Betrayal of Trust (2 page)

R
aven Mahoney’s jaw dropped as the sickening thud of truth slammed her with the force of a major-league line drive to the gut. While she’d been playing the dutiful maid of honor and helping with wedding preliminaries for her sister, Denni, she’d just missed out on reporting the press conference of the year. As far as Raven was concerned, that smacked of injustice.

From the TV screen in Denni’s living room, cameras flashed at dizzying intervals. Raven could almost feel the claustrophobia she experienced every time she stood among the crowd of reporters, fighting for the chance to ask a question.

And she almost always got her chance to ask the tough ones, but not so tough the speaker wouldn’t respond. She knew her success was a nice combination of her looks (especially if the speaker was a guy) and her instincts about how to ask the right questions so they sounded less intimidating. At thirty-five, she’d gained a lot of savvy in her field and she was ready to move one more step up the ladder of success.

Only, the teenybopper on the screen in front of her
was getting the story, she, Raven should be getting. Something akin to a growl rose in Raven’s throat, and her predatory nature kicked in.

Enjoy the cameras while you can, little girl, because as soon as I get home, you are going down.

Raven closed her eyes and imagined herself at that press conference. Where she wanted to be. Despite the jumble of cameras and elbows jabbing into her head, she itched to be in the thick of things. To prove, once again, her value to the station. Ten years on the job had to count for something, didn’t it?

Her chest tightened, and pressure began to build. But this time, the claustrophobia struck in the living room of her soon-to-be-wed sister’s Victorian home. Being in the bosom of her loving family suddenly felt more like standing in a trash compactor as the walls inched closer and closer together until finally they squished her, a sensation that had grown familiar over the past few years, ever since her mother’s death, when she’d learned the truth about who Raven Mahoney really was.

In retrospect, it all made sense, but the revelation only served to make her feel more like an outsider in the midst of this family—and all these years later, Mac still hadn’t set the record straight. Nor had Raven. Mac had no idea she knew. And as angry as she was with him for keeping the truth from her, she didn’t have the heart to confront him.

“I can’t believe Matthew Strong is pulling out of the race.” Keri, Raven’s younger sister, married barely a year herself to her childhood sweetheart, flopped onto the overstuffed green couch next to Raven. “I was going to vote for that guy.”

“Shhh!” Raven glared at her sister and pressed the volume-up button on the remote.

“Sheesh, so-o-rry.”

“What’s going on?” Denni, the middle sister, entered the room, her eyes on the TV.

“Shh, or you’ll get your head yanked off.” Keri’s exaggerated whisper resonated through the room.

“I’ll talk if I want. It’s my house. Besides, I’m the bride and everyone must cater to my whims. So there.” Denni stuck her tongue out at Raven.

Raven rolled her eyes at the childish gesture, but couldn’t resist a smile before shifting her focus back to the TV.

Her claws extended at the sight of the so-called reporter staring out from the screen: Kellie Cruise, an upstart and a spoiled-rotten brat—way too under-qualified and inexperienced to be covering a press conference. Especially one of this magnitude. But nepotism at its finest continued to be at work for the daughter of the station manager. And Raven knew if she didn’t act fast, the just-out-of-college kid was going to get Bruce King’s job when he retired. The job that Raven wanted. Deserved.

“What’s going on?” Mac Mahoney’s booming hint of an Irish brogue filled the room.

“Shh!” The three girls spoke in unison.

“Hey, now. Is that any way to speak to your father?” He scowled, but quieted, as his attention turned to the blond-haired, blue-eyed reporter who was wrapping up the breaking-news coverage.

“We’ve been told that Mr. Strong will not be answering any questions on the subject of his withdrawal. Now or ever. His decision is final and is based on personal reasons which he apparently has no intention of revealing.”

The camera shifted back to the studio where the white-haired, almost-retired anchor stared out at the TV audience.

“There you have it, folks. In the political upset of the year, a candidate whom analysts and polls favored by a three-to-one margin has withdrawn his name from the race for Senate with only six weeks left until the primary.” The older gentleman heaved a sigh. “To reiterate…with no warning to his supporters and no explanation, Matthew Strong has pulled out of the race for the Missouri Senate.”

