Birthright (45 page)

“Yes, I knew Marcus and Lorraine Carlyle. We belonged to the same club, moved in the same social circle. I really don't have time to discuss old acquaintances.”

“My information is that you and Marcus were more than acquaintances.”

Her eyes were a cool blue that went frigid in a finger snap. “What possible business is that of yours?”

“If you could give me a few minutes in private, Dr. Yardley, I'll explain how it's my business.”

She didn't speak, but after a hard look at her watch, clipped down the hall. She strode into a small office, moved directly to the desk and sat behind it. “What do you want?”

“I have evidence that Marcus Carlyle headed an organization that profited from fraudulent adoptions by kidnapping infants and selling them to childless couples.”

She didn't even blink. “That's perfectly ridiculous.”

“And that he used and employed members of the medical profession in his organization.”

“Mr. Cullen, if you think you can accuse me of participating in some fictitious black-market ring, frighten me enough to be extorted or blackmailed, you couldn't be more mistaken.”

Doug imagined her simply flattening him, or any irritating underling, with a single blow. “I don't want money. And I don't know whether you were involved or not. But I do know you had an affair with Marcus Carlyle, that you're a doctor, that you might have information that will help me.”

“I'm quite certain I have no information whatsoever. Now, I'm very busy.”

Doug didn't budge, even when she pushed to her feet. “My sister was stolen when she was three months old and days later sold to a couple out of Carlyle's Boston office. I have proof of that. I have evidence linking another Boston doctor to that event. That evidence and information have been passed to the police. They'll work their way around to you eventually, Dr. Yardley. But my family is looking for answers now.”

Very slowly, she sat again. “What doctor?”

“Henry Simpson. He and his current wife left their home in Virginia abruptly, very abruptly, after this investigation began. His current wife was one of the OB nurses on duty the night my sister was born, in Maryland.”

“I don't believe any of this,” she retorted.

“Maybe you do, maybe you don't. But I want to know about your relationship with Carlyle. If you don't talk to me here, I'm going to have no problem making what information I have so far public.”

“That's a threat.”

“That's a threat,” Doug agreed easily.

“I won't have my reputation impinged.”

“If you had no part in illegal activities, you don't have anything to worry about. I need to know who Marcus Carlyle was, who he associated with. You had an affair with him.”

Roseanne picked up a silver pen, tapped it gently on the edge of the desk. “My husband is aware of my relationship with Marcus. Blackmail won't work.”

“I'm not interested in blackmail,” he repeated.

“I made a mistake thirty years ago. I won't pay for it now.”

Doug reached in his briefcase, took out a copy of Callie's original birth certificate, a photograph of her taken days before she was stolen. He set these on Roseanne's desk, then took out the forged adoption papers and the photograph the Dunbrooks had provided.

“Her name's Callie Dunbrook now. She deserves to know how it happened. My family deserves to know.”

“If this is true, if any portion of this is true, I don't see how my regrettable affair with Marcus has anything to do with it.”

“Accumulating data. How long were you involved?”

“Nearly a year.” Roseanne sighed and sat back. “He was twenty-five years older than me, and quite fascinating. He was charismatic, commanding, attractive and attentive. I thought we were very sophisticated and modern to have an affair that seemed to satisfy us both and hurt no one.”

“Did you ever discuss your work, your patients?”

“I'm sure I did. I'm in pediatrics. A major part of Marcus's practice was adoption. We were both dedicated to children. It was one of the things that brought us together. I certainly don't remember him ever trying to draw specific information from me, and none of my patients was kidnapped. I would have known.”

“But some were adopted.”

“Of course. That's hardly surprising.”

“Were any of the parents who brought newly adopted infants to you for care sent by his recommendation?”

Now she blinked. “Yes, I imagine. I'm sure there were a few. We were, as I said, acquaintances, then intimate. It would be only natural—”

“Tell me about him. If he was charismatic, compelling and attractive, why did the affair end?”

