The Seductive Impostor (19 page)

Rachel looked at the clock by the bed. “Hell, it's only four-thirty.”

Willow was also looking at the table by the bed, and her eyes rounded again. She walked over and picked up the three foil packets, turned, and held them out to Rachel.

“Three?” she asked in awe, only to suddenly frown at her hand. “They're all here.” She looked at the floor near the bedside table, then back at Rachel. “All three are here.”

Her eyes widened in horror again. “And if I remember right, he wasn't wearing anything when I…when…Rachel! You didn't use anything!”

But before Rachel could answer, Willow was stalking out the door. Rachel chased after her in a running limp, but Willow was headed downstairs. By the time Rachel caught up with her, her sister was just entering the kitchen, shouting Kee's name.

Standing by the sink, holding a towel under the faucet, Kee shut off the water and slowly turned and faced her. Willow threw all three packets of condoms at him, and Rachel could only watch, speechless, as they bounced off his chest and fell to the floor.

“You do not have unprotected sex with my sister,” she told him, carefully enunciating each word. She stepped forward and pointed her finger at him. “And so help me God, if you get her pregnant, Mr. Oakes, I will come after you with a shotgun. Got that?” she snapped, taking another threatening step forward.

Kee merely nodded.

“Hey, now wait a min—” Rachel started.

Willow whirled on her. “No, you wait, you idiot! You do not have unprotected sex!”

“Oh, for the love of God, Willy.” Rachel hissed.

Willow whirled again, this time at the sound of Kee's laughter. “It's not funny, Mr. Oakes!”

He held up his hands in supplication. “I know it's not. It's just that the two of you make such a pair, fearlessly determined to protect each other.”

Rachel gasped and slit her hand across her throat at Kee behind Willow's back. Willow turned and caught her. “What is he talking about?” she demanded, stepping toward her. “What are you protecting me from?”

Rachel shook her head at Willow while glaring at Kee. “He's not talking about anything, Willy. He's just still mad at being blindsided.”

“I'm talking about a million-dollar set of stolen emeralds suddenly appearing in my vault,” Kee said, drawing Willow's attention. “And millions of dollars of art being stolen from Sub Rosa over the last three years.”

“What?” Willow whispered, looking at Rachel, then back at Kee. “And you think Rachel is responsible?”

Kee shook his head. “No. But she's into it up to her pretty little neck, and she's trying to protect you by not telling you about it.”

“How is she into it?” she asked, turning and asking Rachel her question. “You said the emeralds were fakes.”

“Not the set we had,” Rachel explained. “I found the fakes in the vault when I returned the real ones.” She shook her head in self-disgust. “I should have just left all of them there.”

Willow turned back to Kee. “This is all a misunderstanding. We didn't steal those emeralds from Thadd. He gave them to our father to give to our mother for their anniversary.”

“I realize that. Thaddeus Lakeman is the one who stole them,” Kee explained. “Along with a few other items,” he added, looking past Willow at Rachel. “A painting of a Scottish castle, a bronze statue, a ruby ring—the list goes on.”

Rachel glared at Kee, but he just kept on talking. “Your sister brought everything to Sub Rosa the night I arrived and caught her in the library.”

Willow turned to Rachel. “Did you know Thadd had stolen the emeralds?” she asked, stepping toward her. “And you're trying to protect me? Why? From what?”

Rachel walked to the cabinet beside the fridge and took down a bottle of aspirin. She shook three pills into Willow's hand, and three into her own. “From our name being linked with stolen goods, Willy,” she quietly told her. “It could ruin your political future.”

The aspirin clutched in her fist, Willow turned back to Kee. “Thadd was a thief?” she asked in disbelief. “But why? He had more money than God. He didn't have to steal anything.”

Kee shrugged. “People like Thaddeus Lakeman don't steal for profit. It's the fun of possessing, and the excitement and challenge not to get caught.”

Kee held the towel up to the back of his neck and continued. “And I doubt he did the actual stealing. He likely commissioned it done.”

