by Anne Stuart
“I’m worried about Sally. I haven’t been away from her for the last year, when she started going downhill. I don’t like to leave her.”
“That’s a long time to devote yourself to someone with a full-time nurse and a household staff. She doesn’t need you hovering at her bedside every moment.”
She turned to look at him. “No, she doesn’t. But I need to be there.”
She half hoped there wouldn’t be room on the ferry for their car. She shouldn’t have underestimated him—he’d already reserved a space, and they arrived promptly in time to make the sailing.
It had been so long since she’d been on the ferry, so long since she’d seen Edgartown. At one point the old house had been a battleground for the MacDowell siblings—everyone wanted their piece of it. Of all the MacDowell houses, this was the important one, far more precious than the Park Avenue apartment or the sprawling Vermont compound. But Sally had lost interest in the house not long after Alex’s disappearance, and Carolyn had been equally happy to skip coming to a place so full of painful, hidden memories. Warren and Patsy and her children put the house to good use, with George holding regular parties. But Carolyn hadn’t returned in more than twelve years.
She could have thought of happier ways to return than with a man pretending to be a dead man. Alex MacDowell, seventeen years old, with wild, angry eyes, haunted her. His ghost wandered this island, roamed Lighthouse Beach, lingered in the shadows in the formal garden behind the old house. The ghost of Alexander MacDowell lived here, and bringing an imposter into his presence seemed like a very grave mistake.
She left the car and the man and went in search of a cup of coffee, sipping as she watched the island loom up out of the afternoon sea. It was later than she expected—it was already midafternoon, and the ferry was taking far longer than she remembered. Probably because she was so eager to get this over with.
He was already waiting for her in the car when she reached it, just as the ferry docked. She had no idea how thorough his briefing had been, but she had no intention of giving him any help in finding the house on Water Street. He didn’t need any help.
She’d known that huge old Victorian house since childhood, yet it looked strange, different in the off-season. Like the rest of the houses along Water Street, the shades were drawn, the porch furniture in storage, the no-trespassing signs glaringly in place. Spring was further along down here—tiny leaves had already shot forth, and the front lawn was a dewy green.
She glanced at Alex, but he seemed entirely familiar with the place as he parked the car and climbed out. Of course, it was always possible he’d come here before, as part of his training. He knew too much about the real Alex MacDowell not to have help from someone close to the family. Maybe an actual MacDowell.
He glanced back at her. “You want me to open the door for you?” he drawled.
She’d been sitting there in a trance. She shoved at the door handle, forgetting she still wore her seat belt. She cursed beneath her breath, finally exiting the car with a complete lack of grace. Lighthouse Beach was behind her, and she turned, unable to resist the impulse. It looked bleak, barren, and deserted in the early-spring chill.
She hadn’t realized that Alex had come up behind her, following her gaze out to the abandoned lighthouse. “It hasn’t changed much, has it?” he murmured.
She glanced up at him. He was too close, but then, even at opposite ends of the country the man would always be too close for her peace of mind. He was looking out at the place where the real Alexander MacDowell had died with no more than casual curiosity. Totally unaware of its history.
“Some things never change,” she said quietly.
He met her gaze. “And some things do.” His smile was faint, self-deprecating. Sexy. That was the one thing he had in common with the lost Alex.
He was sexy as hell. And just like the vulnerable thirteen-year-old he’d left behind, she was far from immune.
He glanced around him, as if seeing the place for the first time. Which, in truth, he probably was. “There’s something depressing about a seaside community in the off-season, isn’t there?”
“I prefer it.”
He grinned. “Okay. How about something depressed about an unused lighthouse?”
She shook her head. “It’s still used. It’s just automatic. It’s to keep people from dying on this beach.” She used the words deliberately, almost as a taunt.
But the man pretending to be Alexander MacDowell was oblivious. He merely shrugged. “I hope it works,” he said.
Chapter Seven
THE HOUSE WAS cold, musty, damp, and dark. Spring had come early to the Vineyard, but the warmth of the sun hadn’t penetrated the shadowed recesses of the old house, and Carolyn shivered as she stepped into the gloomy front parlor. The furniture looked bulky and ominous in the holland covers, and the shades let in no light at all.
“Let’s get the painting and get out of here,” she said, unwilling to explore the old house any further. It had been a long time since she’d been here, and yet the painful memories still lingered. If it had been up to her, she never would have come back.
Alex walked past her, into the darkness, and pulled one of the shades, flooding the room with light. “What’s the big hurry?”
“I don’t want to miss the last ferry.”
He turned to look at her. “I thought you realized.”
If she’d been cold before, it was nothing compared to the sudden chill that invaded her bones. “Realized what?”
“We’ve already missed it. Didn’t you look at the schedule? I’d assumed you realized once we got on the boat there was no getting back till tomorrow morning.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! The ferries run till eight o’clock at night, and longer on weekends.”
“In the summer, Carolyn. This is off-season. The last boat left the island an hour ago. We passed it on our way out here.”
