Authors: Lisa Jackson
If She Only Knew (36 page)
“Get them out and be quick about it,” he ordered, and the nurse ushered them out of the room.
“It's the morphine,” she said. “Sometimes he's completely lucid, others . . . well, he can't distinguish reality from his dreams. Please understand, he's very ill.”
“Was my husband here?” Marla asked, reeling from her father's violent rejection. It was as if he hated her. “Alex Cahill, did he stop by . . . with someone?”
“Not on my shift, but you might check with the desk. Maybe someone there might remember. Guests are supposed to check in, to register, but not many do.”
“We didn't,” Nick said as a bell dinged softly and the call light over the doorway of Conrad's room blinked on again. “I see it's one of those days,” the nurse apologized as she turned on her heel.
“We're going.” Nick grabbed Marla by the elbow and halfpulled her down the long carpeted hallway. Smooth wooden rails were mounted along the walls of the corridor and wide windows opened to manicured lawns with neatly tended flower beds and an expansive view of the Bay. Every so often there was a sitting area, filled with couches and chairs, lamps and tables that, Nick suspected, were rarely used. The complex was plush. Elegant. But it was still a home. An institution. A place for rich people to come to die.
At the front desk, Nick checked the register. If Alex had appeared in the last few days, he hadn't bothered to sign in. “Let's get out of here,” he said to Marla. A guard buzzed them through electronically locked French doors and Nick felt better. God, that place was a prison. No matter how it was dressed up.
Outside, a salt-laden breeze pushed a few clouds across the blue sky. Seagulls called and swooped at the glassy surface of the Bay and the air held an icy chill of winter. Crisp. Cold. Cutting.
“Conrad always was a miserable old bastard,” Nick said as they walked along a sidewalk to the parking lot.
“He's ill.”
“And he wasn't much better when he was healthy, believe me.”
At the door of his truck, Marla finally glanced up at him. She'd regained her composure to some extent, but two points of color still stained her cheeks. “The next time I get a brilliant idea to meet my relatives without an invitation, just shoot me, okay?” she suggested.
“I'll try to remember.” Nick opened the door and Marla hitched herself onto the old bench seat.
Nick climbed behind the wheel and fired the engine. “He didn't think you were Marla.”
“I caught that.” She snorted. “But then, can you blame him? Even I doubt it at times.” Squinting against the sunlight piercing the windshield, she added, “And he called me Kylie.” Her fingers drummed on the armrest as he pulled out of the parking lot. “Kylie.” The name sounded familiar. But why? Was it hers? No . . . it couldn't be. Did she know someone with that name? She concentrated so hard, her eyebrows slammed together as she tried to recall a past that was beginning to appear to her. It was still shadowy and dark, as if veiled, the final curtain not yet lifted.
Nick sliced her a glance as he guided the truck toward the highway. “Does that name mean anything to you?”
“YesâI mean, maybe.” Blowing out a breath, she reached for the purse she'd taken from her closet, found the sunglasses and slid them onto her nose. “It seemed . . . oh, I don't know.” She wiggled her fingers as if trying to grasp something elusive, then concentrated so hard trying to recall anything about her life before the accident that her head ached. “It's all a jumble in my mind, but I'm sure I've heard the name before . . . that . . . oh, this sounds crazy, but at some level, deep down, I felt that Conrad knew who I was more than I do. Isn't that weird?” She rolled her eyes and cracked her window, letting in the salty air. “It's so odd. Everything about my life seems out of kilter. Sometimes I don't know what's real and what's not, but the animosity he felt for me, the pure hatred on his face, that seemed more like the truth than all the other things I've heard.”
“He wasn't too keen on seeing you.”
“He hates me.”
“At least he does today,” Nick allowed.
