Worth Dying For

by Beverly Barton

  From the direction in which she’s heading, she must be going to the summerhouse. Good. That’s not far from the river. If I can’t persuade her to continue her morning stroll near the cliff overlooking the river, then I’ll use force. After all, I’m bigger and stronger and if necessary, I can knock her out and carry her. I have to do away with Leslie Anne before anyone realizes she’s all alone and missing. I’d be a fool not to take this golden opportunity. Another like it might not present itself anytime soon. I’ll toss the little bitch off the cliff to her death; then while they’re all searching for her, I’ll sneak up to her suite and type the suicide note. Perfect timing is essential. I must take every precaution not to be caught. And there is no reason anyone would suspect me. Don’t I love Leslie Anne? Haven’t I loved her since the day she was born?

  “YOU GODDAMN lying son of a bitch,” G.W. bellowed at Dante. “Don’t listen to him, Tessa. Don’t listen to a word he says. He’s crazy. I want him out of here.” He glared menacingly at Dante. “You’re fired! The whole lot of you.”

  “Daddy, will you please calm down?” Tessa felt torn in two as she glanced back and forth from her father to Dante. She’d heard what Dante had said, but her brain hadn’t been able to fully process the information. She stared at Dante. “What do you mean, I’m not really Tessa Westbrook?”

  “Don’t you say another word, Moran,” G.W. warned. “So help me God, I’ll kill you if you voice that damn lie again.”

  “It’s not a lie and you know it,” Dante said. “The girl you identified as your daughter seventeen years ago in that Richland Parish hospital wasn’t really Tessa Westbrook and you know it. She was Amy Smith, a seventeen-year-old girl from Colby, Texas.”

  “Lies. All lies. The man is mad!” G.W. dived toward Dante, murder in his eyes.

  Tessa jumped between her father and Dante, laid her hands on G.W.’s chest and held him off. “Look at me, Daddy. Look at me and tell me Dante is wrong, that he’s mistaken.”

  G.W. inhaled and exhaled, then focused on Tessa’s face. “He’s mistaken. He’s as wrong as wrong can be. You’re Tessa. My Tessa. Anne’s little girl. I brought you home to your mother badly damaged, but still alive. You have to understand that it would have killed Anne if she’d lost our only child. And she had such a short time to live as it was.”

  The truth hit Tessa like a sledgehammer right between the eyes, creating not only emotional anguish, but mental overload and physical pain. As she looked deeply into her father’s brown eyes, she gasped and began shaking. Oh, God…oh, God! This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t real. She was still asleep and having a nightmare.

  “Daddy…” Her voice sounded strange, even to her.

  “You’re mine. My daughter. And Leslie Anne is my granddaughter. Nothing that man—” G.W. pointed to Dante “—says will change that fact. Please, Tessa, believe me. I love you and Leslie Anne more than anything in this world.”

  She saw her father crumble before her very eyes, like a sand castle destroyed by the incoming tide. Instinctively she wrapped her arms around him. “It’s all right, Daddy. We’ll work through this. And I know you love me and Leslie Anne. We love you, too, and nothing will ever change that. I promise you.”

  Tessa led G.W. over to a wing chair, urged him to sit, then knelt in front of him and held his hands. “Tell me the truth. Was the girl who was cremated and buried in Richland Parish Amy Smith or Tessa Westbrook?”

  Looking down at their clasped hands, G.W. wept. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “The sheriff called me to come in and identify the body because the girl fit my missing daughter’s description. I prayed that when I got there, it wouldn’t be Tessa. I knew if Tessa was dead, Anne would die, too, that without her daughter, she’d lose the will to live.” G.W. lifted his face and through tear-filled eyes, looked at Tessa. “The dead girl was our daughter.”

  Tessa felt as if a huge hand was squeezing the life out of her. She held on to G.W.’s hands tightly as she glanced over her shoulder at Dante. He came toward her, but when she shook her head, he paused several feet behind her. With her mind whirling crazily and a feeling of numbness creeping through her, Tessa concentrated on her father. But he’s not your father, an inner voice reminded her. Because you aren’t really Tessa Westbrook.

  “Am I Amy Smith?” she asked G.W.

