Liar's Moon (26 page)

“Ted!” she protested suddenly, vehemently. Was he mad—he was so calm! And never, never in her wildest imagination had she thought that it was Ted!

Ted—telling her flatly that he had conspired to kill her father. He would only t
ell her such a thing if…

“Look down, Tracy. A long, long fall. I was so upset with you, I planted that story in the paper just to create havoc, my dear. Just to get you alone. I meant to get you up to the suite—forty stories above the ground—and watch you jump from the window. I thought the whole thing would be blown. But this is really much, much better. You casting yourself over the bridge. And, of course, I’ll tell them you did it because you finally cracked. You came from such a messed-up situation, Tracy!” His smile deepened. “Jesse’s bastard bears a bastard! I loved the story idea—such poetic justice, you know? Of course, I don’t know the whole story, Tracy, or I could have told that smutty reporter more. Is Johnston really in love with you? Or does he hate you? Did he think that you gave your baby away? Jesse did know, by the way. I think that he planned on telling Leif—and you. Which makes it look all the worse for your grandfather. So few people knew! But then maybe it wasn’t so odd that after a certain amount of time Jesse was able to recognize his own grandchild. And he knew Arthur. He knew that Arthur would stoop to almost anything.”

Ted started to laugh. Tracy looked anxiously over her
shoulder. Where were the cars? It was a sunny day. Ted cou
ldn’t possibly be planning…

“It’s so easy, Tracy. Leif will believe forever that Arthur killed Jesse. And anyone in the world would believe that you went insane and suicidal! Look at the pressure, Tracy!”

The pressure—the only pressure she knew was that of his grip about her wrist. She didn’t know whether to scream in pure panic or to still the rampaging beat of her heart and try to rationalize with him. She still couldn’t believe it. Ted! Of all people! Of all people, sweet, harmless Ted.

He wasn’t harmless now. She realized that as she looked at him. At the grim, implacable smile in place on his lips.

She tried very hard to wrench her arm away. His grip tightened. She screamed, with all her heart, with all her breath, as long and loud as she could.

The cars just kept whizzing by, and there wasn’t another soul on the walkway.

Ted’s smile deepened.

“Tracy, it’s perfect. Bless you for that stubborn streak of yours. The bridge is really far superior to a window! It’s—perfect!”

She gasped for more breath. “As perfect as giving a petty crook a fortune to kill my father. Then having that petty crook killed. Then killing the policeman who had killed him! Who did you pay to do that for you, Ted?”

“Not a soul, Tracy. I did that one myself. It was easy— he had been blackmailing me. I picked a time for him to meet me on the roof, and the poor fellow went right over. I heard him tell his partner that there was a mugger up there. Some things do fall right in place. And you know
what, Tracy? He was a pretty hefty fellow. And you’re just a little, little girl. You’ll go over easily.”

“Why?” she gasped out. “Why—”

“Why did I kill Jesse? Tracy, what a question! The bastard kept sleeping with my wife!”

She moistened her lips. Her head was spinning. He meant to cast her over. Over the rail. And she would fall. Fall and fall and fall into the grayish green depths so very far below her.

“Why me, Ted! What did I ever do to you?”

He shook his head. If she could keep him talking, maybe he would ease his hold. She could run. Pray God she could outrun him!

“Tracy,” he said very softly. “I thought that you already knew. And then again, well—”

“Well?”

“You’re Jesse’s girl.” He chuckled softly. “I can’t tell you how much I hated Jesse. How much—or how long. Tracy, it was like worms eating away at my stomach, at my heart, day after endless damn day. Eating, festering. My God! How I hated that man.”

Staring at him, Tracy realized with horror that there would be no reasoning with Ted—none at all. His hate had been so deep that he had come to an awful madness because of it.

With a violent wrench, Tracy tore her hand from his grasp. She shoved against him with all her strength and started to run, screaming for help. Someone had to have their windows dow
n. Someone had to hear her…

She knew that she could be faster than Ted. But somehow he caught her. His fingers twined into her hair, jerking her backward and sending her flying down to the pavement hard, the breath knocked from her. She
gasped; he was trying to pick her up. Wildly, she thrashed against him, tearing long grooves into his face with her nails. Oh, good God! Someone had to see the struggle!

“Ted!”

