Haunting Rachel

by Kay Hooper

  “Have you been keeping the room locked?”

  “No, just the desk. But with all those papers spread out, locking the door seems best for now.”

  “A sensible precaution.”

  They encountered a barricade in the hallway outside the formal dining room. And encountered her uncle Cameron, who was not happy.

  Since he’d already met Adam, he simply acknowledged his presence with a nod, launching immediately into complaint. “Rachel, Darby says she found three rolltop desks in the basement, and she won’t let me go through the contents.”

  Soothingly, Rachel said, “That’s because I asked her just to box up the contents for now, Cam. We can go through all that later. Anything that’s been down there for decades can wait a while longer.”

  He seemed satisfied, but said, “We don’t want her throwing away something important thinking it’s trash.” Not as distinguished-looking as his older brother had been, Cameron carried the added burden of cupidlike features, which tended to make him look pouty even when he wasn’t.

  “She won’t do that, Cam. She’s boxing up the contents of everything she finds, no matter what. Don’t worry. Darby knows what she’s doing.”

  A crash from the basement caused her uncle to wince in horror and bolt.

  “I hope,” Rachel murmured.

  Adam grinned at her. “Want to go see what ended up in splinters, or shall we go on to the garden?”

  “I’m tired of sorting furniture and old boxes.” She shrugged. “Let Darby handle it. And Uncle Cam.”

  “He does seem worried,” Adam noted as Rachel let go of his arm so she could pick her way through the furniture barricade.

  “He hates the idea of non-Grants having a say in the disposal of family things. Not the family tradition, you see. But I don’t see any reason to keep most of the stuff in storage, and Darby is the fairest, most trustworthy antiques dealer I know.”

  “Why’s he so worried about the contents?”

  “Because a few days ago Darby found a diamond cocktail ring tucked away in a little drawer of an old dresser. Thirties design. I’m almost afraid to have it appraised.”

  Adam whistled. “So every piece is a potential treasure chest?”

  “Well, to Uncle Cam. He always did love poking into corners, so this really does seem like a treasure hunt.”

  They emerged at last from the forest of furniture, and Adam casually took Rachel’s hand. “Which way now?”

  “We’ll go through the sunroom,” she decided, trying not to be so conscious of that warm, strong hand surrounding hers. “Fiona’s already working on dinner in the kitchen, so if we go that way, she’ll burn something.”

  “She has her own methods of letting her displeasure be known?”

  “Definitely. This way.”

  The sunroom, a bright and plant-filled space that doubled as a breakfast room, opened onto a tile veranda. Steps led down to a lawn, from which a path paved only with stepping stones wandered off into a lush landscape of bright flowering shrubs and spring greenery.

  Large trees towered to either side of the garden area, offering a sense of being closed off from the world outside. The air was mild, and heavily scented from all the flowers.

  “Nice,” Adam commented as they began strolling along the path.

  “Most of the homes in this neighborhood have more formal gardens than we do. But this was designed two hundred years ago, and so far everybody’s kept it casual. I mean to as well.”

  “I like it.” They strolled for a few minutes in silence, and then Adam said abruptly, “Tell me about Thomas Sheridan.”

  Startled, Rachel stopped on the path and stared up at him. “Thomas? Why?”

  “I’d just like to know.”

  “You said Dad talked about him.”

  “He did. But he wasn’t in love with Sheridan. You were.”

  Rachel pulled to free her hand. “I don’t want to—” “Rachel.” His free hand lifted and touched her cheek, making her go still. “I said I wouldn’t push, and I won’t. But I … I need to hear you talk about him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was so important to you. Because I look like him, and I need to know that you know I’m not him.”

  She turned and continued walking slowly. But she pulled her hand gently from his, breaking the connection and making them both conscious of the loss. “All right. What do you want to know?”

  “Whatever you feel comfortable telling me.”

  “I loved him from the time I was ten years old. Is that what you want to hear?”

  Adam’s voice remained steady. “If it’s the truth.”

  “It is.” She drew a breath. “He was out of high school when I started—there were ten years between us—but I wore his ring for four years, and never dated anyone else. We got engaged when I turned eighteen, but Tom insisted I go to college for at least a year before we married.

  “So I did. But I lived at home, and we saw each other every weekend.” She paused. “I didn’t like his job.”

  “He was a pilot, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. He flew cargo planes for a company based here in Richmond. It wasn’t usually dangerous work. He said.” “You didn’t believe that?”

  Rachel shrugged, and her voice was a bit tense. “I had a romantic imagination. So I imagined things. Once or twice I got the feeling there had been close calls, just from something he’d said. But he’d only laugh and tell me not to worry. I did, of course. Worry. I gave him the locket on his twenty-ninth birthday.”

  “The locket?”

  Rachel nodded. “A small gold locket. I had our initials engraved on the outside, and a St. Christopher put inside. To protect him. He had my picture put inside as well.” She paused. “Neither one protected him very well. His plane vanished just a few months later.”

  They walked in silence a few minutes, and then Adam said quietly, “Did you bury your heart with him, Rachel?”

  “I thought I had.”

