Authors: Lisa Jackson

You Don't Want To Know (37 page)

BOOK: You Don't Want To Know

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She needed more than Wyatt's word and a confirming accident report and obit to trust that she had truly found her son's birth parents.

No, no, no!
her mind screamed, and yet there was truth in Wyatt's confession. Should she believe that he was only protecting her, that he'd worried the truth would send her spiraling back into a complete mental breakdown?

She shook her head.

In the obituary, Tracey's parents, Zed and Maria Johnson, were listed as living in Bellevue, a city east of Seattle. She started looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.
You can do this,
she told herself, though the task was daunting.

Using several search engines on the Internet and the phone book listings, again via her computer, she narrowed things down to Z Johnsons in the greater Bellevue/Seattle area. Of course, the phone number could be unlisted, the parents split up, or they could have moved. Half a dozen reasons to abandon her search flew through her brain and she dismissed them all.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” she said aloud just as she heard a knock on her door. “Yes?” she said, expecting Wyatt to poke his head into the room.

Instead of her husband's voice, Ava heard Khloe's. “Hey, Ava, are you okay?”

She sounded worried, but Ava wasn't even sure of her friendship any longer. Theirs had been a rocky relationship, ever since Kelvin's death. After closing her laptop, Ava climbed off her bed and tucked the shopping bags onto the highest shelf of her closet. There was just no reason to invite questions, not even from Khloe.

Cracking the door, she said, “I'm fine.”

“Jewel-Anne told me what happened. I walked into the kitchen to grab my reading glasses and there she was, looking like she'd seen a ghost. I made the mistake of asking her what was wrong.” Khloe, glasses still curled in her fist, hesitated, then added, “Look, Ava, I don't know what to say. Did I know about Noah being adopted? Yes. Did I want to say something to you once you'd forgotten? You bet. But . . . you were so . . . volatile. So distrusting. So . . . well, out of it. I was scared that you might relapse even further.”

“So you were never going to say anything?”

“We wanted you to know. It was just a matter of when.” She sighed and glanced down the hall. “Mom and I discussed it often enough, but we needed you to be able to deal with the news so that you wouldn't flip out and . . . you know, hurt yourself again.”

Again.

Self-consciously, Ava tugged at her sleeves to hide her scars.

Little lines of worry burrowed between Khloe's eyebrows as her eyes met Ava's again. She shrugged, seeming suddenly embarrassed. “I just thought I should tell you I'm sorry. About . . . about everything.”

“Me too,” Ava agreed, and felt a lump forming in her throat. Why was it when someone showed her the least bit of kindness she was suddenly near tears?

“I, um, I was a real bitch when Kelvin died,” Khloe whispered, glancing at the floor a second. “I blamed you.”

“Everyone did.”

“I know, but it wasn't your fault,” she whispered, emotional herself. Clearing her throat, she added, “I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, I was so caught up in needing to blame someone, anyone for his death, that I really didn't consider that you lost a brother, too.”

“So why didn't anyone notice I wasn't pregnant?”

Khloe shook her head. “You'd gained so little weight I guess and no one saw you much. Even me. We'd go months . . .” She lifted a shoulder. That bothered Ava. A lot.

“I guess I never really did the math.” Her face showed lines of strain. “Let's face itâI really didn't care. I was too deep into my own misery at losing Kelvin. Maybe we all were, but I just wanted you to know that I'm sorry. Though I don't wish your brother dead, if he were still alive, I might not have met the love of my life.” She brightened a little and Ava let it slide. Khloe and Simon's marriage had never been stable, but everyone, it seemed, lived in his or her own fantasy around here.

“You want to come down and bury our sorrows in chocolate cake? Mom made a three-layered one for Simon's birthday.” Her eyebrows lifted a bit and Ava was reminded of Khloe as a child, the oldest of six kids, the girl who had, years before, done anything on a dare, was always up for the next party, and had been Ava's best friend.

All before Kelvin's death, of course.

“Fudge icing,” she said, hoping to lure Ava.

Ava glanced down the stairs. “Thanks, but I had a big dinner.”

“And a big fight,” Khloe said.

“Yes.”

“I thought you might want to talk.”

“Not now, but I'll take you up on the cake.”

Khloe brightened. “Good.”

Together they walked downstairs and Khloe found a packet of instant decaf coffee. Heated in the microwave, it was tasteless, but it didn't matter. They split a piece of the gooey-rich cake that was large enough to feed half of Anchorville.

All the while, she was aware of the seconds being ticked off, time she could be using to locate relatives of Noah's birth parents or getting familiar with her new microcamera and recorder. Again, she was cautious, trying not to rouse any more suspicion than she already had, so she forced herself to dally over the last bites, even pressing the tines of her fork into the crumbs as if she couldn't give up a final taste of the dark chocolate.

