by Lisa Jackson
If the muted colors and dramatic view were offered to inspire calm or peace, that aura was shattered as Gerald Johnson’s offspring entered and joined Kacey, Clarissa, and their father around the table. A few glances were cast in Kacey’s direction, and though some were curious, none seemed surprised.
No doubt Clarissa had warned them all. She sat in a chair directly to her father’s right, like the apostle John in da Vinci’s The Last Supper. She opened her computer case and pulled out her laptop, just as if this were a regular business meeting and she were about to take notes or share information she’d gathered.
She glanced at Kacey, seated across the table from her, and there was more than a glint of displeasure in her gaze. Well, yeah. She was the epitome of the bitchy, take-charge firstborn, and a few moments with Kacey earlier weren’t going to change any of that. Clarissa’s short hair wasn’t just near black; it was streaked with an underlying tone somewhere between bloodred and purple, a little more hip than her choice of black suit and knee-length skirt.
Before a word was exchanged, two men stepped into the room, one before the other: the twins, who’d been out of the office, had arrived. They were dressed in slacks, dress shirts, and sports coats. The first, hair unkempt and sporting a five o’clock shadow across his boxy jaw, came up and offered Kacey a warm smile. His nose wasn’t quite straight, as if it had been broken at least once, possibly twice. “Colt Johnson,” he said, as if he were getting ready to go into a sales pitch. “I hear you’re our long-lost sister.”
“Not exactly,” Clarissa said, but he ignored her.
With his trademark blue eyes and slightly wavy hair, he looked a lot like the old man, just a little more refined; the sharper features he’d received from his mother. “Don’t let Clarrie get to you,” he warned, and she let out a snort of disgust as he grinned, showing off the hint of a dimple.
“I’m Kacey Lambert.” She shook his hand.
Colt lifted a thick eyebrow. “Well, Kacey, you’ve found yourself one helluva family.”
“Have I?”
“Oh, yeah.” Colt took a seat next to Kacey as the second twin, right on the heels of the first, introduced himself to her as Cameron. Though he looked exactly like Colt, he’d just shaved and his hair was neatly in place.
“Just for the record, I’m the smarter twin,” he said, and his brother barked out a laugh.
Clarissa’s jaw tightened. “This isn’t really funny.”
“Sure it is,” Colt said. “It’s a goddamned sideshow. Welcome to the Johnson family circus.”
Cameron half smiled and nodded.
Clarissa’s mouth thinned.
“Having fun yet?” Cameron asked, but not just to Kacey; his remark seemed to be directed at everyone.
Gerald shook his head. “Just take a seat,” he suggested. Cameron slid into a chair one seat away from Clarissa and directly across from Colt, just as the fourth sibling arrived.
Judd.
She recognized him from the pictures she’d seen.
He was the tallest so far, his shoulders broader than either of the twins’. While they were built like baseball players, he had the physique of a star quarterback. His hair was neat, so black as to be blue; his face clean-shaven. He wore a black business suit, crisp white shirt, and looked every bit the corporate lawyer, though she did note his tie was loosened slightly. When he looked at her, there was a restlessness to his gaze, an edge, and his eyes were a startling shade of blue.
Gerald said, “Judd, this is—”
“Acacia. I know.” He shook her hand. Much more serious than either of the twins, he said quietly, “I guess I’m supposed to welcome you to the family, but I’m not really sure that’s such a good idea.”
“Yeah?”
One side of his mouth lifted laconically. “You’ll see,” he said, taking a seat to his father’s left.
Gerald checked his watch and looked at his daughter. “Did anyone get the word to Robert?” he asked, but before Clarissa could answer, the door opened again, and a man Kacey didn’t recognize rushed inside.
Obviously the missing Robert Lindley.
Gerald made a quick introduction. “Robert, this is Acacia Lambert. She’s your half sister.”