“He was also cold and calculating.” She fingered the photos and papers on her desk. “A very calculating man, and one with no sense of fidelity. You may find that odd as we were having an extramarital affair, but I expected him to be faithful while we were. And he wasn't. His wife certainly knew about me, and if she had any trouble with that she put on an excellent public front. Word was she was
slavishly devoted to him and their son, and turned a blind eye on his other women.”

Her lips twisted, making it clear what she thought of such a woman. “I, however, preferred clear vision. When I discovered he was having another affair while we were involved, I confronted him. We argued, bitterly, and broke it off. I could tolerate quite a bit, but learning he was cheating on me with his secretary was just a bit too much of a cliché.”

“What can you tell me about her?”

“Young. I was nearly thirty when Marcus and I became involved. She was barely more than twenty. She dressed in bold colors and spoke in a quiet voice—a contrast I mistrusted as a woman. And once I knew about her, I remembered how she'd so often greeted me with a little smirk. I have no doubt she knew about me long before I knew about her. I heard she was one of the few from his practice here Marcus took with him when he went to Seattle.”

“Do you know anything about Carlyle or her since?”

“His name comes up from time to time. I heard he divorced Lorraine, and was surprised when he remarried it wasn't the secretary. I believe someone told me she married an accountant, had a child.”

She tapped the pen again. “You've intrigued me, Mr. Cullen. Enough that I may ask a few questions in a few quarters myself. I don't like being used. If it turns out Marcus used me in this way, I want to know about it.”

“He's dead.”

Her mouth opened, then closed again with her lips a long firm line. “When?”

“About two weeks ago. Cancer. He was living in the Caymans with wife number three. I can't get answers from him directly. His son is reluctant to take our evidence seriously.”

“Yes, I know Richard slightly. He and Marcus were estranged, I believe. Richard was, and is, very devoted to his mother and his family. Have you spoken with Lorraine?”

“Not yet.”

“I imagine Richard will slap you legally, in whatever way possible, if you try. She doesn't get out socially as much as she did. From what I've heard she's quite frail. Then she was always frail. Will you be in Boston long?”

“I can be—or I can be reached wherever I am.”

“I'd like to satisfy myself about this. Leave me a number where you can be reached.”

D
oug settled into his hotel room, searched a beer out of the minibar and called Lana.

The man's voice that answered simply said, “Yo!”

“Ah . . . I'm trying to reach Lana Campbell.”

“Hey, me too. Is this Doug?”

“Yeah, it's Doug. What do you mean? Where is she?”

“Keeping at arm's length so far, but I'm hopeful. Hey, sexy lady, phone's for you.”

There was some noise, some giggling—which he identified as Ty—then a very warm female laugh. “Hello?”

“Who was that?”

“Doug? I was hoping you'd call.”

Something that sounded like an ape, followed by hysterical childish laughter drowned out her voice. He could hear movement, then the background noise dimmed.

“God, it's a madhouse in there. Digger's cooking. Are you in the hotel?”

“Yeah, just. Sounds like quite a party.”

“It was your idea to install Digger in my house without asking me, I'll point out. Lucky for you, he's a very reassuring, not to mention entertaining, presence. He's wonderful with Ty. Thus far, though it's a struggle, I've been able to resist my lust for him. Though he warns me it's a losing battle.”

Doug dropped down on the bed, scratched his head. “I've never been jealous before. It's lowering to have my first experience with it over a guy who looks like a garden gnome.”

“If you could smell the spaghetti sauce he's got simmering, you'd be insane with jealousy.”

“The bastard.”

She laughed, then lowered her voice. “When are you coming home?”

“I don't know. I've talked to some people today, hope to talk to more tomorrow. I might fly out to Seattle before I come back. I'm just playing it by ear. Does that mean you miss me?”

“I guess I do. I've gotten used to you being here, or a few miles away. I never thought I'd get used to that sort of thing again. I suppose I should ask you what you've found out.”

