Patricia Potter (40 page)

Meara, whose gaze was locked on his challenging one, was the one to surrender first. She had to trust someone, and her instincts had warned her against Weimer from the moment they’d met.

“All right,” she said reluctantly. “What do you want to know?”

Chris released a long breath that had been stuck in his throat. “Any special friends.”

“Kelly.”

“Kelly?”

“Kellen Tabor, but his friends call him Kelly. He’s an attorney who lives next door with his widowed mother. Lisa’s working in his firm this year. They’ve been friends for years. I think he’s in love with her.”

“And Lisa?”

Meara sighed. “I know she cares for him a lot, but mostly as a friend, I’m afraid. He’s just always been there.”

“Will Tabor help us?”

“Help us?”

“If we…you…quietly asked him to help keep an eye on her, on the house, would he? Without asking too many questions?”

“To the first question, yes, to the second, I don’t know. He’s very bright, very instinctive.”

He smiled sightly. “You like him?” he observed.

“Very much. I was hoping that someday…”

“Can you arrange for me to meet him?”

“Why?”

Chris knew the question was coming. He recognized her continuing doubts. He understood her fear. And there was not a damn thing he could do about it. Not yet. “I want to meet her. It would be easier to do that through Tabor than try to explain myself as your friend.”

“That
would
be hard to do,” she said bitterly.

“The more people watching her, both of you, the safer you’ll be,” he replied quietly, although his mouth tightened at the sudden caustic jibe.

A lump formed in her throat, as she considered what he was asking. How would she keep him from knowing, if he and Lisa met and became friends? And they would. She knew it. She knew his charm only too well. The lesser of two evils. She couldn’t take chances with Lisa’s life. She finally nodded, but added, “You said when it’s over—”

“I’ll leave,” he finished. “I give you my word.”

“Does it mean anything?” She meant the words to hurt, and she knew instantly that they had.

“You’ll have to make that judgment, won’t you,” he said evenly.

“I don’t have any choice, do I?” The hopelessness in her voice struck him.

“You told me there’re always choices.”

“The police, you mean.”

He nodded.

She winced. “And risk exposing you and everything that happened?”

Then it hit her with the force of a bullet. He knew! He knew about Lisa. He had to know. Otherwise why would he know she would be so reluctant to have the past revealed? Nothing else was that damning—just the question of Lisa’s father. She had been fooling herself from the very beginning. If his investigators were as good as he’d said, of course they’d found the birth date. What a fool she’d been.

“You know, don’t you?” she whispered brokenly.

Chris didn’t have to ask what. He clenched his hands behind him. “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

The muscles at his throat worked. “You didn’t want me to know.”

She stared at him in silence. “What do you intend to do?”

He was suddenly angry. “What do you expect me to do? Run to her and say ‘I’m your father,’ just after the man she knew and loved as a father died? I know you have no reason to trust me, Meara. But, Christ, what kind of person do you think I am?”

“I don’t know what kind a person you are,” she replied stiffly. “I didn’t know twenty years ago, and I don’t know now.”

“But you were ready to trust me in this,” he said evenly.

“I don’t even know that,” Meara said. She buried her head in her hands. “I don’t know anything, anymore. Everything is upside down. Black is white, and white is black. I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe Lisa’s in danger. Dear God, I don’t know what I believe any more.”

Chris ran his fingers through his hair. “I only want to help, Meara. I have no intention of saying anything to anyone. I want you to be happy. I want Lisa happy. And safe.”

“Do you know what will happen if she finds out?” she said. “Her father taught her to value honesty. If she knew he and I have been lying to her all these years—” Her voice broke again and she couldn’t continue.

“I swear to you, Meara, I’ll never say anything.” His voice was gruff, full of emotion, and there was anguish in those usually unscrutable eyes.

She believed him. She didn’t know why she should, but she did. “If I ask you to leave now?”

Chris hesitated before speaking softly. “I will, but not until certain measures are taken for your safety and Lisa’s.”

“All right,” Meara said defeatedly. “I’ll arrange a meeting with Kelly. But I warn you, he’ll be curious. And he’s very, very bright. We might open something we can’t close again.”

“But he loves Lisa?”

“Yes.”

“And he’d do what’s best for her?”

She nodded.

“I’ll take my chances then.”

“You’ll call the detective agency?”

“Immediately. Someone will be here tomorrow.”

“I’ll try to talk to Kelly tonight and ask him to meet me for lunch tomorrow. You can run into us at the restaurant and take it from there.” She hesitated. “I’m sure you can win him over. You’re very good at that.” The bitterness was back in her voice.

He deserved that. Chris knew it. But the constant reminders of his earlier deception stung far worse than she probably knew.

“Let me know if Weimer calls, or if your FBI friend finds any information.”

She nodded.

“More coffee?”

“I have to go.”

“Meara.” She was up and heading toward the door, but she turned at the sound of her name. She wished it didn’t sound so tender on his lips.

“Yes?” she managed coldly.

“Everything will be all right.”

“Will it, Michael? Or should I call you Chris now?”

“Chris would be better,” he said with a wry smile.

“Chris Chandler,” she said. “It sounds strange.” She looked down at Andy, who was snoring on the floor. “Andy, let’s go.”

The dog looked up surprised, wagged his tail, then obediently but lazily followed her to the door.

Meara didn’t say good-bye, but neither was her look entirely hostile as she left.