“No! What about the ferry we rode on? That was getting ready to leave—”
“It was heading on to Nantucket. It won’t be back here till morning. We’re stuck here for the night. We might as well make the best of it.”
“There are planes—”
“What about the car?”
“You can stay here and keep it company.”
He leaned against the wall. “I hadn’t realized you were quite so scared of me.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why are you so desperate to leave? You’d have to rent a car once you got to the mainland, and then the drive north would take you a good five hours.”
“I want to get back to Sally.”
“Why? She’s not going to die in the next twenty-four hours. Her doctor said she’d stabilized for the time being.”
“You talked with her doctor?” She tried to keep the anger out of her voice.
“Why not? I’m her son. Her closest living relative.”
You’re a cheat and a liar. She didn’t say the words, she even schooled her expression into one of deceptive calm. “Of course,” she murmured, turning away from him.
“Look,” he said. “If you’re that desperate I can see if there are any small planes flying off the island tonight. But you’re making a fuss over nothing. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”
“I’m not,” she said again.
“Then what is it you’re afraid of?”
She looked at him, cool and fierce. “Absolutely nothing.”
“Now, that’s not true,” he said lazily. “You’re afraid of spiders, and commitment, and Alexander MacDowell. You’re also afraid of losing whatever dubious sense of family the MacDowells have given you. You’re like a child in a candy store, looking inside at all the treats you can never have. But you don’t realize all those things are tasteless, useless. A mirage.”
�
��Spare me,” she drawled. It was easy enough to find out she was terrified of spiders—the entire family knew it and mocked it. If she’d reached the age of thirty without forming any serious romantic attachments, it was only logical that she’d been uninterested in getting involved. As for whether she was actually afraid of Alex, either the real one or the man pretending to be him—well, she wasn’t going to think about that, not right now. “What about the hotels? The bed-and-breakfast places?”
“Off-season, remember? Is it this house you’re afraid of? Did some monster pop out of a closet and molest you?”
“It holds unpleasant memories,” she said in an icy voice.
“Like what?”
“Like the day Alex died.” Immediately she knew that she’d said too much. For a moment his face was entirely blank, and then he moved toward her, a slow, almost stalking pace, and it was all she could do to hold her ground, to look up at him with absolute calm and not back away.
“The day Alex died?” he echoed. “What made you think I died? I just ran away. That’s what everyone else thought, isn’t it?”
His eyes were mesmerizing, a deep blue that sank into her bones. “Yes,” she said.
“Yes, what? Yes, you thought I died? Or yes, that’s what everyone else thought?”
She didn’t want to be having this conversation with a ghost. Even though she knew he was flesh and blood, with no connection to the real Alexander MacDowell beyond an eerie resemblance. “Everyone assumed you simply ran away.”
“But you didn’t believe that. Why, Carolyn? Why did you think I was dead? What did you see?”
She was hypnotized by the sound of his voice. By the soft insistence that was reaching past all her careful defenses. “Nothing,” she said.
“Then why were you certain I was dead?”
“Because the real Alex loved his mother. He wouldn’t have just disappeared into thin air and never be heard from again. Sally had the best private investigators looking for him—a seventeen-year-old wouldn’t have been able to avoid them.”
“You’d be surprised what a clever, determined seventeen-year-old can do. So what did you think really happened to me? Did someone cut me into little pieces and bury my body all over the island?”
She hated the faint mockery in his voice. “I think someone shot Alex in the back and threw him into the ocean. His body was probably carried halfway to France before the fish made good work of it.”
“Gruesome, aren’t you?” He was watching her with utter stillness, his face giving nothing away. “Was that a morbid fantasy on your part, or do you have any particular reason to believe that was what happened?”
He knew. Whoever and whatever he was, he knew that Alex MacDowell had been murdered that night; she could feel it in her bones. And now he knew she knew too. She realized she’d just put herself in danger, and she could have kicked herself.
“Just wishful thinking,” she said lightly.
He smiled then, a faint, humorless smile. “And then I suddenly return and blow your theory out of the water. What a disappointment for you. On many levels.”
“Not particularly.”
“Did you ever tell Sally you thought I was dead?”
“I never told anyone.”
“Why?”
Unbidden, the memory of the dark figure came back to her, the blood on the beach, the icy mist covering her as she crouched behind the rock. “It was just a theory,” she said, shrugging. “Obviously a mistaken one. Because here you are, big and strong and healthy.”
“Obviously,” he said, looking at her, the expression in his suddenly opaque eyes unreadable. And the truth, the possibilities were strung between them like a spider’s web, sticky and entrapping. “So where did you put the portrait, Carolyn?”
She didn’t say a word, simply walked away from him, into the adjoining back parlor. He followed her, then stopped in front of the portrait, staring up at it with an unreadable expression on his face.
