Illusions

by Janet Dailey

  “It is.” Delaney stole a glance at his lean face, conscious of a kind of tension rising again—one that had been building for the last two days. It made her uncomfortable with him, and she didn’t like it. Deciding to do something about it, she said, “How come you haven’t asked me about it?”

  “About what?” He cocked his head toward her.

  “You know very well what. By now, either John or Vance has told you that they saw me with Jared. So, why haven’t you said anything?”

  “I knew you would tell me yourself in time.” There was no hint of criticism. His voice, like his expression, was bland. Too bland. Delaney wished he wasn’t wearing those dark sunglasses. She hated it when she couldn’t see his eyes. She looked away to make a slow scan of the area.

  “I ran into him on the street—the first day,” she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact.

  In her peripheral vision, she saw him nod. “I see.”

  Delaney waited, but Riley offered no other comment than that. The silence grew, and her tension along with it. “Jared isn’t married now,” she said to break it. “He got a divorce.”

  “That makes all the difference.” His remark was a dry echo of her own initial reaction.

  “I suppose.” But she wasn’t sure about that.

  “Are you going to see him again?” Riley’s eyes were on her. She could feel the probe of his gaze.

  “I honestly don’t know.” That was the truth. The old attraction was still there, but the righteous anger that had once been her armor had become hollow. “Do you think I should?”

  “Don’t ask me that question,” he replied somewhat curtly.

  “But I’d like your opinion.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.”

  “I wouldn’t ask otherwise,” Delaney retorted, impatient with him.

  “Don’t kid yourself, Delaney. If I said, ‘Don’t see him,’ you would do what you want in the end and my opinion be damned.”

  “What are you so angry about?” Delaney asked, puzzled by the heat in his voice.

  A smile pulled crookedly at his mouth. There was no humor in it. “You figure it out,” he said as a whoop of triumph came from Toby.

  “I got one, Luke. I got one!” Toby battled to land the good-sized trout on his line.

  “Looks like he’ll be needing the stringer,” Riley said and moved off to retrieve it, leaving Delaney to ponder the meaning of his previous remark.

  Later, back at the house, Delaney stood at the deck railing, a cup of coffee in hand. The sun was warm on her cheeks, its heat advising her that soon it would be time to change out of her flannel shirt. She propped a booted foot on the railing and gazed at the panorama of valley and mountains, the town below and the ragged peaks above. Lucas came over to stand beside her along the rail.

  “It’s going to be another beautiful day.” She watched the Silver Queen gondola begin its climb to the top of Ajax Mountain.

  “Looks that way.”

  She brought her foot down and turned sideways. “You realize you’re making our job incredibly easy.”

  He turned his head toward her, a dark eyebrow arching in silent question. “I am?”

  “Yes.” Delaney took a sip of her coffee. “To be honest, when you told me you were going to spend a month in Aspen, I envisioned a full slate of activities—golf, tennis, cocktail parties, dinner parties—in other words, a host of security problems. But in the last two days, the only time you’ve ventured from the house was to go fishing.”

  “The month is young.” The corners of his mouth dimpled with a warning smile.

  “I know.” It was the only reason she hadn’t done more than toy with the idea of sending Vance back to L.A. and filling his position with an off-duty policeman.

  “This is probably a good time to mention that I called Susan a little while ago and asked her to get us tickets for the concert in the music tent tomorrow night. And don’t forget—there’s that cocktail party and reception Friday night for some environmental group.”

  “I haven’t. In fact, I received a copy of the guest list yesterday, and I have an appointment tomorrow to look over the area to be used for the party.”

  She caught a movement in her side vision and turned to identify it, her glance first seeking the rental car parked crosswise to block the entrance, and the lanky John Wyatt in sunglasses lounging beside it. All was quiet there. She scanned the grounds and spotted Toby hurrying along one of the paths.

  “Hey, Toby!” Lucas called. “Where are you going?”

  Toby stopped and held up a stringer with two trout hooked on it. “I forgot to show Mr. Walker my fish.” He immediately looked worried. “It’s okay, isn’t it?”

