The last knot fell away from Jake’s wrists. He wondered how long it would take for the circulation to be restored.
Benny muttered an oath. Intent on taking his irritation out on Jake, he placed another well-aimed kick to Jake’s ribs, but this time Jake was ready for him. His hands shot out and he grabbed Benny’s leg.
Caught by surprise, Benny lost his balance and fell backward, his skull crashing against the concrete floor. The moment he fell, Jake jerked the gag from his mouth and untied the rope around his ankles.
But Benny was only dazed. After only a few seconds, he struggled to his feet, shaking his head as if to clear the exploding stars behind his eyes. He reached around and drew a gun from the back of his belt, but Jake didn’t give him time to aim. Kicking the rope aside, he lunged forward, grabbing Benny around the middle and the gun flew from his hand. Jake dragged him back to the floor, where Jake clearly had the advantage. Kicking a semiconscious man was a lot different from fighting an ex-cop who still kept in shape at the gym. There had been months on end when the only control Jake had over his life was his daily workouts, and he used his muscle now, used every ounce of his strength to pummel his opponent into submission.
Which didn’t take much. Benny’s glasses were cracked and resting crookedly across his bleeding nose. Jake retrieved the gun from the floor, then grabbed a fistful of Benny’s T-shirt and drew him up, aiming the gun at his face.
Benny’s heavy breathing sounded almost like sobs. “I give, man. Uncle. Don’t kill me.”
“Then start talking,” Jake said, tightening his finger on the trigger. “Who do you work for?”
“Someone in Memphis,” Benny whimpered. “I don’t have a name. I swear. The whole organization is hush-hush, real cloak-and-dagger-type stuff. We’re only told as much as we need to know.”
“What organization?” Jake demanded.
“The Grayson Commission. I connected with them on the Net. It’s a political group, very underground. Very into power—”
An explosion somewhere inside the building rattled the windows and rocked the barrels and crates of machinery stacked on the shelves overhead.
Benny’s eyes widened in terror. “Jesus. Oh, man. He’s wired this place to blow. We have to get out of here!”
No sooner had he said the words than another explosion collapsed some of the shelving in the warehouse, and the barrels and machinery started crashing to the floor all around them. Benny screamed as a wooden crate toppled over them. By the time Jake had pulled himself loose from the splintered wood, Benny was scrambling through the debris.
Jake took off after him, but the roof was caving in now, and the whole warehouse became a giant booby trap. Pallets of equipment stored on upper shelves turned into deadly weapons as they crashed to the floor. Fallen barrels were oozing chemicals, and even a tiny spark might cause the whole place to go up. The fire at the point of the explosions was already starting to spread. Jake had only seconds to find his way out of the warehouse.
In the dim light, amid the chaos, a figure darted through the rubble in front of him. “Freeze!” Jake shouted and took aim, but Benny kept running. Quick as lightning, he shoved open a side door and slid through. Jake raced after him, but by the time he reached the door, Benny had slammed it shut and locked it from the outside.
Jake glanced around, smelling the toxic fumes, feeling the heat from the spreading flames. Shielding his face as best he could, he pointed the gun at the lock and emptied the chamber, hoping the action wouldn’t trigger another explosion. But the door swung open and Jake dashed through.
His would-be killer was nowhere to be seen.
CHAPTER TEN
Jake spent all day Monday showing Eldridge’s photograph to any of his neighbors, acquaintances or business associates who could be located. But the interviews generated more questions than answers. Eldridge, it seemed, was something of a loner. None of his neighbors knew him very well, and he had no close friends that Jake was able to turn up. He’d only lived at the Casa del Sol apartments for five months; before that he’d spent a year in a similar group of apartments a few blocks over on Hillcroft.
According to Jake’s source at the DMV, Eldridge had changed apartments frequently in the last few years, but that in itself was not all that suspicious. Unlike their Northern counterparts, Southern apartment dwellers were always being lured from their current address by a newer, larger, cheaper apartment down the street. Before Jake had bought his house in Memphis, he’d moved five times in as many years and never once changed his zip code.