It was a marvelous painting. Edward Wicklander was the premiere portraitist in the seventies, and he’d done a magnificent job with the gorgeous, sulky features of Alexander MacDowell, age thirteen. He could have been a symbol for all disenchanted youth, tasting the first fruits of the forbidden and not certain he liked it. Carolyn stared up into the painted eyes, but this time she didn’t marvel at how snide and mocking and lifelike they were. Instead she was riveted by the clever blue gaze that was an absolute twin to the man who stood just behind her.
Somewhere she found her voice. “The resemblance is amazing,” she murmured.
He didn’t misunderstand her, but he had his own way of playing this game. “Isn’t it? He captured me to a tee, didn’t he?”
“Do you remember posing for it?” The real Alex had raised holy hell about the hours he was supposed to sit, motionless, while the renowned Wicklander worked his magic. It was only the promise of a racing catamaran that had kept him marginally still for even a few minutes at a time.
“Now, now, Carolyn, you know better than that,” he chided gently. “You aren’t supposed to cross-examine me about the past.”
“How very convenient for you,” she murmured. “What will you do, tell Sally on me?”
He moved in close, but she held her ground, determined not to flinch. “No,” he said. “George was always the tattletale, remember? I can be much more wicked. I can simply refuse to answer your questions.” He reached out and caught a stray lock of her hair, letting it drift through his fingers. She didn’t move. “Or even worse, I can answer them.” Their eyes locked. It was something she’d been avoiding, and she knew she’d been right to do so. There was something unbearably intimate in his cool blue gaze, as if he could see past all her diversions and defenses, deep into the very heart of her where she let absolutely no one in. The small, soft vulnerable part of her that still throbbed and ached and bled. The part she’d tried so hard to stifle and control.
She stared up at him, unable to break the moment, even as she felt the breath catch and strangle in her throat, and she was transported eighteen years back, to a hot summer night in this very house, when Alexander MacDowell had looked down at her with those same eyes full of wicked longing and she’d been ready to give him anything he wanted.
With the small exception of her gold charm bracelet.
But they weren’t the same eyes, no matter how similar they were. And that longing had been the lovesick imagination of early adolescence, and nothing to do with the reality of Sally MacDowell’s wayward, thieving, randy son.
She jerked away, not caring if he pulled her hair, but he let her go with a faint smile. “Poor Carolyn,” he murmured. “I won’t torment you any longer. Why don’t we go see if there’s a way to get you off this island so you don’t have to spend another moment in my company?” It was as if the odd, breathless moment hadn’t even existed. “If worse comes to worst, maybe one of the guesthouses will be open.”
She couldn’t do it. At that moment she couldn’t willingly get back in the close confines of his car, breathing the same air he breathed, feeling his body heat envelope her. He had far too powerful an effect on her, and she needed physical distance, a few moments away from him to pull her tattered self-control back around herself. “You go ahead,” she said. “I’ll wait here.”
He looked at her in surprise. “You trust me?”
“Not particularly. I just want a few minutes’ peace.”
He didn’t argue. “I didn’t come to disturb your peace, you know.”
“Didn’t you?”
“A thirty-one-year-old woman who’s lived the life you’ve lived shouldn’t be desperate for peace. You need unsettling.”
“How do you know? Alexander MacDowell hasn’t been around for eighteen years.”
“I admit I’m curious. I asked.”
“Who?”
>
“Ah, you want me to name my accomplice in crime,” he said lightly. “Sorry, Carolyn, but I asked Sally why you were still dancing attendance on the lordly MacDowells.”
“And what did she say?”
“That you loved her. And that you were afraid of leaving, of living life out in the cruel, cold world.”
“Sally doesn’t know me as well as she thinks she does,” Carolyn said with deceptive calm.
“Sally doesn’t know anyone that well, including her own mind.”
“Including her own son.”
“You couldn’t resist that, could you?” He was unoffended. “My mother is a woman of narrow vision and indomitable will. She knows just enough about the people who surround her to make them do exactly what she wants them to do. Anything beyond that is extraneous and she doesn’t bother with it.”
“Your filial devotion is inspiring.”
“Maybe there was a reason I’ve been gone for eighteen years.”
She wanted to scream at him, but she bit it back. One more minute in the darkened back parlor and she’d start hyperventilating, and she hadn’t had a panic attack since she was twenty years old. She wasn’t going to let a con man bring her back to that vulnerable state.
“I thought you were going to see if there’s a way for me to get off this island,” she reminded him with pointed calm.
“True enough. Let me just dump my bag before I go in search of a telephone. That way you can rummage through it if you get bored.”
“I doubt you’d leave anything incriminating within my reach.”
“Oh, you never can be too sure. Maybe I like to live life dangerously. Maybe I want you to find out the truth,” he taunted her.
“And what is the truth?”
He didn’t move any closer to her, didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. His presence was powerful, intimidating, even from across the room. He simply smiled.
SHE SEARCHED THE bag he dropped inside the front door. His clothes were good quality but well-worn. He obviously hadn’t invested in a new wardrobe as part of his impersonation scheme. He wore silk boxers, he shaved with a disposable razor, and he had a bottle of aspirin. He also had condoms.