Unforgettable

by Joan Johnston

  Bella doubted it. “Are you ready to talk about what happened ten years ago?”

  There was no sound on the line for so long that Bella thought the connection had been lost.

  At last Bull said, “Is that really necessary?”

  So he was willing to let bygones be bygones. Which wasn’t exactly the same thing as forgiving and forgetting.

  She’d been wrongly accused and unjustly abandoned, and Bull saw no reason to apologize? Bella felt her adrenaline spiking as her anger rose. She struggled for breath, knowing that her heart was having trouble keeping up with the stress she was putting on it. In a few moments she wouldn’t have enough breath to speak without revealing the debilitating condition she’d so successfully kept hidden from her family.

  “I think Warren and Warren Investigations can handle the situation. They’re very good at what they do.”

  “It’s your necklace. Have them give me a call.”

  Was that regret she heard in his voice? Or was it resignation? “I will,” Bella replied.

  “And Bella . . .”

  Bella waited hopefully for Bull to finish his sentence. Finally she asked, “Is there something else, Bull?”

  “I miss you.”

  Bella felt her heart—her very fragile heart—squeeze. She opened her mouth to speak and closed it again. She’d missed him, too, more than she could bear. But she didn’t respond in kind. She simply gasped, “I’ll be in touch,” and ended the call.

  Bella swore under her breath, furious that, at fifty-four, her body was in such a fragile state. She’d injured herself in a skiing accident in the Alps three years ago, and the scar tissue on her heart had left her with only another year, or maybe two, to live before that vital organ gave out.

  A heart transplant was a possibility, but Bella had such a rare blood type that it was unlikely a donor heart could be found before her heart failed.

  She wanted to make peace with Bull before she died, but that was an iffy proposition at best. Besides, she was certain that once he knew the truth, he would insist that she conserve her strength. And she had four more children to get settled with loving spouses before she could rest.

  Her machinations to get her youngest son Max together with his childhood sweetheart, Kristin Lassiter, had worked out perfectly. The two had recently married and were living happily ever after in Miami—along with the child that had come as a total surprise to her son, their precocious nine-year-old daughter Flick.

  Bella had been using the services of Warren & Warren Investigations over the past several years to keep track of her wayward children, and the firm had done excellent work. She was certain Sam Warren would be able to locate the Ghost—if, indeed, it could be found.

  The most recent report from the Texas-based private investigator had informed her that her second son, Riley, had left Hong Kong and joined her third son, Payne, on a boat off the coast of Turkey. Both sons were investigating ancient underwater ruins Riley had discovered while he’d been scuba diving. Hence her visit to Greece.

  Riley was scheduled to return to his shipping base of operations on the island of Santorini in a month, and she was searching valiantly to discover what woman might have caught his eye over the past several years. Unfortunately, Riley’s nearly constant travel kept him from meeting many eligible females. Her second son had always been a difficult child, inquisitive and intractable, and it was going to take a very special woman to capture his heart. Nevertheless, by the time Riley showed up here again, she hoped to have a match ready and waiting for him.

  “Are you all right, Your Grace?” Emily asked.

  Bella turned to find the assistant she’d hired when her heart had begun to fail standing at her shoulder.

  Emily was a model of efficiency, considerate, always pleasant, and strangely devoted to Bella. She was thirty-two and unmarried, but Bella felt sure that if some man would just take the time to see past Emily’s very plain face, he would find himself with a rare jewel.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Emily asked.

  “It seems Lydia borrowed the Ghost without asking, and it’s been stolen from her. The thief contacted Bull asking for a ransom of twenty-five million dollars.”

  Emily gasped and the color drained from her face.

  “I don’t want Lydia to know that I know the truth,” Bella continued. “I want her to come to me when the necklace has been recovered and tell me what she’s done.”

  “When it’s recovered, Your Grace?”

  “Yes. I want you to contact Warren and Warren Investigations. I’m sure Sam Warren can—”

  “I’ve already contacted him,” Emily blurted. “I’m sorry, Your Grace, but Lydia called me when the necklace went missing. She begged me not to tell. She hoped to find it before you discovered it was missing. But now . . .”

  “Now that’s out of the question.” Bella frowned and added, “Unless . . .”

  “Unless what?”

  “I presume that Sam Warren made a beeline for Rome.”

  “I told him that’s where Lydia lost the necklace,” Emily admitted.

  “And he will contact you when the necklace has been found?”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “Then all we have to do is wait and let him do his job.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “What made you want to be a private investigator?” Lydia asked Joe as their taxi rattled over Rome’s black cobblestone streets toward the Westin Excelsior.

  Joe shot her a sideways look. “I grew up with a father who investigated for a living.”

  “Of course! It’s Warren and Warren investigations. How long have you and your dad worked together?”

  “The name comes from my dad and my grandfather.”

  “Oh.” Lydia waited for some elaboration on that statement, but Joe Warren was staring out the window at the many ancient facades bearing Corinthian or Ionian columns and the half-nude marble statues that made Rome such a fascinating city.

  “Do you like this kind of work?” Lydia asked.

  Joe shrugged. “I can take it or leave it.”