Marla stared out the window, to the green hills. “So what's with all this talk about how close I was with my father, how he showered me with gifts, how I was basically the light of his life? As far as I'm concerned it's all fake and way overblown. Or maybe even downright wrong. Ever since I woke from the coma I've had this gut feeling, this intuition, that he and I didn't see eye to eye. That we really didn't like each other.” She slid Nick a look. “I guess that's putting it mildly, huh?” She almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation. Except that it was too painful. The sorry truth was that she was related to so many people and felt connected to none. Except the baby and Nick. Not even her own daughter. Not her husband. “So much for fatherly affection,” she muttered, then asked, “Why did he think I'd been there earlier with Alex?”
“The nurse said he's in and out of reality because of his drugs.” Nick shifted down as the truck took a sweeping corner where the road rimmed the Bay.
“Are you buying that?” She stared at him hard.
“I don't know, but something's not right.”
“Amen.”
“I guess we'll ask Alex.”
“It should make interesting dinner conversation,” she said, then lapsed into silence. Her father thought her a fake, an interloper, an imposter. He acted as if she was someone else, someone who a woman he referred to as a whore had tried to pass off as his daughter. Did he dream it? Or was it part of his past?
“Did you know that most of Conrad's estate will go to James when he dies?” Nick asked.
“The baby? My father's estate goes to my son?” That was crazy.
“Yep.”
“Now, wait a minute,” she said, holding up a hand in protest. “How do you know this?”
“I've been doing my homework.”
“Prying, you mean.”
He switched on the radio. A commercial for cellular phones blasted through the speakers. Nick found another station. Soft rock of some sort. An old Billy Joel tune. “Call it what you will, but I'm just trying to figure out what's going on down here.”
“Me, too,” she admitted though she was a little disconcerted to think that Nick might know more about her life than she did. “You're sure about the will?”
“As sure as I am about anything. I've got a private investigator working for me.”
“So?”
“He's got connections, or so he says. The upshot of the will is that everyone else gets a pittance, but the baby is the primary beneficiary.”
“For God's sake, why?”
“Seems your father always wanted a namesake. The will originally stated that a male heir would inherit most of everything and since Rory is severely handicapped, the onus was on you to produce a son.”
“Even though his last name isn't Amhurst.”
“Hence the James
Amhurst
Cahill.”
Amhurst
Cahill.”
“I can't believe that. It's . . . it's so archaic. So . . . so . . . sick.” But then she remembered the man who was her father. Somehow, it fit.
“It's the old man's money, he can do with it what he wants,” Nick pointed out as Marla watched a jet slice across the sky.
“But James is barely nine weeks old.”
“And damned lucky to be a male.”
“Or cursed.” She didn't like the feeling that had been with her since seeing her father lying in his bed, a shell of the man he'd once been, a skeleton filled with hate and suspicion. So where was the doting father who gave out stock certificates and expensive rings like candy? Where was the man who raised her and nurtured her and looked forward to her bringing him grandchildren . . . ?
“Who is Kylie?” Nick asked suddenly.
“I wish I knew. But I know I've heard the name before . . . seen or heard it somewhere. I just can't remember where.”
He tapped his fingers on the gearshift as he thought. His eyes narrowed on the road and he said, “Maybe you do have a sister after all. A half-sister.”
“It's a possibility I suppose,” she agreed as he'd echoed her own suspicions. “But why doesn't anyone know about her?”
“Because it was his nasty little secret. It could be that it's all twisted in his mind and he's confusing you with her.”
“Maybe,” she allowed though the idea seemed far-fetched and disjointed. But why else would he call her by another name? “Or maybe I am Kylie. How would I know?” She offered him a lift of one brow.
“Then where's Marla, and why does everyone think you're Conrad's princess of a daughter?”
“Not everyone does,” she pointed out, watching as fence posts and grassy fields gave way to houses dotting the landscape, flying by in a blur as the truck roared down the narrow road. “Cissy doesn't. Conrad doesn't. I'm not even sure if I do. What about you?” She twisted her head to stare directly at him. “You knew her. Very well from the sounds of it.” His fingers curled over the wheel. “Do you think I'm Marla?” she asked. His lips thinned. The skin stretched tight over his cheekbones.