It was all a sham, of course, and even though reconnecting with Khloe felt good, she just didn't have time for it right now. After sipping the last dregs from her coffee cup, she yawned and stretched her arms over her head as if she were bone tired. Another fake-out. Inside, she was jazzed. Ready to set her plan into motion.

Wyatt walked in on them just as she was shoving her chair back to its spot at the table. Ava didn't know what to say to him, but Khloe did: “Pretty big lie,” she pointed out, and when he looked up sharply, she added, “Jewel-Anne told me what happened.”

He said, “I guess the secret's out.”

“It should never have been a secret,” Ava retorted.

He nodded, but Ava didn't believe he really felt contrition. Besides, his reactions were all wrong. While Ava felt as if she could jump out of her skin, anxious to look into a new lead in her son's disappearance, Wyatt hadn't even bothered trying to find the birth grandparents. What was wrong with him? Why wasn't he chasing them down? And why all the damned secrecy?

Because he knows. He knows that Noah's not coming back.

Her heart shattered, but somehow she managed to carry her cup to the sink and rinse it out. Her fingers shook, but hopefully no one noticed as she placed the mug into the dishwasher, said her good nights, then hurried up the stairs.

As she reached the second floor, she heard the soft sound of Jewel-Anne's electric wheelchair retreating down the hallway. For a fleeting second, Ava wondered if Khloe had purposely come to distract her so that Jewel-Anne could snoop inside her room. . . .

Stop it! Those two women don't even like each other! It was nothing! Forget it, and get on with what you need to do.

Inside the bedroom, she saw nothing out of place, no telltale wheelchair tracks on the carpeting around her bed, nothing moved that she could tell. She yanked her computer down from the top shelf and fired it up. Quickly, she retrieved her previous search and then, taking her cell phone into the bathroom, she made the first call to one of three Z Johnsons listed in the phone book.

Nervously she waited. The phone was answered by an automated voice that told her the phone number was no longer in service. The second wasn't answered, not even by a machine, but on the third, a woman answered, her voice groggy with sleep. “Hello?”

“Mrs. Johnson?”

“Yes.”

Here goes nothing.
“My name is Ava Garrison, and I'm sorry to bother you, but I was hoping you could tell me something about Tracey.”

Silence.

Ava plunged on. “I believe she was your daughter.”

“Who is this again?” the woman asked. “Why are you calling me?”

“I know this is hard, but I had a son who was adopted, and I think Tracey was his birth mother.”

“What! No!”
Click!
The phone went dead.

“Damn it.” She dialed again and this time a man answered.

Before she could say a word, he said, “Leave us alone. I don't know what you want, but let our daughter rest in peace.”

“Please, please don't hang up. My son is missing, has been for two years, and I just found out that Tracey might have been his birth mother. Can you please help me?”

A pause and then a long sigh. “I'm sorry, lady, but this is too painful for us.”

“I understand,” she said desperately, “and I'm sorry, but I've lost my son, too. I'm trying desperately to find him. If you could please help me. My name is Ava Church Garrison, and I adopted my son about four years ago.” She gave the man the date of Noah's birth and her phone number. “I'm trying to find him. You've lost a child. You know what I'm going through. Please, can't you help me?”

There was a long pause, and then muffled conversation as if he were talking to someone else. Holding her breath, Ava waited, counting her heartbeats. Finally he said, “All we know is that Tracey got herself into trouble, and she told us about it, but she went away, gave the baby up. We don't know anything else. So, please, don't call back. If you do, we'll have to call the police.” Another hesitation, then, “Good luck.”

Click!

The phone went dead again and she knew if she dialed back, she'd get nowhere. Was the threat empty? Did the Johnsons know where Noah was, or was the connection no more than another dead end?

CHAPTER 36

R
eversing their usual roles, Snyder, having braved the cold, blustery day, had walked back to the station from a coffee kiosk a couple of blocks off the waterfront. Once in the surprisingly quiet office, he fumbled through security and made his way into Lyons's cubicle, where he set a coffee drink on her desk. It was one of those frothy, sweet things he hated and that she seemed to consume without so much as a thought to the exorbitant cost or high calorie count. He'd even remembered the straw, which he found extraneous.

She was leaning forward, elbows on the neat surface of her desk, her eyebrows pulled together in concentration as she listened to whatever was coming through the headset covering her ears. An older-model tape recorder complete with cassettes sat on her desk. Nearby, wedged between her computer monitor and a small terrarium packed with succulent plantsâthose weird alien-looking things his grandmother cultivatedâwas a perfect stack of tiny cartridges.

“Wow.” She clicked off the recorder, ripped off the earphones, and picked up her drink. “Thanks.” After taking a sip, she made a grateful humming noise. “Eggnog?”