He jerked, releasing her. Tracy recognized the voice just as he did, and she spun around to see her mother standing twenty yards in back of them, with Arthur Kingsley beyond her, stepping from the driver’s seat of a sedan pulled haphazardly against the curve.

“Ted!” Audrey cried again. “Stop! I see you, my father sees you. There are witnesses!”

He stared at her, then shook his head slowly. “No. No, I can’t! Don’t you see—she is Jesse’s seed. And—yours.”

“My daughter, Ted! Jesse is dead. I love Tracy! If you touch her—”

Ted let out the most horrible cry that Tracy had ever heard. Like a bellow, like a bull’s roar of rage. Then he was up and running again, running toward her mother.

“No!” Tracy was on her feet, screaming.

“Audrey!” Ted shouted. “We’ll do something together! We’ll go out of this world as one!”

Tracy started running, too, but something whizzed by her. A man.

Leif.

And just seconds before Ted reached Audrey, Leif reached Ted, pitting himself against the man’s back like a tackle, smacking them both flat against the cement.

“Audrey, damn you, run!” Leif shouted. Tracy heard the sickening sound of fists flying against flesh and bone. Arthur Kingsley reached his daughter and wrenched her wooden body back toward the car.

A
rm
s sw
oo
ped around Tracy’s shoulder. She turned. It was Jamie, grim and tense, holding her.

She stared ahead of herself. The two men were up. Ted swiped at Leif; Leif ducked.

Ted didn’t strike out again. He very simply caught hold of the rail—and catapulted over it.

Tracy heard a long scream. She didn’t even know that it was she that was making the sound until Leif, tattered and mussed, and gasping, staggered back over to them and took her from Jamie, gently sliding a hand over her mouth.

“Shh, Tracy. Shush!” He held her as she broke into a spasm of tears. He tried to ease the shaking in her body.

“Look at me, Tracy!” he commanded her. “Look at me!” And he raised her chin so that her eyes met his. Gray and level and tender and caring.

“It’s over, Tracy. It’s going to be all right. It’s really going to be all right.”

He kissed her forehead and hugged her to him again. “I love you, Tracy. I love you. It will be all right.”

And suddenly she stopped shaking. She believed him. She pulled away from him and stared searchingly into the handsome lines of his face, and she felt again the silver caress of his eyes.

“Leif?”

“I love you, Tracy. I love you,” he whispered again. He caught her hand and brought their fingers between them, entwining them. “We can make it all right,” he told her, firmly.

And by then, the police were there. Someone called his name, and he handed her back to Jamie’s care.

Jamie hugged her tightly. “We’ve made it, Tracy. We’ve made it, and we can go on from here.”

* * *

I
t wasn’t to be quite that simple. Tracy had to give a statement to the police, and although Leif tried to handle most of it, she did have to speak with them.

Audrey was so hysterical that she had to be taken to the hospital, sedated, and kept overnight. But before she was parted from Tracy, she begged to talk to her. Tracy had to know, she said, that her baby brother, Anthony, was—was Jesse’s child, too.

Audrey was so remorseful, so hysterical. Tracy tried to tell her that it didn’t matter; Audrey said that it did. She hadn’t wanted Tracy to believe that her little brother could be mad—like Ted. Tracy had kissed and hugged her mother again, and tried to assure her that everything would be okay.

And Arthur Kingsley was so shaky, pensive and morose that Tracy began to fear that her grandfather wouldn’t make it either. She knew that he couldn’t help but think that he had caused it all by his interference all those years ago. And he had been wrong; so terribly wrong. But Tracy believed with all her heart that he had never meant to hurt any of them, and she tried to tell him that she loved him, wondering if it would do any good. Arthur went to stay at Audrey’s side in the hospital, and Tracy knew, too, that for all his interference, he loved his daughter very, very much, and that he was praying, too, that he might make several things up to her.

Through it all, Jamie was there. Pale but steady and totally supportive. He told Tracy that, just when she had left with Ted, Leif had learned from the deceased officer’s partner that the two of them had met Arthur, Audrey, and Ted over a year ago. And that, once Leif knew Tracy was off with her stepfather, instinct had warned him that Ted had ordered Jesse’s murder. For several seconds he
had soared into an explosive panic, but he had sobered quickly, aware that he must find her.

Someone had noted the cab company and Leif had reached the dispatcher and contacted the cabbie who had remembered letting the two of them out by the river.