Rachel took down two glasses from the cupboard, walked over to the sink, and glared at Kee until he moved out of her way. She filled the glasses with water and carried one over to Willow.

Willow sat down at the table with a tired sigh, and Rachel sat down beside her. Kee moved closer, but leaned against the center island.

Willow took her aspirin, then stared at her empty glass. “You said someone's been stealing from Sub Rosa for the last three years,” she said without looking up. “Is all the stuff in Thadd's house stolen?”

“No. Everything there is legitimate. The only stolen items I found were the ones Rachel put in the vault.”

Willow looked up at Kee, her eyes worried. “Are you going to press charges against her?”

“You tell me, counselor. What can I have her charged with? I'm the one in possession of stolen goods.”

Willow found her first, tentative smile. “That is true.” She looked at Rachel. “How did you know the emeralds and painting and other stuff were stolen?”

That question put Rachel in a quandary. What to say? How much should she say? “Wendell Potter brought me Dad's strongbox the other day,” Rachel told her. “He'd forgotten to give it to me when he died.”

She reached out to Willow, squeezing her arm and smiling into her suddenly misting eyes. “There was a letter in the box from Dad, Willy, that told me the items were stolen. He asked that I not tell you or Mom, but just quietly dispose of them.”

“Dad knew?” Willow whispered. “He knew Thadd was giving him stolen goods and he accepted them?”

“It was a game, Willy. The two of them were just playing a game that they thought was harmless.”

“I want to see the letter.”

“I burned it,” Rachel told her. “I read it, burned it, then gathered up all the items and took them to Sub Rosa.”

“To protect me.”

“Yes,” Rachel softly admitted, squeezing her arm again. She looked up at Kee as she continued talking to Willow. “All Kee has to do is crate them up and send them to whatever authority is in charge of recovering stolen goods—no return address, all fingerprints wiped clean. That way nobody has to know anything.”

“Why didn't you do that?” Kee asked.

Rachel just stared at him, stunned. “I…I don't know,” she finally said. “I thought of taking everything to Portland and leaving it on the police station steps, but I was afraid I'd get in an accident and get caught. I…I guess I wouldn't know how to go about shipping something anonymously. Everything today has a paper trail a child could follow.”

“But you don't mind my taking the risk,” he returned, his expression benign. “But the stolen items in the vault are not our most pressing problem at the moment,” he said. “The fact that Thadd's legitimate art is being stolen is what concerns me.”

Willow's defenses rose. “Rachel has nothing to do with that,” she said fiercely.

Kee shook his head. “I don't believe she does. But somebody knows about the tunnels, and has been coming and going quite regularly.”

“Then call the police,” Willow snapped. “And leave Rachel out of it.”

“I intend to. It's your sister we need to convince.” He looked at Rachel. “I have a favor to ask you, but first I need your promise that you'll stay away from Sub Rosa, the tunnels, and anything that has to do with any of this.”

Rachel glared first at Willow, then at Kee, only to realize that glaring made her headache worse. “What's the favor?” she asked softly.

“Mikaela,” he said. “She's due to arrive tomorrow, and I don't want her at Sub Rosa.”

“Then make her stay wherever she is.”

He shook his head with a self-abasing grin. “I can't. Ahab will have our throats if he has to put up with her another day.”

“Ahab?” Rachel asked, lifting one brow, only to realize that hurt, too.

“He's my captain. And his real name is Jonathan French, but somebody read
Moby Dick
to Mikaela a year ago, and she renamed him Ahab—and it stuck.”

“And you want me to babysit your daughter, whom Mr. French can't take any more of,” Rachel repeated, just to make sure she'd gotten it right. “And you think she'll be safe here with me.”

“You won't be alone. Mickey will be here, and there will always be one of us with you.”

Rachel looked down at the table and frowned. Kee walked over and lifted her chin.

“She's my whole world, Rachel,” he said softly. “And I want her safe and happy and protected. I want both of you protected until we can find out what's happening at Sub Rosa.”

