by Lisa Childs
Her nails scraped against the denim as her fingers slid from Royce’s arm. She shivered.
Donald’s hard stare focused on Sarah.
She struggled not to flinch. When he turned toward her son, she stiffened in defense. He would not treat her child as he treated his own. And how safe would they be staying with this man?
He shrugged. “That’s fine with me. It’s a big house. It’s been a long time since I’ve had guests. I’ll telephone Mrs. Phelps to let you into the gate then I’ll see you there after I finish the arrangements for Bart.” Sadness lined his face at the mention of his business partner.
Perhaps he wasn’t as heartless as she’d thought.
“Thank you, Mr. Graham. I’m sorry to intrude, especially at such a time.”
He shrugged again. “It’s fine, Mrs. Hutchins. Maybe we can talk business later.”
She stifled a laugh. “I have nothing to do with the company anymore. It belongs to someone else now.”
“Father, there’s more to the favor,” Royce interrupted.
Donald narrowed his eyes. “What more?”
“Sarah and her son are in danger. I think it would be best if you stayed in the city.”
He nodded and turned back to the room where his friend’s body lay. “For my safety or theirs?” When Royce remained silent, he sighed. “Fine. You should remember how to get to the house. I’ll check into a hotel for tonight.”
Royce’s hand closed over his father’s shoulder. “I’m sorry about Bart, Father. And thank you.”
The moment stretched as both men stood, unmoving, then Donald Graham walked away and Royce’s hand fell back to his side.
Sarah contained her sigh of frustration and followed Royce and Jeremy toward a waiting elevator. Before the doors closed, she glanced to the end of the hall where Donny and Pamela argued.
Royce cleared his throat. “Pamela is Donny’s ex-wife.”
“And their child is sick?”
He nodded. “Poor kid got a serious infection a year ago. Her kidneys are failing. She has to come here for dialysis. I guess the insurance and child support, if Donny even pays it, don’t cover all of the expenses.”
Sarah wrapped an arm around the thin shoulders of her healthy son and breathed a prayer of thanksgiving. “What about a transplant?”
Royce shrugged. “I really don’t know many particulars. I’m not here much. In fact, I would probably have trouble remembering exactly where my condo is.”
Jeremy stiffened under her arm. “But that’s not why you don’t want to stay there. You want to stay at your father’s house because we’re in danger. You told him, but nobody bothered to tell me.”
Sarah sighed, wishing she’d told him earlier. “We don’t know that for sure, Jeremy. It may all be over now.” If Alan McCarthy believed that she wanted nothing from his father’s estate. If Alan McCarthy was behind the threats…or Donny…or Pamela…
“So you lied to me earlier? Someone is threatening us?” He shrugged off her arm and pinned her with his angry gaze.
Asked a direct question, she couldn’t lie to her son. “Yes.”
His breath shuddered out as if she’d punched him. Then he struggled with his fear, pushing it away and lifting his chin to the challenge. “Okay, I just wanted to know.”
To be prepared. She understood, but who could prepare him for a kidnapping threat? Royce.
“You’ll be safe at my father’s house.” Royce forced a chuckle. “And I should remember where that is.”
“You have a condo? I thought you lived from your vehicle, that your house had four wheels.” A nervous chuckle bubbled out of Jeremy, as pride lifted his chin. “Five if you count the spare.”
“I travel a lot, Jeremy.”
Sarah’s heart grew heavy again. Was he warning her and her son? Don’t get attached to a man with his nomadic lifestyle? To a man who put his life on the line to rescue kidnap victims in foreign lands?
She hoped it wasn’t already too late. For Jeremy…and herself.
Chapter Nine
Royce barely resisted the urge to slam down the receiver and fling the phone across his father’s den. Exerting the last of his control, he dropped it onto the cradle and dragged a hand through his hair.
He couldn’t let the frustration eat at him. His hours of phone calls had achieved something. He’d pulled in favors for an around-the-clock watch on the boy. The guards would not allow even his father through the gates and past the security system for which Royce had already changed the access code.
