Death's Door (13 page)

“Very few records in Boston led to contacts,” Garrison informed his sister.

“I found Madison’s records here,” Paul said.

“Really?” Nathan Cassidy said. “I’m surprised. I thought the records that were located didn’t show—”

“There’s some question about their authenticity,” Madison felt compelled to say.

“Who told you that?” Garrison asked just as an elderly couple approached the group.

“Let’s dance.” Paul nudged her toward the dance floor.

“Thanks,” whispered Madison after they’d moved away from the group. “I don’t want to give Wyatt’s children false hope.”

Paul didn’t respond; he had his own theory about the Holbrook children.

“Savannah seems a little…ah…hostile, I guess. Do you think she sees me as a threat?”

Paul swung her into his arms as the quartet began to play a slow tune from the Big Band era. He didn’t know its name, but judging by the herd of moon-eyed octogenarians on the dance floor, it was a sentimental favorite. It was almost impossible to move with so many people around. Well, hell, whatever it took. He just wanted to hold Madison. “What do you mean, a threat?” he said into her ear in a low voice.

She cocked her head to one side and gazed up at him. His heart lurched painfully, skipping a beat before settling into its normal rhythm. Honest to God, the woman hadn’t a clue how appealing she was. She flexed her leg slightly between his as she moved to the beat. He put his hand on her soft, bare back and a throbbing current of arousal spiraled through him, pooling in his groin.

“Savannah’s a true beauty. I’m know I’m not a threat in that way, but I was wondering if she might think Wyatt might…I don’t know exactly.”

“He might monetarily reward a newfound—what term did Garrison use?”

“Offspring. Could his children—” she stood up on tiptoe to whisper in his ear “—not want him to live?”

“It’s a possibility,” he admitted. “What makes you ask?”

It took a minute with them moving to the music for her to respond. “Erin. The police made a point of telling me that money is one of the primary causes of murder. I knew it, of course, but until someone you love is killed, it doesn’t hit home.”

“I don’t know,” he told her. “The rich are different. Maybe Garrison and Savannah want more than their trust funds.”

“It won’t matter in my case,” she informed him in a low but authoritative voice. “I’m not going to be able to help their father, but someone else might.”

Aw, come off it,
he wanted to say, but he resisted the urge. Instead, he drew Madison closer, savoring the softness of her body against his, the way her breasts molded against his torso. Rocking to the beat, he skimmed her bare back with his open palm, then lightly stroked the intriguing groove of her spine with his fingertips. His hand reached her neck where a loose tendril curled against the warm flesh. He flicked it aside and traced the curve of her neck with his thumb.

Paul detected Madison’s sharp intake of breath and what could only be a sigh. He looked down at her eyes, which were veiled by a golden fringe of lashes. She was staring at the back of a stoop-shouldered elderly man dancing nearby. Okay, so she wouldn’t look him in the eye. At least she hadn’t pulled away. Maybe, just maybe, he had a chance with her.

The dance ended and the throng around them clapped. Paul refused to release Madison. She made no move to pull away, either. The strains of another waltz began, forcing them to dance again. They swayed to the lilting notes, unable to do much else with so many people trying to dance at once. He held her close and wished to hell that he could think of something clever to say.

Why ruin it? Obviously, they communicated better without words. He leisurely moved his hand up and down her back. They were barely moving now, only rotating their hips, pretending to dance. Another couple bumped into them and muttered an apology. Madison glanced up at him and her arms unexpectedly circled his neck.

What was she thinking?

All right, so he wasn’t an ace at figuring out women, but he had enough experience to realize he’d been wrong. This woman wanted him as much as he wanted her.

“What are we doing?” she asked in a husky voice.

“I’m positive Adam asked the same thing in the Garden of Eden.”

“Really?” A smile alluringly curved her mouth. “What did Eve say?”

“It’ll be all right.” He squeezed her. “
Then
she offered him the apple.”

She laughed, the first genuine laugh he’d heard from her. “And Adam was dumb enough to fall for it.”

Paul chuckled, taken by surprise, another heated rush of desire coursing through him. She had a great sense of humor to go along with a killer bod and a pretty face. Why did he have to meet her on an assignment?

