Heart of the Hawk

by Sandra Marton

  A chill of apprehension raced up Rachel's spine. 'No news is good news', Grandma had always said. For the first time, she understood the full meaning of that simple statement.

  'Tell me everything,' she said. 'I want to know.'

  The Walters woman sighed. 'All right, Rachel. A faction in David's party wants him to run for Governor.'

  Rachel stared at her. 'Governor! But David never said anything.'

  Vanessa shrugged. 'I suppose he-felt it didn't concern you. Of course, it does, in a way. That's what this is all about.'

  'That's what what is all about, Vanessa?'

  Vanessa frowned and bent towards the mirror. 'David's supporters think he has a good chance of winning.' She touched her finger to her tongue and then dabbed at her eyeliner. 'He has quite a name in business circles, of course, but he's not exactly a household word, although I must say I've managed to get him quite a bit of publicity over the past few months. He's gone to a recognition factor of seventy-two per cent as opposed to a year ago when he only pulled fifty-nine per cent. He...'

  'For God's sake, Vanessa!'

  The woman smiled and turned around. 'Yes, all right,' she said softly. 'I'll get to it. One of David's problems was lack of recognition. That one was easy. I got him some awards, dropped some titbits in the columns—but there was a second difficulty. A much rougher one.' She lifted her hand and frowned at her fingernails. 'Do you know David's nickname? What the papers call him?'

  'No,' Rachel said impatiently. 'I mean yes, they call him the Hawk. What does that have to do with...'

  'Everything,' snapped Vanessa. 'You don't vote for a man called "the Hawk", do you? People think hawks are cold-blooded killers—nobody wants that kind of person in government. All right, so we had an image problem, a tough one. You know how elections go in America—the candidate gets photographed kissing babies and eating pizza and everybody loves him. But it wouldn't work with David—he's too strong a personality for that. So we had to find a way to humanise him, to make people see him as a man with faults and strengths the same as anybody else...' She smiled coolly. 'Do you know what I'm saying, Rachel?'

  A knot of fear had lodged in Rachel's breast. Grandma had been wrong, she thought crazily. There was more than fear itself to be afraid of—there was this dizzying sense of walking across a tightrope stretched across a yawning chasm, a tightrope that seemed never to end, only to stretch interminably into the darkness. She ran her tongue across her suddenly dry lips.

  'No,' she said, 'I don't know what you're saying. Why don't you just spit it out?'

  Vanessa smiled again. 'What I'm saying is that we had a problem with David's image—until your stepsister had the good grace to die.'

  Rachel blinked. 'What?' she whispered. 'What did you say?'

  'You heard me.' Suddenly the helpful tone of voice was gone and the old Vanessa was back—cool, precise, and calculating. There was a viciousness in her face Rachel had never seen before. 'When Cassie Cooper died, David told me about their...liaison. He said he wanted to know more about her child.'

  'About... about Jamie? He told you... ?'

  A smile curled on Vanessa's red lips. 'Of course he told me. David and I have no secrets. You've been a diversion, Rachel, but diversions are only temporary. Sooner or later...'

  'Tell me about Jamie,' said Rachel with single-minded determination. 'What happened after David told you about him?'

  'I arranged for a private investigator to find out all about the boy. Within days we knew everything—that he was indeed David's son, and that his aunt, a barmaid, was raising him.'

  Rachel took a deep breath. 'All right, Vanessa, I knew most of this. David told me he'd used a detective agency to find out about Jamie. But I still don't see what any of this has to do with tonight.'

  'Believe me, tonight wasn't my idea.' The Walters woman's voice dripped venom. 'But David suddenly decided he wanted you along. What is it about men like David? Must they exhibit their trophies to the world?'

  The colour drained from Rachel's face. 'How dare you?' she whispered. 'I'm not a... David and I... We...'

  'You're just a bonus that came with Jamie. Don't you understand, Rachel? Jamie was what we needed. How better to humanise a man like David? We'd admit his error to the world—everyone's entitled to a mistake, after all. There he'd be, strong enough to admit his transgression publicly, loving enough to want his son...'

  Rachel took a step backwards. 'No!' she said sharply. 'That's not true. David told me why he wanted Jamie. It was because he'd been an orphan himself...'

