PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS
OF KAY HOOPER
BLOOD TIES
“Hooper’s darkly riveting Blood trilogy comes to a terrifying climax.… The chilling intensity of this novel is sure to haunt your dreams!”
—RT Book Reviews
“Series fans and newcomers alike will appreciate the appendixes, which include bios of Special Crimes Unit agents and definitions of their various paranormal abilities.”
—Publishers Weekly
BLOOD SINS
“Disturbing … Hooper pulls out all the stops.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Fans of Kay Hooper won’t be disappointed.”
—The Romance Reader
“Another solid entry.”
—Booklist
BLOOD DREAMS
“You won’t want to turn the lights out after reading this book!”
—Romantic Times
“A good read for fans of other serial-killer books and the TV show Criminal Minds.”
—Booklist
“Spectacular … With its fast pace, high-adrenaline plot, cast of well-developed characters, and fluid dialogue, Blood Dreams fills every expectation a reader could have.… I highly recommend.”
—Romance Reviews Today
SLEEPING WITH FEAR
“An entertaining book for any reader.”
—Winston-Salem Journal
“Hooper keeps the suspense dialed up … Readers will be mesmerized by a plot that moves quickly to a chilling conclusion.”
—Publishers Weekly
CHILL OF FEAR
“Hooper’s latest may offer her fans a few shivers on a hot beach.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Kay Hooper has conjured a fine thriller with appealing young ghosts and a suitably evil presence to provide a welcome chill on a hot summer’s day.”
—Orlando Sentinel
“The author draws the reader into the story line and, once there, they can’t leave because they want to see what happens next in this thrill-a-minute, chilling, fantastic reading experience.”
—Midwest Book Review
HUNTING FEAR
“A well-told scary story.”
—Toronto Sun
“Hooper’s unerring story sense and ability to keep the pages flying can’t be denied.”
—Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
“Hooper has created another original—Hunting Fear sets an intense pace.… Work your way through the terror to the triumph … and you’ll be looking for more Hooper tales to add to your bookshelf.”
—Wichita Falls Times Record News
“It’s vintage Hooper—a suspenseful page-turner.”
—Brazosport Facts
“Expect plenty of twists and surprises as Kay Hooper gets her series off to a crackerjack start!”
—Aptos Times
SENSE OF EVIL
“A well-written, entertaining police procedural … loaded with suspense.”
—Midwest Book Review
“Filled with page-turning suspense.”
—The Sunday Oklahoman
“Sense of Evil will knock your socks off.”
—Rendezvous
“A master storyteller.”
—TAMI HOAG
STEALING SHADOWS
“A fast-paced, suspenseful plot … The story’s complicated and intriguing twists and turns keep the reader guessing until the chilling end.”
—Publishers Weekly
“This definitely puts Ms. Hooper in a league with Tami Hoag and Iris Johansen and Sandra Brown. Gold 5-star rating.”
—Heartland Critics
HAUNTING RACHEL
“A stirring and evocative thriller.”
—Palo Alto Daily News
“The pace flies, the suspense never lets up. It’s great reading.”
—Baton Rouge Advocate
“An intriguing book with plenty of strange twists that will please the reader.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“It passed the ‘stay up late to finish it in one night’ test.”
—The Denver Post
FINDING LAURA
“You always know you are in for an outstanding read when you pick up a Kay Hooper novel, but in Finding Laura, she has created something really special! Simply superb!”
—Romantic Times
“Hooper keeps the intrigue pleasurably complicated, with gothic touches of suspense and satisfying resolution.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A first-class reading experience.”
—Affaire de Coeur
AFTER CAROLINE
“Harrowing good fun. Readers will shiver and shudder.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Kay Hooper has crafted another solid story to keep readers enthralled until the last page is turned.”
—Booklist
“Kay Hooper comes through with thrills, chills, and plenty of romance, this time with an energetic murder mystery with a clever twist. The suspense is sustained admirably right up to the very end.”
—Kirkus Reviews
The Fall of Lucas Kendrick is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
2011 Bantam Books eBook Edition
Copyright © 1987 by Kay Hooper
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in mass market in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 1988.
eISBN: 978-0-345-53131-5
Cover photo: Dennis Flaherty/Getty Images
www.bantamdell.com
v3.1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Epilogue
Other Books by This Author
Dedication
PROLOGUE
HE WAS A rotund little man, an unashamed paunch straining the seams of his tailored vest. Shiny wing-tipped shoes were on his small feet. He had a great leonine head with a cherub’s face, small brightly twinkling eyes, and pouty lips. And he was so much a caricature of a strutting banty rooster pleased with his own importance that few people casually encountered would even look for more than that.
