Wild Hawk

by Justine Davis, Justine Dare

  “You’ve got a vicious tongue, Alice,” her father had told her more than once during the delicate negotiations. “Curb it, or this will all be for nothing.”

  And she had. She’d become what she despised: a simpering, awestruck female. She even went out of her way to try to appear attractive, something she’d never cared about before. She had masked her true nature and become quiet and submissive, to convince Aaron that the money he needed would not come with a price tag too high.

  And she had won. She suspected her father had done some underhanded manipulating beyond the open money negotiations, even, perhaps, managed to make Aaron’s financial problems more urgent, but she didn’t care. All that had mattered then was that Aaron was hers. It had never occurred to her that the price she would pay might be too high.

  She had thought Aaron could learn to care for her, if not love her, and that it would be enough. But then she had learned of his affair with Elizabeth West, and knew it wouldn’t happen. She thought then that if she could give him a child, it would be enough. But after years of trying, of going through every kind of painful procedure developed, she had failed. Then she had learned Aaron’s mistress had borne him a son, and she had known that nothing would ever be enough.

  And Kendall Chase had driven the truth of her failure home to Alice every day of the last ten years. The girl’s presence, and Aaron’s response to her, proved to Alice that had she been able to produce a child, her own position would have changed. That as the mother of a child Aaron loved, she, too, would have received some of that love. Love that had been given instead to the slut who had become his mistress. And then to the girl who had become his surrogate child. But never, ever, to Alice.

  The only thing that could have been worse would have been the presence of Elizabeth West’s bastard. Aaron’s son. The blood child she had never been able to give him. The son who was a living, breathing symbol of Aaron’s unfaithfulness. The personification of his hatred for the woman he’d married and his love for the woman he’d taken as his mistress. The son Alice Hawk hated with a passion that sometimes threatened to overwhelm all else in her life.

  The son who was here now.

  “You’ll never see a dime of my money,” she muttered fiercely.

  “Ma’am?”

  Darren Whitewood’s voice had taken on that lubricated tone that he used when he was trying to calm her down. She hated it; it reminded her too much of her father’s condescension. But it was her father, she reminded herself, who had enabled her to keep Aaron under control all these years, by legally tangling up the money he’d funneled into Aaron’s business so completely that while it might be in Aaron’s name, the reins were in Alice’s hands.

  “I said that bastard will never see a dime of my money,” she repeated, in a voice so savage Whitewood looked at her warily. “I’ll see him dead first.”

  JASON PICKED UP his leather carry-on bag from the motel room floor, then yawned yet again as he put the bag down on the edge of the bed. He’d only gotten four hours of sleep last night, between the late-night flight from Seattle and the funeral, and he probably shouldn’t be driving even the few miles from here to the small airport. But he didn’t want to stay one more night in this town, either.

  Then why the hell did you spend all afternoon driving around in it?

  The question had rung in his mind with annoying frequency ever since he’d pulled into the parking lot of the motel shortly after dark. And that frequency had increased while, fighting off yawns, he pondered whether or not to throw the few things he’d brought into his bag and get out of this place right now.

  He yawned again. He didn’t understand it. He’d gone longer than this without sleep, had done it often, and hadn’t felt this tired. And he hadn’t changed time zones, so that wasn’t the reason. Yet there was no denying the fact that he felt enervated, utterly drained. And he’d never experienced such an odd heaviness in his legs and arms, as if there were some unseen force pressing down on him. As if he were moving underwater. Dazed. Almost drugged.

  He glanced up at the vent for the room’s heating and air conditioning, idly wondering if there’d been some malfunction that was slowly poisoning him with some invisible, deadly combination of gases. He’d heard about such things often enough. But there was no rush of air from the unit, no sign that the heat was even turned on, despite the unusual chill outside. He yawned again. Then he turned around and sat on the edge of the bed beside his bag, even knowing it was a mistake, that he’d probably fall asleep sitting up. Resting his elbows on his knees, he lifted his hands to rub at his weary eyes, then let his head rest against his palms as he yawned yet again.

  He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there when at last he lifted his head again. And immediately saw something he hadn’t noticed before, something he couldn’t remember even unpacking. The book that lay on the dresser. He stood up and took a step forward. And stopped dead.

  He hadn’t brought a book with him.

  And he was certain it hadn’t been there when he’d come into the room.

  His gaze shot back to the vent he’d been studying. It was as unhelpful as before.

  Had he actually dozed off while he’d sat there with his head down? Without realizing it? Long enough and soundly enough for someone to come in and leave the book on the dresser without him knowing it?

  “Not likely,” he muttered under his breath. He slept lightly, a legacy from years of sleeping with one ear open, in places where menace was the norm, not the exception.

  Only then did he realize the odd lethargy was gone; vanquished by a surge of adrenaline at the thought that somebody had been in here without him being aware of it. It was impossible, yes, but that hadn’t stopped his body from preparing for the threat in a rush, throwing off that overpowering sleepiness and kicking sluggish muscles back to life.

  But how had the book gotten here?