Chris watched her leave. Slowly but surely he was making progress. He went to the phone, and started dialing Ben Markham & Associates.

“I need your services…,” he started without preamble when Ben answered.

Chapter Twenty-One

T
HE CALL FROM
John Malcomb came that afternoon, and it was as Michael said it would be.

Kurt Weimer was an upstanding, respectable rising star of the West German government.

“A real catch,” John said.

“A bit old,” Meara observed.

“Hey, I’m his age and I don’t feel ancient. Besides, he’s due back in Germany in two weeks. I wouldn’t worry.”

“You’re sure there’s nothing? Nothing at all.”

There was a silence. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Meara?”

“No, of course not,” Meara said. “It’s just that with Sanders…”

“I know, love. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

“I will, John.”

“Oh, and Meara, I’ve been cleaning out Sanders’s desk. There’re some photos I thought you would want.”

“Photos?” she said, almost blankly.

“I’m sorry to be so late in getting these to you, but I had to finish up the case, and…the agent in charge thought it best I cleared Sanders’s desk.”

Meara stood absolutely still. Strange how final the conversation sounded. Part of her still believed Sanders would come back through the door as he had so many times after a case.

“Meara? Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said finally. “Thank you, John.”

“I’ll send them today, or should I come myself?” A note of worry was in his voice.

“No.” The answer was so abrupt it was rude.

There was a pause on his end. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m sorry, John. I still haven’t quite…gotten used to…”

His voice was soothing. “I know. But please remember, if there’s anything, anything at all.”

Meara was tempted, dear God, but she was tempted. Yet he was a bureau man to his bones. She would have to tell him everything, and Michael—no, damn it, Chris—would be arrested, Lisa could quite possibly discover everything. If, that is, she was even believed and not thought overwrought. It seemed every direction she looked, she was trapped.

“I’ll call,” she assured John Malcomb, wondering if she was doing the right thing.

“My wife sends her love.”

“Me too,” she answered hollowly.

“Will you be staying there?”

“For a while.”

“Keep in touch,” he said.

“I will, and thank you, John.”

After she put the phone down, she thought about his comment. Perhaps if she moved back to Virginia…the house was there. But again what excuse would she use to Lisa. If Kurt Weimer was intent on harming her or Lisa, wouldn’t he just follow her? He would have a better excuse to be in Washington than here.

If only she could take Lisa and get in the car and escape to where no one would find them. Not Weimer. Not Michael. But Lisa would never go.

She went to the screened porch where she could see the dunes beyond. Her island of dreams had become an island of nightmares. She shivered in the heat as she leaned against a post.

She heard Andy’s padding paws behind her, and she stooped, burying her head in the animal’s fur. She needed his undemanding, uncomplicated affection.

What so confused her now, she knew, were her reactions to Michael, even though she was still mourning Sanders. What kind of person was she? Was it just that she was so vulnerable, just as Lisa was? Or was it deeper? Had her feelings for Michael really survived that terrible night and the years that followed?

She felt terribly disloyal to Sanders, disloyal and undeserving of him, and the years they had shared. No wonder Lisa disapproved of her, and her control. What Lisa didn’t know, couldn’t realize, was how much that control had been needed to survive, how it had then become habit, a protective shield that would keep anything like that from happening to her again, to her and to those she loved.

It hadn’t worked. She knew that now. She swallowed deeply, trying to dislodge the thick lump in her throat. Should she call Michael and tell him of John’s report? It was as he had said it would be. She wanted to talk to him, to hear the low, calm, confident voice. But there was a danger in that too, of depending on him, of being around him. Nothing had really changed in her reaction to him: the electricity that still flashed so surprisingly between them, the accelerated beating of her heart, the response to his barest touch. Nothing had changed. Yet everything had changed.

“I did love you, Sanders,” she whispered desperately. “It was a different kind of love, but it was more real.”

She could almost feel him near her. I know, he seemed to whisper back.
I’ve always known.

Kurt Weimer argued in his cool, precise way. No one in this meeting knew how completely bored he was, how eager he was for the session to be over. Still, he was a master at manipulation, and by the time the conference was through, his standing in the economic community would be stronger than ever.

He was anxious, now that it was started, to get on with his plan for retribution.

Kurt had found his father’s grave yesterday, an unmarked pauper’s grave in a Brunswick cemetery. The site was located only because of registration in a stark office. He had claimed to be looking for the grave of a man with a name starting with the same last initial as his father’s cover. He had pretended confusion when he couldn’t find the name he had sought, but his eyes had quickly found another one and the location of the grave.

A pauper’s grave. For a German hero. The knowledge had galled him as little else had. How he longed to take the body back and have it buried with honor. But he was denied that. As he had been denied a father because of an interfering woman.

He wondered about the man who was sent with his father. He too had apparently been killed in an attempt to escape. Had the man deserted his father? Kurt had discovered little about him except that von Steimen had been a naval officer and the son of a Nazi general. But Kurt intended to find out exactly what happened that night. He had planned very carefully how to do it.

It would take a little more time than he had thought. Lisa Evans was obviously a virgin, and he’d realized from dinner the other night that her seduction would require more time and effort than he had first envisioned. But he could do it. He knew all the signs—the adoring, fascinated eyes, the eagerness in her voice when he called, the way she responded when he had kissed her the other night.