“I heard.” Robert nodded at her before sliding into a seat next to Clarissa, and though he did resemble his half siblings, there wasn’t a hint of the refinement to his features that was evident in most of Noreen Johnson’s children. Robert’s forehead was larger, more pronounced, his hairline receding slightly, though there wasn’t any gray in the coffee brown of his hair. His eyes were blue, too, that family brand evident, but his nose was a little broader than those of his half brothers, his eyebrows thicker and more pronounced, his skin a little paler. His physique was more like Judd’s than the twins’. He was tall and thick-muscled, as if he worked out whenever possible.
“Where’s Thane?” Gerald asked, clearly anxious to get the meeting under way.
“Your guess is as good as mine. I left a message on his cell,” Robert said.
“He was here,” Judd said. “I saw him less than ten minutes ago, locking his car in the lot.”
“He’ll show up when he shows up.” Clarissa was obviously fed up with her younger brother’s antics. “Let’s get down to it. As you know, Acacia Lambert”—she motioned to Kacey—“is our half sister. Her mother is Maribelle Collins, and until recently, she claims she didn’t realize our father was the same as hers.”
“I think I should handle this, Clarissa,” Gerald interrupted. To the group at large, he explained about his affair with Kacey’s mother, revealing that he knew about Kacey and applauded her decision to become a doctor, even admitting to knowing her ex-husband, the noted heart surgeon J. C. Lambert. All of the information made Kacey squirm inside, especially the surprise about her ex, but she forced an impassive expression, though everyone around her was growing more and more tense. Gerald apologized to his children and swore he would make it right with their mother, though he didn’t obviously include Janet Lindley, Robert’s mother, in the mix of baring his soul and offering up his regrets.
It was odd listening to him, and Kacey wondered how much was heartfelt, how much was an act. All of them appeared to be reining in their emotions, Kacey included, showing only a passive expression while her insides were roiling with anger for a man she’d never known existed until a few days earlier.
“And Acacia didn’t just come here to let me know that she’d found me, and you as her siblings. She’s got another concern.” His face tightened as he withdrew the pictures of the dead women from his pocket and slid them onto the table. “These women all look alike. In fact they look quite a bit like Acacia, and some of their facial characteristics are similar to yours as well.
“Acacia believes these women, too, might be your half siblings and intends to prove it. I want you all to know, this could be technically true, though there were no other affairs during my marriage to your mother. Yes, I had girlfriends before I married, but because of the ages of these women, it’s likely, if I’m proven to be their father, that it’s the result of my donation to a local sperm bank.”
His children, already primed by Clarissa, showed very little shock at his statement, and when he explained further, none seemed to care at all. It was only when he brought up the fact that Shelly Bonaventure, Jocelyn Wallis, and Elle Alexander might have been murdered that their backs straightened, their eyebrows lifted, their jaws tightened.
Kacey took stock of all the changes in expression but found none that indicated they were privy to the information prior to today.
Clarissa suddenly held up a manicured hand as if she were stopping traffic. “Does she. . do you,” she corrected, focusing those blue eyes across the table, her gaze boring into Kacey’s, “do you have some kind of weird theory about this? That some bastard, some killer, as yet unknown, is taking out a bunch of turkey-baster kids? Maybe my dad’s turkey-baster kids?”
“Clarissa!” Gerald said through his t
eeth.
Before Kacey could respond, the door to the room was pushed open and Thane, the missing son, strode in. He was built like Judd, just not quite as tall, and judging by his body language, he seemed a little less somber. “Sorry I’m late,” he said as if he didn’t mean it, then slid into a chair at the opposite end of the table to his father. Spying Kacey, he said, “You must be Acacia.”
“I go by Kacey.”
“Kacey, then.”
Clarissa said, “She’s Maribelle Collins’s daughter with Dad.”
Thane lifted a shoulder. “You said so on your message.”
