“He loved you.” Elizabeth’s words floated across the room. “In his own sick, perverse way. Even I was a bit surprised to see this when I came here yesterday. But I don’t know if he planned to keep this up after you two marched down the aisle.”
Biting her lip, hoping the pain would convince her all of this was a sick dream, Cassandra whirled around. The motion caused her to lose her balance and she fell back against the wall. “Married?” she repeated.
“Yes, married!” Elizabeth swung her arms wide, a half-empty bottle in one hand and the gun in the other. She walked around the spacious room, her raw voice echoing off the walls. “Willard did this for you. He lived his life for you! He’s the one who’s been causing your little ‘accidents’. He wanted your business to fail so you would turn to him for help, for comfort…for survival. That couldn’t happen if you knew about the millions your father left for you.”
Willard behind the accidents? He’d wanted her to fail?
No…no. It couldn’t be true.
Cassandra’s mind refused to accept Elizabeth’s words. At the same time it played back the events of the last month. She struggled to concentrate, to put Willard as a player in every event. “I-I can’t believe he did…he wanted me to fail so I’d—what m-millions?”
Elizabeth lifted the bottle to her mouth and took a large swallow before speaking. “You really have no idea what I’m talking about?”
Unable to support herself any longer, Cassandra slid to the floor. Her head lolled back and forth and she fought to keep Willard’s mother in focus. It was strange to see the woman who always appeared so refined and stately, standing in front of her swigging from a bottle. “I-I told you…n-no.”
Elizabeth advanced toward her, swinging the gun casually back and forth in her hand. “Hmmm, I guess you haven’t read your mail lately. Well, that does put a certain spin on things.”
Despite the alcohol, Elizabeth had a lethal calmness in her eyes. Cassandra tried to scoot away, but Elizabeth stuffed the bottle into the deep pocket of her fur coat and grabbed her arm. She yanked her to her feet. Trapped against the wall, Cassandra fought against the panic that filled her when Elizabeth raised the gun, the cool metal of the barrel resting against her cheek. She clenched her jaw, refusing to allow her tongue to moisten her dry lips.
“You’re not as destitute as you believe, dear. When I sat with your father he kept repeating the word ‘Swiss’, over and over. For the life of me, I had no idea what he was babbling about. Then Willard agreed to handle your father’s estate, and while he was busy saving your reputation, he discovered that years ago your father created an overseas bank account in your name.”
Elizabeth’s voice dropped to a hushed whisper as she backed away and leveled the gun at Cassandra’s chest. “Only he got careless. A statement and password code generator from a bank in Switzerland arrived at his office in your name. Instead of safeguarding it, he let his dim-witted secretary get her hands on it. She saw your name and now both are sitting in your mailbox. They represent an account with a thirty-million-dollar balance. But you ruined my boy’s life, and in turn mine. That thirty million rightfully belongs to me.”
Reilly punched the speed-dial code he’d set up for Cassandra’s cell phone number for the sixth time. He made his way up the front steps of her mother’s house, put the phone to his ear and pushed the doorbell at the same time. “Come on, pick up your phone!”
Where in the hell was she?
He never should’ve let her drop a bomb on him about her family’s fortune and walk away. He’d seen the pain fill her eyes the moment she spoke. Hell, it’d been written all over her face, along with the shock at what she’d revealed.
He should’ve gone after her, should’ve made her talk, should’ve reassured her he didn’t give a rat’s ass about money she did or didn’t have. By the time his head had cleared, she was gone.
“Should’ve, should’ve, should’ve,” Reilly muttered, listening again to Cassandra’s voice mail. He snapped the phone shut, having already left a half-dozen messages. “Damn it, girl, where are you?”
A million little things suddenly made sense. He’d known she’d been hiding something. He had to admit he’d never suspected it would be the loss of the Van Winter fortune, but the emotions stirring around inside him weren’t based on the size of Cassandra’s bank account.
He loved her.
