Whispers (32 page)

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Authors: Lisa Jackson

BOOK: Whispers
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“Mr. Taggert?” The receptionist's voice broke into the room. “It's your wife on line one. I told her you were busy but—”
Irritation yanked Weston's brows together as he punched a button for the intercom. “I'll take the call.” Then, to Kane, “If you'll excuse me.”
Kane didn't need an excuse to leave. He'd gotten what he'd come for—a little insight into the Taggert family and Weston in particular. He would have thought the entire clan would have been jumping for joy at the thought of an exposé written about the family's old nemesis, but no, Weston had an aversion to his project. As if he were guilty. But of what?
As he jaywalked across the street to his car, Kane felt a little thrill of victory. Already he was stepping on toes, important toes. Surely something would break.
He jumped into his Jeep and threw it into gear. He was feeling better by the minute. Yep, old Wes was jumpy, but why? Kane had a couple of more interviews this afternoon. He wanted to talk with reporters who had covered Harley Taggert's and Jack Songbird's deaths. He'd read their articles, of course, had most of them memorized, but he hoped that picking the reporters' brains would give him more clues. Next, he wanted to talk to the first people on the scene of Miranda Holland's accident—the Good Samaritans who had seen firsthand how the girls had reacted. Maybe they could give him a little insight, a new angle on the tragedy. Only then would he visit Claire again.
 
 
“I want you to find out everything you can about a guy named Denver Styles.” Miranda faced Frank Petrillo across the scarred Formica table of Francone's, the only Italian restaurant in town that Petrillo thought was worth the price of a slice of pizza.
“He givin' you a rough time?” Frank asked, wadding a stick of gum into his mouth despite the fact that he'd just ordered a pint of beer. “He the guy who's been hangin' around?”
“Not a rough time. He's on my dad's payroll.”
One graying eyebrow lifted as a buxom waitress left their drinks on the table. Petrillo took a sip and squinted over the top of the glass. “What's the problem?”
“Dutch hired him to snoop into our—my sisters' and my—lives, and I don't trust him.” She gave Frank an abbreviated version of her meeting with Styles, careful not to mention too much about the night Harley Taggert died. “He's supposed to be a private investigator, some guy from out of town, I think, but I get the feeling I've met him before.” She took a sip of her chardonnay and turned the wineglass in her fingers. “I'd just like to know who he really is.”
Petrillo rubbed his jaw and the stubble scraped as he thought. “Styles, eh?”
“Denver Styles. Other than his name, I don't know anything about him.”
“You will.” Petrillo snapped his Juicy Fruit and took another long swallow of beer. His dark eyes twinkled at the prospect of a new challenge, and Miranda felt a little better. Frank would dig until his fingers bled, but he'd find out what there was to know about Dutch's newest employee.
She only hoped it was in time. Before Denver Styles or Kane Moran found out the truth. She sipped her wine as the pizza, some concoction of shrimp, green pepper, and olives that Petrillo favored, was deposited on the table.
Frank joked with her as he pulled out a stringy slice and tried to put her at ease, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being backed into a corner, a dank, black corner that had been always one step away and was now looming closer.
She sensed that she was being watched, but a quick glance around the restaurant convinced her that her imagination was running away with her. Denver Styles wasn't lurking near the video machines or seated in a smoky corner of the bar. No, it was just her mind toying with her again, her guilt rising from the watery grave in which she'd buried it years before.
Hold on,
she silently told herself as she reached for a slice of pizza that she didn't want. Forcing a smile, she took a bite.
“Relax, kid,” Petrillo said. “Everything's gonna be all right.”
“You're sure?”
Petrillo's brown eyes twinkled. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”
Miranda smiled and wished to heaven that she could believe him. But, damn it, she couldn't. Even in this cozy little pizza parlor with people laughing and talking, the bartender wiping down the brass on the bar, and Frank Petrillo winking at her from across the table, she felt the cold breath of doom against the back of her neck. And she was scared. More scared than she'd been in sixteen years.
 
 
“Tell me about Dad.” Samantha hopped onto the counter in the kitchen where Claire was unpacking the last of the moving cartons. They'd been in Chinook nearly a week, and yet they hadn't completely settled in.
“What do you want to know?” Claire asked.
“Is he as bad as Sean says?”
Claire gritted her teeth. The ache in her heart had ceased long ago, when she'd first learned that Paul was having an affair. It probably hadn't been his first as he was forever attracted to younger women. Now all she felt was shame and remorse. “Your father isn't bad,” she said, wondering if she were lying. “He's just weak.”