“ 'Tis the season.”

“Almost. Mmm.” Another sip. “So what got into you?”

“I'm just that guy,” he said, and she laughed, nearly choking on the latte. “And I figured you might need a break. You've been at this most of the day.”

“Any news on Cheryl Reynolds's wig?”

He shook his head. “Still MIA. What've you got?”

“Interesting stuff,” she said, and tapped a finger on one of the short stacks of cassettes, all marked in Cheryl Reynolds's distinctive hand. Leaning back in her chair, she waved him into the office and he, with his plain coffee, dropped into one of the side chairs. “I'm still missing the latest tapes from Ava Garrison, which bothers me.”

“Me too.”

“We'll keep looking, but in the meantime, I've got these.”

“And they are of . . . ?”

“Jewel-Anne Church.”

“Did you know that when her father, Crispin, was the wardenâI mean, administratorâof Sea Cliff that the family lived on the premises for a while?”

“Of the hospital?”

Lyons nodded, holding her cup and staring thoughtfully at the recorder. “It seems they'd lived up in the big house, but there was some kind of rift with his brother, who ended up dying not long after. Connell, the brother, is the father of Ava and Kelvin. Ava's brother died in that boating accident a few years back. The rest of the tribe was fathered by Crispin, compliments of two wives, Regina, now deceased, and Piper, the younger one who's the mother of his youngest two children, a boy named Jacob and then Jewel-Anne.”

“The cripple?”

“The PC term is
handicapped
.”

He lifted a shoulder.

“I got all this information from doing a little research, and Jewel-Anne confirmed it in these tapes.” Lyons picked one up. “From what I can piece together, the two brothers had a falling-out, and then Crispin gave all his pieces of Neptune's Gate to his kids. Subsequently they all sold out to their cousin Ava. Except Jewel-Anne. She won't budge.”

“And because of the sessions with Cheryl you know why?” he guessed.

“Maybe.” She was concentrating again, chewing on the straw protruding from her drink. “But here's the deal. The family was living in two of the row houses at Sea Cliff right before Crispin Church was fired and Sea Cliff closed.”

“So?”

“So, it turns out Jewel-Anne had contact with some of the patients.”

“Inmates,” he said.

“Call them whatever. A lot of them weren't dangerous, just had mental issues.”

“Off their collective rockers.”

She scowled at him. “The point is, one of the patients held a particular fascination for Jewel-Anne.”

He saw it coming then . . . and waited.

Lyons offered up a cat-who-ate-the-canary smile and played with her straw, moving it up and down in her drink. “It seems Daddy's little girl fancied herself in love with the most notorious of all of Sea Cliff's patients: our good buddy, the missing Lester Reece.”

“You've been spying on me!” Ava charged as she strode to the stable the next day and found Dern brushing Cayenne's sorrel coat until it gleamed. Pale, wintry sunlight was filtering through the windows, and the tufts of red hair glinted as it caught in the light. The stable was warm, filled with the scents of horses, hay, and dust, though Ava, who'd spent most of the night installing her new spy equipment, barely noticed.

“Excuse me?” From Cayenne's stall, Dern glanced her way but kept moving the currycomb over the mare's broad back.

Several horses in nearby stalls lifted their heads, ears pricked forward as she passed their mangers, and Rover, lying near a feed bin, thumped his tail.

All in all, the interior of the long building was serene, until the firestorm that was Ava arrived.

“You've been spying on me, reporting back to Wyatt, telling him where I've been! I accused you once of being my bodyguard and you scoffed at the idea.”

“Because I'm not.” Staying within the confines of the box stall, he rubbed Cayenne gently with a towel. The mare switched her tail and snorted a bit, but put up with his grooming.

“Dern, I
know
. Wyatt admitted it.”

“Did he?”

“Yes!” God, the man was frustrating. In a whole different way than her husband.

“About time.” Then to the horse, “There ya go, girl, all gussied up.”

He exited the stall and latched the gate behind him.

“I don't like you spying on me and running back and reporting to Wyatt,” Ava told him coldly.

“That's what I'm doing?” He was singularly unconcerned.

“He claims so.”

“And you trust him?”

“He knew that I'd been up on the ridge, and the only other person who knew was you, Dern. You're just another of his minions, aren't you?”

“I told him about the ridge because I figured someone else might figure it out, and I wanted him to trust me.”

“What a crock of BS that is!”

One side of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile that had no right being so coolly sexy. Damn the man with his beard-darkened square jaw and intense eyes. In the half-light of the stable, the blades of his face in shadow, he was too rugged and handsome for his own good. “Not a crock.”

“Then tell me why,” she demanded.