Despite not completely trusting the validity of the kidnapping threat, he would take no chances. Not with Sarah’s son.
But he’d accomplished nothing on his other mission.
The local PD had nothing on Bart’s shooting. No leads. No motive. No suspects…that they knew about.
Royce knew more. But he was too damned tired and sore to think anymore. Yet, the thought kept pummeling him.
Why Bart? In their partnership, Donald Graham was the one who made the enemies. He was the ruthless one. Bart had been the heart of their partnership. The conscience. Now he was gone.
Had his father…?
He shook his throbbing head. He couldn’t even entertain that thought. Not his father. Even though the facts substantiated that Donald Graham had a motive, Royce’s instincts didn’t kick and tighten his stomach muscles.
But was he too close? Despite their resentful relationship, did he love him too much to be objective? Old memories washed over Royce. Bart had stolen his bride from another man, from his best friend.
All these years Bart had always overlooked the old man’s bitterness because he’d taken from him the one thing Donald Graham had ever loved. And he’d married her. Sarah’s grandmother, the woman she so resembled. Jeez, he even had the same taste in women as his father. So Donald Graham had another motive for the murder of his best friend. Revenge.
But his father never would have threatened Sarah’s child. He wouldn’t have cared if she saw her grandfather before he died. He wouldn’t have cared if she inherited.
No, his father was no killer. Bart had always held out that the old man loved Royce, that they would find their way to each other again. But that wouldn’t be possible if Donald Graham was convicted of murder.
The old man didn’t even own a gun. The only one in the house had been locked away in a box after Royce had used it last, on his last assignment before leaving the FBI. At his condo, he had other guns. He never again intended to touch the one he’d locked away.
Royce dragged his hands down his face, brushing his palms over the bristle that was beginning to soften. He’d passed from a five o’clock shadow to a beard. He really needed to shave. He needed to do anything other than contemplate his father’s innocence or guilt.
The walnut walls of the dark den closed in on him with the scent of his father’s after-dinner pipe and leather books, so he swung open the door…to Sarah’s worried face.
“Is Jeremy asleep?” he asked.
She nodded. “He’s still mad at me, though. I should have been honest with him from the start.”
He shrugged, knowing nothing about parenting. And never wanting to know. He’d seen firsthand that there was no greater pain than losing a child, and he had to ensure that was a pain Sarah would never experience. “That was your call.”
She sighed. “And I made the wrong one.”
“And you’re doing that again.”
She lifted her chin, gray eyes sparking with anger. “What are you saying?”
“By wanting to leave tomorrow before the reading of the will.”
“I told Alan McCarthy, and I’ll tell you—I want nothing from Bart. All I want now is to take my son home.”
“To safety?”
Her breath shuddered out. “Yes.”
“But you don’t know that he’ll be safe, not for sure.”
“You thought that the threats against Jeremy were to keep me from coming here, from seeing Bart, from collecti
ng an inheritance. If I walk away now—”
“You’ll let them win.”
Her pointed chin tilted, and pride flashed in her eyes. “I win…when there’s no more threats against Jeremy.”
“But you don’t know that.” He grasped her shoulders, his hands sliding over the fragile bones beneath the silk. “The only way you’ll have any measure of safety is when Bart’s killer is caught. Help me do that, Sarah.”
She inhaled a sharp breath. “How?”
“Go to the reading with me. Find out what you stand to gain that someone else wants. Help me find Bart’s killer.”
Her fingers touched his jaw, brushing over his beard. “You loved him a lot.”
“He was a good man, Sarah. He deserves justice.”
A sad smile curved her lips. “You don’t want justice, Royce. You want revenge.”
He wanted to deny her allegation but couldn’t summon a lie. “Maybe I do. Help me, Sarah.”
Tears shimmered in her eyes. “I’d help you more by walking away now. You’ll find no satisfaction in revenge. It’s more destructive than you know.”
“Sarah…”
She rose up on tiptoe and pressed a fleeting kiss to his lips. “I’m sorry.” She slipped free of his hands and turned for the stairs.
