Amanda

by Kay Hooper

  Jesse was patting her hand with the slightly awkward touch of an undemonstrative man, and when she stirred and smiled at him, Walker could have sworn there was a flash of something calculating in the smoky depths of her eyes.

  “I’m sure I’ll remember more eventually,” she said, as if reassuring herself more than them.

  “Of course you will,” he said, giving her hand a last pat. “it’ll all come back to you.”

  Maggie came into the room then, carrying a tray which she set down on the coffee table between the two sofas. She handed out tall glasses of iced tea, unsmiling, then took one for herself and sat down in a chair opposite the fireplace.

  “Have I missed anything?” she asked.

  In a colorless tone, Kate reported, “Amanda doesn’t remember the night Christine took her away.”

  “Am I supposed to find that surprising?” Maggie slumped in her chair and propped sneaker-clad feet on the coffee table. She was wearing jeans and a crisp white man’s shirt, hardly the usual housekeeper attire but standard for her. “It was twenty years ago, for God’s sake, and she was a child.”

  “Nobody expects her to remember everything,” Jesse said, reaching out to pat Amanda’s hand once more and giving her a smile. “We were just curious.” He hesitated, then said, “It must have been hard on you and your mother all those years.”

  It wasn’t precisely a question, but she accepted it as one and nodded. “Yes. Mother held down two jobs most of the time while I was in school, and even then there wasn’t much money.”

  As if the question had long haunted him, Jesse said, “Why did she cut us off like that? I would have helped her even if she’d felt she couldn’t come back to Brian. And, later, after he was killed …”

  Amanda was shaking her head as she leaned forward to set her glass on the coffee table. “I don’t know. She didn’t talk about any of you or about Glory, and all she ever said about—about my father was that she had loved him very much.”

  “She changed her name, your name,” Jesse said, and it was an accusation of betrayal.

  Again, Amanda shook her head. “I don’t know why she did that. I don’t know how she did it. Until she was killed last year and I found my birth certificate among her papers, I didn’t even remember being Amanda Daulton.”

  “How could you forget your name?” Maggie asked, the question honestly curious.

  Amanda looked at her for a moment, then gazed off at something only she could see. Her eyes were wide, almost blank, and her voice was oddly distant when she spoke. “How could I forget my name. It was … what my mother wanted. She insisted, over and over, that I was Amanda Grant. I had to forget the rest, that’s what she told me. I was Amanda Grant.”

  “Did she hate us so much?” Jesse asked in a voice that ached.

  With a blink, Amanda returned from that distant place and looked at him. Focused now, she said, “I don’t know. Try to understand … she didn’t want me to ask her questions, so I didn’t. It was like … she had a wound she couldn’t bear to have touched. Maybe we would have talked about it one day if she hadn’t been killed in that car accident, but I can’t know that. It seems to me that for my mother, all of you and this place just stopped existing the night she left.”

  There was a stricken expression in Jesse’s eyes. “She must have heard about it when Brian was killed. She must have known. Didn’t his death matter to her?”

  Watching them, Walker thought that Amanda almost reached out to the old man, almost offered a comforting touch. But in the end, she clasped her fingers lightly together in her lap and merely looked at him gravely.

  “That’s a question I’ve asked myself. Among her papers, I found a newspaper clipping about his death, but it happened so soon after we left here and that time is fuzzy in my mind. I don’t remember if she seemed different then, more upset than she had been. I just don’t remember.”

  “She didn’t tell you he was dead?” Reece wondered in surprise.

  Amanda frowned slightly. “I … don’t know. I have the feeling I knew, but I don’t remember her telling me. I know I wasn’t surprised when I found the clipping, except—”

  “Except what?” Walker spoke for the first time, watching her intently.

  She met his gaze, her face utterly without expression for a split second before she smiled sadly. “Nothing, really. I was just surprised he was so young, that was all.”

  She turned her attention back to Jesse, and Walker didn’t say a word. She had just lied and he knew it. The question was, what did it mean?

  “JESSE—”

  “Don’t say it, Walker.”