The strange thing about Eldridge, though, was people’s reaction to his photograph. The few who recognized him did so immediately, but then, without exception, qualified their response with “But I remember him being taller.” Or thinner, shorter, heavier. With darker hair, longer hair, less or more hair. Some even remembered him wearing a mustache.
For the three years Eldridge had been with Richard Crane and Associates, he’d worked almost exclusively from his home, keeping in touch with his office and his clients via phone and E-mail. His supervisor at the brokerage firm had not seen Eldridge in person for several months, but this was not unusual, he assured Jake. Many of their associates were home-based.
On Tuesday morning, Jake drove back to the Casa del Sol apartments, only to find that Eldridge’s place had been stripped. Everything was gone, and two uniformed maids were in the process of cleaning, getting the apartment ready for the next tenant.
Jake crossed the parking lot to the leasing office where a bored brunette informed him that Michael Eldridge had phoned her at home late the night before and arranged to have funds wired to the property management’s account to settle his lease. By the time she’d arrived for work that morning, the moving van had been waiting to clear out his apartment.
“Did he leave a forwarding address?” Jake asked.
The woman hesitated.
“I’m an old friend of his,” he lied. “I think I know where he might have gone. It’s a Memphis address, right? He has family there.”
The woman pulled a piece of paper from her desk and handed it to Jake. He glanced down. It was the address of the Kingsley mansion.
Jake spent the rest of the day tracking down the foster family Eldridge had been living with at the time of his arrest. With the help of his friend who worked in Juvenile at Houston PD, he finally located the couple, an elderly husband and wife named Donovan. They lived in Cypress, a wooded suburb of Houston, on a street that had once been little more than a country lane but was now surrounded by subdivisions, convenience stores and strip malls.
Their home was a small white wood-frame with an immaculate yard and well-tended flower beds that boasted a variety of blooms Memphis wouldn’t see for another few weeks yet.
Mrs. Donovan, a white-haired motherly sort with a whip-thin body and curious gray eyes, came to the door at Jake’s knock. Her expression was friendly, but Jake noticed that she made a point of keeping the storm door between them securely locked. Even out in the ’burbs, the darker side of the city couldn’t be ignored.
Jake introduced himself, and said, “A friend of mine with the Houston Police Department gave me your name because she thought you might be able to help me out. She said you used to take in foster children back in the sixties and seventies, and there’s one in particular I’m interested in. He would have lived here probably around 1974 or ’75. His name was Michael Eldridge. Do you remember him?”
Her expression immediately warmed. “Michael! Of course, I remember him. Oh, my goodness, you don’t know how many times I’ve thought about that boy over the years.” She turned and called over her shoulder, “Clarence! Come here! There’s a friend of Michael’s at the door.”
Her husband hobbled into view, supporting himself with a cane. He was as thin as his wife, but stoop-shouldered and obviously in poorer health. “Who?” he bellowed.
“Michael Eldridge. You remember him. That handsome boy who lived here sometime back in the seventies. S
harp as a tack, that child.”
Clarence Donovan’s memories didn’t seem to be quite so fond. Or else his natural suspicion of strangers was greater than his wife’s. He stumped up beside her and glared at Jake through the door. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
Jake pulled his identification from his pocket and held it out in front of him. “My name’s McClain. I’m a private investigator from Memphis. I’d like to ask you a few questions about Michael Eldridge.”
Mrs. Donovan’s hand fluttered to her throat. “Oh, dear,” she murmured, while Mr. Donovan’s glare turned even icier.
“What’s he done?” he asked in a tone that implied he just might believe the worst.
Jake hesitated. “May I come in and speak with you for a few minutes?”
“We’ll come outside.” He motioned Jake away from the door with his cane. “We don’t know you from Adam, and I want to make damn sure we’re in plain view of plenty of witnesses.”
“Good idea.” Jake backed away from the door, giving them ample space. He tried to look as nonthreatening as possible as he waited for Mr. and Mrs. Donovan to seat themselves in the wicker rockers on the front porch. Jake sat down on the top step of the porch.