  “So why haven’t you left it? I mean, if you really don’t care for the job.”

  He put a hand on his injured leg and grimaced. “I don’t have much choice. This leg won’t allow me to do much else.”

  “How did you injure it?”

  “IED,” he said tersely.

  Improvised Explosive Device. So he’d been a soldier. That explained the military camouflage he’d shown up wearing. “Is there any chance your mobility will improve?” she asked, eyeing his wounded limb.

  “None,” he said in a voice curt enough to shut off that line of questioning.

  After growing up with four older brothers, Lydia wasn’t cowed. She looked him in the eye and said, “You’d get around a lot better if you weren’t too proud to use a cane.”

  He scowled but didn’t contradict her.

  “I’m an investigator myself,” she said.

  Joe raised a brow. “Then why do you need me?”

  Lydia felt the flush rising on her cheeks and wasn’t sure whether it was caused by Joe’s intense, blue-eyed gaze or the fact that she’d given herself credit for being something she was not.

  “What I mean is, I’m learning to be an investigator,” she amended. “I’m following in the footsteps of my eldest brother Oliver. He can . . .” Her brother did his investigating on the sly and probably wouldn’t appreciate her giving away his secret.

  She glanced at Joe sideways and said, “The short answer to your question is that I need you because I’m not very good at this—yet. Lately I’ve been searching for a Toulouse Lautrec painting that was stolen from a museum in Paris, but without much success. Oliver would already have located—” Lydia cut herself off again. “Anyway, I’m learning as fast as I can.”

  “Why bother?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re beautiful. You’re rich. You don’t need to work.”

 
; Lydia heard the disdain in his voice and felt a surge of anger. “No, I don’t need to work. I want to work. I want my life to have some meaning.”

  “There must be plenty of charities that would appreciate your efforts on their behalf.”

  “My brothers and I have formed a foundation that supports charitable work,” she replied. “But finding a missing art treasure—something priceless and irreplaceable—and returning it, so the public can enjoy it again, is also worthwhile.”

  “Most museums have pretty good security,” Joe said.

  “You’d be surprised how ingenious thieves can be.”

  “Obviously,” Joe said sardonically. “Since one managed to steal a priceless pearl right off your neck.”

  “I was drugged!” Lydia protested.

  “You might want to consider the fact that whoever took the necklace knew where you were staying, because he made sure you got back to your hotel room. Very likely it was someone you know personally, since he didn’t assault you when he had the chance.”

  Lydia stared at Joe wide-eyed. “You think a friend stole the Ghost?”

  Joe nodded. “Someone close to you, someone you’d never suspect. For reasons of privacy your hotel doesn’t record who comes and goes, and no one at the front desk noticed you coming in last night, so you were apparently walking on your own two feet, most likely with someone else’s help.”

  “How do you know all this? You slept the day away.”

  “I have an assistant in my office,” Joe answered. “I called and got an update from her while you were talking with your fiancé.”

  “Harold isn’t my fiancé,” she objected.

  “Fine. The guy who wants to marry you.”

  Lydia wasn’t sure why it was so important to make it clear to Joe Warren that she wasn’t attached, but she said, “Just because Harold wants to marry me doesn’t mean I have any intention of marrying him.”

  “I see. Why settle for one man when you can have an army of them at your feet?”

  “I’m not a flirt,” Lydia said sharply. “And I don’t sleep around.”

  “I never said you did.”

  But Lydia could see he was thinking it. She hated being put in a pigeonhole. “Harold doesn’t want a wife. He wants a showpiece on his arm. How would you like it if a woman only wanted you for the financial security you could provide?”

  Joe snorted. “Been there. Done that.”

  “And?”

  “She walked away when it looked like I’d never walk again.”

  Lydia stared at him wide-eyed. “Someone rejected you?”

  “Like day-old bread.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. Better to know up front that she wasn’t the kind to stick for the long haul. Can we just drop it?”

  So. He’d had his heart broken. And was still hurting, if she was any judge of the matter. “I’ll never bring up the subject again,” she said, “so long as you agree not to tar me with the same brush as the woman who walked away from you. I’m not like that.”

  Joe scoffed. “I haven’t met the woman yet who—”

  “Then I’m the first,” she interrupted.

  The taxi had stopped under the portico in front of the Westin Excelsior, and Joe got out. Lydia waited briefly to see if he was going to pay the driver or get her door, then realized she was on her own. She pulled a few euros from her purse to cover the fare and got out.

  She was muttering to herself about Joe’s manners when she realized he’d stopped to answer his phone, which had kept him from performing either service.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  He held the phone against his chest as he crossed behind the taxi to join her. “My office.” Then he put the phone to his ear again, said, “Uh-huh. Yeah. Roger that,” and ended the call.

  “What is it?” she asked anxiously. “Is there news about the Ghost?”

  “Your dad got a call asking for a twenty-five million dollar ransom for the return of the Ghost. Your mother just hired my father’s firm to find it.”

  Lydia’s stomach twisted. “Oh, no! Daddy called me, and I lied about having the Ghost. Why didn’t he confront me?” Then it dawned on her what Joe had just said. “My father got the ransom call, but my mother called to hire you? That must mean Daddy spoke with Mother. That’s . . . amazing.”