  “I have to say it.” Walker watched as Jesse went to the compact wet bar tucked away in a corner of the big room and poured himself a scotch. He wasn’t supposed to drink, but that hardly mattered now. “Somebody has to say it. There’s not a shred of evidence to support her claim. No proof.”

  “She has her birth certificate.”

  Maggie had taken Amanda up to her room, with Reece going along to carry the luggage, so only Walker and a silent Kate were left with Jesse. And the old man’s features were set in a stubborn expression that would have been familiar to anyone who had ever known him.

  “She has a photocopy of the birth certificate,” Walker said, trying anyway. “Which anybody can get. And the notary dated that photocopy barely more than a year ago—shortly before Christine supposedly died.”

  “Supposedly?”

  “I haven’t been able to confirm it, I told you that. I checked in Boston and then the entire state, and found no record of any traffic fatality by the name of Christine Grant—or Daulton or her maiden name, for that matter.”

  Quietly, Kate asked, “And what did Amanda say to that?”

  “She was vague,” Walker replied. “Damned vague. She said her mother was cremated, the ashes scattered —okay, fine, I’ll buy that. But what about the accident itself? Various state and local officials like to keep track of things like that, and why couldn’t I find any record? It happened on a highway somewhere outside Boston, she said, and she’s not sure where the death would have been recorded. Rhode Island, maybe, or Connecticut. Or, hey, how about New Hampshire?”

  “She didn’t put it that way,” Kate decided with a faint smile.

  “No,” Walker agreed, “but almost.”

  “For God’s sake,” Jesse said impatiently, “she was probably in shock when Christine was killed, and it’s been months since then. Maybe she just doesn’t remember where it happened.”

  “Maybe,” Walker said. “But I can take you to the precise curve in the road where my parents were killed —and it’s been nearly ten years.”

  There was a moment of silence, and then Kate said gently, “You travel that road almost every day. How could you ever forget?”

  Walker offered her a slight smile but changed the subject quickly, annoyed at himself for having dragged anything personal into this discussion.

  “The point is, precious little this woman claims can be verified.” He stared at Jesse and added deliberately, “I don’t believe she’s Amanda Daulton.”

  “She’s got the right coloring,” Jesse said.

  “She doesn’t look like Brian or Christine.”

  “Christine was delicate.”

  “She was tall. She also had blue eyes.”

  “Gray eyes are dominant in our family,” Jesse snapped.

  “So is unusual height and heavy bones,” Walker reminded him evenly. “Genetically, the real Amanda is far more likely to be tall and imposing.”

  Jesse frowned down at his glass. “Her blood’s AB positive, and that’s rare.”

  “Three percent of the population. In a country with a quarter billion people, that’s quite a few possibilities. About seven and a half million if my calculations are correct.”

  Jesse shrugged. “If you say so. But still rare, and what are the odds for someone claiming to be Amanda to just happen to have that type? Slight, wouldn’t you agree?”

/>   “I don’t play odds,” Walker reminded him. “I’m interested in what I can prove. Her background’s full of holes, Jesse. Maybe Christine did somehow manage to get them new identities twenty years ago—by claiming that a hospital fire had destroyed records of Amanda’s birth and that her own birth certificate was somehow lost during the chaos of World War II, something like that. Stranger things have happened. But I can’t find elementary-school records for an Amanda Grant in Boston, where she supposedly grew up, and high-school records are incomplete and— oddly enough—missing photographs of Amanda Grant.”

  Impatient, Jesse said, “So maybe she’s camera-shy or just happened to miss school that day.”

  “All four years? Eight years counting college, because she isn’t in those yearbooks, either. And here’s another odd thing; Amanda Grant minored in architecture, but when I casually asked the lady upstairs if she knew anything on the subject—she said no.”

  “Probably misunderstood you,” Jesse decided.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, I do!”

  Walker sighed, but didn’t give up. “Okay, then what about medical records? She claims they didn’t have a family doctor, that there was a clinic in their neighborhood, but it was rather conveniently closed down a few years ago and I haven’t been able to find out where the paperwork went.”

