Shadow Lover (16 page)
With Carolyn nosing about, that safety was likely to be threatened. And he was a selfish bastard to see her off on that particular tack.
"It's very sweet of you to be concerned," she said cynically. "I know perfectly well why you want me to find out what happened to the real Alexander."
"And why is that?"
"If I find out who killed him, you'll have someone to blackmail. You may not get Sally's money, but if someone in the family committed murder there'll be lots of cash available."
He looked at her with mock admiration. "I hadn't even thought of that. You
do
have a high opinion of me, don't you? And it doesn't bother you if I bleed money from someone else in your family?"
"Not in the slightest. Whoever killed Alexander deserves to suffer," she said flatly.
"I didn't know you particularly cared about him. He sounds like a spoiled brat and an absolute pain in the butt."
"He was."
"Then why do you care?" She kept her face averted, but he already knew the answer. "You were in love with him, weren't you?"
"I was thirteen years old!" she shot back. "Hardly of an age to recognize true love. And he was a brat who tormented and teased me. He had no time for me at all."
"That doesn't mean you couldn't have had a hell of a crush on him."
"Girls outgrow crushes quite easily."
"Not when they see the object of those adolescent infatuations murdered," he said blithely. "Too bad Alex never knew you had such a passion for him. I'm sure he would have enjoyed fulfilling your youthful fantasies."
"Who says he didn't know?" Her voice was icy cold. "You know, you don't seem to have any trouble talking about him in the third person," she said shrewdly. "Are you admitting you're a phony? I can't prove it, at least not yet. Why don't you at least admit
it.
"
"I'm not admitting anything, sweetheart," he said lightly. "That's for you to find out."
"And if I do?"
"I told you, I'll slip away quietly. With nothing more than
a goodbye kiss
."
And he watched with interest as the color left her face.
Chapter 10
I
n the end, it was really a very simple thing to do. So simple, in fact, that there was no way Carolyn could resist the opportunity. She told herself so as she pushed back any faint trickles of guilt.
The kitchen was deserted—
Constanza
had paused in the midst of her dinner preparations to serve tea to Aunt Sally and her son. It wasn't as if the others were deliberately excluded—
Warren
despised tea, Patsy was having her beauty rest, and her children had gone off in search of spring skiing. It was more subtle than that. Sally wanted time with her long-lost son, and Carolyn was too generous to intrude. But not too generous to resent it.
The filling for the seafood crepes sat covered, nestled in a bowl of cracked ice. The huge shrimp sat separately, far away from the filling, as if even proximity would contaminate it and endanger Alex.
It was a simple matter to shred one of the large, shelled shrimp into tiny pieces, to mix it in with the crab and sole filling so that no one would even see it.
And such a tiny portion would probably do absolutely nothing to even the most sensitive of allergies. If Alex even bothered to eat any of the crepes, his portion would be so microscopic that it would end up being no test at all. She had absolutely no reason to feel guilty, she reminded herself as she passed
Constanza
on the way out. After all, the imposter had challenged her to find proof. Sally might have ruled out DNA testing, but this was far simpler and more direct.
He ate three of the shrimp-tainted crepes. Carolyn sat across from him, toying with her food, watching, half-listening as
Warren
and Sally argued about politics and Alex flirted with the slightly boozed-up Aunt Patsy. For some reason she didn't have much appetite.
"You're not in a very talkative mood tonight, are you,
Caro
?"
Warren
said suddenly, fixing his pale eyes on her.
She almost knocked over her wine glass, catching it just in time. "I guess I'm tired from the trip."
"Alex said you slept the entire way back," Sally said, staring at her. "Maybe you're coming down with something."
"Don't breathe on me!" Patsy said with a slurred shriek. "I can't afford to get sick. I hate illness of any sort. And don't let George know, whatever you do! He's got a pathological fear of infection."
"George is as healthy as a horse,"
Warren
said with a snort.
"That doesn't mean he won't worry. I see too little of him as it is—he's always busy with his friends and his little club to spare time for his mother. I don't want him running back to
"What kind of club?" Alex asked.
"Oh, heavens, I don't pay any attention," Patsy said with an airy wave of her hand. "He belongs to several, and they're all terribly expensive. Health clubs, nature-watching clubs, that sort of thing."
"George never struck me as the naturalist type," Alex said.
Patsy cast him a look of intense dislike. "You have no idea just how many interests a man like George
has
."
"No," he said, and there was a faintly edgy tone in his voice, "I don't."
"None of this matters, because I'm not sick," Carolyn said with barely controlled exasperation.
"How can you be certain? You're usually capable of decent conversation,"
Warren
said with a faint whine. "Oh, do go to bed, Carolyn, and drink lots of orange juice. We can't afford to have you sick right now."
"No,
Caro
," Patsy chimed in. "You know how we all count on you during this sad time."
"I'm not dead yet," Sally announced in a wry voice. "And considering Alex is back, I don't consider it a sad time at all. I intend to go out with a flourish."
"Don't!" Carolyn said, pushing back from the table. "I don't want to hear about it!"
"I'm dying, Carolyn dear," Sally said quietly. "It's an inescapable fact."
"Let her be," Alex said unexpectedly. "She's had a rough couple of days."
"Not because of you, I hope?" Sally suddenly sounded quite stern. "I love you dearly and I'm overjoyed that you've come home, but I won't have you tormenting Carolyn the way you used to."
"The way I used to?" he
echoed,
all phony innocence.
