by Judy Duarte
A cold hand reached inside Cade and sent icicles deep into his gut. “What makes you think that?”
“More than one can play this game,” Walter said, his eyes narrowed craftily. “I decided to investigate them and hired my own detective. They’re snooping into my business. That’s an invasion of privacy, if nothing else.”
“Did you report this to the police?” Cade asked, nodding toward the tiny snooping device. “It should have been checked for fingerprints before anyone handled it.”
“Not yet. I need more evidence.” Walter lifted the transmitter from Cade’s hand, put it in an envelope and placed it in the top drawer of the desk. His eyes gleamed as if already witnessing a victory over Sara and her group of comrades-in-arms. “When I get it, they’ll be sorry.”
Cade had never seen his father look so sinister. But then, the man had a right to be furious. Listening to a person’s private conversations was against the law. Even the FBI couldn’t ordinarily do it without a judge’s okay.
Some part of him didn’t want to believe Sara had anything to do with it, but standing back and studying the situation objectively, he admitted she and her brother were the prime suspects, even though Mark Banning might have done the actual deed.
“There’s one other thing,” Cade said, recalling his own anger with his father. “I want you to call the chairman of the board for Stacy’s school and have Sara reinstated.”
“It’ll be a cold day in hell before I’ll do anything for a Carlton.”
“Your action was unfair and unfounded,” Cade continued.
“What about the wiretap?” Walter demanded.
“Like you said, you need more evidence. You don’t really know who planted it. Whatever case Sara and her brother think they have against you, it has nothing to do with their careers. Sara, by all accounts, is an excellent teacher. She doesn’t deserve to have her professional reputation sullied by lies and innuendo.”
“I didn’t lie,” Walter said, his eyes narrowing dangerously as he stared at Cade as if daring him to pursue the topic.
Cade took a deep breath and ignored the warning in his father’s harsh expression. “If you don’t, I’ll call and tell him you got Sara confused with a family you knew long ago and that you were mistaken about her.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Walter said in a savage tone.
“I can promise you I will. First thing in the morning,” he added, carefully maintaining an even tone.
His brother had called their father a spider, weaving people into his web until he controlled every aspect of their lives. Cade thought of his position at the law firm, the ranch that he and Stacy loved, the family loyalty that he’d accepted as natural.
He sensed the silky strands wrapping around him, luring him into a lifetime of captivity so that each decision he dared make on his own would be more and more of a struggle. In such a situation, when did a person give in and give up?
“Call him,” Cade said again, harder this time.
The telltale vein that acted as a gauge to his father’s temper throbbed violently. “A mistake,” Walter murmured. “I can admit to a mistake.”
“First thing in the morning.”
His father smiled. Alarm bells went off in Cade’s mind, but he couldn’t tell what the old man was thinking.
“Yes. All right. Here’re the girls,” Walter said, hearing their voices in the hallway. “This discussion is between you and me.”
Cade nodded. He saw no need to involve his sisters in the mess.
Emily and Jessica entered the library, each wearing identical worried expressions. “Rowan is gone,” Jessica said, her accusing eyes going to their father.
“What do you mean gone?” Walter snapped at her.
Emily stepped between the other two. “He apparently hasn’t been at his house all week. He doesn’t answer the phone or return messages. The mail hasn’t been taken in. Jessica and I went over today. His neighbors haven’t seen him since last Sunday. He briefly returned home after the dinner over here, then left ‘in a cloud of smoke’ was the way the old man across the street put it.”
Cade wasn’t surprised. His younger brother had been furious with their father when he’d left. He felt his own anger as a cold, churning sea within him. The question was, who deserved it—his father for disillusioning him, or Sara for using him?
Logic forced him to agree with Walter’s conclusion. The Carltons were the most likely ones to have his father’s office bugged. Recalling the questions she’d asked him about his family, he felt like a fool for thinking there was an innocence and fragility about her.