  As far as Lydia knew her parents hadn’t communicated directly in years. Maybe her loss of the Ghost was going to have at least one good result.

  Joe put a hand to her back to usher her inside. His fingertips were resting in the hollow just above her buttocks, and Lydia felt a frisson of awareness skitter down her spine. She took an extra step to separate them as he said, “You find it amazing that your mother is speaking to your father?”

  “Since my mother’s assistant recommended you, I thought you must have worked for the Duchess in the past. In which case, you would know that my parents, who’ve been living apart for the past ten years, are famous—or rather, infamous—for avoiding each other while showing up at the same event with someone else.”

  Joe’s eyes narrowed. “They must want to hurt each other pretty badly.”

  A shadow crossed Lydia’s face. “Yes, they do.”

  Lydia realized Joe was headed directly for the front desk. “What are you doing?” she whispered. By the time she’d finished her sentence he was already speaking to the concierge.

  Joe extended his hand, in which Lydia spied a folded fifty euro note, and said, “I believe you have a key for Sam Warren.”

  “Yes, sir. Here it is.”

  The concierge handed him a plastic card without giving the room number, and Joe put his hand to the small of Lydia’s back again to head her toward the elevators. This time his little finger was definitely resting below her waist. She shot a look at him, wondering if he was touching her so intimately on purpose, but he seemed oblivious. Nevertheless, she took a step sideways to break the connection, which had her heart beating faster than she liked.

  “That exchange at the front desk was odd,” she said.

  He cocked a brow. “In what way?”

  “It felt very clandestine, like spy kind of stuff. I mean, announcing who you are and paying to receive a key card, especially if the room belongs to someone else.”

  “My assistant set the whole thing up. She’s very thorough,” Joe said as they entered the elevator. “The room is taken, but it’s currently unoccupied.”

  As Lydia watched, Joe punched the button for the fifth floor. “I presume you know which lock fits that key?” she said.

  “I do.”

  As they exited the elevator, Joe put his hand so low on her back that Lydia realized he could likely feel the dimples above her buttocks. She turned to confront him and said, “I’ll thank you to keep your hands to yourself!”

  He looked affronted. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about the way you put your hand on my—” Lydia wasn’t sure what word to use. Derrière? Bottom? Butt?

  He lifted both brows and stared back at her as though she were crazy. “I was trying to be a gentleman.”

  By putting your hand on my rear end? Lydia realized she was fighting a losing battle. “Never mind.”

  They’d stopped in front of a hotel room, and Joe slid the card into the slot. When the green light appeared, he held the door open for her and then followed her inside.

  Lydia felt a chill of alarm because the unoccupied room bore clear signs of its occupant, which brought home the fact that they’d broken into someone’s room.

  She spied an open Coke can and a half-filled glass of Coke on the end table next to the unmade canopied bed, along with an open paperback mystery by a famous British author. She peered into the bathroom and saw a bottle of Gucci male cologne, shaving cream, a razor, and a toothbrush. An open computer sat on the desk together with yesterday’s London Times. Did that make the room’s occupant British? Was it possible Joe was right, and the thief was someone
she knew? Someone she’d grown up with in England?

  She turned and asked, “What are we doing here?”

  “My assistant traced an email offering the Ghost for sale to the business center at this hotel.” Joe headed straight to the desk, sat in the chair, turned on the computer, and began clicking the mouse. “She checked the hotel’s guest registration—”

  “Is that legal? To hack into the hotel’s records?”

  “Do you want the Ghost back?”

  It took her a moment to work out what he hadn’t said. “Who’s staying in this room?”

  “Your British cousin.”

  Lydia took a few steps backward and sank onto the bed. While she had numerous American relations on her father’s side, she had only one cousin on her mother’s side. “Gabe?”

  “Gabriel Alexander Wharton, to be precise,” Joe replied. “Your aunt Alicia’s bastard son.”

  “That’s an awful way to refer to Gabe.”

  “Bastard. Illegitimate. Tomato. Tomahto.”

  Lydia pursed her lips. Aunt Alicia was her mother’s twin sister, and the truth was, she hadn’t been married when Gabe was born. Lydia wasn’t sure why, but the two sisters had been estranged for as long as she could remember. She’d once tried to broach the issue with her mother, but the Duchess’s eyes had looked so agonized, she’d quickly dropped the subject.

  Alicia had been born five minutes after Bella, but because she’d come second, Bella had inherited the title of duchess and the Blackthorne estate, while Alicia had been left with only what Bella saw fit to give her. In the beginning, because the estate had been in decline, there had been nothing to share. Bull’s infusion of cash had allowed Blackthorne Abbey, the ancestral home of the Dukes of Blackthorne, to be opulently refurbished, but Aunt Alicia had left the Abbey shortly after Bull and Bella’s marriage and never returned.

  Lydia caught herself chewing on her thumbnail and yanked it out of her mouth.

  “Is this him?” Joe said, holding up his phone so Lydia could see the picture that had apparently been sent to Joe by his assistant.