Family Secrets: Books 5-8

by Virginia Kantra

  Thats ridiculous. Eric slammed his beer to the chest and surged to his feet. I cant program my way out of a paper bag, much less hack into a secure system.

  Jake frowned. I know that, and you know that, but right now that doesnt make a damn bit of difference.

  Incredulity blasted him. Why me? he bit out, fumbling savagely at the silk tie cutting off his oxygen flow. Why would the feds even look at me?

  Up until six months ago, hed been a banker in a small Indiana town. He couldnt imagine a lower-profile life.

  Theyre looking because someone wants them to, Jake said grimly. Because youre my friend. His eyes glittered. Ever since this investigation started, someone has been playing fast and loose with my life. Did you know my brother was kidnapped? That they thought Zach was me? Sought to silence him me before I could finger the real bastard behind Achilles?

  Eric just stared. It sounded as though his friend was discussing some complex action-thriller, not their lives.

  They want me off the case, Jake continued, clearly angry and agitated. Whoever is behind the World Bank heist, theyre well-connected and theyre powerful, and theyll stop at nothing to make sure I dont expose their house of cards. Now, any claim I make of your innocence will be written off as friendship and loyalty.

  Theyre that scared youre going to find the real culprit?

  Theyre that determined to make sure I dont. With the feds focused on you

  The real trail goes cold. Eric sucked in a rough breath. With stunning speed, pieces and implications clanked into place, hard and fast and with brutal clarity. How bad is it? How strong a case do they have against me?

  Strong enough that you need a lawyer. You need one now. Thats why Im here.

  Eric had only been in trouble with the law once, when hed been a cocksure eighteen-year-old mouthing off at a patrol officer. To teach him a lesson, the cop had hauled him to the station and processed him, forced him to call his parents, then thrown him into the lock-up with drunks and drug addicts and three punks brought in for starting a brawl at a local nightclub. Eric had never forgotten the disappointed look in his fathers eyes when hed picked him up, or the long, quiet ride back to their house. His father, president of the local bank, had convinced the cops not to press charges, but the impact of the night had stayed with Eric.

  This was so much worse. He was almost glad his parents werent around to see their son fingered as the prime suspect in the worst bank theft in history.

  A lawyer, he muttered. Christ. He didnt even know any defense attorneys. You really think thats necessary?

  I wouldnt be here if I didnt.

  Shock was slowly giving way to cold shards of anger, but Eric forced back both emotions. He needed a clear head. Okay. Ill make a few phone calls, he said, opening a drawer for his address book, see if I can come up with a recommendation.

  You dont need to make any phone calls, Jake said quietly. You need Leigh.

  Eric went very still. For just a heartbeat. Then he turned slowly, looked at his friend standing in front of the sliding glass door, the late-day sun streaming in behind him and casting him in silhouette. What did you just say?

  Jake stepped into the shadow of an enormous banana plant. I said Leigh, Eric. You need Leigh.

  Her name came at him through a dark tunnel of time and space, blasted him like a gust of warm tropical air. Hed not heard it spoken aloud for close to ten years, not since shortly after shed left for Oxford, when Jake and Ethan and Matt had ganged up on him and tried to convince him to go after her. Eric had been keeping everything bottled up inside, all his frustration and anger, the regret and guilt, the sense of helplessness hed never before experienced. Hed exploded, slammed his fist through a wall and shocked his friends into silence. Dont say her name to me, hed roared. Just let it go.

  Like hed let her go.

  And they had.

  Until now.

  Shes here, Jake said quietly, walking toward Eric. In Chicago. Practicing law, just like she always dreamed.

  It was Erics turn to shove a hand through his hair. Im not calling Leigh.

  Eric, think about

  I can just see it, he interrupted viciously, wanting to hit something, anything, but finding nothing within striking distance. Hey, Leigh, babe, its me, Indy. Yeah, yeah, I know. I havent seen you since the night I took your virginity then left you cold and naked in my apartment, but hey, Im in trouble now and was thinking we could get together, that youd drop everything to help me out.

  Jakes mouth fell open, forcing Eric to realize the extent of what hed revealed. The guys had never known what had happened after theyd left his apartment. Hed been too appalled to tell them, and clearly Leigh had kept quiet, as well.

  Thats right, he now said, anger feeling far better than helpless frustration. I couldnt keep my hands off her, then went home and married someone else. He laughed bitterly. Im sure shell be real damn happy to hear from me.

  Jake squeezed his eyes shut, opened them a moment later. You two need to talk.

  Didnt you hear a word I just said? I used her, Jake. I hurt her in ways she didnt come close to deserving.

  That was a long time ago, Jake said lamely. Were older now. Life has gone on.