  “Who the hell cares about medical records? Do you think it matters when she got her vaccinations or how many times she had the flu?”

  Walker held up a hand to stem the old man’s irascibility. “That’s not the point. The point is what’s normal. People leave a paper trail, Jesse, a trail of photographs and documented facts. But not her. In twenty years of living, even under a false name, she should have accumulated documents in different areas of her life. School records, medical records, bank records. But all hers are either remarkably incomplete or unavailable. She has a checking account less than a year old. She signed the lease on her apartment in Boston just six months ago. Before that, she’d ‘rather not say’ where she lived. No credit cards or accounts. She’s never owned a car, according to the DMV, and claims she’s misplaced her driver’s license.”

  “Well, so what? Hell, Walker, I have no earthly idea where my license is.”

  Walker didn’t bother to point out that since Jesse hadn’t driven himself in thirty years his license had long ago expired. “Look, all I’m saying is that her story looks suspicious as hell. There are too many questions. And whoever she is, I’m willing to bet she’s fabricated a background with just enough information to sketch in a life. She can’t prove she’s Amanda Daulton—but I can’t prove she isn’t. Maybe the DNA tests will be conclusive, but it’s doubtful since there’s nothing distinctive enough about the Daulton family —genetically speaking—to show up in the blood. And having to use your blood for comparison instead of the parent’s makes it even more difficult. At best, we may be told there’s an eighty percent probability that she is who she claims to be.”

  “I’ll bet on eighty percent,” Jesse said flatly, his eyes fierce.

  Walker didn’t have to have that explained to him. As the only child of Jesse’s only son, Amanda occupied a very special place in the old man’s heart. He had loved Brian so much that his two other children had been all but excluded from his affections, and Jesse was as ruthless in his paternal feelings as he was in everything else. He had seemed virtually unmoved when Adrian died with her husband, Daniel Lattimore, in a plane crash in 1970, leaving her two boys for Jesse to raise, and Kate might as well have been invisible for all the attention her father gave her.

  But Brian had been different, and his daughter was all Jesse could have of that favored son.

  If Jesse convinced himself the woman upstairs was indeed his granddaughter, he was entirely capable of leaving no more than a pittance to his daughter and grandsons and bestowing the bulk of his estate on Amanda. Never mind that Reece worked hard as a junior VP of Daulton Industries, that Sully had done an excellent job raising and training the Thoroughbred hunters for which the Daulton family was justly famed, and that Kate had spent her entire life as the gracious hostess of Glory.

  None of that mattered.

  “Jesse—”

  “it’s her, Walker, I know it. I knew it the minute she walked into the room.” Jesse’s eyes were still fierce. He downed his scotch in a gulp, grimaced briefly at the liquid fire settling into his belly, then nodded decidedly. “Amanda’s come home.”

  “You can’t be sure, not so quickly.” Walker knew he wasn’t making much headway, but he had to try. “At least give it a little time, Jesse. Wait for the test results, and in the meantime talk to her, question her about her life, her background. Don’t jump the gun on this.”

  Jesse laughed briefly. “you’re as cautious as your father was, boy. All right, all right—I won’t change my will just yet.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Actually, it was more than Walker had hoped for. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the office and try to work a couple of hours today.”

  “Come for supper tonight,” Jesse said, more command than invitation.

  Too curious to invent other plans, Walker merely accepted with polite thanks.

  “I’ll walk out with you,” Kate murmured, rising to her feet.

  From the front window of her corner bedroom on the second floor, Amanda watched the lawyer stroll to his car with Kate Daulton at his side. They made a striking couple. He was a little above six feet tall and built athletically, which made him a good match for Kate’s height and impressive figure, and his dark, hawklike good looks complemented her flawless beauty.

  They paused by his shiny Lincoln for a few moments, talking intently, and Amanda wished she knew what the conversation was about. When he had spoken to Kate downstairs, his voice had been oddly gentle, and something about his posture now indicated a kind of protectiveness Amanda would have sworn was alien to his nature. Walker McLellan was not a man given to macho protect-the-little-lady impulses, Amanda thought.