If he’d said, “And may God help us all,” Bruce couldn’t have been more obviously biased. It was only too apparent that he had had high hopes for Matthew’s election to Senate. No matter how much she might agree, Raven couldn’t help but be a bit irritated with his transparency. Part of good reporting was remaining detached, keeping your opinion carefully masked behind the facts and nothing else. Perhaps it was simply that after so many years behind that desk, Bruce didn’t feel he had anything to hide—namely his opinion.

With a sigh, Raven switched off the set as regular programming resumed. Tense silence reigned in the room and she knew her family was struggling not to ask
the
question. Finally, she could take the tension no more and she shot to her feet. “Okay, yes. It’s Matthew.”

“
Your
Matthew?” Mac looked at her over half glasses.

“Yes.” She rubbed her throbbing temple with the balls of her fingers in an attempt to ease the pressure.
My Matthew.
Regret for what might have been all those years ago shot through her. She hadn’t allowed herself second guesses. No regretting her decision. So why was her heart suddenly about to pound out of her chest?

She could still see Matthew’s expression of bewilderment as she’d placed the diamond engagement ring into his palm and curled his fingers around the token. She’d
walked away. Transferred to a different school. And that was the last time she’d spoken to him.

Keri’s voice brought her back to the present. “Wow. I wonder what his folks think of him leaving the race. He was a surefire win for his party. Especially with his father dying last year. I don’t think Missouri is ready to live without a Strong representing us in Congress. What was Matthew thinking?”

All eyes turned to Raven as though she should know the answer to the question. “How should I know? I haven’t seen or spoken with the guy since college.”

Raven fingered the cell phone hooked to her waistband. She itched to phone Ken at the station and get the scoop. The press had to know more than they were reporting. No one pulled out of a race without giving some sort of an explanation—even a bogus one. Was there a gag order? She was tempted to make the call, but doing so now would betray her impatience to have this wedding over with so she could get on with her life. She’d been here two days as it was—long enough. Too long, actually, from the looks of things.

Matthew!
Couldn’t you have waited a few more days to do this idiotic thing?

Fingering a loose thread on the arm of the couch, Raven considered the new development. What could have happened to make Matt give away the chance eventually to run for president? That was his dream, his goal, not only to follow in his old man’s footsteps, but actually to exceed his accomplishments. His family had groomed him for the White House. He’d had no other ambition except for marrying her. And other than the monkey wrench of a broken engagement, his plan was failsafe—undergrad, law school, interning under an incumbent senator, eventually running for senator himself
and serving his constituents until it was time to run for president. Raven was supposed to have helped him decide when the time came. They would have been in their late forties, probably, by the time he was seasoned enough and ready to win the White House. And she’d had no doubt that with or without her he would someday be the president of the United States.

Now what would he do? Return to his law practice? Given his fame, that might be difficult.

She clenched her fist to keep from snatching the phone from its holder. If she could just get back to work, she could figure all this out.

“No way, Rave. You are
not
wimping out on my wedding, so you can just forget it. I don’t care how big the story is. My wedding is more important. And you’re not ruining it by leaving me one bridesmaid short.”

Jerked from her thoughts by Denni’s firm statement, Raven mustered up her most indignant and wrongfully accused expression. “I can’t believe you think I would consider leaving before the wedding.”

Denni rolled her eyes. “
Pul-ease.
I recognize that ‘get me out of here before I suffocate’ look. You’re trying to think of a way to weasel out of my wedding so you can go back to Kansas City today—and don’t bother to deny it.”

Heat crept to Raven’s cheeks. “All right. You have me. It crossed my mind for a second. But that’s all—and not really seriously.”

Denni’s responding scowl increased Raven’s shame. She hated feeling guilty and it seemed like she always felt guilty around her family. They expected too much. More than she could give. She knew she was a terrible sister, a terrible daughter. Her gaze focused past her sister to Mac Mahoney. The gruff, but tender retired Irish
cop who had raised her, loved her, taught her never to settle for second best at anything in her life.