“So you’re going home in the morning?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry because I’m staying. Jeremy and I will go with you to the reading.”
As she climbed the stairs, Royce shifted under the burning stare from the wall. His father’s portrait. The pale eyes glared down at him.
Royce sighed. He could almost hear what the old man would say if he’d really witnessed that scene. “Can’t believe it. Can’t believe you’re falling for a woman just like your mother, a woman who marries for money.”
Had he fallen for Sarah Mars? God help him, he had.
SARAH KNOTTED her hands together and silently cursed Royce for talking her into this. But for that brief meeting, she hadn’t known Bart McCarthy. She had no right or interest in any of his worldly possessions. She didn’t want to be at the reading of his will.
But she settled into the chair Royce held out for her before he took his own on the other side of Jeremy.
“Does the boy need to be here?” Donald Graham asked, disapproval twisting his thin lips.
“Yes.” Royce’s succinct reply and narrowed eyes left no room for argument.
Sarah had never been able to turn away from someone in need. Royce needed to know who had killed the man he loved so much. And Sarah needed to know who had threatened her son. She glanced around the conference room at the unwelcoming faces of the other heirs. Their disapproval had nothing to do with Jeremy’s presence and everything to do with hers.
Across the oak conference table, Alan McCarthy glared at her. “I thought you didn’t want anything from my father, Mrs. Hutchins. Changed your mind fast, didn’t you?”
“Alan.” Royce braced his hands on the tabletop, as if ready to vault over the surface to defend her honor to the older man.
Sarah needed no one to rush to her defense. “I have a right to be here, Mr. McCarthy.”
“Do you? I’ve seen no proof of it. How do we know for certain that you’re the child my brother’s fiancée gave up? Maybe you’re just some opportunist trying to take advantage of an old man. Oh, that does sound familiar, like maybe you’ve done that before.”
Royce said nothing, his unshaven jaw tautly clenched. He wouldn’t defend her there. Because he still didn’t know her. And whose fault was that? Hers. Because she believed in keeping her secrets.
Sarah bowed her head, but not with shame. She reached beside her chair for her bag, extracting from it a fax she’d had Evan send earlier that morning after she’d asked him to send her records, which he’d kept for her in his own safe deposit box.
He’d gotten the records for her a couple of years ago when he’d gotten his own from the Winter Falls home for unwed mothers from which they had both been given up for adoption. She hadn’t wanted them, had never had any desire to learn the identity of her biological parents. The Marses had been her true parents; so loving and supportive that she’d felt disloyal just for having her original birth certificate.
Maybe she should have thought of her biological family with the first threat against Jeremy, but after twenty-eight years of no contact from them, she hadn’t considered that they would even know about her son, let alone have any reason to threaten him. Even now, she could see no reason for them to threaten her boy. Except money. She slid the document across the table toward her uncle. “There’s my adoption record…to put your mind at ease.”
A breath shuddered out of Royce. “You had those papers the whole time? I could have sworn you didn’t know…”
She shook her head. “I didn’t. I had the record, but I never opened it. I didn’t have any reason to. My parents saw that I lacked nothing. They loved me as their own.”
“But why didn’t you think of it when I came in search of you?”
She didn’t look at Royce to answer his question but at her son. “I had concerns other than my past.” Jeremy—her only concern.
When Alan McCarthy read the document, mottled color rushed into his face. “I still don’t think you belong here. My father let her give you up. Whatever he’s given you now is to assuage his guilt, not because he cared about his favorite son’s bastard child!”
“Dad,” Donny cautioned, a nervous smile not quite hiding his resentment at either Sarah’s presence or his ex-wife’s.
Although she held herself stiffly away from him, Pamela McCarthy sat by his side. Dark circles rimmed her bloodshot eyes, and the locks of her hair matted together as if a brush hadn’t touched it for days. “What are you looking at?” she snarled at Sarah.
Sarah’s heart softened for the woman’s pain and frustration. “How is your daughter, Mrs. McCarthy?” she asked.
