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Authors: Lisa Jackson

BOOK: Whispers
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“And in direct competition with you.”
“You got it.” Scowling, Dutch finished his drink and set the glass onto the table by his folded newspaper. “Scammed me out of a prime piece around Seaside. Built himself Sea Breeze right after I'd started construction of Stone Illahee.” Dutch drew on his cigar until the ash glowed red. “Bastard.”
“So how did you feel about Claire marrying into the Taggert family?”
“I hated it.”
“How badly?”
Dutch's eyes narrowed on Denver. “Look, I didn't hire you to insinuate that I had something to do with the kid's death. Believe me, if I would have killed him, no one would think it was anything other than an accident.”
“Stop it!” Miranda ordered.
“I can't listen to this another second.” Claire was on her feet, her insides quivering. “I don't know what you thought you'd accomplish by hauling us all up here, but as far as I'm concerned it's over. Past history.” She scrounged in her purse, found the keys, and started for the door.
“We have more to discuss,” Dutch insisted, rising again from his chair.
Claire held a hand up as she left, cutting off any further protests. “Later.”
“But I want you to stay here, at the house. I thought we'd agreed.”
“It was a bad idea.”
“Your kids need a home, Claire, not some cheap apartment that has no meaning for them. Here they can have the run of the place, we can get some horses again, they can canoe and swim. There's the lake, tennis courts, pool—”
“I can't be bought, Dad.” But she hesitated. Her weak spot was her kids, and Dutch knew it.
“I'm not buying you. I'm just offering to help out. For Sean and Samantha's sake.” She wanted to trust him, to believe that he was developing some latent grandfatherly feelings for his only grandchildren. “Your mother never liked it here, but you did. Of all the kids, you enjoyed living in this place.”
That much was true. Still . . . she didn't want to take any handouts. They always came with a hidden price tag. For the first time in her life she was standing on her own two feet. “I don't think so, Dad.”
“Well, don't make up your mind tonight. We'll talk later.”
Turning, she let her gaze sweep through the house with its warm cedar walls, massive fireplace, and winding staircase with its mutilated posts. The house was stark now, only a few basic pieces of furniture and no decor, but she'd always felt a kinship with this old building; it had weathered more storms than she. “I'll think about it,” she promised, hating the way the words seemed to give her father the upper hand again.
Miranda watched her sister leave and felt a withering sense of despair before she turned to face Dutch. “I think you're being a stubborn old fool.”
“Good to know some things never change.”
“Look, I agreed to come here even though I didn't have a clue as to what you wanted. Now, I think I've made a big mistake. This morbid fascination you have with Harley Taggert's death is beyond me. Let Kane Moran dig up whatever he can find and let it go.” Turning slowly to face the latest in a long string of her father's yes-men and errand boys, she said, “Now, Mr. Styles, I have a question for you.”
“Shoot.” He didn't so much as smile.
“Someone's been hanging around my office, missing me but bothering my secretary and the receptionist.”
“Have they?” He crossed his arms on his chest. His leather jacket creaked softly, and there was the glimmer of something other than grim determination in his eyes, a flicker of a deeper, more frightening emotion.
“Was it you?”
“You get straight to the point. I like that.”
“You haven't answered my question,” she reminded him, stepping closer, refusing to be intimidated. “Were you in the DA's office today?”
“Yep.”
Disappointment burrowed deep into her heart. For some unnamed reason she didn't want this rangy, arrogant son of a bitch to be part of anything remotely sinister.
“Why didn't you wait or leave your name?”
“I thought it would be inappropriate.”
“But hanging around the courthouse wasn't?”
His gray gaze, so like a winter storm brewing over the ocean, penetrated deep into hers. “What your father has me looking into is highly personal, don't you think? Something you wouldn't want your coworkers, subordinates, or supervisors to know about. I figured you wouldn't meet me at home, so I dropped in at your office.”
“And grilled the receptionist.”
“Just asked a few questions.”
“Debbie talks too much,” Miranda snapped, venting her anger. She didn't know who to start with. She'd just as soon wring Denver Styles's neck as deal with him, and she felt an overwhelming need to tell her father to use his thick-skulled head and let sleeping dogs lie. As for Debbie . . . well, Debbie, sweet thing, couldn't help herself. Chitchat and flirting were ingrained deep into her personality. She'd never change. But what about Kane Moran? Why had he decided to come home now to stir up all this trouble?