But fair was fair, his conscience prodded. Her quest for revenge against his family had nothing to do with her abilities as a teacher.
The meal was long and boring, in Cade’s estimation. He steeled himself to patience and got through it and the undercurrents of hostility that undercut the carefully polite conversation around the dinner table. At last he collected Stacy and left.
After the bath-and-story ritual, Cade rubbed his daughter’s back while she drifted easily into sleep. For her, the world centered on her new kitten and her friends at kindergarten. If only life were that simple.
A little after nine o’clock, he stepped out onto the back deck. The wind was too cool to be outside, and he found the chairs empty. He knocked softly on Sara’s door.
She answered at once. “Hello. I heard you and Stacy come home earlier.”
Her smile was open and friendly. She seemed so damned sincere. He shook his head, denying his own need to believe she was as innocent as she appeared.
“Cade, what is it?” she asked, picking up on the angry vibes that strummed through him.
“I’ll ask the questions,” he told her, hardening himself to the task.
“What questions?” She blinked her cat-green eyes and stared up at him.
“Did you and your brother have a wiretap planted in my father’s office?”
Her mouth dropped open. If it was an act of complete surprise, it was a good one. She shook her head.
“Someone evidently did. My father found the bug. Should I check my phone at the law office and see if it’s been tapped, too?”
Her expression closed like a curtain coming down on the last act of a bad play. “I don’t know about your family, but mine doesn’t operate that way.”
“Perhaps you should check with your brother and his friends,” Cade suggested.
She picked up the phone and punched in a number, her eyes never leaving him. “Tyler? Did you have Walter Parks’s telephone bugged?”
Cade heard the brother’s expletive, then denial. The anger lessened fractionally.
“Did Nick or Mark do it?” Sara asked. Another denial. “Good. That’s all I wanted to know.”
The brother talked some more, but Cade couldn’t hear the words since he’d lowered his voice considerably.
“Cade is here. He seems to think we had his father’s phone tapped. Also his at his office. Thanks. I’ll talk to you later. No, don’t come over. It isn’t necessary. Bye for now.” She hung up, then looked his way. “We’re in the clear. Perhaps your father should check out the people he has business dealings with. He apparently has more than one set of enemies.”
A battle raged inside Cade as he studied the woman who gazed back at him with ice in her eyes, her chin tilted at an indignant angle. “I want to believe you,” he said. He gave a snort of laughter. “Even now, I want to believe you.”
A hint of hopelessness surrounded her as she shrugged. “That’s a decision I can’t help you with.”
He locked his gaze with hers. “Who else should I suspect, Sara?” he demanded softly, knowing the question was futile. “No one else has accused my father of murder.”
She didn’t turn away from the probing stare he sent her way. He’d known another woman who could look him straight in the eye and lie without a qualm. His wife had perfected the picture of injured innocence long ago. Sara wasn’t nearly as good at appeari
ng the fragile heroine.
“We’ll prove it,” she said, her voice low. “It may be the last thing Tyler and I do, but we’ll prove it. And we’ll stay within the law while we do, Cade.”
“Unlike my family,” he added, finishing her unspoken thought.
“You said it, not me.”
He pressed the fingers of one hand to his forehead where a pounding ache had settled just above his eyes. He wanted to believe Sara, but that would mean he had to disbelieve the family patriarch.
Why would his father lie?
To discredit the Carltons, the answer came to him.
Yes, but would he pretend the bug had been planted in his office? The old man had produced the device as evidence. Cade doubted his father knew where to get such things.
There were ways to find out…such as from a private detective, that insidious part of him answered.
“Please leave,” Sara said, interrupting the internal argument. “Don’t…don’t come back. Not ever.”
“I have to. I have to get to the bottom of this, otherwise we have no future—”
“I think we can safely rule that out.”
The finality of her statement was obvious. “Think what you want,” he told her, “but until the past is resolved, we are involved.” He walked to the door and paused. “In more ways than one.”
