The Seductive Impostor (4 page)

The pack on her back shifted to one side when she bent over. Rachel shrugged her shoulders and let the pack carefully finish falling to the ground. She followed it, sitting on the warm granite floor of the tunnel, stretching her legs out in front of her, massaging her knee again.

This hadn't been one of her brightest ideas, sneaking in through the cliff tunnel tonight and beginning to right her father's wrong. But it had been the only plan she'd been able to come up with on such short notice.

She wanted this settled before Keenan Oakes arrived.

And it had to be settled in such a way that Willow would never discover their father's sin. Rachel knew her sister well enough to realize that Willow's personal ethics would not allow her to simply ignore the fact that they'd unwittingly inherited a small fortune in stolen art. Willow would tear Sub Rosa apart stone by stone, trying to root out all of Thaddeus Lakeman's secrets. And in doing so, she would ultimately ruin her own political career.

Rachel shone the beam of her flashlight farther into the passageway. She was almost to the secret door that opened into the second-floor hall. Rachel's vision blurred with tears as she remembered the horrific images of her last moments at Sub Rosa three years earlier.

The bedroom.

The blood.

The realization, and disbelief, of what she was seeing.

She had seen her mother first, lying across the foot of the bed, fully clothed, blood seeping from her body and running down the rumpled blankets, pooling in a dark puddle so thick the pattern on the carpet was unrecognizable.

And then Thadd, on the floor beside the bed, face down, barefoot but still fully clothed, his body unnaturally still, his left hand outstretched as if reaching for Marian. He had looked untouched but for the dark stain pooling beneath him.

Rachel had run to her mother first and covered the gaping wound in her chest with her hands. She had actually attempted to gather the blood, trying to push it back into her mother's lifeless body. Her screams had filled the room.

She had seen her father across the room then, propped in a half-sitting position against the far wall. His eyes were open. Blood was trickling from his mouth and seeping from the corner of one eye. And higher, oozing crimson from the tiny hole just above his right ear. In the relaxed grip of his right hand was the gun.

Frank Foster's chest had risen on a gasp as she had stared at him, and it had taken Rachel a shocked moment to realize that her father was still alive. Panic had frozen her in place. Blind to her mother's blood on her hands, she'd had enough wits to go to the phone and dial 911. She told the woman on the other end of the line that there had been a shooting at Sub Rosa and she needed an ambulance, and then dropped the receiver.

She'd gone to her father then, approaching him slowly, fearfully, afraid to disturb the fragile spark of life he still held. She'd gently taken the gun from his hand and tossed it away, then looked up and found his eyes focused on her face.

Not just alive. But conscious. Aware.

Huddled on the floor of the silent tunnel, her arms wrapped around her bent leg, Rachel tried to remember what she had said to him. She'd called him Daddy and repeated the word
why
several times, almost as a litany. And while she had cradled him in her arms, wind moaned through the open panel in the wall beside them, sending warm, salt-tainted air swirling into the room to mix with the metallic smell of so much blood. More from habit than thought, Rachel had used her foot to push the panel closed, keeping the secret of the passageways safe.

All these years later she remembered the only words her father had been able to utter in a soft, ragged whisper.

“Ra-Rach…don't go Vegas…see dancer…Norway night…fi-find her…killed…Marian…find her—”

They had been the last words Frank Foster had spoken. Rachel had thought for the last three years that he'd meant not to go to Las Vegas—which hadn't made any sense to her at all—and something about seeing a dancer, possibly a dancer in Vegas?

But in the letter her father had left her in the strongbox, she'd learned that Vegas was actually a man named Raoul Vegas, a dealer in stolen art her father had told her to look up if she wanted to get rid of her inheritance discreetly.

Now, though, she realized her father had changed his mind since writing the letter, and had been telling her not to go to Raoul Vegas. She still didn't know what Norway night or seeing a dancer meant, or who it was she should find.

The bullet lodged in his head had stayed there, unreachable by the doctors, and slowly Frank Foster's coma had deepened, until finally, two weeks after the tragedy, she and Willow had made the difficult decision to terminate life support.

Their parents' ashes were floating on the ocean now, forever fluttering on the endless tides of the rock-bound coast they both had loved so much.

Rachel lifted her head and scrubbed at her face with both hands. What had come over Thadd and Marian that they had become lovers? And why had Frank Foster acted so horrifically? Rachel had answered those questions the day she had sat in the hospital and watched the final spark of life quietly drift from her father's body.

And that answer had been passion.

Passion could drive a person to unimaginable heights of greatness, but it could also be destructive.

For her parents, it had ultimately been tragic.

And for Rachel, passion had ceased to exist three years ago.

