Shadows of the Past (17 page)

“Before we half killed each other?” Help, where had that come from? It was too close to the truth to take her impulsive outburst lightly. No matter what she did, made love, stayed, left, the threat wasn’t going to disappear. “Untangle me and help me dow then I’ll tell you.”

He winced as he stepped back and accidentally heeled something into the shower door as he moved away and they were no longer as one. “I think my left leg went to sleep. Wait till I pick up your purse, you might need something.”

What did he think this occasion called for—lipstick? The occasion. It dawned on her shell-shocked synapses that as Franc pulled away he hadn’t worn a condom. As if life wasn’t terrifying enough, she could be pregnant.

From the frown on his face as he straightened, Maria guessed that he had received the same jolt to his memory at almost the same moment it hit her. They both spoke together.

She said, “We didn’t use a condom.”

He said, “Where the hell did this crap come from?”

Then he said, “Dammit. I hope you’re not pregnant, because according to this I’ll be dead by tomorrow.”

S
o this had been the surprise Franc had planned. Pleasant though it was, Maria was certain he would confirm that the bombshell she’d dropped on him had topped this. But then, having someone predict the day of your death wasn’t an everyday occurrence.

Maria looked around the saloon of the motor yacht
Stanhope’s Fancy II
. Feeling dwarfed was not exactly new to her, not when she spent so much time around Franc, but his sister, Jo McQuaid Stanhope, measured in at six feet without high heels—a fact that had to intimidate some of the killers Franc said she had a knack for catching. But this wasn’t Auckland Central, the detective sergeant was off duty and Maria had no intention of killing anyone. Though she did have motive.

Maria gave the thought a mental raspberry. She was doing her best to see the funny side of life without much success.

But no wonder Franc had thought Jo could help. The confident way Jo held herself showed she knew her own worth, not only as someone married to a millionaire but as a cop.

The mere fact that Franc had planned on introducing her to a member of his family
before
the threat, showed a departure from his original plans for a brief fling. Familywise, until now, all she’d been sure of was that Franc had spent his life trying to live down his father’s reputation.

Jo’s husband, Rowan, stood a shade taller than Franc, but it didn’t show as they pored over the death-threat card and mutilated photographs. Rowan had come down to join them from the flying wheelhouse of the motor yacht as soon as they anchored in Waitamata Harbour.

“So tell me again,” Jo asked, her eyes twinkling as if this was the fun, girl-talk part of the deal. “How did he manage to smuggle you out of his apartment?”

“It does sound like something from a movie. We went down in the elevator to the basement garage, and he had me stay in the elevator until he looked around to make sure there was no one in sight, and then he hid me in the back seat with a traveling over me. You have no idea the twists and turns he took to make sure we weren’t being followed. I thought I might be seasick by the time he finished.” She looked out at the harbor from the window of the yacht as it rocked on the wash of a passing boat, wondering if she might still be seasick.

Maria looked down at the white boat shoes she was wearing. They had been part of Franc’s surprise; a short boat trip on the
Stanhope’s Fancy
had been the rest, only now the term
safe haven
seemed more appropriate than a short holiday cruise.

Jo got up from the custom-built sofa they were sharing, covered in a mixture of blue-grays and peaches; it toned well with the apricot suede and natural-wood walls. Maria watched her skirt the dining table the men leaned on, to open a freezer in the galley, and then quickly and efficiently she slid the contents of a plastic bag into an ice bucket.

“I know it’s too early to toast in the new year,” she said, opening a cabinet next to the dining saloon. “But I’m sure after all your hassles, a small reviving glass with a little kick to it might be just the thing to settle your nerves.”

“Wine for me if you have any,” Maria answered before remembering that one of those hassles could be she was pregnant.

Had Franc mentioned that to his sister when he told her about the death threat? It seemed so
minute
a problem when looked at alongside the fact that someone wanted to kill Franc; she had refused to take the possibility seriously. It had struck her as funny that
he
should take an opposing stance.

Jo turned her attention to the men. “Now that you’ve studied the evidence, Rowan, what do you think?” Though she was a card-carrying member of the New Zealand police and Rowan a member of the hugely rich Stanhope family and Franc’s immediate boss, they both worked as a team and it showed.

“Here’s what I reckon, Peaches.” Neither Franc nor Jo seemed to perceive anything peculiar in the diminutive Rowan used for his wife who was actually a very feminine version of Franc. “I think the threat needs to be taken seriously. But whether Randy Searle has the kind of psychological profile to carry the threat out, I couldn’t say. Human Resources should have his work history, check it out when you go back to work on Thursday.”

