Shiver of Fear (12 page)

“Drinks, dinner, and—”

She slapped his face, the smack echoing through the alley, the sting fiery on his freshly shaven skin.

“I’ve had enough people lie to me,” she said through clenched teeth. “My whole life I’ve been lied to. My mother didn’t want
me. My adopted parents bought me, then never let me forget I didn’t share their precious blood. And my husband? My husband—”

“Tried to betray you and got himself shot in the head for it.”

She stumbled backward a little, no words coming from her open mouth.

“I know who you are,
Mrs. Sterling
. But I swear I don’t know anything about your missing birth mother.”

Slowly, she raised her hand to her mouth. “You knew all day?” The hitch in her voice broke his heart.

“I did.”

“Oh.” It came out as a sigh, almost like she expected the answer and it hurt. “So what do you want from me?” she asked in
a whisper, the plea on her lips as heart-wrenching as the pain in her eyes.

He stayed silent. She’d been threatened and the rules of the game had changed. All bets were off. She had to know why he was
there, even if that was all he could tell her.

“I want what everyone else seems to want from you. I want you to leave Belfast.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

She blinked at him. “Then who sent you?”

“The FBI.”

“Are you an FBI agent?”

“Not anymore. But I am working for them.”

She swallowed, nodding, thinking, scrutinizing him. “This is about… Finn MacCauley, isn’t it?”

“I honestly don’t know. I’ve been sent here with a simple job—to get you to leave Belfast.”

“You think I have information about him. That’s the only reason the FBI would want me.”

“I didn’t say they wanted you. They want you to leave.”

“Well, you can tell the FBI that you failed on your mission, Mr. Rossi. I’m not going anywhere.” She turned and headed out
of the alley. He stayed close behind, eyeing the road for the BMW.

At the curb, under the harsh red light of another pub, a gaggle of smokers outside the door watched them.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because I’m going to find my mother.”

“But you think your mother just sent a thug to kidnap you.”

“I don’t know that for sure. I just know there’s a connection. I want to know what it is.” Determination drenched every word
and step.

He steered her away from the crowd to an empty section of the sidewalk. “Why?”

She eased out of his grasp but was smart enough to avoid the crowds. “I guess a person happily ensconced in a family of seven
would ask that. But put yourself in my shoes, Marc. I want to face my birth mother and find out her deal. I want to tell her
that her secret might not be a secret anymore, because she has a right to know that.”

“A right? After you think she tried to kidnap you?”

She shrugged off the question. “All I know is I have nothing—and I mean
nothing—
to lose by finding out.”

“Your life,” he said quietly. “You could lose your life.”

“I have no life.” The words were flat and bitter, and he didn’t believe them for a minute.

“You have a death wish?” he countered, pulling her deeper into the shadows, rocked by the urge to protect her from everyone
around, every potential threat—real and imagined.

“I have a wish not to spend another day torn by not knowing which side of the gene pool I belong on, and frankly I don’t care
if you understand that or not.”

He didn’t, but he could tell it mattered to her, a lot.

“I know I’m not a crusty purebred Hewitt, and I don’t think I’m a vile, murderous MacCauley… that leaves Greenberg. Or Mulvaney,
as I believe her maiden name was. But you know what? I came across the ocean to find the woman and meet her, and that’s exactly
what I’m going to do. If she’s made of the same evil as my biological father, then I just have to know that. If she’s not,
then maybe…” She swallowed, unable or unwilling to finish.

“Maybe what?” he prodded.

“Nothing.”

Probably not
nothing
at all. “You think you’ll have some sort of mother-daughter epiphany and you’ll feel all whole again?”

She gave him a look of disgust, and he felt bad for the sarcasm, but not if it got her off this quest.

“You never know, do you?” She turned and tried to walk away, but Marc stayed with her, let her walk and think.

At the next block, she slowed her step and looked at him. “I don’t really want to do this alone and unprotected.”

“Then don’t.”

“I don’t suppose I could… pay you?”

