Legacy of the Highlands (25 page)

Alex waited for Diego to tell her what the
letter said. “Well?” she finally probed, running out of patience.
She had no idea what Will could have written to make Diego’s body
suddenly coil with barely contained fury.

“You guessed right. He wanted to tell me he
was sorry for what he’d done, that he knew it was wrong, but did it
anyway. He hoped that he and I would have gotten past this while he
still lived. He said I’m the brother he always wished for, but he
knew I didn’t feel the same about him because that meant we shared
John Cameron as a father. The dickhead also included a copy of the
DNA test as proof of what he’d told me.” He spoke with the same
deadly calm he’d used when they’d questioned John about Will’s
murder.

“And?” She knew the man beside her well
enough to recognize that there had to be more.

“He asked me to take care of you.”

“Oh?” The smugness she would have expected to
see on his face was absent and hers flushed with the memory of how
well Diego had taken care of her needs the night before. She
wondered if Will would have made that same request if he’d known
what he’d green-lighted.

“Anything else? Nothing you’ve told me so far
would have made you look like you’re ready to kill someone, or at
least I don’t think so.”

Until that moment, his gaze had been fixed on
the letter that he still held in his fist. He laid it on his thigh
and smoothed the crumpled paper with one hand as he reached for
Alex’s with the other. “I don’t know how to tell you this.” He
paused to glance at the letter again. She didn’t say anything, but
raised her eyebrows expectantly to encourage him to continue once
he looked up. “Will decided to leave these letters with David
because he was sure someone was stalking him. He said that if he
died suddenly, he wanted someone to know it wasn’t an accident and
that he’d trust me to get the bastards if the police didn’t.”

“So he knew,” she said almost to herself. “He
had a premonition. Why didn’t he go to the police? Or tell me? Why
would he keep this to himself? Why, Diego, why?”

“I can’t answer that. No one can. We can only
guess that he didn’t think the threat was real and perhaps he
didn’t want you to worry. Yet it troubled him enough to write these
letters, so…” He lowered his head, ran his hands through his hair
and sighed. “Stupid bastard.”

Diego irritably glanced at the caller ID when
his phone vibrated. “It’s my father. I have to take this,” then he
lapsed into rapid Spanish. The
Castellano
dialect he spoke
made it difficult for her to follow the brief conversation, but it
was obvious that Diego wasn’t happy when the call ended.

“This couldn’t happen at a worse time. We
should be on our way to Scotland, but I have to go to Argentina for
a few days. There was some screw up with the Abu Dhabi contracts
and my father ordered me home to fix it. He’s the only person who
can still tell me what to do,” he said with a shrug and extended a
hand toward her. “Come with me?”

She was reeling from the discovery of yet
another secret Will had kept from her. She glanced at Diego, but
couldn’t answer him. Everything was suddenly too complicated. She
needed to be alone to figure things out.

“Well? Are you coming or not?” he asked
impatiently, his hand still reaching for hers.

“To Argentina? No, I can’t. I’m sorry
Diego.”

His body stiffened as if she’d punched him in
the gut.

“Diego, wait! Let me explain!” she pleaded,
but he was already halfway out the door. He almost knocked David
down as he sprinted toward the elevator.

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” David
asked as he stepped into his office.

“Not now. I’ve got to talk to Diego…to
explain. I’ll fill Francie in and she can tell you. I’ve got to
go,” she yelled over her shoulder as she ran out of his office, but
by the time she reached the street Diego had already vanished.

“Shit! Goddamn it to hell,” Alex muttered and stamped
her foot in frustration as she stood outside David’s office
building. Diego hadn’t just disappeared without giving her a chance
to explain why she couldn’t fly off to Argentina with him, but he
wasn’t answering his cell phone. That he was bouncing her calls to
voicemail added fury to her frustration.

She flagged down a cab and gave the driver
Francie’s address. When her friend opened the door to her hi-rise
apartment, Alex was sufficiently calm to gape in awe at the wisps
of silk, satin and lace that covered every surface of the living
room. “You have enough underwear here to outfit a high class call
girl ring,” she said with a grin and felt her mood lift.