“I don't know anything about little girls.”

His smile was warm and tender. “She's not a little girl. Mikaela's just a tiny adult. You can bake cookies or something,” he suggested. “And take her to the library and into town for ice cream. Just hang out with her, doing…doing female stuff.”

“She's a heathen, isn't she?” Rachel asked with a grin.

“No, she's a tyrant,” he returned, his own grin more proud than debasing. “But you're going to love her anyway.”

“She'll watch Mikaela,” Willow interjected, standing up and taking her glass to the sink.

“I will?” Rachel asked.

Willow filled her glass, then turned back to face them. “You'll do it because Mikaela needs a safe place to stay,” she said. “And because I like the idea of your not being able to stick your nose in this mess.” She directed her attention to Kee. “Someone will stay here at all times?”

Kee rubbed the back of his neck where Willow had hit him. “Only if I get a promise from you as well,” he said. “Not to attack my men.”

Willow's cheeks flushed. “I heard her scream,” she defended, lifting her chin.

Kee looked at Rachel. “Yeah, I heard her, too,” he said softly, his eyes heating with remembered passion.

Rachel pushed her glass away, folded her hands on the table, and dropped her head onto her arms with a pain-filled groan.

I
t should have taken them only
an hour to shower and dress and clean up last night's mess, but it had been four hours since Kee had left, and all they'd managed to do was take showers. Rachel hadn't even dried her hair, but had simply braided it wet. They were on their third pot of ginger tea, and their stomachs still wouldn't settle down, and their heads still ached.

The strengthening morning sun helped, and the loungers on the ocean side of the porch were so damned comfortable that nothing seemed pressing enough to make either of them move.

Willow pushed her sunglasses up on her nose and yawned. “Do you think Larry will notice if I nod off on our date tonight?” she whispered.

“I'm sorry I set you up,” Rachel said, also whispering in deference to the sledgehammer in her head.

Willow softly snorted. “I understand, after meeting Keenan Oakes. I probably would have done the same to you if I had met him first.”

Rachel lifted her sunglasses and looked over at Willow, her eyebrows raised in surprise. “He scared you spitless.”

Willow also lifted her glasses. “The man was naked, Rae, and trying to kill me.”

Rachel dropped her glasses back on her nose, snuggled deeper into the soft cushion of the lounger, and stared at the ocean. “Only after you nearly killed him,” she said. “But you didn't stay scared very long. You threatened to take a shotgun to him.”

“I was mad. And you can't be mad and scared at the same time. I think it's impossible or something. Why did Dad leave the letter only to you?” she asked softly.

“Because of your hopes for a political career,” Rachel told her. “And to protect Mom. He left the letter with Wendell two years before he died.”

“That was quite a burden to dump on your shoulders.”

Rachel shrugged, still watching the ocean, and wondered how much she should tell Willow. Maybe mentioning the blueprints for the smuggling boats would be okay, since she could use some help finding them. But the secret room in their own house?

No, she needed to get inside the room first and see what was there, and then decide whether or not to expose something that might possibly be incriminating.

“Do you remember that Dad dabbled in boat designs?” she asked, shifting on the lounger to face Willow.

Willow lifted her glasses again. “Yeah. Why?”

“I think they were special designs, Willy—for boats with secret compartments for smuggling in the stolen goods to Thadd.”

Willow sat up in her chair. “Smuggling boats? Dad?” She shook her head. “He wouldn't do something like that. Daddy was not a criminal.”

“No, but he was an architect,” Rachel returned, also sitting up and taking off her sunglasses. “And he wouldn't have been able to resist redesigning a lobster boat with hidden compartments.” She swung her feet over the lounger and sat facing Willow, leaning toward her. “When I found him, he said something to me, Willy, just before the paramedics arrived.”

“He told you he'd killed Mom. You said he told you something about Las Vegas and that he'd killed Mom.”