“Randa—” Her father's voice, filled with a quiet reproach, caused her to second guess herself. As it always had. “I know that you're upset, expected you to be, but it's important that I know what I'm dealing with. A lot of people are banking on me. They've donated thousands of dollars to my campaign. I can't let even the breath of a scandal touch me.”
“Then give it up, Dutch,” she suggested as she plucked her coat off the back of the couch. “Because you and I both know there are so many skeletons rattling around in all the Holland family closets it's impossible to keep them locked away, let alone keep track of all the keys. Sooner or later, one of those scandal-riddled secrets is going to escape.”
“Maybe, but everything else that's happened over the years is less distasteful—a dalliance here, a bad investment there, nothing substantial,” he allowed, taking off his reading glasses and buffing them with the edge of his sleeve. “But when we're discussing the night Harley Taggert died, the night that Kane Moran is going to scrutinize, unfortunately, we're talking about murder.”
 
 
If nothing else, the old man was predictable,
Kane thought. He strode along the shores of the lake. Bleached wood and rocks were interspersed by sand that was cast silver with the faint glow of the moon. Clouds gathered, threatening to break into a storm. He brushed aside the branches of a few fir trees that hugged the shoreline and slapped him in the face.
Not a hundred feet ahead stood the Holland lodge, several windowpanes glowing brightly in the summer night. Just as Kane had expected, Benedict, Dutch to his “good ol' boy” friends, had rung up his daughters and dragged them back to their old lakeside home, probably to warn them of him, to tell them that whatever they did they were, at all costs, to keep their mouths shut. Kane had no idea how the old man had convinced the girls to return—probably it had to do with bribery, that was his usual M.O.—but judging from the cars that had come and gone, they were all back home, returning like the prodigal daughters they were.
Son of a bitch, his plan was working.
Five
“You really lived here when you were growing up?” Samantha eyed the old lodge as if it were a castle from a fairy tale. She ran up the stairs, explored each room, then stole up to the attic, where the servants had once lived, and clambered down the back stairs to the kitchen. “It's . . . it's wonderful.” She grinned from ear to ear as Claire unpacked groceries.
“Tell it to your brother.” Claire hitched her chin toward the kitchen window, where she watched Sean, who was flopped on an old porch swing, one toe touching the floorboards, his scowl dark as he squinted across the lake. Claire, too, stared across the blue water, and her heart skipped a beat as she recognized the cabin where Kane Moran had grown up. Someone had taken the trouble to reroof the cottage and give it a new coat of gray paint, and the sunlight glinted off some kind of vehicle parked haphazardly in the drive.
Claire's throat tightened. Was it possible that Kane had moved in? Her father hadn't mentioned where his nemesis had put down roots, but
someone
lived across the water. “Stop jumping at shadows,” she reprimanded, and Sam, who was reaching for the doorknob, stopped short.
“What?”
“Just talking to myself. Go out and see if your brother's hungry. I can whip up a turkey sandwich or heat some pizza.”
“He won't say anything,” Sam said with a lift of her slim shoulder. “He's just a big grouch.”
Amen,
Claire thought, reaching into one of the sacks and stuffing a pint of strawberries into the refrigerator. At first she'd hesitated, not wanting to take her father's charity, but then she'd decided she was being selfish, that her children could heal here in this rambling house in the woods, perhaps even thrive. So she'd taken Dutch up on his offer and moved in. The house still looked bare. Her small amount of furniture plus what had been left years before couldn't begin to fill over twenty vast rooms. In the distance she heard the trill of a meadowlark and the soft rumble of a boat trolling in the lake.
“Well, here goes nothing.” Samantha, having easily shaken the Colorado dust from her heels, was enthusiastic, glad for a change, whereas Sean hated his new life in Oregon and treated Claire as if she were an enemy, the person responsible for all his misery, which, of course, she was.
“I'll make some lemonade.”
“It won't do any good, Mom,” Samantha said with a knowledge far too wise for her tender years. “He
likes
being a jerk.” She sauntered through the door, walked up to Sean, and though Claire couldn't hear the exchange of conversation through the closed window, she got the idea. Sean, arms folded over his chest, jaw thrust forward in silent accusation, didn't respond. Samantha threw a look over her shoulder and met her mother's gaze. She didn't have to say “I told you so.” Claire read it in her eyes.