He stretched out on the bed, basking a little in the idea that she missed him. “Enough to know Carlyle liked women, and more than one at a time. I've got a gut feeling the secretary is a key link. I'm going to try to focus in on finding her. I meant to ask, am I supposed to bring you back a present from Boston?”

“Of course.”

“Okay, I've got something in mind. Any news I should know about?”

“They spent hours cleaning up the site. I know the team's discouraged, and shaken. I think there are some serious concerns the funding might be cut off—at least temporarily. If the police have any leads, they aren't sharing.”

“Take care of yourself, and Ty-Rex.”

“You can count on that. Come home soon, Doug. Come home safe.”

“You can count on that.”

A
t three
A
.
M
., the phone beside the bed rang, and shot his heart straight into his throat. It was pounding there as he grabbed for the receiver.

“Hello.”

“You have a lot to lose and nothing to gain. Go home, while you still have one.”

“Who is this?” He knew it was useless to ask. Frustratingly useless as the line went dead.

He set the phone down, lay back in the dark.

Someone knew he was in Boston, and didn't like the idea.

That meant there was still something, or someone, in Boston to find.

I
t wasn't just the long hours, or the fact that her work was both physically and mentally demanding. Callie had worked longer hours, and under much more arduous conditions.

Here, the weather was sliding gracefully from summer toward fall, offering warm days and cool nights. But for a few scattered hints of yellow on the poplars, the leaves were still lush and green. The sky remained bold and blue.

Under other circumstances, any other circumstances, working conditions would have been ideal.

Callie would have traded those balmy September days for baking heat or torrential rains, for clouds of biting insects and threats of sunstroke.

Because her thoughts leaned that way, she knew she came home exhausted every evening not because of the work itself. It was her scattered focus, the fractured concentration.

She had only to look over at the charred ground where Digger's trailer had been to relive it all.

Intellectually, she knew her reaction was exactly what they wanted. But the core of the problem was not knowing
who
they
were. If an enemy had a face, she thought—she hoped—she could and would fight it. But there was no one to fight, and no place for her to gather and channel her anger.

It was the sense of uselessness, she knew, that brought on the dragging fatigue.

How many times could she study the dateline she and Jake had put together? How often could she reconfigure the connections, scrape at the layers of people and years and events?

At least Doug was doing something tangible by talking to people in Boston. Yet if she'd gone in his stead, given herself the satisfaction of action, she'd have let the team down when they needed her most.

She had to be here, going through the routine, hour by hour and day by day. The facade of normality was essential, or the project would erode like her own morale.

She knew the team looked to her to set the tone. Just as she knew they were talking about details of her personal life. She'd noted the glances shot her way, the whispered conversations that stopped abruptly when she walked into a room.

She couldn't blame them. Hot news was hot news. And the gossip tangled on the grapevine sizzled that Dr. Callie Dunbrook was the long-lost Jessica Cullen.

She'd refused to give interviews or answer questions. It was one thing to want to dig down to the truth, and another to lay herself bare for the media and the curious.

But the curious came anyway. She was well aware that as many people stopped by the dig to see her as to see the project itself.

Though she'd never been one to shy away from the spotlight, it was an entirely different matter when that light glared on you, and not on your life's work.

She was irritable, jumpy and distracted. All three moods collided when the door to the bathroom opened while she was sulking in the shower.

She grabbed the handheld showerhead off its hook, gripped it like a weapon while the sharp violin notes from
Psycho
squealed in her head.

She curled her fingers at the edge of the shower curtain, prepared to whip it back.

“It's Rosie.”

“Goddamnit to hell and back.” Callie thunked the showerhead back in place. “I'm naked in here.”

“I certainly hope so. I'd be more worried about you if you'd started taking showers with your clothes on. Bathroom's about the only place I figure we can talk in private.”

Callie tugged the curtain back an inch. Through the steam, she watched Rosie drop the lid on the toilet and sit.

“If I'm in the john, it's because
I
want privacy.”

“Exactly. So.” Rosie crossed her legs. “You need to snap out of it, pal of mine.”