He looked up from studying the TV listings and his eyes crinkled with his smile.

Raven fought to hold back tears of melancholy.

She might feel like a terrible daughter, but then, she wasn’t
really
his daughter at all, was she?

The door to the sleek black Lincoln closed behind Matt amid the flashing of cameras and a myriad of questions thrown at him from determined reporters hoping he’d actually answer one. But they didn’t understand. His public image didn’t matter anymore. Only one thing did at this point: keeping Jamie out of the line of fire perpetuated by a biological father with ulterior motives. No telling how far that man might go to extort money from the family. He’d never get custody of Jamie, but he could drag them all through the mud. And that wasn’t something Matt was willing to chance. He’d sacrificed everything to ensure it.

“That’s that,” he said into the airspace between the front and back seats. The driver gave him a quick glance in the rearview mirror and then returned his attention to the road as he realized Matt wasn’t speaking to him.

Exhausted, Matt slouched back against the leather seat and pulled at his silk tie, loosening its stranglehold around his neck. A tangle of frustration, disappointment, anger, all rolled into a lead ball in his stomach, nauseating him.

Leaning his head back against the seat, he closed his burning eyes. He refused tears. Refused to regret his decision. It was the only choice he could have made. The right choice.

Still, he had to wonder how a life that had been so
carefully planned could have ended up so off-course. By now he should have been married with two or three kids of his own, should be six weeks away from accepting his party’s nomination for Senate, and only a few months from the next step in his destiny: Capitol Hill, the springboard to the Oval Office.

Backtracking in his mind, he could see that everything started going sour the day Raven Mahoney returned to school after attending her mother’s funeral. He should have gone with her to her hometown of Briarwood, Missouri, in the first place, but she’d insisted it was something she had to do on her own. Her stubbornness was never more evident than when she was trying to prove she didn’t need anyone to lean on. He scowled.

He’d watched her career evolve through the years as a reporter and weekend anchor for Channel 23. She grew more beautiful by the day, it seemed. His throat tightened with longing. No matter how many women he’d dated over the years, he couldn’t get Raven out of his mind. No one measured up, and any relationship he entered into ended within months.

He clenched his fists, still able to feel the prick of the diamond against the soft flesh of his palm when she’d broken their engagement. Maybe it would have been easier to accept…easier to move on…if only she’d told him why.

For the first time in his life, he’d been helpless to achieve his goal. Never had he felt such pain as when he watched Raven walk away from him. He’d hoped she’d glance back, knowing if she did, he could go after her and bring her back to him. But she squared her shoulders, kept her head erect, and never so much as slowed her steps as she walked out of sight.

When he’d spotted her on the local news, it had been
all he could do to refrain from picking up the phone. But she’d made it pretty clear he wasn’t the man for her. So he left her alone, but found himself watching her left hand for signs she might be engaged or married. So far, so good.

“Do you want to go in through the main gate, Mr. Strong? Or should I keep going?”

Matthew glanced at his driver, and then out the window. The gate in front of his family home was thick with reporters. “No. Drive on by. We’ll circle for a while. Maybe they’ll get tired and go away. If not, I’ll stay at a hotel.”

They drove the streets of Kansas City until dark, stopping only once at a drive-through. The greasy burger and fries sat heavily in Matthew’s stomach as he tried to pray for wisdom. Peace. How long would it take for all of this to blow over and for the media to lose interest? Not soon enough for his comfort. In the meantime, how would he keep his sister and Jamie away from public scrutiny?

R
aven closed the back driver’s-side door of her red SUV and searched the wad of keys in her hand for the one to the ignition. She glanced at her glowing digital watch with grim satisfaction. Ten minutes after midnight. At this time of night, traffic would be practically nonexistent. She’d be home in four hours.

“I still think you should wait until morning.”

Forcing a smile, she turned to Mac. “I’m wide awake. And this way I’ll miss daytime traffic.”

