The Seductive Impostor (31 page)

Rachel blinked at him, unable even to consider that.

Kee sighed.

And Rachel decided she had had enough. She wanted to go see Willow.

She climbed down the ladder, walked to the large vault door, spun the interior lock to open the huge titanium door, and walked out into the library.

“And just where are you going?” Kee asked from behind her.

“To the hospital to see my sister.”

“I'll take you,” he said.

“No,” she countered, walking toward the hall door. “I'll take myself.”

“Rachel!”

She stopped and looked back.

“We agreed that neither of us is walking away.”

She lifted her chin. “I remember saying that,” she told him. “But I believed I was making that promise to someone else. You called me an impostor, while you really are one, Mr. Oakes. Peter can come and get Mikaela's things tomorrow. But I don't ever want to see you again,” she finished, walking out into the hall.

She'd made it to the top of the grand staircase when he spoke. “I'm not going away, Rachel. And this isn't over.”

“Yes it is,” she said, looking back down the hall at him. She waved at Sub Rosa's walls. “Enjoy your treasure hunt.”

R
achel dropped the bundle of clothes
she'd brought for Willow and pulled her sister into her arms, hugging her fiercely as they broke into quiet sobs, so happy to see they both were okay that they couldn't speak.

The nurse had to break them apart.

Rachel stood to the side, wiping her cheeks dry of tears, and watched the nurse help her bruised and battered sister slowly get dressed. “I have to go find Luke, Willy.”

“He's in ICU,” Willow said, wiping away her own tears. “Duncan and Matt are with him.”

“I have to go see for myself he's okay,” Rachel told her. “Then I'm coming right back here and taking you home.”

“Take your time, Rae. I'm not going anywhere.”

Rachel got directions to ICU, and found Duncan and Matt standing outside Luke's room. “I need to see him,” she whispered, touching Duncan on the arm. “Thank you for saving my sister.”

Duncan nodded, then went and spoke to a nurse.

The nurse led Rachel into Luke's room. “He's heavily drugged, but can probably hear you, although I don't know if what you're saying will make any sense to him,” she told Rachel. “I can only give you five minutes.”

Rachel nodded, her eyes glued to Luke. He was flat on his back, as white as the sheets covering him, but he still looked a damn sight better than the last time she'd seen his beautiful face. She walked over to the side of his bed.

“Kiss me again,” he whispered.

“You're awake,” Rachel said on an indrawn breath.

“Kiss me.”

With relief bubbling inside her, Rachel leaned down and kissed him right on the lips, just as she had in the water.

“I'm so sorry,” she whispered. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“For?”

“Taking off your vest and letting you…letting you go.”

His eyes opened to mere slits. “You saved my life.”

“I almost killed you. I left you to drown.”

“Playing possum,” he whispered, his words labored. “So they'd leave.”

Rachel brushed the side of his face. “Look at me, Luke,” she softly demanded.

He cracked open his eyes again.

“If I ever hear of you guarding anyone ever again, I'll hunt you down and shoot you myself.” She smiled at him. “You suck at it, my friend. You keep getting shot, and one of these days you're not going to wake up in a hospital.”

“I just need practice,” he whispered, his attempt to smile back at her turning into a groan of pain.

“Quit talking and just listen,” Rachel told him, brushing his hair back, gently wiping her tears from his face. “As soon as they let you out of here, you're coming to stay with me. I'll feed you until you're fat, make you strawberry pie, and we'll walk the woods looking for my cat.”

She knew he heard her, because he fell asleep with a smile curving his lips.

 

Rachel wanted to cry every time she looked at her sister and saw her swollen, battered face. The two of them had gone into their parents' bedroom the moment they returned to their once again empty house. Cuddled side by side in the darkness, in the security of their parents' big bed, Rachel had told Willow what had happened at Sub Rosa, that Raoul Vegas had killed their parents and Thadd and Mary Alder, and she told her about the room over Thadd's vault and that it was empty.

And then she told her about Kee's deception.

Neither of them slept much that night, and what sleep they did get was fraught with nightmares, both new and three years old. By daybreak they finally gave up, and both stumbled downstairs. Rachel made ginger tea, and Willow just stood in the pantry, staring up at the ceiling.

“I'm afraid to look,” Willow finally admitted.

“It's probably empty, just like Thadd's room.”

