The Secret of the Villa Mimosa (50 page)

Marie-Laure laughed and asked him his name. He told her it was Wong. “Is not my real Chinese name,
missy. Mr. Jack gave it to me. He said he could not pronounce my real name. So now I am Wong.”

Marie-Laure suddenly realized that she was with someone who had actually known Jack Kane personally. Someone other than his son, that is. Didn’t people say servants always knew everything? If anybody did, this old Chinese man would know the truth about her father’s torturer.

She said, “What was Mr. Jack like, Wong? Was he a bad man?”

The old Chinese hesitated, his head bowed. “Mr. Jack was proud man, missy,” he said finally. “He very proud of the Kane name. Sometimes he good man, sometimes bad.” He sighed. “Sometimes very bad. But I am only his servant. I see everything, but I say nothing.” He looked up at her and said, “I no speak bad of a dead man.”

He bowed again, and she watched him walk slowly away. “Wong,” she called after him. He turned and looked at her, his hands folded patiently. “Did you ever know the boy they called the Monkey?”

He shook his head. “No, missy. I never did.”

Brad came toward them, the dogs, as always, following at his heels. “Marie-Laure, good morning,” he called cheerfully. “I hope you slept well.”

The dogs crouched obediently on their haunches as he smiled down at her. “I’m sorry but something has come up. I have to return to Honolulu. I had hoped we could spend a couple of days here, but I’m afraid it means we have to leave this morning.”

He shrugged irritatedly. “It’s business. Otherwise I wouldn’t do this to you. After all, you’ve only just arrived on Kalani. Never mind. At least you got to see it. And perhaps you’ll find Diamond Head even more to your liking.”

Wong and one of the dogs, Makana, flew with them to Honolulu. The dog lay quietly at Wong’s feet until
the plane began its descent into Honolulu; then it began to howl loudly.

“Quiet, Makana,” Brad yelled from the cockpit. “Wong, shut that dog up.”

Wong patted its big head and said something in Chinese, and the dog stopped its howling though it still trembled nervously.

“No matter how many times that animal flies with me he always howls when we’re landing,” Brad said impatiently. “Wong has spent as much time with the Dobermans as I have. He practically brought them up. He is the only other person they answer to besides me.”

Marie-Laure thought that the tiny Chinese must weigh half what the Doberman did. One leap and he would have been flattened on the ground.

“You don’t control a dog like that by force,” Brad told her, reading her mind. “The secret is in their training. They are ruled by commands.”

Marie-Laure thought of the exuberant joyous retrievers that had been her own family pets, and she felt a pang of sympathy for Makana.

The Kane helicopter was waiting in Honolulu to take them to Diamond Head, while Brad went downtown to his meeting. “Wong will make sure you have everything you need,” he assured her, waving good-bye. “Just make yourself at home.”

Marie-Laure stared down, amazed, as the helicopter hovered over the Diamond Head house. It was a dream mansion enfolded in tropical greenery, with fountains and flamboyant blossoms and a cobalt blue pool that seemed to slide over the edge of the great black cliffs into the huge green foam-flecked breakers combing the Pacific.

Wong escorted her to her room, but he looked so old and tired she would not allow him to carry her shabby green canvas bag. She followed him, glancing
admiringly at the paintings and other works of art they passed.

“This was Mrs. Kane’s room,” Wong told her, flinging open a door. It was a big, beautiful, light-filled room with a view across the tree-studded lawns to the sea. Wong took her bag and put it in the biggest closet Marie-Laure had ever seen.

“Madame must have liked clothes,” she said with awe. “Wong, do you mean Brad’s mother?”

“Yes, missy. Her name was Rebecca. She was very beautiful. There is a portrait of her in the dining room. And all the others. Mr. Archer and his second wife, and Mr. Jack.”

Marie-Laure couldn’t wait to see them. Wong showed her around, proudly pointing out the family portraits, but he didn’t need to tell her who they were. Her father had described that cruel, arrogant face and that look of icy indifference so well she would have known Archer Kane anywhere. She could understand why poor, vulnerable
la célibataire
had fallen for him, though; he was certainly a handsome, virile-looking bastard.

