Birthright

by Nora Roberts

  “And did you pass your interest in the business to your daughter? The way you passed your name. Do they call you Dory, too?”

  She stiffened and saw out of the corner of her eye that Doug blocked the hallway door while Lana stood by the pocket doors. “Dot,” she said after a moment. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Lana Campbell, Callie Dunbrook’s attorney. This is Douglas Cullen, her brother. Jessica Cullen’s brother.”

  “How many babies did you help sell?” Doug demanded. “How many families did you destroy?”

  “I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about. I want you out of my house. If you don’t leave immediately, I’ll call the police.”

  Doug stepped to the side, picked up the phone. “Be my guest. We’ll all have a nice, long talk.”

  She snatched the phone, spun away to the far side of the room. “Get me the police. Yes, it’s an emergency. You have some nerve, coming into my home this way,” she snapped. Then she jerked up her chin. “Yes, I want to report a break-in. There’s a man and woman in my house, refusing to leave. Yes, they’re threatening me, and they’ve made upsetting statements about my daughter. That’s right. Please hurry.”

  She clicked the phone off.

  “You didn’t give them your name or address.” Lana started forward, threw up her hands as Dorothy heaved the phone at her.

  “Nice save,” Doug commented when she made a fumbling catch inches before it smacked into her face. He took both Dorothy’s arms, pushed her into a chair. “Hit redial.”

  “Already did.”

  It rang twice before she heard a breathless voice say, “Mom?”

  She hung up, cursed, then dragged her address book out of her bag. “She called her daughter. Damn it, I should’ve memorized Callie’s cell number. Here.” She punched numbers quickly.

  “Dunbrook.”

  “Callie, it’s—”

  “Jesus, Lana, will you quit?”

  “Just listen. It’s Dory. We found Dorothy Spencer. We found Carlyle’s secretary. Dory’s her daughter.”

  “No mistake?”

  “None. Dot Spencer just called her. She knows.”

  “All right. I’ll call you back.”

  “She’ll be okay,” Lana told Doug as she disconnected. “She knows who and what to look for now. She won’t get away,” she added as she walked toward Dorothy. “We’ll find her, just as we found you.”

  “You don’t know my daughter.”

  “Unfortunately, we do. She’s a murderer.”

  “That’s a lie.” Dorothy bared her teeth.

  “You know better. Whatever you and Carlyle did—you, him, Barbara Halloway, Henry Simpson—whatever you did, you didn’t resort to murder. But she did.”

  “Whatever Dory’s done was to protect herself, and me. Her father.”

  “Carlyle was her father?” Doug asked.

  Dorothy sat back as if perfectly at ease, but her right hand continued to open and close. “Don’t know everything, do you?”

  “Enough to turn you over to the FBI.”

  “Please.” With a careless shrug, Dorothy crossed her legs. “I was just a lowly secretary, and one blindly in love with a powerful man. A much older man. How could I know what he was doing? And if you ever prove he was, you’ll have a harder time proving I was involved.”

  “Barbara and Henry Simpson can implicate you. They’re happy to.” Doug smiled to add punch to the lie. “Once they were promised immunity, they had no problem dragging you in.”

  “That’s not possible. They’re in Mex—” She broke off, tightened her lips.

  “Talk to them lately?” Lana made herself comfortable in the opposing chair. “They were picked up yesterday, and they’re already being very cooperative. They’re already building a case against you. We’re only here now because of Doug’s personal interest. We wanted to talk to you before you were taken in for questioning. You didn’t get out in time, Dot. You should’ve run.”

  “I’ve never run. That idiot Simpson and his trophy wife can say anything they want. They’ll never have enough to indict me.”

  “Maybe not. Just tell me why,” Doug demanded. “Why did you take her?”

  “I took no one. That would’ve been Barbara. There were others, of course.” She drew a breath. “And, if and when it becomes necessary, I can and will name names. For my own deal.”

  “Why take any of them?”

  “I want to call my daughter again.”

  “Answer the questions, we’ll give you the phone.” Lana set it in her lap, folded her hands over it. “We’re not the police. You know enough about the law to understand that nothing you say to us is admissible. It’s hearsay.”

  She stared at the phone. Lana saw the genuine worry. She’s afraid for her daughter, she thought. Whatever she is, she’s still a mother.

  “Why did he do it?” Doug pressed. “All I’m asking you is why he did it.”

  “It was Marcus’s personal crusade—and his very profitable hobby.”

  “Hobby,” Lana whispered.

  “He thought of it that way. There were so many couples with healthy bank balances who couldn’t conceive. And so many others who were struggling financially who had child after child. One per couple, that was his viewpoint. He handled a number of adoptions, legitimate ones. They were so complicated, so drawn out. He saw this as a way to expedite.”

