“Please, Daegan, say you’ll help me. It’s worth twenty-five thousand to me. And if you can come up with a way to keep Dad from finding our son, then I’ll pay you more.”
“I suppose you’ll give me that in writing?” he drawled.
“This is no time for jokes.” She checked her watch and swore softly. “I’ve got to catch a plane.” Standing, she wrapped the fur more tightly around her waist. “I would think, considering your background, you’d only be too anxious to find your boy.”
“If he’s mine.” He picked up the picture and studied the faded snapshot as if it held the secrets of the universe. And maybe it did. The photographs had yellowed, but caught a profile of a woman, little more than a girl, with even, well-defined features and brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. Oval face, high cheeks, large eyes fringed by thick lashes. Dashing across a street in sun-bleached jeans, backpack, and sweatshirt, she could have been a college coed for her look of carefree independence. Instead she was the adoptive mother of his son. A woman who had walked on the wrong side of the law and been paid well to do so. But she was also a woman who’d wanted a baby. His baby.
“Oh, he’s yours all right. I’ll call.” Swinging the strap of her purse over her shoulder, she swept out of the bar as quickly as she’d breezed in. Daegan frowned as the doors closed behind her. He was left with the hint of her perfume, a packet of fifteen-year-old information, the knowledge that he could be a father, and the feeling that he was being set up. Big time.
Again he looked at the photos. Who are you, Kate Summers, and how’re you connected to the Sullivans? She was pretty in that fresh-scrubbed all-American girl way that usually didn’t do anything for him. A good cover for a woman so cold she would be willing to adopt a child without the proper paperwork. Had she been desperate for a baby? For money? Or just an opportunist?
He read the information, such as it was. She grew up in the Midwest until she was eighteen when she eloped. She and her husband landed in Boston, where she’d found a secretarial job with Clark. She and Jim Summers had a baby daughter and shortly afterward both daughter and husband were killed in a hit-and-run accident. The culprit was never apprehended and it was speculated that she took up with Clark—either before or after her husband’s demise. A few months after the accident, she moved away, presumably with Beatrice Sullivan’s son.
“Unbelievable,” he muttered, gazing at the picture and wondering again why she did it—if she did. Probably not for love. So it had to be money. “Damned unbelievable.”
Studying her features, he wondered how she’d matured in the past fifteen years and found himself already regretting what he was about to do. Too bad, lady, he thought cynically. No matter what you did, whether you’re guilty as sin or lily white, life as you know it is gonna change. You have no idea what you’re up against. If the boy’s my son, then you’re gonna lose him. You’ve had your turn. Now it’s mine.
He finished his beer, scooped up the photo, Tyrell Clark’s old address, and the packet of information about Kate Summers, then left enough bills on the table to cover the tab.
The action in the bar was picking up, more people clustered at the tables and the counter, seven or eight couples dancing, and the noise and smoke level elevating. A pretty woman in tight jeans and plum-colored lipstick sidled up to him. “Buy you a drink, cowboy?” she offered, showing off a dimple.
“Not tonight.”
“Got a hot date?”
Daegan snorted a laugh that held no mirth and stuffed the envelope into the inner pocket of his jacket. “Just business,” he said and ignored the sultry but practiced pout that formed on her lips. “Another time.”
“Promise?” Her voice chased him out the door to the outside, where a blast of northern wind ripped through his jacket. He walked briskly to his truck, unlocked the door, and climbed inside as tiny flakes of snow began to fall from the dark sky. The sound of a jet’s engine blasted eerily through the quiet night, and a lingering hint of Bibi’s fragrance followed after him. He watched as the great silver bird took flight and he tried to block out the images of Bibi from his mind. For years he’d struggled to erase the pain of his childhood and adolescence, and now, as he rammed the truck into first and eased out of the half-filled parking lot, his childhood came back to haunt him with a vengeance. Once again he felt the fear. The humiliation. The rage. The thirst for revenge against a family who treated him worse than a stray dog.