  'He was, yes, that's true. I don't know why he told you. There wasn't any reason—well, perhaps there was,' Vanessa said slowly, her eyes fixing on Rachel's face. 'You can't expect to bed a woman by telling her you slept with her sister and walked out on her sister's bastard...'

  Rachel's hand was a blur as it cracked against Vanessa's face. 'You're a liar!' she gritted.

  Vanessa raised a hand to her cheek and the breath whistled between her teeth. 'That doesn't change anything,' she said softly. 'Let me tell you the rest. We took a poll and found that sixty-two per cent of our male voters would envy David for seducing a woman as lovely as Cassie Cooper. And you wouldn't believe the percentage of women who wished they'd been in her place. Of course, there was some risk, but...'

  Rachel put her hands to her face. Could it be true? No, she thought, no...but it all made a terrible kind of sense. She could still remember her shock at David's sudden willingness to claim Jamie. And, although she'd shunted it aside, there was Cassie's version of her affair with David, Cassie's ugly, sordid tale of what he had done to her.

  'No,' she said faintly, sinking back against the wall. 'I don't believe it. David isn't like that. He loves me. He loves Jamie...'

  'He's developed a fondness for the boy. Amusing, isn't it? As for you, my dear Miss Innocent, yes, he's become enamoured of your naïveté. Of course, he'll tire of it soon enough. A man like David has appetites you can't possibly feed. And when he's weary of trotting home to you, he'll write you a nice fat cheque—for services rendered.'

  Rachel's eyes blazed with fury. 'Lies, all lies,' she said angrily. 'You're jealous, Vanessa. You want him yourself.'

  'Lies, are they? Well, try this one for size, Miss Cooper. David is going to tell the world about Jamie tonight.'

  'No! He'd never do that.'

  Vanessa shrugged impatiently. 'What did you think that double-talk was all about, Rachel? The Senator's been pressuring him, and I agree that the timing is right.'

  'Is that why... why he said he'd have to introduce me?' Vanessa nodded and Rachel put her hand to her mouth.

  'Now you're catching on. Don't look so panicked, Rachel. You won't have to say much to the reporters— just something about how grateful you are to David for rescuing you from a place like the Golden Rooster. And how hard it was to raise the boy alone. And then you and he can go back to your little love nest for a while and…'

  Rachel closed her eyes. Yes, she thought, the man they called the Hawk would believe that. He had made her his captive, hadn't he? She would go on being his lover— no, she thought, not his lover. His mistress—and he'd have his party's nomination and the Hawk would have made another kill.

  Cassie, she thought in despair, Cassie—forgive me. You were right. David Griffin was everything her stepsister had said he was. She took a deep-breath.

  'He used me,' she said slowly. 'He used me and he used my baby...'

  'Oh, for goodness' sake, don't get melodramatic, Rachel! He did what he had to do, that's all.'

  'I won't let him get away with this,' whispered Rachel. 'I'll...'

  'You'll what? We've been in here too long. The speeches will be starting soon, and David's going to come looking for you. What are you going to do then, hmm? Make a scene? Give the papers headlines and photos that will haunt you and the child for years?' Vanessa paused and caught her lip between her teeth. 'Actually, I don't think David should have brought you here—I think it looks tawdry. If
it were up to me, I'd slip you out the door.'

  Something in Vanessa's voice made Rachel look up. Their eyes met, and Rachel understood she was being offered an escape from the nightmare that threatened to consume her. She took a deep breath.

  'All right,' she said quietly. 'What do you want me to do?'

  Vanessa smiled. 'You're not as naive as you seem, are you? It's simple, really. I'll go into the dining-room and make some excuse to David. I'll tell him you ripped your dress and we're in here fixing it. And then I'll sneak you out of the hotel. I have...' She opened her purse and rummaged through it. 'I have almost five hundred dollars here,' she said. 'And I'll write you a cheque for five thousand more if you'll take a taxi straight to the airport and take the first plane out of New York. Don't go near the boy, don't contact David...'

  'I can't. I...'

  'There's a little shop in the hotel. I'll get you something less conspicuous to wear.'

  'But I can't leave Jamie,' Rachel insisted. 'I love him.'

