His Secret Son

by Jacqueline Diamond

  The hell it wasn’t Lowell had been his brother even though they’d come close to hating each other in their younger years. Correction: Dirk had come close to hating the older sibling who delighted in taunting and belittling him.

  There’d been one night when he’d nearly killed Lowell himself. It was just before Dirk went off to college, and even now he could taste the hot fury as he’d slammed his fist into his brother’s jaw. Thank goodness someone had pulled them apart. But after that, they’d both known enough to keep their distance.

  Now, when they’d finally been on the verge of reestablishing their relationship, maybe even doing some business together, the chance had slipped away tragically—ripped away forever by the woman lying in front of him.

  The silence lengthened. Dirk roused himself to offer, “I hope you’re feeling better.”

  “The doctor says I’ll be fine.” She had a low, sensuous voice. “I was lucky.”

  Judging by her bandages, she must be in a lot of pain. That she refused to make a show of her discomfort fitted his impression of her reticent nature.

  He needed some answers, though. And the sooner the better. “It would help if I knew exactly what my brother did. It’s hard to mourn him properly when I have so many questions.”

  “I wish I could remember.” Joni’s eyes fixed on him earnestly. Brown flecks stood out against the green.

  “The police said you have amnesia about the moments just before you were knocked unconscious. That isn’t unusual.”

  Sometimes, he knew, amnesia could result from the brain’s lack of time to transfer impressions into long-term memory before blacking out, in which case the information was lost forever. Other times, trauma made the victim repress the incident, in which case she might have a chance of remembering.

  “You talked to the cops?” she asked.

  “I don’t like getting my information secondhand,” Dirk said by way of confirmation.

  After reading the newspaper this morning, he’d called the detective, who grudgingly answered a few questions. The police considered the case open-and-shut and, perhaps as a result, their work had been sloppy.

  Dirk had taken some police-science courses in college and later undergone antiterrorist training while working for an overseas security agency. Even his current highly successful company, which developed new businesses in emerging economies, required attention to security.

  He objected to the way the crime scene at Joni’s house had been muddied with footprints. Furthermore, her clothes, on which the blood spatter might indicate where she’d stood during the stabbing, hadn’t been collected until they’d been removed at the hospital. By then, spilled hummingbird nectar, rain and careless handling had smeared everything.

  The officers had talked to the neighbors immediately adjacent, but they hadn’t canvassed beyond that. Someone else might have noticed a jogger or an unfamiliar car but, without being questioned, wouldn’t connect it to the case.

  Despite the flaws in the police work, however, Dirk didn’t doubt their conclusion. Lowell had been stalking Joni and she’d fought back.

  The only issue that might have to be resolved by a jury was whether Lowell had presented an imminent threat to her life. Or had she simply seized the excuse to get rid of him?

  “Did they tell you anything that wasn’t in the paper?” she pressed.

  He shrugged. “Not really.” It was the truth, as far as it went.

  “I’m not sure we should discuss this in present company.” Herb tilted his head toward the boy, then changed the subject smoothly. “I apologize for calling your secretary, Dirk. I would have preferred to talk to you in person, but no one answered at your Rome apartment.”

  “That’s because I’m hardly ever home. I’m the one who should apologize for not giving you my cell phone number,” Dirk said.

  He spent much of his time traveling. His company worked with venture capitalists and businesses seeking to expand into emerging nations. Using the Internet, contacts and financial sources, Dirk would identify locales with underutilized natural and human resources, and with reasonable political stability.

  He then visited the sites, met with local officials and business people and prepared a report on the suitability of establishing manufacturing, mining, distribution or other operations. Depending on the client’s needs, Dirk and his staff sometimes helped negotiate licenses and locate headquarters.

  The work was exhilarating and highly profitable, but he shouldn’t have let it become so all-consuming. He’d last seen his grandfather four years ago, when they’d spent several days together in Athens after Herb took a cruise of the Greek islands. Since then, contact had come mostly via Christmas cards.

