Private Entrance (The Butterfly Trilogy) (38 page)

     "What!" He tried punching in his own code.

     "You can't override it," Abby said as she strode to the sofa and sat down as if prepared to stay there forever. "I want you to read something, a poem," she said, holding out the envelope. "And after you have read it, you can decide for yourself if I am lying to you."

     He eyed the envelope warily, drawn to it, yet frightened of it. "No," he said.

     "All right, I'll read it to you."

     He tried not to listen, determined not to let this woman manipulate him, but her voice was firm and compelling, and it drew him like a moth to a flame.

     "To my precious child," Abby read, "wherever you are: I waited...to count ten tiny toes and fingers/To hold you in my arms and to kiss your sleepy eyes/To say, 'I love you. I'm your Mama.'/But you never came. You were not there./'Where's my baby?' I cried./They told me you were dead, but they lied./You lived. You were strong."

     Despite himself, Jack was drawn to her. He sat next to her on the sofa as wind swept through the garden and gentle words filled the night.

     "On my lonely path/You are my companion/Kept in every beat of my heart./Sacred. Close. Alive./Others tore us apart/Yet I blamed myself for so long/Searching for you is where I find healing/Hope gives me strength/I will
never
give up."

     She raised her head and looked directly at Jack as she recited the final
lines: "I loved you then/I love you now/I love you always. I wait..."

     Silence rushed in behind her words as their eyes held, and the desert wind moaned beyond the walls. Jack swallowed with difficulty as he watched Abby fold the paper and slip it back into the envelope.

     "There was a time, Jack, when I was in so much pain, I thought I could not live. And then one night, when I reached the bottom of my despair, I took a pen to paper and laid my feelings down in words. It helped a little. I kept this poem with me and read it over and over, and as time went by, it became a balm to my pain. The person I wrote this poem to has never read it, has never heard these words, and I don't even know if she ever will, but it has helped me to cope with a trauma that nearly destroyed my life."

     He could barely speak. "What does this have to do with me?"

     She laid her hand on his shoulder. "Write to Nina. Tell her how much you love her and how sorry you are that you weren't able to protect her. There is healing in words, Jack."

     "I'm no poet—"

     "It doesn't have to be a poem. Write her a letter. Tell her what's in your heart."

     Pain engulfed him as he suddenly remembered all the good things about Nina that he had buried beneath his grief, surfacing now like brilliant little suns: Nina's amusing laughter that ended up on a squeak, the way she could never properly tell a joke which made it all the funnier, her soft heart for animals and the stray cats she was always taking in, and her generosity when she opened her wallet to a friend in need.

     He broke down and cried. Abby sat at his side, waiting. Finally, he said in a strained voice, "My parents were in a car accident when Nina was eight. My father was killed and Mother was seriously injured. She never fully recovered and had a hard time taking care of a child. I had just graduated from college, so I came home to help my mother and Nina. That was when we grew close. I think I became more of a father figure to Nina than an older brother. I lived at home and worked various jobs, supporting them, until I joined the Police Academy. Nina eventually got a college degree and went into advertising, but we always stayed close, and took care of our mother."

     He looked at Abby, then at the paper in her hands, seeing it through eyes blurred with tears. "Who is your poem written to?"

     "I had a child taken from me. The hour it was born."

     Sudden understanding dawned on his face. "That's why you're involved in the black market adoption ring."

     "How do you know about
that?"

     "Through Nina. Abby, you have a file on her. I saw it on your desk. I didn't open it, but I saw several papers and what looked like the edge of a photograph. Monday night, when you left the room to get the security pass, I saw the folders on your desk. Nina was trying to locate her birth mother. In her investigation she compiled the names of other adopted children. The three women, Ophelia, Sissy and Coco—Nina had those names. That's why I came here, to see if I could find out something from them. I saw their folders on your desk, and I saw Nina's."

     "I have a file on Nina?"

     "I thought you knew! I thought you'd been lying to me about it."

     "Jack, my private investigator followed many leads and then he narrowed it down to one of three. But I told him to send me all the files he had collected, even though they did not pertain to me, because I am going to turn the information over to a non-profit organization that is attempting to unite abducted children with their real parents. Jack, I've never even looked at those other folders. I didn't know one of them was your sister."

     He ran his hands over his face, and when he looked at Abby she saw the depth of his grief in his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have accused you of lying."

     Abby wanted to do more, take him into a comforting embrace and hold him to her breast, but he was vulnerable, so she laid her hands on his and said, "Jack, write a letter to Nina, like the one I wrote to my daughter."

     His fingers curled around hers and Abby felt the calluses from years of shooting arrows into targets. Desire flared deep within her.

     And then he pulled her to him and kissed her hard on the mouth. Abby was suddenly on fire.
Yes!
But as his embrace tightened, she thought:
No!
And pulled back. "Jack, I have to tell you something. Something I have never told another soul."

     She told it quickly, before courage failed her, while Jack listened somberly to the story of her past. She ended it with, "My baby was born in prison and she was taken from me. They told me she was stillborn but I later learned that the warden was selling babies to a blackmarket adoption ring. I have been searching for her ever since." The rest—the prison escape, the bounty on her head—she couldn't talk about right now. Jack was a policeman and would be duty-bound to arrest her. Perhaps after all this was over...

     "With the help of a private investigator, I traced her to three possibilities. And now I have narrowed it down to one. Ophelia Kaplan."

     His eyes widened. "The woman who got lost in the desert today?"

     "I believe she is my daughter. She doesn't know it yet. We haven't had a chance to talk."

