A white sedan. Very much like the one that had nearly hit him minutes ago. The sound of those screeching tires seemed to echo in his head. And there was nothing but a stand of trees over his left shoulder. Especially nothing that could be seen in the dark of night.
He went very still, then grimaced. There were a million cars like that on the road. And it was unlikely that the driver of this one had made a screeching U-turn just to sit across the road and pretend not to be watching him.
It’s that damn book, he thought with biting acidity. It’s put your imagination into overdrive.
He stood up swiftly, shoved his hands back in his pockets, and started walking again. Only once did he glance back, laughing at himself when he saw the white car still sitting there, clearly uninterested in his departure.
He went slowly, uncertain if he wanted to go farther, but certain he didn’t want to go back. Even though he was tired. Too tired. He hadn’t slept in what seemed like forever, and he’d lost perspective on this whole thing, that was all. He was off balance; that was why he was thinking this way. Why he was imagining people following him. Why he was reacting like this to the book. And to Kendall. All he needed was some sleep, and things would slide back into place. Hell, maybe he hadn’t really seen what he thought he’d seen in the damn book. Maybe it was just too many memories stirring in his exhausted mind.
Every step made him feel more the fool. By the time he finally reached the mileage sign that told him the small airport was five miles away, it was almost overwhelming. He didn’t even have the energy to straighten his shoulders when he realized he was hunching them; he felt like he had in those wild years on the street, when he’d spent so much time trying to fade into the background, to make himself inconspicuous.
When another car whizzed by at close range, he thought again about turning back. He didn’t know where the hell he was going, anyway. Or what the point of this was.
And the farther you go, the longer it’s going to take you to get back, he thought wryly. Even if it’s just to jump in the car and get the hell out of Dodge.
Another car went by, slower this time. White again. His head came up sharply; the same car?
Before he could decide, he caught a glimpse of another car out of the corner of his eye. Blue, it looked like, although it was hard to tell in the faint light. He turned to see Kendall’s coupe approaching. He stopped walking, and she pulled to a halt beside him. The passenger window went down. She leaned over to look at him.
“It’s late. And it’s going to be a long walk back.”
“In more ways than one,” he muttered.
“Finding any answers out here?”
“No.”
“Might as well get in, then.”
He had a feeling that was a sure way not to find answers, but to further confuse the issue; Kendall Chase had a strange effect on his thinking process. When he was with her, she even managed to have him taking that silly book half seriously. But he still found himself reaching for the door handle.
He didn’t say anything, just pulled the door shut and sat looking rather doggedly forward. To his surprise, she didn’t head back for the motel. Instead she took a side road he didn’t recognize, and that wasn’t marked except with a county road sign. In what seemed like moments the busy highway was out of sight. And out of hearing; the buffer of hills and trees made it seem as if they’d crossed over into another world.
He gave her a sideways glance. Although she didn’t look at him, she seemed to sense his scrutiny.
“I thought you might want to go someplace . . . conducive to heavy thinking,” she said calmly, as if he hadn’t taken off like a seal spooked by a pod of orcas.
He didn’t say anything, just turned his attention back to the passing scene, trees and brush looking ghostly in the darkness. They climbed a little farther; then she turned off onto a narrow, unpaved track that wound through a thick stand of Douglas fir. The familiar trees, which grew in profusion at home, were an unexpectedly comforting sight. And smell; he rolled down the window and breathed deeply.
A few minutes later he caught a glimpse of water between the needled branches of the evergreens. He heard the crunch of dry needles and the sound of soft dirt beneath the tires as she turned off the unpaved road. She stopped the car a few yards farther on, near a break in the trees that led down to the edge of a pond large enough to be called a small lake. When she turned the car off, the quiet rolled in almost palpably, the only sounds the occasional stirring of branches and the rustle of some night creature not still confused by the unexpected snow.
A peaceful place. Conducive, as she’d said, to heavy thinking.
He leaned his head back on the headrest. He moved his hand to the seat to shift to a more comfortable position, and his fingers brushed a solid object. He smothered a sigh. He didn’t have to look to know it was the book; he’d gotten that same odd rush of warmth and comfort he got every time he touched the thing. It figured that she would bring it along. And right now he was too tired to care.
Silence spun out between them, but it wasn’t filled with the tension he’d come to expect. And when, after what seemed like a long time, he spoke, he was able to do it with some semblance of rational calm.
“I never told anybody where I’d gone when I ran away.”
She didn’t seem surprised that he’d picked up where they’d left off when he’d flung the book aside. She merely flipped on an interior car light and reached for the book.
“You mean when you were twelve?”
He nodded without looking at her. “No one ever knew I came back here. I didn’t see anyone, talk to anyone, and nobody saw me. The cops found me on a bus back to L.A., and I never told them that I’d come here. Or my mother. She would have been . . .”
He stopped, unable to find the words for how upset he knew his mother would have been had she ever known he’d come back here, how hurt she would have been if she’d known he’d come to try to find out something about his father. He’d wondered, later, if she’d guessed, if that’s why she had packed them up and moved to Seattle a month later, to put more distance between him and the man he was so angrily curious about.