“Well, there’s more.” Clarissa pinned Kacey under her sharp gaze again. “She’s got some screwball theory that Dad, who, it turns out, was a sperm donor in med school, has a bunch of ‘kids’ ”—she made air quotes with those long, red-tipped fingers—“and they’re being knocked off in some diabolical scheme. Why she, Acacia, felt compelled to bring this to us is the big mystery and why we’re all here.”
“Is that so?” Thane said, an amused twist to his thin lips. Dressed in jeans and a sweater, his hair still wet from melting snow, he didn’t bother hiding the fact that he found the situation either ludicrous, funny, or a bit of both.
“Essentially, yes,” Kacey said. “The pictures on the table are of women I think were fathered by Gerald. They’re all recently dead, probably murdered.”
“I know this one!” Thane suddenly said, pointing out Shelly Bonaventure. “I saw her in a film years ago.”
“You and one other person,” Clarissa snarked.
Thane frowned. “I thought she committed suicide.”
“That’s the official version,” Kacey said.
“So is the official version untrue?” Judd asked. “Is that what the police are saying?”
“Not the L.A. police, but the local sheriff’s department, and these women”—she indicated the pictures of Elle Alexander and Jocelyn Wallis—“are from around here. Jocelyn and Shelly were born in Helena, and I’m double-checking about Elle.”
“Just because people resemble each other doesn’t mean they’re related,” Cam said.
“Have the police connected the deaths? Are they considered homicides?” Judd wanted to know.
Robert agreed. “I doubt it. If the police had put this all together the way she has, then they would be here instead of her.” His eyes never left Kacey’s face, and she felt it, the hatred burning there. Somehow she’d stepped her foot into waters he’d claimed as his, and Robert Lindley didn’t like it.
Nor did anyone, it seemed.
The discussion heated up, with every one of Gerald’s kids expressing skepticism about Kacey and her theory. They were, for the most part, suspicious, expecting her to make demands, she supposed. While Clarissa was hostile and Cameron biting in his comments, Judd was solemn, the one who, though distrustful, listened while she spoke, his questions pointed, but without the same harsh judgment as his sister or Robert Lindley.
Thane didn’t say a lot, was probably the most welcoming as he quietly observed the sometimes volatile exchanges. Sometimes a smile would tug at a corner of his mouth, but beneath his laid-back, I-don’t-give-a-damn exterior, there was a restlessness to him. He, too, doubted her.
Robert continued to vent. “This is a ridiculous idea,” he said, impaling her with his cold gaze. “How would anyone know if these women were Gerald’s? Without DNA testing, or some kind of private information leaked from the clinic, how would a killer even know who to choose?”
“More to the point, why?” Judd asked.
Gerald took the floor again. “The clinic’s been closed for years. Who knows where the records went?” Though his children listened to him, they all had their opinions about Kacey and what she’d brought to them.
None of them liked it.
She felt their resentment coming off in waves, and for a few minutes even she doubted her own theory.
“What have the police got to say about this?” Cameron asked her, and she felt every eye in the room turn her way.
“They’re investigating. That’s all I know.”
“So, they’ll show up here, too!” Clarissa made a disparaging sound. “Just what we need. Now that the patents have expired, we’ve got competition crawling up our backs, and what we don’t need is some bad publicity, any reason for our clients to take their business elsewhere!”
“This has nothing to do with business,” Gerald said. “It’s personal.”
“Tell that to the Internet and the blogs and the local newspaper. This is a publicity nightmare.”
“I thought all publicity was good, that there was no bad press,” Cameron said.
“Yeah, well, you’re a moron.” Clarissa didn’t back down for an instant. A businesswoman with a master’s from Stanford, firstborn in a family of male siblings, she was definitely tough.
Colt straightened in his chair. Rather than come to his twin’s defense, he turned the conversation back to the women who had died. “Are there any other victims?”
“I think so,” Kacey said but couldn’t back it up.