He forced all the old feelings back into the dark, locked part of his mind he tried to ignore. What he knew about the Sullivan family could probably destroy them socially, but over the years, he’d tempered his bitterness and he wasn’t interested in revenge—the sharp, kick-you-in-the-gut kind that he’d fantasized about as a kid going to a poor man’s parochial school.
But that was a long time ago. Another lifetime. A kid he didn’t want to recognize or remember.
The silver dollar tucked deep in his jeans pocket rubbed against his thigh as he drove through the night. There was a chance he was a father, that he had a son. A son he’d known nothing about.
The truth will never hurt you. Or so his mother had often said.
Like hell, he thought as he switched on the wipers and remembered growing up poor and Irish and Catholic in Boston. Now he knew that his mother, despite all the rosaries she’d said, all the prayers she’d sent to heaven, had lied. The fact of the matter was that the truth stings. It stings like a bitch.
Kate Summers was about to find out.
Chapter 4
Winter had come early to Boston. A week before Halloween, the first snowstorm of the year had blasted across the Atlantic, whipped Massachusetts Bay to an icy froth, and ripped through the streets and alleys of the city to dump six inches of icy white powder onto the streets—not enough to cripple the town, just enough to clog traffic and become an irritation. The weather forecast had been for a warming trend, but the forecasters were incredibly unreliable even with all their sophisticated satellites and computers, and this storm had caught them with their pants down.
Tonight Robert Sullivan brushed the snow from the shoulders of his wool coat, then hung it in the closet. The house was cold and empty despite the fact that every lamp was burning brightly and there were three maids scampering about, polishing silver that was rarely used, turning down his bed, making a fire in the den, pouring his brandy, and fixing his favorite meals. They would handle any little scavengers who had the nerve to knock at his door in a week and demand candy. He wouldn’t have to be bothered.
Rubbing a hand over his near-frozen jaw, he saw his reflection in the Louis XVI mirror. Age was causing his once-robust skin to wrinkle and sag, his eyelids to droop, his square shoulders to slope. Someone had said it was hell getting old, and whoever that son of a bitch was, he was right.
Life wasn’t the same as when Adele had been alive. He smiled faintly at her memory and reminded himself again that all the money in the world hadn’t been able to save her. His life had been hollow ever since she’d given up her battle with cancer and left him alone nearly five years before. Funny, he never thought he’d miss her as much as he did. Their marriage had become comfortable but staid in the years since Stuart’s death and the trouble with Bibi.
He and Adele had slept in different bedrooms and he’d had a string of young mistresses—discreet beautiful women, some of them married, who wanted nothing more than flowers, jewelry, and a little attention. If Adele had known of them, she’d kept the information to herself, never once so much as raising an eyebrow when he came home late or spent the weekend away. She either accepted his excuses of too much work or chose to ignore the obvious. He didn’t know which. It was only after her announcement that she’d developed breast cancer that he realized how much he loved her, that he’d broken off with the other women, that he’d remained celibate to the day Adele had passed on. In fact, there had been no other woman since.
He missed her horribly; her void was a real ache that was with him each time he crossed t
he threshold to this, their home for nearly forty years. Her presence, the scent of her perfume, her gossiping whispers while she talked to her friends on the phone, her thin smile, and her staunch support. Lord knew he’d been a poor excuse for a husband, but she’d never once complained. And then she’d left him. Only when she was gone did he realize how much he’d loved her, how alone and lost he was without her.
Alone. The word echoed through his brain.
Even his job had lost its luster. Being the senior partner in the law firm didn’t mean as much as it once had. He dropped his keys in the glass tray on a table near the door and made his way to the den, where, upon his request, the evening newspaper, a snifter of expensive brandy, and a Cuban cigar were waiting.
This evening would be better than most, he told himself, because he expected company, someone who, for the right amount of money, was willing to help him in his newfound quest. Neils VanHorn, a private investigator of questionable morals, intense hunger for all things monetary, and a reputation for always getting the job done, was joining him for dinner. VanHorn was reputed to be the kind of man who would sell his soul for the right amount of money. Excellent.