Lucas Kendrick was one of the few; he knew from past experience that the federal agent calling himself Hagen was about as harmless as a battleship and just as tough. So he stood in the dingy hotel room gazing out a dirty window for long moments before turning to cut off the droning voice of the federal honcho. “All right.”
Hagen blinked. “All right? Just like that?”
Lucas leaned back against the window frame and smiled sardonically. “There was really no need for all this cloak-and-dagger stuff,” he said. “Meeting secretly like this. But you have to play your little games, don’t you?”
“Mr. Kendrick, this is a serious matter,” Hagen retorted in his best official manner. “And I felt it only fitting that you complete the job your friend Steele began a few weeks ago. The stolen artwork must be recovered and Rome prosecuted—?
??
“Sure he has them?”
“Positive.”
Lucas didn’t question the assurance. “Okay. So how do I get inside his estate? He has more security than we do.”
The we Lucas used referred to Josh Long’s worldwide financial empire, something that hardly needed clarifying between him and the federal man. Lucas was the chief investigator for Long Enterprises, and Hagen had spent the past year and more involving Josh and his men in various “assignments” for his agency.
The federal man looked somewhat searchingly at Lucas now, seemingly disturbed. “You’re willing to accept the assignment, no questions asked?”
“Plenty of questions,” Lucas corrected. “But why fight it? I’m the only one you haven’t grabbed for one of your assignments; it was a matter of time. If I turn you down, you’ll either talk me into it somehow, or you’ll get me involved whether I like it or not. So how do I get onto Rome’s estate?”
Hagen’s cupid lips pursed slightly, but he responded readily enough. “Rome’s having a weekend party soon; he does that from time to time, and his guest list is rather exclusive. There is a past … connection between you and the only single woman on that guest list. If she agrees, you’ll be accepted onto the estate as her escort.”
Lucas’s expression never changed, but some tautness crept beneath his classical features, and his sharp blue eyes, flecked with gold, hardened. “Oh? Who is she?”
“Kyle Griffon.” Hagen’s small eyes were very wary.
Softly Lucas said, “What past connection are you talking about, Hagen?”
“We both know the answer to that, Mr. Kendrick.”
“And just how the hell do you know? Her name was never in any of my reports.”
“No, it wasn’t. She was never linked to your undercover operation. You did an excellent job.”
Lucas decided not to repeat his question. He really didn’t want to know the answer. Instead he asked tersely, “What’s the plan?”
More than an hour later Lucas again stood gazing through a dirty window. He was alone now, Hagen having left, and he looked back over his shoulder at the shoddy room. He had almost forgotten that secretive men met in dingy hotel rooms to discuss and plan dangerous operations.
Almost forgotten.
Ten years hadn’t changed his memories, just made them more distant. He could still remember the cardboard taste of burgers and cold coffee, the stiffness of sitting for too long in cars, and the grinding frustration of political games having no place in his vision of the role of the law in human affairs.
He could remember undercover operations during which he literally had become someone else, and the disorientation of returning to the real world with memories of junkies and glittering lifestyles and violence in the back of his mind. He could remember triumphs and tragedies, a little laughter and a lot of pain, and people briefly known.
He remembered Kyle Griffon.
Lucas half closed his eyes, shutting out the sight of a dingy, rainy street seen through a dirty window. And only sagging furniture marred by cigarette burns and too many hard years heard his low murmur.
“Oh, hell, Kyle, how am I going to face you?”
ONE
LUCAS KENDRICK’S HEART leapt into his throat. He rolled with that old but familiar feeling, annoyed that he still remembered how to ride an emotional bronc. It had been a long time. He clamped his teeth together and watched through narrowed eyes, telling himself he would have felt the same way while watching anyone with a death wish. It didn’t help.
He hadn’t really expected it to.
The triangular sail was about eighteen feet across and colored bright red and blue; dangling on a flimsy harness and steering the thing with a flimsy control bar was a small figure dressed in drab green.
Objectively speaking, he thought, it was a glorious sight. The hang glider banked and dipped and lifted as the strong mountain winds kept it aloft, its brilliant colors contrasting beautifully with the rich, varied, early-winter shades of green and brown in the valley and the distant snowcapped peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Lucas watched the glider, fists jammed into pockets and heart pounding in his throat, expecting a treacherous downdraft to snatch the flimsy craft and batter it to the valley floor far below. He couldn’t take his eyes off it even long enough to fully appreciate a rare glimpse of a bighorn ram as it perched briefly on a rocky crag nearby and then vanished.
He knew the instant she spotted him, and he saw the glider bank in a tight turn and then hesitate for an instant before it began losing altitude in a long, sweeping descent toward him. He backed up automatically, giving her room, feeling himself tense even more. She cleared the edge of the cliff by inches, and her feet lightly touched ground.