Because, God help him, he still wanted her and all that they had shared over the weekend, he admitted, going to his own place and grimly locking the door behind him as if by doing so he could lock her out of his mind.
And his heart?
Next time, he vowed, he would know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth before he let himself be a fool for a woman again.
Sara stared at the calendar the next morning. It was Monday, the last week of July. She’d been in town for nearly a month. Nothing was going the way she’d planned.
Such as falling in love?
She certainly hadn’t planned on doing anything as foolish as that. She still couldn’t believe Cade had accused her and Tyler of bugging his father’s office.
But maybe they should have. Maybe then they could find out what the conniving Parks family was up to.
At the ring of the doorbell, she stopped the tortured thoughts and went to answer. Tyler stood there looking handsome and older than his years in a conservative suit.
“Was I expecting you?” she asked. “I didn’t prepare breakfast. I’m out of eggs.”
“Borrow some from your neighbor.” He came inside, bringing the freshness of the morning with him. The sun was already breaking through the low clouds, promising a hot day to come.
“I don’t think so.” She managed a tongue-in-cheek amusement that he didn’t fall for.
He patted her shoulder and asked if she had any coffee. They served themselves and went into the den. “Where are you going this morning?” he asked.
“Oakland. I’m checking the bookstores there today.” She paused to consider. “I’ve been calling independent bookstores, but what if Derek Ross sold out and works for a chain now? Maybe he’s a manager at Barnes & Noble or Waldenbooks or someplace like that.”
“Let’s stick with the independents for now. Tell me everything that Cade said to you last night about this phone-tapping episode.”
Sara recounted the brief conversation.
“So he actually saw the transmitter?” Tyler asked.
“I think so. That’s what I assumed.”
Tyler frowned mightily. “This could get complicated if someone else is investigating Parks. I need to talk to Cade.”
Sara stared at her brother. “Why, for heaven’s sake?”
Tyler studied her for a few seconds. “I think he wants to get at the truth. He’ll help us find out what we need to know.”
“You’re wrong. He’s furious about the wiretap. His first thought was that we did the dirty deed.”
“That’s what I would think, too,” Tyler agreed. He gave her a wry grin. “If he’s investigating us and we’re investigating him, then we may as well work together.”
“You’re insane.”
“Yeah, but trust me on this one. The son isn’t privy to the father’s sins. Cade is probably going through hell right now. I can identify with that.”
“Great,” she snapped. “You and he can commiserate together, but leave me out of it.”
“It smarts when the person you love doesn’t trust you, doesn’t it?” he asked on a philosophical note.
Emotion flashed through his eyes and was gone, hidden behind his usual devil-may-care attitude. Sara was at once sympathetic. “Is that the way you feel, Tyler?”
His smile was insouciant. “Nah, no love lost here. It’s you I’m talking about.”
She lifted her chin. “I’m not in love, either.”
Her brother headed for the front of the duplex. “I’ve got to get to the station.” He stopped before opening the door. “Don’t let our mother’s bitterness blind you to the good things in life when they come along.”
Sara nodded, bid him goodbye, then lingered at the open door until he’d driven out of sight. His manner surprised her. He seemed to be on Cade’s side in this argument. He apparently trusted her handsome neighbor.
She didn’t. During the long hours of the night, she’d thought about her mother’s affair with Cade’s father. Before meeting Cade she’d found that difficult to comprehend, but now, well, she could understand Marla’s fascination with Walter Parks. As a young man, he’d probably been as handsome and beguiling as his son.
Crossing her arms tightly over her middle, Sara returned to the den and picked up the map of Oakland. She had work to do this morning.
“Good afternoon, Sara,” Mrs. Ling greeted her at two o’clock when she arrived for work.
“Hello. You’re busy. I’d better get to work.”