“Yes.”
“Why? My face has changed a lot. I've been through hell in that wreck, then had plastic surgery. You haven't seen me in whatâover a dozen years?”
The veins in the back of his hands stood out. His knuckles turned white. “That's true.”
“Then how would you know?”
When he didn't answer, she touched his arm. “How, Nick?”
“Because of my reaction to you, damn it!” He slid her a glance that cut right to the quick. “Let's start with last night,” he suggested as the tires sang against the pavement. “You were there, you know what happened.”
“Yâyes,” she said, dropping her hand.
“I usually don't lose control, Marla,” he said earnestly. “It's not my style.” His gaze, so blue, so cutting, so damned intense drilled into hers and she wanted to shrink away. Instead she met it straight on. “It only happened once before. A long time ago.” His smile twisted with self-loathing. “It's a pity you don't remember it.”
Her stomach did a slow roll and she notched up her chin. “Damned right it's a pity,” she said. “I don't care what happened between us, Nick, I just want to remember.”
“Well I do, lady. I care and I remember and I'll be damned if I'm going through that hell all over again.”
He shifted down and roared past a sedan that was slowing for a turn.
She flopped back against the seat, her emotions ripped and raw. There was so much of life that was disconnected, jagged little bits and pieces that just didn't fit. And her relationship with Nick was so volatile, so worrisome, so damned intense it scared the hell out of her. “Then I guess we'd better find this Kylie person.”
“If she exists.”
“Right.”
Lapsing into silence, he rammed the truck into fourth and stepped on the gas. Marla folded her arms on her chest and wiggled her foot nervously. He was her only ally and sometimes her worst enemy. She felt as if she could trust him and reminded herself he was probably the last person she should have faith in. He had an old grudge against her, a personal axe to grind.
“I want to show you something,” he said, taking the turn to Sausalito rather than connecting with the highway leading back to San Francisco. Tucked on the interior side of the peninsula at the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, the small community was spread upon the hillside, pastel houses, flowers and shrubs climbing the hills for views of the sparkling water.
“Show me what? Where are we going?”
“I thought we'd check out Pam Delacroix's address.”
“Why?”
“To try to jog your memory,” he said, some of his animosity fading. “Is that okay with you?”
“Anything's worth a try.”
He pulled into a marina on Richardson Bay and parked in a lot designated for residents. “She lived in a houseboat?” Marla asked, eyeing the floating homes docked along wide wooden piers.
“Ever since her divorce.” Nick pointed out a sun-bleached dock near a two-story floating home and Marla felt as if a ghost had slid through her soul. She tried to imagine the woman she'd seen in the snapshots living here day to day, carrying groceries, calling her daughter on the phone, making plans to sell houses . . . and yet she remembered nothing.
Determined to remember something,
any
thing about the woman who'd given up her life in the wreck, Marla hopped out of the truck and slammed the door. Though the day was bright, the sky clear aside from the clouds rolling in from the west, Marla felt as if she should be skulking in shadows, hiding from the eyes of neighbors if they chanced to peer through the blinds. The wind blew in chilly, November gusts as she approached the front door where a carved wooden heron with glassy eyes held a welcome sign in its long beak. Nick rapped hard. Waited. No one stirred within. No one answered. The blinds didn't move. Using his hand as a visor, Nick tried to peer inside.
any
thing about the woman who'd given up her life in the wreck, Marla hopped out of the truck and slammed the door. Though the day was bright, the sky clear aside from the clouds rolling in from the west, Marla felt as if she should be skulking in shadows, hiding from the eyes of neighbors if they chanced to peer through the blinds. The wind blew in chilly, November gusts as she approached the front door where a carved wooden heron with glassy eyes held a welcome sign in its long beak. Nick rapped hard. Waited. No one stirred within. No one answered. The blinds didn't move. Using his hand as a visor, Nick tried to peer inside.
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