“True, but I don’t think my husband the
lawyer would be thrilled if I ran a brothel. Take a look.”

Francesca Sandburg’s love for fashion began
when she’d outfitted her first doll. As an adult, she’d turned her
passion into a lucrative business and clothed a loyal following of
entrepreneurs, minor celebrities and creative types who were too
busy to shop for themselves, but valued and could afford her
quirky, yet impeccable, taste.

Alex zeroed in on a dove gray silk camisole
accented by cream-color lace and silk ribbons that tied into bows
at each side of the matching bikini panties. One tug on that ribbon
and...she wasn’t surprised when the fingers untying the ribbon in
her little fantasy belonged to Diego. The daydream came to an
abrupt halt when she spotted the price on the ensemble’s Prada tag.
“Oh my God Francie! Fifteen hundred dollars for underwear? Who
wears this stuff?”

“People with scads of money, of course. The
pieces you’re salivating over are trimmed with antique lace and
sewn by hand,” she said with a shrug. “One of my best clients is
getting married next month and asked me to find fabulous lingerie
for her honeymoon. She’s coming over this evening to choose what
she likes and price is the last thing she’s concerned with.”

“Must be nice. I’m so happy that business is
good, but I need some advice. The last twenty-four hours have been
totally insane and I feel like I’m being tossed around inside a
tornado that doesn’t want to drop me back to earth.”

“Wizard of Oz time, huh? You don’t usually go
off the deep end about underwear, so I figured when you were ready
to talk, you’d let me know. I’ll make us some tea,” Francie said
and took Alex’s hand as they walked to the kitchen. “My client’s a
workaholic and won’t get here until at least seven, so I’ve got
three hours free. Are you meeting Diego for dinner or do you want
to eat here with me and David?”

“Diego’s on his way to Argentina. That’s part
of what I have to talk to you about.” Francie raised her eyebrows,
but didn’t say anything as she gathered tea things and two bags of
cookies — Oreos for her, chocolate chip for Alex.

“Okay. Spill it,” Francie said as they
settled themselves at the small kitchen table.

“I’m not sure where to begin.”

“I’m dying to know why Diego went back to
Argentina so suddenly, but start with the meeting the two of you
had with Will’s father yesterday and we’ll take it from there.”
Francie blew on the hot tea and waited patiently for her friend to
stop nervously picking the chocolate chips out of her cookie.

Alex gazed at her friend. She wanted to blurt
out that she’d slept with Diego, but that tale would have to wait
until she gave Francie a quick summary of John’s connection to
Will’s murder.

“First of all, John’s a mess, mentally and
physically, which isn’t really surprising. It drove us crazy that
he just couldn’t seem to focus. At one point he and Diego went at
it and I was afraid that John would be beaten to death when he was
only halfway through his story, so I made Diego leave.”

“You what? You made Diego leave? He must have
loved that,” said Francie as she bit into another Oreo. “So what
did Will’s father say? I’ve been dying to know why he was so
desperate to find out where you’d gone after the funeral.”

“Oh yeah. I forgot that he’d called you. Get
this,” Alex leaned in and lowered her voice. It still seemed unreal
to her, more like a novel than something that actually happened.
“John Cameron told us he’s part of a secret Scottish independence
group. He’s their money launderer, for chrissakes, or at least he
was.”

“What!” Francie exclaimed and almost choked
on her tea.

“Can you believe it? But wait, there’s more.
Evidently, this job is a Cameron family tradition, but one he never
bothered to tell Will about. Anyway, he found out that this group
was getting ready to plant bombs in London and he turned them in to
the cops. These nut jobs found out what he did and decided his
disloyalty amounted to high treason. But instead of the death
penalty for John, they decided to execute Will. They thought that
would be worse. They were right,” she whispered, unable to go
on.

Alex’s usually garrulous friend was
speechless. Francie opened her mouth a few times, but no words came
out. She frowned as she methodically dipped Oreos into her hot tea
and quickly jammed them into her mouth before the soggy mess
plopped into the teacup.

