Haunting Rachel

by Kay Hooper

  I trust him. Of course I do. And not because he looks like Thomas.

  Her own doubts disturbed her as much as the existence of this notebook. And then another realization dawned and she bent over the notebooks and her legal pad and did more figuring.

  The sum she arrived at left her feeling a bit lightheaded.

  Not counting the loan she assumed was Adam’s, there were three loans still outstanding. One for a hundred and fifty thousand, one for one and a half million, and the last for five million. The initials were RS, LM, and FW, and the most recent loan—the largest—had been made just months before her father’s death.

  So there were three people who had been given loans by her father who had not yet come forward to repay them. The problem was, Rachel had no way of knowing when those loans had been set to come due. Adam had been lent his money five years ago; according to the notebooks, several other loans had run at least that long, and one for six years. For all she knew, these outstanding loans also had lengthy lives and simply weren’t yet due to be repaid.

  Of course, that didn’t explain why those given the money hadn’t sought her out, as Adam had, to promise repayment.

  She knew what Graham would say, of course. That these three people were taking advantage of her father’s trust, not coming forward in the hope that she would have no way of knowing what they owed.

  She had no intention of telling Graham about this.

  That was not as difficult a decision as Rachel had expected. It seemed to her that her father had kept this quiet and private because that was the way he had wanted it. For twenty years he had apparently helped people like Adam, people who had needed large sums of cash to achieve their dreams.

  She doubted that Graham would appreciate that. But she did.

  That was an easy decision. There were several others to be made, however. By her calculations, even if the outstanding loans were not repaid, the account held upward of ten million dollars.

  “Oh, wow, Dad. Now what do I do?”

  It was a heartfelt question. For all she knew, her father’s personal financial dealings, while undoubtedly noble, could well be illegal. She definitely knew that none of this money had been counted in his estate. Although, now that she thought about it, she vaguely remembered a phrase contained in the trust that went something like “deposits in any financial institution other than those in Duncan and Ross Investments, Ltd., to be transferred outright to my daughter, Rachel Grant.”

  Something like that.

  So the money was, she assumed, legally hers. That was to say if any of this was legal …

  She definitely foresaw a confidential visit to a specialist in taxes and estates in her near future.

  She pushed that aside to be dealt with later. Until her father’s estate was finally settled, the problem of this money could wait. What most concerned her at the present was the question of whether any of this held the answer to why someone might want her dead.

  Maybe someone really didn’t want to repay his or her loan.

  Her first thought was that only the five-million-dollar loan might be motive enough for murder. But when she thought about it as dispassionately as possible, she realized that even the smallest loan, for a mere hundred and fifty thousand, could be worth murder.

  It was all a matter of perspective. And from the right perspective, killing for a hundred dollars or even less could make sense.

  That was a chilling thought.

  Slowly, she circled the three outstanding entries on her legal pad.

  Three people, any one of whom could have decided that killing Rachel would cancel their loan.

  Three people with nothing to identify them for her except initials.

  Three people with nothing to lose and everything to gain by her death.

  • • •

  Rachel opened the big black iron gate, its hinge creaking loudly, and began to follow the path toward the woods. It was misty, the fog rising from the ground and swirling as though stirred by a restless hand.

  It was very quiet.

  She was happy. Around her neck she wore the locket she had given Thomas, the one containing her picture and the St. Christopher that she had hoped would keep him safe.

  She followed the path, oblivious of the mist. Of the chill. Her eyes were fixed ahead on the edge of the woods, where a figure waited.

  He took shape out of the mist as she neared, a tall man with fair hair gleaming in the strange light. He smiled a welcoming smile. He held out his arms to her.

  Rachel laughed and ran toward him.

  But then, close enough to really see him, she faltered and stopped.

  His face had become a mask of cracked porcelain, the eyeholes dark and empty. And from the gaping hole of the mouth, a hoarse voice whispered, “Don’t trust him, Rachel. Don’t trust him.”

  Worms began to ooze from the eyeholes of the musk.

  Rachel screamed and screamed….

  Adam bolted upright in bed, a cry tangled and trapped in his throat. His heart was pounding violently, and his breathing rasped audibly. He looked around, his gaze stabbing into every corner of the hotel room that was lit by dawn’s gray light.

  Slowly, very slowly, he lay back on his pillows, lifting his hand to grasp the locket he wore.

  “Oh, God, Rachel,” he whispered.

  EIGHT

  iona? You didn’t leave a rose on my pillow yesterday morning, did you?”

  The housekeeper looked blank. “A rose? Why would I do that, Miss Rachel?” “Never mind.” Rachel tried to laugh it off. “My imagination has been working overtime recently.” Except that she hadn’t imagined it. That rose was very real, and in a bud vase on her nightstand.

  Fiona frowned, then shrugged and asked what she wanted for breakfast.

  Rachel talked to Sharon at the real estate office after breakfast, and to save time had her messenger the lease agreement to Graham’s office. Unless he found something wrong when he went over it, she could still sign it that day, and then the store would be hers. And during that process she wouldn’t have to leave the house, which definitely appealed to her.

