Whispers (31 page)
Authors: Lisa Jackson
“Claire,” he said, kissing her abdomen, his warm moist breath circling her navel. “Claire . . . tell me . . . if this isn't what you want.”
“I want you.”
“You'll regret it later.”
“Noâ” Was he going to reject her? “I need you.”
His groan was as primal as the forest. “Are you sure?”
“Yes . . . oh, God, yes.”
Urgent fingers delved inside her panties, pushing aside the soft cotton to touch her intimately, to probe that dark, feminine region now dewy with need.
She whispered his name over and over again as he lowered himself, sliding the underpants down her legs, kissing her thighs, licking her knees, opening her legs so slowly that she thought she would die with the want of him.
His breath fanned her curls and desire like a wisp of smoke curled deep inside her. Raw female need, a fire out of control, burned through her blood, and sweat drenched her body.
“Please,” she cried, as he touched her gently at first, then opening her like a special gift and kissing her so intimately tears burned behind her eyes.
“I've wanted you forever,” he vowed, the words muffled by the sound of the sea crashing on the rocks below and her own thudding heart.
He kicked off his jeans as he caressed her and she writhed, wanting more, needing all of him. Eagerly she lifted her hips from the ground. “Kane . . . I . . . oh . . . Oooooh . . .” He placed her knees on his shoulders and delved more deeply. The earth crackedâthe trees overhead careenedâher soul was flung to the heavens, and she shuddered against him as she convulsed.
“That's a girl,” he whispered, his face taunt with slipping self-control. “Lose yourself.” And she did. As if she were riding a spirited rodeo bronco, she gasped and twisted while he pleasured her with his hands and tongue. When at last she was panting, her naked body soaked in sweat, he slid upward and spread her legs with his knees.
“Wh-what do you want?” she asked, gasping.
“Just you, Claire. That's all I've always wanted.” And he took her. With a strong thrust and a primal cry, he drove deep between her legs, and though she was certain she was spent, her heart quickened, her breasts filled, and she moved with him easily, catching his rhythm, her fingers digging into his shoulders, her legs wrapped around his hips.
“Claire, Claire, Claireâ” he cried, as he stared down at her and stiffened.
Her body clenched around him, and she was certain heaven and earth collided as their bodies joined, and he spilled himself into her. “Love me,” he whispered, collapsing against her and crushing her breasts with his weight. “Just love me today.”
“Because you'll be gone by tonight.”
He didn't answer, just rolled onto his back, so that she was above him as he buried his face between her breasts.
She stayed with him until nearly noon, making love beneath the sun, whispering together in the sacred forest, forgetting the pain of Harley's death and knowing with an aching certainty that as the sun set this evening, they would never see each other again.
Part Three
The Present
Twenty-three
Claire, Claire, Claire.
Kane gritted his teeth as he sat at his desk, forcing himself to concentrate, but the words on the monitor blurred and Claire's face, haunted and beautiful, burned into his brain. No matter what he did or how he tried to occupy his mind, she was always there, just beneath the surface of his consciousness, ready to appear to him at any given moment.
It was a damned curse.
“You stupid son of a bitch,” he muttered under his breath as he snapped the lid to his computer shut and reached for his bottle of whiskey. His investigation into the night that Harley Taggert had died was stalled, his interest sidetracked. All because of Claire. That same white-hot desire that had gotten into his blood sixteen years ago had been dormant for years, but now was heating up again, distracting him, causing his mind to slip from its single-minded purpose of revenge against Dutch Holland.
There were reasons Kane hated Dutch, reasons that ran true and deep. Benedict Holland had single-handedly ruined his life. Now the tables were turned. Kane had a chance to give Dutch a taste of his own medicine.
Except seeing Claire again muddied the waters a bit, clouded his purpose. Christ, he was pathetic. How could one woman turn around his thinking?
Holding the neck of the bottle with two fingers, he walked through the cabin, now clean and painted, a few pieces of new furniture scattered around to take the place of the broken-down rose-colored sofa and scarred metal table. Frustration gnawed at him. Never before had he not been able to concentrate, to focus on a project. His best traits were his clarity and dogged determination. He'd always known what he wanted, went for it, and, like a dog at a bone, wouldn't let up until he won the prize.
Until now.
Shit!
With difficulty, he forced his thoughts back to the stormy night sixteen years ago, the night Harley Taggert had lost his life, the night when so many questions had been left unanswered.