  Now he noticed a few more wrinkles on his grandfather’s forehead and a bit of thinning in the gray hair. The man hadn’t lost an ounce of his steely directness, though. “I’ll take that cell phone number before you forget, grandson.”

  Dirk smiled. “You bet. I want us to get together a lot more often.” He pulled out a business card and wrote the number on the back.

  “You walk like Daddy,” said the boy who stood next to Herb. “I thought you were him.”

  “You must be Jeff.” Dirk bent and shook his hand solemnly, admiring the child’s composure. It had to be tough on the boy to lose his father and to see his mother injured this way.

  He was glad Lowell had been able to have his own son after all. Dirk hadn’t been happy about his brother’s demand that he donate sperm, but he’d been working on a dangerous assignment in central Asia and agreed to leave a specimen in case he was killed. When Lowell tersely notified him six months later that the sperm hadn’t been needed, the news had come as a relief.

  He wasn’t ready to be a daddy. He wasn’t even sure he was ready to take on the responsibilities of an uncle, but the circumstances left him no choice.

  “Are you going to live here now?” Jeff asked.

  “Just while I put some things in order,” Dirk said.

  “Who’s going to take me to ball games?” Tears glistened in the little boy’s eyes. “Daddy bought season tickets.”

  “Ball games?” Viento del Mar didn’t have any professional teams. “Where?”

  “Lowell sometimes took him to Los Angeles,” Joni explained. “On their weekends together.”

  “I’ll do it.” Herb’s fierce expression forestalled any attempt to point out that he was in no condition to be making a round-trip drive of more than four hours. “Don’t you worry, Jeff.”

  The baseball issue could be handled later, Dirk decided. It was time to cut to the chase.

  To Joni, he said, “I spoke to the family lawyer this morning. Are you aware that, in his will, Lowell left the printing company and the house half to me and half in trust for your son?”

  Her lips formed the word. “No.”

  “The rest of the estate goes into a trust fund for Jeff,” he said. “My brother named me as trustee.”

  “Who’s going to run the company?” Herb asked. “I nearly drove myself into an early grave when I was in charge, and even so, I wasn’t half the manager my son was, or Lowell, either. I’m not about to pick up the reins now.”

  “I can get it in shape to sell,” Dirk said. “Or I can hire an executive to run it. Either way is all right with me. I think Jeff’s mother ought to have some say in the matter.”

  Joni’s long lashes drifted down, and she forced them up with a visible effort. “I can’t make any decisions right now.”

  “It can wait,” Dirk said. “Your first priority is to get well.”

  He wondered at the impulse he felt to protect her. He’d been aware all morning, through his meetings with the detective and the lawyer, that he’d been looking out for her interest as well as his nephew’s.

  Now the pallor of Joni’s skin and the suffering in her gaze galvanized him. He wanted to reassure her that he would take care of everything so the tension could ease from her body and that lovely mouth would curve invitingly.
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  Yet he couldn’t be sure she hadn’t deliberately killed his brother. And even if he were, he didn’t want to encourage her to depend on him. He wouldn’t be staying in Viento del Mar long enough to do more than tie up loose ends.

  “Call me in the morning and let me know what time they’re releasing you,” Herb said. “We’ll pick you up.”

  Joni shook her head on the pillow. “I’ll take a cab.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Herb said, bristling.

  His grandfather must care a great deal about this woman, Dirk thought in surprise. Even Lowell’s death hadn’t shaken their bond.

  “I’m not being ridiculous,” Joni said. “You know me, Herb. When I’m hurt, I’m like a wild animal. I hole up and lick my wounds.” She gave a small shrug. “I just need some time alone.”

  “You’ve spent too much time alone after my grandson—” Herb glanced at Jeff “—did what he did with Kim. I won’t let you bear this by yourself.”

  “You can come over later,” Joni said. “I’ll call you after I’ve gotten my bearings. I promise.”