“Weak?”
“Yes. He, uh, likes women.”
“Girls,” Sam corrected.
Anything in a skirt.
“Yes, sometimes girls, too.”
“Then he is bad.”
“I don't want you to think of him that way.”
“But
you
do,” Samantha charged, her eyes showing only a little of the pain that had to be echoing through her young body. She drew her legs up, balancing the arches of her feet on the edge of the counter and resting her chin on her knees. There was dust caked on Samantha's long legs, dirt in the cracks of her bare toes, but Claire didn't say anything. This wasn't the time to turn the subject to matters of cleanliness or germs.
“I just don't want to think about him period.” Claire decided to be honest. Kids could see through lies too easily.
Sam wrinkled her nose. “Yeah. Me neither.” She gnawed on the corner of her lip. “Will he go to prison?”
Shame burned up Claire's neck. “I don't know. Maybe—or he could get a reduced sentence and be on probation, I suppose, but we'll just have to wait and see.”
“Well, if he's a jailbird, I don't want to see him,” Samantha decided, tossing her head. “Even if he isn't. What he did was wrong.” Her chin trembled. “Dads aren't supposed to do anything wrong.”
“No, honey, they're not,” Claire said, walking to the counter and wrapping her arms around her daughter's slim shoulders. “But they're just human and sometimes . . . sometimes they make mistakes.”
“He should never have done it.”
“I know.” Claire felt Sam's tears, hot and wet, drip onto her blouse.
“We didn't deserve it.”
“No, baby, we didn't,” she agreed, as Samantha coughed loudly. “But we have to face it. Like it or not.”
Samantha shuddered, then lifted her tear-streaked face. “Sean says this sucks.”
Claire nodded even though she hated the crudity of Sean's language. “This time, he's right. Come on, I'll make you a cup of cocoa, and we'll try and find a movie to watch.”
“A happy one,” Samantha said, sliding down from her perch.
“Yeah, a happy one.”
Twenty-four
It was nearly midnight when Claire, restless, threw off the thin covers of the bed. Without snapping on the lights, she slid her arms through her robe and padded barefoot down the hallway past the open doors of her sleeping children's rooms before heading downstairs. Her mind was spinning, images of Kane and Harley and Paul all racing through her brain as if they were in a tornado, whirling ever faster, confusing her.
She stopped in the kitchen for a book of matches, then hurried out the French doors of the dining room and down the weed-choked path to the lake. She stopped only to light the citronella torches planted every ten feet on the dock, and hoped to keep the marauding mosquitoes at bay.
Her match sizzled in the night and soon six torches glowed, giving off their sweet-acrid scent and allowing her to sit on the last board of the pier, her bare legs swinging out over the water, her face uplifted to the heavens. Thousands of stars twinkled brightly and a slice of gleaming moon hung low in the sky, giving a silvery sheen to the dark waters. Fish jumped, splashing in the lake, crickets chirped, and, not far away, an owl hooted softly.
Claire had always loved it here. Despite all the heartache and pain of her childhood and the tragedy of Harley Taggert's death, she felt a great peace in the house and on the shores of Lake Arrowhead. Her gaze drifted across the glassy waters to the Moran cottage, its windows bright squares of light in the darkness, and she wondered about Kane. What was he doing? Working on that damned book? Digging deep into the past? Discovering secret truths that were better left hidden? Her heart ached a bit and she realized that years before she'd loved him with a passion that was as foolish as it was fierce. There was something about him that could turn her inside out, cause her to give up reason for desire, seduce her to sacrifice everything—even her stubborn pride—to be close to him.
“Idiot,” she muttered under her breath. No man was worth a woman's dignity. No man. But, oh, even now, if she had the chance to kiss Kane, to touch him, to feel his hard, naked body straining over hers . . .
“Stop it,” she hissed, angry with the wayward turn of her thoughts. “You're not a teenager anymore. For heaven's sake, you're over thirty! A mother! You've been hurt so many times before!” If she were only more like Miranda. Strong. Independent. Courageous.
Instead, sometimes she felt like a frightened little girl. “For the love of God, Claire, pull yourself together.” Sighing, she ran her toes through the cool water and tightened the belt of her robe.
