Dual Image

by Nora Roberts

  thrust then ground deep. Even the poor quality of the photo didn’t disguise the stunning resemblance between Ariel and the child that laughed into her face. There was no mistaking the tie of blood. As the headline shouted out at him, Booth wanted to murder.

  “Just what the hell is this?”

  Shaken, Ariel looked up. Scott was not to see it, she thought over and over. This was not to touch him. How? How had it leaked? The Andersons? No, she rejected that thought instantly. They wanted publicity less than she did.

  The picture . . . who’d taken it? Someone had followed her, she decided. Someone had followed her and found out about Scott, the custody hearing. Then they’d twisted it into an ugly headline and an exploitive article. But who . . . ?

  Liz Hunter. Ariel’s fingers tightened on the newspaper. Of course, it had to be. There were few women who knew better than Ariel what that type of person was capable of. Liz hadn’t been able to get to her professionally, so she’d taken the next step.

  “Ariel, I asked you what the hell this is.”

  Ariel focused on Booth abruptly. Oh God, she thought, now I have to work my way through the ugliness before I can explain. Already, she saw the anger, the distrust. “I’d like to talk to you privately,” she said calmly enough. “Down in my dressing room.”

  As Ariel turned to go, Stella reached out, then dropped her hand helplessly back to her side. “Ariel, I’m sorry.”

  She only shook her head. “No, it’s all right. We’ll talk later.”

  As they wound their way through the studio, down the corridors, she tried to think logically. All she could see was that nasty headline and grainy picture. When she walked into the dressing room she went directly to the coffeepot, needing to do something with her hands. She heard the door close and the lock click.

  “This isn’t the way I wanted to handle this, Booth.” She pulled in a deep breath as she fumbled with the coffee. “I didn’t expect any publicity . . . I’ve been so careful.”

  “Yes, careful.” He jammed his hands into his pockets.

  She pressed her lips together as the tone of his voice pricked along her skin. “I know you must have questions. If I . . .”

  “Yes, I have questions.” He snatched the paper from her dressing table. He, too, needed to occupy his hands. “Are you involved in a custody suit?”

  “Yes.”

  He felt the grinding in his stomach again. “So much for trust.”

  “No, Booth.” She whirled around, then stopped as a hundred conflicting emotions, a hundred opposing answers hammered at her. Would this be the time of choice? Would she have to choose after all, when she almost had everything she needed? “Please, let me explain. Let me think how to explain.”

  “You’re involved in a custody suit.” He remembered those brief flashes of strain he’d seen in her from time to time. He wanted to tear the paper to shreds. “You have this child, and you didn’t tell me. What does that say about trust?”

  Confused, she dragged a hand through her hair. “Booth, I was already deeply involved in this before we even met. I couldn’t drag you into it.”

  Bitterness seeped into him. Booth hated to taste it . . . again. “Oh, I see. You were already involved, so it was none of my business. It appears that you have two separate standards for your trust, Ariel. The one for yourself and the one for everyone else.”

  “That’s not true,” she began, then fumbled to a halt. Was it? “I don’t mean for it to be.” Her voice began to shake, then her hands. “Booth, I’ve been frightened. Part of the fear was that something would leak out. The most important thing to me was that none of this touch Scott.”

  He waited, trying to be impassive as she brushed away the first tear. “That’s the boy’s name?”

  “Yes. He’s only four years old.”

  He turned away because the grief on her face was destroying him. “And his father?”

  “His father’s name was Jeremy. He’s dead.”

  Booth didn’t ask if she’d loved him. He didn’t have to. She’d loved another man, he thought. Had borne another man’s child. Could he deal with that, accept it? Resting his palms on her dressing table he let the emotion run through him. Yes, he thought so. It didn’t change her, or him. And yet . . . and yet she hadn’t told him. It was that that brought the change.

  “Who has the boy now?” he asked stiffly.

  “His grandparents. He’s not . . . he’s not happy with them. He needs me, Booth, and I need him. I need both of you. Please . . .” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Don’t ask me to choose. I love you. I love you so much but he’s just a little boy.”

  “Choose?” Booth flicked on his lighter, then tossed it onto her cluttered dressing table as he took the first drag from his cigarette. “Damn it, Ariel, just how insensitive do you think I am?”

  She waited until she could control the throb of her heart at the base of her throat. “Would you take both of us?”

  Booth blew out smoke. Fury was just below the surface. “You kept it from me. That’s the issue now. I could hardly turn away from a child that’s part of you.”

  She reached for him. “Booth—”

  “You kept it from me,” he repeated, watching her hand drop away. “Why?”

  “Please understand, if I kept it from you it was only because I wanted to protect him. He’s had a difficult time already, and I was afraid that if I talked about the hearing to anyone, anyone at all, there was a risk of something like that.” She gestured to the paper, then turned away.

  “There’s nothing you don’t know about my life, Ariel. I can’t help but resent that there was something so vital to yours that you kept from me. All this time, almost from the first minute, you’ve asked me to trust you. Now that I’ve given that to you, I find you haven’t trusted me.”