She had to run only a few steps before she could stop the glider. The pointed nose of the thing tipped forward to rest on the ground, and she shrugged out of the harness, only then turning her head to study the visitor.
Without a noticeable expression, startling turquoise eyes scanned him from his windblown, silvery blond hair to his booted feet, taking in the backpack and rugged clothing he wore. Then casually she said, “Hello, Luc,” and bent to collapse the hang glider and roll it up for carrying.
Well, what had he expected? Lucas wondered. He knew the answer, of course. Despite everything, because of everything, he’d expected a stronger reaction from her. Rather than a polite hello, he’d braced himself for something more along the lines of venom or hatred. Anger. Something. And from any other woman that’s what he would have gotten, even though it had been ten years.
At the very least, he decided with a little bitterness of his own, she might have asked why he’d come miles into the wilderness to find her—as it was patently obvious he had. And why he’d come now, after ten years. But not her.
Not Kyle Griffon.
She could trace her ancestry back hundreds of years, and even now the Celtic bone structure and dark coloring marked her indelibly as Welsh, no matter what other contributions had been made to her family’s genetic pool. Her forefathers had been among the landed gentry back when such things counted, and five separate titles had graced her family name at various points in its history. And though her family hadn’t arrived on American shores with the Mayflower, they’d probably been on the next boat.
Behind them they’d left their titles and land, and with them they’d brought generations of aristocratic breeding, shrewd intelligence, courage, utter composure, and all the family treasures they could hire people to carry. In the ensuing generations canny Griffons built various empires from those bits of silver and gold, glittering gems, and priceless paintings, and they hadn’t looked back.
Lucas watched the slender figure in the drab green jumpsuit working expertly to bind up the glider into a compact bundle. He wondered if defying death was Kyle’s way of dealing with her august lineage. In a family generally described as sober and businesslike, Kyle was a rebel and a rogue. Looking at her, it was easy to see that family traits had survived to bloom in her: She was enormously intelligent, composed no matter what the circumstances, innately proud without being arrogant, and courageous. Courageous, Lucas thought, sometimes to the point of insanity.
Unbidden, he also remembered the woman-child she had been all those years ago. Remembered her laughter and excitement, the spontaneous bursts of affection. Remembered a slender body locked to his own and blazing like a pure white flame, burning him. Searing away all doubt and uncertainty. At least for a while. At least while she touched him.
Lucas shook away the memories with an effort that was almost physical. But the heat of them lingered, teasing his mind with a ghostly touch and the fey sounds of quicksilver laughter.
He moved forward as she finished with the glider, and lifted the long bundle onto his own shoulder, saying only, “Let me.” And his voice sounded normal, he thought.
Kyle didn’t protest, but there was a faint glint of amusement in her blue-green eyes as she stepped back. “Just leave
it by the porch, then,” she directed, gesturing toward the snug log cabin a few yards away. She walked ahead of him, then paused on the steps until he’d set the bundle down. She held open the door of the cabin.
Lucas saw what he’d expected to see inside. It was modest but comfortable; all the modern conveniences but no luxuries. The overstuffed furniture stopped just short of being shabby, and colorful rugs dotted the shining wood floor. One big open room with a loft above for sleeping occupied most of the cabin, a kitchen divided from the main room by paneled walls, and a bathroom tucked away in back.
She could have built a castle.
He shrugged out of his backpack and left it by the door, still unsure of how far his welcome stretched. With Kyle, he reflected, it was difficult to be sure of anything. And he wondered then if he had imagined her feelings ten years before. Or had that seventeen-year-old girl greeted his departure just as she seemed to view life in general—with a shrug and a reckless smile?
No, he thought, not that. He had meant more to her than that, at least before he had left.
“Coffee’s hot. Want some?”
“Please.” He followed her to lean against the breakfast bar and watch her economical movements. And that hadn’t changed, he thought; her grace hadn’t changed, except to have matured somehow, become more fluid. The jumpsuit she wore showed him that the slender lines of a seventeen-year-old had become the fuller curves of a woman, and he tried to fight the knowledge that he wanted her now more than ever.
It was impossible, and he knew it was. There was too much between them, far too much, to allow them to return to being the people they once had been—even if both of them wanted to.
He watched her and ached inside.
She wore no makeup, and her thick sable hair was tousled, but she had spent too many years being carefully groomed in various expensive schools for her launching into moneyed society to be able to shed the peculiarly “finished” look instilled by the process. No matter what she wore or what she did, Kyle Griffon always would look aristocratic.
Pushing the thoughts away, Lucas accepted the cup she held out and realized with a jolt that she remembered how he liked it. Sugar, no cream. She drank hers black. Disturbed by the realization that he wasn’t alone in remembering, he followed her into the living area, watching her while she sank gracefully into an overstuffed chair, kicked off her light shoes, and curled up like a lazy cat.