  They stopped, and when she turned to face him his hand reached up to touch her cheek again. This time it lingered. “Did you?”

  There was a long silence so intense that even the sounds of the garden seemed to have stilled. Then Rachel took a jerky step away from him, that instinctive retreat making her words unnecessary. But she said them anyway. “I don’t know. I just don’t know, Adam.”

  A little flatly, he said, “And I look so much like him.”

  “It isn’t something that’s going to go away,” she reminded him. “You look like Thomas. But Thomas is dead. And I know that.”

  “But you haven’t said good-bye to him, have you, Rachel?”

  He didn’t wait for a reply, but reached for her hand, tucked it into the crook of his arm, and began walking along the path once more. For several minutes, they walked in silence.

  “Adam?”

  “Yes?”

  “For a long, long time, I never really believed he was gone. For … for years I woke up from dreams about him. He was always trying to tell me something, and I could never quite hear him. I finally realized he was trying to say good-bye. And one day the dreams just stopped.”

  Adam looked down at her, his face without expression. Then he said, “It’s all right, Rachel. I understand.”

  “Do you?” She shook her head a little. “I’m not so sure I do.”

  Adam didn’t respond to that. But a moment later, as they rounded a bend in the path, he stopped suddenly. “What’s that?”

  She gave him a curious look. “There’s a path through the woods to the river. That gate is the way out of the garden.”

  Adam stared at tall black wrought-iron gates, at the winding path beyond. His voice sounded strange even to him when he said, “I didn’t know it was here.”

  “No, you wouldn’t have seen it except from here—or from the river. Adam, is something wrong?”

  “No. No, of course not.” He got hold of himself, and walked on, putting the gate behind him.

 
They completed the circuit of the garden in silence, and it wasn’t until they’d almost reached the house again that Rachel spoke.

  “You aren’t a stand-in for a dead man, Adam.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  He hesitated. “I don’t believe you’ve said good-bye to him yet, Rachel. Until you do, you can’t be sure.”

  She didn’t reply to that. But she didn’t remove her hand from his arm, not even when they went inside and a truculent Fiona met them at the door of the sunroom.

  “Mr. Graham has been waiting in the front parlor these fifteen minutes and more, Miss Rachel!”

  Mildly, she said, “I’m sure he didn’t mind, Fiona.”

  The housekeeper snorted, shot Adam a dark look, and stomped away.

  “Makes a lot of noise for such a little thing,” he observed.

  Rachel couldn’t help but smile, but all she said was “If we go this way, we can avoid the furniture blockade.” They did, and shortly afterward walked through the double doors of the front parlor with Rachel’s hand still tucked into the crook of Adam’s arm.

  Graham didn’t like what he saw.

  “You two haven’t met officially,” Rachel said. “Graham, this is—”

  “The man who lied to you,” Graham snapped.

  NINE

  ercy was more than a little worried to find that Nicholas was heading for a decidedly bad part of town.

  It hadn’t been easy, keeping her small car behind his without making it obvious he was being followed, and as they left the heavier traffic behind, she had to drop farther back to avoid discovery. So she was barely within sight when he finally pulled over to the curb at what looked like a deserted warehouse.

  She pulled her car to the curb and killed the engine quickly.

  For about ten minutes, nothing happened. Then a tall man who seemed roughly dressed from where Mercy was sitting appeared seemingly out of the shadows of the building and got into Nick’s car.

  Mercy would have given a year’s salary to be a fly in that car.

  The meeting lasted no more than five minutes. The stranger got out of the car and melted once more into the shadows. Nicholas’s car pulled away from the curb and went on.

  Mercy followed.

  “What are you up to?” she muttered to herself, her gaze fixed on that big black car. “Dammit, Nick, what are you up to?”

  His actions for the next hour offered Mercy no clue. He met twice more with unsavory-looking men who appeared and disappeared into shadow. These meetings were a bit longer, but still were clearly furtive in nature.

  Frustrated, Mercy followed him to yet another seemingly deserted warehouse and parked half a block back from him. This time Nicholas left his car and headed for the warehouse. He didn’t look to the left or right.

  Mercy didn’t actually see him open a door; he just appeared to vanish into the shadows as all his grungy pals had done.

  She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and debated getting out and going to look for him.

  The passenger door opened suddenly.

  “Hello, love. I hope I didn’t make it too difficult for you to keep up.”

  “What did he lie about?” Rachel asked quietly.

  “The man’s a convicted felon, Rachel.” Graham’s voice was heavy with satisfaction. “He served five years in prison.”

  “Well, since I never asked him if he’d been in prison, I don’t see that he lied about it, Graham.”

  “Rachel, for God’s sake!”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  Adam looked down at Rachel with a slight smile. He led her to the sofa facing the fireplace, and when she sat down, he went to the hearth opposite where Graham stood and faced the other man.

  “Tell her the rest,” Adam said.

  For the first time, Graham looked a bit discomfited. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Sure you do. Tell her what my crime was, and where I served my time.” Adam shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants and lounged back against the mantel.