Loosening his tie, Robert stared out the window overlooking Louisburg Square and watched as fat flakes continued to fall, but he didn’t see the snow or the darkness. In his mind’s eye, he pictured a boy, a fifteen-year-old boy with bright eyes, eager expression, cocky smile, and that edge of arrogance that kept the Sullivans in their proper place, an inch or two above the rest of the world. Sullivan blood was running through that adolescent’s veins. Blue blood. As much like Stuart’s as he would be able to find.
He thought of the boy, the child he’d scorned at birth, the grandson he’d sworn never to meet, and now, it seemed, the only chance for the Sullivan name to be passed from one generation to the next. His bastard grandson. Oh, there were his brother Frank’s children, of course. A motley crew if he’d ever seen one. Whining daughters and a son without a drop of starch in him. Not one fit to run the family empire. Even Alicia’s young son, Wade, seemed to take after Maureen’s spineless family. Unfortunately, if Robert didn’t find someone of his own flesh and blood, first Frank, if he was lucky enough to outlive his older brother, and then Collin, Frank’s spoiled dandy of an heir, would inherit the lion’s share of wealth that had been tended to and nourished for seven generations. A damned waste, that’s what it was.
If only Stuart had lived. Robert blinked hard and fought the old emotions that tended to strangle him each time he thought of his son. So strong. So handsome. So brilliant. Now, there was a boy with starch and sturdy moral fiber. The only one of the next generation. Even his own daughter, Beatrice, had turned into a disappointment not that she had an ounce of her older brother’s vitality and brains.
Yet Stuart was the one who had bled to death on that dock, and despite the findings of the investigation, Robert knew who his son’s murderer was; someday that bastard would pay. His vengeance would be cold and sweet and untraceable to the family. That’s why he’d waited so long.
Besides, there were other, more pressing matters. He had to find his grandson and soon. Not only was Robert’s life ebbing away, but his brother, Frank, was pushing that the reins of control be given to first him, and then Collin.
Robert reached for a cigar and bit off the tip. He’d been a fool fifteen years ago, an arrogant, blind fool, and it was time to rectify his mistake.
If he’d learned anything in his seventy years, it was that family meant everything, blood was thicker than water, and that he’d do whatever it took to find his grandson and return him to his rightful spot as heir to the Sullivan fortune.
Neils VanHorn smelled money. Big money. The kind of money that only comes along once in a lifetime. He sat by the fire smoking goddamned Havana cigars, the two-inch heels of his boots propped on an oxblood leather ottoman, and as he looked at the man seated next to him in a matching wing-backed chair. He knew this was it—his big score.
Over the sharp aroma of cigar smoke and the sweet scent of brandy from the snifter in his right hand, he detected that elusive scent of cold hard cash. Vaults of it. Robert Sullivan, gray-haired, distinguished down to his patrician nose and frosty blue eyes, was loaded. This renovated town house located on Louisburg Square, filled with antiques and oil portraits of old dead Sullivans, reeked of mutual funds, secret safes, stocks, and bearer bonds. Neils felt like he’d died and gone to heaven.
The clock struck half-past twelve and Robert had yet to get down to brass tacks, but VanHorn prided himself on his patience.
“So,” the old man was saying, “this situation will have to be handled with the utmost discretion.”
Neils was way ahead of Sullivan. “No problem.”
“No one knows about the boy. That was how it was supposed to be.”
“Understandable, considering the circumstances.” Sure, Robert Sullivan had wanted to deep-six an illegitimate grandson just to keep up appearances. It hadn’t occurred to him then that the kid might just be the last of the line, so to speak. VanHorn drew hard on his cigar and let out a puff of sweet, aromatic smoke. He feigned interest just to keep the old boy talking while taking a mental inventory of the Persian rugs and flintlock rifles locked behind the beveled glass doors of the gun case. Was that a Renoir mounted over the fireplace or a good fake? “You don’t know the name of the couple who adopted him?”
“No…I…well, my wife was alive then and my son had just passed away, but we thought there would be more grandchildren. Legitimate ones. Beatrice hadn’t married, of course, not yet, she was still pining for that sailor—Roy Panaker his name was…” His voice trailed off, as if weary from years of disappointment.
