“Getting to the bedroom.” He turned down the hall.
“Sounds so traditional.”
“Practical. It’s where I keep the extra condoms.”
Chapter 22
Kane rolled Annie off his arm and, making as little noise as possible, slipped out from under the sheets. Bare feet fell against the bedroom carpet as he rounded the bed. Bending over, he slid Annie’s journal from its hiding place between the mattress and box spring, watching her sleeping face the entire time.
After successive bouts of lovemaking and hours of tasting and entering her, his muscle strength hovered at an all-time low. Exhaustion pulled at him, luring him back to his pillow and to her soft skin.
Hell, he doubted he could lift the coffee pot. But he had to move.
Wearing her out not only satisfied his body’s needs, it served his purpose. He had to have her out of the way while he read through her journal. Since sleep seemed to be the one time he could trust her, this was the perfect solution. Tire her out, then conduct an investigation.
He scooped his jeans and underwear off the kitchen floor and quickly dressed. By the time he sat in the hard chair with the binder open in front of him, he was wide awake.
Page after page, her secrets came to life. Articles about her mother, a frail-looking woman from a wealthy California family. About her father, the hard-driving executive who worked hard and died before Annie left the playground. Society Page features on the glory couple and their beautiful red-haired little girl. The family photos mirrored the distance between the parents and the coldness behind her mother’s eyes.
He couldn’t imagine that life. His parents split and his dad remarried and followed a military career all over the United States, but his mother stuck around. Though little money, no child support and a series of dead-end jobs, she always smiled. Always had food on the table. Always insisted on a clean home. She lived only ten more years after her marriage ended. She got married at eighteen, gave birth to Kane at nineteen and died right before turning forty. She lived to see her grandson born. Holding Derek filled her with great pride. Kane viewed it as a blessing that his mother never had to watch his sister suffer a slow death from the disease that appeared to claim the women in his family.
Annie had the benefit of a mother, but they didn’t appear close. There were huge gaps in the journal’s timeline. No photos of graduations or birthdays past the teen years. The pages picked up again much later, less than two years ago, with articles about Cliff Radnor. The Society Page linked this Radnor guy with Annie’s mother. No photos, just blurbs about where they’d been and gone.
Still no Annie.
He flipped another page and came face-to-face with Sterling Howard. The caption identified him as Cliff Radnor, but it was Howard. Howard looking pissed about having his photo taken. Sure, different hair. A different look. The same guy.
He scanned the article. An engagement announcement for Radnor and Annie’s mom. The thing didn’t even mention Annie. Just referred to the new couple and how each lost a spouse early in their previous marriages. It was as if Annie didn’t exist in her mother’s life.
“That couldn’t be good,” he said to the quiet room.
Then the journal pages changed. The articles told about the exploits of several men. Showed a timeline. Marked out the men on a map. “What the hell?”
“They’re all the same guy.” Annie spoke from the doorway.
“Annie.”
“They’re all Sterling Howard, or Cliff Radnor, or Mitch Conwell or whatever name he used at the time. Same guy.”
Her even voice scared the hell out of him. He never heard her coming. Never saw her face look so drawn and pale.
“Annie—”
“I wondered why you ran from the bed so fast.”
She had to be kidding. He couldn’t run to the truck…if he still had one. “You fell asleep.”
“You thought I did. I saw you sneak out and felt the mattress tip.” She shoved away from the wall and walked into the kitchen.
“Got up. There was no sneaking involved.”
She hitched her chin in the direction of the journal. “A very clever hiding place, by the way.”
So much for his undercover skills. The days of covertly looking for leads appeared to be over. He couldn’t even fool a woman knocked into a dead sleep by sex.
“You knew I had the journal, and that I intended to read it. This isn’t a surprise,” he said.
She sat in the chair across from him and reached for the sugar packets. “Why the con?”
“I haven’t lied to you.” He hadn’t confided in her either, but that was different.
“Then why add sex into the mix?”
“Separate issues.” He slid the journal closer to him in case she tried to take it.
“Only a man would think so.”
“Is it that strange that a man would want to know more about the woman he’s sleeping with?” The argument seemed rational to him.
She didn’t think so. She put the most negative spin on it possible and used a surly tone that matched her words. “It’s the use of sex to get to the journal that bugs the hell out of me, and you know it.”
“The last few days, the two of us in bed together, were inevitable. That would have happened with or without the journal. One didn’t follow the other.”
“Look at the clock, Kane. That’s exactly what happened. You jumped out of bed with me to stick your nose in my journal. In my business.”
He clenched the sides of the journal as his anger rose to match hers. “You wouldn’t tell me the truth. You didn’t give me a choice but to hunt it down.”
“So, it’s my fault you stole my property.”
“Give me a break. You’ve been lying and hiding ever since we met. You’re ticked now because you got caught, not because I’m doing anything wrong.”
She shot him a sad smile. “And now you think you know how I feel.”
“The one thing I know about you is how you feel. I’ve spent hours figuring out exactly how every part of you feels.”
A charged silence filled the small room. Other than the hum of the appliances, there was no sound.