The tiny ice-cream parlor was crowded. Sara donned an apron to protect her red pantsuit and started busing tables right away. Once those were clean, she went behind the counter and scooped ice cream onto waffle or plain cones while Mrs. Ling handled drinks and the cash register. They didn’t have a breather until almost six o’clock.
“I didn’t realize so many people liked ice cream,” she said, wiggling her toes in her loafers. “My feet are so tired, they’re numb.”
Mrs. Ling pointed to her own footgear. “I wear jogging shoes. You should, too.”
The shop mascot jumped daintily down from the window sill and came over to rub around Sara’s ankles. “Do you feel sorry for me, Mrs. Chong?” she asked, stooping to give the cat a scratch behind the ears.
Mrs. Chong purred loudly.
“She does,” Sara said with a smile.
The door opened. “Hi, Sara,” Stacy called out. “Hi, Mrs. Ling and Mrs. Chong.”
The girl’s father followed her into the shop. His glance took in her apron and the cleaning cloth in her hand. “You’re working here?” he asked, a frown gathering in his eyes.
“Neat,” Stacy said in approval at Sara’s nod. “You can eat all the ice cream you want, huh?”
Sara managed to compose her face into a serene smile, although she could do nothing about her heart and its frantic beating. “What can I get for you?”
“We have strawberries and little round cakes for dessert,” Stacy informed her, “so we want vanilla ice cream to go with it. Do you want to eat with us?”
“Uh, thanks, but not tonight,” Sara replied. She glanced at Cade. “A pint of vanilla?” she asked.
He nodded.
She was acutely aware of him as she scooped ice cream into a pint box. He’d swapped his work suit for khakis, T-shirt, sneakers and a baseball cap. The casual attire made him look much more approachable, as if he belonged to her world rather than that of Parks Fine Jewelry. And she was crazy to be thinking like that.
After putting the ice-cream container in a plastic bag, she handed it to Stacy, then took his money, counted out the change and handed it to him.
“What tim
e do you get off?” he asked.
For some reason, she was reluctant to tell him. “Six,” she finally said. Her eyes went to the wall clock when his did. She had five more minutes.
“We’ll wait and walk you home,” he said.
She shook her head. “I’m going to stop at the noodle shop and eat first.”
Stacy straightened up from rubbing Mrs. Chong. “Eat with us, Sara. We’re fixing chicken and we made enough for you, too.”
Before she could politely refuse, Cade spoke up. “Stace is right. We’ll have plenty. I need to talk to you.”
Seeing no graceful way out, Sara nodded.
“Go,” Mrs. Ling said, making sweeping motions with her hands. “You’ve worked hard today. My son will come by and help me until closing.”
Sara removed her apron, folded it and placed it under the counter where she’d left her purse. Putting the purse strap over her shoulder, she said goodnight to the shop owner and left with Cade and Stacy. Fortunately, the girl kept up a steady stream of chatter all the way home.
At the house, Sara insisted on making a salad to contribute to the meal and heated crunchy sourdough rolls while Cade grilled chicken kabobs with chunks of pineapple, onions and mushrooms on the back deck. Shortly before seven o’clock, they sat at the patio table and ate while Mary Blue-eyes chased a butterfly in the tiny backyard.
“Now we get to watch a video,” Stacy announced. “It’s the Muppets.”
“You can watch it,” Cade interceded. “Sara and I are going to sit out here and watch the sunset. Take the kitten inside with you.”
“Okay.” The girl bounced inside with her pet after her father nodded.
“More iced tea, or would you prefer wine? I have a Chablis in the refrigerator.”
“Iced tea, please,” Sara requested. She wanted to keep an absolutely clear head in any discussion with Cade.
He carried their dishes into the town house and returned in a few minutes with tea for her and a glass of white wine for himself.
Sara observed him in quick, surreptitious glances while sipping her drink. He still made her heart pound, she admitted. He had a clean-cut openness that made her want to trust him. She wanted to confide all the secrets about her family and his and ask his advice.