  But Kate, it seemed clear, occupied a special place in the lawyer’s affections. Were they lovers? It was possible, even probable, given the circumstances. He was clearly at home here at Glory and seemed to be treated virtually as one of the family; he and Kate had known each other all their lives; both were single; and it was doubtful Jesse would have objected to the relationship.

  Walker was a good seven or eight years younger than Kate, Amanda thought, but he didn’t seem like a man who would give much consideration to the age difference if he loved her. Odd, though, if they were lovers and hadn’t married. With passion as well as affection, what would prevent them? It certainly appeared a good match, and since both were prominent citizens in a small Southern town where reputations still mattered and sex out of wedlock was still eyed askance, they would have found it troublesome if not downright unacceptable to conduct a discreet affair for any length of time.

  Amanda waited to see if Walker would kiss Kate before he left, and she was a bit unsettled to feel a pang of relief when the lawyer got into his car with no more than a casual wave of his hand. Probably not lovers, then—or else extremely undemonstrative ones. And she wasn’t relieved, she told herself, just …

  Just what, Amanda? Just glad the sharp-eyed, lazy-voiced, and suspicious lawyer who thought she was a liar wasn’t having an affair with her aunt?

  Shaking her head a little at her own ridiculous thoughts, Amanda watched Walker leave and then turned from the window with a little sigh. Hadn’t exactly been on her side in all this, but she felt oddly alone now that he was gone. Natural, she supposed, since he had been her sole contact during all the interviews that had preceded her arrival here.

  She could clearly remember him rising from the big leather chair behind his desk when she had walked into his office for the first time a few days ago. Still see his impassive face and the vivid green eyes weighing her.

  “Mr. McLellan. I’m Amanda Daulton.” And his cool response.
“Are you? We’ll see.”

  With an effort, she pushed that wary meeting out of her mind and stood for a moment looking around the room. Maggie, true to her word, hadn’t played guessing games; she hadn’t hesitated to explain that this had not been Brian and Christine Daulton’s bedroom, nor Amanda’s as a child, but had always been used for guests. It was one of the larger available rooms, and Jesse wanted her to have it.

  Modernization during the last thirty years or so had given the room a private bathroom, spacious and lovely in shades of blue, as well as plenty of closet space, but the furnishings were some of the few remaining antiques left in Glory.

  There were two tall chests, a long dresser with numerous drawers and a wall-hung oval mirror, and a marble-topped nightstand with a small lamp beside the bed. The bed itself was stunning, queen-size and custom-built by a famed New Orleans cabinetmaker. It was a half-tester, or half-canopied, bed, designed with curved outlines and rococo ornamentation, with a striking carved cartouche on the headboard. The canopy was rich scarlet velvet, a color picked up in the print of the wallpaper and the pattern of the tapestry rug that stretched nearly wall to wall. A loveseat designed in the same restrained rococo style as the bed stood near the front window.

  Amanda might not have known much about architecture, Southern or otherwise, but she knew a little about antiques. This furniture was as valuable as it was beautiful.

  She liked this room. Even with the elaborate furnishings and rich colors, it was more a comfortable room than an opulent one, and Amanda felt comfortable in it. She opened the front window to take advantage of a slight breeze, pausing to breathe in the faint scent of honeysuckle and absently noting that Kate had apparently come back inside the house since she was no longer visible, then went to a set of gauze-curtained French doors that opened out onto a cast-iron balcony at the west side of the house. Stepping out, she discovered that it was a small balcony for this room only, with its own spiral staircase providing a private entrance.

  No doubt intended for guests to be able to take a moonlight stroll through the woods or rolling pastures and return to their room without disturbing the rest of the house, the balcony and spiral staircase were designed with a Louisiana flavor, the fine metalwork done with intricate vines and honeysuckle, and the balcony supported by slender Gothic columns. It wouldn’t have looked out of place in the French Quarter in New Orleans, and it was lovely.