History, she was determined, would not repeat itself. Every thought, every decision, every action of her life was calculated now. She obeyed society's rules, dressed sensibly, and didn't date seriously. She quietly came to the aid of anyone in the community who needed a hand, but she no longer attended town meetings or allowed her one-time heated opinions to find voice at planning board hearings.

And she no longer designed homes. She did, however, build mailboxes.

After Willow had run over old man Smith's pathetic old mailbox and had replaced it, she had become more aware of the sad condition of most of the mailboxes everyone passed every day without notice. The two sisters had formed a conspiracy then to anonymously replace the worst of the mailboxes in their community. It didn't matter if the owner was rich or poor, Willow and Rachel let loose their imaginations and built and installed beautiful replacements for them.

The results had astounded them. Not only were the recipients of the mailboxes pleasantly surprised to find themselves owners of beautiful works of art, but the entire town had a wonderful mystery that no one was in any hurry to solve.

The mailboxes had become the subject of early morning coffee conversations as folks speculated on who was doing it, why, and when and where the next one would appear. And that speculation was going to explode thunderously the morning an eight-foot puffin appeared in the center of town.

Rachel had found this one careful outlet in which to vent her own potentially destructive passions. It was a safety valve of sorts; Willow had her all-consuming work to pour her heart into, and Rachel had mailboxes. It was rewarding and very safe.

In fact, far more safe than the idiotic mission she was on tonight.

Rachel turned the flashlight beam down to her lap. She pulled the small piece of paper she'd taken from the strongbox out of her pocket and unfolded it.

She traced her father's handwriting, following the neat, bold black numbers that spelled out the master override for the alarms. Of course, the company babysitting Sub Rosa these last three years had changed the codes, probably several times. But these numbers would cancel out their newest sequence.

Rachel sighed and used her cane to help herself stand up. It was time to get going and get this over with. She tucked the paper back in her pocket, then reached down and picked up the backpack.

She should have left the bronze statue for another trip. The damn thing had to weigh fifteen pounds by itself. How many more trips she'd have to make, she didn't know. But the letter had listed quite a few pieces that weren't anywhere in sight, and she still hadn't found the entrance to the secret room in her home.

She hadn't needed to pull out her blueprints to realize it existed, once she started examining the rooms upstairs. Her dad had stolen a foot or two out of all of them, all except her own bedroom. That he had been wise enough not to touch. She would have noticed the missing space immediately.

Instead he'd taken the bulk out of the guest bedroom and the walk-in closet of the master suite. He'd shortened the hallway linen closet and Willow's bedroom by a foot, eking out a good sixty square feet of space, as far as she could tell.

Frank Foster truly was a genius of design, especially considering the original architect would be living in the house. And she still couldn't find the damn door to the secret room.

Rachel started walking deeper into the tunnel. She'd hunt for it tomorrow. Right now she had an old friend to visit, and three-year-old ghosts to face.

R
achel sighed in relief when
the last tumbler dropped into place with gentle precision. She spun the giant lock and pulled open the huge titanium door, revealing the darkness beyond. Warm, climate-controlled air rushed past her as she stepped inside and trained the beam of her flashlight around the interior.

Nearly as large as her kitchen at home, the huge vault was organized with shelves and cubbies and smaller safes against two of the walls. On the other two walls sheet-draped artwork was hung. Every square inch of space had been utilized and was brimming with treasure.

Rachel wasn't impressed. She slid the heavy pack off her shoulders and set it on the floor. She opened the buckles and pulled out the bronze statue, then used her flashlight to hunt for an inconspicuous place to set it.

It didn't belong here with the legitimate art collection, but since she didn't know where Thadd's secret room was, this vault would have to do. Better the contraband eventually be discovered in Thadd's possession instead of hers and Willow's. It would be Keenan Oakes's problem then. The man couldn't very well expect to waltz into a billion-dollar estate without having a few surprises to deal with.

That thought perversely warmed Rachel's heart. Keenan Oakes owned Sub Rosa now, and his great-uncle's legacy was going to rear up and bite him on his butt.

Rachel set the statue in one of the cubbies, then pulled the small painting out of her pack and unwrapped it from the towel she'd used to protect it for the trip here. She pushed the sheets on the far wall aside until she found a space large enough to hang it. She returned to the pack and pulled out the silver tankard, wine cup, and snuffbox next, and gently set them in another cubby beside a vase that looked as old as the earth itself. She pulled the ruby and gold ring her father had given her out of her pocket, set the beam of her flashlight on it one last time, then reached up and dropped it inside the wine cup, flinching at the sound of metal falling on metal.

With a sigh of regret for having given up her father's gift, she turned and dug into the bottom of the nearly empty pack again and pulled out the emeralds.

