by Meryl Sawyer
“Why?” Taylor asked. “Couldn’t they have children?”
“No. Mary Jo got knocked up when she was fifteen. Some country doctor butchered her during the abortion.”
Taylor’s gaze shifted in his direction for a fraction of a second, and he knew what she was thinking. This would explain why a young, healthy man like Caleb would adopt a child.
Renata closed an eye and placed a square of cotton soaked in some solution on it. Even with just one eye directed at them, her expression was positively feral. Shane knew Renata Rollins had seen as much of the world as he had.
Maybe more.
When he’d watched her onstage, he’d figured her for another stripper with more silicone than brain cells. The kind of woman who should come with the surgeon general’s warning label stamped on her forehead.
Now he could see he was mistaken. Not about the silicone; those boobs were not original equipment. But that didn’t mean Renata wasn’t smart.
Actually, he’d bet she was more cunning than intelligent, the kind of person who relied on her instincts.
“Things mighta’ been okay,” Renata continued, “but Mary Jo up and died leaving Caleb to raise me.”
“Caleb was mean to you?”
“Caleb? Mean?” Renata dropped the cotton square and peeled off a set of false eyelashes. “Nah, not really. Gramma Alma was the meanest bitch to walk the earth.”
Again silence filled the room, but outside the striptease had reached a crescendo with men yelling and stomping until the floor beneath Shane’s feet trembled. The bouncer had edged closer. No doubt he was getting an earful.
“Do you know of any records—anywhere—that could prove who your real parents were?” Taylor asked, her frustration and annoyance evident.
Renata had another square of cotton over the other eye. “Nope.”
“Look, my mother is very ill. She gave up a baby a long time ago in a town near where you were adopted. Mother wonders if you might—”
“She can wonder all she wants.” Renata peeled off the other strip of false eyelashes and flung it down on the table. “I don’t know and I don’t give a shit. I have my life. Why should I care about some rich bitch who waits until the grim reaper is calling to look for her child?”
“You’re wrong,” insisted Taylor. “Mother began searching just after my father died. She wasn’t ill then.”
“Big fucking deal. She didn’t want him to know she wasn’t Miss Perfect, so she waited until he was gone. Why should I care if she ever finds her kid?”
“Renata had a point, you know,” Taylor told Shane. “Mother didn’t want my father—or anybody—to know she isn’t perfect. She’s always been so concerned with … appearances.”
They’d returned to Windsor Court and he was sitting with Taylor on a sofa in the deserted lobby. Brianna had gone upstairs to call her husband. At two o’clock in the morning? Obviously, the old geezer kept her on a short leash, Shane decided.
“Yeah, well, meeting Renata should blow your mother away.”
Taylor gazed at him with eyes that reflected more hurt than any woman her age should have suffered.
“I don’t want my mother to have to deal with Renata. You heard her. She’s a hard-as-nails stripper who hates the woman who gave her up for adoption.”
Shane could see her point. Renata probably would be unnecessarily cruel to Vanessa Maxwell. Why expose a woman so ill to this?
“If and it’s a big IF—Renata was ever adopted. I’ll bet it’s all an act like the performance she gives when she strips.”
“What about your mother’s money?” Shane asked before he could stop himself. “That’s another reason to hope Renata isn’t the missing baby. Your mother would leave her a bundle, wouldn’t she?”
“I suppose.” The insolence in her blue eyes and the defiant set of her lips sent an erotic charge through him.
“It’s not the money I’m worried about. It’s my mother’s mental state. Knowing you’re going to die is one thing. This is another.”
Shane believed Taylor. She was tough in some ways, but she wasn’t the type who could lie easily and get away with it. Her face, her eyes revealed too much.
Trent and his lover, Raoul, were another story. So was good old Uncle Doyle. Only a man with an IQ in the minus column wouldn’t know the money angle worried Doyle Maxwell.