She met his gaze, held it for a second or two, then glanced away, clearly uncomfortable with the intimacy of his comment. When she spoke again, her voice returned with steady control.
“Sterling Howard is a fraud. He gets his jollies out of conning rich widows out of their fortunes.”
The stiffness across his shoulders eased. This conversation, this topic, he could handle. “Bastard.”
She continued to build her tiny pink packet wall and tell her story. The design reminded him of the one she made in the diner.
“He’s used a number of aliases over the years. Howard is the newest. From what I could figure out, he cut a path from Florida to Chicago, to San Francisco to Seattle and now to Kauai.”
“A world traveler.”
“A disgusting con man.”
Her body never stopped moving. Her hands. Her feet. As she talked about Howard and his history, a weariness crept back into her voice, and a new sadness shadowed her eyes.
His first thought was to provide comfort. Offer a shoulder to cry on. But she needed to get the story out. No con. No scam. Just let it out.
He’d tagged Howard for a drug dealer. Josh couldn’t find a history on him before Kauai. Not one that stood up. A clean record and a few tracks, but none of it looked real. Their inclination was to look at Howard as Sam’s contact. Now Kane wondered if Howard’s network went in a different direction.
“What did he do?” Kane tried to keep his voice as soothing as possible.
“He doesn’t work. Doesn’t have to. Apparently there’s a long line of dumb women willing to fall for him and turn over their assets in blind lust.”
There it was. The anger and desperation. The very personal ache.
“Including your mother.” Kane whispered the conclusion.
“Yes.”
He flipped another page
. The next photo, grainy and black-and-white, showed Annie walking into an imposing building. The way her skin pulled taut against her cheeks and tension radiated off her body in the article mirrored her face and body now. Kane decided that discussing this topic must mentally drag Annie back to that same place.
“Read the caption.” The strain in her voice intensified.
Kane suspected he wouldn’t like what he was about to read. “Annie Parks visits her mother, Victoria Redfield Parks of Kirkland, at Western State Hospital. The tragic case of love and fortunes lost continues to baffle close friends.”
He stopped reading and glanced up at her. “If you bite any harder, you’ll go right through your lip.”
“My mother and her current home,” Annie said as if lost in another world.
“What happened?”
“Radnor, or Howard, whatever you want to call him, destroyed her. Took everything. Left her.”
As with most things about Annie, the story didn’t fit together. Pieces were missing. “I get that Howard scammed her. How did she get—”
“He destroyed her. What he did went beyond a scam. He preyed on weak women. My mother fit the profile. He killed her mind and left her broken.”
It was what she didn’t say that told him the most. “What did you think of Radnor when you met him?”
She got up and walked to the sink. Her back stayed toward him as she stared out the window and across the scaling mountains behind his property.
“Never did.”
More pieces. “I don’t know my Seattle geography real well, but isn’t where you live near this Kirkland suburb and near this hospital?”
When she turned back around, her skin had blanched to the color of chalk. She leaned against the edge of the sink and grabbed the counter behind her. “Yes.”
“So?”
“My mother and I lost touch. By the time I found out about the upcoming wedding and got to her, Radnor was gone. So was her money.”
Money. Kane turned the idea over in his head, then discounted it. Annie didn’t care about the money. Nothing about their time together suggested a pecuniary motive. No, she cared about revenge. For what sin, he wasn’t quite sure, but Annie had a mission. A purpose. And all roads led to Sterling Howard.
Kane hated Howard before. He loathed Howard now. A guy who used women for their money, maybe children as cover for his drug trade, and hid behind the recluse label. No one on Kauai asked questions so long as Howard threw his money around and gave to the right charities. Locals viewed him as an outsider, but a decent one. Money bought him acceptance. Other people’s money.
The history explained Howard’s tendency to back out of photo opportunities. Unlike many other wealthy residents, Howard never wanted the fame that went along with the money. No wonder. People thought his absence showed his desire to stay private and give for the sake of giving. The real answer had to do with Howard’s need to hide his face.
Annie’s knuckles turned white from the force of her hold on the linoleum. “Do you feel better now that you know the truth about me? My mother is insane and Howard caused it. That’s it.”
That wasn’t it. Last he checked, being poor didn’t usually drive people insane. He could understand how losing everything might break someone who never had to work for a living, but there was more to this story. Annie’s strained relationship predated Howard’s actions.
“Better? No.” That was the truth. He felt something, but not better. Frustrated. Concerned. Definitely not better. “There’s something else.”
“I’ve told you—”
“The investigator you hired is missing.”
“You knew—” Color rushed into her face. “You knew about all of this and made me tell you anyway? All of that talk about me having secrets. How dare—”
“Whoa.” He rose from the chair to stand in front of her. “Josh found out about the investigator when he found out your name and basic information. Everything else remained a mystery.”
The steam behind her renewed outrage dissipated a bit. “Where’s Jed now?”
“Missing means no one knows. Someone burned down his office and all his files. Like your stuff, there’s nothing left.”
Her hands dropped from the counter. “What?”