  He turned on his heel and strode swiftly toward the door, yanking it open to stare out into the chill night. There was no one in sight, no doors just closing, no cars just now pulling out of the lot. No sign that anyone had just been here and was leaving in a hurry.

  The snow hadn’t lasted, there were only traces of it left in the cold night shadows of the trees and buildings, and on the occasional car coming down from a higher elevation with a thin layer of snow still coating its roof. And not a soul was outside moving on this chilly night. Out on the main road cars whirred by, but within his immediate field of vision, nothing moved.

  The cold air from outside washed over his face, chasing away, for the moment, even the natural weariness of lack of sleep. His mouth quirked. Maybe he was just so tired he was hallucinating. He glanced back over his shoulder.

  The book was still there.

  He backed up into the room and examined the door’s lock. Both it and the dead bolt looked intact and undamaged. He shut the door against the cold, and with a wry expression locked it. Again. He turned and walked back to stand before the dresser.

  There was nothing uncommon about it, it was the same as thousands of other pieces of furniture in thousands of hotel and motel rooms around the world. Bland and unremarkable. Except for the fact that between the television and the tray that held an empty ice bucket and two glasses was a book that couldn’t possibly be there.

  He had to have blacked out. It was the only explanation. He would have thought perhaps he had in fact been drugged, except for the fact that he hadn’t eaten or drunk anything since the rather minuscule breakfast on the plane. Maybe that was it, he thought. Maybe he’d been too out of it from lack of both sleep and food.

  Maybe.

  But he couldn’t deny what he was looking at. And if he was a little hesitant to add the evidence of touch, it was only because he was being cautious. This was obviously meant as some kind of a message, and the fact that it had appeared here, now, under cir
cumstances he couldn’t explain, was more of a coincidence than he was willing to accept. He didn’t like things he couldn’t explain.

  He stood staring at it for a long time. From all sides. It appeared to be an ordinary book, although it looked very old. It was, in fact, rather beautiful. It was bound with what looked like real leather, deep, rich, and dark blue. The pages looked thick and heavy, and were gilt-edged in a way he thought was rarely done anymore. And, oddly, there was no sign of a title, or an author, on the cover or the spine.

  But most importantly, he thought wryly, there was no sign of any wires or other devices to indicate the thing might be more than just a simple book. Lethally more. He reached out and nudged the book a fraction of an inch. Nothing happened. And it wasn’t any heavier than he would have guessed.

  God, you’re a suspicious son of a bitch, aren’t you?

  He laughed silently at himself. Stir up a few old memories, and you’re looking for trouble behind every door. Bombs in every book.

  You’re not on the street, dodging stray gunfire or the cops anymore, West. Give it a rest.

  But he wasn’t a fool, either. True, he just might have dozed off—even sitting up—long enough for someone to sneak this book in here. But how had they gotten in in the first place? He knew he’d locked the door when he closed it; he always did. It was a habit learned long ago. There were no signs of damage to the door, and the window to the outside was still tightly shut and wedged with the burglar bar.

  A key. It had to have been somebody with a key. Perhaps it had been a helpful motel employee; perhaps someone had left the book at his door and they’d moved it inside.

  That made sense, he thought. A helpful employee with a key. His tension eased slightly. It was hard for him to believe he’d slipped that quickly—and sitting upright, yet—into a heavy enough sleep not to hear the turning of a key in a lock. Hard for him to believe he hadn’t sensed the presence of a person in the room, or that person leaving. Hard to believe it had all been done without saying a word to him.

  But it was impossible for him to believe any of the alternatives.

  He’d analyzed it enough, he decided abruptly. At this point it didn’t matter how it had gotten here. What mattered was whatever message was being sent. Maybe it wasn’t even directed at him. Maybe the whole thing was a mistake. His mouth quirked at the idea of whoever had gone to all this trouble to stealthily deliver it getting it in the wrong room. He reached out and picked up the book.

  And nearly dropped it.

  It felt . . . odd. For an instant it had felt as if he’d touched a person, some living being, instead of an inanimate object. As if he’d just shaken hands with someone he knew and trusted, few though they were in the world. He dismissed that nonsense immediately, but the feel of the book as it lay in his hand wasn’t quite so easily ignored.

  It was . . . warm. Well, not exactly warm. It wasn’t really any warmer to the touch than the temperature of the room, but somehow, holding it, he felt warmer. And he couldn’t define the strange sense of peace that seemed to have overtaken him. Peace was a state he’d had little experience with in his life, inwardly or otherwise. He’d always thought it overrated, the first step toward complacency, to be followed rapidly by failure through softness.

  But he couldn’t deny this sensation was alluring, this gentle easing of tension and strain, this feeling that perhaps he wasn’t as alone as he sometimes felt—

  “Damn,” he muttered. “Where the hell did all that come from?”

  He almost slammed the book back down atop the dresser; only the realization that to do so would give too much reality to his unexpected and inexplicable reaction stopped him. He was just tired, that’s all. It was exhaustion that was making him feel so strange, nothing more.

  Determinedly he switched the book to his left hand and opened the cover with his right.