Hell. You couldn’t time these things. Sometimes you just had to go for it. Now was one of those times, he assured himself. Madison was different from most women he knew. She was definitely worth the risk of appearing unprofessional. Definitely.

Ignoring the crowd around them, Paul lowered his lips to Madison’s soft mouth. Her thick lashes fluttered closed as he eased his hand down from her back to the curve of her buttocks and pressed her against his erection. His tongue invaded her mouth, symbolic of another possession he had on his mind.

Suddenly, he was aware of someone clutching his shoulder. Pissed as hell, he broke the kiss and turned to face the intruder.

“Mr. Holbrook will see you now,” Tobias Pennington informed them.

What is DNA?

M
ADISON STEELED HERSELF
, not sure what to expect as she walked into the massive library. She was still shaken by what had happened on the dance floor. What had she been thinking? Obviously, Paul suffered from testosterone surges that caused him to grab anything in panties.

Well, forget these panties.

But that wasn’t the message she’d sent, was it? She’d wantonly slung her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his like some hot-to-trot teenager. Then when he’d kissed her, Madison hadn’t pulled away. No. She’d kissed him back. Right there in the middle of the dance floor.

Why had she acted that way? Maybe some part of her brain had responded to him. God knows, it had been ages since she’d been held, been kissed. Her relationship with Aiden had faltered, then they’d separated. She’d dated a few times but refused to get involved with anyone. She didn’t know what had happened tonight, but she vowed not to repeat the mistake.

Madison steadied herself and forced her mind to focus on meeting Wyatt Holbrook in the library of his mansion. She had the vague impression of a vaulted ceiling and wood-paneled walls lined with books that had the mellow glow of antique leather. The jarring thumps of her heart blocked other details.

At the rear of the room stood a walnut desk large enough to be a ping-pong table. In front of the desk stood a tall man with a patrician profile. Laser-blue eyes tracked her approach with the same keen intelligence she’d noted in Garrison’s eyes. But instead of having rich mahogany-colored hair, Wyatt had sandy hair that must once have been a glistening blond but was now mostly silver.

Nothing about Wyatt Holbrook struck a familiar chord with Madison. She already knew this man wasn’t her father and seeing him confirmed her feelings. But Madison couldn’t deny there was something impressive about Wyatt Holbrook. Even without speaking, he radiated authority and power.

She was glad Paul was with her. Not that she needed him for moral support or anything, but he’d brought her and she wanted him ready to whisk her away as soon as she’d spoken with Wyatt Holbrook.

“Madison, so glad you could make it.” The older man held out his hand and spoke in a friendly tone meant to put her at ease.

“Hello.” She shook his hand and held his incisive gaze, not sure what to say next. Paul was right; Wyatt Holbrook did not appear to be ill. Again, she wondered if there could possibly be a hidden agenda here.

“Have a seat,” he said, and turned to Tobias Pennington. “Tobias, we’d like champagne.”

Madison started to protest and say she needed to leave soon, but Paul grabbed her arm and pulled her onto the love seat near the desk. Two chairs flanked either side of the sofa that was opposite the huge desk.

“I’ll have the Veuve Clicquot brought in,” Tobias said as he headed out of the room.

Wyatt Holbrook’s personal assistant couldn’t be much older than Madison, but his tall, lean frame and gaunt face made him look like a long-distance runner in a seersucker sport jacket. His
vampire-pale complexion among so many tanned people made her wonder if he’d been ill recently. He certainly looked worse than Wyatt, as if he were the one who needed a transplant.

“Tell me about yourself.” Wyatt Holbrook sat in one of the chairs near the sofa.

Madison had no intention of talking about herself. Besides, she knew Wyatt must have been given the same dossier on her that Paul Tanner had read. He could read everything he needed to know.

“I’d rather talk about you,” she told him in a clipped tone. “I’ve been wondering if you ever gave any thought to the other children you could have. Were they okay? Were they being abused?” She paused to glance around at the library and take in the valuable oil paintings and what must be original Remington bronze sculptures artfully showcased in special niches in the paneled walls. “You have so much, while your other children might be starving.”

Tobias had returned and was standing directly behind Wyatt. The assistant glared at her with deep-set brown eyes as if to ask: How dare you?

