Her voice ended in a shriek.
Brian found his watch on her dressing table and clasped it on. Then he looked at her.
“I didn’t need to come here for the story,” he said, and didn’t care that it wasn’t, strictly speaking, the truth. “If you think I came over here to soften you up with sex for a story – well, you don’t know me, Emma. You don’t know me at all. I came here because you were upset and you needed someone and I didn’t want you to be alone.”
Emma got up from the bed, the sheet wrapped around those luscious breasts. For a second, Brian felt a pang. He wouldn’t be seeing those again. The next second, he dodged as she picked up a crystal clock from her bedside and threw it at his head.
It shattered against the wall behind him, and the sound seemed to stun her as much as it did him. Damn, if he hadn’t ducked, he’d be on his way to the hospital – if he were lucky.
She seemed as shocked by her action as he felt. But in the wake of shock came a sudden fierce disgust. He crossed the room to her and caught her wrist in his grip.
“Don’t,” he said carefully, “ever do that again. You do, and I won’t hesitate to press charges. Get that god-awful temper under control, and get over yourself. Your brother’s been found, yes, you’re upset, you have a right to be. But you have no call to question how anyone else feels about it, and you sure as hell don’t have the right to try to kill me.”
He turned and walked out. After a few seconds, she followed him down the stairs, and he heard her muttering as she tried not to trip on the sheet. Well, to hell with her. She was fun in the sack, and she could be fun out of it when she wasn’t eaten up by jealousy, but she was way more trouble than she was worth. Those three husbands of hers should count themselves lucky.
Thank God he hadn’t gotten in any deeper.
He retrieved his jacket from the family room and turned to leave. She was standing in his way, and she was crying. Again.
“Brian. Please don’t go. I’m so sorry.”
He stepped around her.
“Brian, please! I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
He opened the door.
“Listen,” and now she sounded desperate. This must be a first for Emma St. Bride, a man walking away from her. She was used to cracking the whip. “You want the story? I’ll give it to you! I know everything about Cat Courtney, and I mean everything! I don’t care about her, I can help you blow this wide open—”
He said briefly, “I’ve got everything I need on Cat Courtney,” and stepped outside.
Even wrapped in a sheet, in the middle of the day, she – unbelievably! – followed him out onto the circular drive. Good thing the St. Brides had a hedge wall and a hundred feet between them and the road, or the neighbors would be getting an eyeful. “Brian, please! Please! Don’t go.”
He stopped at his car and fumbled for his keys. He needed to get back to the station anyway, start putting together his afternoon taping. This wasn’t how he’d intended to accomplish his mission, but his source had, indeed, confirmed for him what he had needed.
“I’ve got work to do, Emma,” he said, and he didn’t care how hard his voice sounded. Never had he met someone more in need of comeuppance. “Some of us don’t get born into investment banking families. Some of us don’t get left millions by our brother. Some of us have to work to get where we want to go in life, and, sweetheart, that includes me, and that includes your sister-in-law. That girl came from nothing, did you know that? She made something of herself, and she should be proud of what she’s done. I’m trying to make my way too. So – if milady doesn’t mind—” all right, so he was pouring on the sarcasm, but what the hell— “I’m going back to work. See you around.”
He started to slam the door and thought better of it. No use taking his anger out on his car. He wasn’t stooping to her level.
“Brian, you can’t just walk away—”
Yes, he could. He said, “Take a class in anger management, Emma,” and started the car.
She stood there, still wrapped in her zillion-count sheet, watching as he drove off and, he hoped, out of her life. But he caught one last glimpse of her, and she was sobbing.
Where did the woman find all those tears?
~•~
Amy Stewart was a worrywart. At work, she drove her admin nuts, double-checking and triple-checking every trust transaction. At home, she drove her husband nuts, concerned that she had overlooked paying a bill or making an important phone call. She drove her pediatrician nuts, calling about every cough or snuffle, terrified that her child had come down with some rare and untreatable disease. She drove herself nuts, afraid that her husband might get killed in an accident coming home from work.
It didn’t matter how many times she heard about the lilies of the field and letting each day take care of itself – she worried.
She fretted all day about whether she should have posted so much information online. Even though the family bulletin board was private, there were just so many ways that search engines could uncover the most minute information. At the investment bank, she had even attended a security lecture on that very subject – so what had she done? Plastered Cat Courtney’s real name on the Internet without a thought.
She wondered anxiously if she should tell Lucy to warn her sister. Lucy would not be happy. Mel had even sent out an email to the Queen Bees after the party: Don’t say anything to anyone about Lucy’s sister. The family is very upset about Diana’s revelations – let’s not add to their problems. Laura wishes to remain private.
Not that stupid Diana hadn’t blown that to smithereens.
She tried to delete the post, but she didn’t have delete rights. Her father had set up the board, and only he had admin rights to delete posts. She thought about calling him, but he and her stepmother had gone off for the weekend.
So she worried. And stewed. And wished she had written her brother an email instead.
It was early evening before he replied. He had the sense not to post anything; instead, he sent her an email, complete with a picture of a group sitting around a table, drinks in front of them and obligatory smiles on their faces. She gave it a hurried glance. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just a bunch of lawyers, or bankers, or stockbrokers. Nothing she didn’t see every day.