“But it’s there,” Kendall said. “Listed with the date you left and were found.”
“No one knew,” he insisted. “There’s no way that could be listed there.”
Jason looked at Kendall then, with eyes that felt dry and gritty from lack of sleep. He locked his hands together, resisting the urge to rub at his eyes, knowing it would only exacerbate the sandy feeling to a burning that would be even worse. She looked at the book, her expression pensive.
“I never told anyone about that knife fight, either,” he added.
He saw her gaze flick from the book to his left hand, and realized he’d been unconsciously running his fingers along the scar. He made himself stop. His mouth twisted. “And I learned to fight a lot better, after that. With or without a knife.”
Or with or without a gun, or damn near any other weapon you could find on the street, Jason added silently, catching himself rubbing at the old scar again and yanking his hands apart in irritation.
“The point is,” he said, “there’s no way in hell anybody could have found out all this. So how the hell did it end up here? And why—how—is it changing? First it was just a list of dates and events. Now it’s becoming a story in places, written like some damn family saga, like the rest of this thing is.”
Kendall hesitated. He didn’t blame her. She kept coming up with the same answer, and he kept throwing it back at her. It was pointless. She glanced down at the book, then reached to open it to the section that began with his name. It didn’t bother him much that she’d probably read it; there didn’t seem to be much point. This whole thing was becoming too weird to worry about someone discovering secrets he’d kept for years. Especially wh
en they’d apparently already been discovered.
She turned in the driver’s seat to face him. “Is the rest . . . true, too?”
He shrugged wearily. There didn’t seem to be any point in denying the truth, either.
“The timing fits. I don’t know if the exact dates are right. What happened to me is . . . accurate. And the facts about my mother are right, I think. What I remember, anyway. The rest, about the old man, I don’t know. My mother never talked about him.”
“I didn’t mean the part about Aaron. I know that’s true. He told me how he met your mother, when she came to work for him. He said he knew the first time he saw her that she was the one, but he was already married to Alice.”
“Love at first sight?” His tone was bitter.
“He loved her, Jason.”
“Right,” he muttered. “If that book is right, then no matter what his reputation, he was a spineless, gutless coward. First he let that woman buy him, then walk all over him.”
“Alice had him over a barrel,” Kendall said, “thanks to her father tying up what he’d loaned Aaron with stock and options. The only peace he found in his life was with your mother. But he couldn’t divorce Alice and marry her.”
He lifted a brow. “So you don’t think he should give up his empire for love? And here I thought you were a romantic.”
He heard her breath catch, but Jason had the oddest feeling it wasn’t because of what he’d said. At least not in the way he’d meant it. She as looking at him as if she was afraid he could read her mind.
“What I think he should or shouldn’t have done doesn’t matter,” she said. “Even Hawks have their weak spots, and perhaps Aaron’s was not having the courage to give it all up and go to the woman he loved.”
“ ‘Even Hawks’? Is that him talking, or you?”
“That doesn’t matter either. What matters is that he couldn’t walk away. Hawk Industries was Aaron’s life. He’d fought for years to build it, and then fought to keep it.”
“Sold himself, you mean. Body and soul.”
“Yes,” she said, surprising him with her easy agreement. She leaned forward. “He did. And he knew it. Alice made certain of that. But I swear, Jason, he never knew how vicious she really was. He never would have stayed if he had.”
“I doubt that.”
“You wouldn’t, if you’d seen the life he lived with Alice. The longer he lived with her, the worse he got. And the worse she got. She made him pay every day of his life.”
“As my mother paid every day of hers,” he said coldly. “I heard her crying at night, when she thought I was asleep. I saw her get old before her time, never smiling, never laughing. So much for love.”
“He did love her,” Kendall insisted.
“Then why the hell did he send her away?”
She looked at him in surprise. “What?”
His mouth twisted. “Never mind. I know. Because of me. Because after years of being his quiet, obedient mistress, she had the bad judgment to get pregnant. So he fired her. Then he dumped her.”
“That’s not true.” Kendall sounded so indignant it startled him. “Aaron never sent her away. She quit, after she told him she was pregnant but he told her he still couldn’t divorce Alice, because he’d lose everything. That’s when she left him.” Her arched brows furrowed as she looked at him. “Did she actually tell you Aaron abandoned her?”
Jason tried, but remembering that far back was difficult with a brain that was groggy from lack of sleep. “I . . . don’t remember. I just always knew.”
“It doesn’t make sense, Jason. If Aaron had truly done that, why would your mother have stayed here until you were nearly five?” She lifted the book. “Besides, you read it, you know why she left. You know it was because of Alice, and her threats.”
“She left because Aaron Hawk didn’t want her anymore,” he answered automatically. “And he sure as hell didn’t want me.” His brows lowered as the rest of what she’d said registered in his foggy mind at last. “I did read it. There wasn’t anything in there about Alice threatening my mother.”
Kendall blinked. She glanced down at the book, still open to the last page of precise, elegant script. Then she lifted her head to look at him again.