“He also said ‘Norway night,' and ‘see dancer,'…and ‘find her.' I thought he meant I should find a dancer in Las Vegas, but it sounded so silly I ignored it. But I can't ignore that he said ‘Norway night.' ”

“Norway night,” Willow repeated, mouthing the ear-piece of her sunglasses. Her eyes widened. “That's the name of the boat that just burned.” She suddenly frowned. “Why didn't you tell me this three years ago?”

Rachel looked down at her hands, twirling her own glasses through her fingers. “I don't know. It didn't make sense to me at the time, and I just figured it was nothing.” She looked back at Willow. “But if he was referring to the lobster boat the
Norway Night,
why was it important enough to be his dying words? Do you think it's because his name is on the designs and that he wanted me to find them?”

“It could be,” Willow whispered. “What about the letter? Did he mention the
Norway Night
in that?”

Rachel shook her head. “He only said that he'd designed three boats for Thadd.” She finally stood up. “We have to find those blueprints before someone else puts two and two together.”

Willow also stood, facing Rachel across the lounger. “You gave your promise to stay out of this.”

“I promised to stay away from Sub Rosa,” Rachel rebutted, lifting her chin. “I did not promise to sit here and do nothing while the Foster name gets tangled up in this mess and your future gets ruined.”

“My future is not worth the risk,” Willow said fiercely, her face flushing with anger. “It's not worth you getting in trouble.”

“Then help me.”

“Help you? I thought you wanted me out of this, to protect my future?” she said, her own chin lifted provokingly.

“But don't you see? You and I can go to the Lakeman Boatyard without it being suspicious. You still have your Boatyard shares. We can go see Mark Alder and you can offer to sell them to him. And while you two go for a walk to talk about it, I can snoop around.”

“No.”

“And while we're there, we can ask how his mother is doing.”

“No.”

“I found a woman's footprints in the tunnels, Willy. I think they might be Mary's.”

“You promised!”

“But Mark's not dangerous. He's a dork.”

“But he's a very smart dork,” Willow countered. “And he's not going to just leave you alone in the office while we go out for a ‘talk.' ”

“It's just an office,” Rachel said, waving that away. “And he wasn't even managing the boatyard when Dad would have designed the
Norway Night.
But the blueprints are probably still there.”

“Or they could be in storage only God knows where,” Willow argued.

“This is too important to let slide, Willy. What harm could there be in just checking it out? And you do want to get rid of your shares. It's a perfect plan.”

Willow crossed her arms under her breasts, leaning back on her hips and eyeing Rachel. “Then let's just run this plan by Kee and see what he thinks of it,” she softly suggested.

“No.”

“I didn't think so.”

“We can do this, Willy. It's not dangerous. It will be broad daylight, and it's Mark Alder.”

“And what if you do find the blueprints? Then what?”

“Then I steal them and destroy them.”

“No.”

“Willy,” Rachel entreated, stepping around the lounger and taking hold of her arms. “They're all that's left to link us to Thaddeus Lakeman. And you've worked so hard, and have a good position now, with a bright future. Please don't let this one thing hang over our heads.”

“And if you can't find the designs at the boatyard, you'll let it go?” she asked.

Rachel nodded. “If they're not there, then they can't come back and haunt us. It will mean Dad already took care of them.”

“But why say what he did when he was dying?” Willow asked.

“Maybe he was referring to the boat itself, not the designs,” Rachel speculated. “Maybe he just wanted me to be aware of it. Remember, he wrote the letter two years before he died. He may have destroyed the designs in between.”

“I wonder what the other boats' names are?”

“I don't know. But give me at least twenty minutes in Mark's office, and I'll know if Dad's designs are there or not.”

“And just when do you plan for us to go there?”

“What's wrong with right now? It's Saturday, and there won't be any workers there.”

“Then what makes you think Mark will be there?”

Rachel snorted, walked back around the lounger, and headed toward the screen door. “Mark all but lives there since I sold him my shares two years ago, making him a one-quarter owner,” she said, going into the house.