Hey, sis! Lake Sam is crowded, as always – took us over an hour to get lakeside to launch the boat this morning. Great weather, cool and clear. No thunderstorms. Sorry to hear about the storm there, but it sounds like you guys got through it just fine.
I don’t remember hearing about this St. Bride, but of course so many were killed that day. His wife is the interesting one, isn’t she? Weird she turns out to be this singer, who I never heard of until now, but I looked her up and she has quite a following in Europe. Can see why from the pictures. You ought to try to snag her as a client. She probably has a hell of a portfolio.
Speaking of pictures – your singer friend has a twin!
Must be some truth to that old saw about all of us having a doppelganger. Your mystery girl definitely has one. You can’t see the resemblance in her official pictures on her web site, but as soon as I saw your picture of her signing autographs, it rang a bell. Take a look at the woman in gray in the attached pic. She’s at the back of the table between the big beefy guy and the one with the mustache.
I saw her at a conference down in San Diego about three years ago. A group of us went out for drinks, and Beefy asked her if she wanted to go along. I don’t remember her name, but she was very pregnant at the time. She worked at one of the banks in Seattle – SeaWest Group, as I recall, but I looked on their Web site, and I don’t see her in the trust department lineup. She may have moved on. I did notice that SeaWest lists St. Bride Investments as a reciprocal bank, if that means anything.
She was a funny girl, very outgoing, kept us in stitches with stories her husband had told her – ER doctor, I believe. The mustache guy was trying his best to hit on her. Some guys don’t know when to quit! She wasn�
��t having any of it, but I remember she was a remarkably pretty girl. I don’t know if you can see her that clearly, but trust me. She was a dead ringer for your singer friend.
Feel free to send this to your friend. Sorry I can’t remember more.
“Oh,” said Amy Stewart. “My. God.”
She reached for the phone to call Lucy, just as her baby started to make noises for dinner. Her milk immediately let down in response. She paused long enough to forward the email to Lucy and went to scoop up her son.
~•~
Brian Schneider taped his market segment and went home, worn out in body and in spirit.
It might lack the magnificence of the St. Bride mansion, but his little house in McKinney looked safe and comfortable as he pulled into the driveway. No outsized piano hinting at mysterious careers and secret identities. No madwoman throwing a crystal clock at his head. No weeping willow wrapped in a sheet begging him to stay and flooding the driveway with tears.
Just an evening alone, eating Chinese takeout and planning his now-approved Virginia trip.
It had proved impossible to reach either Lucy Maitland or Diana Ashmore, but, after Emma’s inadvertent confirmation of Cat Courtney’s identity, his editor had given him the needed go-ahead to book his flight. He had a tentative appointment with Lucy Maitland on Monday – the man who had answered the phone at her law office, identifying himself as Thomas Maitland and sounding harried and distracted, had said that she would be in then. He had the evening to relax from an exhausting day and the night to catch up on the sleep he hadn’t gotten the night before.
By mid-evening, Brian had five pages of ideas to pursue and another five of questions for Cat Courtney, if and when he found her. He needed to relax and recharge. He sat down in his recliner, picked up the remote to start cycling through the cable channels, and heard the doorbell ringing several times in rapid succession.
One look through the peephole, and he groaned. He should have known that no man could say no to Emma St. Bride and hear the last of it. She was standing on his doorstep – how she had found him was another story, he was sure he hadn’t given her his home address – but she wasn’t crying anymore. She wasn’t dressed in one of her fancy Egyptian cotton sheets, either. She looked the way she had when he had first seen her: well put together, perfectly made up, an elegant woman with too much money and too much time on her hands.
Her expression, though, was something else. She looked mad enough to throw another crystal clock.
He contemplated, for half a second, letting her stew on the front step. But knowing Emma, she was completely capable of standing there all night, starting a ruckus if it suited her. And it was night – and he didn’t like the idea of a woman standing alone even in a nice suburban neighborhood.
He opened the door.
She said instantly, “I need to talk to you.”
And she brushed past him, without waiting for so much as a come-in.
He stared after her. She really had her back up – literally, she was marching into the family room with the posture of a four-star general. He shook his head to himself, and then closed the door and followed her.
“You shouldn’t have come here, Emma—”
She cut across his voice. “You’re a journalist, right? That’s what you said today.”
“Yes, but—” She was sitting down on the sofa, not making herself comfortable, but assuming a negotiating posture. She had a fancy designer briefcase with her that had probably cost a month of his salary. He shoved back the stunned feeling at her chutzpah and said, “Emma, we have nothing to say to each other. I thought I made that clear this afternoon.”
She looked up at him calmly, and he saw now that her eyes were clear and cool. No hint of tears, nothing but a steady, hard gaze. “You put two and two together, you said. You figured out about Cat Courtney from a few stray comments.”
“Yes, but—”
“Good,” said Emma St. Bride. “I need someone to investigate my sister-in-law.”
When he recovered from his shock at her assumption that she could snap her fingers and expect him to fall to, he uttered a sound of exasperation. “I’m not for hire.”