  The pages were, as he’d thought, of an unusually heavyweight paper, with almost a parchment feel to them, paper made heavier and stiffer by the gilt of the edges. The inside of the cover was lined with an even heavier paper that also made up the first page, a paper marbled with an unusual design in shades of blue that blended with the color of the cover. A design that seemed to change as he looked at it, to flow and fluctuate, until he almost thought he was seeing something more than a random design, thought he was seeing images there, shadowy figures of people, seeming to move as he looked. He felt an odd light-headedness, shook his head sharply, and the pattern settled down into a merely intriguing flow of lines and ripples.

  “You,” he pronounced to the empty room, “have got to get some sleep.”

  He flipped the heavy inner page over and found a blank sheet of the heavy, gilt-edged paper. He turned it as well, looking for the title page. Or what should have been the title page. Instead he found a picture of a couple, dressed in costumes of some kind, clothing that made him think of misty forests, castles, and high stone walls, for a reason he couldn’t fathom. The man had long, dark hair and a strong face marked with a thin but very visible scar that ran from his right temple down to his jaw; the woman had even longer, but lighter hair, a wealth of it, and eyes that he instinctively knew, despite the fact that the picture was in black and white, were blue. Vivid blue.

  It made no sense to him that he knew that. He stared at the picture, only now realizing that what he’d at first thought to be an old photograph was instead a drawing, a drawing so finely done and so incredibly detailed that it seemed impossible that it had been done by human hands.

  A computer, he thought suddenly. That must be it. It was some kind of computer-enhanced image, taking an old drawing and augmenting the image until it looked almost like a photograph. It was effective, he had to admit, especially bound as it was in this ornate, antique-looking book.

  But that still didn’t explain why he was so certain the woman’s eyes were blue, when the image before him was not in color. He stared at her, barely noticing the petite size of her next to the man, who appeared to be at least a foot taller than she, with shoulders to match his height, and a look in his eyes that didn’t bode well for whoever had given him that scar on his face. He vaguely noticed as well the length and sheen of the woman’s hair—red, perhaps?—and the shape of the slender body beneath the vaguely familiar layers of some kind of flowing gown, but he couldn’t look away from her eyes. Wide and bright beneath arched brows, they were fringed with thick, soft lashes, and looked strangely familiar. It was like looking at a picture of something seen so often it didn’t register anymore.

  Then it hit him. It was like looking into a mirror. And seeing his own eyes look back at him.

  He nearly slammed the book shut. He needed to get out of here. To get away from this place; it was playing tricks on his mind. He had never in his life been given to the idiot flights of fancy he’d been experiencing since he’d arrived here. The tangible evidence of his senses, purified in the exacting filter of his brain, had been all he’d ever trusted, all he would ever trust. He had survived when many hadn’t because of it; it had gotten him where he was; he wasn’t about to change now.

  It’s a picture, West. A damned picture, that’s all. What the hell is wrong with you?

  He set his jaw as he moved his fingers, aware even as he did so that it shouldn’t take this much determination to simply turn a page in a book. In his haste, he instead turned several pages at once.

  He felt better as soon as the picture was hidden. But his forehead creased as he looked at the page he’d wound up on. It took a split second for him to realize what the intricate network of lines and blurred names and dates, printed at odd angles, were. He turned the book sideways and the names came into focus, confirming his guess. It was a family tree.

  The Hawk family tree.

  Fury welled up in him. He slapped the book shut with a sharp, jerky motion. He flung it across the room fiercel
y, feeling a grim satisfaction as it hit the far wall with a heavy thud and fell to the floor.

  He should have known. He should have known the old man wouldn’t be able to resist one last jab, one more twist of the knife in the back of the son he’d never known, never acknowledged. He didn’t know how his father had pulled it off, didn’t have to know; he knew all he needed to know. Aaron Hawk had sent his final message.

  These are the real Hawks. You’re not one, you never were, and you never will be.

  “You made a mistake, old man,” Jason muttered, the words coming out loud in spite of himself. “You thought I wanted to be a Hawk, when I’d slit my own throat before I’d let anyone hang that name on me.”

  He stood motionless, looking at the book on the floor for a long, silent moment, fighting the rage that he hated himself for feeling.

  Admitting that you’re angry would give him far too much power over you, wouldn’t it?

  Kendall Chase’s words echoed in his mind, taunting him with their truth. The man was dead, so his son’s anger couldn’t reach him now. Not that it would have, even had Hawk still been alive; he’d meant nothing to his father. Less than nothing.

  And he’d be damned if he’d spend another night in this town that the Hawks owned. He whirled around and began to move with swift purpose. He’d be out of here and back home before morning.

  KENDALL SAW THE brightly lit windows and neon sign first, then spotted George Alton’s small white truck backed into a space in the parking lot of the convenience store across the street from the Sunridge Motel. When Alton had called her with the information on where Jason West was staying—a simple matter of calling in some favors owed him by the few motel owners in town, favors earned by his discretion in his years on the small local police force—she had gotten here as soon as she could, but there had been some necessary delays.