He’d accepted that fact during the plane ride back from Nantucket as easily as he accepted his next breath. Not exactly how he’d pictured it happening. Hell, he’d only been in love once before in his life and that had arrived with bells, whistles and a brass band. But what he’d experienced before was nothing compared to this. It wasn’t even close. And worse, he hadn’t expected it. Especially after the effort he’d made to keep her from getting to him.
But she had. She’d gotten in deep, and he wasn’t about to let her go.
Seconds later, Rosa answered the door, yanking him from his thoughts. Reilly entered as Margaret came down the stairs, her terrier streaking down ahead of her.
“Is Cassandra here?” he asked, addressing both women.
“I don’t know.” Margaret tightened the belt on her silk bathrobe as she reached the bottom step. “I’ve been resting since I got home from the cemetery. Rosa, is she home from the reception?”
“I didn’t hear her come in, but I will check upstairs.”
Reilly watched as the housekeeper ascended the stairs. He knew Margaret expected him to follow her into the living room but he waited, willing Cassandra to appear at the top of the stairs, to prove his gut instinct wrong.
The landing remained empty.
Reilly turned away and moved into the living room. “Is there someplace she’d go if she was upset? The park or shopping?”
“So much has happened in the last few days.” Margaret stood near the fireplace where a fire blazed on this early October day to chase away the chill in the air. She crossed her arms tightly over her middle. “Cassandra told me about…she was quite shocked to find out about your family’s wealth. I was a bit surprised Lou never mentioned it to me. What with Willard’s death and the police taking the necklace as evidence—she was so hoping it would help—”
Reilly walked over to her. “Margaret, I know about your financial problems.”
One finely manicured hand flew to her mouth. “You know?”
“Cassandra told me.” Reilly helped Margaret into a nearby chair. She was shaking and he needed to keep her calm and focused. “She didn’t mean to. I was pushing her hard about Willard and she let it slip before she left in the Bancrofts’ limo. I shouldn’t have let her leave without me, but I did. I took a cab to the Bancrofts’, but by the time I got there, I couldn’t find her in the crowd. I thought she might be with Elizabeth, but the staff said Willard’s parents were mourning in private. I then checked the shop, the hospital and her apartment. I can’t find her.”
“You think she might be off somewhere alone, trying to deal with all this?”
Reilly nodded. “Does she know about you and Digger?”
Margaret looked down at her lap. “Yes, we talked last night. Maybe I shouldn’t have told her, what with all she’s had to deal with lately, but so much has changed recently and Lou is a big part of that.”
She returned her gaze to Reilly’s face. He could read mixed emotions in her eyes. “My husband’s death and the loss of our family’s money propelled me into such a state of anger, fear and loss. It was wrong of me to think Cassandra and I could live a lie, but at the time, we didn’t see any other way out than to continue with the charade. Can you understand?”
Reilly nodded. He knew exactly what she was talking about. He’d done the same thing for years. He’d let childhood memories rob him of a chance to repair his relationship with his mother and Rann. “Better than you think. Right now, I need to find Cass and my gut is telling me something isn’t right.”
“You don’t think something has happened to her, do you?”<
br />
“She was pretty torn up when she left.”
“Cassandra would never do anything to hurt herself, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Margaret said.
“I know that, but I can’t shake the feeling I have to find her, to talk to her.”
The shrill ring of the phone startled them both. Reilly helped Margaret to her feet. “If that’s Cassandra, don’t tell her I’m here. I don’t want to scare her away. Just ask her to come over or find out where she is.”
Margaret nodded and picked up the phone. “Hello? Oh, Cass darling, are you all right? Well, I haven’t heard from you since I left the funeral…what was that? Darling, your voice sounds so faint. Did you just say Switzerland?”
Switzerland?
Reilly’s mind raced. Was Cassandra calling from the airport? No, she’d never leave town. Not with Lily in the hospital.