Mac sighed and shrugged. “I don’t suppose I can force you to do as I say anymore. But be careful and call me as soon as you get to your house—no matter the time. I won’t sleep until you’re home safe and sound anyway. Lock your doors and don’t stop for anyone. Not even flashing red lights. Never know if some sicko bought a strobe light just to fool pretty girls.”

“I promise,” Raven said around a sudden lump in her throat. It felt nice to have someone concerned about her.

As if sensing her mood, Mac opened his arms. She hesitated only a second before surrendering to his familiar embrace.

“I love you, Raven, my sweet girl. You will meet us at the cabin for the fall barbecue, right?”

“I’ll try, Dad. Just depends on how busy I am at work.”

“Well, you’ve got three months to think about it. And make plans.”

Raven pulled out of his arms and opened the driver’s-side door. She rolled down the window as Mac stepped up for a final goodbye.

“I don’t mean to push you, honey. I just miss my girl, that’s all. It’s like pulling teeth to get you home for a visit.”

“I know. I’m sorry. But I’m a busy career woman. When you’re married to your job, it takes a lot of TLC to keep the relationship alive.” She forced a grin in an attempt to lighten the situation.

Mac looked at her with sad eyes. Another sigh escaped his lips. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead through the open window. “I just can’t help but think there’s more to it than just your work.”

“Like what?” Raven asked, shrugging with a nonchalance she hoped he interpreted as her way of saying he was being silly to even think there was a problem.

“I don’t know, honey. You tell me.”

Raven kissed his cheek and then fired up the SUV. “You’re just being paranoid, Dad. Nothing’s wrong except that that ten-year-old, Kellie Cruise, is about to sashay in and get my job if I can’t talk Matt into an exclusive interview.”

A scowl marred his features, but his eyes gentled with acceptance. Raven knew he was letting her go without more argument, advice or admonishment. And she appreciated the gesture. He patted her cheek, then walked around to the sidewalk where he stood with his hands inside his pockets.

A blue economy car whizzed by just as she started to pull away from the curb. She slammed on her brakes to avoid getting sideswiped. “Nice driving, buddy!” she hollered after the retreating car.

“Great way to start the trip,” she grumbled.

As she drove away, Raven glanced in the rearview mirror. The streetlight illuminated Mac’s position. He stared after her, his shoulders slumped. A twinge of dismay stung her heart and she gripped the steering wheel until her fingers ached. They would eventually have to talk, but not today. First she had to deal with Matt. Seeing his face plastered across the screen and hearing his strong, deep voice make his announcement had filled her with a sense of what might have been between them. And along with nostalgia, the pain of Mom’s funeral had crested once more on a tide of buried memories.

How different might her life have been if that drunk driver hadn’t plowed into Mom’s car, killing her instantly? For one thing, Raven wouldn’t have discovered the truth about her paternity. Life would have continued as it was projected to go. Marriage to Matthew. Two-point-five kids. Ignorance would have been bliss. Knowledge had darkened the bright light of hope for the future—a future with Matthew. Everything had changed.

Releasing a sigh, she pressed the accelerator with her toe and the SUV picked up speed, heading north on US 63.

Her eyelids grew heavy an hour later listening to Frank Sinatra’s silky-smooth crooning, and she stopped at a twenty-four-hour quick stop along the highway to grab a cup of coffee. She grimaced. The black brew smelled as if it had probably been sitting there since the afternoon before. The clerk gave her a guilty look and pronounced it “no charge.”

A blast of sultry summer air lifted strands of Raven’s sleek black hair off her neck as she exited the convenience store. A motor revved to her left and she turned in time to see a familiar blue car drive away from the parking lot. Familiar from where?

Visions of the back of that car haunted her, keeping her mind busy while she drove the rest of the way to Kansas City. She pulled into her drive and dialed her dad—per his express instructions, no matter what time she arrived—to let him know she’d made it safely to her door.