Wyatt didn’t appear to be the least bit disturbed by her questions. “When I donated, I was struggling to make it through medical school. A lot of guys were doing it. I honestly didn’t give it much thought.”

Madison managed a quick nod. She hadn’t expected him to be quite so candid.

“Years later, one of my top researchers came to me and said she needed a pregnancy leave. We were right in the middle of FDA trials and Natalie was a key member of the team. She’d always lived for her job, working harder and accomplishing more than three other scientists could have.”

Madison silently blessed her father. He’d warned her over and over not to let work consume her.
There’s so much more to life than one thing—no matter how fascinating you find it,
he’d
told her.
Explore the world around you. Never forget—people count the most.

“Natalie told me that her biological clock had become a time bomb. She’d spent her life in the lab, never meeting anyone or getting married. She’d undergone artificial insemination. It had taken several tries, but now she was pregnant and needed a leave.”

Madison wasn’t sure what this had to do with her question, but she found herself listening intently.

“Of course, I gave Natalie a leave and worked out a schedule so she could take care of her baby and spend time in the lab. Her situation made me think of the sperm I’d donated. Back then, most insemination recipients were couples who couldn’t conceive. I envisioned helping childless people who would be loving parents. Natalie made me think about single mothers for the first time.”

“You never wondered about the children who might not be lucky enough to have both parents.”

“I considered the possibility,” he admitted slowly, with what might have been a trace of regret in his voice. “I didn’t realize until recently that the clinic split my sperm donations and that I could have—may actually have—many more children than I thought possible. I was shocked. Of course, I wondered—”

“But you never tried to contact—”

“There’s no easy way to trace these children,” Tobias cut in. “Clinics guard patients’ privacy tenaciously. The HIPA law has made it even more difficult to access medical records.”

The room was silent for a moment, the only sounds the chatter of voices and music drifting in from the party. Finally, Wyatt spoke.

“I didn’t try to find any of my offspring,” he conceded, “until my doctor told me I had primary sclerosing cholangitis—PSC—and would soon need a liver transplant. The football star Walter Peyton died of the same disease. There
is no known cause or cure. The only thing that works is a transplant.

“I hoped Garrison or Savannah could help but neither can. Then I realized I could try to contact children who might have been conceived from my sperm. I was told the first avenue to explore was Internet Web sites where children were attempting to find their biological fathers. They relinquish the confidentiality status of their records, hoping to find fathers or other siblings. We couldn’t locate anyone related to me.”

“Mike Tanner was able to find two children about your age,” Tobias told her when Wyatt stopped speaking. “They’d grown up in the northeast, which is what you’d expect.”

Madison was a little surprised that Wyatt’s personal assistant knew so much. It appeared that he was closer to his employer than she would have thought. She wondered how long they’d been together.

“I mentioned those children,” Paul told her, speaking for the first time since entering the library. She refused to look directly at him. “One ODed, while the other died in an auto accident.”

Madison never took her eyes off Wyatt. If the premature deaths of two of his children concerned him, nothing in his expression revealed it.

“How did you find out about New Horizons?” she asked.

“Paul’s father, Mike, has handled all my corporate security and…other problems,” Wyatt responded. “He’s a sharp investigator. He discovered one of the clinics in Boston resold sperm to a so-called Mensa clinic down here called New Horizons.”

A waiter arrived with a tray of flutes filled with the expensive champagne. Madison was offered one first and reluctantly took a glass. For an instant she felt like flinging it against the paneled wall. Instead, not sure what to do next, she studied the amber liquid, the bubbles streaming to the surface in an endless parade. Her impulsive trip here now seemed awkward. She had
no idea what to say to get out of here. She glanced at Paul but he was taking a sip of champagne.

“Did you locate any other children from the New Horizons clinic?” she asked.

“Mike Tanner gave all the files to Tobias,” Wyatt told her. “They had been torn apart to prepare for litigation that ultimately didn’t go to court because the clinic declared bankruptcy. Tobias is still sorting through them.”

“In other words, the vultures called attorneys couldn’t suck any more money out of anyone so they just shoved everything into cardboard boxes,” Tobias said.

From the moment Madison had met Tobias, when he found them on the dance floor, he’d struck her as being an angry, bitter man. She felt he resented her. Why? Didn’t he want to help Wyatt?