Rachel clamped her tiny flashlight between her teeth and aimed it at the smaller, sequentially numbered safes. Holding the wrinkled paper next to the lock on safe number sixteen, she moved the dial to match another set of numbers written in black ink. Just as they had on the larger door, the tumblers fell with expected accuracy. The small door opened, and Rachel sighed again in relief.

“Thank you, Daddy, for thinking of everything,” she whispered into the darkness. Frank Foster had thoughtfully given her a laundry list of the art she now possessed, along with a list of combinations and codes. He hadn't, however, given her the exact location of Thadd's secret room.

And she had to find it. The letter had also mentioned designs for fishing boats that had been built at the Lakeman Boatyard years ago. Special boats, with hidden compartments for smuggling stolen art into the country.

Designs that likely had Frank Foster's name on them.

Rachel wanted them destroyed. She wanted every last trace of her father's involvement in Thadd's illegal hobby gone.

Rachel shone her light into the small safe and was surprised to see a velvet bag already sitting there. She opened the velvet sack she had brought with her and dumped the contents into her hand. The beam of her light immediately shot out in glowing green ribbons going in a dozen directions.

She reached into the safe and pulled out the second velvet sack and opened it, only to find an exact duplicate set of emeralds.

Well, hell. What did this mean?

They were obviously forgeries. Thadd must have had copies made of the original emeralds. But what were they doing here, in this safe? Surely the lawyers had inventoried this vault shortly after Thadd's death and would have found them.

And they would have known they were stolen, wouldn't they? Wasn't there a database somewhere that listed stolen and unrecovered art? Surely these emeralds would have been on it.

Unless the appraisers had realized these were fakes. It wasn't a crime, was it, to possess copies of stolen jewelry?

Rachel shrugged. She would just leave the real ones with the fakes, and they, too, would become Keenan Oakes's problem.

She used the velvet bag to wipe off any fingerprints on Willow's emeralds, put them back in their bag, and was just placing them in the small safe when every overhead light in the vault suddenly snapped on.

Rachel dropped the other velvet pouch and watched, dismayed, as the fake emeralds tumbled out. She tried but failed to catch them, banging her forehead into the small safe door, slamming it shut with a resounding click. Everything clattered to the floor, including her flashlight and the cane that had been hooked over her arm.

Rachel whirled toward the vault door and saw that several lights in the library had also come on. The raised voice of a woman echoed from somewhere below, carrying up the grand staircase and along the marble hall toward her.

Rachel bent to her good knee and searched for the fallen fake emeralds, scooping them up and hastily stuffing them into the remaining velvet sack.

She stopped then and glared at the closed safe door.

Dammit. She had to get out of here.

The voice of the woman grew louder, along with the tap of heels on the marble floor. Whoever she was railing at was upstairs now and coming toward the library.

Rachel shoved the pouch of forgeries in her pocket, quickly deciding that one set of emeralds was enough to leave behind. She would get rid of the fakes later, and pray it would be years before anyone noticed the emeralds in safe number sixteen were actually real.

She grabbed her pack, cane, and flashlight, and ran limping from the vault, stopping only long enough to close the huge door and spin the lock. She pushed the bookcase closed, concealing the vault.

Rachel looked toward the hearth on the far side of the room and decided it was out of reach of her crippled knee. She ducked into the storage closet instead, just as the library door swung open.

“I don't care, Kee,” the woman shrilled on the other side of the closet door. “You promised we would go to the Renoir party. Then you suddenly decide you just have to come to this godforsaken monstrosity instead. It's freezing in here.”

“Jason found the electrical box,” the man said softly.

Rachel scrunched herself against the back wall of the closet, unable to suppress a shiver. The man's voice had been low, curt, and thin on patience. But the shrew didn't seem to hear what Rachel could: the quiet building of tension, the ominous calm before the storm.

No, the fool continued railing at the man who could be none other than Mr. Keenan Oakes. Dammit. He wasn't supposed to arrive until Friday.

“I don't know what all the hurry was for,” the woman continued. “There's nobody here. You said this place has been empty for three years. Another week wouldn't have mattered.”

Rachel silently nodded agreement.

“This might be some grand mansion you've inherited, but it's at the end of nowhere, Kee.” Her voice dripped with distaste. “Maine! What in hell is there to do in Maine! It's a two-hour drive to the nearest airport. And this place is filthy. You should have hired someone to come open the house first, and that way we could have arrived
after
the Renoir party.”

Rachel pictured the woman waving her hands about the giant library at the dark honey oak bookcases that reached twelve feet high, the heavy, oversized furniture covered with sheets, and the dusty tomes lining three of the walls.

Keenan Oakes still had nothing to say. Rachel decided he either had the patience of a saint or was deaf.