“But surely you won’t let him go back to work until this guy’s been found,” Maria blurted out. So what if Rowan was his boss? He should be Jo’s husband first.

Rowan threw her a quizzical look from under his tawny eyebrows, his green eyes glinting, emphasizing the contrast between him and his wife. “That’s up to Franc, but I can assure you, I’ll be putting extra security on at Stanhope Electronics, if that makes you feel any better.”

It didn’t. The more she thought about the situation, the more she was sure she should have moved out of Franc’s apartment with a view to never seeing him again. How would she feel if anything happened to him? Could she ever live with herself again?

“I’ll be going to work on Thursday, and so will you,” Franc said. “As I told you earlier, if we completely change our lives around because of this guy, Randy—if that’s who it is—then he’s won

Had she ever truly taken notice of the stubborn jut to Franc’s chin until today? No, if she had, it might have warned her of the downside to having a fling… Some fling! Look how it had turned out, with Franc’s life in danger.

Jo was messing around in the drinks cabinet, setting out bottles and glasses as if nothing had rocked her world the way it had Maria’s. This must be what it was like to be a cop who lived with the constant threat of danger. She was glad Franc had taken up electronics rather than following in his father’s footsteps.

Maria stood up and went to help her hostess, needing to do something, anything rather than speculate about the subject of Franc’s death.

Rowan was holding the photograph of her up to the light. A surge of color slashed Maria’s cheekbones; she could feel the burn as she tensed, waiting for him to speak.

“Jo, have you worked out what these crosses cut in the photo of Maria are in aid of?”

Rowan’s stare went straight over Maria’s head as she placed four wineglasses on the table. She could imagine Jo, behind her, mouthing, “Tell you later” but Maria kept her eyes forward, kept them on Franc as if he were her lifeline.

Maria had gone down to their cabin to change. Franc could tell she felt uncomfortable next to his sister, who looked tall and elegant in a designer outfit she’d probably let Rowan talk her into. Franc liked that Rowan didn’t mind showing how much he loved Jo. They were a couple in a million, and he didn’t mean because of the Stanhope money.

He wondered if it could have been like that for him and Maria, if they’d had a chance without this stalking business blowing up in their faces. Then again, if it hadn’t been for Randy, what were the chances that he and Maria would even have met?

“Now that Maria’s gone downstairs, and there are only the three of us, I have something to tell you guys,” said Jo.

“Something you couldn’t tell Maria?” Franc said.

“I didn’t want to embarrass her any more than Rowan did when he made the comment on how her photograph had been cut. I thought her name was familiar when you introduced us, but one look at that picture and I remembered. It was one of the first big cases I worked on. You’ll remember it, Rowan.”

“Costello?”

Jo pointedly looked over her shoulder to the stairs, then back at Rowan, until he said, “Oh, hell yes! I remember. They found her wandering around naked and bleeding from all these sliced wounds, poor little sod. Hadn’t she been abducted from some girls’ boarding school?”

“Shh, keep your voice down, sound travels on here.” Jo gave Rowan the look. Franc had often been on the receiving end of it when they were young. He might have become the recipient of Grandma Glamuzina’s vacuum cleaner and tablecloths, but what Jo had inherited was a lot more potent.

“Here’s the plan,” she said, including both guys. “I’ll send the cards and photographs for forensics to go over. Rowan, you look after the security for these two. And Rowan, you what you can find out about Randy Searle. Find out where he’s been in the ten years since Maria was abducted and I’ll look up the old files on her case, see which suspects we were looking at back then.”

“Look,” Franc said to his sister. “Maria hasn’t any memory of what happened to her at that time. Post-traumatic stress amnesia.”

“Has her family ever thought of using hypnosis?” Rowan wondered out loud.

“No, not that Maria’s ever mentioned. I think they were quite happy for her to forget the whole abduction ever happened. She never could though. She has dreams about it, but can’t remember them afterward. They terrify her. Scared the living daylights out of me, I’ll tell you, the first time I heard her. All she’s told me is that the dreams have gotten more frequent since this business with Randy.”

Franc took a swallow of his drink, and for a few minutes they all kept their own council as if the answer could be found in the liquor swirling inside their glasses. At last Franc broke the silence. “So what is brother Scott up to these days, Rowan. He hasn’t been in my neck of the woods for a while.”