  “And the hundreds of thousands of dollars he earned from the sale of children didn’t enter into it.”

  She sent Lana a bored look. “Of course it did. He was a very astute businessman. Marcus was a powerful man in every way. Why weren’t you enough for your parents?” she asked Doug. “Why wasn’t one child enough? In a way, they were surrogates for another couple. One who desperately wanted a child and had the means to support that child very well. Who were loving people in a stable relationship. That was essential.”

  “You gave them no choice.”

  “Ask yourself this: If your sister was given the choice today, who would it be? The people who conceived her, or the parents who raised her?”

  There was conviction in her voice now. “Ask yourself that question, and think carefully before you continue with this. If you walk away, no one else has to know. No one else has to be put through the emotional turmoil. If you don’t walk away, you won’t be able to stop it. All those families torn apart. Just for your satisfaction.”

  “All those families torn apart,” Lana said as she rose, “so Marcus Carlyle could make a profit from playing God.”

  She handed Doug the phone. “Call the police.”

  “My daughter.” Dorothy sprang to her feet. “You said I could call my daughter.”

  “I lied,” Lana said, and took great personal satisfaction in shoving the woman back into the chair.

  Twenty-eight

  A few hundred miles away, Callie scrambled out of a six-foot hole even as she clicked off her cell phone. It was temper that propelled her up and out, that had her lips peeling back from her teeth when she spotted Dory briskly crossing the field toward the cars and trucks parked on the side of the road.

  She shot off in a sprint, cutting through the mounds, leaping over a stunned Digger by the kitchen midden.

  It was his instinctive shout that had Dory whipping her head around. Their eyes met, one thudding heartbeat. Callie saw it then—the rage, the acknowledgment, the fear—then Dory broke into a run.

  Through the buzzing in her ears, Callie could hear other shouts, a quick, surprised laugh, a blistering guitar riff from someone’s radio. But all that was distant, down some long, parallel tunnel.

  Her focus had fined down to one goal. She saw nothing but Dory. And she was gaining.

  When Bob crossed Dory’s path, he came into Callie’s field of vision, his clipboard in his hand, his mouth moving to the tune of whatever played in his headset. He went over like a tenpin, papers flying, as Dory rammed him.

  Neither woman slowed pace. He was still flat out when Calli
e pumped her legs, flew over him and, using the momentum, plowed her body into Dory’s.

  The force sent them both sailing over buckets and tools, an airborne instant before they hit the ground with a jar of bones and a tangle of limbs.

  There was a red haze in front of her eyes, a primal, violent beat in her blood. She heard someone screaming, but her own breath only grunted out as she used fists, feet, elbows, knees. They rolled over dirt, grappling, clawing. Something sharp dug hard into Callie’s back, and her eyes watered with the bright pain as her hair was viciously yanked.

  She scented blood, tasted it, then kicked in blind fury as she was lifted straight up into the air.

  She couldn’t separate the sounds that rose around her. She could see nothing but the woman on the ground, people gathering around her. She kicked back, hard, then went down again with a thud. Even with her arms pinned she fought to free herself so she could fall on Dory again.

  “Stop it! Goddamn it, Callie, stop or I’m going to have to hurt you.”

  “Let go of me. Let go! I’m not finished.”

  “She is.” Jake tightened his hold, struggled to get his own wind back. “From the looks of it, I’d say you broke her nose.”

  “What?” The mists were clearing. Her breath was in rags, her hands still fisted. But the wild rage began to level. Blood was spilling out of Dory’s nose, and her right eye was already swollen. As Leo tried to mop up the damage, Dory moaned and wept.

  “She’s the one,” Callie panted out. “She’s the one.”

  “I got that part. If I let you go, are you going to jump her again?”

  “No.” Callie sucked in a wheezing breath. “No.”

  “Hell of a tackle, Dunbrook.” He loosened his hold but didn’t release her. It took some maneuvering to shift himself so that he crouched between her and Dory. After a brief study of her face, he winced. “Man, look at you. She landed a few.”

  “I don’t feel anything yet.”

  “You will.”

  “Move aside, Jake. I’m not going to hit her again, but I’ve got something to say to her.”

  Cautious, he kept a hand on her shoulder, moved enough for her to lean past him.

  “Shut up.” Though she looked directly at Dory as she spoke, everyone else dropped into silence. “The tackle was for Rosie.”

  “You’re crazy.” Still weeping, Dory held both hands up to her bruised face and rocked.

  “The nose, that’s for Bill. The black eye, we’ll give that to Dolan.”

