Bloodlines (7 page)

It felt so good not to be afraid.

Finally the girl shrugged and smiled, then got in her truck and drove off.

Trey opened the door long enough to take the bowl from Olivia and dump it in a nearby trash can, then got back in the car. There was a glower on his face and a slight flush at the back of his neck; then he saw the laughter on Olivia's face and had to grin.

“That was something, wasn't it?”

Olivia chuckled. “You should have seen your face.”

“I'm glad it provided you with some amusement,” he drawled.

Without thinking, she laid her hand on the back of his hand.

“It was a much-needed laugh,” she said softly.

Trey turned his hand palm up and threaded his fingers through hers.

“Livvie, I—”

Olivia gently pulled away.

“I think we'd better go. I wouldn't want Grampy to worry if I wasn't home when he got there.”

Trey would have laughed if it hadn't been so painful. Olivia had grown up physically, but it was obvious she was still under Marcus Sealy's thumb.

“Yeah, we can't have him thinking you're spending too much time with someone beneath your class.”

He started the car, backed out of the parking space, then drove her the rest of the way home without speaking, although he wished he could have taken back that last bit. It sounded too much like an old grudge, and he didn't want her thinking she still held any kind of power over him.

Olivia knew she was responsible for the uncomfortable silence that lengthened between them, but before she could find a way to explain, she was home.

Trey got out, then stepped around to the passenger side of the car, opened the door and helped her out. They walked to the front door in silence. On the doorstep, Olivia turned to him.

“Thank you for the ride and the ice cream,” she said.

“You're welcome,” he said, and smiled politely, but the smile never reached his eyes.

Reluctant now for him to leave, Olivia struggled with bona fide reasons for him to linger.

“Uh, Trey…I was wondering. How long will it take to get the results of the tests?”

“At least a week or so, I think, maybe longer. You'll be notified.”

Then his cell phone began to ring. He glanced at the caller ID, then backed off the step.

“I've got to take this call.”

“Yes…of course,” Olivia said, and unlocked the door. Even as the tumblers were turning, she felt as if she'd done something wrong. “Thank you, again,” she added.

He stopped, and for a moment his gaze softened.

“Livvie.”

“Yes?”

“It was good to see you again.”

An unexpected film of tears suddenly blurred her vision.

“Yes. It was good to see you again, too,” she said.

And then he was gone.

M
arcus never made it home for lunch after all, which left Olivia sitting at the table alone, picking at her crabmeat salad and wondering what might have happened if she'd stayed longer with Trey. When Marcus called and told her he wouldn't be home, she could have called some of her friends and met them for a late lunch. They were always ready for an afternoon of gossip and margaritas, only she knew that this time, the topic of conversation would have been her. It also occurred to her that not one of her so-called friends had phoned since the media had broken the news of a possible connection between her family and the remains of the murdered child. This led her to consider just how shallow her friendships were, and how true Trey's caustic remark about her relationship with her grandfather was. It was hard to admit that she catered her life to suit Marcus's whims, but she did. What surprised her, and what she'd never considered, was that the female friends in her life were not really friends, just longtime acquaintances. She didn't have one special friend with whom she'd grown up, or with whom she had shared hopes and dreams. On the sur
face, her life had seemed perfect, but that illusion had shattered quickly when their family became headline news.

Frowning, she shoved the salad away and was getting up from the table when Rose entered with a tiny dish of lemon sorbet. The minute serving was perfectly proportioned and in the shape of the real thing, right down to the yellow color and the tiny sprig of mint leaves at what would have been the stem.

When Rose saw that the salad had hardly been touched, she frowned.

“Is something wrong with the salad, dear?”

Olivia sighed. “No, it was delicious. I'm just not very hungry, I guess.”

Rose waved the small crystal dish of sorbet beneath Olivia's nose in a tempting fashion.

“How about a serving of sorbet? It's your favorite.”

“Actually, it's Grampy's favorite. But I like it, too,” she added, anxious not to hurt Rose's feelings.

Rose removed the salad and left the dessert.

Olivia picked up the dish and shoved the mint leaf aside with the tip of her spoon. Even as she was scooping up the first bite, she couldn't help but compare this to the extravagant concoction that she and Trey had shared earlier. When the sorbet hit her tongue, she grimaced. The spare tartness of the cold treat was no match for the decadence of the hot fudge she'd had before. She ate the sorbet, more to satisfy Rose's feelings than from an enjoyment of the taste.

It wasn't until she was on her way up to her room to change clothes that she realized what she'd just
done. She'd turned down an invitation to spend more time with Trey because her grandfather had told her he would see her at lunch; then she'd eaten a tiny dish of sorbet that she didn't want just to pacify Rose. It would have been just as simple to have made a call to Marcus and told him she'd made other plans—Lord knows he did it to her often enough—only she hadn't. Then she'd eaten food she didn't want so as not to hurt someone else's feelings.