“A package from Switzerland? Honey, slow down, I can’t understand you. Oh, the package is from Willard? Well, with all that’s been going I haven’t even looked at—okay, sweetheart, please don’t get upset. I’ll have R—ah, Rosa bring me the mail, hold on.”
Margaret held the phone against her chest. “Something’s wrong. She doesn’t sound like herself,” she whispered. “I don’t know what she’s talking about, but she’s insisting I look for a package, a large envelope, from Willard’s office, mailed to her.”
Reilly’s mind raced back to what Lily had said in the shop just before he and Cassandra took off for Massachusetts. His instincts were right, as usual. “I need to get on an extension.”
“There’s a cordless by the sink in the kitchen and Rosa usually leaves the mail in a basket on the desk.”
Reilly hurried to the kitchen and returned with the phone and the basket, placing it on the table. Activating the cordless, he motioned Margaret to speak again.
“Cass, I’ve got the mail. My goodness, there is quite a bit here.”
A rush of breath filled the phone receiver. “Please, Mom…” Cassandra mumbled. “Please, find that package.”
A suffocating sensation filled Reilly’s chest when Cassandra’s voice, weak and low, came through the earpiece. He watched Margaret frantically flip through the pile of letters, magazines and bills in the rattan basket.
“Honey.” She turned to look at him, her eyes wide with fear. “I don’t see anything there. Why don’t you come home and you can look—”
“It has to be there. Lily w-was supposed to check my mail and bring…bring it to the h-house,” Cassandra broke in, interrupting her mother. “Look again. I know it’s there. A white package. Return address from Willard’s law firm. Mailed the day I left town.”
Reilly listened intently, trying to pick up on any noise in the background, but Cassandra’s voice kept drawing him back. Her short, clipped sentences weren’t natural. They didn’t follow the easy ebb and flow of her throaty tone. No, this voice was too forced, trying too hard to conceal traces of anxiety.
Someone was feeding her the words, telling her what to say.
Margaret dumped the basket on the desk, spilling the mail everywhere. A small, white box, buried at the bottom, now lay on top of the pile. “Ah, yes, yes here it is. I have it.”
“Okay, good…good…” The relief in Cassandra voice was evident. “This is what I need you to do…”
She told her mother to get a pen and paper and then quickly rattled off an address. Reilly wrote, his fingers tightening around the pen as Cassandra instructed her mother to take the package to that location and hand it over to a messenger from Fast City Courier Service who would approach her after she arrived.
“You want me to do what? Darling, what are you talking about?” Margaret begged, dropping the envelope to the desk. “I don’t understand any of this! Who told you about this?”
“Please, Mom, do exactly what I’ve said,” Cassandra implored. “Don’t open the package for any reason, just take it to that address and wait. The courier will address you by name. Give it to him and walk away.”
“Perhaps I should contact the police—”
“No police. You need to leave now, Mom. You have fifteen minutes to get there.”
Reilly motioned for Margaret to keep talking. He needed to keep her on the phone in hopes of getting some sort of clue as to Cassandra’s whereabouts.
“Cass, sweetheart, Reilly is—ah, is Reilly with you?”
His gut clenched when Margaret fumbled over her words, trying to correct herself.
“Should I call him?” she continued. “He seemed, ah, concerned back at the cemetery.”
“No.” Cassandra’s voice rose to a high pitch. “Reilly is…is probably on a plane back to Texas and g-good riddance. It’s over between us.”
Reilly ignored the slash of pain across his chest at her words and forced himself to listen. He fought to keep from yelling into the phone, to tell her she was wrong. It wasn’t over between them. He didn’t know if she really thought he would walk away from her, but this wasn’t the time to think about that. Right now, he needed to concentrate.
“Being with Reilly was one of those casual things that never went anywhere.” Cassandra’s words came fast. “I don’t know what I ever saw in him. He was too secretive with me, not open and honest like Will—”
A crack of a hand against skin and a muffled cry splintered the air. A dial tone signaled the end of the call.
A raw and primitive fury filled Reilly’s chest. The bastard had hit her.