“Is Michael all right?” Mrs. Donovan asked anxiously, in a tone that made Jake think they must have been recently in contact.
But when he said as much, Mr. Donovan shook his head. “Haven’t seen hide nor hair of that boy since the police took him away that day. Esther remembers all those kids like it was yesterday. We used to have one or two staying here most all the time. Troublemakers, for the most part. Kids who drifted in and out of the system for years, until they either cleaned up their act or were sent up the river.”
“Now, Clarence,” Mrs. Donovan said with mild reproach. “You make it sound as if we didn’t make a difference in any of those kids’ lives. I like to think we did.”
Mr. Donovan shrugged, but his expression told Jake he had a differing view of the foster kids who’d passed through their home.
“How long did Eldridge live here?” Jake asked.
“A little more than a year,” Esther replied. “He was basically a good boy. Just a little high-spirited.”
“High-spirited, hell!” Clarence thundered. “He was a thug and you know it.”
Esther glared at him. “Well, was it any wonder? He’d been abandoned when he was five years old. His mother left him in some dirty old Laundromat down by the ship channel and she never came back for him. He was never adopted, either, just shuffled from one foster home to the next, never really having a home or feeling he was wanted. Little wonder he had problems.”
“What kind of problems?” Jake asked.
She made a dismissive gesture with one blue-veined hand. “Oh, you know, the usual things boys get into. Skipping school, vandalism, drinking.”
“Breaking and entering,” Clarence interjected.
“There was just that one time,” Esther said, her tone peevish.
“Was that when he was arrested?” Jake asked.
Clarence nodded. “He was fifteen. Just missed being tried as an adult. As it was, some hotshot law firm downtown took his case and he got off with just a stint in juvenile detention. We never saw him after that. Esther here was like a mother to that boy. He was always her favorite. He could charm the damn birds right out of the trees when he had a mind to.”
Jake took out the picture of Eldridge and handed it to the Donovans. “Is this the Michael Eldridge you knew?”
Mrs. Donovan took the picture while Mr. Donovan fumbled in his shirt pocket for his glasses, then slipped them on. The two studied the photograph for a long moment, then Mrs. Donovan said, “Oh, my. He’s turned out so handsome. And he looks so prosperous.”
“He’s a stockbroker here in Houston,” Jake told them. “He seems to be doing quite well for himself.”
“You see, there!” Esther beamed at her husband in triumph. “I knew he would make it. I knew he was someone special.”
“If he’s turned out so all-fired respectable,” Clarence said, eyeing Jake accusingly, “what’s your interest in him? He involved in that insider trading scam I been hearing Katie Couric talk about on the Today show?”
“No, nothing like that,” Jake replied. “Turns out, he may be the long-lost son of a wealthy family in Memphis. I’ve been hired to check out his background.”
“Michael’s from a wealthy family?” Esther clapped her hands together in excitement. “Imagine that, Clarence.”
“I’m trying to,” Clarence said dryly. “What’d they do, give him away at birth?”
“He may have been kidnapped,” Jake told them.
Esther gasped. “How tragic.”
“You’re sure this is the boy you knew as Michael Eldridge?” Jake nodded toward the picture.
“Oh, yes,” Esther said, without equivocation. “That’s Michael.”
Clarence took the picture from his wife and studied it a little longer. “He was just a kid back then. Fifteen years old. This man’s what? Thirty-four, thirty-five? People change in twenty years.”
“I’d know him anywhere,” Esther declared.
“You don’t seem quite as sure,” Jake said to Clarence.
The older man rubbed his chin, still staring down at the picture. “Oh, that’s him, all right. Only…”
“What?”
“Can’t put my finger on it precisely. Something about his eyes…”
* * *
JAKE ARRIVED BACK in Memphis just after seven in the evening and drove straight to the Kingsley estate. His father was out, and Jake headed for the shower, brooding over everything that had happened in Houston as he let the hot water sluice over him. Instead of coming home with answers for Hope, he’d returned with more questions.