“It’s right here. After the list of just dates, in this part written like a story. Where it says you left Sunridge, and why.”
“Why?” he asked, his voice tight.
She looked at him curiously, but went on explaining without comment. “Yes. You know, about how Alice found out about you, and threatened your mother, and you, if she didn’t take you and leave Sunridge. That’s what I meant about Alice being so vicious. When she found out you’d been born, she seemed to lose control.”
Jason shook his head sharply, his gaze flicking from the book to her face. “What are you talking about?”
“Did you miss this part?” She pointed at the last page of writing. “Here, where it says your mother found you outside the apartment one day, and there was a man watching you, a man she’d seen with Alice before.”
“The bus stop,” he murmured, stunned as she mentioned the day he had remembered so vividly . . . was it just today? Yesterday, he thought vaguely. It had to be after midnight. God, he couldn’t think. “There was a man there . . .”
“Yes, it says so, right here.” She gestured at the page again.
He stared at the book. Then he looked at her face. There was no sign she was lying, no sign that she was anything but puzzled by his reaction. Jason’s heart began to slam in his chest.
“What else does it say?” His voice was taut and hoarse.
She looked mystified, but after a moment glanced down and said, “Just that she was frightened, frightened that Alice truly would harm you. So she took you and left for Los Angeles that same week.” Her head came up again. “Jason, are you all right?”
He ignored her concern, not wanting to hear about what must be showing in his face. He reached for the book.
“Let me see it.”
His voice was still harsh, and she surrendered it to him without protest.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “You look . . . pale.”
He stared down at the stylized writing. It was there, amid the simple timetable of events that no one should have been able to put together. It was just as she’d said. The story of Alice’s threats, of his mother’s fear, and their late-night escape from Sunridge. Just as it had happened. Even the explanation of how Alice had discovered in one of her spying forays into Aaron’s personal papers that five years prior he had paid the hospital bills for one Elizabeth West, who delivered a baby boy on October twenty-seventh. It was all there.
“My God, Jason, what is it?”
Kendall sounded distressed. And when at last he managed to look up at her, he saw that she looked more than concerned, she looked alarmed. Twice he tried to speak and failed. When he finally got the words out, they came brokenly, an echo of what he was feeling.
“I . . . this wasn’t there . . . when I read it. It only showed . . . the dates we moved. It never said why . . .”
Kendall stared at him. And he suddenly understood what it had been like for her to go up in the face of his disbelief. She looked at the book, then back at his face. He turned the book around and jabbed a desperate finger at the last page.
“Kendall,” he said urgently. “It wasn’t there. None of this was there. None of this stuff about Alice.”
“Are you saying,” she asked slowly, “that when you read this back in the room, these words weren’t there? That it ended”—she reached out and flipped a page backward—“back here?”
He nodded, feeling an odd numbness overtaking him as he stared at the page her finger rested upon. He couldn’t believe she’d done it. She hadn’t had time. But it was there. And she
looked as bewildered as he felt.
“It was blank,” he whispered. “Right after that line. I swear it.”
Kendall stared at him, her eyes wide with wonder. “I believe you,” she said softly.
He dropped the book, heedless of how it fell to the floor, as if it had burned his fingers. He stared at it, very much afraid it had seared his soul.
“IT’S COLD OUT here,” the man with the barren eyes and wispy, pale blond hair complained as he sat on the handiest gravestone. He looked down at one sleeve of his dark jacket, frowned, and plucked at something. “And why did we have to meet so damned early in the morning? It’s barely after dawn.”
“I’m almost twice your age,” Alice Hawk said unsympathetically. “If I can stand it, you can.”
It gave her a perverse sort of pleasure to do this here, beside Aaron’s fresh grave. This was the final payback, and it was fitting that it should be arranged here.
It was a gloomy, dismal day, a major snowstorm was in the forecast for the coming week, and the wind that blew up the small valley to whirl around the cemetery seemed exceptionally chilly today. It bit into her bones despite her heavy coat, but she hid all signs of discomfort, knowing with some primal instinct she didn’t question that to show weakness to this man could be dangerous.
The man held up what appeared to be a pale blond hair from his sleeve, apparently one of his own, and frowned again. He flicked his fingers to discard it, then looked at her assessingly. He grinned, a mirthless contortion of his thin mouth that spoke more of cruelty than pleasure. Or of a man who got the latter out of the former.
“You always were a tough old bat,” he said with an admiration that could have been real.
“I still am,” Alice answered, the faintest hint of warning in her voice.
He had been a twenty-year-old punk, cocky and arrogant, when she’d first met him. She’d overheard him mentioned then as a ruthless kid who didn’t much care how he earned his money as long as it was enough to keep him in the lifestyle he aspired to. It had been ludicrously easy for her to convince him her plan would be mutually beneficial to them both, and he’d had the shrewdness to take her money—and her assurance of retribution if he ever talked—very seriously. He’d done the job neatly, without incriminating evidence left behind, and had kept his mouth shut as promised. For twenty years.
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