  He shook his head. “Possibly. I never knew your name for sure, but Sheriff Wadkins told me that there was a girl from Texas who’d come up missing right after my Tessa had and there was a good chance you were a girl named Amy Smith. An orphan. A girl with no family to miss her or mourn her, so I made arrangements—financial arrangements—with the sheriff, his one deputy who knew the truth and with the coroner. I thought I’d buried the truth along with…with my daughter.”

  Tessa glanced back at Dante again. Their gazes collided. At that moment, she wasn’t sure who she felt sorrier for—G.W. or Dante. And she was torn between the two men—the man she thought of as her father and the man who was her lover, who had been her first and only love when she had been Amy Smith.

  Perhaps she’d been born Amy Smith and lived the first seventeen years of her life as Amy Smith, but that wasn’t who she was now. She was Tessa Westbrook. She didn’t remember Dante as a teenager or anything about her former life in Texas.

  And she never would remember.

  Concentrating on her father—and G.W. Westbrook was her father, now and forever—Tessa reached out and wiped away his tears with her fingertips. Looking him square in the eyes, she smiled at him. “Daddy, I love you. Maybe what you did was wrong, but I believe you did it for all the right reasons.”

  “I swear to you that—” he gulped “—even though saving Anne from the heartache of losing her only child was my main consideration at the time, I thought I was doing something good for you, too. A poor little orphan girl. It was as if God sent you to me—to us.”

  “I believe He did. It was meant for me to help Mother through the last years of her life and to give y’all a grandchild.”

  G.W. cupped Tessa’s face and pulled her to him for a kiss. “You are as much mine as if you’d been born to me. And God, you must know the sun rises and sets on Leslie Anne as far as I’m concerned.”

  A loud, thunderous knocking interrupted them, then the door to G.W.’s suite flew open.

  “G.W., what the hell’s going on? Olivia said something terrible was happening up here, that you were bellowing like a bull.” Sharon stormed into the room, then paused and looked from one person to the other. “My God, what is it? All three of you are crying.” She stared wide-eyed at Dante.

  “G.W., darling.” When Olivia started toward G.W., Sharon reached out and grabbed the woman’s arm.

  Not now! Not now! Tessa wanted to scream. And not in front of Olivia.

  “Olivia, I appreciate your wanting to help,” Sharon said. “But I believe this is a family matter. Would you please leave us alone?”

  “G.W., is that what you want?” Olivia looked pitifully at G.W.

  “Yes,” G.W. said. “Sharon’s right. This is a family matter.”

  Tossing her head back in a show of hurt feelings, Olivia turned and marched out of the room, but left the door open behind her. Dante walked over and closed the door.

  Sharon stared at him. “Family doesn’t include you, Mr. Moran.”

  “Dante stays,” Tessa said in no uncertain terms as she rose to her feet.

  Sharon grunted. “I want to know what the hell has happened.”

  “Tessa knows,” G.W. said.

  “Of course she knows,” Sharon replied. “The whole frigging state of Mississippi probably knows by now.”

  Suddenly Tessa realized that if Aunt Sharon was here, then she wasn’t with Leslie Anne. Surely Sharon hadn’t left her alone, not after Tessa had specifically told her not to.

  “Where’s Leslie Anne?” Tessa asked.

  “What? Oh, she’s with Tad,” Sharon said. “When Olivia came rushing to find me, Tad was with her and he volunte
ered to stay with Leslie Anne.”

  “No,” Tessa said. “God, no!”

  “What’s wrong?” Dante asked.

  “Tad is the last person on earth Leslie Anne should be with,” Tessa said. “She’s convinced that he’s the person who sent her the newspaper clippings. And yesterday morning, this strange voice woke her, saying ‘Leslie Anne, who’s your daddy?’ and then she found a note with the same message hidden in her napkin on her breakfast tray. She told me late last night that she thinks Tad is behind everything that’s happened recently.”

  “Why would she think Tad was—” Sharon looked at Tessa.