Great.
Claire attempted and failed at avoiding hateful thoughts directed at her ex-husband. Sean needed a father figure in his life right now, a man who could straighten him out, and definitely not someone who thought any female over the age of fifteen was fair game. Shuddering, Claire put away the rest of the groceries and, from the corner of her eye, watched as Samantha skittered off to explore the woods near the lake. Sean stretched, cast his mother a bitter glance through the glass, and, as if he didn't want to be within ten feet of her, sauntered toward the stables, where three horses, two geldings and a mare, now resided, compliments of Dutch Holland.
She shut the refrigerator as someone rapped loudly on the front door.
Claire wiped her hands on a towel. Maybe Tessa or Randa had stopped by. It had been several days since the confrontation with Denver Styles in this very house, and she hadn't heard a word from either of her sisters. “Coming!” she yelled as she hurried through the hallway to the foyer. She threw open the door.
Kane stood on the porch.
Claire held on to the doorknob for support. Her heart took a fateful, stupid leap.
“Claire.” One side of his mouth lifted in an arrogant but hauntingly familiar smile. Taller than she remembered, his features hardened by the passing years, he would never again be considered a boy. A breeze had the nerve to ruffle his hair—light brown, sun-streaked, and in need of a cut—while he stood, arms crossed over his chest, stretching a wheat-colored cotton sweater at the shoulders.
A vise seemed to clamp over her stomach, slowly turning and squeezing so hard she could barely breathe. He was the one man she had no right ever to lay eyes upon again, and he was here, standing on her front porch, as bold and brash as the wild, rebellious teenager he'd once been. “What're you doing here?”
“I thought I'd welcome you back to the old neighborhood.”
“But you . . . you . . .” She caught hold of herself before she came across as the tongue-tied adolescent she'd once been—the rich girl he'd adored, the girl who had scorned him . . . well, for a while. She licked her lips and crossed her arms over her chest, as if protecting her heart. “Dad says you're writing some kind of tell-all book about him, about us, and about Harley and the night he died.”
A dark cloud passed behind his gold eyes but was gone in an instant. “That's true.”
“Why?”
His lips twisted cynically. “It's time.”
“Because Dad's thinking of running for governor?”
A slight elevation of his eyebrows. “That's one reason.”
“And the others?” Her hands were beginning to sweat.
His gaze narrowed, shifting for a second to her lips before returning to her eyes and settling there. Claire's heart thumped mercilessly. “I think I—we—owe it to Harley.”
“You were hardly best friends.”
Again that chilling smile. “The reasons for that run too deep to mention, don't you think?”
She swallowed hard against a throat so dry it ached. “What happened between us—” she said, then stopped, gathering herself.
Don't let him get to you. Not again.
“Was there something you wanted to say to me?”
“More than you'd want to hear. I figured your old man told you what I was up to and tried to make it look like I was on some kind of witch-hunt.”
She nodded. “That's about the gist of it.”
He snorted. “Okay, so there's some truth in the fact that I'd love to show good old Benedict that he's not above the law, that he can't always bribe his way out of a mess, that he's not goddamned royalty around here.”
“Is there a point to this?”
He fingered the rough post that supported the roof. “I thought you should know that things have changed around here. Significantly. For one thing, Neal Taggert suffered a stroke a few years back. He's stuck in a wheelchair. Weston's in charge now.”
Claire shuddered inwardly. Weston Taggert was the opposite of his younger brother. Tall, athletic, cocksure, and mean-tempered, Weston was the antithesis of all that was good in Harley.
“It's no secret that Weston's worse than Neal when it comes to hating your family. And his wife . . .”
“Kendall,” Claire said, feeling as if the weight of the world had been dropped on her shoulders. They had a past, she and Kendall, a link because of Harley. And now Kendall Forsythe was married to Harley's older brother, a man who had stated publicly as well as privately that he'd like nothing better than to embarrass the hell out of Dutch Holland—then run him out of town.
“Seems like you and Weston are cut from the same cloth.”
Kane's eyes flashed dangerously, and the skin over the bridge of his nose tightened a bit. He leaned closer to her and she took a small breath. “I have nothing against you or your sisters, you know that.”
“I don't know anything about you, Kane, or why you're on this mission to destroy my family.”