  “Sure.” Smiling, Lucas waved him on.

  “He really enjoyed going fishing with you this morning,” Delaney remarked.

  “He deserves some good times.”

  “How long have you known Toby?” she asked curiously, then saw him stiffen, a closed-in look shuttering his face. “Sorry, you don’t have to answer that. It’s none of my business.”

  “No, it’s all right.” He gave a quick, curt shake of his head, then met her gaze, something almost challenging in his expression. “Toby’s my brother.”

  Delaney tried and failed to conceal her shock. “I didn’t know. I never guessed.”

  “I was born Lucas Wayne Williams. Toby came along two years after me. By the time he was three years old, it was obvious he wasn’t—what’s that ugly phrase they use?—he wasn’t normal. My father hated him, and hated my mother for giving birth to him. He never called him by name, never accepted that he had fathered him. Damned idiot, that’s what he called him. Toby thought it was his name. ‘Get out of here, you damned idiot,’ he’d yell. And if Toby didn’t move fast enough to suit him, he’d take a belt to him. And he’d turn that belt on me if I tried to stop him.”

  Lucas smiled at the remembered pain, but the smile, like his voice, was cold and hard, emotions vibrating somewhere below the surface.

  “My mother.” His lips quivered with a mixture of disgust and revulsion. “She found refuge in illness and prayer. I can still see her holding Toby—his back, arms, and legs covered with red welts and bruises—and her rocking back and forth asking God to ‘deliver us from evil.’ Her deliverance from my father came in the form of death when I was eight. That same day my father took Toby and put him in a beat-up old station wagon with phony wood panels on the side. Toby was scared.” His voice faded to a whisper. “He only knew one word and he kept screaming it over and over—Luke! Luke!” He stopped and dragged in a deep breath. “When my father came back, Toby wasn’t with him. It was years before I found out he had left Toby in a home for mentally ill children. That’s where he grew up. When he was too old for the children’s home, he was transferred to a regular mental institution. That’s where I finally found him.”

  “Thank God you looked.” Delaney murmured.

  “I swore when my father came back without him that I would find him and take care of him.” Lucas paused again, shrugging off some of the bleakness that had held him. “Toby’s come a long way—thanks to a lot of professional help. He lives in a kind of halfway house along with three others with similar handicaps. A couple lives with them. House parents, I suppose you’d call them. They look after Toby and the others. Supervise them. Help them to be independent. Toby even has a job. Did he tell you?”

  “No.” She watched with fascination the softness, the look of pride that stole into his eyes.

  “He works at McDonald’s. He keeps the tables, the floors, and the eating areas clean, and picks up the litter outside. That probably doesn’t sound like much to you, but at least he isn’t sitting around making potholders. He has a real job with a real paycheck. Sometimes when I think about all that Toby has accomplished, I get so proud of him, I—that sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

  “Not at all. In fact, I think you have every right to be proud of him. And Toby has every right to be proud of himself.”
>
  Lucas looked at her and smiled. “Somehow I knew you’d understand, Delaney. You’re one of only a handful of people who know Toby is my brother. I’d like to keep it that way. He isn’t ready to cope with the attention that goes with being the brother of Lucas Wayne. He doesn’t need people staring and pointing fingers at him, or whispering behind their hands wherever he goes. And he definitely doesn’t need people being kind to him just to get to me.”

  “No.” Delaney realized that Lucas didn’t keep Toby hidden away out of shame, but rather from a desire to protect him. Hollywood wasn’t known for its sincerity, and she doubted Toby would understand that kind of falseness. “Actually, I’m surprised that nobody’s dug into your past and found out about him. Or that Toby hasn’t bragged to someone that you’re his brother.”

  “We’ve made it our secret. Toby is good at keeping secrets. As for the others, it’s believed my brother died when he was five. You can even find records on file to support it. But please, don’t ask how I accomplished that.”