Judd put in, “The first order of business is the DNA tests. We can sit here all day and argue theory, but until we can prove that these women”—he thumped a finger on the table, next to the photographs—“are actually Dad’s biological offspring, then all other conversation is moot.”
“Judd’s got a point,” Colt agreed.
The rest of his siblings weren’t so inclined to agree and were vocal about the fact that they thought Kacey had come to stir up trouble, make a claim on the estate, or both.
“So what was the point of coming here? To check us out? Or warn us. . or accuse us?” Cameron asked. “I don’t get it.”
“There’s nothing to get,” Clarissa said with a scowl. “She knows about the company.”
“That’s not it,” Kacey said clearly. “I felt you all should know that someone may be killing off people with a genetic link to you.”
“And who would that be? Who would go to the trouble of finding Gerald’s supposed sperm-bank babies and then killing them off in apparent accidents?” Clarissa said as she slid her laptop into its case. “That’s nuts. Makes you sound like you should check yourself into the nearest psycho ward.”
“Hold on,” Gerald said. “Let’s not get nasty.”
“Does Clarissa know another way?” Cameron asked. “If so, I’ve never seen it.”
“Enough!” Judd cut in, his anxiety finally showing. “We don’t need to insult each other.” He turned in his chair so he could watch Kacey’s expression. “So, you wanted to forewarn us.”
Her stomach knotting still tighter, she brought her temper under control. “I did want to meet you, too. I was curious about the father I’d never known, and since I grew up an only child, the idea of siblings fascinated me.”
Clarissa shook her head, as if she had much more important things to deal with and Kacey was wasting her time.
Colt and Judd were quiet, listening.
Cam looked bored, and Robert’s jaw was so tense, the bone showed white beneath his skin. Gerald, too, was feeling the pressure, putting up a good, patient front, but one fist was clenched on the table and his lips were flat over his teeth.
Kacey said, “The reason I found out about you all is because there were so many women who looked like me in and around Grizzly Falls. I never met anyone who resembled me remotely when I lived in Seattle, but I move here and it’s like they’re everywhere. Two… three… four. It’s really out of the norm. I wouldn’t have even thought about Shelly Bonaventure. Even though I’ve seen her face, noted that we resembled each other, she lived in L.A. Just a quirky little coincidence, right? That’s how I saw it, even when people made comments. But the others. .” She looked at the photographs on the table. “They were what motivated me.” She explained about being mistaken for Jocelyn Wallis in the ER and how Shelly Bonaventure was her doppelgänger, and how worried she became when they started dying. Intuitively Kacey left out
the part about her house being bugged, or that she felt she’d been followed. Already some of them thought she wasn’t playing with a full deck; she didn’t want them to consider her completely paranoid.
When she finished, Clarissa, a pissy expression twisting her features, said, “So what now? You’ve come. You’ve met us. Introduced yourself to Dad. Messed up our mother’s life immeasurably, especially concerning that she’d never really accepted Robert as our half brother.”
Robert glowered a bit but didn’t argue.
Clarissa went on, “I suppose you’re going to want to hire on with the company, here, along with the rest of us. Or are you planning to come over for Christmas dinner? That might be interesting in an absurd way.”
“More than a little,” Cameron added.
Kacey stood. “All I wanted was validation, I guess. To find out a little more about myself and let the rest of you know what’s going on, that people related to Gerald Johnson are dying.”
“Still just a theory,” Robert reminded.
She turned her attention to him, the one most like her, not really part of the family. “I really don’t have anything else to say. Contrary to what you think,” she added, looking directly at Clarissa, “I do have a life. My own life and it’s pretty good. I’d just like to keep it that way.”
She was about to walk out when a knock sounded on the door the moment before it was pushed open. A tall man, probably six-two or three, poked his head inside. Handsome, with bladed features and eyes a shocking blue, he looked around the room, his gaze landing on Clarissa.
“I thought we were meeting with the builder this afternoon,” he said, obviously displeased.