Willow followed her, and they both took three more aspirin and went upstairs to change. Twenty minutes later they were in Rachel's SUV and headed to the Lakeman Boatyard.

“Give him a good price on the shares,” Rachel suggested. “He all but jumped up and down when I offered him mine for fifty cents on the dollar.”

“Shouldn't I be offering them to Keenan Oakes first? He's half owner now.”

Rachel waved that away. “According to the will, Thadd left 52 percent to his heir and 24 percent to each of us. Kee will still hold a controlling interest.”

“What were you saying about Mary Alder being in the tunnels? Do you really think she's been stealing from Sub Rosa?”

“I don't know.” Rachel looked over at Willow. “She would know about the tunnels. She and Thadd were quite close.”

“But he took care of her in his will,” Willow said, staring out through the windshield. “Enough to live comfortably without having to steal from his estate.”

“There was also a man's set of footprints. A large sneaker tread. We'll check out Mark's feet while we're at it,” Rachel added, slowing down as she entered town.

She pulled to the edge of the street beside the village green, shut off the engine, and looked at the grassy park shaded by huge maple trees and littered with park benches, a number of people and children, and several dogs.

“Where should we put Puffy?” she asked. “By the bandstand or by the Veterans' Memorial?”

“I think he should be by himself,” Willow said, pointing to their right. “There, in that grassy area between the two paths. We can just set the base you made on the ground. It should be enough to support him.”

“Maybe if everyone likes him enough, they'll have a fund-raiser and buy him a granite base,” Rachel said, liking that idea. “And a plaque thanking the benevolent, anonymous donor.”

“How are we going to get him out of the cellar?”

“I've thought about that. We can wrap him in blankets and lay planks on the outside cellar stairs and just winch him into the back of the pickup. Then when we get here, we'll ease him off the truck and onto the base.”

“It's going to take
manpower
,” Willow said. “Your knee's not healed enough for tugging on a three-hundred-pound puffin.”

“How about a couple of apostles?” Rachel suggested. “We could probably buy their silence with a strawberry pie. Those men do love to eat.”

“I'm never touching another strawberry,” Willow hissed. “We're both so hungover we can't see straight, and you've got us breaking and entering and spying on Mark and Mary Alder.”

“We're not breaking, we're only entering. And the spying is just a bonus.”

Willow looked at her through narrowed eyes. “You're enjoying this.”

“I am not. I'm trying to protect our name. And as of tomorrow I'm out of it, when Mikaela the little tyrant arrives.”

“Do you know anything about Mikaela's mother?”

Rachel silently shook her head.

“And you haven't thought to ask?”

“I've thought about it. But that's getting too personal.”

“And having sex isn't?” Willow shot back, eyebrows raised.

“No, sex does not automatically imply a relationship. I told you, I have no intention of getting any more involved with Keenan Oakes than I already am. I'm having a…a fling,” she said, waving her hand in the air. “Yeah, a fun little fling. Stretching my wings. Sowing my oats. That sort of thing.”

“And Kee feels the same way?” Willow asked.

“He's a guy,” Rachel said with a laugh, rolling her eyes. “Of course he feels that way.”

She started the car and pulled back onto the street. They drove in relative silence until they came to the fire station—and the catcalling and whistling morons. Willow, of course, couldn't resist and rolled down her window, matching their catcalls with a few inventive ones of her own, leaning out the window and making a general fool of herself.

But it was short-lived. As soon as they were out of sight of the fire station, Willow was holding her head and cursing her outburst.

Three miles down the coast, they finally pulled into the Lakeman Boatyard. It was an impressive operation that had flourished under Mark Alder's care these last eight years. And two years ago, when Rachel had sold her shares to Mark, he'd started sprucing up the place—painting, installing a new sign, and landscaping the entrance. He'd also put his name on the sign:
MARK ALDER, OWNER/OPERATOR.

Rachel was glad she'd sold her shares to Mark and that Willow was going to do the same. With his mother still taking Thadd's death so hard, Mark at least deserved the recognition that came with being a solid businessman in the community.