"You may think I didn't know what was going on, but I did. You loved to tease Carolyn when she was younger. You must have made her life a living hell at times."
"Then why didn't you stop me?" Alex's voice was even, the question eminently reasonable. It sat in the room like a boulder.
Sally looked startled. "I …
er
… I tried. There was no controlling you at that age. You were such a devil, so headstrong! We tried everything, didn't we,
Warren
?"
"You were a hellion, all right,"
Warren
said. "Besides, kids always pick on their little sisters."
"Carolyn wasn't my sister," he said softly, "because you never bothered to adopt her."
She jerked her head up to look at him. It was almost as if he were angry with them for not protecting her. Absurd, since he was supposedly the villain in the piece.
"Either way, I survived," she said, pushing back from the table. "And I'm sure you all have better things to discuss than my childhood, which was just fine, thank you very much. If no one minds, I'm going to bed."
"I told you she was coming down with something!" Sally said. "Sleep well, Carolyn, and don't worry about me. I've got Mrs. Hathaway and Alex to see to my well-being."
Carolyn summoned up a smile. "I'll be fine in the morning." She started toward Aunt Sally to give her a kiss goodnight, when
Warren
's arm shot out to stop her.
"Don't you think you'd better keep your distance until we make certain you don't have something contagious?" he said sternly.
"Very wise idea," Aunt Patsy said, reaching for her wine glass.
Alex said nothing. But then, he didn't need to. He was just sitting there, peacefully digesting the shrimp he should have been allergic to.
Proof, she told herself as she paced around the library, trying to settle down enough so that she could sleep. It was enough proof for her, but she doubted it would hold up with anyone else. After all, it was only her word that she'd put a piece of shrimp in the crepes.
And for that matter, there'd been so little shrimp maybe it missed him entirely. It had been a stupid idea from the start, a random chance that she hadn't been able to resist.
It wasn't until she'd turned off the light that a sudden, unpleasant thought hit her. What if she'd been wrong and the shrimp had hit him later on, when he was alone in his room? What if he'd suddenly keeled
over,
passed out? What if he was alone and dying because of her?
"Ridiculous," she said out loud, into the darkened room. But the worry, once taken hold, wouldn't leave her, and by the time an hour passed she knew she wasn't going to be able to sleep until she made absolutely certain the imposter was fine.
She threw back the covers and pulled on a pair of jeans under her t-shirt. Besides, she didn't necessarily mind rubbing his face in the fact that he'd proven remarkably resilient to something that was purported to make him violently ill.
The house was dark and quiet. George and Tessa hadn't returned from their skiing yet, but Sally and her siblings had already retired. The stairs made no noise whatsoever as Carolyn climbed them, and by the time she reached the bedroom at the far end of the hall—the bedroom where she had once slept—she was feeling almost giddy with triumph.
She knocked on the door, quietly enough,
then
waited. There was no sound from the other side, but the light came from underneath. She knocked again, calling out his stolen name. Still no answer.
She started to turn away when she heard a thump on the other side of the door. The clicking noise as he fiddled with the lock. Maybe he wasn't alone in there, she thought suddenly. Maybe it was Tessa who'd brought him into this, and maybe she was in there with him, in his bed…
The door opened partway, shielding her view. He stood there in the shadows, looming over her, shirtless, almost threatening. "What do you want, Carolyn?" he demanded in a rough, slurred whisper.
For a moment she couldn't move. "Are you alone?"
He laughed, but it was a raw sound. "Yeah, I'm alone. Who did you think I was entertaining?"
"Your partner in crime?" she said.
"Fuck you." He started to close the door in her face, when she reached out and stopped him, amazing herself.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
He could have slammed the door—he was much stronger than she was—but he didn't. He simply stared at her out of narrowed eyes that were very bright and intense, shining in his pale face. "Why wouldn't I be?"
The guilt wouldn't leave her—she had to be certain. "Can I come in?"
His slow, mocking smile reminded her just how infuriating he could be. "Why, certainly, darling. Why didn't you say that's what you had in mind in the first place? I'm always willing to oblige."
He didn't open the door wider, though, and she knew the smartest thing would have been to walk away. She wasn't feeling smart. She pushed it open, and he fell back easily enough, letting her into the dimly lit room.
He stumbled over to the large, cushioned couch in front of the fireplace, the couch she had chosen for its enveloping comfort, and sprawled gracefully, looking up at her with a mocking smile. "Lock the door, sweetheart," he murmured, "and pour us both a drink."
She did close the door behind her, rather than have any of the too-curious
MacDowells
overhear
their conversation, but she made no attempt to lock it. "I think you've had enough to drink," she said coolly.
His grin was faint as he stretched out on the sofa. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe not."
Her eyes were beginning to get used to the dim firelight. She'd been trying to avoid looking below his neck—his body was undeniably disturbing—but now there was no looking away. He was tanned, even in the winter, and solid, the muscles a subtle definition beneath his flesh. The jeans rode low on his hips, and golden hair drifted across his chest, his flat belly.
Carolyn swallowed nervously. And then she noticed he was covered with a faint film of sweat, and his cool, mocking eyes were slightly glazed, and she told herself he was drunk, and she knew he wasn't.
"What's wrong with you?" she demanded.
"Nothing." He smiled sweetly. "Why don't you come over here and let me see what you're wearing underneath that baggy t-shirt?"
She wasn't wearing anything, and he knew it. She stayed put. "You're not Alexander
MacDowell
," she said sharply.