Shane hadn’t had a chance to do an in-depth analysis of To The Maxx, but even a preliminary report showed how wealthy Vanessa Maxwell was. Trent and Taylor had small trusts and modest salaries. They both stood to gain by Vanessa’s death, especially if To The Maxx was acquired by one of the big cosmetics companies.
From what he’d seen, Vanessa was having a major guilt trip about the baby she’d given up for adoption. If she even thought Renata was her child, the stripper would certainly appear in her will.
Who knew? Renata might finagle her way into getting a chunk of money right now, if they actually met.
This could get interesting.
“What am I going to tell Mother?” Taylor asked. “It’s too late to call her now, but I’ll have to talk to her in the morning.”
He picked up on the pleading note in her voice, her eyes. The situation was forcing her to deal with him. He’d thought he was going to have to rely on Auggie to break the ice, but this unexpected twist of fate changed things.
Come to think about it, Lady Luck had been on his side—for once. He’d deliberately sought out Taylor. He hadn’t expected to find a vacancy in her building, but there you go.
Luck was with him.
He certainly hadn’t anticipated having this case dumped in his lap. Again, he’d gotten lucky.
“What can you tell your mother? The truth. We don’t have a clue. This woman might be her daughter or maybe not.”
“What do you think? Is Renata the real thing?”
Shane changed positions but resisted the urge to move closer to Taylor. She wasn’t treating him like shit any longer, yet he wasn’t a fool. It was too soon to make the slightest move. Her riveting eyes narrowed as she waited for an answer.
“Is Renata the missing baby? I wouldn’t bet one way or the other.”
“Come on. You must have some opinion.”
His sixth sense told him Bassett and his daughter were scam artists, but he could be wrong.
“My opinion is that Renata is very clever. Caleb has to have told her how much your mother is worth. Yet she acts as if she doesn’t give a damn. She loves her life as a stripper in a two-bit dive. I’m not buying it.”
“So you think she’s a fraud.”
“A fraud? Not exactly. Has she claimed to be the missing baby? No. Caleb says she is. DNA would be proof positive.”
“Considering Mother’s condition, we may not have time to wait for the results. Are you sure we couldn’t slip one of the good labs some money to do a test?”
Taylor’s appraising look, instead of putting him down—told him that she honestly valued his opinion. Way to go, Donovan.
“Like I told you in Miami, labs have priority lists. Barry Scheck—one of O. J. Simpson’s attorneys—heads up the Innocence Project at Cardozo Law School in New York. They use DNA to prove convicted prisoners are not guilty.”
“Really? How can prisoners afford him?”
Shane smiled. “He does it gratis for convicts who can’t pay. Celebrities he charges big time.”
“I know DNA has cleared several men.”
“A lawyer like Scheck knows exactly where everyone is on the lab’s waiting list. There’d be hell to pay—if we even tried to get around them.”
“You’re right,” Taylor agreed with a sigh. “Some prisoners have been in jail for years. It wouldn’t be fair to make them wait a day longer than necessary if they’re innocent.”
The dusky sweep of her lashes and slightly parted lips made him want to put his arm around her, but once again he held himself in check. Instead, he kept talking. “Someday every police station will have the ability to run
the tests themselves.”
“Really?”
“Yes. There are even field kits the size of laptop computers that can be used anywhere. Testing is going on right now.”
“How do you know all this?”
He tried for a teasing smile. “If I tell you, I’ll have to shoot you. It’s classified.”
“You worked for the military. That’s how you got your dog.”
“There you go, clever girl. You figured it out.”
“What did you do?”
“A little of this, a little of that.”
A suggestion of a smile touched her lips. “Sounds exciting.”
“I guess you’re the type who’s easily excited.”
“Oh, stop. Be serious.”
Her voice had an almost intimate quality to it that brought him up short. For a moment, Shane was tempted to tell her the truth. But the truth was a double-edged sword.
Chapter 7
Taylor opened the door just a crack, expecting room service to be delivering her morning coffee, and found Brianna outside her hotel room. It was obvious she’d been crying.