  “Damn, I wouldn’t put it past that good-for-nothing boy.” G.W. shot out of the chair. “We’ve got to find her.” G.W. looked at Dante. “I’ll deal with you later. But for now, you’re rehired. Get out there and find my granddaughter before that stupid boy fills her head with a lot of other nonsense.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sharon said. “I had no idea. If I’d known…”

  Tessa and Dante rushed out of the bedroom suite together and made a mad dash down the hall. When they reached the top of the stairs, Tessa paused long enough to say, “Leslie Anne is my first priority, but as soon as I know she’s safe, you and I will talk.”

  He nodded. “Let’s go find your daughter.”

  Thankful to have Dante at her side, Tessa hurried downstairs, protecting her daughter Tessa’s only thought.

  “NEED HELP building that fire?”

  Leslie Anne jumped around, then smiled when she saw who the intruder was. “I’ve just about got it, but thanks.”

  “How are you this morning?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Are you sure? You know you can always talk to me. I realize you’ve got your mother and G.W., but since they were involved in the cover-up, you might not want to talk to them.”

  Leslie Anne sighed. “I was pretty angry with them when I first found out and I acted like an idiot by running away, but now I’m determined to act like a grown-up. Lucie Evans told me that if I wanted to be treated like an adult, I should start acting like one.”

  “Are you saying that an adult wouldn’t be upset if she found out her biological father was a serial killer who had impregnated her mother when he raped her?”

  Leslie Anne gasped. “Does the fact that Eddie Jay Nealy is my biological father make you think less of me?” Realization suddenly dawned. “You—you already knew, didn’t you? You knew the truth about what happened to my mother. You knew there was no John Allen. How long have you known?”

  “For quite some time. And does that knowledge make me feel differently about you, think less of you? Of course it does. I’ve always been rather fond of you because you were Tessa’s child, but once I learned the truth—that you were that monster’s daughter—I hated you almost as much as I hated him for what he’d done to Tessa.”

  Leslie Anne backed away, fear clutching at her heart. She had thought the worst thing she had to fear was the knowledge that Eddie Jay Nealy had fathered her. But looking into a set of cold gray eyes, she knew it wasn’t. Leslie Anne realized she should fear for her life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  DANTE HAD Lucie wake Dom and alert him and Vic of the problem. Their objective was to find Leslie Anne Westbrook. Everything else had to wait, at least temporarily. He had no choice but to put aside his personal feelings and concentrate solely on finding Tessa’s child. Amy’s child. God only knew how he’d put his feelings on hold, even for a few minutes, let alone however long it would take to track down Leslie Anne, not when she could well be anywhere on the vast Leslie plantation? He could and would do it for Tessa’s sake because he loved her. He’d loved her as Amy Smith seventeen years ago and now he loved her as Tessa Westbrook. What difference did her name make to him? None. Absolutely none. She was the girl he’d loved, the woman he loved. And he felt certain that she loved him, too.

  But she will never remember her life as Amy. She’ll never remember what the two of you shared.

  “Look, there’s Tad,” Tessa cried. “He’s coming out of the summerhouse. But I don’t see Leslie Anne.”

  “You stay here,” Dante said. “Let me talk to him.”

  “If he’s said something to upset Leslie Anne, I’ll—”

  “Morning,” Tad called to them and threw up his hand. “Is everything all right with G.W.? We could hear him hollering through the whole house, and Mother was terribly worried.”

  Dante rushed ahead of Tessa and met Tad coming up the path. He grasped the guy by the lapels of his fancy suede jacket and glared at him. “Where’s Leslie Anne?”

  Tad gulped. “I—I don’t know. She ran off and left me. I’ve been looking all over for her.” He glanced down at where Dante gripped his jacket. “Would you mind not wrinkling the material. This jacket cost a small fortune.”

  Dante loosened his hold, but didn’t release Tad. “Sharon Westbrook said she left Leslie Anne with you. What did you say to her to make her run off?”

  An incredulous expression formed on Tad’s face. “I didn’t say boo to the kid. She told me to get lost, that she wanted to be alone. What the hell’s the matter with y’all anyway?”

  Dante let go of Tad’s lapels. “If you’re the one who sent Leslie Anne those newspaper clippings and have been harassing her, I’ll—”

  “You think I—” Tad gulped several times. “I didn’t do it. I swear. How could I have possibly known what happened to Tessa all those years ago? Hell, man, seventeen years ago, I was only twelve. Besides, that information was top secret, wasn’t it? You’d do better trying to find somebody who would have had a way of finding out and a reason to want to upset the applecart.”