“Because I was told to.” Folding his arms over his chest, stretching the shoulder seams of his suede jacket, he suggested, “Why don't you take a deep breath and start from the beginning.”

Wound up and running on very little sleep, Ava could feel her ire rising. “Last night, Wyatt and I got into another one of our fights. In the middle of it, Wyatt told me how he asked you to keep an eye on me. Like I'm five or something!”

“He did ask me.” Dern was nodding as if agreeing with himself in a silent argument. “I told you that.”

“And you didn't think you should warn me that my husband had his spies out?” she demanded. Dern was the one person she thought she could trust on the island, the only damned one.

“Now, that would've defeated the purpose, wouldn't it?”

“Purpose?”

Leveling his gaze at her, he said, “So that I could pick and choose whatever I wanted to tell him.”

“Wait a secâ”

He lifted a hand. “Hear me out. You're right. I wasn't going to tell you because I knew it would only get you all upset again, and the way I figure it, you need a friend right now.”

“And you're it?” she said sarcastically.

“I'm on your side.”

“
My
side?” She hooked a thumb at her chest. “Not by ratting me out, you're not.”

“Look, I didn't volunteer for the job, and it wasn't part of our original deal, but I agreed because I needed the work.”

“You could have told me. I can keep a secret.”

“Can you?” Everything in his expression conveyed doubt. “Well, so can I. For example, I haven't ratted you out about your forays up to the widow's walk in the middle of the night.”

She couldn't believe it! He knew about that?

“You've been up there twice as far as I know.”

“No, I wasn't anywhere nearâ”

“Like hell, Ava.” Quick as a snake striking, he reached out and grabbed her arm, his fingers strong and hard through her sweater and jacket. “I saw you, followed you, but decided if you were going to pull some crazy stunt like climbing on the damned fire escape, there wasn't much I could do about it. I didn't think it would hold both of our weight, and by the time I saw you and your flashlight, it would've been too late for me to do anything about it, so I just waited. What the hell's wrong with you?” The fingers around her arm tightened. “You have some kind of death wish?”

“Of course not!”

“Then what were you doing?”

“I can't talk about it.”

His lips curved down and he studied her face. Though he didn't say a word, an unspoken threat hung between them.

“You're going to tell Wyatt.”

“Not if you explain.”

“I knew it.”

“Tell me.”

“I can't trust you.”

“Sure you can.”

“You just said you're working for my husband.”

“What I said was, I pick and choose what I tell him.” His eyes searched the contours of her face, and she felt light-headed, her heart trip-hammering.

Don't trust him. You can't! He's playing you. Just like everyone else on this damned island!

He inched his face closer, and she knew in an instant that he intended to kiss her.
No!
Her heart was already clamoring, her breath catching in her throat.
Oh, God!
Closer still, the hand on her arm drew her near, and though her feet were planted solidly, her upper body came forward.

“This is a mistake,” he said, his breath warm against her face.

“I know. I can't . . .” But as the words escaped, his mouth suddenly molded over hers. He yanked her close, strong arms surrounding her, lips hot, hard, and sensuous.

Don't, Ava. Don't do this. Getting involved with Austin Dern is insanity!

Turning off the voice in her head, she let go, winding her arms around his neck, pressing her anxious mouth to his, hearing him groan in his own protest. Her blood ran hot through her veins, racing to the beat of her erratic heart. Her head swam with denial and desire, and every part of her was electrified, wanting . . . needing . . . finding solace and joy in the touch of this man. He found the buttons on her coat, and she slid her hands beneath his jacket, feeling rock-hard muscles under his shirt.

Something deep inside of her broke, something hot and molten, and the arguments in her mind faded into the darkest corners of the stable. Her knees went weak and her mind filled with searing images of glistening, sinewy muscles, of hard, naked buttocks and firm pectoral muscles. She imagined him above her, parting her legs, thrusting into her as she clung to him and pressed her lips and teeth into the side of his neck. . . .

As if he saw the window into her fantasy, he lifted his head and swore under his breath, then released her and stepped away. Gazed at her through smoldering eyes from a fire that hadn't quite been extinguished. “This is wrong.”

“I know.” Shame washed up the back of her neck. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be.” He grabbed her hand and held it tight, so hard it was nearly painful. “My fault.” As if he realized he'd squeezed too hard, he let go. “It won't happen again.”

“It takes two, Dern,” she said, her voice husky. “I was into it. You're not the one who's married.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“It has everything in the world to do with it.”

She turned and began walking toward the door when his voice stopped her. “I don't know what the hell you were doing up on the roof, but stop it, will ya? You could get killed.”

Looking over her shoulder, she asked, “You won't tell?”

“Not if you take me with you next time. If you're gonna die, I may as well die with you.”

“That's crazy.”

BOOK: You Don't Want To Know

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