Not that he'd found out much. Kane had spent the past week spinning his wheels. He'd tried to talk to the deputies and witnesses who had seen Harley in his last few hours or been on the scene when Miranda's car plunged into the inky waters of the lake. But a lot of years had passed, and in that time memories had been lost, perceptions altered, the incident a closed police file collecting dust in some locked cabinet somewhere.
Sheriff McBain, the officer in charge of the investigation was dead of liver cancer, and the other deputies, none of whom were still with the force, were tight-lipped, their memories fuzzy. They seemed sincere enough, just older and tired, and not much interested in reopening a case that had been ruled an accident. There had been rumors to the effect that the entire investigation had been hushed up, either by Neal Taggert or Dutch Holland and their ability to pay.
Kane was betting on Dutch.
He walked back to the old wooden desk he'd bought at a used furniture store. Glancing at his notes, he scowled and cracked his knuckles. Not only had Harley died under suspicious circumstances that night, but Jack Songbird had fallen to his death off the Illahee Cliffs only days before. Hunter Riley, apparently involved with Miranda Holland, had up and disappeared while rumors swirled through town about him knocking up some younger girl and stealing a car. Riley had blown the country, worked for Taggert Logging in Canada somewhere, then disappeared from the face of the earth. Kendall Forsythe, distraught over Harley's death, had ended up marrying Weston Taggert.
“Think!” he ordered himself, and flipped through copies of the original police reports. Harley Taggert's official cause of death was drowning, but he'd either bashed his head on a rock or some other sharp, jagged object after falling off the boat, or someone had clobbered him before pushing his unconscious body overboard.
When the police had dragged the bay, searching for clues or perhaps a murder weapon, all that had been discovered in the refuse and sludge was a small pistol.
Was the pistol related to the crime? Or was it just a coincidence that the gun was near his body?
Kane found a glass on the desk, wiped out the dust with the edge of his shirt, and poured himself a stiff shot. The key to finding out the truth was talking to as many people as possible and checking their stories, playing one against the other.
He wanted to start with Claire. Not because she was the logical choice, but because he wantedâneededâto see her again. Christ, she was becoming an obsession.
Think, Moran, think! Use that blasted brain of yours!
Think, Moran, think! Use that blasted brain of yours!
So much had happened in sixteen years. He'd spent the past few months chasing down leads, trying to find all of the peopleâor were they suspects?âwho were involved.
Sitting on the edge of his chair, he opened a spiral notebook filled with the names of all the players in the tragedy.
Neal Taggert, after suffering a near-fatal stroke, had stepped down as the president and CEO of Taggert Industries. Weston was now filling those executive slippers. Daughter Paige took care of her ailing father most of the time.
As for the elder Taggert son, Weston was married to Kendall Forsythe and had one child, a daughter, Stephanie, who was fifteen. They had married soon after Harley's death, had no other children, and from all accounts their marriage was as rocky as the Illahee Cliffs. Neither Weston nor Kendall had alibis for the night Harley drowned, but the sheriff's department had dismissed them as possible suspects. Just as they'd dismissed everyone. As far as the official records were concerned Harley Taggert's death had been an accident. Nothing more.
Hank and Ruby Songbird were retired and still living in Chinook, where they ran a mobile home park. They'd moved from their house shortly after Jack's death, and Ruby had never gotten over her only son's demise. She'd become a grim, thoughtful woman, who was known to talk in her native tongue at a moment's notice and who forever gazed out her window to the cliffs where Jack had lost his life.
Crystal had left Chinook after that summer, finished high school and college, and was now married to a doctor in Seattle. She rarely visited her parents and seemed to have no happy memories of this tiny town on the coast.
As for the Hollands, they were an interesting lot. Miranda had never married, rarely dated as far as Kane could tell, and was totally devoted to her career, a career that could well be derailed if it were proved that she was somehow involved in Harley's death.
Tessa flitted from one apartment in Southern California to the next. She'd supported herself by painting, as her mother had before marrying Dutch, or playing guitar and singing in some less-than-five-star establishments in L.A. A party girl by nature, she'd been picked up for speeding, driving under the influence of intoxicants, and possession of a controlled substance, that substance being cocaine once and marijuana twice. She'd lived with several men who were on the outer fringes of the entertainment business, but, like Miranda, she'd never walked down the aisle and said, “I do.”
And then there was Claire. Beautiful, lively, enigmatic Claire who had run away from Chinook, married an older man and had two children only to find out that her husband was involved in an affair with his son's girlfriend. “Bastard,” Kane muttered, tossing back another swallow of whiskey.
Claire deserved better. Any woman did. He hoped he never laid eyes on Paul St. John.
Checking his watch, he scowled at the time and wished to God he could avoid the next appointment. But it was necessary if he was ever going to finish his book.