Rachel closed her eyes and covered her ears. A lover's quarrel was not supposed to be a spectator sport.

The woman suddenly snorted. “But this cold, moldering pile of rocks suits your Neanderthal brain perfectly, doesn't it?”

Rachel tried to decide whether the lady was brave or stupid. She wasn't sure she could take much more of this waiting. She was cramped, uncomfortable, and she agreed with the woman—the house was cold. Her right knee throbbed and she ached all over. And she was using every bit of willpower she possessed to keep from sneezing out the dust collecting in her nose.

With the abruptness of a runaway train hitting a mountain, the woman suddenly stopped shouting. “What did you say?” she shrilled.

“I said that was enough, Joan. I told you to wait and come later with Mikaela.”

“But I've been planning for us to attend this party for weeks. You said we would go.”

“Then go.”

“But you're supposed to go with me. All my friends are expecting the two of us.”

Joan's voice had lowered to a simper now. Rachel pictured her pouting at Keenan, who stood as tall as a giant and had shoulders as wide as a doorway. Keenan Oakes now had more money than God and looks the devil would envy, if his picture in the newspaper could be believed.

He also had a very stupid girlfriend.

“I said that was enough, Joan. You'll have to go to Monte Carlo alone. Mikaela's due to arrive in a few days, and I intend to be here to meet her.”

“Mikaela. It's always Mikaela. Your boat's got a whole crew of babysitters, Kee. She won't miss you for the time it will take to fly to Monte Carlo and back. What's one more week?”

Silence was all Rachel heard for an answer.

“Kee!”

“I asked the driver who brought us here to wait. He'll take you back to the airport,” came his softly spoken words through the closet door. “And Joan?”

“Yes?” she asked, her voice suddenly sounding hesitant for the first time.

“Don't bother coming back.”

Just for a minute, Rachel almost felt sorry for Joan. But only a minute. Any woman who couldn't handle a demigod didn't deserve one. Rachel thought Keenan Oakes was letting the shrew off lightly. Most men wouldn't be so kind for the assault his ego had just received.

The Neanderthal's manhood, apparently, was quite secure.

The light showing through the crack under the closet door suddenly went out, and the large office door slammed shut with a shuddering bang. Rachel released a breath and listened to the tap of Joan's heels on the hall floor. Keenan was probably walking the banished Joan out to the car on this chilly June night. After all, demigods always had the best of manners—even if that concession to civilization was only a veneer.

Quietly, still a little rattled at nearly being caught, Rachel stiffly got up and opened the closet door. She picked up her cane, then pulled her cap more firmly down on her head while she tested her right knee, stifling a groan as pain shot all the way up her leg to her teeth.

Damn, this breaking and entering was hard on a body.

The big library was once again completely dark, the storm shutters that protected Sub Rosa blocking out what light the fog-shrouded moon was casting. Being as quiet as she could, Rachel used her little flashlight to guide her, hurriedly limping to the huge library door, intending to open it a crack and check her escape route.

Rachel slowly turned the knob on the huge oak door and tried to pull it open, only to find that it wouldn't budge.

But the knob turned easily. She aimed her light at the floor to see if the door was caught on the rug. Nothing. She looked up and gave another frantic tug on the portal.

And then she froze. The beam of her flashlight was shining on a large hand just above her head. A thick, powerful-looking wrist covered with a thin gold watch and crisp white cuff was holding the huge door shut.

Rachel dropped her head and closed her eyes. Keenan Oakes didn't have any manners after all. A shiver ran up her spine. He wasn't saying or doing anything. He was like a giant predator waiting to see what his prey would do next.

Feeling very much like a mouse under the claw of a cat, Rachel slowly turned around and pointed her light at the floor. Scuffed leather shoes with drying grass on them were the first things she saw. She slowly lifted the beam higher, all the while trying to fight down the panic that was making her tremble.

Damn, the man was big. She moved the light along muscled, jeans-clad legs, up over a flat stomach to a broad shirt-covered chest. She stopped and stared at that chest, nearly choking when she tried to swallow. Never had she seen such a formidable man so close up.

With all the nerve she could pull together, Rachel finally lifted the beam of her light above his chest. The man didn't so much as flinch. But Rachel did, all the blood draining from her face.

Keenan Oakes wasn't a demigod, he was a dark warrior with cold Atlantic-blue eyes pinning her immobile, looking at her from a hard, imperious face.

Rachel snapped off her flashlight.

If she didn't start breathing again, she was going to faint. Which she nearly did, when the man slowly lifted one large hand, took hold of her cap, and pulled it off.

Her heavy single braid of hair fell to her shoulder, her barrette hitting the thick oak door at her back with a loud clink, making her flinch again.