“What’s the matter?” Taylor pulled Brianna into the room.
“It’s Doyle,” Brianna said. “He’s having an affair.”
“What?” Taylor gasped. “I don’t believe it. He’s crazy about you.”
Brianna flopped down onto the unmade bed. “I tried calling him all last night. He wasn’t home.”
“Maybe he had to go somewhere on business,” Taylor suggested, although she couldn’t imagine what would take her uncle out of the city.
“He wouldn’t go away without leaving me a message.” Brianna twisted her pear-shaped wedding ring in a circle, the early morning light catching the facets of a diamond as big as a doorknob.
“Maybe something came up,” Taylor said with as much conviction as she could muster.
Brianna kept fidgeting with her ring, spinning it in circles. For a moment, she didn’t say anything. Taylor noted the sadness in Brianna’s eyes and knew she truly did love Uncle Doyle.
“He needs sex … all the time,” Brianna said.
Taylor swallowed hard. Uncle Doyle? Sex all the time? Maybe. What did she know?
For some reason Taylor thought of Shane Donovan. Now there was a man who would need sex all the time.
“Brianna, you’ve only been gone one night,” Taylor replied. “My uncle loves you. He wouldn’t—”
“You don’t know men the way I do.”
Brianna stood up, her disheveled blond hair falling across her face, and Taylor noticed this was the first time she’d seen Brianna without makeup. Even in the harsh morning light, Brianna glowed from within, a natural beauty that most women couldn’t duplicate with all the cosmetics in the world.
“Brianna, my uncle went through quite an ordeal to marry you. I can’t believe he’s just gone off and had an affair because you’re away one night.”
“Not an affair. A one-night stand. Typical of men.”
Bitterness underscored every word. Taylor couldn’t help imagining what Brianna’s life had been like before she’d married Uncle Doyle. She’d worked in a seedy club like Renata.
“What am I going to do?” Brianna asked. “How will I get him back?”
“You haven’t lost him. I’m certain there’s a reasonable explanation—”
Brianna tossed her mane of blond hair from side to side and rushed toward the door. “No. I’m all alone again.”
“Wait! You’ll never be alone. I’m your friend. Don’t you understand that? I’m with you no matter what happens.”
Brianna looked over her shoulder, tears glistening in her eyes. “You mean it?”
“Of course. We’re friends, right?”
Brianna gazed down at the carpet beneath her bare feet. “I guess. I thought you … put up with me because of Doyle.”
Taylor saw no reason to varnish the truth. “That’s how we met, but since then, I’ve come to appreciate you as a person. No matter what has happened with Uncle Doyle, I’m still your friend.”
“Thanks, I had no idea—”
The brring-brring of the telephone interrupted Brianna. Taylor dashed across the room to answer it. “Hello.”
It was Uncle Doyle. “What’s happened to Brianna?”
“Nothing.” Taylor waved Brianna toward her. “She’s right here. We were talking.”
Taylor handed Brianna the telephone, then walked over to the window to see what the weather was like. Clouds with leaden underbellies promised more rain. She couldn’t help listening to Brianna explaining to Doyle about Renata’s being a stripper. They talked a few minutes, then Brianna hung up without asking Doyle where he’d been.
“Why didn’t you ask him about last night?”
Brianna shrugged. “He’d just lie. That’s the way men are.”
Taylor cradled the telephone receiver in the palm of her hand, but couldn’t bring herself to dial her mother’s number. Brianna had left fifteen minutes ago, and Taylor knew her mother was expecting the call. She could almost see her mother lying on her bed, propped up by an armada of Frette pillows, watching the telephone on her nightstand.
Taylor forced herself to punch in the number. Her mother answered on the first ring.
“Hello. It’s me. How are you feeling?”
“Did you meet Renata? What did you think?”
The breathless quality in her mother’s voice caused Taylor’s throat to tighten. Her mother had so much emotional investment in finding her missing daughter. It alarmed Taylor more and more.