  “I won’t.” She knew it wasn’t too difficult to slip a phony death certificate dated twenty-five years ago into county records—or even a notice of cremation in the files of a funeral home. The chances were slim it would be questioned—let alone disputed. If he’d done that, had Lucas arranged for the records in the institutions to be altered accordingly? And who knew the truth? Only a handful of people, he’d said. Obviously people he felt he could trust. She wondered why he’d taken her into his confidence. “Does Rina Cole know about Toby? Would she use him to get to you?” she asked, already considering whether to extend the protection screen to include Toby.

  “As far as Rina knows, Toby is a retarded boy I befriended. She called him my stigma of guilt, a means to apologize for becoming so successful. Nearly everyone thinks he’s my own private charity case—something I do because it’s good for my image.”

  “To be honest, I thought along those same lines.”

  He lifted his coffee mug in the direction of the drive. “Looks like we have company.”

  Swiveling her shoulders, Delaney looked back, half-expecting to see the blunt nose of Jared’s black pickup at the drive’s entrance. It was almost exactly three days since she’d seen him—three days without a word or a phone call. But she saw at a glance it wasn’t his truck, but a sleek and shiny car bearing the distinctive hood ornament of a Mercedes. And it wasn’t Susan St. Jacque’s Mercedes either; the color was gleaming copper. John Wyatt was at the driver’s door, a two-way radio held close to his mouth.

  The receiver in her ear crackled briefly, then John’s calm voice said, “St. Louis is here.” The code for Rina Cole.

  “Inside, Lucas. Now.” She pushed off the rail, grabbing his arm and turning him toward the glass doors as she unsnapped her radio from its holster with her other hand. “Did you copy that, One?”

  “Roger.” Riley’s voice was in her ear. “Two seconds and I’ll have this fish slime off my hands.”

  “What’s going on?” Lucas spoke over the top of Riley’s voice.

  “That’s Rina in the car.”

  “Rina.”

  Ignoring the shock in his voice, she opened the door. “Stay with Riley.” She closed the door after him. “The lion’s inside. Three will support Two.”

  Riley acknowledged her transmission and verified that the “lion” was in sight. Assured that her client was out of harm’s way, Delaney moved to back up her agent at the entrance. But the instant she set foot on the paved drive, she slowed to a fast walk, assuming a posture of command and control.

  Any hope that John Wyatt would succeed in turning the car away without a confrontation with its occupant vanished when Delaney saw the woman planted squarely in front of him. There was no doubt it was Rina Cole—the barely tamed wildness of her frosted hair, the outlandish outfit of buckskin suede leggings with fringe running down each leg and more fringe dripping from a matching jacket—an outfit that fell somewhere between high fashion and high camp—the mixed gold and brown shadow troweled above her gray-green eyes—all unmistakable trademarks of the former pop-star-turned-actress—trademarks like the leggings that fit her so tightly that not a crack was left to the imagination, and the fringed jacket that gaped open to reveal that she wore nothing beneath it except her cleavage.

  Delaney took one look at John Wyatt’s reddened face and his pained attempt to focus on Rina Cole’s face, and immediately interceded. “What seems to be the problem here?”

  Rina Cole whirled on her. “This farm boy refuses to move his car. Tell him to get it out of the way and do it now!”

  “I can’t do that, Miss Cole, and you know it. Please leave without causing any more trouble.”

  “Just who the hell are you telling me to leave?” She vibrated with anger, the fringe on her jacket dancing crazily from it. “Luke invited me. When he finds out you’re treating me like this—”

  Delaney called that bluff, granting it was admirably done. “Mr. Wayne knows you’re here. He doesn’t want to see you.”

  “That’s a filthy goddamned lie! We’ve planned this time together for months.” Rina Cole played the role of outraged indignation for all it was worth.

  “I repeat, Mr. Wayne doesn’t want to see you. He has filed a restraining order against you. Please get back in your car—” As Delaney raised a hand to direct the woman back to the Mercedes, Rina Cole slapped it aside.

  “Don’t you touch me,” she warned, her glossy lips curling and her hands coming up. “You’re lying. Luke would never turn me away. He loves me. Somebody’s putting you up to this. Who?”