“Snap out of what?” Callie yanked the curtain back into place, dunked her head under the spray. “Seems to me there ought to be a little more respect around here. People bopping into the bathroom while other people are wet and naked.”

“The bags under your eyes are big enough to hold a week's worth of groceries. You've lost weight. And your temper, never sterling to begin with, is getting ugly. You can't go threatening to hack off a reporter's tongue with a trowel. It's bad PR.”

“I was working. I told him no comment on the personal stuff. I even offered to take time to talk to him about the project. But he wouldn't back off.”

“Sweetie, I know this is tough going for you. You need to let me, Leo, Jake, even Digger do the front work with the media for the time being.”

“I don't need a shield, Rosie.”

“Yes, you do. From now on, I'm taking media control. If you try to argue with me about it, you and I are going to have our first real fight. We've known each other about six years now, by my count. I'd hate to spoil that record. But I will take you down, Callie, if you force me to.”

Callie inched the curtain open again, glared out. “Easy to say when I'm wet and naked.”

“Get dry and dressed. I'll wait.”

“Do I look that bad?”

“It's started to wear more than the edges. The fact is, I haven't seen you look this beaten up since you and Jake imploded.”

“I can't get away from it.” Couldn't get away from Jake either, she remembered. From talk of him, memories of him, thoughts of him. “At the dig, in town, here. It all crawls over me like ants.”

“People talk. That's part of the problem with the species. We just can't shut up.” She waited as Callie turned the water off, then rose to get a towel for her. “The team doesn't mean to put more pressure on you. But we wouldn't do what we do if we weren't curious by nature. We want to know. It's why we dig.”

“I'm not blaming them.” She stepped out, took the towel. As modesty had never been a real issue, she wrapped her hair in it, then reached for another. “Having everybody walk on eggshells around me makes me jittery. And knowing Digger lost that ugly tin can he called home because somebody wanted to get at me bothers me. It bothers me a lot.”

“Digger'll buy himself another tin can. You and Jake weren't seriously hurt. That's more important.”

“I know the priorities, Rosie. And I know, intellectually, the pattern of causing fear and doubt and distraction. But it's a pattern because it works. I'm afraid and confused and distracted, and I don't feel like I'm any closer to finding what I'm looking for.”

She toweled off, grabbed the fresh underwear she'd brought in with her. “Why haven't you asked me about it? About the Cullens, and what it feels like to find out you started out life as somebody else?”

“I started to once or twice. But I figure, when you're ready, I won't have to ask. And I don't think you should need to be told the team is behind you. But I'm telling you anyway.”

“If I wasn't part of the team, the project wouldn't be in trouble.”

Rosie picked up a jar of body cream from the back of the john. Opened it, sniffed. Lips pursed in approval, she slid her finger into the jar, then rubbed cream on her arms.

“You are part of the team. You made me part of it. You go, I go. You go, Jake goes. Jake goes, Digger goes. The project's in a lot more trouble if that happens. You know that, too.”

“I could talk Jake into staying on.”

“You overestimate your powers of persuasion. He's not going to let you out of his sight. In fact, I'm surprised, and not a little disappointed, I didn't find the two of you in the shower. It would've gone to the first page of Rosie's personal memory book.”

“We've got enough gossip around here without Jake and me taking showers together.”

“Now that you mention it.” She dropped the jar of cream into Callie's hand, played with a bottle of moisturizer while Callie massaged cream on her arms and legs. “If I did have a question, it would pertain to that particular area. What's up with you two?”

Callie hitched on fresh jeans. “I don't know.”

“If you don't, who does?”

“Nobody. We're still sort of . . . we're trying to . . . I don't know,” she repeated, and reached for her shirt. “It's complicated.”

“Well, you're complicated people. That's why it was so interesting watching it the first time around. Like being witness to a nuclear reaction. This time it's more like watching a slow-burning fire, and not being entirely sure if it's just going to keep smoldering or burst into active flame at any given moment. I always liked seeing you together.”

“Why?”

