always known the woman didn’t like her, but she’d never suspected it was at least in part because Alice thought she was sleeping with her husband.
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