“I’ve never seen Leif like that, Tracy,” Jamie told her with his wonderful, easy smile that was so like their father’s. “He must love you very, very much.”

“I hope so,” she whispered. And she’d leaned against him, waiting for Leif to finish with the police, too worn to cry.

When Leif finished at last, he took her hand and suggested that they go to the hotel. Tiger and Sam would be there—and Lauren and Carol deserved explanations.

And most importantly, Liz would be there, waiting with Blake.

“What am I going to tell him?” Tracy whispered hopelessly to Leif.

He hesitated, and she had never been so glad of his arm around her, or the unwavering strength he offered her.

“Tracy, it might take time. But we’ve got time now. Years ahead of us.” He paused again, heedless of Jamie, staring deeply into her eyes.

“That is, if you love me. I—I only forced you to marry me because—”

“Because you’re both stubborn idiots!” Jamie chimed in. “Tracy, face it, you married him because you love him. Let the poor guy off the hook.”

She discovered that she could still smile after all. She gazed up into eyes that were silver and charcoal and tense and fascinating and demanding and tender and smiled.

“I married you because I love you. I do love you, Leif, so much.”

“Then together,” he whispered softly, “I know that we’ll do fine with our son.”

S
he was afraid. So very afraid to talk to her own son.

“He’s in the second room,” Liz told her after hearing the complete story of what happened. “Go see him.”

“Liz—I can’t!” Tracy protested in panic. “He hates me! You heard him.”

“Go talk to him, Tracy. He’s your son! Your little boy! You go in there and tell him what’s what!”

Liz gave her a shove. Tracy walked hesitantly to the door. She knocked on it.

“Go away!”

She almost did just that; then she asked herself just what kind of a coward she was. So she twisted the knob and went in. Blake was lying on his bed. He turned around to look at her, then swung his back to her face once again.

“Blake, I need to talk to you.”

“I hate you. I don’t want to talk to you.”

She took a deep breath and walked over to the bed and sat at its edge. His little body stiffened.

“Blake—”

“You’re not my mother! I don’t care what they said! I remember her! She loved me! She was beautiful!”

“Celia was beautiful, Blake. Kind and gentle and very wonderful. No one wants to take her away from you. She did love you. So much.”

He spun around, stari
ng at her with his cheeks tear-
stained, his blond hair a tousle—and his eyes as dark and stormy as his father’s.

“They called you a ‘bastard.’ And they said that I was
your ‘bastard,’ and that’s bad—I know it! And it isn’t true! Tell me that it isn’t true!”

She lowered her head for a minute, then looked up at him, shaking her head. “Blake, if I start at the beginning, will you listen to me?”

“You’re too big for me to throw out of my room!” he told her grudgingly.

Tracy inhaled and sought for words.

“Blake, in the eyes of the world, I suppose, I am Jesse’s bastard. But please don’t use that word—people really shouldn’t. Blake, Jesse and my mother fell in love. But they were kept apart. I believe that they cared very, very deeply when they—when they made me. I loved Jesse, Jesse loved me.”

He didn’t say anything. She didn’t know if he was still crying or not. She inhaled another deep, deep breath.

“Blake, I met your father many years ago. And after I came to know him, I thought that the sun rose in his face. In my life, Blake, I never cared for anyone more. But I— I was too young. And my parents took me away.”

How, how did she explain this to a six-year-old? Her heart cried out.

“Blake—you are my son.”

“No!” he screamed, then he spun around with a gasp and a worse accusation on his lips.
“You didn’t want me! You didn’t love me! You gave me away! That’s why I used to be ‘adopted.’ ”

She shook her head vehemently. “No, Blake, no! Oh, Blake, listen to me! Sometimes people who aren’t really bad do some things that are! You were taken away from me.” She tried to smile. “I—I didn’t even know when I met you that you were my son. Oh, Blake, this is so much to understand. I’m an adult and I’m having trouble with it all! Please
…
”

He stared at her, but he didn’t take the hand that she had outstretched to him.

“So you are a bastard—and I’m one, too,” he said distantly.

“Blake, I asked you not to use that word, please!” Tracy murmured.

“It’s true. You just said so.”

“No—it’s not. Not at all.”

Tracy and Blake both started at the interruption. It was Leif, standing silently in the doorway. He walked over to the bed, looked at Tracy and saw the lost appeal in her eyes, and sat. He squeezed her hand, then took the protesting Blake into his arms.

