Wild Hawk (19 page)

Her gaze shot to his face. There was still nothing she could read there, nothing her years of practice enabled her to see, to understand his mood. His expression seemed emotionless, yet there was an odd tension about him, not in his body but in the sheer unwavering steadiness of his gaze, as if he was concentrating so intently that any movement would be a distraction. And the longer she looked at his eyes, the less concerned she became about her state of undress.

“Jason?” she asked softly.

He didn’t answer her. She glanced at the open book again, then back at his face.

“Is it the book again?”

He glanced at it almost with disinterest. “I left it this afternoon,” he said. “At the library in town.”

She didn’t ask what he’d been doing there, she thought she could guess. “But now it’s here.”

He nodded.

She took a deep breath. “Jason, I didn’t—”

“I know. You were out like a light. It wasn’t here when I . . . put the covers over you. But when I turned around . . .”

Her brow furrowed, but she quickly stopped the instinctive motion when it tugged painfully at the stitches again.

“The legend says . . . it won’t be left behind. That it can’t be destroyed. That it will always reappear.” She expected his usual scoffing comment, but nothing came. After a moment, she asked, “Has it . . . changed? Again?”

“Yes.”

She was afraid to ask. He sounded so strange. She hadn’t realized how much inflection there usually was in his voice, until now, when it was utterly flat.

“What is it, Jason?”

He still didn’t look at her. “Do you believe this book is for real? That the things in it are authentic?”

She noticed that he was no longer accusing her of being behind it, but she didn’t think commenting on that would be wise right now. “I can’t be positive. Only you would know.”

“But you believe in it. The . . . legend, I mean.”

“My mind doesn’t. My heart . . .” She shrugged, even though he wasn’t looking at her. It didn’t hurt to move quite as much this time. “I’d like to believe it. Yes, it’s foolish, but I think it’s . . . wonderful, as well. And when it comes right down to it, I have no other explanation for what’s happened.”

“Neither do I,” Jason said, still in that flat, inflectionless voice. “But if it’s true . . . if it’s right . . .”

“What?” she asked yet again when he trailed off.

“If it’s right . . .,” he said again, finally lifting his head to look at her; his eyes were as opaquely expressionless as his voice. “If it’s right . . . Alice Hawk murdered my mother. And probably meant to kill me along with her.”

Chapter Fourteen

“I DIDN’T WANT her dead,” Alice snapped. “I just wanted her warned.”

“She’s not dead.”

“She could have been. That drop is—”

“She was never in any danger of going all the way over. I’m very good at what I do, Alice. That’s why you hired me, remember?”

Alice felt a spurt of irritation at his use of her first name, but this was hardly the kind of man you demanded respect from. She turned and walked to the head of the grave. She stopped, staring down at the stone that had been installed just this morning.

It was inscribed simply with Aaron’s name and the dates of his birth and death. They had tried to sell her something more elaborate, something with some loving sentiment inscribed, but she had refused. She had humbled herself to Aaron, declaring her love, too often in his life; she wouldn’t do it yet again now that he was dead.

“You wanted her to know you were serious about what would happen to her.” The voice came from very close behind her, and she barely managed not to jump; she hadn’t heard him move at all. “You wanted her scared. Well, she’s scared. Trust me, she is scared.”

“But is she scared enough to back off?” Alice muttered, not looking at him, still staring down at the headstone.

“You’d know that better than I.” Those barren eyes looked at her, not even a hint of curiosity in them.

He didn’t care, Alice realized. He’d done his job, accomplished his objective, and that was all that mattered to him. And, she realized with a little thrill of fear she quickly quashed, he would have been just as detached, just as uncaring, if her orders had been to make sure Kendall Chase had gone over that deadly drop. She shivered, certain it was the chill of the early evening air and nothing more.

But had what he already done accomplished the objective? Alice didn’t know, and she didn’t like the feeling of uncertainty.

“She’s a tough one, for all that sweet, big-eyed exterior,” she said, more to herself than out of any illusion that the man cared one way or the other; a large part of his reputation had been built on the certainty that nothing would sway him from his purpose, even—some said particularly—a pretty face.

He plucked a pale blond hair from the sleeve of his jacket, held it up, frowned at it, flicked it away, then went on. “She seemed pretty cool when I picked her up this morning in front of the bank over on California Street.”

Alice’s head came up then, quickly. “The bank? Our bank?”

The man shrugged. “That’s where I first saw her. I was on my way to your old man’s office, like you said, to wait for her to show up, when I saw her car. I parked and waited, and she walked out of the bank right in front of me, pretty as you please. So I followed her here.”