“Not the family. It's your father—”
“Who had nothing to do with Harley Taggert's death. You know, Dad thinks you're being paid by the Taggerts, and it wouldn't surprise me a bit.” She tilted up her chin and gazed defiantly into eyes the color of expensive scotch. “I assume you're being paid a lot of money to paint my father as an ogre.”
“This isn't about money.”
“Sure it is. Big book deal, kickbacks from my father's political opponent, and a little pot sweetener from the Taggerts. Looks like you finally got what you wanted, Kane.”
“That, darlin', is where you're wrong.” He stared at her so intently she wanted to back away, was certain he'd reach out and grab her, yank her hard against him, but he didn't move. Instead his pupils dilated and the corners of his eyes squinted ever so slightly. “You know what I wanted a long time ago, what I couldn't have.”
Her throat caught.
“That's right, Claire. Back then, I wanted you. I would have laid down and died if you would have just looked at me—really looked at me—as a person who loved you rather than as a curiosity, a one-night stand to experiment with, a tiny step onto the wild side when you had no one else to turn to—”
“Stop it! I don't know why you're here, why you've started dredging all this up again, but it's a mistake. Believe me. Leave this alone. Find some other dirty little scandal to expose, but just . . . just don't do this.”
“Too late, darlin'. I've already got myself a deal.”
“As I said. ‘Money.'”
“Mom?” Sean, hearing the end of the conversation, appeared around the corner of the house. His eyes centered on the intruder before settling on his mother. “You okay?”
Oh, great!
How much of the discussion had he heard? As if suddenly jolted by a current of electricity, she stepped away from Kane, put much-needed distance between her body and his, and forced her quivering insides to settle. This was no time to lose a fraction of her composure. Not in front of her son. Not with Kane Moran.
“Your boy?” Kane asked.
“Yes, uh, this is Sean. Sean—Mr. Moran.” Her voice sounded so much calmer than she felt.
“Glad to meet you,” Kane said, walking up to Sean with his hand outstretched. “I knew your Ma when she was about your age.”
“That's right. Kane was a . . . neighbor.”
“My dad worked for your grandfather.”
“So?” Sean wasn't impressed and his insolent
I-don't-give-a-damn
attitude was firmly in place.
“Lived right across the lake in that old cabin over there.”
Sean couldn't help himself, his gaze wandered over the water to the thicket of fir trees and the tiny cottage nestled therein. “Doesn't look like much.”
“Sean!”
“Well, it doesn't.”
Kane didn't appear to take offense. He gave a stiff nod of agreement. “You're right. It wasn't then and isn't much better now. In fact I grew up humiliated and embarrassed that I lived in that dump. Avoided being there as much as possible.”
Suspicion tightened the corners of Sean's mouth. He hadn't expected Kane to see things as he did.
“My old man was a cripple and a mean son of a bitch. I found ways to avoid being around him or hanging out at home, and usually managed to get myself into a mess of trouble. But I didn't really give a rip. I figured fate had given me a bum deal, and I spent a lot of time being angry at the world and a royal pain in the butt.”
“All I said was that it doesn't look like much,” Sean mumbled.
“And I agreed with you.” He clapped Sean on the back, and the boy visibly jerked away. “You, now, you're lucky, living in a great big house like this.”
Sean made a disbelieving sound in the back of his throat. “Yeah, right,” he grunted as he glanced at his mother, seemed satisfied that there wasn't any serious trouble brewing, and vaulted over the rail to disappear around the corner of the house.
“What is it you want from me?” she asked when Sean was out of earshot.
“Same thing I've always wanted.”
Her pulse jumped a little, and she had to remind herself that she was a grown woman, divorced, mother of two, someone unaffected by long-forgotten emotions. “I think you'd better go.”
His lips clamped together in a hard, thin line. “You're right. I should. But I thought I'd give you the chance to tell me your side of the story.”
“My side?”
“About the night Harley Taggert died.”
“So we're back to that.”
“Never left it. Despite everything that happened between us, you never told me the truth.”
“Oh, God, Kane, I can't.”
He pinned her with a hard glare, then, fleetingly, a hint of regret softened the edge of his jaw. “Look, Claire, I know this will be rough. Okay, so I'm the bad guy, but I'm doing this because it's time, and I've been given the opportunity, okay? Whatever happens, I want you to know that I'm not trying to hurt you or your sisters.”

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