Deadly Secrets, Loving Lies (9 page)

Then suddenly, it hadn’t been. When her mother died, everything had changed, and all for the worse. If only her mother hadn’t left the island that day. If only she’d stayed home with Genie and her sisters. They’d needed her so much. She still missed her terribly.

Tears burned Genie’s eyes. It had been so long since the accident, she couldn’t quite remember her mother’s face. Just her long blond hair curling around her shoulders, and the sing-song Irish lilt of her cheerful voice.

What would her life have been like if her mother had lived? If the girls had stayed together as a close family? If her father had put them first, before his job, and retired from the CTA way back then?

Just thinking about the top-secret agency started a burn of anger deep in her gut. Perhaps Becca had been right. Perhaps the CTA was responsible for everything that had gone wrong in their lives. Genie had never understood what her sister had meant by the cryptic text she’d sent on that horrible day. Because once Genie got to the warehouse, she’d never found her. Never gotten the chance to talk to her sister before the explosion.

Sean Emerich had made sure of that. If Becca was dead, he was responsible. There was no doubt in her mind. And now he wanted her and Cat for some nefarious purpose. To kill them, too?

“Nice place,” Kyle said, startling her when he appeared beside her as the ferry approached the dock. She took a quick step away from him, afraid he’d try to kiss her again. More afraid of how she’d respond to him if he did…

“I have a lot of good memories here,” she said noncommittally.

“Of your sisters?” The accusation of omission sat heavy in his words, whether he’d intended it to or not. There was more than anger buried within him…there was also pain. Pain
she
had caused him. The stark emotions rolled off him in waves so thick she didn’t even need to be touching him to feel them.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my sisters,” she murmured as the gangplank was lowered to the dock. She didn’t wait for his reaction, but hurried off the ferry and onto the dock. He followed behind her as she strode past a small tool shack and a building selling fishing supplies and fuel, and then halted in the shadow of a large sign.

She looked around carefully as they walked, searching the small crowd of passengers and locals for anyone who looked out of the ordinary. For anyone who had his attention riveted on her. For a second she closed her eyes and absorbed the area around her, opening herself up to any hostile vibrations. But surprisingly there were none.

She frowned. Where were Emerich’s men? They’d been at the airport. They would surely know this was the first place she’d come looking for her father. They should be here, ready to spring a trap. But she felt nothing amiss. No evil lurking in the shadows. The ferry must have somehow beaten them to the island.

“Usually my father would call someone from the house to pick us up,” she muttered uneasily, noting the lack of vehicles on the docks.

“I don’t think anyone is there to call.”

“Then we’ll have to walk,” she said, and started up the road toward the island village and her father’s estate. “It’s only about a mile but we’ll be walking through town. Feel free to stop at the local pub and grab yourself a beer. It shouldn’t take me long.”

“Not a chance,” he said, a knowing smile lighting his eyes. “Nice try, though.”

She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

“In fact, we should bypass the town altogether.”

She looked up and saw his gaze scanning the area around them. “Looking for Emerich’s men?”

He nodded. “They don’t seem to be here yet, but they will be soon enough.”

“No doubt.” She veered off the main road and led him into the trees.

They walked in silence for a moment, taking in the soaring lodgepole pines and the thick blanket of ferns covering the forest floor. She breathed deep the crisp scent of pine, ocean, and clean air and sighed. “I used to love this place,” she said.

“I can see why. How long have you been gone?”

“Since my mom died. After that, we closed up the house and left. Dad changed our names and split us up, sending us each to a different part of the world.”

“Just when you needed family most? Why would he do that?”

“He thought we’d be safer that way. It’s why I didn’t mention them. My sisters, I mean. I-I just don’t. Ever. To anyone.”

“That was a terrible thing to do to you,” Kyle blurted fiercely.

She turned to him, her eyes narrowing. “It wasn’t.”

“He took away your family.” Disapproval thickened his voice.

“He was trying to keep us safe,” she countered.

“I thought you said your mother died in an accident.”

“She did. It was.”

“Then what possible reason would he have for doing that?”

Genie blinked. Her mouth parted to make a knee-jerk retort. Kyle had no right to say those things, to judge her father’s decisions. But suddenly, for the first time ever, she realized she didn’t have an answer. She’d never even asked the question. Why
would
her father have separated them at a time when they needed more than anything to be together? Just like when he told her to leave Kyle, to leave the CTA, she never questioned his judgment. He knew what was best for her. But did he? Had it been best for her? For her sisters? Or for himself?

“We will find him,” Kyle said softly, filling the silence growing between them.

She looked up at him and, in that moment, she believed him. But more than that, she was grateful that he was there. As difficult as this situation was, he was trying to make the best of it. And she hated to admit it, but she was very glad she didn’t have to face the ghosts of her childhood home alone.

Finally, they stepped out of the forest and onto an expansive velvet green lawn that led to a grand white house sitting on top of a small hill. Its wall of windows faced an elaborate pool and the brilliant blue ocean below them. Beyond the house was a large barn, and beyond that, an empty dock.

Kyle whistled.

“It’s something, isn’t it?” she said with a wry smile.

“You could say that.”

She reached out with her mind, but still didn’t sense any danger. She felt a vague, misty presence of her father, but that was no doubt residual energy from his living on the estate.

She glanced once more at the empty dock. Her father’s boat was gone. Had he taken it? Had he left before Emerich’s men had arrived? Without letting Kyle in on her thoughts, she followed him up the hill toward the back of the house. If her father was fine and had left before Emerich’s men had gotten here, he could have called the CTA to let them know. But he hadn’t. There was no reason to bring up the missing boat yet, not until she knew for sure what had happened.