For instance, what had the blonde been doing at Eldridge’s apartment? What was her connection to Andrew Kingsley? Who was the “boss” the two men in the warehouse had referred to? What the hell was the Grayson Commission? And, perhaps most important of all, what had Clarence Donovan seen in Michael Eldridge’s photo that had worried him?
As Jake dried off, someone knocked on the front door of the cottage. Slipping on a pair of jeans, he hurried down the stairs to answer it.
Hope stood on the other side.
“I saw you drive up a little while ago. I need to talk to you. May I come in?” She glanced back at the Kingsley mansion. “I don’t want anyone to see us.”
Jake stood back to let her enter, then closed the door. “Come on out to the kitchen,” he said. “I’ll get us something to drink.”
He started to put his hand on her arm, but she moved away from him, a subtle act, but one he thought he understood. She’d pulled away from him once before, after her father had died. That, too, had been subtle at first. So subtle, Jake hadn’t known what was happening until it was too late.
And now she was doing it again. What had happened while he’d been gone?
In the kitchen, he poured them both a glass of iced tea. They sat down at the table, Hope leaving her drink untouched.
“What did you find out in Houston?” she asked.
“Quite a lot, but I’m not sure what any of it means.” He gave her a rundown of almost everything, leaving out only a few details he wasn’t sure he wanted her to know. Her expression darkened when she heard about the incidents at Eldridge’s apartment and the warehouse.
“My God,” she whispered. “You could have been killed.”
“But I wasn’t. So there’s no use worrying about it.”
“But I got you into this,” she protested. “If anything happened to you because of me—”
Her violet gaze fastened on his, and Jake found himself drowning in those eyes. What kind of hold did she have over him? Why couldn’t he stay away from her? Why couldn’t he forget her? Why couldn’t he get on with his life and let Hope do the same?
Because you were meant for each other, a little voice whispered inside him. You’re a part of eac
h other.
And no matter how much he wanted to deny it, no matter how many times she pulled away from him, Jake knew he would never get Hope out of his system. She lived in his soul. She haunted him.
As if sensing his thoughts, Hope tore her gaze from his and stared down at her glass. “Something happened while you were away.”
Her tone sounded ominous. Jake’s heart dropped to his stomach. “What?”
She traced a drop of condensation down her glass with her fingertip. “Michael told me that he…has feelings for me.”
Did he, by God? Jake managed to remain silent, staring at her inquiringly.
“He said…he said Iris has indicated to him that she would like to see us get together. And she’s hinted as much to me, too.”
“How do you feel about that?”
Hope drew a long breath. She didn’t answer for a moment, and Jake’s anger blazed into a bonfire of rage. “Hope, you don’t even know this guy. Surely to God you’re not thinking of taking up with him—”
Hope stared at him in shock. “Of course not! Why would you even think such a thing?”
“He does look like Andrew,” Jake said grimly. “And he just may be the next Kingsley heir.”
She looked more hurt than angry. “It was never the money with Andrew. Yes, he took me to fancy restaurants and on exotic vacations, bought me beautiful clothes and expensive jewelry. And yes, a part of me enjoyed that way of life. For a while. But it was never enough. It could never take the place of…”
“What?” Jake prompted.
“Of being in love.” She stared down at her hands. “Only, I don’t think Andrew ever understood that. I don’t think he ever gave up the notion that if he lavished me with enough gifts, I might someday fall in love with him.”
Jake’s gaze impaled her. “And did you?”
“No. I’ve only been in love once in my life.” She lifted her gaze to him. “And Andrew knew that. He couldn’t stand that.”
Jake wanted more than anything to believe her. How long had he waited to hear those words? But something inside him wouldn’t let him give voice to his emotions. Not yet. He ran a hand through his damp hair. “Yeah, well, knowing the woman you love is in love with someone else is pretty damn hard to take for anyone.” He felt a flash of unexpected sympathy for Andrew Kingsley.
Kingsley Baby Trilogy: The Hero's SonThe Brother's WifeThe Long-Lost Heir Page 34