“Mother, we … Brianna and I and Shane Donovan have grave doubts about Renata Rollins. There’s not a shred of evidence she’s your child. She certainly doesn’t look anything like you—not at all.”
“She must take after her father.”
Taylor hesitated a moment, considering how to break the news about Renata’s occupation. “Renata is working in a club here … as a stripper.”
Two beats of silence. “She takes off her clothes in front of men?”
“Yes, she does,” Taylor replied, although this didn’t quite cover the risqué performance. “It’s a vulgar, disgusting act.”
“Oh, my.” An audible sigh came over the line, and Taylor could just imagine the disapproving grimace on her mother’s face. “She must have had a terrible life to take up stripping.”
“I’m not sure why Renata works as a stripper. She seems bright enough to hold down a good job.”
Taylor didn’t add what Shane had told her. Many strippers doubled as prostitutes, and that accounted for the bulk of their income.
“I spoke personally with Caleb Bassett before you went there,” her mother said. “He seemed to think—”
“Mother, I’ve met the man. He’s … charming but a little strange.” As much as she hated to, Taylor mentioned the private detective. “Shane thinks he’s a hustler. There just isn’t any proof this stripper is your child. The woman is a con artist, that’s all.”
A muffled silence followed and Taylor heard the soft rustle of the silk comforter her mother kept over her. Even in the Miami heat, she was now cold all the time. Taylor sucked in a stabilizing breath, realizing, yet again, she would soon lose her mother.
“I want to meet Renata.”
Oh, no. Have mercy, Taylor thought. Nothing good could come of this.
Quite possibly, Renata would cause her mother’s condition to become worse. Taylor too clearly recalled the spite in Renata’s voice when they’d been discussing her mother.
The rich bitch.
“Mother, don’t put yourself through this. Take my word for it. This woman is not your daughter.”
“I still want to meet her.”
“What good would meeting Renata do?” Taylor asked, her voice sharper than she’d intended.
“I’m sure if I saw her, spoke with her … I’d know.”
Taylor put her hand over her eyes, imagining her vulnerable mother meeting Renata. Before this illness her
mother would have been disgusted by a stripper. Such a person would have been an embarrassment, and Vanessa Maxwell wouldn’t have wanted her friends to find out.
The woman on the telephone was different. With death so close, her personality had changed in ways Taylor didn’t quite understand.
Still, Taylor loved her so much that just the thought of losing her caused a dull ache deep in her chest. Her father had died, then Paul had disappeared. Somehow she’d come through without breaking down.
Could she survive another loss?
“You’ve got to bring Renata here.” Her mother’s voice had slipped to a mere whisper. “Promise me … you’ll do it.”
Shane was wiping a dab of shaving cream off his earlobe when he heard the knock at the hotel room door. He cinched the towel around his waist and answered the door.
Taylor. Shit.
She had a way of finding him half dressed. Okay, so he was practically naked.
“Mother insists on meeting Renata in person,” Taylor said the second he opened the door.
Then she noticed his nearly nude body. A flush inched up her cheeks, but to give her credit, she kept talking without missing a beat.
“I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid she’ll accept Renata on faith because she has some deep-seated psychological need to be reunited with the child she gave up.”
Shane backed up and let Taylor step into his room. Her face was totally pink now, but he didn’t move toward the bathroom, where a fluffy terry-cloth robe hung on the back of the door.
He let the tension in the air build before saying, “You’re probably right Vanessa wants to believe this is her daughter. Unless we can prove Renata is a fraud then your mother will accept her.”
Taylor walked over to the window where the drapes were open, revealing a sullen gray sky. The wind squalled through the trees, a harbinger of yet another storm. He couldn’t tell if she did it to avoid looking at him or if she was thinking.
He ducked into the bathroom, dropped the towel, and shrugged into the robe. When he stepped into the room again, Taylor was still gazing out the window.