“Or everything that was at Sub Rosa is here,” Willow countered. “And we are in possession of millions of dollars in stolen art.”

Rachel snorted. “That would be the final irony.”

Willow rubbed her hands together and shifted uneasily. “Open it,” she urged.

Rachel set their cups of tea on one of the shelves and pulled the stool out of its nook. She climbed up, swung open the light fixture, then jumped down as a light came on in the overhead room and a ladder folded down into the pantry.

Willow leaned over and looked up. “It's not empty,” she whispered, slowly climbing the ladder. She gasped as soon as her head rose above the ceiling. “Oh, my God. It's a treasure trove. A virtual museum.”

Rachel prodded Willow to keep climbing and climbed up after her. They stood in the small room, turning in slow circles, speechless, their mouths hanging down to their chests.

Their perusal ended with them facing each other, both wide-eyed and unable to take it all in. “Why did they bring everything here?” Rachel whispered, feeling she was in the presence of something sacred.

“Maybe Thadd and Daddy realized that Vegas had become a danger to them. We have to turn this in, Rachel,” Willow said. “We can't pretend it doesn't exist and hope it goes away.”

“And exactly how do we do that without creating the biggest media circus this state has ever seen?”

Willow reached out, opened a glass display case, and picked up the small cup inside. “Is this the Cup of Virtue?” she asked.

Rachel took it from her, turning it around in her hand. “I don't know. But it looks very old. How can this simple cup be worth the lives of four people we love?”

“Kee could tell us. And he'll know what to do with all of this,” Willow said, waving her hand at the walls and benches filled with treasure.

“He could if we tell him about it,” Rachel agreed. “But since I'm never speaking to him again, then I guess we'll have to come up with another plan.”

Willow set down the cup and looked at her. “You love him.”

“Loved. Past tense.”

“You don't stop loving someone just like that. You're only mad at him right now.” Willow shrugged. “You'll get over it.”

Rachel gaped at her. “He lied to me. He used me. He expected me to trust him, and he couldn't even trust me enough to tell me who he really was.”

“He was on a job,” Willow pointed out. “And he didn't use you—he was trying to protect you.”

Rachel snorted.

Willow's bruised face darkened with angry impatience. “He loves you,” she snapped. “And you love him, and you've also fallen in love with Mikaela.”

“It was just lust,” Rachel countered, more to convince herself than Willow. “Raging hormones or a chemical imbalance or something.” She straightened her shoulders and glared at her sister. “I'm fine now. There's nothing like a good old-fashioned lie to bring a girl to her senses.”

Willow sighed. “Dammit, Rachel. Have you forgotten that you've done nothing but lie to the man for the last two weeks?”

“That's different. He knew I was lying.”

“Will you listen to yourself? You're expecting to fall in love with a saint?”

“No, a demigod,” Rachel whispered. “And they're not supposed to lie to you.”

“Demigods are not infallible—hence the prefix ‘demi,' ” Willow returned just as softly. “You're not nearly as angry as you are hurt, Rae. But you hurt Kee, too.”

“How?”

“You've been running your own charade. You haven't been completely up front with him, either,” she said, waving at the room full of treasure. “You didn't trust him enough to tell him about this room.”

“I was protecting you.”

“No, dammit, you weren't,” Willow snapped, her face flushing with anger again. “I am tired of being a convenient excuse for you to justify your actions of the last two weeks. It may have started with the intention to protect me, but it turned into a grand adventure for you. You loved the mystery. And you let your passion get you into this mess, and now your stubbornness is going to stand in the way of your happiness.”

“Gee, when did you get a second degree in psychology?”

Instead of snapping back, Willow smiled at her. “You've met your match, big sister. Keenan Oakes is just as passionate and probably a whole lot more stubborn than you are. He's not going to go away, Rachel.”

Rachel took one last look at the treasure and started down the ladder, stopping just long enough to glare at Willow. “We're not telling him about this room,” she told her. “It's been sitting here for over three years, it can damn well sit a while longer, until I figure out how to get rid of it.”

Willow slowly nodded. “Okay. I'll give you one month. Then it's my decision.”

W
illow's prediction that Keenan Oakes
was not going to go away proved disconcertingly true. The
Six-to-One Odds
was moored in Puffin Harbor, and Ahab was serving beer at the Drop Anchor. Near as Rachel could find out, Ahab's crew had dispersed to parts unknown. Peter and Matthew and Jason had also disappeared, and Luke and Duncan were living with Kee and Mikaela on the far side of town in a house they were renting.