  Herb grumbled but gave in. “I reserve the right to spoil my great-grandson rotten in the meantime.”

  “By all means.” Warmth suffused the woman’s face, and the entire room seemed to glow. Whatever else might be true of her, she clearly loved her son.

  Dirk glanced at the boy. This was not only his nephew but, except for Herb, his only close relative.

  He could see his brother in the boy’s build, but that didn’t explain Dirk’s pang of recognition. With a jolt, he realized the boy reminded him of himself. The troubled deep blue eyes. The unruly hair, darker than either Lowell’s or Joni’s.

  No, not himself, he thought sternly, but his mother. Tina Peterson, who had died of lupus when he was twelve, had been the source of Dirk’s dramatic coloring. In Lowell, those genes must have skipped a generation.

  Herb clapped a hand onto the boy’s shoulder. “We’ll let you get some rest, Joni. See you tomorrow.”

  “Bye, Herb. Jeff, I love you.” Her gaze Sicked toward Dirk. “It’s good to see you, although I’m sorry about the circumstances.”

  “So am I.” He let the older man and the boy precede him through the door.

  He disliked leaving Joni in the hospital unguarded. Yet if she had slain his brother for her own advantage, the person she would most need guarding against was Dirk himself.

  “Join us for supper?” Herb asked as they descended in the elevator.

  “Sure,” he said. “At the club?”

  “Our special club,” his grandfather replied. “Follow us.”

  Outside, the clouds were clearing. In the twilight, Herb’s bright red sports car whipped out of the parking lot ahead of the blue rented Volvo.

  Dirk had chosen the solidly built car out of habit, after years of working in developing nations where the dangers ranged from gun-wielding rebels to vicious potholes. He had to smile at the way he and his grandfather had reversed the traditional roles. Herb had youthful fervor to spare.

  Herb and Jeff’s “club” turned out to be McDonald’s. The boy ordered a Happy Meal but barely ate half, then wandered dispiritedly toward the brightly colored play area.

  “Usually he runs so fast he’s a blur,” Herb said. “He seemed to take the news okay about his father, but I know he’s hurting.”

  “Want to leave?”

  “We need to talk first.” His grandfather cleared his throat and leaned forward. “I want you to clear your brother’s name. I don’t believe he attacked Joni.”

  “I thought you liked her.” Dirk speared a French fry.

  “I more than like her. I love that girl.” The older man swallowed hard. “She’s like the daughter I never had.”

  “Either she murdered Lowell, or he tried to murder her,” Dirk said. “I can’t clear one without condemning the other.”

  “There has to be some other explanation,” Herb insisted.

  “The police will—”

  “This is Viento del Mar!” Herb smacked his cup onto the table so hard it sent droplets flying. “What do they know about investigating a homicide? Besides, you’re the only one who can get inside Lowell’s head. Try to figure out what he was doing and thinking this past month, why he would resume harassing Joni just when they were on good terms again.”

  Dirk wanted to help, but he couldn’t deliver the impossible. “Grandpa, I’m not a mind reader.”

  “Maybe he had a mental disorder or was taking some medication that affected his behavior. There has to be a reason!”

  Dirk was on the verge of protesting the urgency of returning to business when something stopped him. It might have been the pinched look on his grandfather’s face. It might have been the notion that, in spite of their long-standing antagonism, he owed his brother something.

  But fundamentally, it was the realization that the main reason he itched to leave Viento del Mar was that, since the moment he’d returned, the old anger and pain had closed around him like a vise.

  Dirk had never been able to please his overcritical father, Donald. In his father’s view, he wasn’t athletic enough; he was too intellectual; he picked the wrong friends.

  Glib and popular, Lowell had adopted his father’s attitude. At the country club, at school, in front of friends, he never missed a chance to put his little brother in his place.

  With his rebellious streak, Dirk had maintained a tough exterior. Inside, there were moments when he ached so much he could hardly breathe. The worst times were when he needed his father most. After his mother’s death. After the breakup of his first intense teenage love affair. Whenever he felt vulnerable, that was when Donaid tried hardest to reshape him and Lowell was at his most supercilious.