As they climbed toward the house, she noticed there was no sign of life anywhere. Not a light on in the house, not anyone trimming bushes or cleaning the pool. In her memories, there had always been so much life here, music drifting out from the kitchen, laughter from her sisters playing in the pool or in the grass with their dog. Her father would be grilling meat on the barbecue. Life had been so…magical.

Tears threatened again and she pushed them away. Why had everything gone wrong? Why had her father sent them all away?

The CTA caused all our troubles.
Becca’s words filled Genie’s mind once more. Kyle stepped silently up to the house and pulled his gun from beneath his dark jacket. The consummate agent. Taking no chances. His first thought for her protection.

Was that what her father had done, too, by breaking up their family and sending them away? Had he known something she didn’t? Something so bad he’d needed to take drastic measures to protect them?

Or had he simply wanted to rid himself of the responsibility of raising three unruly daughters alone, while advancing in his high-powered job at the top-secret agency, the CTA?

Her heart sank painfully.

Had Becca been right?

…

Genie hovered inside the doorway, reaching with her mind trying to determine not only if her father or anyone else was there, but if there was any type of disturbance in the energy of the house. Anything that would indicate there had been trouble. If he’d been scared. But there was nothing. Not that she was surprised; her gift was never strong enough to show her residual emotions very clearly.

She walked into the kitchen, moving through the rooms. Entering her old family home after all these years, and after her burdensome thoughts, was harder on Genie than she’d ever imagined. The scent of cinnamon and home assaulted her senses, sending echoes of happier times to barrage her memories. She took a deep breath and hurried through the bright kitchen with its off-white cabinets and large granite island where she and her sisters had sat each day eating cookies while doing their homework and talking with their mother about teachers and friends.

A bittersweet ache grasped hold of her and squeezed. She walked into the family room and felt as if someone flipped the switch on an industrial internal vacuum and sucked the air right out of her chest, leaving her empty and hollow. The echoes of voices from her past swirled through her mind. Her mother calling them to breakfast, the thunder of small feet as they raced down the stairs. The high-pitched peeling laughter of her and her sisters running like hellions through the house as her mother called after them to keep it down, their father was working in the study. Always working…

She braced herself and walked toward that study now, and stood in the doorway. Funny, she’d never felt even an inkling of danger here, either from his secret CTA work or from the fact of his immersion in it. No, Becca must be wrong. That couldn’t have been the reason for his precautions.

She took a step inside. This room, like her father, never changed. It was spacious and warm, yet masculine with the deep cherry-wood shelves lining the walls. A large desk commanding the center of the room was cluttered with papers and knickknacks from his travels
—
silk etchings from Japan and crystal eggs and goblets from Russia and Austria. They reminded her of the necklace, and her fingers immediately found the crystal charm around her neck and held it. A faint hint of cigar smoke lingered in the room. She inhaled it deeply, imagining her father had just left and would be coming back any moment.

Logic overrode emotion and she pushed the sentiment away. She had to check her feelings at the door and be practical. She must treat this like any other case, as if it wasn’t her own father who was missing. She took another look around, this time with a different, arms-length perspective. She shifted her attention to the filing cabinet’s drawers that were gaping open and the papers littering the floor. Cameron’s people. Obviously, they hadn’t cared whose lives they trashed. Books on the bookshelf had been shifted, paintings tilted as prying eyes checked behind them. Even the corners of the carpet were askew.

The house was enormous by most people’s standards and took an entire crew to keep it cleaned and maintained. But Stuart Marsters spent the bulk of his time in this one room when he was home. Before his promotion to Director, this was where he schemed and planned and run ops she didn’t even want to know about, but she was now certain she’d have to. Until he was found, she’d have to dig into every dark corner and crevice of his life for clues, no matter what she might find and where it might lead her.

She stepped farther into the room and stood over the desk, looking down at the clutter of paper and pens, a stapler, tape dispenser, bottle of perfume.
Perfume?
She picked it up and looked at it, then removed the stopper and inhaled deeply. The exotic flowery scent had been her mother’s favorite. She closed her eyes against the fresh stab of pain. Even after all these years, he still missed her.

She heard Kyle’s approach and stiffened as his hand grazed down her back leaving a trail of warmth and comfort. She didn’t want him to know how vulnerable she was right then, how much she longed for her family, for some kind of…connection.

“What is it?” he asked, seeing her hand clutched around the small bottle.

Her traitorous body wanted to lean into him, to turn in his arms and feel his mouth pressed against hers once more. “My mother’s perfume.”

Kyle’s hand stilled. “Does your dad usually keep it in his office?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, and wished he hadn’t stopped his caresses. The way he was touching her— Stop, she berated herself. She needed to focus on the job at hand. But the truth was, as much as she tried to forget it, the imprint of his kiss still lingered on her lips. It would be so easy to let her guard down and go to him, but she knew she shouldn’t. She
couldn’t
. That one small step backward to him, back toward what they once had, would leave her wanting so much more. And wanting to give him so much more than she could give—his happily ever after.

And once they both realized she couldn’t, she’d be lost and more alone than ever.

“There’s no one here,” he said, the timbre of his voice soothing her frayed nerves. “Yet.”

“I guessed as much. The air is too still. The house too quiet.” She sensed…
no one.
“Have Cameron’s men talked to the staff?”