  “I put Scott first. He needed someone to put him first.”

  “I might be able to understand that, if you could explain to me why you ever gave him up.”

  “Gave him up?” Ariel stared, but tears blurred her vision. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I thought I knew you!” Booth exploded. “I believed that, and believing it I fell in love with you when I’d sworn to never get emotionally involved again. How could you give up your child? How could you have a child and say nothing to me?”

  “Give up my child?” she repeated dumbly. “But no, no! It’s nothing like that.”

  “Damn it, Ariel, you’ve let someone else raise your child. And now that you want him back, now that you’re involved in something as serious as a custody battle, you do it alone. How could you love me, how could you preach trust at me and say nothing?”

  “I was afraid to tell you or anyone. You don’t understand how it might affect Scott if he knew—”

  “Or how it might affect you?” He swung his arm toward the discarded paper.

  Ariel sucked in her breath and barely controlled a raging denial. Perhaps she’d deserved that. “My concern was for Scott,” she said evenly. “A custody suit would hardly damage my reputation. Any more than an illegitimate child would—though he’s not my child. Jeremy was my brother.”

  It was Booth’s turn to stare. Nothing made sense. Underlying his confusion was the thought that tears didn’t belong in Ariel’s eyes. Her eyes were for laughter. “The boy’s your nephew?”

  “Jeremy and his wife died late last winter.” She couldn’t go to him now; she could see he wasn’t ready. And neither was she. “His grandparents, the Andersons, were appointed guardians. He’s not happy with them.”

  Not her child, Booth thought again, but her brother’s child. He waited to gauge his own reaction and found he was still hurt, still angry. Whether the boy was her son or not hadn’t been the issue. She’d blocked that part of her life from him.

  “I think,” Booth said slowly, “that you’d better start at the beginning.”

  Ariel opened her mouth, but before she could speak, someone pounded on her door. “Phone for you, Ariel, in N
eal’s office. Urgent.”

  Banking back frustration, she left the room, heading for Neal’s office. So much to explain, she thought. To Booth and to herself. She rubbed her temple with two fingers as she picked up the phone. “Hello.”

  “Ms. Kirkwood.”

  “Yes, this is Ariel Kirkwood.” Her frown deepened. “Mr. Anderson?”

  “Scott’s missing.”

  Chapter Twelve

  She said nothing. Only seconds passed, but a hundred thoughts raced through her mind, tumbling over each other one at a time so that none was clear. Every nerve in her stomach froze. Vaguely she felt the ache in her hand where she gripped the receiver.

  “Ms. Kirkwood, I said that Scott is missing.”

  “Missing?” she repeated in a whisper. The word itself brought up too many visions. Terrifying ones. She wanted to panic, but forced herself, by digging her nails into her palm, to talk, and to listen carefully. But even the whisper she forced out shook. “How long?”

  “Apparently since around eleven o’clock. My wife thought he was next door, playing with a neighbor’s child. When she called him home for lunch, she learned he’d never been there.”

  Eleven . . . With a sick kind of dread Ariel looked at her watch. It was nearly two. Three hours. Where could a small boy go in three hours? Anywhere. It was an eternity. “You’ve called the police?”

  “Of course.” His voice was brisk but through it ran a thread of fear Ariel was too dazed to hear. “The neighborhood’s been searched, people questioned. Everything possible is being done.”

  Everything possible? What did that mean? She repeated the phrase over in her mind, but it still didn’t make sense. “Yes, of course.” She heard her own words come hollowly through the rushing noise in her head. “I’ll be there right away.”

  “No, the police suggest that you go home and stay there, in case Scott contacts you.”

  Home, she thought. They wanted her to go home and do nothing while Scott was missing. “I want to come. I could be there in thirty minutes.” The whisper shattered into a desperate plea. “I could help look for him. I could—”

  “Ms. Kirkwood,” Anderson cut her off, then breathed deeply before he continued. “Scott’s an intelligent boy. He knows where you live, he knows your phone number. At a time like this it’s best to admit that it’s you he wants to be with. If he—if it’s possible for him to contact anyone, it would be you. Please, go home. If he’s found here, I’ll call you immediately.”

  The single phrase ran through her mind three times. If it’s possible for him to contact anyone . . .

  “All right. I’ll go home. I’ll wait there.” Dazed, she stared at the phone, not even aware that she’d replaced the receiver herself. Marveling that she could walk at all, she moved to the door.

  Of course she could walk, Ariel told herself as she pressed a hand to the wall for support. She could function—she had to function. Scott was going to want her when he was found. He’d be full of stories and adventures—especially if he had the chance to ride in a police car. He’d want to tell her about all of it. The phone would probably be ringing when she opened her front door. He’d probably just been daydreaming and wandered a few blocks away, that was all. They’d be calling, so she should get home quickly. Her legs felt like rubber and would hardly move at all.

  Booth was brooding over the picture of Ariel and Scott when he heard the door open. He turned, the paper still in his hand, but the questions that had been pressing at him faded the moment he saw her. Her skin was like parchment. He’d never seen her eyes look vacant, nor had he expected to.