Talk about double-dipping and pissing off the biggest, and only, client of the new firm. “I’m already working for the FBI,”
he said. “And if you don’t leave, as they’ve asked me to coerce you to do, then… I failed.” And nobody got paid. But right
now, money wasn’t the issue. Her safety was.

“They want Finn MacCauley,” she said quietly.

“I don’t know what they want,” he admitted. “Other than you out of Belfast.”

“What if you delivered Finn?”

“You know where he is?”

She didn’t answer for a good ten seconds. “I might.”

“And you’re offering this information in exchange for protection while you hunt down your mother, or at least wait for her
to show up.”

Her expression grim, she nodded. “I can even sweeten the deal,” she said. “I’ll leave the minute I’ve talked to her. So you
accomplish your goal
and
you get Finn.”

It was a sweet deal. If he got her to leave and turned over a lead to one of the FBI’s most wanted, everybody would win.

“Are you in touch with him? You’re certain he’s still alive?”

“You’re just going to have to trust me on this.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Why not?”

He slowed his step, placing his arm on her back, inching her closer to make his point. “The last time I trusted a woman—another
beautiful, perfect woman who happened to be my wife—I lost.”

She stopped and stared at him. “You lost what?”

“Everything.” They stood face-to-face, the challenge
hanging in the night air. “So you’re going to have to give me more than your word. I need proof.”

They both took slow, even breaths, their gazes locked. “My word is all I’ve got,” she finally said. “Will you help me or not?
Because if the answer is no, I want my bags and I want you to disappear.”

“And if the answer is yes?”

“Is it?”

How could it be anything but? He wasn’t about to leave her to fend for herself against kidnappers and street thugs. He wasn’t
about to get on a plane as a failure and face Colton Lang or his cousins. He had no choice but to help her, to trust her.

“Yes.”

She rose up on her toes and put her hands on his cheeks, her palms cool against the skin he’d just shaved. “Thank you.” Without
a word, she kissed him, her lips parted, her breath warm, her mouth sweet and soft and full of promises.

Promises he couldn’t make or keep.

But, apparently, he just had.

T
he Guinness tasted bitter, but Devyn managed to swallow it, needing the Irish salve on her soul as Marc told her his role
in bringing in the people responsible for having her husband killed. He chose his words carefully, but even his diplomacy
couldn’t soften the blow of reliving the day Joshua was shot in cold blood in the wine cellar of a Boston restaurant.

“I’m sure this is tough on you,” he said, sipping his own ale across the small table in his room, watching her reactions to
his words.

“I’ve accepted his death, and the fact that he planned to betray me in the most public way,” she said. “But honestly? Your
version isn’t anything like what I’ve been told by the police or read in the papers.”

“The Guardian Angelinos weren’t in it for credit or publicity. Our only goal was to protect the witness, Samantha Fairchild.”

But they had closed the case, helping to bring in a dirty
cop and one of Boston’s most highly paid madames, who was Joshua’s lover. That woman had wanted Joshua dead, and when she’d
learned he was about to do a revealing story on the fugitive Finn MacCauley, the elusive Irish mobster became the perfect
person to take the rap for the murder.

And they might have succeeded, if not for Marc and his brothers and cousins, who’d unearthed the truth.

“Frankly, I’m happy to know the real story of what happened so I can tell you how much I appreciate what you did.”

“Zach did the most,” he said. “But I always wondered if you knew about the story your husband was going to write.”

She pushed her half-eaten food away. “I found out that day, and I decided to leave him.”

“Yet you went out to dinner with him that night?”

“I didn’t want him to know I knew. I had to get a lawyer, figure out a plan. Then”—she closed her eyes, remembering the melee
in the restaurant—“he was murdered that night.”

He wiped his mouth with a napkin, tossing it on the plate before getting up from the table, kicking off his shoes, and dropping
his long body on the bed, arms locked behind his head as he regarded her.

His bare feet were just inches from where she’d propped hers on the end of the bed, the almost touch of skin sending an unwanted
tremble through her. She carefully lowered her feet.

“Sorry your marriage had to end in such an ugly way,” he said.

