The problem was the desire didn’t reside only in his friend down there. He wanted to wrap his arms around Kira and blend into her until he couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. He wanted to kiss her and hold her and taste every part of her. He wanted her to trust him, but then, he couldn’t let her do that.
“Thank you,” she said. “For dinner. For taking me to the hospital.”
“My pleasure,” he replied, and meant it. He paused. “You probably should have someone here tonight.”
“I have my super-duper alarm system Chris had installed.” She took a step back. It could have been a mile for the emotional distance it put between them.
“Alarm systems can be breached.”
“And you would know this, how?”
“Believe me, I know,” he said grimly.
“I’ll have my cell phone beside me all the time,” she said lightly. “Chris promised that the police would patrol often.”
“Okay,” he agreed. She obviously didn’t want him to stay, and he sure as hell knew he shouldn’t.
He left before he said anything else. He walked to the car, wondering how she’d so dismantled the cool, calm, and analytical Max he’d built so carefully.
He looked at his watch. Ten p.m. The security company he’d hired would have someone here at 7:00 a.m. He would stay around until they arrived. He didn’t have her faith in security systems.
Kira didn’t sleep. She tried. She went to bed. Mussed it up with her tossing. It wasn’t fear. At least not of unknown bad guys.
She feared her own uncertainty. She’d wanted to ask Max to stay. Wanted it more than anything other than her mother getting well. She ached for him. Her body kept reminding her of what it was missing.
She didn’t want to remember that all she needed to do was hold out a hand to him. She didn’t want to think how close she had come to doing that.
She got out of bed and went to the computer. Then she remembered that hers was gone, and Chris had the one Max had brought. He wanted to make sure there were no spy ware programs. He promised to have it back later today.
The television had been destroyed. She usually watched late at night after returning from a visit to Mom. She was always too emotionally depleted to sleep, so she usually found some mindless show and allowed it to put her to sleep.
A mental list: Get computer. Buy television. Check on insurance claim. Start the diary for the newspaper. Her editor had given her a gift of time. She needed to use it.
She finished the list and stared at it. Scenes flickered through her mind like a kaleidoscope. Max. Leigh with her horse, Silver Lady. The painting of Leigh’s mother. And photos of Kira’s mother. Both today and as she remembered her three years ago. The attack at the MARTA station. Her house after the burglary. She wanted to stop the spinning images, but she couldn’t. She closed her eyes tight as she thought of Karen Westerfield. Had she been happy until her death? Had she loved her child?
Had she known that Leigh was not her natural child? Had she tried to exchange a sickly one for a well one? Or had she been an innocent victim as well?
So many questions whirled around her head, all of them starting with why. Why had a baby exchange taken place? Why was she attacked? Why was her mother’s home trashed?
Why? Why? Why?
She finally fell into a restless sleep. It was shattered when the phone rang.
She looked at her watch. Eight a.m. She picked up the phone. “Hello.”
“Hi. Wade here. I know I told you that you could have the next several weeks free. But I need you tonight. Diane’s baby is sick and she can’t cover the public forum on the budget tonight. You’re the expert on it. Can you possibly make it?”
“Of course,” she said. “I’ll be there.”
“Oh, and the managing editor approved the diary idea. He thinks it’s a great idea. So after tonight, you’re free.”
“Thanks, Wade.”
He hung up without answering.
She looked outside. The sun was climbing high in the sky.
She called Chris.
“Can I get the computer back?”
“Yeah. I didn’t find anything suspicious, but just in case, I installed a firewall program. It’ll disable any spy program.”
“Great. I’ll drop over and get it, if that’s okay.”
“Sure. I have some stuff to tell you as well.”
“Important?”
“I’m not sure. Just some impressions. I saw Leigh last night.”
“I’m on my way,” she replied.
She hung up, showered and dressed quickly, and was out of the door in twenty minutes. She would eat later. Any news was welcome.
Chris’s home was only ten minutes away. He opened the door as she approached. Archie must have warned him.
Archie greeted her ecstatically. He danced around, chasing his tail and looking ridiculous.
Chris shrugged. “What can I say?”
“He’s perfect,” she said. “I would take him in a New York minute if I was at home more. Maybe when Mom comes home …”
“You’ll have to find another. We’ve gotten used to each other. It wasn’t easy for either of us. Come in. Have a cup of coffee. You look hungover.”
“Thanks,” she said wryly.
“No sleep?”
“Not much. The clock keeps ticking. I feel so damned helpless.”
“I’m sorry the donor kidney didn’t work out.”
“It seems fate is working against us.” She changed subjects. “You saw Leigh. Will she go ahead with the DNA test? Do you think there’s any chance she might give a kidney?”
“She said she would take the test,” he said as he scooped coffee into the automatic coffeepot. “She says she’ll do it because she knows it’ll prove she is Karen Westerfield Howard’s biological daughter. Still, she did ask some questions about you and your mother. She also wanted to know what I knew about the attacks against you.”
“Do you think she could be involved?”
“I don’t think so, but then, I’ve been wrong before.”
