Liar's Moon (13 page)

A little bit! he thought ironically. I was bewitched, entranced, totally captivated. I’d have happily lain down my life for you, and thought it only a small token. Tracy
…
the magic was there again, but he swallowed back any thought of words, of giving away those feelings. He couldn’t trust her; he couldn’t trust himself. Time would have to tell, and he would have to take the gravest care.

He knew then, with all his heart, that he would not lose her again. Whatever it took—he would not lose her again.

She swallowed, wincing, curling her fingers against his chest. “You—you did forget me. You married Celia instantly.”

He was dead still for a second, then he gently moved her from him and rose. Naked, he walked over to the open doorway, where the draperies still drifted in the night breeze. He stared out, running his fingers through his hair, then leaning against the window frame and idly crossing his arms over his chest.

“I did love Celia. But I didn’t forget you. I went mad trying to find out where your grandfather had hid you.
Jesse and I were at awful odds. I just wanted to see you again. I wanted you to know that I had been angry because I had been so stunned—being dragged out of bed like that was not a thrilling experience. But it was worse on you. If you really wanted to disappear, that was fine. But
…”

He hesitated, shrugging. “I did stay that little bit in love with you, Tracy.” He stood again, framed in the draperies, hands on his hips, his bare back to her. Then he spun around suddenly, coming back to the bed, bracing his arms on either side of her and staring down at her.

“What about you, Tracy? What were you feeling?”

She froze; she couldn’t tell him the truth. She couldn’t tell him that she had hated him with all her heart—that she had, indeed, been a prisoner, young and miserable and pregnant—with the fact that he had married immediately following their affair being crammed down her throat daily.

“Tell me, Tracy!” he said suddenly, intently.

She shook her head. It wasn’t that she particularly wanted to deceive him; there was just no sense in giving him the truth. No sense in telling him that she had been wretchedly pregnant—and that she had held her child only once before it had died. That, at eighteen, she had stood in a tiny
cemetery
outside of Zurich with a light dusting of snow falling all about her while the tiny coffin containing the child who had not survived a full day was lowered into the earth.

She couldn’t tell him that from there she had begun to sever the strangling ties her mother and grandfather had laced around her. That she had found Jesse then; that she struck off on her own.

“I don’t know what I felt. It was a long, long time ago,” she cried.

“Not so long. Not so long that you didn’t remember me. Not so long that we didn’t wind up together again— with rather astonishing speed.”

“Leif! What does it matter? You were married to Celia! There was nothing that could have been said or done!”

“Liar’s moon, Tracy! Damn you, don’t lie to me now!”

“Leif! I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“Why won’t you tell me the truth?”

“What truth? Why are you always talking in riddles?”

“Tracy—”

His teeth grit suddenly, his fingers knotted the sheets into his fists. Startled and wary, Tracy grasped at the comforter, drawing it to her chest, inching toward the bedpost, out of the circle of his arms.

“Leave me alone, Leif. Until you feel like telling me what you’re talking about. God, I knew that this was a mistake.”

He didn’t reply. His eyes glittered hotly in the moonlight, and she felt a sudden and desperate urge to escape him. She tried to push past the bar of his arm. The comforter fell away from her hold, and she didn’t notice it in her grim determination to be free.

“Leif, let me out of here. This was—”

“Where are you going?” he queried softly.

“Away!” She looked back to his eyes. The frightening glitter was gone; he was smiling as he shook his hand, moving his arm of his own accord—but encircling her wrist with his fingers.

The blanket was gone; her breasts were bare and silver shadowed in the moonlight. And dusky rose nipples peaked out evocatively from a tangled curl of her hair and he knew that he could never let her go again.

“Stay, Tracy.”

“Leif—”

She stared down at his fingers, so tightly wound around her wrist. She looked into his eyes again, and the sexual message was staggering. It caught her unaware, off guard, vulnerable. Her lips parted slightly in her effort to breathe; a cascade of liquid heat swept through her and she felt the power of his will and tension travel like a rushing stream from his body to her own.

He smiled. His lips touched hers, and she sank back to the pillow again beneath the hard weight of his lean form.

I
n the morning Leif slipped into the room beside his own, which he had intended for Tracy, and quietly returned to his own with her luggage. She was still sleeping.

He smiled as he watched her, feeling a tug at his heart, painful and sweet. Some things changed; some things didn’t. She still slept the same, hair an absolute silky tangle, lips just so slightly parted—and her arms wrapped tightly around a pillow now that he was gone. He pulled the comforter over her shoulders lest she feel too cool from the morning air.

Minutes later, he was downstairs in his trunks, quickly plunging into the pool. He swam a dozen laps, then floated on his back. The air was cool; the pool was heated. The sun was overhead, and it seemed an incredibly beautiful morning. None of his house guests was stirring yet; he was alone.

He glanced at his watch and saw that it was eight thirty at last. He left the pool, grabbing a towel from a shelf behind the tiled patio wet bar, then entered the downstairs through the back door and quietly followed the family room to his office at its left.

He sat down and picked up the phone, dialing a number he now knew by heart.

Rob Dorry answered on the second ring. “Hi, Rob. Leif Johnston. Just checking in. Anything new?”

“Yeah, Leif, a couple of things,” Rob replied. He was a clean-shaven, quiet y
oung man who always wore three-
piece suits. His office was a clean, neat place with an attractive array of plants and bookshelves—not a thing like the grubby holes television had led Leif to imagine would serve as a P.I.’s office.

“In which direction?”