Alice grimaced. He had told her of Kendall’s visit here to Aaron’s grave, had told her that the girl had sat here for a very long time, crying. He’d related the incident coldly, unimpressed by either the sentimental visit or the tears. His lack of solicitude had soothed her displeasure at this further evidence that there had been a genuine bond between her husband and this young woman.

The bank, she thought, going back to what had caught her attention in the first place. What had she been doing at the bank? There were only two banks in town, and one of them was privately owned and held by the Hawks. By her, now. And that was the bank Kendall’s personal account was in. The account that Alice had had the money deposited in.

Had Kendall decided to take the money? Had this afternoon’s exercise in coercion been unnecessary?

With a smothered exclamation she turned and strode back to the waiting car. She didn’t drive much anymore, but she had done so today, needing to maintain anonymity. It wasn’t that she couldn’t drive anymore—hardly, she was as alert and quick as she’d ever been, she told herself firmly—it was that she preferred the luxury and convenience of the limo and a driver. She deserved it. But she hadn’t yet found someone to replace Mr. Carver; she would have to see to that.

Sitting in the driver’s seat of the Mercedes, she turned on her cell phone, and in a few moments had the number for the bank Kendall had been at. She dialed, and demanded to speak to Brad Simms, the bank’s manager, immediately. Her name had the usual effect, and she was quickly put through. It didn’t take much persuasion to get the information she wanted, but she hadn’t expected it to; the Hawk name was at the top of the list of the bank’s board of directors, and on a large chunk of shares of the bank’s stock.

“Damn that little bitch,” she said moments later as she turned off the phone.

“Oh?”

Alice looked up at the man who had followed her to the car. “She pulled the money from her account. In cash. And put it straight into a safe deposit box. With dated and timed records. In front of the bank staff.”

The man lifted a pale blonde brow. “So she can show she never touched it?”

“It won’t stand up in court,” Alice declared. “And I can make sure that the staff swears they never saw a thing.”

The man shrugged. “Still, it could be a problem. Reasonable doubt, and all that. Clever girl.”

“Too clever. She always was.” Alice tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, beating out a rapid little tattoo of irritation. “And she’s had the box for a while. No doubt she had a copy of that codicil stashed there, too. She must have it with her now. So she’s decided to fight me.”

“Maybe she’s changed her mind after this afternoon.” He inspected his jacket sleeve, as if searching for more blond hairs. “A lot of people don’t respond to threats until they’ve been forced to look the consequences in the face.”

“Maybe.”

Alice wasn’t convinced. She’d watched Kendall for ten years, watched her take on more and more, watched her grow, watched her meet every challenge Aaron had thrown at her. And she had watched the girl manage Aaron in a way she’d never been able to herself, never arguing with him, merely planting suggestions and retreating until Aaron, after much blustering and posturing, reached the conclusion she had wanted him to.

Kendall hadn’t seemed to mind never getting the credit for having had the idea in the first place, an attitude Alice had never been able to understand. But even she had had to admit that the girl’s instincts were good; she had even, reluctantly, admitted that some of her ideas had been very beneficial to Hawk lndustries.

It was too bad the girl was so damned virtuous.

“You want me to make another move on her? Scare her some more?”

Alice thought for a moment. “Not yet. Not until we know what’s she’s going to do. But be ready.”

“Want me to keep following her?”

“Yes. I want to know where she goes and who she sees.”

He nodded. “What about the guy?”

Alice’s lips thinned out in distaste. “Don’t do anything. Yet. I don’t want him spooked into running. I want to be able to get my hands on him.”

The man’s mouth quirked. “I get the feeling you have some very unpleasant plans for him.”

“That,” Alice said, fighting the rage that always filled her at the thought of Aaron’s illegitimate son, “is my business.”

“For now,” he said agreeably.

“AARON DID SEND your mother money,” Kendall said. “Just like it says he did.”

Jason’s head came up at that. He was sitting in the same chair as before, his feet on the floor now, his elbows resting on his knees as he stared at the floor between his feet. What he’d told her was so grim that she’d stayed away from the subject, staying with something relatively simple and less painful.

“I can prove that,” she added. “Right now. It’s one of the things I did today, before . . .”

She suppressed a shiver; what had happened since she’d awakened in the motel bed early this evening had done much to distract her from the horror of her own afternoon, but the memory still had the power to shake her. To cover her reaction, she stood up—a little gingerly, favoring stiff muscles that had made getting dressed in her jeans and sweater again a slow process—to dig into the box Officer Browning had brought inside for her. She took out a small stack of envelopes and held them out to Jason.