Her mind went back to the car that had sped by as she was about to pull away from Denni’s curb. So that’s where she remembered a blue car from. Both small, blue and square. She grinned and shook her head. That was a weird coincidence. Nothing more. Probably wasn’t even the same car. Some reporter she was.

“Hi, Dad,” she said when he picked up. “Just letting you know I’m home safely, so you can go to bed now and try to sleep.”

“Praise the Lord.” She could hear the note of relief in his voice. But there was a weariness that she’d noticed lately that concerned her.

“Dad, you feeling okay? When was the last time you checked your blood pressure?”

“I’m just fine, young lady. Don’t start sounding like Ruthie.”

Raven bristled. The last person she sounded like was Dad’s Southern belle of a fiancée. The mention of the woman’s name conjured the flamboyant red hair piled atop her head like Flo from the eighties sitcom,
Alice
. The too-cheerful-to-be-real demeanor. The knowledge that Mac could be in love with this type of woman after loving Raven’s mother, a classic beauty with more cre
ativity and style in her little toe than Ruth had in her whole body was just too irritating.

“Well, I’ll let you go, Dad. Get some rest, okay?”

“You too, hon.”

Raven disconnected the call. By the time she’d unloaded her bag, gone inside and showered, dawn was just beginning to glisten over the enormous oak tree in her backyard.

She sat on her deck, wearing a white terry-cloth robe and sipping a mug of strong, black coffee. By 6:00 a.m., she could restrain herself no longer. She snatched up her phone and dialed Ken, her camera guy and the one person she knew would be straight with her. His grumbled, sleepy “Hello” didn’t faze her. He’d interrupted her sleep plenty of times.

“Ken, what’s going on with the Matthew Strong story?”

“Raven?”

“Who else?” Impatience edged her voice, but after two days of no inside info after finding out about Matt, she’d had all the delays she was going to take. “Matthew Strong?”

For the next few seconds all she heard was the rustling of sheets and the hiss of a lighter as presumably, the grizzled, old-before-his-time, forty-five-year-old sat up in bed and lit a cigarette.

“Those things will kill you, Ken. You need to quit smoking.”

“Mind your own business.”

“Fine. They’re your lungs.”

“You got that right.”

Raven shifted in her seat, stifling a yawn. “Tell me about Matt.”

“Matt, is it?”

Despite the fact that Ken couldn’t see her, Raven felt
a blush creep up to her cheeks. “We had a thing once a long time ago.”

“What kind of thing?” he asked in his I-smell-a-story tone of voice.

“The kind that’s none of your business.”

“Touché, but is it perhaps the kind of ‘thing’ we might be able to use to get access to the almost-senator?”

An uneasy twist affected Raven’s stomach and suddenly the coffee didn’t sit well. “Just meet me at Corner Coffee, will you? We need to talk and map out a strategy.”

“All right, girl. But let me tell you, I’m not wasting my time on personal ethics. If you got an inside to this guy, you better use it or I might take the sweet Miss Kellie up on her tempting offer.”

“You’re old enough to be her dad.”

“Yeah, well. Ain’t that the kicker? I’m
not
her dad and she seems to go for my natural maturity. And she likes the way our names go together. Thinks it’s downright cute. Kellie and Ken. It does have a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

Raven gave a snort. “Don’t flatter yourself, pops. She wants to break up the wonder twins, and that’s all there is to her sudden attraction.”

It was common knowledge around the station, and had been for the past several years, that Ken and Raven were an unstoppable team. Thanks to Raven’s instincts for where the great story was, they rarely failed to bring it home, and thanks to Ken’s hot ability with a camera, they ended up with unbelievably good shots of whomever they were after. The dream team.

Raven’s ire rose at the very thought that Kellie might be making a play for Ken. And even more so that Ken was exploiting it to bait her into using her past with Matt as a means to an end.

Never mind that she planned to do that anyway, she didn’t need someone reading her so easily. It just made her feel more rotten than she already did.

“Stop threatening me. You know Kellie would get on your nerves in three and a half seconds. You’d be miserable. Meet me in forty-five minutes.”