  “Ariel . . .” He was crossing to her before he’d finished speaking her name. “What is it?”

  “Booth.” She put her hand on his chest. Warm, solid. She could feel the beat of his heart. No, none of it was a dream. Or a nightmare. “Scott’s missing. They don’t know where he is. He’s missing.”

  He took a firm hold of her shoulders. “How long, Ariel?”

  “Three hours.” The first wave of fear rammed through the shock. “Oh God, no one’s seen him in three hours. Nobody knows where he is!”

  He only tightened his hold on her shoulders when her body began to shake. “The police?”

  “Yes, yes, they’re looking.” Her fingers curled, digging at his shirt. “They don’t want me to come, they want me to go home and wait in case he . . . Booth.”

  “I’ll take you home.” He brushed the hair away from her face. His touch, his voice, was meant to soothe. “We’ll go home and wait for the call. They’re going to find him, Ariel. Little boys wander off all the time.”

  “Yes.” She grabbed on to that, and to his hand. Of course that was true. Didn’t she have to watch him like a hawk when they went to the park or the zoo? “Scott daydreams a lot. He could’ve just walked farther than he should. They’re going to call me . . . I should be home.”

  “I’m going to take you.” Booth kept hold of her as she took a disoriented study of the room. “You change, and I’ll let them know you can’t tape this afternoon.”

  “Change?” Puzzled she looked down and saw she still wore Amanda’s nightshirt. “All right, I’ll hurry. They could call any minute.”

  She tried to hurry, but her fingers kept fumbling with the most basic task. She needed her jeans, but her mind seemed to fade in and out as she pulled them on. Then her fingers slid over the snap. She tried to think logically but the pounding at the side of her head made it impossible. Holding off the nausea helped. It gave her something tangible to concentrate on while she fought with the laces of her shoes.

  Booth was back within moments. When she turned to look at him he could feel her panic. “Ready?”

  “Yes.” She nodded and walked out with him, one foot in front of the other, while images of Scott, lost, frightened, streamed through her head. Or worse, much worse—Scott getting into a car with a stranger, a stranger whose face was only a shadow. She wanted to scream. She climbed into a cab.

  Booth took her icy hand in his. “Ariel, it isn’t like you to anticipate the worst. Think.” He put his other hand over hers and tried to warm it. “There’re a hundred harmless reasons for his being out of touch for a few hours. He might’ve found a dog, or chased a ball. He might’ve found some fascinating rock and taken it to a secret place to study it.”

  “Yes.” She tried to picture those things. It would be typical of Scott. The image of the car and the stranger kept intruding. He had no basic fear of people, something she’d always admired in him. Now it filled her with fear. Turning her face in to Booth’s shoulder she tried to convince herself that the phone would be ringing when she opened the front door.

  When the cab stopped, she jerked upright and scrambled for the handle. She was dashing up the steps before Booth had paid the driver.

  Silence. It greeted her like an accusation. Ariel stared at the phone and willed it to ring. When she looked at her watch, she saw it had been less than thirty minutes since Anderson’s call. Not enough time, she told herself as she began to pace. Too much time. Too much time for a little boy to be alone.

  Do something! The words ran through her mind as she struggled to find something solid to grip on to. She’d always been able to do something in any situation. There were answers, and if not answers, choices. But to wait, to have no answer, no choice but to wait . . . She heard the door close and turned. Her hands lifted, then fell helplessly.

  “Booth. Oh God, I don’t know what to do. There must be something—anything.”

  Without a word he crossed to her, wrapped his arms around her and let her cling to him. Strange that it would have taken this—something so frightening for her—to make him realize she needed him every bit as much as he needed her. Whatever doubts he’d had, and whatever anger had lingered that she’d kept part of her life from him, dropped away. Love was simpler than he’d ever imagined.

  “Sit down, Ariel.” As he spoke, he eased her toward a chair. “I’m going to fix you a drink.”


  “No, I—”

  “Sit down,” he repeated with a firmness he knew she needed. “I’ll make coffee, or I’ll see about getting you a sedative.”

  “I don’t need a sedative.”

  He nodded, rewarded by the sharp, quick answer. If she was angry, just a little angry, she wouldn’t fall apart. “Then I’ll make coffee.”

  The moment he went into the kitchen she was up again. Sitting was impossible, calm out of the question. She should never have agreed to come back and wait, Ariel told herself. She should have insisted on going out and looking for Scott herself. It was useless here—she was useless here. But if he called and she wasn’t there to answer . . . Oh, God. She pressed her hands to her face and tried not to crumble. What time was it?

  This time when she looked at her watch she felt the first hysterical sob build.

  “Ariel.” Booth carried two cups of coffee, hot and strong. He watched as she shuddered, swallowing sobs, but the tears ran freely.

  “Booth, where could he be? He’s hardly more than a baby. He doesn’t have any fear of strangers. It’s my fault because—”

  “Stop.” He said the word softly, but it had the effect of