“So we’re nowhere.”
“Not really. I said I had some ‘impressions.’ I think she really is thinking about the possibility of your mother being hers. She doesn’t want to admit it. Maybe she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it. But the curiosity is there. That’s a step forward.”
Not much of one.
“Max Payton took me to see Mom last night,” she said. “He said he didn’t want me to go there alone.”
“He’s right. I don’t want you alone, either. Call me when you have to go somewhere.” He hesitated, then added, “Be careful with Max Payton.”
“Why?”
“Just be careful. He has a pretty big stake in what happens with the Westerfield fortune. There’s also precious little information on him before he joined Ed Westerfield.”
“What do you mean?”
“No birth records, at least not in this state or any surrounding ones. No information at all until he started college at twenty. I couldn’t find school records. There’s a certain mystery about him.”
“Shouldn’t the college have high school records?”
“If they did, they’ve disappeared.”
“Maybe he was overseas. There’re lots of possible explanations,” she suggested, even though she saw him raise his eyebrows.
“Maybe,” he said doubtfully. “But I really think you should have someone with you all the time now. Someone other than Max Payton.”
She shook her head. “I won’t be careless, but neither will I have a guard around me twenty-four hours a day.”
“What about today?” he asked.
“I’m going to see Mom. Buy a television and a few other things I need. Then I have to work tonight. A city council forum where they present the budget to the public. After that, I can work at home for the next few weeks.” She told him about her new assignment.
“Sounds perfect.”
“It’s a lifesave
r. It means I can spend more time with Mom and keep up with the nationwide shortage of kidney donors. Maybe we can convince more people to designate themselves as organ donors and make their relatives aware of their wishes.”
The coffeepot beeped. Chris poured them both a cup, and they sat at the round breakfast-room table.
“What about Payton? Did he say anything?”
“He thinks she’ll eventually agree, too, but I don’t think either of them is aware that we have only days left.”
“I tried to emphasize that.”
At least he didn’t make the excuses for Leigh that Max had. Still, she heard a faint strain of sympathy in Chris’s voice as he talked about her.
She had no sympathy. Her mother could die because Leigh Howard was diddling. If only she could legally force her …
“Have you found an attorney for me? Maybe if she thought she would lose the house and horse and clothes and everything else, she would reconsider.”
He held out a card. “I already talked to her. Agnes Black-well. She’s expecting you to call. I explained most of it, and she’s intrigued with the legal questions involved.”
She’d heard of Ms. Blackwell. She was considered one of the most accomplished attorneys in Atlanta.
“I can’t afford …”
“She’ll do it on contingency. If you win, she’ll take ten percent of the settlement. If not, well, her loss.”
“Ten percent is low, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but it’s a case that’s certainly going to garner press. And more business.”
“And if I want to drop it because Leigh agrees?”
“I mentioned that. She’ll charge for the time spent, but you can take your time in paying it back.”
More bills, but she had no choice. Hopefully just the threat of a suit would spur Leigh Howard to act.
“I’ll call now.”
A secretary answered and put her through to the attorney. In minutes, she had an appointment for 1:00 p.m. At least she was doing something.
“Okay, I’m off,” she said.
“I’ll go with you.”
“No. I’ll be out in public most of the time. You have other things to do. I will be very, very careful. No lonely MARTA stations. No walks at night alone, or even in lonely places in the daylight. I will stick to other people like glue.”
She stopped at the door. “Thank you, Chris. I can’t say that too many times. Not only for what you’re doing on the case, but for being a rock for me to hold on to.”
“Your mom was that for Risa.”
“For me, too.”
She said good-bye then. She had things to do.
She reached her mother at three. She’d spent an hour and a half with the attorney, who was practically salivating at taking the case. It would be high profile.
If it went further than Kira desired. She warned Agnes Blackwell that her one motive was a kidney. Not money. She wasn’t sure the attorney had listened. How long did she have before the news broke?
Her mother was awake. The television was on, but her mother was looking out the window to the hall. She saw Kira, started to smile, then it faltered. “What’s wrong, baby?”
“I want to manufacture a kidney for you, and I can’t,” Kira said.
“You always did want to conquer the world. Nothing less would do.”
She held out her hand and Kira took it.
“You look tired,” her mother said. “Much too tired.” Then her eyes focused. The old sharpness returned. “Something else is wrong. You were worried before. There’s more, isn’t there? Is it money? Your job? You’ve been spending so much time here.”
Kira didn’t want to lie. But now there was a moral dilemma. Could she tell the truth and risk the shock to her mother’s health? Her mother always knew when she lied, or shaded the truth. It was as if she wore a big placard around her neck reading, “Liar.”
But it wouldn’t be long now before the media started a feeding frenzy. The lawsuit would be all over the news—local and national. It was far better coming from herself. She took a deep breath.
Kira squeezed her mother’s hand. “I know you didn’t want me to donate a kidney. But I had the tests taken, anyway. I hoped you would change your mind if there was a match.”