Mickey, at least twice weekly, would come scratching at Rachel's door just around sunset and insist on sleeping in Rachel's tiny bed with her. Then he would silently disappear the next morning.

Mickey was the only one of the gang she'd had any direct contact with these last three weeks—except for one visit from Luke, who'd hobbled out of a shiny new truck and into her house with the use of a cane two days ago. He'd said he was wanting his strawberry pie and a short walk in the woods to look for her cat. And while he'd sat there and watched, she'd baked him his pie and they'd talked about unimportant things, and then about Mikaela getting signed up for school in the fall.

But the biggest news of the last three weeks was that Sub Rosa's true heir had finally arrived. Almost every light in the house was on every night, and loud music and laughter could be heard coming from the terrace most evenings.

Rachel would sit out on her porch in the evening and look at Sub Rosa, filled with happiness to see her old friend so alive, the heart of the mansion all but singing its joy.

Frank Foster had his granite memorial. Sub Rosa finally had its soul back, bigger and better than ever. It was full to brimming with people, a family who would love it, grow old with it, get married in it, and bring grandbabies to run through its halls.

Sub Rosa was no longer an opulent museum, but a home.

Rachel sat on her swing on the porch and sipped her glass of wine as she watched the shadows lengthen with the setting sun and the lights slowly come on in Sub Rosa. She was sort of expecting Mickey to visit again, but a truck pulled into her dooryard instead. Luke climbed out and hobbled up and joined her on the swing.

He pushed the swing gently with his good leg, sitting beside her in silence, and also looked up at Sub Rosa. Loud, punk-rock music started blaring from the terrace.

Luke chuckled. “Five teenagers,” he said, shaking his head. “Have you met them?”

Rachel nodded. “The day after they moved in. I went up and introduced myself and gave them a quick tour of the control room. I've been back two or three times since, when Sub Rosa did something that scared the hell out of them.”

“Like what?”

Rachel looked over at Luke and smiled. “Like when that huge glass dome in the foyer suddenly rotated.”

“It spins?”

“It adjusts to the seasons. And on the eve of the summer solstice, it turns so the sunrise will hit one special prism and send light shooting down to the calendar built into the marble floor. What's the Cup of Virtue, Luke?”

He looked at her. “It's supposed to be the cup Socrates drank from, filled with hemlock, to carry out his death sentence,” he told her. “He was sentenced to death for impiety against the church.”

“That's—it's over two thousand years old.”

Luke nodded. “It dates from 399
B.C.,
to be exact. Has Willow told you anything about Raoul Vegas? Will he stand trial here first for the murder of your parents and Thadd and Mary?”

Rachel nodded. “The murders take precedence over larceny,” she assured him. “How's Mikaela?”

He stared for a minute, then finally said, “If you want the truth, she's miserable.”

“Miserable? Why?”

“She's having a hard time adjusting to living in a house. She says it's too big. And she doesn't like that the bed doesn't rock at night, like on the
Six-to-One Odds.”

“She did okay here.”

“But did you notice that she only ran on the beach? She never once got in your swing,” he said, nodding to the swing in the oak tree down on the lawn. “And the woods behind the house we're renting scare her. She keeps thinking bears are going to come out and eat her. She won't go out and play unless Mickey or one of us is with her.”

“She needs to have some kids come over,” Rachel suggested.

Luke shook his head. “She's scared of the kids, too. When Kee took her to sign up for school, she hugged his leg and wouldn't let go. She's never been around kids.” He shrugged. “We never thought to expose her to any. It's just been Mikaela and a bunch of men.”

“Then you've got to bring her to the library for story time. You can stay with her, and she'll get used to being around children. If not, she's going to throw a hissy fit her first day of school.”

“I've told Kee that. But he's putting it off.” Luke cocked his head, giving her a crooked grin. “I think the first day of school's going to be harder on him than on Mikaela. When are you going to stop this nonsense?”

Rachel looked at him in surprise. “What nonsense?”

Luke shook his head. “It's not even stubbornness anymore, is it? It's pride. Kee's too proud to come to you, and you're too proud to go to him.”

“I didn't break our trust,” she snapped.