Years before, Claire had buried her love for Kane deep in her heart, turned her back on the primal, raw emotions he'd stirred in her because they'd had no future together. Fate, it seemed, had intervened. After Harley's death, Kane had gone into the army and she had left Chinook as well, running away from all the heartache and pain and meeting Paul St. John, a man she'd never really loved, but one who had promised to take care of her. She'd been seventeen when she'd met him at a local community college, where he'd taught English and she was studying for her GED. He'd found her crying on a bench in the quad and had offered her his handkerchief for her eyes and a steady shoulder to cry on. Claire wasn't used to the kindness of strangers and wouldn't have turned to him, but she'd just visited the local clinic and been told that she was pregnant. And alone. Miranda was already in college; Dominique, finally unable to deal with her husband's lust for other women had threatened divorce, then taken Tessa and flown to Europe. Dutch had never been close to Claire. Harley was dead; Kane in the army. She and her baby were utterly alone in the world. Except for the kindness of Paul St. John.
Stupidly she'd poured her heart out to him. Her meager savings were dwindling and her part-time job waitressing at a restaurant where she'd lied about her age barely paid the rent. Her only hope was to face a formidable father who would probably toss her out and call her a whore for conceiving a Taggert.
Paul, for some unfathomable reason, had been intrigued with her and her plight. Maybe it was her utter helplessness that had appealed to him, or maybe she'd been just the right age, not yet even eighteen, to interest him, or perhaps he thought that she might inherit some of the Holland wealth. Whatever the reason, he'd courted her, offered to marry her, and helped her finish high school and college. At thirty he'd been older and wise to the ways of the world, and she'd needed desperately to trust someone. Anyone. Even a stranger she barely knew. She had thought him to be a rock and didn't realize for years how wrong she was about him.
When Sean had been born, Paul had pretended to be the baby's natural father, and Claire, in order to make everything appear normal, had lied about the date of Sean's birth, pushing it back three months so that no one, not even her sisters, would suspect that the baby was really Harley Taggert's son—or so she'd thought. Since no one in her family saw the baby until he was past one, there had been no questions asked. Sean had just appeared bigger, smarter, and a little more coordinated than the other children his age.
Claire had lost her heart to the darling baby and knowing he was a living, breathing part of Harley made him all the more precious. But as he grew, it became obvious that he didn't have a drop of Taggert blood in his veins.
With a heart-slamming jolt, she realized that her toddler was the spitting image of Kane Moran. If possible, she loved her son all the more. Now she'd always have a part of the hellion she'd come to love and as such was more precious than ever. She would always be close to Kane and someday . . . well maybe someday she'd track him down and tell him about his wonderful, handsome son.
Within three years the lie of Sean's parentage rolled easily off her tongue and Claire became pregnant with Samantha. If her life wasn't perfect, at least it was fulfilling and if Paul wasn't as attentive as he'd once been, Claire decided it was because of the pressures of work. But she'd been wrong. Bitterly so.
During the second trimester of her pregnancy with Samantha Claire first learned of her husband's infidelities. One of Paul's colleagues had let it slip that he'd been seeing another woman on the staff. From that point on, the marriage had gone downhill and eventually foundered.
Claire and Paul had split up years before but the divorce hadn't been final until this past year when Paul, visiting Sean, had met Jessica Stewart, Sean's girlfriend and had promptly seduced her.
That same sick feeling rolled over Claire again, the nausea that accompanied thoughts of her husband and a girl too young to have been involved in consensual sex.
“Don't think of it,” she told herself as she turned her attention back to the Moran cottage and wondered again about Kane. Was he there? Her heart skipped a beat, and she closed her eyes. It was useless to think of him. Whatever innocent love or lust they had shared was over a long, long time ago.
 
 
He'd quit six years before, but now, staring at the torchlights burning across the lake, Kane wanted a cigarette. And he wanted one badly. Like runway beacons showing a pilot the correct path, those golden torches lured him into unknown and dangerous waters.
Knowing full well that he was making a mistake of the highest order, he unleashed the old motorboat at his dock, shoved off and primed the engine. Grabbing hold of the handle he jerked hard on the pull start. With a crack and a sputter, the twelve-horse Evinrude caught fire and Kane opened her up. The little boat flew across the water, prow slicing the surface, white wake churning behind, wind whistling through his hair as his fingers sweated over the handle.