Her mother’s gaze didn’t move from her. In fact she looked stronger than she had in days. As if she’d been saving her strength all day to confront her. She still wanted to be the mother, not the child.
“I thought you would,” she said. “But then you didn’t say anything so I thought the tests didn’t give you a match.”
She was close. But she could never guess at the entire truth. No one could.
“I did take the tests. And no, I wasn’t a match.” She hesitated. “There’s something else, though.”
Her mother stared at her. “That bad?”
“Maybe. Maybe good. Maybe really good.”
“Go ahead, kitten. Spill it.”
Kira had no idea where to begin. But her mother’s fingers tightened around hers.
“We’re a team, kitten. Always have been. Nothing you say can change that.”
While Kira knew that, she also knew that she would be turning her mother’s world upside down just as hers had been.
“I’m not your genetic daughter, Mom.”
23
Kira didn’t think her mother’s face could age any more than it had during the past two months. Now she watched it do exactly that.
“Are you sure?” Katy Douglas whispered after Kira related the details. Or most of them. She purposely left out the burglary and suspected attempt on her life.
“I had a second DNA test taken after the first said I wasn’t your biological daughter. It was sent to a different lab. Same results. I’m not your blood daughter, but you’re my mother in every way that counts.” Emotion welled up in her throat. Maybe the truth hadn’t seemed real until this moment. She’d heard that when someone died, loved ones felt a numbness akin to a state of shock. Emotional and mental self-protection. She realized her mother was going through the same process. Disbelief.
“I love you,” Kira said softly. “I didn’t want to tell you until I fixed it.”
Her mother smiled wanly. “My little crusader. You always want to make everything right. Didn’t matter if it was a neighbor’s broken bike or a kid that was bullied. How did you think you would fix this?”
“I don’t know,” Kira said. She didn’t want to say she was trying to blackmail her mother’s real daughter into donating a kidney. She knew exactly what her mother would think of that.
“How could it have happened?” her mother asked.
“I don’t know that, either. It could have been a mix-up in the delivery room.”
“I never had any trouble in my pregnancy,” her mother said. “Never. And I had all the tests. I couldn’t understand …” Her voice trailed off, then she started again. “Who is she? Do you know?”
Kira nodded. “Her name is Leigh Howard.”
Her mother didn’t react. She obviously had no connection to the name. “I want to see her,” Katy Douglas said after a moment.
“I … don’t know if I can arrange that right now. She doesn’t … think it could be true.”
“What about her family?”
“There isn’t any left. Her … parents were killed in a car crash when she was six. Her grandfather died two years ago. She doesn’t have any siblings.”
Her mother’s eyes filled with tears. Her hand pressed deeper in Kira’s. Kira felt the flood of emotion passing into her, the sudden pain of loss that was raw and excruciating. It was just hitting her mother now and would take her time to digest, just as it had taken Kira time.
“You’ll always be my daughter,” her mother said. “Always. And I couldn’t ask for a better one.” She shifted on the bed. “So much. You’ve had so much on your shoulders. You’ve always been my Kira, my light. You will always be my daughter. Oh, Kira, I love you so much.”
�
��I know,” Kira whispered. “And I’m so lucky that someone gave me to you.”
Kira didn’t know how long they stayed that way, clutching each other’s hands in a world turned upside down. Her mother’s eyes finally closed, and Kira leaned back, reluctant to go, even more reluctant not to be there when her mother woke.
A nurse came in to take vitals, and Kira looked at the clock. It was getting late, and she had to get to the meeting.
Her heart heavy, she went outside and waited for the nurse to come out.
“How is she?” she asked.
“She’s hanging in there.”
“She’s tough,” Kira said. She paused, then added, “I gave her some bad news today. She took it really well, but can you check her frequently tonight?”
“Of course. I’m on duty until midnight.”
“I’ll call and see how’s she doing.” She already knew all the nurses by name and the number from memory.
The nurse placed a comforting hand on her arm. “She’s one of our favorites. We’re all praying for that new kidney.”
“So am I.”
Kira hurried down the hall. She had thirty minutes to get to city hall.
Seth decided to call Leigh. He’d been fuming ever since she told him that someone was claiming to be a Westerfield cousin. An heir to the estate.
It had galled his grandfather, father, and himself that his great-grandfather—Dan Westerfield—had left nearly everything to his second son, Ed, and very little to the first son who had been raised by his mother’s family. They’d been the poor cousins, part of the family but only on the fringes.
But his resentment had always been aimed at Ed, just as his father’s was. Leigh was a victim of Ed Westerfield as much as his family had been. In truth, he’d been a little in love with her during her wild, reckless days. He knew, though, that society would never approve and even in his teens he’d planned to go into politics, just as his father had. Unlike his father, who had never gone beyond state politics, Seth intended to to be a U.S. Senator someday. Maybe even go higher.
He’d always hoped that when Ed Westerfield died, he would make right a fifty-year-old wrong. No such luck. Seth had received a small stipend, and Leigh had been tied in knots by a trust controlled by an outsider.
Behind the Shadows Page 17