  Whether someone was after her or not, remaining close to home for the time being seemed like a good idea.

  In the meantime, with only a slight hesitation she called Adam. She considered calling Mercy, since her friend had always been the one she’d confided in, but something stopped her this time. Mercy didn’t know about the loans. She knew that Adam claimed to be on the verge of repaying a private loan, but she had no idea of the extent of Duncan’s private loans. And just as she had decided not to tell Graham, Rachel decided not to tell Mercy. Not until she could feel more certain of doing what her father would have wished.

  But Adam, bent as he seemed to be on finding out who and what represented a threat against her and already in Duncan’s confidence to the tune of three million dollars, seemed the best person in whom to confide this new information. It would have been too much to say that she trusted him completely, but Rachel’s instincts told her to tell him this much, and she listened to them.

  It isn’t because he looks like Thomas. It isn’t.

  He arrived at the house within half an hour, and once again Fiona announced him and quickly retreated after crossing herself.

  “Why does she always do that?” he asked, coming into the study.

  “Because you look like Tom,” Rachel answered as casually as she could. “It unnerves her.”

  Adam smiled slightly. “It unnerves her. How about you?”

  Rachel, standing behind her father’s desk, gazed at him. “No, it doesn’t unnerve me. Now.” She paused, then added honestly, “But it isn’t something I can forget, Adam. You do look like Thomas.”

  “Is that the only reason I’m here, Rachel?”

  She hesitated, then shook her head. “No.”

  He nodded. “Good.”

  Deciding that enough had been said about that, Rachel handed the two small notebooks to Adam. “Look what I found. It
seems you were right about that bank account in Geneva.” She sat down behind the desk and watched as he took the visitor’s chair and frowned over the notebooks.

  “Loans?” he guessed, looking up at her.

  Rachel nodded and pushed the legal pad with all her notes across the desk.

  It didn’t take Adam long to see the pattern. “My God. Nearly twenty loans of varying sizes over twenty years.”

  “Almost all of them repaid to the penny,” Rachel said. “My dad obviously had great judgment about whom he could trust. See the initials? At the end of each series of numbers. Yours are there.”

  Adam smiled at her. “I see. I’m glad he left you this, Rachel.”

  “I’m not so sure I am. Take a look at that last page of figures.”

  He did, and a frown quickly replaced his smile. “Three loans other than mine outstanding?” “That’s what it looks like.”

  “Goddammit,” he muttered. “That means three people with a potential reason to want you out of the way.”

  “That’s possible. But I’ve been thinking about it. Adam, what threat am I to those people? All I have are their initials, so I don’t know who they are. And even if I did, there’s nothing legally binding about this setup, not that I can see. Any of those people could knock on my door and say the loans wouldn’t be repaid, and there’s nothing I could do about it. If it comes to that, they could claim the money was a gift.”

  “That’s a good point.” He considered it for a moment. “Still, there could be something we don’t know about all this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not quite sure. Except that it makes me damned uneasy that none of these people have been in touch with you since your father’s death.”

  “Maybe their loans aren’t due to be repaid.”

  “Maybe. And maybe they have other reasons to stay anonymous.”

  Rachel shook her head. “I don’t know how we can find out what those reasons are. None of the initials tells me anything.”

  Adam put the legal pad and the notebooks on the desk. “You found the notebooks in this desk?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you find anything else? Anything that might give us some clue as to who these people are?”

  “I don’t know, Adam. About a ream’s worth of scrap paper, all of it with notes in Dad’s hand. I haven’t gone through it all yet.”

  “Maybe we’ll find an answer there. Or at least a hint.” He looked at her steadily. “I’ll help.”

  “It could take all day. And then there are two more drawers here I haven’t even opened, and the secretary in his bedroom … Adam, what if your company needs to find you?”

  “I have a pager. Rachel, I want to help. Let me. Please.”

  Rachel wasn’t entirely sure that spending the better part of a day in Adam’s company was the wisest thing to do. But it was what she wanted to do.

  “I’d welcome the company,” she said.

  • • •

  “Do I expect to have total control of the bank? I have that now. No, it hardly matters whether Rachel Grant sells me her shares. I have the authority to act in any way I see fit.” His tone was very pleasant as he spoke on the phone.

  Very pleasant. And completely ruthless.

  It made goose bumps rise on Mercy’s bare arms. She hadn’t heard the beginning of the conversation, but came into his office in time to hear that much. It was enough to disturb her.

  She shut the door behind herself and crossed the room to sit down in his visitor’s chair, pretending to thumb through the papers she carried rather than listen in on the conversation.

  “I told you that last week,” Nicholas said. “No. No, I don’t see any reason to do that. I imagine the problem will resolve itself fairly quickly.”

  He paused. His gaze was fixed on Mercy. She could feel it.

  “I can come up with ten million.”

  She looked up in surprise, and felt herself flush when he smiled at her sardonically.

  “No, I don’t need Rachel’s shares to do that. I’ve told you. I have the authority. Yeah. Yeah, you do that. See you there.” He hung up.