  Life could never go on far enough to excuse what hed done. Ill find someone else.

  Leigh knows you. Whatever happened ten years ago cant change the friendship you shared before then. She knows what kind of a man you are, how deep your integrity runs. She knows youd never commit a crime like this. He paused, pierced Eric with his stare. Im willing to bet shell fight tooth and nail to make sure the rest of the world learns that about you, too.

  Eric turned away, saw the past. Saw Leigh standing in front of the window of his small apartment, the white sheet clutched around her naked body, the vulnerability in her soft brown eyes, the snow flurries drifting lazily behind her.

  That was the last time hed seen her.

  Shes your best chance, Jake encouraged from behind him.

  Slowly, his gut twisting like barbed wire, Eric turned to face his friend. Then Im in big trouble.

  All clear.

  Jake nodded at Robert, one of two plainclothes security personnel hed hired after the attempt on his brothers life, then emerged from the secluded doorway of Erics brownstone and walked toward the waiting black sedan. The FBI had wanted to provide protection, but Jake didnt want big brother watching his every step. He didnt want anyone watching. Especially now.

  Hed even checked into his hotel under an assumed name.

  The late-day sun blazed with vicious disregard from a picture-perfect sky, combining with searing humidity to turn the city into a sauna. That was one thing he didnt miss about Chicago. Of course, Dallas in August wasnt much better, more like an oven than a sweat factory.

  At a bar down the street, happy hour rollicked on. Music and laughter mingled and carried outside. Too easily he remembered a time when he and Eric, along with Matt and Ethan, had been the ones cutting up and carrying on.

  It seemed like a lifetime ago.

  In only a few short months, everything Jake thought hed known about his life had proven to be a lie. He was living in
a souped-up spy thriller and no matter how hard he fought to stay one step ahead, the road before him lengthened.

  Eric Jones as a modern-day Jesse James, pulling off the largest theft in world history. What a joke.

  Except it wasnt the least bit funny.

  Jake knew damn good and well his friend, the personification of honor and loyalty, would never, could never, execute such a crime. But he also knew the forces working against them were powerful. Innocence didnt mean a damn thing.

  That was why he walked past the sedan and continued down the street. He couldnt just sit in the back-seat and let someone drive him around, not when energy and adrenaline roiled around inside him. He needed to do something. Something other than issue dire warnings to a friend.

  Something other than argue with his fiance.

  He should call her. He knew that. The last time theyd spoken shed made no secret of her irritation with him, but with the oppressive heat bearing down on him, the last thing he wanted was to try to explain to Tara, one more time, that he needed her to be patient just a little while longer.

  In truth, he no longer knew how to explain. From the moment hed accepted the World Bank assignment, his life had careened down a crazy path. Through the course of the investigation, hed learned more about himself, his past, than the theft.

  Your life is a lie. Youre not who you think you are.

  When he let himself, he could still see the wild glint in the older womans eyes as shed passed him the note. At first, hed written her off as a quack. Hed thought someone was trying to distract him from the investigation. But then the dreams had began, dark, disturbing, blurring the line between reality and fiction. Hed met with the womanher name was Violetseveral more times, listened in shock to her wild story, her claims that she was his birth mother and that he had brothers and sisters scattered across the country, that they were all in dire danger. Shed given him a key the last time hed seen her.

  Then shed died.

  Grief clutched him all over again. The authorities called the car crash that killed her an accident, but Jake had to wonder.

  In the weeks since then hed tracked down two of the siblings Violet had told him about, and the connection had been immediate. And intense. The shock of it all drilled deep.

  He had a brother, a Navy SEAL named Marcus. And a sistera twin. Gretchen was her name, and the moment hed seen her, hed known hed finally found a piece of himself that had always been missing.

  The key had led to a safe deposit box in Arizona, and inside theyd found heavily coded notes. Gretchen was deciphering them now, and if Violets incredible story about genetic engineering proved to be true, he had more siblings somewhere, living blissfully unaware of the danger stalking them. Violet claimed they carried hypnotic triggers deep in their subconscious, and that if the triggers fell into the wrong hands, they could become pawns, directed to use their superior skills to commit crimes.

  Swearing softly, Jake unclipped his mobile phone from his belt and jabbed in a series of numbers. It took a moment before the connection was made, with static making hearing difficult.

  Jake? came a soft female voice, one that made him smile despite the frustration coursing through him. That you?

  Hey, Gretchen, he said, and immediately his mood lightened.

  You still with Marcus?

  No. Hed hated leaving his brother so soon after finding him, but the second hed received the call about Eric, hed known he had to leave. Im in Chicago. World Bank stuff.

  Oh.