Without waiting for a reply, she hung up. A second later the phone rang. A grin split Raven’s lips. She snatched up the receiver. “You just have to have the last word, don’t you, cowboy?”

“I’m sorry?”

Raven nearly swallowed her tongue at the unfamiliar voice. “Who’s this?”

“Um, Sonny.”

“Well, Sonny, I think you dialed the wrong number.”

“I don’t think so. Raven Mahoney?”

“All right, buster. I don’t know how you got this number, but I don’t take calls from strange men.”

“Wait! Don’t hang up. If you’re Raven Mahoney, then you’re going to want to talk to me.”

Matthew jolted awake and fought to understand why he could barely breathe.

“Are you awake, Dad?”

A smile lifted the corners of Matthew’s lips and he opened his eyes to find Jamie sprawled across his chest, her dark hair sticking up in about twenty different directions.

“I am now, you little twerp!” Grabbing the little girl he wrestled her across the bed and tickled her just enough to be funny. Too long and it was just mean. Matthew wouldn’t do that. But they both enjoyed a short wrestling/tickle game.

“Hey, Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“I saw you on TV yesterday.”

“You did?” Irritation nipped at Matt. “How come you were watching it?” And more importantly, why didn’t his mother keep Jamie away from the set? She knew he wouldn’t want his daughter watching.

“The news interrupted cartoons.”

“I see.”

She stretched out on her side next to him, her ear cupped in the palm of her head as she rested on her elbow. Her eyes dulled with a rare solemnity as she stared at him with concern.

“How come you changed your mind about being senator?”

A lump gouged Matthew’s throat. “I just decided it was best.”

“Why?”

He caressed his daughter’s hair. “Some things are not up for discussion, Jamie. When you’re older, I’ll explain.”

The little girl scowled, looking an awful lot like Ray. Way too much. Matthew’s pulse quickened. As if by instinct, Matthew reached forward and grabbed her into a fierce hug.

“Dad!” The muffled voice held a squeak of mild panic. “You’re squishing me.”

Reluctantly, Matt released her. “Jamie, I want you to listen to me. This is very important. Are you paying attention?”

Wide brown eyes stared back at him, as Jamie nodded.

“You have to be careful. Play close to the house and don’t go near the gate. Understand?”

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

She frowned, her freckled nose wrinkling in confusion. “But why do you say so? I always play by the gate.”

“Can you just trust me on this one?”

She hesitated, but gave another nod.

“Don’t talk to anyone you don’t know really well. Even if you see me talking to the same person. Clear?”

“Come on, Dad. What’s all the drama about?”

Matthew smiled at his daughter. “There are some things I’m not ready to talk about.”
Like the fact that your natural dad is out of prison and extorting money from me. And if I didn’t step down from the race, he could have used my position to exploit you
. If Jamie were a few years older, he could have told her those things, but not at eight years old. For now, she needed to concentrate on playing soccer and watching the Cardinals and having a great summer vacation. “Now, are you clear on the new rules?”

She shrugged. “I guess so. Can we go to breakfast now? Grams said we’re having blueberry pancakes.”

Matthew’s favorite. He had a feeling he’d be getting a lot of his favorite dishes over the next few days. Mom’s way of consoling him. It was a wonder he didn’t weigh a ton.

“Go tell Grams I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

“Yes, sir.”

Matthew took a quick shower then headed down the hall toward the stairs. He paused at Casey’s door, tapped lightly, then opened it just far enough to see in. His little sister slept peacefully, her long lashes fanning baby-doll cheeks. She was still so innocent. His heart ached for what might have been. What sort of life might she have had if Ray had never come to work at the mansion as a gardener? A user and an abuser, he’d sweet-talked his way into Casey’s life. Her family hadn’t discovered
the relationship until it was too late—Casey left home, moved in with Ray and lost her trust fund down the black hole of drug abuse. Ray’s addiction.

Guilt squeezed Matt’s heart. And he thought the same self-condemning words that had repeated themselves over and over during the past eight and a half years.

If only he had never hired the man who had wooed his sister then stolen her innocence.