“Both directions,” Rob told him. “First and most importantly, you were definitely right about the cop who shot Martin when he was coming out of the park right after he stabbed Jesse Kuger.”

“You’re sure?” Leif said, his heartbeat quickening.

“Positive. He’s been driving around in a Mercedes, and a month ago he bought a little condo facing the park. Do you know what kind of money you need to do things like that in N.Y.C.?”

“Have you talked to him?” Leif asked. “Never mind, maybe I should do that myself. I’ll—”

“Well, here’s the bad news. Neither of us can talk to him. Seems he fell off a roof the other day. The man is dead. His partner thinks he must have tried to follow a few hoods escaping from building to building—and might have been too fat and out of shape to make the leap.”

Leif grit his teeth to keep his voice level; he’d been so damned close! “When did it happen?”

“Saturday.”

“You think he might have been pushed?”

“Anything is possible—but it seems that his partner was down in an alley, so there were no witnesses.”

“I’ll be back in the city for Jesse’s memorial service. It’s planned for three in the afternoon. I’ll stay Monday
and see if I can’t talk to the partner myself. If I haven’t anything else to go on by then,” Leif muttered. “Anything else?”

“Yes, well, I finally tracked down Jesse’s old secretary. She’d taken off with her little inheritance to live in Hawaii. Arthur Kingsley did see Jesse two weeks before the stabbing. And it seems that they had a horrible row over something. She said she fled—went to lunch—because the walls were vibrating.”

“Kingsley,” Leif murmured.

“But he may not be your man. Or woman. According to the reigning Mrs. Kuger’s manicurist, Lauren Kuger was all upset about the same time. The manicurist was convinced that the marriage was on the rocks.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Broken marriages usually end in divorce—not murder.”

“Lauren Kuger got a lot of Jesse’s money. A lot more than she might have with alimony payments.”

“Granted. Anything else?”

“Yep. Jesse did see Audrey Blare any number of times over the last years—his doorman at the penthouse recognized her picture. They kept a nice hot little affair going. Sporadic—she saw him a couple of times a year. But it seems their little secret was a long-lived one.”

“That’s not a shock. What else?”

“Well, I’m still trying to discover what your friends Tiger and Sam did with a hundred thousand dollars between them. That’s a tricky one—I don’t have a legal leg to stand on when I try to pry into their affairs.”

“I know. Just keep at it, okay?”

“You’re the boss, Mr. Johnston.”

“Thanks—”

“Don’t hang up. I’ve got more.”

Leif tensed, sitting straight up in his chair, feeling a sick, dizzying sensation sweep through him.

“I’ve found what you’re looking for. I’ve even found a legal way to dig it up. When can you head overseas with me?”

He thought he would black out for a minute, he was so astounded. And furious all over again. His hunch had paid off—in one way at least. But he wouldn’t know the truth one way or another until he could see for himself.

He hesitated a moment, though. Instinct and emotion urged him to fly out on the next plane; caution warned him not to. Lauren and Carol were both coming in today —he had just gotten his house guests assembled.

He had just gotten Tracy back into bed with him. Where she belonged. At his side.

“Tomorrow. Make the arrangements and give me a time. I’ll meet you at Kennedy. I’ll have to turn around and fly right back, though.”

“Sure thing. I’ll call with the flight information.”

Leif slowly set the receiver back into its cradle. He sat back, wondering why he should be so shocked. He had suspected the truth for some time.

Because I told her not to lie to me! he thought, fighting down the sick rage. Of course, he didn’t know what he would find yet.

Yes, he did. It would be empty. He was sure of it, and he felt sick, and
he wondered what she knew…

“Leif?”

Startled, he looked up. Lost in thought, he hadn’t heard the door to his office slide open.

It was Audrey. She came in and closed the door behind her, smiling. She was dressed in designer jeans and a sexy top that bared her left shoulder and hung becomingly to
a wide red sash belt that emphasized her slim waist and trim hips.

She stared at him and he realized that he was still in his trunks, hair wet, shoulders slick.

“You still swim every morning,” she said, smiling and walking around to sit on the edge of his desk, amazingly like a coed.

Leif sat back, idly folding his fingers before him.

“Yes, I still like the water.”

She leaned over to help herself to a cigarette from the pack on his desk, moving as sensuously as a kitten. She offered him another of her brilliant smiles and he noted grudgingly that she was still as lovely as she had been when Jesse had first met her, when they had all been kids, eager to face the world, convinced of their immortality.

Lovely
…
and very practiced in her charming wiles. He discovered himself feeling very sorry for Ted Blare— the silent husband. Well, Ted had received great benefits from Arthur Kingsley’s money. Maybe he wasn’t all that “long suffering.”

“Give me a light, Leif?”

He found his lighter and lit the flame. Her eyes touched his again and he smiled.

She’s got it, too—Tracy has it. That movement, that sensual appeal. She’s just a great deal more discriminating about its use.

Audrey inhaled and exhaled. “I thought you had to be crazy to invite us all here, Leif. I’m glad you did, though.” She was silent for a minute, then her voice sounded a little strange. “You and Tracy really are back together?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, well
…”
Audrey attempted another smile—a weak one this time. “I guess I just wanted to make sure
that you and I were at peace. That you understand
…
Tracy didn’t always just look mature, she was mature. But she was still—still my baby, I guess.”

“It was more than that, Audrey, wasn’t it?” Leif inquired politely, watching her reaction carefully. “You didn’t want her involved the same way you were. Marrying Ted—and hanging on to Jesse anyway.”

She jumped off his desk as if she had been burned. “Jesse and I were dear, dear friends—”

“Oh, Audrey, please.”