Morning rain had given way to high clouds that were pierced by rays of sunlight and created a warm mist in the forest. Puddles had collected in the low points of the driveway but were already drying as Kane climbed into his Jeep and felt his old war wound act up again. The last person he wanted to talk to today was Weston Taggert, but he needed Harley's older brother's take on the events of sixteen years before.
In Chinook he parked in the lot across the street from the newest building in town, a two-story office complex with a view of the bay. Ensconced within were the new headquarters of Taggert Industries. Kane passed through a reception area and took the elevator to the second floor, where a desk was positioned in front of double oak doors.
“Kane Moran,” he told the petite woman with short red hair and matching lips. Wearing a phone headset, she looked up at him through oversize lashes. “I've got a meeting with Mr. Taggert.”
Scanning the appointment book, she found his name, punched a button on the telephone to announce him, and within seconds he was seated in a huge corner office with floor-to-ceiling windows. Live trees in enormous clay pots were spaced upon a bronze-colored carpet. A bar was situated against one wall, two couches were tucked into another corner, and in front of the wall of glass stood a massive rosewood desk where Weston was waiting for him.
Wearing a thousand-dollar-plus suit, he was leaning back in his chair, fingers tented under his chin, eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Aside from a few lines around the corners of his eyes, he hadn't aged at all. His jaw was still hard, his body trim, his hair showing no sign of thinning or turning gray. He'd called Kane for a meeting rather than the other way around.
“Moran.” He rose and shook Kane's hand over the desk. “Have a seat.” Motioning toward the chairs positioned in front of his desk, he asked, “Can I get you something? Coffee or a drink?”
“Don't bother.” Kane lowered himself into one of the matching oxblood leather club chairs and waited. This was, after all, Weston's idea.
The CEO of Taggert Industries got straight to the point. “I've heard that you're writing a book about my brother's death.”
“That's right.”
“Why?”
Kane shifted in the chair and smiled inwardly. So Weston couldn't wait to find out what was going on. Good. What secrets did Harley's older brother know? “Too many unanswered questions.”
“It's been sixteen years.”
Kane felt one side of his mouth twist upward. “Well, I've been busy. Just got back to it.”
“You seem to think that writing the book now will serve some purpose,” Weston said, leading him by the nose. Kane didn't like the feeling, but played along.
“I think Dutch Holland knows more about your brother's death than he's saying and I suspect that heâor maybe your fatherâbought off the local authorities to hush the whole thing up.”
“Why would they do that?”
“An interesting question. Why don't you take a stab at it?”
“I don't know.”
“Think, Weston.”
“You mean if someone had something to hide. A cover-up?” Weston sounded incredulous. Kane didn't buy the act.
“Just a theory, but one worth checking out.”
“Why stir up the muck? This thing's been laid to rest for a long time. Everyone's gotten over it.” He smiled widely, a grin that was meant to encourage camaraderie yet was as cool as the darkest depths of the sea.
“I haven't. And I think that since Dutch Holland has decided to run for governor, all his dirty little secrets should come to light.”
“What's it to you, Moran? You didn't give a damn about my brother.”
“It's personal,” Kane said, countering Weston's icy grin with one of his own. “Between Dutch and me.” He settled onto the small of his back. “Besides, I'm not just interested in Harley's death, but the events leading up to it,” Kane admitted, willing to give out a little information in order to retrieve some.
“Such as?”
“What really happened to Jack Songbird.”
Weston shifted, then reached into the inside pocket of his suit coat for a pack of Marlboros. “Jack got drunk and fell off the cliffs.” With a flick of a gold lighter, he lit up, drawing hard on the cigarette and sending a plume of smoke to the ceiling.
“Maybe. Some people think he jumped. Others suspect he was murdered.”
“Let me guessâCrystal Songbird, her folks, and some of the elders from the tribe are pushing the murder theory. Hell, they've been whining about it for years, but the fact of the matter was Jack was just another screwed-up Indian who drank too much firewater and paid the price.”
The muscles of Kane's back tightened, and it was all he could do not to clench his fists and pound Weston's perfect face. But there was no reason to let Weston know what he was thinking.
Weston studied the tip of his cigarette. “You know, Moran, if you write anything that libels my family, I'll sue your ass up one side and down the other.”
“I'd think you'd want the truth to come out and have a chance to get a little back at Dutch Holland at the same time.”
“The truth doesn't interest me. As I said, it's water under the bridgeâancient history. As for Dutch; he'll get his. One way or another. He doesn't need any help from you.”
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