  'He isn't yours to love,' the other woman said coldly. 'David will take good care of him. He's not a cruel man, Rachel. Surely you know that?'

  Rachel closed her eyes against the sudden image of Isis plunging towards her prey. 'No,' she said. 'He simply does what he must to survive.'

  Vanessa laughed. 'I wouldn't put it that way!'

  Rachel slumped back against the cold tile wall. 'Put it any way you like,' she whispered. 'Just get me out of here.'

  A triumphant smile blazed across the other woman's face. 'Well, well,' she said softly. 'Little Miss Innocent is growing up at last!'

  CHAPTER TEN

  How MANY films had Rachel seen in which someone jumped into a waiting taxi and said, 'I'll double your fare if you get me to the airport in twenty minutes'? But life wasn't like that, she thought as her taxi wound slowly through the city's Friday night traffic. There hadn't even been a taxi to jump into—it had taken the doorman a couple of minutes to whistle one to the door. Hurt and bewildered beyond measure, Rachel had scrambled into the cab and let Vanessa slam the door after her.

  'La Guardia Airport,' Vanessa had said. 'And hurry!'

  It seemed to take forever for the taxi to pull away from the kerb. Rachel expected to hear David's voice calling after her; she took her first easy breath only after half a dozen blocks separated her from East 50th Street. She laced her fingers together, trying to still the trembling of her hands. She could hear Vanessa's voice telling her all those terrible things about David, telling her how he'd lied and schemed and used her. Dear God, how he'd used her...

  How could she have been such a fool? She had known what he was—Cassie had told her. But she'd chosen to believe David instead. A drunken tumble in the middle of the night, he'd said, with her stepsister as the instigator. No, there hadn't been any long, sensual seduction. No gifts, no long-stemmed roses. Just two willing people. Just quick sex.

  A dozen pictures tumbled through her mind, pictures of herself and David in bed. It had been sex, yes, but it had been so much more than that. It had been love and need and caring—for her, she realised suddenly, but not for him. She moaned softly, remembering the abandon of their lovemaking. The humiliation of it was like a physical pain, sharp as a knife wound to the heart.

  'I loved you, David,' she whispered into the darkness, 'I loved you...'

  'Are you OK, lady?'

  Rachel looked up and met the cab driver's gaze in the rear-view mirror.

  'Yes,' she said carefully, 'I'm fine.'

  'You sure? I thought maybe you said something...'

  'It was nothing.'

  'Look, if you're feeling sick...'

  'I said I was fine, driver. Just get me to the airport, please.'

  The cabby nodded, but she could see him watching her. She probably did look ill—she'd caught a glimpse of her pale face and mascara-smeared eyes in his mirror—and then there was the way Vanessa had all but shoved her into the taxi.

  She laughed, the sound soft and bitter in the darkness. It didn't matter a damn what the cabby thought. Nothing mattered, not any more. She'd lost Jamie and she'd lost her self-respect, and she was to blame.

  'Stupid,' she said softly, 'stupid, stupid...' She looked up and her eyes met the driver's again. She put her hand to her mouth and his glance slid nervously from hers.

  Yes, she thought, stupid was the word to describe her. Naive, Vanessa had said, but that was far too kind. Not that it mattered, really. Neither absolved her. What was that childish rhyme Grandma had taught her to chant? A real tongue-twister: 'She sells sea-shells on the seashore'—that was it. This had been a grown-up version of that rhyme. 'Cassie's seducer seduced Cassie's sister'... All it had taken was a different technique, and manipulation was David's business, wasn't it? Poor Cassie had tried to convince her of that.

  Rachel shuddered and closed her eyes. The Hawk had known that what had worked with her stepsister wouldn't work with her. Cassie had been a fool for expensive restaurants and hothouse flowers, but she, had simpler tastes. Long horseback rides in the Catskill foothills and longer evenings before the fire had been the key to her heart, that and seeing David's growing love for his son.

  And he did love Jamie—even Vanessa admitted that. That must have come as a surprise to David and Vanessa, both. It had surprised her, at first. But even hawks had hearts. The past weeks had taught her that much—she'd seen David's birds respond to his touch. Why wouldn't he respond to the love of a child? Not that his feelings would stop him using the boy...