  Well, Dirk wasn’t a kid anymore. This request meant a lot to his grandfather. It was time to face down the old emotions and defuse what was left of them.

  That he might also be helping Joni shouldn’t have affected his decision. But when he pictured her lying in the hospital bed, pale and injured, Dirk understood how helpless she must feel. He just hoped he wasn’t giving her too much benefit of the doubt. There was no sympathy in his heart for liars and schemers.

  “All right,” he told his grandfather. “I’ll do the best I can. But you may not like what I find.”

  “As long as it’s the truth,” Herb said, “I’ll take it.”

  HOSPITAL POLICY REQUIRED that departing patients be wheelchaired to the front door by a volunteer. On her way out on Friday morning, Joni had intended to stop by the public relations office to collect her undelivered plant, but it was out of the way and she hated to inconvenience the volunteer.

  She hoped to return to work on Monday. If Basil gave it a good watering today, she told herself, the plant should survive until then.

  As planned, she took a cab home. It was a clear, crisp day, and the driver, a man in his fifties, maneuvered the hospital’s steep drive so carefully that the car barely jounced.

  Joni’s ribs and head didn’t hurt much, thanks to a last dose of hospital painkillers. The doctor who removed her bandages that morning had given her a prescription, which lay unfilled in her purse.

  She didn’t want to take any medication that might blur her thinking. If it were possible, she needed to recall those final moments of Lowell’s life. She needed to clear her name, not only with the police but with Dirk, as well. For some reason, it mattered very much what he thought.

  He had the same brooding intensity as his brother, but there was a gentleness about him that touched her. Several times, she’d even imagined she saw concern in his expression.

  She knew better, however, than to yield to her instinctive physical response to the man. He possessed the same magnetism that had drawn her to Lowell, and look where that had led.

  The route home took them past Peterson Printing. It lay a couple of miles east of the hospital along San Bernardo Road, one of the town’s two main streets. The original one-story building in front didn�
�t look like much. Signs advertising photocopying and low-cost faxes plastered the front window through which Joni could see the counter where she’d been working eleven years ago when she met Lowell.

  A stand of trees partially masked the much larger building in back. Inside could be found the massive presses that thundered day and night, the bustling art department, the layout and typesetting computers, the photoreproduction and engraving equipment, the binding facility, the warehouse and loading dock and, of course, the offices.

  The local newspaper was printed here. So were wedding invitations, magazines, books, advertisements, cor prorate annual statements and other orders from around the region. She could almost hear the roar of the presses and smell the tang of the ink. It had been exciting to work there, especially after she learned desktop publishing and was promoted from clerking. Although she’d given up college after marrying, Joni had continued at her job until Jeff was born.

  Lowell would have preferred that she spend her days swimming and playing tennis at the country club rather than working. He’d disapproved of her in other ways, too: her lack of style, her shyness, her tendency to get disheveled while playing with Jeff.

  Nothing that came naturally to Joni seemed to please him. In time, she’d realized that even when she did win his acceptance, it was only temporary. To survive emotionally, she’d had to stop caring about his opinion.

  The cab turned into Canyon Acres., the meandering development where she lived. Because of the uneven terrain, the homes were widely spaced below the forested hills. Some of the lower slopes blazed pink with bougainvillea, while each house sported its own emerald patch of lawn.

  “Say, wasn’t there a murder out here?” the cabbie asked as he turned into Joni’s cul-de-sac.

  She didn’t want to reveal too much to a stranger. “Somewhere around here.”

  “You be careful, lady.” He pulled into her driveway and stopped. “You want me to walk you inside?”

  Her stalker was dead. What did she have to fear? “No, thanks,” Joni said.

  “I’ll wait out here while you take a look around.” The man had a kind face. “You wave at me out the door, and I’ll go.”