  The physical contrast between the two men was a stark one. Graham, inarguably good-looking and elegant in his business suit, appeared curiously tame standing so near Adam. He lacked Adam’s height and visible strength, but it was more than that. Less formally dressed, his hair a bit shaggy, and his pose a lazy one, Adam radiated leashed intensity in the alert tilt of his head and the sharpness of his gaze, and his slight smile was not so much polite as it was inherently dangerous.

  For the first time, Rachel saw a man who might well have spent time in a cage.

  She looked at Graham, hiding a sudden anxiety. “Well?”

  Reluctantly, Graham said, “He was in prison in South America.”

  “And my crime?” Adam prompted softly. Through gritted teeth Graham said, “Crimes against the state.”

  Adam looked at Rachel through shuttered eyes. “That’s a nice little euphemism used by tinpot dictators after they’ve successfully instigated a coup. A blanket charge to throw over any perceived enemy of the new regime. That’s what was happening in San Cristo, about a week after I arrived. Since I was there to help close down an American-owned business that the new regime promptly nationalized, and since I spoke out against them, I was perceived as an enemy of the state.”

  He paused. “The trial lasted about five minutes. The sentence was life. I got out early only because the tinpot dictator got himself shot almost five years later, and there was a new regime. One that didn’t consider me an enemy of the state.” He turned his gaze to Graham. “And I think that’s all you need to know, Becket.”

  “I agree,” Rachel said.

  Graham frowned at her. “Rachel—”

  “Did you bring the lease by for me to sign?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is everything in order? All the I’s dotted and T’s crossed?”

  He sighed. “Yes.”

  “Then I’ll sign it now. And you can drop it off at the agency on your way back to town. I don’t want to take up any more of your time.” She kept her voice quiet, unwilling to get into any discussion with Graham that would lead to her defending Adam.

  Graham shot Adam a look and opened his briefcase on the coffee table to get the lease. “Rachel, listen to me. No matter what his story of the imprisonment is, the fact is that I can’t find out anything about his background beyond a few sketchy facts. You know only what he’s telling you, and it could all be a pack of lies designed to win your trust.”

  Rachel signed the lease and handed it back to him. “Thank you for going over this, Graham. As for the rest— I’ve always depended on you for advice. So what do you advise?”

  “Don’t trust him.”

  She looked at Adam, leaning silently against the mantel, then returned her gaze to Graham. “I’ll have to make up my own mind about that, Graham.”

  “Rachel—”

  “Well, what else do you expect me to say? He landed in a South American prison through actions that neither of us would consider wrong. Once he got out, he convinced a man we both respected to give him a loan in order to start his own company, and five years later that company is thriving, the loan about to be repaid in full—”

  “He says,” Graham interrupted.

  Adam watched and listened in silence, offering nothing.

  Rachel shook her head. “All right—he says. You haven’t offered any evidence that he’s lying, or even any reason why he would. So far, in fact, you haven’t given me any reason at all not to trust Adam, aside from your suspicions. I don’t happen to share them.”

  “Because he looks like Thomas. Don’t you see, Rachel? He walked into your life looking like Thomas, and you’ve given him the benefit of every doubt because of that.”

  Is that really it? Is that why I trust him? Rachel hesitated, then shook her head. “I think you’ve said enough, Graham. You can show yourself out.”

  Graham looked at her for a moment, wondering dimly if she had ye
t realized what was happening to her. He did. And it was a bitter thing to Graham to see her waking up, coming out of the state that Tom’s death had left her in, and to know that where he himself had failed, another man had succeeded.

  He hesitated only an instant, knowing also that nothing he could say just then would change what was happening. Not unless he could find evidence that Adam Delafield was not who and what he claimed to be. Graham shot another look at Adam, then gathered up his briefcase and strode from the room.

  Still lounging back against the mantel, Adam said quietly, “You were pretty hard on him.”

  “Was I? Maybe.”

  “He seems to have your best interests at heart.”

  “Even so.” Rachel looked at him steadily. “I’m sorry.”

  “About what?”

  “Graham’s attitude. And … about what happened to you. It must have been terrible.”

  Adam came to the sofa and sat down a couple of feet away, turning toward her. “I want to tell you about it.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I know. But I want to.” He smiled slightly. “The way I told your father.”

  Rachel nodded. “All right.”

  “I was working as an electrical designer at an engineering company in California.” Adam spoke slowly. “In that work, I developed a more efficient version of an electrical component already in wide use. It was sort of like inventing a better mousetrap. There was a built-in demand for the gadget, a huge one. Both the company and I stood to make a lot of money.”

  Rachel nodded again, and waited.

  “What I didn’t know at the time was that my superior in the company wanted to take the credit—and the money —for himself. All unsuspecting, I gave him my diagrams to look over. The next day I was handed plane tickets and told to get down to San Cristo, close down our manufacturing plant, and get our people out of there before the rumbles of a coup became reality.”

  “Why was there a plant down there?”

  “Cheap labor. And God knows what kind of tax breaks and kickbacks they’d been granted from the old regime. In any case, there was a plant running three shifts, and dozens of American supervisors and office personnel. I had to get them out.”

  “You must have been very young for such an assignment.”