She sat down on the steps, then thrust her fingers through her hair in frustration. What was wrong with her? When had she become this gutless wonder—and why? Why was she living her life to please everyone except herself?

She sighed. It was times like this that she missed having a mother. She needed another female's reactions to what she was feeling, but the only female of any importance to her was her old nanny, Anna Walden. As she pictured the dear woman's face, she knew what she wanted to do.

She jumped up and ran the rest of the way upstairs to her room. Once inside, she took off the red dress and hung it back in the closet, trading it for a pair of old Levi's and a Dallas Cowboys T-shirt. She abandoned her red heels for sneakers, and the loose hairstyle she'd had earlier was bunched up on her head and secured with an oversize pink clip. This time she was dressing for comfort, not impact.

After telling Rose where she was going, she hurried outside to the garages where the cars were housed. She started to get into her BMW, then, for some rea
son, changed her mind and took her grandfather's black Chevy Trailblazer. She loved the SUV with its get-up-and-go engine. As she backed out of the garage, she realized it had been weeks since she'd driven herself anywhere—and certainly not since they'd returned from their vacation. It felt good to be in control of something, even if it was only a car.

With an odd feeling of having escaped something threatening, she sped off the grounds. Before long she was on the freeway, aiming for Arlington and the two-bedroom bungalow that was now Anna Walden's home.

 

Dennis was so excited, he was shaking. Staking out the Sealy estate had been a brilliant idea. He hadn't been there more than thirty minutes when he'd seen the black SUV come down the driveway and pull out onto the street. The windows were too dark for him to tell who was driving, but it really didn't matter. The SEALY1 license tag marked it as belonging to the family, and anyway, he knew Marcus's car when he saw it. Already, his next plan of action was moving into place.

Then, suddenly, he tilted his head to one side, listening to voices that only he could hear.

“Yes, Lord…I hear you,” he mumbled, and started the engine.

He glanced over his shoulder to make sure there was no traffic behind him, then quickly accelerated away from the curb. He drove without caution in an effort not to lose sight of the SUV, knowing that God was on his side.

 

Anna Walden's sixtieth birthday had come and gone. The years had not been kind to her, but she didn't seem to mind. In her youth she'd had a hot body and an attitude to match, but seeing her now, one would never have suspected. She could never have predicted the twists and turns of fate that had taken her to Marcus Sealy's residence to care for a little two-year-old girl, traumatized by the events of her life. But she'd known from the first day that it was where she was meant to be. Anna had needed Olivia as badly as Olivia had needed her.

Anna had raised her to adulthood with a great sense of pride and accomplishment. She'd known that one day her presence at the Sealy estate would no longer be needed, but she'd still been shocked by her termination. Even though Marcus had furnished her with a comfortable retirement income and a nice little bungalow in a good neighborhood, it had not buffered her from the painful sense of loss.

Over the years, she'd learned to cope, satisfying herself with the impromptu visits Olivia occasionally made, looking forward to her own birthday, knowing that Olivia would come and take her out to dine somewhere elegant, and always enjoying the cards and letters that Olivia wrote. Just recently, she'd received at least a half-dozen postcards from both Marcus and Olivia during their trip to Europe, and she had lived vicariously through their trip from the notes and pictures. She was proud of the woman Olivia had become, but had never had aspirations of reinventing herself and moving on.

Today was no exception. She was flat on her back with her feet propped up on the arm of the sofa watching
The Price Is Right.
The loose float dress she was wearing to disguise her extra weight had slipped back toward her belly, revealing white pudgy legs and deep-dimpled knees. The flip-flops she favored were dangling from her big toes. The gray roots in her dyed red hair were a good three inches long, evidence of how many beauty-shop appointments she'd missed. When she heard the doorbell chime, she frowned. Bob Barker had just called for another contestant to “come on down,” and she always loved to see the surprised reaction on the new contestant's face. But when she heard a familiar and beloved voice calling her name through the door, she almost fell off the sofa in her haste to get up.

“Nanna…Nanna…it's me, Olivia!”

Anna flung the door open, her expression mirroring her delight and surprise.

“Olivia…it's so good to see you!” she cried, and gave Olivia a hug of welcome. “Come in, come in. If you'd warned me you were coming, I would have baked chocolate crinkles. I know they're your favorites.”

Olivia beamed. “Yes, they are,” she said as she let herself be engulfed in the familiar comfort of Anna's arms.

She'd been right in coming here, after all. Although Anna was not blood kin, she was the closest thing to a mother figure she would ever have. Anna had helped Olivia learn to braid her hair, gone with her to buy her
first bra, and taught Olivia all she knew about what it meant to be a female. And, unlike Rose, Anna knew Olivia's likes and dislikes, including chocolate crinkles, not lemon sorbet.