“Blake, listen to me, son. Listen to me, well. I loved Celia, and she was your mother. No one will ever take that away. She wanted you very badly. But before I married Celia, I knew Tracy and I loved her, too, son. You were bo
rn
out of that. Two people who loved one another deeply and who both love you now more than anything else in the world.”

Blake looked at his father. He didn’t protest. He just sobbed softly and buried his little head against Leif’s broad chest.

Leif bent his head down to whisper. “Please, Blake. Please tell Tracy that you don’t hate her.”

Tracy waited, her heart
aching. Waited and waited…

And at last Blake turned to her. He stared at her with his massive gray eyes for several wrenching moments.

“I—I don’t really hate you. It’s just that they are suddenly saying that you’re my mother and—”

“Blake, please!” She reached for his hand a little feverishly; this time, he accepted it. “Blake, you knew that I was going to be your stepmother, and that was going to
be okay. If we can start out by trying to be friends, maybe the rest will—will work out.”

He didn’t say anything for the longest time. Leif prompted him.

“Blake?”

He nodded slowly. Leif smiled at him. “Son, I promise you, we’re going to have a wonderful life together. Tracy loves you, too, you know that.”

“Do
I have to call you ‘mother’?” h
e asked.

She shook her head. “Not until you want to.”

“I might never,” he warned her.

“Well, we’ll wait and see, okay.”

“Maybe I will,” he conceded.

“Give me a big hug,” Leif said to him. “It’s getting late. You need some sleep.”

Obediently—and with a love that Tracy envied—Blake hugged his father and kissed his cheek. Then he looked at Tracy again. “Does that mean that I’m kind of related to Jamie, too?”

“He’s your uncle,” Tracy said.

“I like that,” Blake mused, and Tracy smiled, lowering her eyes. The little things might win him in the end. It would be difficult; she had to move slowly. But Leif was right; she loved him. And sometimes love did win out.

“Want to give Tracy a little kiss on the cheek?” Leif suggested. “Just so that she really doesn’t think you hate her anymore.”

He hesitated. Then he gave her a bird’s peck on the cheek. She smiled, then she and Leif rose together to leave him. They got as far as the door. Then a flurry of movement followed them; Tracy discovered herself almost knocked over by a force at her knees.

“I really don’t hate you,” Blake told her. “I wanted to hurt you at first, but I—I don’t really want to anymore.”

She knelt down beside him, near tears of joy when he wrapped his arms around her and gave her a fierce hug.

“Thank you, Blake,” she murmured.

He nodded, quickly released her, and raced back to his bed.

“Good night, son,” Leif said, and he led Tracy from the room.

Another door closed somewhere in the suite. Tracy realized that her sister-in-law had gone to bed, discreetly leaving her and Leif alone in the salon.

Leif led her over to the window. A breeze was blowing the drapes about, far below them horns still honked on a busy street.

He stood behind her, holding her close to his body, lightly brushing her nape with a kiss and then holding her closer once again. Far above them, the moon was high in the sky.

“No more ‘liar’s’ moon,” Leif commented softly. “The new is coming.”

“Yes,” she murmured.

“Tracy, I’m sorry.”

She winced. “I am, too. All those years Ted raised me. I can’t believe that he wanted to kill me.”

He didn’t reply. He stroked her shoulders soothingly.

“Your mother is stronger than you think, Tracy. She will pull out of this. But I was thinking—maybe you’d like to send for the baby to come and live with us.”

She spun around, her eyes bright. “Oh, Leif, could we? I mean, when mother is well, of course, she should have Anthony back. Maybe they should both be with us for a while. That is, if—”

He smiled at her, kissing her fingers. “Tracy, I’m not the one who can’t forgive and forget. When we can, we’ll bring Audrey home. And Anthony.”

She turned into his arms. “Oh, Leif, I do love you!”

“Tracy Johnston, I do love you with all my heart.”

She sighed softly and buried her head against his chest. “It’s so easy now. So very easy. I love you. I love you. To feel, to say—”

He lifted her chin, smiling crookedly, lazily—rakishly. “To show, Tracy? I didn’t mind you in your son’s bed, but I did spend a rather lonely night.”

“To show,” she whispered in return, and lacing her fingers with his, she kissed him with all her love and need and passion.

And the breeze blew gently around them while the fading moon beamed down a gentle blessing.