The Seductive Impostor (2 page)

“We couldn't. I couldn't,” she admitted. As much as she hated the sight of the house where her parents' lives had ended, she hated the thought of not being close to Sub Rosa even more.

“Thirteen years of Frank Foster's greatest work sits next door,” Rachel said. “Thirteen years of apprenticing at my father's side. And this house,” she added, waving at the kitchen they were standing in. “My first independent design. How could I walk away from the happiest years of my life?”

Wendell's smile returned, warm and understanding. “Ah, Rachel. You couldn't leave for the simple reason that you will always be your father's daughter. And Frank's soul is restless, child, worrying about your continued refusal to design. It's been long enough, Rachel. When will you start building beautiful homes for people again?”

Rachel turned and picked up his briefcase from the counter, giving it to him along with a wry smile. “When I can figure out how to design homes without getting passionately involved in them.”

“That's not possible. Not for you, any more than it was for Frank. Passion runs through Foster veins.”

“Passion is what killed my mother, father, and Thaddeus Lakeman,” she countered, limping to the door, silently letting the old lawyer know their visit was over. “Passion is what makes a man shoot his wife and friend when he finds them in bed together, and then makes him turn the gun on himself.”

“Dammit, Rachel,” Wendell said, refusing to follow her. He stood in the middle of her kitchen, his briefcase clutched to his chest. “It's not the same thing at all. Frank's crime and the passion you bring to your designs are incomparable.”

He finally walked to the door and stood in front of her. “You're the closest thing I have to a daughter, Rachel Foster. And it pains me to see you locked away in this self-imposed prison of mediocre existence. You're as great an architect as your father was. And what have you done for the last three years? You check out books at the library, collect ten-cent late fees, and read stories to toddlers with runny noses.”

“It's rewarding.”

“No, Rachel. It's safe. And it's a terrible waste.”

“Thank you for bringing me the box.” She kissed his cheek. “I'll see you again soon.”

Realizing his petition was falling on deaf ears, Wendell reluctantly stepped onto the porch, but stopped and turned back to her. “I love you,” he said gruffly.

“I know, Wendell. I love you, too.”

He started to turn, but hesitated. “You'll not let the news of Thadd's heir being found upset you,” he instructed, his voice thick with emotion. “And you'll be a good neighbor to Keenan Oakes when he arrives.”

Rachel shot him a crooked smile. “Afraid I'll fabricate a few ghosts and goblins to scare him off?”

Instead of returning her smile, Wendell narrowed his eyes. “That possibility did occur to me,” he admitted. “Give the man a chance, will you? Don't condemn him for having the questionable luck of being a Lakeman. The article said he is Thadd's great-nephew twice removed. That's falling a fair distance from the tree. Keenan Oakes just might be one of the good guys.”

Rachel placed her hand over her heart. “I'll be nothing but graciousness personified.”

Wendell gave her a quelling look. “Just as long as you know it's not gracious to flood the man's basement with seawater or short out his electrical system.”

“That won't happen, because I have no intention of ever setting foot on that property again.”

“But you can't expect him to reopen Sub Rosa alone. You're the only one who knows the mechanics of that house. He's going to need your help.”

“He's not getting it,” she said, alarmed at what he was suggesting. “He can talk to the company that's been overseeing it for the last three years. They have all the schematics and blueprints.”

“Hell, Rachel. It took them over a week just to figure out how to close the storm shutters. And another three weeks to drain the tidal reservoir and get the place on line with the public power company. And that was the easiest part of securing the house. The climate sensors kept going off at least once a month for the first year, before a company was found who could handle the problem. And do you know who they called every time that damn alarm went off? Me,” he said, thumping his chest. “What in hell do I know about climate control systems?”

“Why did they call you?”

“Because I'm the only contact Thadd's lawyers have here in Maine.”

“You never told me Sub Rosa was causing you fits. Why didn't you call if you were having so much trouble?”

Wendell's eyes softened, and he blew out a calming breath before he answered. “Because I couldn't ask that of you,” he told her gently. “Not after what you had found the last time you were there.”

Rachel's chest tightened again. No, she wouldn't have helped him then. Three years ago she wouldn't have cared if Sub Rosa had burned to the ground.

Now, she was just indifferent. Or so she had thought. But Wendell's reminder of the intricate and sometimes contrary workings of Sub Rosa made her homesick for it. She had loved all the bells and whistles and ingenious innovations she and her father had built into the mansion.