“I’m betting you are.” What a cool customer she was. He had to admire her. It couldn’t be easy, coming to the house of a man who had rejected her outright. “And not for the money, I won’t insult you, although I’ll be glad to pay all expenses. I think you like a challenge, Brian, and I’ve got one for you. One,” she opened her briefcase, “on your very favorite subject. Little Miss Cat Courtney.”
She pulled out a folder and shoved it into his unwilling hands.
“Read that,” and it was not a request. “Read the section on the DNA.”
DNA. She had his attention now, and without reading it, he had a premonition of what she must have found. “Oh, for God’s sake, Emma. If you think I’m going after a kid—”
“Read it,” said Emma, cold, deadly, calm.
He had to read it several times before it made any sense to him – he could discuss the intricacies of the international bond market on a second’s notice, but the mysteries of biology had never interested him, and he had to pick his way carefully through the unfamiliar terms. What he gathered, finally, was that, out of three DNA samples submitted for Cameron St. Bride, two had matched.
Emma was jumping to conclusions. After what had happened, it was a miracle that anything had matched. They had had only the tip of his ring finger to work with.
And heaven only knew that one remnant had gone through hell.
Brian put the paper down slowly on his seen-better-days coffee table. “What were the DNA samples?”
“See?” She nodded approvingly – the subordinate had performed well – and he glimpsed the CEO Emma St. Bride could have been if her brother hadn’t been such a chauvinist. “We sent three. The first one was a blood sample taken by his doctor, and that’s a match, of course. The other two, I sent.”
“And they were?” How had she gotten Meg St. Bride’s DNA? If what Emma was implying had any truth to it, Laura St. Bride would never have permitted such a sample to be taken.
“A blood sample from me,” said Emma. “And a nail clipping from Meg. We visited Ground Zero a few months ago, and I did Meg’s nails for her that night while Laura and Mark went out walking. I thought perhaps the medical examiner’s office might need another DNA sample, since they hadn’t been able to ID him so far, and what better sample can you have than a man’s own child?”
He understood now, but he had to point out the obvious. “With all due respect, what makes you think Meg’s sample is the one that didn’t—”
Emma interrupted, “Because my brother and I were the spitting image of our mother, that’s why, and if you read this, it says the mitochondrial DNA matched. That’s the mother’s DNA. Meg’s sample has to be the one that failed. And if you’ve ever seen Meg – I don’t know how that bitch tricked Cam, but she did.” She pulled her wallet out of her handbag. “Here,” she said, and thrust it at him, “take a look.”
Brian looked down at a picture of an impish little gamin with a sudden feeling of déjà vu. It was true, she had nothing of St. Bride in her, not from the pictures he had seen of the man. She certainly looked nothing like Emma except for the don’t-tell-me-what-to-do set of her mouth. She did bear a slight resemblance to her mother, but, even so, it was difficult indeed to see how Laura St. Bride had gotten away claiming her as St. Bride’s child.
But of course she hadn’t gotten away with it. Not at all, even if Emma was too blind to see what had happened.
If he hadn’t known better, he wouldn’t have even thought this could be Laura’s child. This kid had attitude. Hard to reconcile that with the sad-eyed girl on the Missing web site.
Something tugged at the back of his mind.
And what a different light this cast on St. Bride. Not a schmuck who had seduced a girl twelve years his junior, but a man who had married an unwed mother and adopted her child. He di
dn’t buy that Laura had pulled the wool over her husband’s eyes about this or anything else; St. Bride had always known. He’d taken on the child to win the mother.
He wondered when they had met. Sometime after she had left home, he’d bet, out in California.
He handed the picture back. “You realize, of course, that your brother adopted Meg?”
Which made the prospect of finding Meg St. Bride’s birth certificate even more problematic. Scratch that idea.
For a moment, Emma looked flummoxed, but then she recovered. “You don’t know that.”
“No, but I can be reasonably sure about it.” He felt more in control now – dangerous, ever, to let Emma St. Bride get the upper hand. “Your brother was no one’s fool. He didn’t get another man’s child foisted on him without knowing the score. You said he was a control freak, so you can bet he made sure the birth father could never make a claim. So – what do you want me to investigate?”
She started to open her mouth, and he added, “Understanding that I will not be a party to destroying the peace of a kid. She’s lost her father once. I won’t help you do that to her again.”
For a moment, silence. Emma’s eyes fell. She hadn’t expected the scenario of a voluntary and undoubtedly legal and airtight adoption; she had seen only the specter of a deceitful, grasping girl who had tricked a man in the cruelest way.
That’s your weak spot, Emma, you don’t see that people can act from the heart. You can’t accept that your brother was not a victim of a girl too young and probably too desperate to trick anyone. You can’t accept that maybe she loved him and not his money and that’s why she stayed with him.
You don’t trust anyone. No wonder you keep getting divorced.
Being Emma, she found her composure in record time. She lifted her chin and looked him straight in the eye. “I want the truth,” she said, and Brian didn’t believe her for a second. “If you don’t help me, I’ll find someone who will.”
All That Lies Broken (Ashmore's Folly Book 2) Page 42