  “No one—”

  “It’s that lawyer of his, isn’t it? He’s always hated me because I could do so much more for Luke’s career than he could!”

  She didn’t like the wildness she saw in Rina’s eyes. She risked a quick glance at John, determining his position. “No—”

  “It is him. How many times have I told Luke to get rid of him? He’s got some hold over him. He must. He’s making Luke do this. I know he is!”

  “Miss Cole, if you don’t leave, I’ll have to call the police.”

  Her head jerked up, something feral in her look making Delaney wonder what she was on. “You’re one of his sluts, aren’t you? Just like the other one.”

  Recognizing that she couldn’t persuade Rina Cole to leave of her own volition, Delaney nodded to John. As he murmured into his radio, her earpiece picked up his message: “Call in the cavalry, One.”

  Riley rogered that as Rina’s voice rose to a screaming pitch. “Luke is mine! You’ll never have him. Do you hear?”

  “I hear and you’re right.” Delaney tried to placate the woman before she lost all control. “Luke will always belong to you. It was foolish of me to think it could be any other way.”

  In her ear, Riley said, “The cavalry’s rolling, Two. You should hear the bugle.” At almost the same instant, Delaney heard the wail of a siren. Somehow she managed to keep Rina Cole stalled for the nerve-wracking two and a half minutes it took the local police to reach the scene. Every second she expected Rina would become wise to the ploy and erupt again.

  Two uniformed officers climbed out of the Saab 9000 patrol vehicle and walked around the Mercedes. When Rina saw them, she launched into another tirade, hurling accusations and reverting to her original claim that she was here at Luke’s invitation. The younger man lent a willing ear as he gently guided her back to the driver’s side of the gleaming copper car. The other officer walked to Delaney and offered a commiserating smile.

  “Nasty business, isn’t it?” he said. “Do you want trespassing charges filed on her?”

  “We’d rather not if it can be avoided.” If assault charges and an injunction hadn’t deterred Rina, being arrested for trespassing definitely wouldn’t stop her.

  Glancing over his shoulder, the officer mused, “She’s something, ain’t she? Talk about ‘hell hath no fury…’” he murmured and let the rest of the quote trail off, then sauntered back
to join his partner and lend the weight of his badge.

  Delaney watched the proceedings from a discreet distance with John standing at her side.

  “Now, Miss Cole, ma’am,” the first officer said with practiced tact and respect. “You’d best accept that Mr. Wayne doesn’t want to see you and leave quietly. We wouldn’t want to have to take you to the station—not a star like you.”

  “You bastards, he paid you off, too, didn’t he?” Rina spat. Then, with a lightning switch that raised the flesh on Delaney’s arms, she changed the object of her hatred. “Luke thinks he’s too good for me. He thinks he can treat me like this and get away with it. He’s wrong. Dead wrong.”

  She yanked open the car door and climbed inside, shutting the door with a resounding slam! The engine roared to life. Rina gunned it, then threw the car into reverse, the tires spinning and finding traction to propel the car backwards. She missed the patrol vehicle by no more than a layer of chrome.

  Oddly, Delaney didn’t feel an ounce of relief. She walked over to the policeman. “If it’s possible, find out where she goes and let me know?”

  “Somehow I doubt she’ll be leaving town, ma’am.”

  “So do I,” she agreed on a sigh. “So do I.”

  During the long and deliberately slow walk back to the house, Delaney recognized that she’d underestimated Rina Cole. A part of her hadn’t believed Rina would follow up on her previous attempt. She thought Rina would be crazy to do it, crazy to risk prison, crazy to throw away what was left of her career. But the woman was crazy.

  She found Riley and Lucas in the living room. “Rina’s gone,” she said as she joined them. “Unfortunately, I think we can count on her being back.”

  Riley nodded. “Would you believe Arthur just called to warn us that Rina was on her way to Aspen?”

  Delaney couldn’t smile at the irony of that. “His warning came a little late.”

  “That’s what I told him.”

  She turned to Lucas. “I said it before, Luke, and I’ll say it again. You need a security gate installed, and it can’t be done soon enough.”