“How about the lawyer?”
“Dead. Tyrell Clark. A ladies man with a gambling problem, or so I was told. He was an associate with our firm for a while, didn’t get along with some of the partners, and struck out on his own. Always a little on the shady side, Clark eventually got himself into a mess with the IRS and debtors. He popped off not long after the adoption.”
Robert’s mouth pinched into a little frown. “His practice—what little there was of it—was sold by the government to one of Clark’s competitors, a man by the name of Millard Kent. I’ve tried discussing this with him, but his firm is a little more reputable than Clark’s was. No one’s talking. I wonder if there are any files.” His cold eyes turned to VanHorn. “Sometimes in a case like this, if everything isn’t exactly on the up and up, it’s better if there isn’t a paper trail.”
“But the couple had to sign documents, get the kid a birth certificate, go through the proper channels…”
Sullivan lifted a shoulder and sipped from his drink. “I’m sure there are loopholes in the process that we can dig up. It shouldn’t be too difficult because Tyrell had more than his share of trouble with the bar—his work wasn’t always exactly on the up-and-up. He was never disbarred, mind you, but he left our firm with his tail between his legs because he came close.”
“Yet you chose him to handle the adoption.”
Robert scowled at the remains of his drink. “For just that reason,” he admitted with a long sigh. “I didn’t ever want some bastard grandchild showing up on my doorstep with his hand out. I saw all the problems my brother Frank had with one of his, so I thought—and now I realize my complete and utter snobbery about the situation—anyway, I thought I wanted the kid to disappear. He was a cancer, a blight on the proud Sullivan name, you see.” He smiled wistfully. “It’s funny how your perspective can change when you’re facing your maker.”
Neils chose to ignore Robert’s statement on his own mortality. It didn’t have any bearing except that he didn’t want the old boy to kick off before this deal was done. “The parents are probably going to fight you.”
“Who cares? The way I see it, they were lucky enough in the first place to adopt the boy. Now it’s time for him to come home—to his rightful spot.”
“Which is?”
“Heir, of course.”
“How does your brother feel about this?”
“Frank?” Robert made a scornful sound. “Frank’s never understood about family, about right of succession, about the responsibility that comes with our station in life. In fact, he’s always enjoyed the privilege of wealth, but oftentimes has acted…well, common, for lack of a better word.”
“He’ll find out.”
“I know. I plan to talk to him later in the week. But the less you involve my brother and his family, the better.”
“Does your daughter know about this?” Neils asked, wondering at the old man’s power trip. Arrogantly superior, Robert Sullivan believed that he was right and everyone else was wrong, just because he’d been born first in line. No, that wasn’t right; according to his notes, there had been an older brother who had died before ascending to the Sullivan throne. His name—William or Charles or something very British.
“Beatrice.” Robert’s frown deepened as he left his cigar to burn in a crystal ashtray. “Yes, she knows I’m hiring someone, but it’s best to leave her out of this as much as possible. She didn’t want the baby then, doesn’t want him interfering with her life now. Really, she’s quite upset about it. Doesn’t understand why I can’t just let Frank and his boy, Collin, inherit everything.”
“She’s not in line?” VanHorn said, lifting his eyebrows.
“She’s a woman.”
“So what if there were no sons?” VanHorn asked, disbelievingly. This was nearly the turn of the century, for God’s sake; no one believed all that women-are-inferior-garbage today.
“Having no sons,” Robert said succinctly, “would be a problem—basically unacceptable.”
“I’d think Beatrice would be fighting tooth and nail for her own interests”
“Unfortunately, she’s not interested in the family business or assets. She’s content to collect a check every month and never question where it comes from.” He sipped his brandy, set his snifter on a nearby table, and removed his glasses. Polishing the lenses slowly with a monogrammed handkerchief he’d drawn from his breast pocket, he said, “Remember, this arrangement is best left between you and me. Beatrice and I have already talked. I can’t just show up with her child one day and not prepare her, but keep her in the dark as much as possible. I’ll handle Beatrice.” The old man’s jaw hardened.