  He glanced at his watch, realizing how late it was in Brunhia, the remote island off the coast of Portugal where Gretchen and her husband had settled. Marcus would be traveling there soon. I didnt wake you, did I?

  Are you kidding? she said with that soft, lilting laugh of hers. The one that sounded so damn familiar it made his chest tighten. Who can sleep with all these disks to decode?

  Jake shoved a hand through his hair. He heard what his sister didnt say. Are the nightmares getting worse?

  She hesitated. The long-distance connection crackled. And still Jake waited.

  More intense, she finally said. One minute I see children on a beach, laughing and building sand castles, and theres this incredible sense of belonging. Of happiness. But in the nextin the next theres an explosion and everything goes dark. Theres screaming and water everywhere, fire, andand I cant breathe.

  Jake frowned. He was glad Gretchen had her husband, Kurt, with her. Ive had the same dream, he admitted, knowing it was no dream at all, but memory. For over twenty years, life before his thirteenth birthday had been a blank canvas, but now, with increasing speed and ferocity, images intruded. Hang in there, he told his sister. Ive got to go for now.

  Ill let you know when I crack these disks.

  And Ill be in touch soon.

  Just as soon as he found a way to prove Eric Jones and Achilles were not one and the same.

  From a cloudless blue sky, the blistering sun presided over the snarl of rush-hour traffic. Summer in Chicago. There was nothing like it.

  Sipping the iced latte shed purchased from a coffee shop across from her office building, Leigh Montgomery waited to cross Michigan Avenue. During her years in the U.K., shed forgotten the suffocating combination of searing heat and oppressive humidity, how it could choke you, make you long to strip off your clothes and jump into the nearest body of water.

  Fleetingly, she glanced at a nearby fountain. The temptation made her smile.

  Shed been only twenty years old that impossibly cold, starkly beautiful December morning when shed boarded a plane for London, but in the ensuing years the girl had become a woman, the coed a seasoned attorney. Practicing law and dealing with the criminal element changed people.

  So did a broken heart.

  Briefcase slung over her shoulder, she crossed the street with a rush of pedestrians and cruised through the revolving doors of the high-rise where shed been working for the past two years, ever since returning to the States and passing the bar. An elevator whisked her skyward, while she mentally inventoried her morning workload. Shed left the house later than shed meant to, which had resulted in her arriving downtown forty-five minutes behind schedule. She had a brief to review, a few calls to make, and a new client scheduled after lunch. It would be tight, but she could swing it.

  At the fifty-seventh floor, the steel doors slid open and Leigh stepped briskly into the stately reception area of Brightman and Associates. Thomas Brightman had a flair for appearances, and accordingly, the firms decor conjured images of an old English manor house. The floor was a highly polished, gleaming mahogany, matching the receptionists desk. Dark green covered the walls, save for the elaborate built-in shelves which housed an impressive collection of law books. The furniture was Chippendale, inviting no one to become too comfortable.

  Good morning, Jules, Leigh greeted, heading toward the corridor that housed her office. Did I miss anything?

  Actually, theres a gentleman waiting to see you.

  Leigh glanced at her watch, saw the hour drawing near ten. My first appointment isnt until one thirty.

  He says its important.

  Leigh frowned. It was always important. Hell have to schedule a time and come back. Ive got a mountain of work on my desk an
d nowhere near enough hours in the day.

  Julia hesitated. Hes been waiting for over an hour.

  Im sorry, Leigh said, and was. But my morning is full. I dont have time for a walk-in

  Leigh.

  Abruptly she stopped walking, stopped talking, stopped breathing. Even her heart stopped beating.

  Its me.

  The quiet masculine voice came from behind her, not just a few steps, but miles and years. She stood very still for a long, punishing moment, ignoring the puzzled look on Julias face and trying to convince herself her imagination was playing a cruel joke on her.

  She knew that voice. She remembered that voice. Shed heard that voice at night in her dreams so many times over the years, heard it confidently debate economic theory, whisper words of passion and need, blandly tell her goodbye.

  It couldnt be him. It couldnt. No way would he just stroll back into her life one day, even if hed done so in her dreams countless times.

  Correction. They werent dreams.

  They were nightmares.

  Slowly, shoulders square and professional smile pasted in place, Leigh turned around.

  And once again forgot to breathe.

  Two

  T en years was a long time. People changed, life moved on. Old dreams faded and new ones took their place. Time never stood still.

  But for Leigh, as she stood in the cool, quiet lobby of the staid law firm, staring at the tall man with the professionally cut sandy hair and piercing blue eyes, it was as though shed never put an entire ocean between her and the past, never been with another man, never made decisions guaranteed to haunt her for the rest of her life.