  The story of Jamie's birth would be told with delicacy, of course. Vanessa would find a way to make the child's illegitimacy and Cassie's death sound romantic and tragic, and David would tell the story with just the proper degree of restraint and humility. There probably wouldn't be a dry eye in the room when he finished speaking. Too bad she wouldn't be there to say a few words and make him sound like a knight in shining armour who'd rescued her from a life of degradation at the Golden Rooster. Had he really expected her to do that for him? Rachel shuddered. Yes, why shouldn't he? she thought. She had done everything else, hadn't she? She'd turned her back on her stepsister's memory and let him do anything he wanted with her, anything...

  'Dear God,' she whispered, 'help me!'

  David Griffin had taken everything from her. Her sense of honour, her self-respect, her loyalty to Cassie— he'd stripped it all away. And he'd stolen her baby from her, for the most base reasons. All that nonsense about his own orphaned childhood—personal gain had been what had motivated him, not love. Rachel closed her eyes and shook her head. God, he was despicable! Her breath quickened. Anger was a safer emotion than pain, and she welcomed it and clutched it to her. Why had she let Vanessa persuade her to run away? She should have confronted David on his own turf. What satisfaction it would have given her to face him in the ballroom and tell him she knew the truth.

  'I know what you are, David,' she'd have said. 'Cassie never lied to me. You were the liar, you heartless, selfish son of a bitch!'

  Yes, she thought, yes. Quickly she leaned forward and rapped on the partition dividing passenger and driver.

  'I've changed my mind,' she said. 'Take me back to the Helmsley Palace.'

  The driver stared at her in the mirror, then nodded. Horns blared angrily as the cab came to a sudden stop, turned, and reversed direction. Rachel sat back, heart racing as she thought of the things she'd say to David. He wouldn't be alone, of course. He'd be surrounded by his rich and powerful friends. Fine. Let them all know what a bastard he was. And the reporters would be there too. Once they heard what she had to say, they'd be like vultures circling above carrion, waiting to devour anything the hawk had left.

  The story would make all the newspapers. Jamie and Cassie would be named in a dozen lurid headlines, all of them a hundred times worse than any David's carefully worded announcement would cause. There'd be nothing romantic and tragic about the stories the papers would print; the circumstances of Jamie's birth would be made sordid and ugly. Jamie, she
thought, Jamie...

  Rachel sat forward and tapped on the partition again. 'Forget about the Helmsley Palace, driver. Just take me to the airport.'

  The brakes squealed and the cab bucked to a halt. 'Are you sure, lady?'

  Rachel nodded. 'Positive.'

  'Because we've been uptown and we've been downtown and...

  'The airport,' she said firmly.

  The cabby sighed. 'OK, lady, the airport it is.'

  Yes, she thought, this was the best way. She'd take a plane, any plane, and fly into the night and never again see the child who was as much hers as if he had grown beneath her heart for nine months.

  'Stop!' The cry was so sharp that the cab driver responded without hesitation. The brakes screeched again and the taxi ground to a halt.

  'I'm not going to the airport,' Rachel said.

  The driver's eyes met hers. 'Look, lady...'

  'I want to go downtown,' she said firmly. 'To 4th Street.'

  Horns blared behind them, but the cabby ignored them. He sighed and turned towards her. 'Listen,' he said, drawing the glass partition aside, 'maybe you ought to let me take you some place where they can help you, huh? Bellevue Hospital's not far.'

  Rachel lifted her chin. 'I don't need a hospital, thank you. Just take me to 4th Street.'

  The man shrugged his shoulders. 'It's your money, lady. Where on 4th Street?'

  'Near Christopher,' she said. 'I'll tell you where to stop when we get there.'

  Her old apartment building looked more forlorn than ever. Rachel paid the cabby and then trudged up the stairs. If her former landlord was surprised to find her on his doorstep late on a Friday night, he didn't show it. At first, he was sullen and uncooperative.

  'Come back Monday morning,' he told her. 'I'll open the storeroom then and you can get your stuff—after you pay me the rent you owe me. And there are storage charges, too, ya know. And...'

  His mouth fell open when Rachel stuffed a hundred-dollar bill into his hand.

  'Open the storeroom now,' she said. 'All I want is my clothing. You can sell the rest—it'll more than make up what I owe you.'