“Will was an innocent in all this,” Alex
continued. “His only crime was being John Cameron’s son. I hate the
people who did this so much that it scares me. I want to tear their
hearts out or boil them in oil or something.” She shook her head in
an attempt to purge her mind of the various revenge scenarios
brewing there.

“They’ve got to be lunatics,” Francie said as
she dipped another cookie into her tea and frowned as she nibbled
at it. “Did you tell David? Is that why you were at his office
today? What about the police? Shouldn’t you talk to them?”

“One thing at a time. No, I haven’t told
David, but you can do it. Diego and I were at his office for
something entirely different. Will had left letters with him for
both of us. I’ll tell you about those later. And no, I’m not going
to tell the police about this. John would go to jail and he’s
already serving a life sentence of indescribable guilt. Besides,
the murderer has to be back in Scotland by now. The local police
will never have enough evidence to catch him or prove anything.”
Alex stood and began to pace.

“I still don’t understand why John wasn’t the
one they killed if it’s him they were mad at,” said Francie. She
switched from inhaling cookies to chewing her fingernails.

Alex sighed. “I’m pretty sure John would have
preferred that too. Now he’s afraid that they might want to take
out his entire family one by one before they get to him. He sent
Anne to her sister’s in San Francisco. I get the idea she was happy
to go and it sounds like she’s never going to come back. She
despises him, which almost makes the bitch likeable.”

“You said they might kill all of John’s
family. Does that include you?”

“All I know is he wanted to warn me and now
Diego’s appointed himself my personal bodyguard, although he won’t
be much help if he’s in Buenos Aires. What really worries me is
that these animals think they got rid of the last Cameron. They
didn’t.”

Francie pondered the meaning of that
statement for a moment. “They didn’t? What are you saying? Alex!
Are you…?” she trailed off and glanced at her friend’s belly.

“Of course not. You’d be the first to know if
I were pregnant.”

“Then what...?”

“Will has a brother. Maybe you should get out
the ice cream before you hear this.”

“Screw the ice cream. How could he have a
brother? You would have known about it. Was he a twin and the
Camerons gave one up for adoption?” She paused in her theorizing
just long enough to catch her breath. “When did you find out about
this brother of Will’s? Where is he? Come to think of it, who is
he? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Chill, Francie, calm down, but brace
yourself. Will’s half brother is none other than — are you ready? —
Diego Navarro!

“What? But how…?” Francie sputtered, more
stunned by this than the revelation about John’s involvement with
terrorists.

Alex still had trouble believing it herself.
“The short version is that Ricardo Navarro screwed Anne Cameron.”
Alex began to laugh as Francie pretended to gag.

“Ewwww, that’s disgusting.” Francie
grimaced.

“Yeah. I prefer not to think about that part
of it myself. And, of course, John Cameron slept with Giovanna
Navarro, Diego’s mother.”

“Wait. I’m confused. So Ricardo could be
Will’s father? Holy crap.”

“I wish, but no. Their father is John
Cameron. It was all confirmed by a DNA test that my lying sneak of
a husband didn’t tell me about. I’m so mad at him Francie. I had to
hear it from Diego while we were in Florida.”

“But how did this finally come out
thirty-four years after Will and Diego were born? That’s a long
time for something, especially this kind of something, to stay a
secret.”

“It’s a long story so here’s the condensed
version. A few years ago Diego found some letters that made it
clear that the Navarros and the Camerons screwed around with each
other when they were young. He told Will about it and my husband
became obsessed with his paternity and had a DNA test done last
year. It proved that John was his father. Diego refused to take the
test, but Will went ahead and did his too. When he told Diego that
the results showed that John was his father too, they had a huge
fight. That’s why they stopped having anything to do with each
other about a year ago.”

“And Will never told you about any of
this?”

“No!” Alex’s eyes filled with tears of hurt
and frustration. Why couldn’t Will trust her? Why hadn’t he
confided in her? She’d never know. The letter he’d left contained
an apology, but no explanation to help her understand. “And he kept
something else from me too, Fran. In his letter to Diego he said he
thought he was being stalked and that if anything happened to him
it wasn’t an accident. He asked Diego to find the people who did it
if the police don’t.”