Rosie gave a quick, musical laugh. “Coupla sleek, handsome animals stalking around, not sure if they should rip each other to shreds or mate.”

She took the moisturizer, slathered it on her face. “You're full of analogies.”

“I've got a romantic nature. I like seeing the two of you, always did. Right now that man just wants to cuddle you up, but he doesn't know how. And he's smart enough to be cautious because if he cuddles the wrong way you'll peel the skin off his bones. That right there's a conundrum for
him. Because your temperamental nature's just one of the things he loves about you.”

Slowly, Callie unwound the towel, picked up her comb. “I like being sure of things.” She tapped the comb on her palm before running it through her wet hair. “I was never sure he loved me. I thought he cheated on me. Veronica Weeks.”

“Shit, she drew a bead on him from day one—and as much because she was jealous of you as because your man's one sexy hunk. She wanted to cause trouble for you. Hated your guts.”

Callie combed her hair back from her face. “Mission accomplished.” Then she lowered the comb. “How come you knew that, and I didn't?”

“Because it was in your face, sweetie pie. And I was just an observer. But I don't think he ever dipped a toe into that pool, Cal. She wasn't his type.”

“Get out. Tall, built, available. Why wasn't she his type?”

“Because she wasn't you.”

On a long breath, Callie studied her own face in the mirror. Objectively, honestly. “I'm okay to look at. If I take the time to fiddle around, I can be pretty damn attractive. But that's the limit. Veronica was beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous.”

“Where'd you pick up the insecurity complex?”

“It came with the package when I fell in love with him. You know his rep, you know how he's always touching women, flirting with them.”

“The touching and flirting's just one of the ways he communicates. The rep was before you. And all of that,” Rosie continued, “is part of what you fell for.”

“Yeah.” Disgusted with herself, Callie dragged the comb through her hair again. “What I fell for, then immediately started trying to change. Stupid. I just couldn't believe he wouldn't jump on other women. Especially Veronica Weeks and her obvious invitation—
especially
when I found her underwear under our bed.”

“Oh.” Rosie drew the word out into three syllables.

“She set me up, and I fell for it.” She threw the comb in the sink. “I
hate
that. I fell for it because I didn't believe he loved me, at least not enough. So I pushed, and kept pushing, and when I couldn't get an answer to either question, I pushed him right out the door.”

“Now you've let him back in. Wouldn't hurt to let yourself enjoy that part.” Rosie stepped up to the sink, met Callie's eyes in the mirror over it. “Did he cheat on you, Cal?”

“No. He screwed up in other areas, but he never cheated on me.”

“Okay. Any screwups on your part?”

Callie hissed out a breath. “Plenty.”

“All right. Now listen to wise Aunt Rosie. If my life was in this kind of flux, I'd appreciate having a big, strong man willing to stand behind, beside or in front of me. In fact, I appreciate having a big, strong man about any time at all. But that's just me.”

Callie tipped her head until it bumped lightly against Rosie's. “Why aren't you married and raising babies?”

“Honey, there are so many big, strong men out there. Who can pick just one?” She patted Callie's shoulder. “I've got some herbal pads that'll work wonders on those duffel bags under your eyes. I'll get you a couple. You slap them on, stretch out for a half hour.”

S
he felt pretty foolish lying down on top of her sleeping bag with pads that smelled like freshly cut cucumber covering her lids. And she imagined she looked like a blond version of Little Orphan Annie.

But they felt good. Cool and soothing. And though she rarely thought about her appearance when working, Callie had a healthy sense of vanity. She didn't enjoy knowing she'd been walking around looking awful.

Maybe she'd give herself a facial. Rosie always had plenty of girl stuff in her pack. She'd spruce up a little. And she'd remember to put on makeup in the morning.

There was no reason to go around looking like a hag just because she felt like one.

She couldn't manage the thirty minutes, but considered it a victory of willpower that she'd lasted fifteen. She got up, tossed the pads away, then took a long, critical study of herself in the little hand mirror from her pack.