“So how have you been?” Anna asked as she closed the door and led Olivia to the sofa. “Did you and Mr. Marcus have a good time in Europe? Tell me all about it.”

Olivia was a bit startled by the disarray of the room and Anna's unkempt appearance, then shrugged it off. Looks didn't matter. Anna was Anna—her Nanna, the woman who had become her touchstone to security—so she ignored the niggle of concern at the back of her mind.

“Europe was great,” Olivia said. “We shot a couple dozen rolls of film, but I haven't had them developed yet. After everything that's been happening, they sort of slipped my mind.”

Anna frowned. “What everything, dear? Has something happened to Marcus? Is he ill?”

Olivia was surprised that Anna hadn't keyed in immediately on what she meant.

“No, no, nothing like that,” she said. “I was talking about the media…you know. You must have seen the papers about that baby's remains.”

Anna frowned. “Baby? What baby?” Then before Olivia could answer, she added, “I have to confess, I broke my glasses a week or so ago. I can see the television just fine without them, so I haven't bothered to get them fixed, but it's limited my reading.”

“Oh, Lord,” Olivia muttered. “I wish I could be so
unconcerned.” Then she turned sideways on the sofa, kicked off her shoes and folded her legs up beneath her. “I should have called you when it all started,” she said.

“When what all started, dear?” Anna said, then jumped up from the sofa. “Wait! Before you start, I'll get us something to drink.”

“No, no, thank you,” Olivia said. “Maybe later. We need to talk in case the reporters start calling you, although I can't think why they would.”

Reporters? Suddenly, Olivia had all of Anna's attention. The old woman sat back down, then folded her hands in her lap.

“Why would reporters be calling me, dear?”

“They shouldn't, but that doesn't mean they won't. Grampy and I both agreed that you should be warned of the possibility.”

“Of what?” Anna asked.

“About a week ago, a man found the remains of a small child…a girl…in a suitcase in the wall of a house up at Texoma. The police are trying to connect it to us because the baby was born with three thumbs.”

Anna paled, then reeled, as if she'd been slapped.

“A baby? In a suitcase? Good Lord! That's appalling.” Then she added, “But I'm not sure I understand. I know having three thumbs is unusual, but yours can't be the only family where that happens.”

“Yes, but there are other complications.”

“Like what?” Anna asked.

“The coroner claims that the remains are about
twenty-five years old, which is when I was kidnapped. And with the timeline, the age of the girl and the three thumbs…well…the long and short of it is, we had to submit to DNA testing to prove that I'm me and not someone else.” Then her chin quivered, and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Nanna, I know it's silly, but I'm scared. What if I'm not Grampy's real granddaughter? What if that poor dead baby is the real one?”

Anna's chin jutted, and her voice grew rough in anger as she grabbed Olivia's hands.

“Now, you listen to me. That's foolish, and you know it. DNA or not, you're Marcus Sealy's granddaughter. I've seen the pictures. You've seen the pictures. I can't believe you'd think for one minute that you don't belong. Sealy blood runs in your veins. Now straighten up and act like it!”

Olivia had expected sympathy, not a scolding. For a moment she was too taken aback to react, but when she did, she managed a crooked smile.

“Oh, Nanna…I miss you. I came because I thought I needed sympathy, but as always, you gave me exactly what I need, which was an attitude adjustment.”

As Olivia threw her arms around Anna's neck, Anna shuddered, then held her close.

“It's all right, sweetheart. Your Nanna is here. I didn't mean to sound so angry, but I won't have you doubting yourself. Not ever.”

“You're right,” Olivia said. “No more doubts. Now, about that cold drink…”

Anna leaned back, staring intently into Olivia's face, as if searching for truth. Whatever she saw in
Olivia's eyes seemed to satisfy her. She smiled, then patted Olivia's cheek.

“I have iced tea…sweet, like you like it.”

“Sounds great,” Olivia said. “I'll help.”

Anna grunted as she got up, wincing slightly from the pain in her knee as she stood.

Olivia saw the pain on Anna's face and frowned.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I'm fine, just fine,” Anna said. “It's just my old bones.”

Olivia shuddered. The reference to old bones was too vivid a reminder of why she'd come. She shoved the thought out of her mind and put her arm around Anna's shoulders.

“I'm sorry it's been so long since we've last visited,” she said. “Let's go get that tea.”

Anna grinned as they moved toward her tiny kitchen. It felt good to still be needed.

At Anna's insistence, Olivia sat down at the table while Anna assembled their refreshments. At first Olivia's focus was on the joy of being with her Nanna, so she didn't notice the oddities of Anna's behavior. But when Anna poured tea in two glasses, then put the ice cubes in a bowl and set them on the table, Olivia blinked.