The woman’s face softened, lines sagging around her mouth. “She’s still at the hospital. Another infection. She’s so weak.”
“I’m sorry.”
Pamela nodded, not meeting Sarah’s gaze. When the door opened to the reception area, everyone turned to the gray-haired lawyer who entered.
“All right, everyone’s here?” He swung his briefcase onto the end of the table opposite Donald Graham. “I don’t have much time now.”
Sarah gasped at his callous disregard for the feelings of those who grieved for Bart McCarthy. Then she glanced around the table and realized that was probably only Royce…and her. She grieved. Her hands trembled in her lap. She didn’t want to grieve; somehow doing so made her feel ungrateful for all the Marses had given her. But she wished she’d had more time with her grandfather, wished she would have learned more about the man her father had been before his untimely death.
She blinked back tears, and Jeremy’s thin hand clasped hers. “It’s all right, Mom.”
More tears threatened over his concern and his forgiveness. Her dear, sweet boy. If only he could have known his great-grandfather…
“I’m sorry.” The lawyer sighed. “I’m sorry about Bart. But this is all so rushed, and I—”
She waved the hand not held in Jeremy’s. “That’s my fault. I want to return home tomorrow.” After the service for Bart. She hadn’t told Royce, but she realized now she had to be there…for him and herself.
“Let’s get to it then,” Donald Graham ordered, his voice gruff, and his pale eyes suspiciously bright. He mourned his friend, too.
Sarah peered over Jeremy’s head to Royce’s stoic profile. He hurt. Instinctively she knew that and absorbed his pain.
The lawyer cleared his throat. “Well, then…as you know, Mr. Graham, Mr. McCarthy was liquidating his assets before his death. He’d sold his half of the business to you—”
“And the cash?” Alan demanded. “Where had he invested it?”
The lawyer shook his gray head. “He hadn’t. Against my advisement and Mr. Graham’s, he’d kep
t it as cash…in his safe.”
Donny coughed. “His safe?”
Pamela laughed, a short, bitter expulsion of sound. “And someone robbed him. Took all of it. This is priceless!” The laughter continued into hysteria.
All the color fled from Alan’s face, leaving him as pale as an invalid. “So what’s left?”
The lawyer peered over his glasses. “The house, personal effects…”
“Nothing!” Alan grunted and rose from the table, storming from the room.
Pamela’s laughter subsided into hiccuping sobs. “Nothing…”
Donny brushed trembling hands through his glossy black hair. “This doesn’t make any sense…”
Royce’s breath sighed out. “No, it doesn’t.”
“Do you have any leads, Royce?” her cousin asked.
Royce’s pale-brown gaze met Sarah’s over Jeremy’s head, then he glanced down, onto the golden hair of her son. “No, I don’t. Not yet.”
JEREMY. Jeremy was his lead. Royce ignored the sickening lurch in his stomach and concentrated on the boy. He’d pushed aside his apathy towards children. Jeremy was not like other kids. He wouldn’t be one of those Royce had failed. Not Bobby. Not Samantha.
He leaned back in the rope, keeping tension on Jeremy’s harness while the gangly boy sought hand-and footholds on the rock wall on the third floor of Donald Graham’s house.
Royce glanced around the cavernous attic, the cathedral-high ceiling held aloft with massive beams. He’d moved up here in his teens, trying to get as far away from his father and his expectations as he could.
“This is so cool, Mr. Graham.”
Royce held in a chuckle. “Remember, no ‘Mr. Graham’ stuff. Makes me feel old.”
Jeremy glanced down at him, losing a foothold and jerking at the harness. “But you are old.”
Royce tugged at the rope, jostling the kid. “Cocky, aren’t you?”
Jeremy kept his handholds. The kid possessed amazing strength and balance. “Strong, too.”
Royce laughed. “How? You work out?”
“Karate. Evan teaches me.”
Evan. Jealousy that he had no right to burned in Royce’s gut. “Nice of him.”