“We thought we had all the files,” Wyatt continued, as if Tobias hadn’t spoken. “It wasn’t until Paul discovered another box of files and found your mother’s name that we realized we didn’t.”

“What made you think to look elsewhere?” she asked Paul.

“There was a list of numbers that corresponded to donors in the master file. Some of them seemed to be missing. It only stood to reason that all of the files hadn’t been found in the warehouse.”

“It was good work on Paul’s part,” Wyatt said. “Like father, like son.”

“I was the only one in that second batch of files?” she asked Paul. He’d told her about finding the files but hadn’t mentioned any other children. She wondered if he had told her everything.

“We’re still going through them,” Wyatt responded. The way he kept saying “we” made her believe others were doing the work. “I’m afraid Tobias is right. They’re a mess.”

Madison nodded, not knowing what else to do. A silence enveloped the group. She wanted to leap out of her seat and
bolt for the door, but something kept her in place, not saying a word.

“We can arrange for you to take the donor compatibility test at St. John’s Hospital.”

Madison realized everyone in the room assumed she believed she was one of Wyatt’s children and was willing to donate a lobe of her liver if they were compatible. Apparently, Paul hadn’t revealed her reservations.

Wyatt broke the uncomfortable silence. “Of course, if you are compatible, we’re willing to pay—”

“I’m not interested in money.” Madison slammed her untouched glass of champagne on the table beside the sofa. She jumped up and headed for the door. Wyatt Holbrook was right behind her and it took her a few seconds to realize no one else in the room had moved.

“Let me show you something,” he said in a low voice.

“All right,” she replied slowly, not knowing why she didn’t tell him that she was leaving this minute.

He guided her out the door and down a wide hallway lined with more prints of shells and what she assumed were pieces of coral. They came to a closed door. Judging from where she’d been in the house, Madison decided this room must face an inner garden, not the sea or the rambling vista facing the lake with the swans. Wyatt put his index finger up to a button affixed to the doorjamb. It read his fingerprint, she realized with awe. She hadn’t noticed any security devices on other doors—just this room. She might expect such high-tech security in an office building, maybe, but not here in this classic Mizner mansion.

“My office,” Wyatt explained as he opened the door and waited for Madison to enter. “It’s not much, but I’m gearing up to work here full-time after the surgery.”

She knew he meant the liver transplant but she didn’t know what to say. She stepped into the room as he flicked on the lights. A small wood desk not much larger than the one she used
at her office dominated the room. Books lined the shelves, but unlike the library, these volumes appeared to be medical journals. They all were paperbound and some were thicker than most books. Medical and scientific journals, she realized.

“Do you know what DNA stands for?” he asked, sweeping his hand to indicate the wall near the only window in the room.

“It’s an acronym for deoxyribonucleic acid, which encodes essential genetic information in every living organism.”

“Right,” Wyatt said, and she could tell he was impressed. Why? A college student with a biology major could have told him the answer. Then it hit Madison—Wyatt might
not
have seen her personal profile. They thought…thought what? She was merely a video gamer, not a former MIT student.

Wyatt again waved his hand to indicate the wall. “Here is all the research that led to Crick and Watson’s discovery of the DNA code.”

“Really?” She’d known that years of research had gone into the project and many others had tried—and failed—to break the DNA code. Seeing all the volumes gave her a new respect for the years in many laboratories that it had taken to crack the code.

“This is what I want to be my legacy,” Wyatt said in a low voice that rang with conviction. “New frontiers in medicine and science. We’ve only just begun to glimpse the discoveries on the horizon.” He walked toward the desk piled with papers. “I won’t be here to help future scientists. That’s why I’m establishing the Holbrook Foundation. It will generate enough money for scientists to explore all sorts of possibilities.”

“I see,” she replied very slowly, because she didn’t know where he was going with this and didn’t want to be caught off guard.

“I’m not the Getty,” he said, his voice suddenly sounding tired. “J. Paul Getty had nearly a billion dollars to contribute to his foundation. It’s been wisely invested and continues to grow so the Getty Museum is the richest museum in the world.”

“But they still don’t have a major collection of art,” she responded.