  “You’re crazy, you must be crazy.” On a pathetic sob, Dory held up her blood-smeared hands as if in plea to the rest of the team. “I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

  “Any other damage,” Callie continued, “we’ll just chalk up to you being a lying, murdering bitch. And what’s to come is for what you helped do to my family.”

  “I don’t know what she’s talking about. She attacked me. You all saw it. I need a doctor.”

  “Jeez, Callie.” Frannie bit her lip and huddled behind Dory. “I mean, jeez. You just jumped on her and started punching. She’s really hurt.”

  “She killed Bill. And she put Rosie in the hospital.” Her hand snaked out, grabbed Dory by her torn shirt before anyone could stop her. “You’re lucky Jake pulled me off.”

  “Keep her away from me,” Dory pleaded as she cringed back. “She’s lost her mind. I’m going to have you arrested.”

  “We’ll see who spends tonight in jail.”

  “I think everybody should calm down. I think everybody should just calm down.” Bob raked his fingers through his messy hair. “That’s what I think.”

  “You’re sure about this, Callie?” Leo demanded.

  “Yeah, I’m sure. They’ve got your mother, Dory. But you know that already. It’s all falling apart on you. It started falling apart when Suzanne recognized me. You worked hard to keep it together. You killed to keep it together. But you’re done now.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Well.” Leo let out a windy sigh as he got to his feet. “Let’s call the police and sort this out.”

  Jake dabbed antiseptic on the claw marks along Callie’s collarbone. He’d moved her away from the rest of the team, leaving them tending to Dory.

  He glanced over his shoulder, noted that Bob was patting Dory’s shoulder and Frannie offering her a cup of water. “She’s smart, and she plays a good game. She’s working on convincing everybody you went after her out of the blue.”

  “It won’t stick. Doug and Lana have Dorothy Spencer in Charlotte. That’s enough of a connection to convince Hewitt to take her in for questioning.”

  “She’s not here alone.”

  Callie hissed out a breath. Lana’s call had wiped everything but Dory out of her mind. “I wasn’t thinking. I just acted. But damn it, Jake, she would’ve gotten away. She was heading for the cars. She’d’ve been gone if I hadn’t gone after her.”

  “I’m not arguing with that. You stopped her; she had to be stopped. We can count on Doug and Lana to give the Charlotte cops the picture. We’ve got more pieces, and we’ll put them together until we have the whole picture.”

  “She ate meals with us. She cried over Bill, and after the trailer went up, she worked harder than anyone to clear the site.”

  “And she’d have killed you if she could.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Now she’s going to work all the angles. So we’ve got to be—”

  “Calm and focused,” she finished. “I need to get up, move around before I’m stiff as a plank. Give me a hand?”

  He helped her up, watched her take a few limping steps. “Babe, you need a soak in hot water, a rubdown and some good drugs.”

  “Oh boy, do I. But it can wait. Maybe you could call the troops in Charlotte, let them know we’ve got Dory under wraps.”

  “Yeah, I’ll take care of it. Stay away from her, Cal.” He noted the direction of her stone-cold gaze. “I mean it. The less you say to her, the less she knows. And the more you’ll have to give the cops.”

  “I hate when you’re logical, rational and right.”

  “Wow. I bet that hurt, too, didn’t it?”

  It made her smile, and curse as her lip throbbed. Then she squared her shoulders as she saw the sheriff’s cruiser pull up. “Well, here we go.”

  Sheriff Hewitt folded a piece of gum into his mouth. He kept his attention on the deputy who helped Dory into another cruiser for transportation to the ER.

  “It’s an interesting story, Dr. Dunbrook, but I can’t arrest a woman for murder on your say-so.”

  “It’s more than my say-so. The dots are all there. You just have to connect them. She’s Marcus Carlyle’s daughter, by Dorothy McLain Spencer, who was his secretary. She lied about who she was.”

  “Well now, she says not. Isn’t denying the blood kin, just saying that she’s who she says she is.”

  “And didn’t bother to mention it when Lana’s office went up, when Bill was killed, when she knew that I was looking for Carlyle and anyone linked to him.”

  He blew out a breath. “Says she didn’t know about that.”

  “That’s just bullshit. Are you going to believe that she just happened to show up on this project? The daughter of the man who’s responsible for kidnapping me just happens to join my team?”

  “Fact is, you just happened to show up on this project. But I’m not saying I believe her.” He held up a hand before Callie could explode. “There’s a few too many coincidences to suit me, and she’s one of them. That’s a long way from charging her with killing that boy, or Ron Dolan. Can’t even prove she was here when Dolan was killed. I’m going to be talking to her further. I’m going to be talking to the Charlotte police and the FBI. I’m going to do my job.”