After interviewing witnesses all afternoon and learning less than he'd hoped, he'd given up his idea of seeing Claire again. He wasn't ready; there was just too much about her that he found intriguing. He lost his objectivity when he was near her, and instead of the hard-edged, pushy, news-or-nothing reporter he'd always prided himself on being, he reverted back to those hellish teenage years when he was randy as a wild stallion and wanted to make love to Claire Holland every way up from sideways. As a horny kid, he'd spent nights touching himself, imagining his tongue running up and down her body, between her breasts, and down her spine. In his mind's eye he'd seen himself kiss the dewy thatch of red-brown curls sprouting between her legs before touching her wildly with his tongue as he explored the dark and moist secrets of her womanhood. He imagined stripping her of clothes, of kissing her breasts until they blushed and filled in his hands, of sucking like a newborn babe until she was trembling and filled with the same heart-pounding, hot-blooded lust that coursed through his veins.
Those same old fantasies had reawakened lately and he, always in control, the cool journalist who never let a woman get too close to his heart, was a frustrated, horny teenager again.
“Shit,” he growled. A smoke wouldn't solve the problem. Neither would a pint of whiskey or another woman. Nothing but bedding Claire Holland St. John would.
The torchlights grew brighter and the scent of citronella wafted in the hazy smoke that curled heavenward from the torches. Claire was seated on the dock, her slim legs dangling into the water, a shiny white wrap surrounding her body.
He cut the engine and the boat drifted slowly to the pier. She was watching him, her eyes luminous in the moonlight, her face scrubbed free of makeup.
He flung the anchor line around a rotting post and hopped onto the dock.
“You're trespassing,” she said, as she had in the past.
God, she was gorgeous. “Good to see you, too.”
“It seems to be a habit with you.”
He grinned and sat next to her, stretching his legs on the dock, facing away from the water and staring at her face. “One I haven't been able to break.”
“It'll get you into trouble.”
“Already has.” Just looking at her heated his blood, and the beginnings of an erection stirred deep in his loins.
“So why're you here?” Her gaze, silver in the moonlight, drilled into his.
“Couldn't sleep. Saw the lights.”
Her jaw slid to one side, and her fingers brushed at the deck. “So it's not because you're trying to dig up some dirt on my father for your book?”
“I'm just looking for the truth.”
“Are you?” She shook her head and sighed. “No way, Kane. This is some kind of vendetta with you.”
He wanted to argue, but bit his tongue. No more lies. There could be no more lies.
“What is it? Why do you hate us so much?”
“I don't hate you.”
“Don't you?” She whirled, dragging her feet out of the water, sending a spray of drops over the dock and his shoulders so that she, too, was facing away from the lake, her shoulder brushing against his. “Then why don't you just leave us all alone?”
“I have a deal—”
“You said yourself this isn't about money, so what is it?” she demanded, her teeth flashing as brightly as the fire in her eyes.
“Something that needs to be done.”
“Just to derail my father from his bid for the governorship?” she asked, frowning into the darkness. “I don't think so. Why would you care?”
“We go way back, me and your dad.”
“To your father's accident?” she asked, and when he didn't answer immediately, she looked over her shoulder to the lake. “I'm not standing up for Dutch,” she admitted. “He . . . he's never been perfect, and what happened to your father was unforgivable.”
“You don't know the half of it.”
“Don't I?” She glanced at him with her wide, furious eyes, and he was undone. Her cheekbones, more pronounced as she turned, her lips, moist and shining, her eyebrows lifted in skeptical disbelief, all worked against his hard-fought promise to himself that he wouldn't touch her again, would never step across that painful barrier. But as he watched her, his determination began to crumble, and the images that had kept him awake at nights, of her lying naked in his arms, became more real, more attainable. He smelled her skin, freshened by the scent of perfume, and the fire between his legs became a furnace. “I know that your father paid an ex-con to haul him over here years ago. The man helped Hampton break into the house, and then the two of them took chain saws to the stairs, decapitating the posts of their art.”
Stunned, Kane didn't move. “What?”
“That's right, Moran. Your old man came into the house and trashed the place. The only reason Dutch didn't press charges is because he was afraid of the bad press. It would've made your father, a poor unfortunate cripple, the underdog. A victim. So it was all hushed up and forgotten.” She sighed and blew her bangs from her eyes. “Not that it matters now,” she said. “Dad's fixing the railing now that we're here and . . . well, I guess I understand why your father was angry. Why he hated us.”
“Not you. Just Dutch.”
“As you do.”
A muscle leapt in Kane's jaw, but it relaxed when Claire placed her hand over his.

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