Jack Kane’s blue eyes stared mockingly at her, just the way he must have looked at her father. “You thought because you were a Kane, you were king of everything,” she whispered to him. “But you didn’t win in the end, Jack. All you got was the money.”

Rebecca was even more beautiful than she had imagined, glamorous and glittering with emeralds and arrogance. It must have been a family trait, she thought, amazed; even the wives had it. Chantal did, too. The artist had caught the curl of her lip, the impatient hauteur in her eyes, though Marie-Laure thought there was a hint of self-mockery in there somewhere.

Marie-Laure felt better as she turned away from those long-dead faces. It was good that she had come here and confronted the ghosts of her father’s life. She believed he would have approved of that.

She went back to her room and found a maid unpacking her bag, and she was forced to smile when she saw her T-shirts, a dress, a skirt, and a couple of shirts, hanging forlornly in the vast closet Her simple things were just not up to the grandeur of their surroundings. Rebecca’s closet needed haute couture and hatboxes and Vuitton steamer trunks, not an old green canvas duffel from L.L. Bean.

She put on a bathing suit and swam laps in the magnificent pool. Then she lay on a beautiful bamboo chaise under a shady umbrella, sipping iced tea brought by another slippered Chinese servant, and thinking about Brad.

He was behaving very well toward her, she told herself. He couldn’t be more hospitable, more sympathetic, more generous, offering her half the Kane ranch. Then why did she still have this sneaking feeling that something was wrong?
Why
was he being so nice? She kept remembering what her father had told her about all the Kanes: that the only thing that mattered in their lives was the Kanoi Ranch and their name. Nothing else counted. They had even killed to keep it.

Then
why
would Brad Kane suddenly offer to give her half the Kane ranch? It was like offering her a half share in his heart.

Suddenly uneasy, she sipped the iced tea. Brad Kane was a hardheaded businessman. He was not a philanthropist or a born-again Christian or a madman. It just wasn’t in character. He knew exactly what he was doing. If he wanted to give her back part of the ranch, he must want something in return.

Her father’s words of warning repeated themselves endlessly in her head, she could hear his voice telling her, “Let sleeping dogs lie, in case they turn around and bite you … again.” Something was wrong. And she suddenly didn’t want to stay around and find out what it was. She had to get out of there.

She ran back through the paradise gardens to Rebecca’s
room. She repacked her bag, took a shower, then put on a white T-shirt and jeans and her red sandals and went out onto the terrace to wait for Brad.

It was twelve-thirty when he returned. “It’s good to see a pretty girl waiting for me when I get home,” he said breezily, pouring himself a whiskey.

He offered her one, and she shook her head, wondering if she could be wrong after all. He looked so cool and handsome and suntanned and … rich. He looked as though he owned the world.
Then why
, that nagging little voice asked again,
does he want to give half of it to you?

“You’re very quiet, Marie-Laure,” he said, watching her.

“I’m tired. I did a lot of swimming … laps,” she replied evasively.

“I thought we would have lunch at the gazebo,” he said. She could see a pretty white wooden folly at the edge of the cliff. He took her hand and pulled her to her feet, sliding a friendly arm around her shoulders as they strolled toward it with the Doberman at their heels.

The gazebo was built like a Hawaiian pavilion, a white wooden octagon, open on all sides, with a curved thatched roof that came to a point at the top. Heavy canvas curtains were swagged back between the posts ready to shut out the wind, and the view was tremendous: straight down the steep black cliffs to the rocks and the great, high-crested Pacific rollers gliding majestically toward them.

Wong was arranging dishes on a buffet, but Brad dismissed him, saying they would serve themselves.

For a moment, looking at the beauty all around her, Marie-Laure was tempted to believe his offer. These lovely gardens filled with heavy-scented tropical blossoms, the emerald lawns, the rolling ocean view. All she had to do was say the word, and half of this could be hers. But when she glanced at Brad, she caught a
strange expression on his face, a distance and coldness that sent warning prickles up her spine.

“Come, let’s eat,” he said, with a quick smile. His expression was neutral again, and she told herself that she was just being silly, that she had just imagined that icy look.

She nibbled at a salad, and Brad did not seem to be hungry. He sat silently, drinking his whiskey, watching her.