  “But you don’t have the authority,” Mercy protested. “An investment that size needs Rachel’s approval. In fact, it needs the approval of the board.”

  Nicholas smiled. “Love, do you intend working for me as my assistant?”

  “You know I don’t.”

  “Has Rachel hired you to manage her interests?” “The subject hasn’t come up. I’m not even sure she means to keep her shares.”

  Softly, he said, “Then don’t concern yourself with whatever decisions I make in running the bank.”

  He had never warned her off quite so bluntly before, and coming now, this warning served only to make her more worried. He was up to something. She could sense it. She just didn’t know what was going on.

  “I don’t mean to meddle in your business, Nick.”

  “I know you don’t, love.”

  “It’s just—ten million dollars is a hell of a lot of money. Even for a bank this size.”

  “I know what I’m doing, Mercy.”

  His record with the bank bore that out, so all she could do was nod. “I know.”

  He smiled, then nodded toward the papers forgotten in her grasp. “Are those for me?”

  She got up and handed them to him across the desk. “Some things you need to look over and sign—”

  Nicholas grasped her wrist. It was a warm, strong, inescapable hold. “Sure you don’t want to work for me?” he murmured seductively. “Be right at the seat of power? Know all my secrets?”

  She leaned her free hand on the desk. “I have a feeling I’ll never live long enough to know all your secrets, Nick.”

  His eyes gleamed at her. “But it’s something to strive for, surely.”

  “Oh, it’s at the top of my list.”

  He let out one of those short barks of laughter so characteristic of him, and released her wrist. “Could you pander to my ego at least once, love?”

  “I have a sneaking suspicion your ego is remarkably healthy as it is,” she said, still leaning on the desk.

  “Perhaps.” He glanced down at the papers he held. “Do you need these right away? I need to go out for a while.”

  “They can wait until tomorrow. I didn’t see an appointment on your calendar.” She kept her voice casual.

  “A last-minute arrangement.” He got up and came around the desk, and when she turned to face him, he lifted a hand to lay alongside her neck. He bent his head and kissed her, taking his time about it and totally ignoring the unlocked door.

  Then again, she thought hazily, maybe he had a sixth sense about such things. They’d never been interrupted— and he had provoked greater intimacies than this in the past.

  When he finally drew back far enough to speak, he murmured huskily, “Trust me, Mercy. I really do know what I’m doing.”

  It took her a moment to remember what they’d been discussing. “I do. Of course I do.”

  “Do you?” His fingers caressed her throat. “Then why are you so worried?”

  “Because— How do you know I’m worried?”

  “I know.”

  Well, that was certainly unnerving. Up until then she’d thought she had a great poker face.

  This time his laugh was a deep rumble. He kissed her again, then released her and stepped back. “Mind the store for a couple of hours, will you, love?”

  “Of course.”

  But he was no sooner out the door than Mercy made an impulsive decision. With a hurried order to Leigh to mind the store, she grabbed her purse and dashed out before the office manager could do more than sputter in surprise.

  Mercy wasn’t at all sure she could follow him without his knowledge, but she intended to give it a damn good try. He had asked for her trust, and she had said it was given—but Mercy had lied. He seemed to her more secretive than ever these days, and she didn’t like it. There had been too many crypt
ic telephone conversations, too many evasions, too many enigmatic gazes and inexplicable silences.

  Her best friend had survived two so-called accidents, a fact Nick seemed almost totally disinterested in, even though he stood to gain by her death. And soon after the second one, he had told somebody on the phone that they had “fucked up.”

  Damned straight, Mercy was worried.

  She had no idea if the man she loved was a man she could trust.

  Fiona brought them lunch on trays since they didn’t want to stop going through Duncan’s private papers. But by two o’clock Adam firmly called a halt.

  “My eyes are beginning to cross, and that’s the third time you’ve rubbed yours,” he told Rachel. “We need a break.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” She rubbed the back of her neck instead, finding it a bit stiff. They had moved from her father’s desk to the leather sofa and big, square coffee table. Adam sat on the sofa, while Rachel had ended up sitting on the floor on the other side of the table with a big pillow to lean on.

  Not because she wanted to avoid sitting beside him, but because … because they’d needed the entire coffee table on which to spread out papers, and it was easier to work from both sides.

  That was all.

  Adam got up and came around to offer her his hands. “Come on. Why don’t we go outside and take a walk or something.”

  She took his hands and allowed him to pull her up, wincing as her left leg protested the sudden change in position.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “No, no. Just a slight cramp in my leg. It’s easing off.” She released his hands and stepped away, unnerved by his closeness. At such moments she was always aware of that leashed power in him, that hidden strength. It bothered her in some way she could hardly put a name to.

  Realizing suddenly that she had been silent just a moment too long, she said casually, “If there’s no furniture barring the way, I’ll show you through a bit more of the house on our way to the back. We have a kind of informal garden, and it’s a pleasant place to walk.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  They closed the study door when they left, and Rachel locked it, sliding the key into the front pocket of her jeans.