“Cassandra? Cassandra!” Margaret screamed into the phone.
Reilly pulled the phone from Margaret’s fingertips. “They disconnected the call.”
“What is going on?”
He turned off both phones and put them on the desk. “You need to get dressed. We’ve got to get going. Do you know where this street is?”
Margaret’s gaze flew from the scrap of paper in Reilly’s hand to his face. “Yes, it’s just a few blocks from here. What is going on?”
Reilly took Margaret’s hands in his. He needed to calm her down. “Listen to me, someone has Cassandra. That person knows what’s in this package and is desperate to get it. You have to do what Cassandra said and get to that address. I will be right there with you.”
“But how? I’m supposed to go alone.”
Reilly took the envelope and directed Margaret out into the hallway and toward the stairs. “You won’t be able to see me, but I’ll be there. Now, go.”
She hurried up the stairs and Reilly pulled out his cell phone. He tried his damnedest not to look at the formal portrait of Cassandra hanging on the wall over the stairway. His eyes refused to obey. They locked onto the painting and he was powerless to look away as he spoke in a hushed tone with his half brother.
“How much money are we talking about?” Rann asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t have time to even see what’s inside this damn package, but I’m guessing a ransom is coming next.” Reilly could hear Rann’s fingers tapping on the keyboard. He knew he was already contacting RannCarr Oil’s New York offices. “Just make sure I can get my hands on any amount I need.”
“It’s done. I’ll follow up with a phone call as soon as we hang up. Ask for Tina Sandiston if you need someone at the office. Thanks to a wild weekend in Paris, she owes me a favor.”
“No games, Rann. I won’t risk Cassandra’s life.”
“If I know you, whoever has your lady is never going to get to this money, Reilly. If something—if something happens and this all goes wrong, he’s not going to live long enough. And if you need any help in that area, call me, bro.”
Reilly ended the call, finally accepting the fact his half brother was just that, his brother. Family. Someone he could count on to stand by his side, no matter what. Filing Rann’s last words deep inside his heart, he looked up in time to see Margaret coming back down the stairs.
“Are you ready?”
“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Margaret joined him, pulling on her jacket. “I mean, I know Cassandr
a said not to, but—”
“My next call is to Detective Griffin.” Reilly leaned in and gave the petite woman a brief hug. He was glad to see the color back in her face and the shaking gone. She was a strong lady. Just like her daughter. He handed over the package. “I’m going out the back way. Count to ten, take a deep breath and head out. I’ll be right behind you the whole way.”
“Reilly?”
Margaret’s voice caused him to pause and look back.
“You will bring her home, won’t you? I couldn’t take it if something should happen—if I were to lose her.”
Her soft voice carried across the room, her plea searing into his heart. He knew her request was based on the bottomless love a mother has for her child.
Had his mother ever had that same deep, unending love for him? At one time, he’d been sure of it. But the longer she was married to Carrington, the less he’d believed, until his own heart was filled with nothing but contempt. Now, after watching the adult relationship shared by Margaret and Cassandra, he’d found himself wishing for something he could never have, something he’d walked away from years ago.
A second chance.
What about the love between a man and a woman? Could there be a second chance for that? Could a love be strong enough even if it hadn’t been declared yet? If the words weren’t spoken, did that lessen their power?
“I’ll bring her home.” Reilly’s voice was strong and steady as he pledged his vow. “Safe and sound, I promise.”
A promise he was still determined to keep despite losing sight of the messenger, who’d jumped on a bicycle and disappeared in a sea of yellow taxies after taking the package from Margaret.
He’d only been able to leave Jake Griffin a veiled urgent message as soon as Cassandra’s mother was approached. As soon as the tall, lanky kid took off, Reilly tried to follow on foot, but it was useless.
Frustration ate at his soul. He’d started to call Griffin again when Margaret had called. She’d gotten home safe and sound and just in time for a phone call from the hospital. Lily was awake and adamant about speaking to Cassandra.
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