  Tessa came up beside Dante. “Tad, swear to me that you didn’t—”

  “I swear.” He crossed his heart. “I didn’t know. Not until everybody else found out. And even if I had known, I wouldn’t have told Leslie Anne. My father was a real piece of work, too, so I understand how it is. I wish I’d never known who my father was.”

  Tessa placed her hand on Dante’s arm. “I believe him,” she said.

  “Yeah, I do, too. Which means—”

  Tessa sighed. “She’s out there somewhere alone, and we still don’t know who sent her those newspaper clippings or who sneaked into her room and taunted her while she was sleeping and left a note on her breakfast tray yesterday morning.”

  Dante had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. A really bad feeling. Instinct warned him that something more was going on here than someone revealing an ugly truth about Tessa having been raped and Leslie Anne being the rapist’s child. Someone hadn’t hesitated to emotionally harm Leslie Anne. What if that person intended to harm her physically? But the real question was why and who? When a man as wealthy as G. W. Westbrook was involved, Dante’s guess was that the motive somehow revolved around money. G.W.’s millions.

  Dante hitched his thumb toward the house. “You’re free to go,” he told Tad.

  As soon as Tad was out of earshot, he turned to Tessa. “We’ll find her soon. She can’t have gone far.” He wanted to allay Tessa’s fears, but he needed information from her that might shed some light on who would benefit if Leslie Anne was out of the way. “I have to ask you something, but I don’t want you to go reading anything sinister into what I ask.”

  “What is it? Tell me.” Panic laced Tessa’s voice.

  Dante grasped her shoulders. “Don’t go nuts on me, honey. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Have you seen your father’s—G.W.’s—will?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

  “Are you and Leslie Anne his beneficiaries?”

  “Yes, we’re the major beneficiaries,” Tessa replied. “He’s provided generously for Aunt Sharon and Aunt Myrle, too. And he left stock in Westbrook, Inc. to Celia and Charlie.”

  “On G.W.’s death, you inherit Westbrook, Inc., right? And the bulk of G.W.’s money, too, then in turn Leslie Anne is your sole benefi
ciary.”

  “Yes, that’s right, but—” Tessa sucked in deep breaths. “Why are you asking me about Daddy’s will? Dante, please, you can’t think someone—”

  “If Leslie Anne isn’t in the picture and for some reason you can’t run Westbrook, Inc., who takes charge? Who runs the company and oversees G.W.’s vast fortune? Who is the next in line? Your aunt Sharon? Or someone else?”

  Tessa cried out as she held up her hands in a stop gesture. “You’re wrong about this. Tell me you’re wrong. He’d never harm Leslie Anne in any way. He loves her. He was willing to marry me and adopt her.”

  Dante shook Tessa gently to gain her full attention. “Are you saying that Charlie Sentell is—”

  “If for any reason I can’t act as the executor of Daddy’s will, then that task falls to Charlie. Or at least it did. Only a few weeks ago, Daddy told me he planned to change his will and name Walker Benson, a Westbrook, Inc. vice president, as the backup executor because he’d come to realize what a poor businessman Charlie is.”

  “Did Sentell know your father intended to—?”

  “Yes, of course. I was there when Daddy told Charlie, but Daddy assured Charlie that his inheritance hadn’t changed, that he would still receive a—”

  “Has the will been changed?”

  “Not yet.”

  “How did Sentell react when G.W. told him what he intended to do?”

  “At first he was upset, but then he calmed down rather quickly. Perhaps too quickly.” Tessa laid her hands on Dante’s chest. “I’m telling you that it can’t be Charlie. He doesn’t have it in him to harm anyone, least of all Leslie Anne. Charlie loves me—he loved Tessa Westbrook—and he loves Leslie Anne.”

  “Are you willing to bet your daughter’s life on it?”

  CHARLIE GRUNTED as he walked along the unkempt path leading to the cliff overlooking the river. He’d taken a seldom used route, just in case anyone was looking for Leslie Anne. Slowing his pace, he shifted Leslie Anne in his arms. She was deadweight. The girl was heavier than she looked.