Black clouds appeared over the sea, blocking out the sun, and a sudden strong wind whipped the waves into dark, foam-speckled mountains. She shivered, looking nervously at him in the deepening stormy dusk, wondering why he was so quiet. “Brad, I think I should leave in the morning,” she said quickly. “You have been a wonderful host. Thank you for showing me the Kanoi Ranch and Kalani and for your generous offer. But I cannot accept. I just don’t want any part of it.”

He looked at her expressionlessly. Still, he said nothing, and Marie-Laure felt those warning prickles again. She thought apprehensively that even though Brad was looking at her, he didn’t seem to be seeing her.

She got up and walked nervously to the edge of the gazebo. She leaned against the rail, looking out at the ocean, wishing she could think of something to say to break his strange silence. She turned to speak to him, to apologize again for her sudden departure. And then she saw the shotgun, lying on the chair behind him. It was a handsome weapon with a polished wooden stock ornamented with silver.

“That’s a beautiful gun,” she said, surprised she hadn’t noticed it before. “But what do you shoot here?”

“
Predators
,” he said viciously. “Sit down, Marie-Laure Leconte.”

There was a sudden whiff of danger in the air, as tangible as the aroma of the whiskey. She froze, staring at him.

“J
said, sit down
.”

There was an edge to his voice that made her obey. Her knees buckled, and she sank into the chair opposite him. “I’m sorry I can’t stay any longer,” she said, frightened, “but it’s better this way. My father was right. I should not have come—”

“Be quiet,” he snapped impatiently, “and listen to me, you silly girl.” Her brown eyes widened with shock. “Of course you are right,” he said in a remote voice. “You should not have come here. And your father should not have come here. Archer Kane should have killed him at the Villa Mimosa when he killed his mother. It would have been the best thing for all of us.” He smiled coldly as he took another gulp of his drink. “And it would have saved me a lot of trouble.”

“What do you mean?” Marie-Laure pushed back her chair. She got to her feet and edged nervously away from him. The Doberman gave a low growl and it glowered menacingly.

“You were stupid and silly to think I would give you even the smallest fraction of the Kanoi Ranch. You have seen it. You know that it belongs to the Kane family. That it was our hard work, our intelligence, our dedication,
our superiority
that made this place. All Marie-Antoinette Leconte and her son contributed was money. Not another goddamn thing. They didn’t build this house; they didn’t create Kalani; they didn’t plant the avenue of banyans and build that little ranch house and the medical facility and the church and the houses for the workers. They did nothing, Marie-Laure.”

He fell silent again, and she looked appeasingly at him. “I know that, Brad,” she said quickly. “You have done wonders—”

“Jack was right,” he said, as though she had never spoken. “He said he should have killed the Monkey that night on the island when they had the fight. He should have stuck that knife into his heart and been done with it. He regretted it all his life. He said to me,
‘I know in my bones he is still out there somewhere, like a coiled rattlesnake waiting to strike. He will try to take that fortune from us one day, son. He will want to take everything the Kane family has worked for all these years: our sweat and toil, our land, our heritage.
Our name.
Make no mistake, he will come to claim his fortune, and when he does, we must be ready to act. Quickly and without mercy.’”

Marie-Laure drew a sharp frightened breath as Brad slammed down the empty glass. He stood up, towering over her.

“My father is dead,” she cried. “He never wanted anything to do with Kalani and the Kanoi Ranch. He never wanted to come back here. He didn’t want anything from the Kane family.”

“But
you
are not dead, Marie-Laure. And one day
you
will get to thinking about things. About this rich ranch and this beautiful house and Kalani and all that money. And you will go to a smart attorney with your story and your claim. You’ll want more than half then, Marie-Laure. You will want it all. And you see, I cannot let that happen.”

“You’re crazy,” she cried, stepping backward away from him. “I told you I don’t want anything from you. I don’t want the Leconte name ever to be associated with the Kanes. My father was right about you. You live above the law; you have no morals; your grandfather killed his wife to get his hands on her money, and he would have killed Johnny, too, when he was eighteen. I should never have come here. I should not have listened to you. I should have trusted my father.”

Purple lightning zigzagged suddenly across the midnight dark sky. “It’s too late now,” Brad said. He leaned against the rail with his arms folded, watching her under hooded lids.