“Kee sees it differently.”

“Then that's his problem, isn't it?”

Luke shook his head again. “Pamela's his biggest problem right now.”

Pamela. Pamela. Why did that name sound familiar? “Who's Pamela?” she finally asked.

Luke eyed her speculatively. “Mikaela's mother,” he said softly. “She arrived in Puffin Harbor yesterday.”

“She's here?” Rachel asked on an indrawn breath. “Why?”

Luke's eyes hardened. “Why else? She's out of money.”

“She spent a million and a half dollars in five years?”

Luke nodded. “It appears so. And now she's asking for more.”

Rachel just stared at him.

“Another million,” Luke clarified. “Or she's taking Kee to court for custody of Mikaela.”

“On what grounds? She
sold
her. She can't just take her back.”

“She has a lawyer who says she wasn't in her right mind five years ago. That hormones or something,” he said, waving his hand, “impaired her judgment.”

Rachel stood up, her hands balled into fists at her side. “Kee better not pay her.”

“He hasn't got a choice, Rachel. He can't risk a court battle.”

“And what happens in another five years when Pamela comes looking for more money? Kee can't keep paying her off. He's in debt now.”

“We'll raise the money,” Luke whispered, looking out at the ocean, then back at her. “Kee put the
Six-to-One Odds
up for sale. And this time he'll have the custody sanctioned by a court of law. It won't happen again.”

“It's not right,” she snapped.

“We won't lose Mikaela,” Luke said, standing up and leaning on his cane. “And we'll do whatever we have to to stay out of a court battle. It will be too unsettling for her.”

Rachel scrubbed her face with her hands, blowing out a frustrated breath. “He's selling the
Six-to-One Odds?”

“It's not near enough,” Luke told her. “But it'll help. And Jason and Peter and Matt are on a job right now that should bring in a hundred thousand, if all goes well.”

“What kind of job?” Rachel asked, peering at him through her fingers.

Luke shrugged. “An embezzler living on one of the Cayman Islands. His company wants its money back.” He reached out and pulled her hands down from her face. “It shouldn't involve guns, Rachel. Embezzlers are quiet little bookworms.”

“Has Mikaela…has she seen her mother?”

Luke shook his head. “Pamela's staying at the Red Boot Inn in town and met Kee at the Drop Anchor. She's agreed to stay away from Mikaela as long as Kee agrees to pay.”

Rachel let out a relaxing breath. “At least she has that much decency.”

Luke snorted. “It's not decency, it's greed. Kee told her that if she tries to see Mikaela, she won't get a dime.”

Luke carefully walked off the porch and to his truck, but stopped before opening the door. “I'll try and bring Mikaela around to the library soon. When's story time?”

“Nine in the morning, Wednesdays and Fridays.”

He nodded. “Mickey should be arriving soon. He snuck off about half an hour ago,” he told her, opening the truck door and climbing in. He waved good-bye, backed up and turned around, and slowly pulled out of her driveway onto the main road.

Rachel turned and had just walked into her house when Mickey appeared at the screen door and gave a soft
woof
. She opened the door, sat down on the floor, and buried her face in his fur.

There were instances, Rachel decided as she walked down the side of the darkened road, when stubbornness was a virtue instead of a flaw, when passion was an ally instead of a foe, and when pride was just plain stupid.

She was sorely tired of being stupid. But more important, she was glad that Keenan Oakes was more stubborn than she was.

He was never going to go away.

“What do you think, Mickey?” she asked, shifting the box to her other arm so she could pat the wolf on the head. “Will this fix everything or only make things worse?”

Mickey trotted beside her in silence. Rachel stopped with a sigh, awkwardly reaching for the watch on her left wrist to light up the dial while trying not to drop the box.

Three in the morning. One hour to sunrise.

She looked at Keenan Oakes's rented house. The tug on her heart was definitely stronger, with only a few hundred yards between them. Damn, but she missed his smell. And his taste. She missed the way her heart thumped when he looked at her, and the way her skin tingled when he touched her.

She had nearly been as stupid as Joan the shrew.

Nearly, but not quite. She'd come to her senses, thank God, just in time.

At least, she hoped she was in time.

With a fortifying breath, Rachel adjusted her grip on the box and marched through the night to Kee's house with all the anticipation—and determination—of a woman about to set off a nuclear explosion.