     Jack groaned. He wanted to kiss her again, make love to her, let Abby dissolve his pain and he, hers. But his emotions were turbulent and they frightened him.

     The night air became charged as he said with passion, "Don't let her slip through your fingers, Abby. I would give anything to have Nina back. Don't lose your daughter. Go to her. Right now. Tell her the truth."

     "I can't, Jack. It isn't fair to Ophelia. She is an individual and she has her own life. I can't let my needs and wants be more important than her happiness."

     And suddenly he saw something for the first time: that Nina had been her own person, an individual, making her own choices, and that at some point a parent, or an older brother acting as a parent, has to let the child go his or her own way. "Nina knew her investigation was leading her into dangerous territory. I warned her to be careful. She wouldn't listen."

     "Jack, you need to not only forgive yourself, you need to forgive Nina as well."

     And it struck him what he and Abby had in common: he losing a sister, she losing a daughter. And both finding them again. Two people hurting, two people blaming themselves for something that happened to love ones.

     "Abby, I came here not only to find out who murdered Nina, but to find out who her birth parents were. I owe it to her."

     "I'll help you in any way I can. I have collected tons of data that you are welcome to go through."

     "You are one amazing lady," he said, lifting his hand to her hair.

     "It's about hope," she said, wanting to kiss him. Wanting to deliver herself into Jack's strong arms and surrender to desire. "A flower always turns toward the sun. No matter how you reposition it, the flower will always find the sun. Humans are like that about hope. No matter the circumstances, we always turn towards it."

     And he realized she was right. He had lost hope. But now, maybe, he could find it again.

     He drew her to him and kissed her again, gently this time, touching her neck, her shoulders, marveling at this woman who had come into his life, feeling the warmth within permeate his skin and muscle and bones to go straight to his soul. And Abby, nearly weeping with joy, leaned into him as her heart opened up for the first time in thirty years.

     The phone rang, startling them. It was the nurse reporting that Ophelia was well enough for a visit. "Go to her," Jack said, not wanting Abby to leave but knowing she would be back. "Good luck."

     She paused at the door and said, "Write a letter to Nina. Even though she's dead, write to her as though she were going to read it. Tell her everything that is in your heart, Jack, and you will begin to heal."

     After she was gone, he rose and went to the desk, pulled out blank stationery and a pen, drew up the chair, and sat down to write...

A
BBY PRESSED THE BACK OF HER HAND TO HER MOUTH WHERE
Jack's kiss still burned.

     She had never felt so alive. Years ago, when she had vowed never to fall in love, she had thought it would be an easy oath to keep. Not even with Sam Striker, for whom she had developed a deep fondness, had Abby felt so electric and in tune with the world.

     Dear Sam. Fifteen years her senior, bald, in poor health. The new garden had been for his remaining time on earth and the landscaper he had hired was doing it all wrong. But Abby stepped in and created a healing wonderland of trees and shrubs, gazebos, ponds and waterfalls. It hadn't spared Sam from the cancer, but it had prolonged his life long enough for him to provide her a haven in return, in the form of his name. He was right, no cops looked at the wife of wealthy realtor Sam Striker and connected her to the fugitive on a wanted poster.

     "Someday you will fall in love, Abby," he had said in his final weeks, when the desert resort they had built together was nearly finished. "And I hope that lucky man realizes what a prize he has won."

     Did Jack feel about her the way she felt about him—this sudden, unexpected rush of passion and desire? Abby would have to think about it later, explore her new and frightening feelings. Right now, something more urgent demanded her attention.

     After thirty-three years of preparing for this moment—three decades of running, hiding, frightened of being caught, searching for her daughter, terrified of learning that her baby was dead, bringing the poem to show Ophelia she had never forgotten her—Abby realized she wasn't prepared at all. Her heart galloped as she stood at the door of the Marie Antoinette suite.

     Back in her bungalow, her suitcase was packed and waiting, a coat draped over it, purse sitting on top. The plane reservation had been made. These next few minutes with Ophelia were going to bring to an end a life she had known was only temporary. Tomorrow she would set off for a new one, far from this place.

     She knocked.

     David answered the door. A handsome man, distinguished looking with jet-black hair. They shook hands.

     Ophelia was reclining on a rococo settee of pink silk upholstery and gilded legs. If she wore an Empire-style gown, Abby thought, Ophelia could be a lady in the Court of Versailles. But she was wrapped in a no-nonsense chenille bathrobe and looking very displeased with herself.

     "I am so sorry, Ms. Tyler," she said, sitting up. "To put everyone to such trouble. To cause such worry. I can't imagine what I was thinking. Please, sit down."

     The response caught in Abby's throat. Thirty-three years ago, waking up from the anesthesia to be told her baby had died, and then just weeks later, Mercy saying the baby was alive. That was the moment Abby's journey had begun. She had wanted to go back to the prison, fight for her freedom through legal channels. But the need to find her daughter was greater, and so she had begun her life as a fugitive from justice. Now that her road had brought her to this final dream-come-true, however, she was at a loss for words.

     "These things happens," she said as she took a seat. "We're just glad you're okay."

     As she looked at Ophelia, the child taken from her before she could
even hold her in her arms, Abby thought of all the birthdays she had missed, all the "firsts" in a girl's life. It was on her lips to blurt the truth. But if she did, then the rest would have to come out, too, and how could she tell this woman that the man she thought was her father, Norman Kaplan, certified public accountant who, according to the private investigator's report, was known for his charitable works and philanthropy, was not really her father, that the man who had sired her was in fact a cold-blooded killer who had murdered an old woman for fifty cents?