“He’s looking at some properties that might come up for sale soon in Australia. He’s heard a rumor and thought it would be worthwhile checking it out. A pretty mixed bag from what I hear. From electronics to pastoral land.”

“Electronics? Let me know if he needs an opinion.”

Rowan grinned. “Scott doesn’t much care for asking anyone’s opinion these days, not even mine. He’s been pretty restless.”

Jo caught Rowan’s smile and passed it back. “He needs to find himself a wife. I keep telling him, ‘Find a nice woman and settle down,’ but he doesn’t want to hear it.”

Franc looked up. “Talking about nice women, here comes mine now.” Maria looked fantastic, and about as far removed as possible from the woman in his en suite this afternoon who had tried to dump him. “Come and sit by me, hon. I’ve missed you, but the wait was worth it. Is that the outfit you bought from Perdito’s?”

She nodded and did a twirl for him. “What do you think?”

The wide neckline left one shoulder bare. He could tell straight off she wasn’t wearing a bra and he had a sudden desire to stand in front of her, or cover Rowan’s eyes. Either way, she looked beautiful. The lilac top brought out the deep pansy-brown in her eyes. And he couldn’t wait to strip it off her.

“Franc’s awfully protective of you.”

Maria felt the cords at the back of her neck tighten. This was the first time she’d been alone with Franc’s sister. Was this the moment when Jo gave her flack for putting her brother’s life in danger?

Jo halted her preparations for midnight and the beginning of the new year and did little more than cast a glance over her shoulder. “It suits him. I can’t remember the last time he thought of anything but work,” she said, turning back to her task of picking out four matching champagne flutes. But she wasn’t done. “Don’t gewrong, I’m not implying Franc is selfish, just driven.”

Would Jo be as pleased if she knew everything? Maria let out a sigh that scraped the soles of her new boat shoes and left a dent in her lungs as it wrenched loose. “Don’t get your hopes up. Chances are it won’t last. I come with an awful lot of baggage.”

“You couldn’t come with any more baggage than the Jellic family. Has Franc told you about our father?”

“He did, I’m sorry. I bet you adored him.” Maria thought about her father. If her abduction had been hard on Mamma, it had been much worse on Papa, but being the man, the head of an Italian household, he hadn’t been able to let it show. “Little girls always favor their fathers, I did mine. He took it hard when they never caught the guy who abducted me. He aged overnight.”

Maria cocked her head to one side as she told Jo, “I couldn’t help noticing you realized who I was.”

“Cops never forget their first big case. I wish we could have put the bastard away for what he did to you.”

“So does my family. That’s why I never reported Randy to the cops. Apart from the fact I didn’t have any real proof, just a feeling, I didn’t want my parents having to relive it all again. But it could still happen, if the newspapers get hold of the story…you know, and connect the two. My name is probably on file.”

“As a cop I can’t help wishing you had reported the stalking. You’re a strong woman, Maria, but don’t try to take on too much by yourself.”

Maria shrugged off the compliment. “I try to be strong, it only works sometimes.” It didn’t always work. As she’d proven that afternoon, when it came to Franc she was putty.

“But don’t let your strength isolate you. You’re exactly what my brother needs. You make a good team.”

“You think he needed all this hassle? I don’t think this is what you meant when you told him to have a quiet Christmas. It certainly hasn’t worked out that way.”

“It’s early days yet. So far he’s only had his life threatened once. I almost got Rowan killed twice.” Jo halted midbreath to hand Maria two champagne flutes. “As I said, early days. Now we’d better join the guys or New Year’s will get there before us. You go up first,” she urged, gathering up the bottle of French champagne plus two other flutes.

Maria went ahead. The steps led to the upper saloon, which was part of the boat’s flying bridge. Rowan and Franc had busied themselves planning where they should spend the next couple of days while Jo organized the wine for the midnight toast.

Franc stood up from the curved, blue-gray leather lounger, one of two built into the window-lined bridge. “I’ll take them,” he said of the glasses, as if she wasn’t capable of carrying them another two feet. But the smile that accompanied the words made up for them. For once Maria wasn’t going to argue that she could do it herself. Jo was right. Franc was concerned for her, and this was his way of showing it. Maria no longer looked on it as the kind of concern her parents had displayed when she was younger when she’d felt locked inside a glass case, away from liAway from the good things life brought, as well as the bad.