Sub Rosa ran on electricity generated by tidal power. The climate control system rivaled the International Space Station. And everything—from the lights to the storm shutters, the lawn sprinklers to the security alarms—ran from a giant control room in the basement.

Sub Rosa was practically its own living, breathing entity. The loving creation of Foster & Daughter Architects.

She missed it.

And she never wanted to set foot inside it again.

“I can't help Keenan Oakes,” she said softly. “Sub Rosa belongs to him now. He'll eventually learn its ways.”

“I know, Rachel. I'm only asking that you promise not to do anything to…well, to hinder his adjustment.”

She shook her head. “I don't begrudge the man his inheritance. I've long since passed the point of caring one way or another.” She looked beyond the stunted pine trees growing along the cliffs beside her home, up toward the towering gables of Sub Rosa's roofline. “We've made peace, that great house and I. We're content now to live side by side, neither of us intruding on the other.”

Wendell nodded. “Good, then. I'm glad for you.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek, then turned and finally walked off the porch to his car. He opened the driver's door, but stopped yet again and looked back at her. “Now make peace with your new neighbor as well, Rachel, because he'll likely come calling once he gets a good look at his inheritance.”

“And why would that be?” she asked, glaring at her old friend.

He grinned at her. “Probably because when we spoke on the phone last week, I told him to direct his questions concerning Sub Rosa to the second architect on record.”

“Wendell!” she shouted, as Wendell disappeared into his car and started the engine.

He rolled down the window and popped his head out, his grin wicked. “It's time you rejoined the living, Rachel, my love. And I've been thinking, Keenan Oakes just might be the man to make that happen,” he shouted back, just before he drove away in a cloud of gravel and dust.

 

Four hours had passed since Wendell's disturbing visit, and Rachel was now sitting on the living room sofa, surrounded by the mess she'd made of her home searching for the key to the strongbox. The open box sat on the coffee table in front of her, the contents spilling out of it, the nine-page letter lying half-folded on top of everything. Stunned insensate, Rachel stared at the painting hanging over the fireplace not ten feet away.

It was a beautiful painting, obviously old, technically perfect, of a Scottish castle that loomed out of the mist, standing tall and strong against the battering sea. The small painting had been placed there the day they'd moved in. Her father's prized possession. Her favorite inheritance from Frank Foster. And according to the letter she'd found in the strongbox, worth a small fortune.

The letter also said it had been stolen from a museum in Scotland more than twenty years ago.

The delicate emerald earrings and necklace in Willow's jewelry box upstairs, which had been worn by their mother on special occasions, were worth a staggering $1 million dollars. The letter said they had been stolen from a private home in France more than sixteen years ago.

The bronze Asian statue on the bookcase next to the hearth was sixteen hundred years old, worth $200,000, and had been stolen from an Oregon home almost a decade ago.

The silver tankard, wine-tasting cup, and snuffbox sitting on the piano had all come from a single collection in Germany, eight years ago.

All stolen.

And all of them now in her possession.

The ruby and gold ring Rachel wore on her right middle finger, which had been a gift from her father on her twenty-first birthday, had been taken from London not two months before Frank Foster had presented it to her. At the time of its disappearance, the ring had been valued at $93,000.

Rachel very carefully worked the ring off her finger and gently placed it in the strongbox.

She picked up the letter again and unfolded it, forcing her trembling hands to still enough that she could read the last section again.

Rachel wiped another set of teardrops from the letter before she carefully refolded the pages and set it back on the table. She stared again at the painting over the mantel.

Thaddeus Lakeman had collected beautiful and expensive art. Everyone had known that. It was why he had hired Frank Foster to build Sub Rosa—an opulent, powerful venue in which to display his collection. It had taken her father five years to design the great mansion, and another eight years to oversee its construction.

Since adolescence, Rachel had shadowed her father while he worked, adding her own ideas and her own touches of whimsy to the Gothic-like structure. And at her college graduation party, with her still clutching her degree to her chest, Frank Foster had presented Rachel with a full partnership in his newly formed company, Foster & Daughter Architects.

That had been the proudest day of both of their lives.

But now it seemed that she had helped build not only a home to display a world-renowned private collection of art, but an elaborate vault to house stolen art.

Some of which was in her own home.

Rachel looked up at the ceiling over her head. What had the letter said about a hidden room upstairs? She grabbed it back up and shuffled through the pages, skimming the words until she found what she was looking for.