“Sounds like yours wasn’t much better.”

He waved his hand, fending off the subject, so she took the cue and let it drop.

“I’d read Joshua Sterling’s columns in the
Globe
for years,” he said. “He was a very insightful guy and had a real handle on local politics.”

“He was,” she agreed. “And I’m very, very sorry he had to die so young. But I won’t be a hypocrite and act like a grieving
widow. My husband was a liar, a cheater, a user, and a pig.”

He grinned. “Tell me how you really feel.”

“Well, notice that I didn’t say he was stupid.” She shifted in the chair. “Sadly, he was smarter than I am, and counted on
me being exactly what I’d always been.”

“Which is?”

“Raised to protect the hallowed family name and willing to smooth things over to avoid a scandal.”

“Is that what he expected you to do when he broke the story?”

She’d often wondered that, but he had died before she ever got the answer. “Maybe, or perhaps he thought it would make me
agree to a quick divorce so he’d be free to marry his mistress. He wasn’t thinking about me; he was thinking about himself.
He was either going to land a cable news job with the notoriety or get my father—my adopted father—to pay him millions of
dollars before he went with the story.”

Marc considered that. “Is it possible he knew Sharon Greenberg is your biological mother?”

“Anything is possible,” she said. “I didn’t tell him that. I only told him about Finn, but I really don’t know how much he
knew or shared.”

She pushed up from the chair with a long sigh, pacing
away from him, away from the interrogation. “It’s really complicated and doesn’t have anything to do with why we’re here.”

“I want to know.”

At the demand, she turned to him. “I don’t want to tell you. I told him about Finn, that’s all. Sharon’s name wasn’t on any
of that paperwork because it had been expunged. But I found someone who… unexpunged it for me.”

“Could that person have told anyone your mother’s identity?”

“I don’t think so, but I don’t know. I suppose anyone who knows about Finn and really, really wants to figure out who had
his child might eventually come up with her name. I know that’s possible, and that’s why I’m here, to tell her.” Not the only
reason, but it was the initial prompt.

“Why’d you look up your biological parents in the first place?” he asked. “The usual reasons?”

There was nothing
usual
about it. “Yes, the usual reasons.” If wanting a baby was usual.

She crossed the room and returned to the chair, feeling trapped. “I wanted to know my medical history.” That much was true.
She wanted to know her medical history because that was the only way Joshua would agree to father a baby—and that was all
she really wanted. Ever.
Still
.

But some people really shouldn’t reproduce. And until she met Dr. Greenberg and found out what the woman was made of, then
she wouldn’t indulge in that dream.

“My adoption was completely closed, handled by a lawyer, and no medical records existed. My adopted parents insisted they
had no idea who my biological parents were. They really wanted me to drop the whole thing, as
the fact that I was adopted was a bit of a black eye to my mother.”

“Why?”

“Not being able to have a baby made her less than perfect. And if there is one thing Bitsy Hewitt values, it’s perfection.”

“Then she should value you.”

Devyn snorted softly. “I’m not a Hewitt, therefore I am not perfect. Not by a long stretch in my mother’s—my adoptive mother’s—eyes.”

“So how did you unearth your birth mother’s identity?”

It had taken two years and many thousands of dollars, but every minute and dime had been worth it. “The private investigator
was eventually able to find the women who’d given birth at Brigham and Women’s Hospital on my birthday, then he tracked each
one down, interviewed them, and finally narrowed it to this scientist at University of North Carolina, who was Sharon Mulvaney
back when I was born. Apparently, she married briefly in the eighties, then divorced.”

“You didn’t tell anyone about her? No one at all?”

She had no one to tell. “I don’t have a lot of friends.” Boy, she must sound like a poor little rich girl. Could he possibly
understand what it meant to carry around the weight of being a Hewitt? “My social circle is made up of people who are enamored
of my maiden name or my connections.”

“That must suck.”

She smiled, appreciating the fact that he didn’t judge her. “It does.”

“But you trusted your husband enough to give him the name of your biological father, a wanted fugitive, but not your mother’s
identity?”