He made no move to take them, until she tilted them so he could read the name and address on the top one. She saw his eyes narrow and then, slowly, he reached out for the small bundle. She watched as he flicked through the first few envelopes.

“They’re all to her,” she said. “She wouldn’t meet him, not after he’d told her he still couldn’t leave Alice. She wouldn’t let him see you, either. He started writing when she refused to even talk to him on the phone. He sent her money. She sent it all back. When she left for L.A., he found her and went after you both. She sent him away.”

He didn’t look at her; he just stared at the stack of unopened envelopes. “He . . . kept these?”

“He had them hidden at the house for a while. But when he got sick this last time, he gave them to me, to put in my safe deposit box. He thought I might need them to convince you.”

“Convince me?”

“That he never abandoned you.”

“He just gave up looking.”

Kendall’s brow furrowed. “Yes, he did. And I don’t know why. Aaron never gave up on something he wanted. But he gave up on finding you. When I asked, he would only say he’d had to stop.”

He grimaced. “Just wait. It’ll show up in that damned book.”

Kendall gaped at him. Was he really joking? Even wryly? She couldn’t quite believe it. She took a breath. Now or never, she thought.

“Does it really say . . . Alice had something to do with your mother’s death? I thought it was an accident.”

His head came up then, and she nearly shivered again under the fierceness of his gaze. “That’s what they said. A hit-and-run. Someone ran her off the road.”

Kendall’s breath caught in her throat. “Off the road?”

“Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”

Her knees suddenly unable to support her, Kendall sank down to sit on the edge of the bed. “What . . . what does the book say?”

“That Alice arranged it. Hired the driver that did it.”

“And . . . you?” She didn’t want to hear it, but needed to know.

“I should have been with her. Would have been. She usually picked me up at the diesel repair shop I worked at after school. But old man McKenna closed down early and gave me a ride. I’d left her a note, and she was on her way home when . . . he came out of nowhere. Pushed her off a bridge into the Duwamish River.”

Kendall shivered violently this time. It was so eerily similar to what had happened to her, and some gut-level instinct told her both incidents had the same source. Alice Hawk.

Jason made a low sound that could have meant anything. Then he shoved the book at her. “Everything matches. Even why I wasn’t in the car. It’s all there. Places. Dates. All of it.”

She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t stop herself. She forgot her own aches as she read; the account of Beth West’s death was no less grim for having happened twenty years ago. She had to blink and look away from the tragic narrative. When she looked back again, her eyes still slightly blurry, something else entirely seemed to leap out at her. She stared at the juxtaposition of dates, the comparison she’d never made before.

He just gave up looking.

Yes, he did. And I don’t know why.

The exchange echoed in her head. As did Jason’s later words.

It’s all there. Places. Dates.

And then it was Aaron’s words, ringing with fury and frustration, telling her he’d been forced to stop looking for his son, but refusing to explain why.

“My God.” She sat staring down at the book on her knees. “I think I see what happened twenty years ago. And earlier, when you were little. It all fits the pattern.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you see?” She looked up at him. “It makes perfect sense. When Aaron was diagnosed with lung cancer twenty years ago, he was afraid he was going to die, so he started again to try to find you. And within a month . . . your mother was dead.”

He was watching her intently, and she kept going.

“It’s just like before, when Alice found out about you from the old hospital bills. She threatened your mother. And you. So your mother took you away, for your own safety. Alice must have threatened Aaron, too, when he kept trying to see you, after you’d gone. She must have told him that she’d . . . do something drastic if he didn’t give you and your mother up. So he did. And he only began searching again, all those years later, when he knew he was dying. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

She saw his brows lower, saw his eyes change, sharpen somehow, and she knew the intelligence she’d sensed early on had kicked into high gear.

“Canada,” he said, his voice barely above a murmur.

“What?”

“She used to talk about how close Seattle was to Canada. That we could make it in a day, if we had to. I always wondered why we would ever have to, but if I asked, she just told me not to worry about it.” He’d said it without looking at her, but the moment the last words were out, his head came up and that predatory gaze fastened on her. “Are you saying my mother was killed just because the old man started looking for us again?”

“I know it sounds . . . incredibly sinister, but think about it. If Alice also thought Aaron was going to die twenty years ago, and knew he was looking for you again, she must have suspected he wanted to . . . make amends, to provide for you and your mother. And she wasn’t about to let that happen.”