“Josh has some people looking for him.” The idea of sparing her flashed in his head. He shoved the thought aside as soon as it came. She deserved better than that. “We suspect Jed’s dead.”
She shook her head so fast he was surprised she didn’t make herself dizzy. “No. You’re wrong. That can’t be true. No.”
Kane grabbed her shoulders to steady her. “When did you last talk to him?”
“Before I got here…Wait. You don’t think that I had something to do with Jed disappearing, do you?”
Not for a moment. “No.”
“I would never—”
The woman never listened. “I said, no.”
“But you think he’s dead. Like Manning.”
Kane crowded her back against the counter and trapped her there between his arms. “Right, but not by your hand.”
“Two deaths and both connected to me. I find it hard to believe you’re not looking at me for this.” Rather than touch him, she folded her arms across her chest.
He tried not to be offended by the slight. “You sound as if you want me to believe the worst. I can have Ted interrogate you if that will make it feel more official.”
“What a lovely offer.”
“Look, no one is blaming you for Manning’s death. Dietz wants me, not you.”
“Just wait until he finds out about my history.”
Since she was willing to talk, he decided to take advantage of the opportunity. Eventually she would shut down, and he’d be stuck again. “Were you really on board the Samantha Ray for a photo shoot?”
“Yes. Manning hired me. I arranged to be available and made sure I was his only option, but he didn’t know that part. He thought everything was legitimate. I didn’t share any of my concerns about Howard.”
“Clever.” And cold-hearted. This warm woman lost her glow, even her spunk, when talking about Howard and her vow to find him.
“That’s why killing Manning doesn’t make any sense.”
“Killing for sport rarely makes sense.” Kane wanted to say it never happened, but it did. Too often.
All emotion disappeared from her face. Her lips, everything, went flat. Kane couldn’t figure out what he’d said to cause that reaction, but something was going on in that mind of hers.
“The itinerary included a cruise out to the Napali Coast. It’s on the northwest side of the island,” she explained.
Interesting how tourists always tried to tell locals about the sites. “Yes, my haole friend, I know where Napali is.”
“Haole?”
“Basically means white person in Hawaiian.”
“Why do I think it’s a slam?”
He tried to swallow his smile. “It’s a legitimate word, but some folks do use it in a less than respectful way.”
“Gee, thanks for that.”
“My only point was in keeping with the Hawaiian saying, ‘I grew here; you flew here,’ which means I know all about the island. I was born and raised here. Have hiked Napali several times. You don’t need to give me a geography lesson.”
“Well, I didn’t know about the area. I looked it up on a map and couldn’t imagine why Howard wanted to go to a wilderness area that could only be reached by water and air. He’s not exactly known for welcoming hardship.”
“And hiking.”
“What?”
“You can hike there, too. Hike, air or water.”
If she frowned any harder, her forehead would be at her chin. “It’s supposed to be a twenty-mile hike. I checked because I thought the sunsets and views might make a good shoot. Don’t tell me hiking that distance is your idea of fun.”
He’d hiked more miles than that at a time, but they’d wandered way too far off topic already. “
Eleven miles and, yes, it’s one of the most scenic areas in Hawaii. Twenty-plus acres of rocky, unspoiled coast. There isn’t a bad shot from there.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Could we get in with a camera? Maybe by helicopter. Get some—”
Way too far off topic. “Finish your story. Sterling Howard.”
“Right. Well, I wanted to find Howard’s paperwork and see if there was anything in his files to incriminate him.”
The way she described her plan, with such a calm disposition, made Kane even angrier. She had no idea what kind of risk she was taking by getting that close to Howard. The guy was a heartless bastard. She needed to run as far and as fast as she could in the other direction. Let the professionals take over.
“Are you fucking crazy?”
Her eyes went wide at his reaction. “What’s wrong with you now? How did I offend your Hawaiian sensibility this time?”
“You could have gotten yourself killed.” All sorts of horrors flashed through his mind. Her in a ditch. Her sprawled in a yacht stateroom in a puddle of her own blood.
“I got myself thrown overboard, so I came close.”
Her flippant attitude sent his temperature soaring. “This isn’t funny, Annie. There are people who do this work. Professionals. You may have heard of them; they’re called police.”
“I tried that. The Seattle PD wouldn’t listen and Howard got away. It took me months and months to find him again. Even then, I had to spend a small fortune on an investigator to do the tracking. Now that professional is missing.”
“You’re here. On Kauai. My island.”
“So?” She rubbed the bottom of one sneaker over the laces of the other.
“You’re in my house and my bed. Eating my food. Damn it, you’re sleeping with the police chief.” The words choked off before he asked one question too many. He refused to ask. Wouldn’t beg.
He pulled back from her, putting a few feet of air between their bodies. Blowing up at her wouldn’t accomplish anything.
“Kane—”
Nope, didn’t work. He had to ask the question. “Why not come to me? Let me help?”
There it was. At the bottom of everything he couldn’t understand that simple flaw in her plan. All the resources of the DEA and police department were at her disposal, and she chose secrecy.
Your Mouth Drives Me Crazy Page 17
