Always in My Dreams (48 page)

"The groundskeeper and the cook," she said.

"That's right. His name is Morgan Curran. She's Corina Curran."

"Wife?"

"Sister. Stepsister, actually. Reading is her married name. She's a widow." Skye's expressive eyes were easy to read. "No, he wasn't murdered. At least, not that it was obvious or suspected. He drank a good deal."

"Liver disease?"

Walker didn't mince his words. "He drowned in his own vomit."

Skye blanched. "How do you know all this?"

"It's what I
do,
Skye. I ask questions. I observe. I listen. I discover. It's not so difficult. Most of the time it's not even dangerous. It requires patience and discipline and an occasional bit of luck."

She thought it probably required a great deal more than that. She reached up and touched the side of his face, brushing back the hair near his temple. The hard lines of his face softened a bit.

"It was the middle of summer when I arrived in Baileyboro," he told her. "I asked for directions to the Granville place at the train station. I was pointed to a man pacing at the far end of the platform. He was waiting for an approaching carriage, his shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets. 'That's Mr. Parnell there,' I was told. 'Good piece of luck,' they said, 'to run into him that way.'"

"It was Morgan Curran," said Skye.

Walker let out a long, heavy breath. "It was. There was no resemblance at all, yet it became clear that no one in Baileyboro thought he was anyone but Jonathan Parnell. I went out to the Granville mansion later but never announced myself. I looked around the property, watched people come and go, and heard Curran being addressed as Parnell. I knew I had to come up with some way to get into that house, some way that would keep me there for a while. I wasn't confident that a simple search or a confrontation would turn up anything. The small chance that my uncle was still alive also meant I had to act quickly. No one was being hired at the house so I couldn't present myself as looking for work. I needed another plan."

Skye's hand fell away from Walker's face as understanding came to her. "You threatened Parnell!" she said. "Those attempts on his life were your doing! You made him think someone was after the engine and that he was in danger."

"Guilty." The single word was said without regret. "He hired me to protect him."

"But how did he find you? He could have hired anyone."

"I made myself known in Baileyboro. Cautiously, of course. A bit mysteriously. It's a small village, and it was precisely the kind of thing that got everyone's attention. After two threats, Parnell sought me out. I pretended to come reluctantly, which made him want me more. I had references from people I could trust. They were sufficient to impress Parnell."

"How can you call him Parnell?"

"That's how I think of him, how I have to think of him. To do otherwise would show my hand. I could make a mistake so easily. Anyway, it's not as if I called my uncle by his last name. He was Uncle Jon. Curran is Parnell."

"And Parnell is not an inventor," she said.

"No. Not an inventor. He's only played at it. Quite thoroughly, too."

"That's why you didn't care that I had drawn a picture of the engine."

"You knew I saw it?"

She nodded. "You folded the paper differently than I did. I knew you had to have looked at it and decided I could keep it. I wondered why. Now I know. It was a worthless piece of paper, anyway."

Walker was reminded again it was the incidental things that could trip him up. He was fortunate that it was Skye who had caught him out. "Your father found it interesting."

"Those were his exact words when he saw it, but he didn't explain. After what I had been through, I suppose he didn't think he'd better."

"You're not entirely right about it," Walker said. "The engine
is
the beginning of a working model. It's just that what you showed your father is exactly what Parnell showed him when Jay Mac agreed to finance it. Your drawing proved to Jay Mac that Parnell's first rendering of the invention wasn't a fake, but it also proved there'd been no progress."

"Because your uncle's dead," she said quietly.

"He wouldn't have stopped working otherwise. He
couldn't
have."

Skye turned and laid her head against Walker's shoulder. She felt his arm come across her back. He rubbed her arm. "Did you know right away?" she asked.

"Within twenty-four hours of getting inside. There was no place they could have hidden him. I was everywhere in the house."

"But you never found the body."

"No, I've never found it. I've been over the grounds a score of times, but I can't find anything like a grave. Now that winter's almost over I can look again. The ground may settle over it. That may be the only clue I'll have."

Skye was struck by the memory of Walker's trip to the swan pond with Annie's little boy. "You've considered the pond?" she asked.

He nodded. "And the river. Nothing has ever surfaced."

What a grim task it was for him, she thought. Her skin prickled with cold that came up from her bones. She felt his arm tighten on her shoulder as if he knew what had caused her shiver. "Why have you done it all alone?" she asked. "Can't you make a case to the authorities? Curran is impersonating your uncle. Apparently he has for some time, certainly as long as they've all been in Baileyboro. Surely he should be held accountable for some explanation."

"I considered it," Walker said. "But without the body, I can't prove murder. Depending on the manner of murder, I may not even be able to prove it then. There's also the possibility that Uncle Jon died of natural causes. Morgan Curran saw an opportunity to use my uncle's identity and took it."

"I'm not certain I understand what Parnell and his sister have to gain by assuming the identity. The engine isn't working and Parnell can't make it work. Did you ever notice that when he comes up from the workroom his hands are clean? Oh, he has a spot of grease on him here and there, and his sleeves are rolled up. He even looks a bit distracted and harried, but under his nails there's not any grime."

He had noticed, but he didn't know she had. "You're amazing," he said softly.

She glanced up at him. Her smile was self-depreciating. "Not so amazing. I saw it, but the significance didn't register until you told me about my own hands." Skye rested her head against him again. "So, if you don't think you can find your uncle's body, then what is it you hope to prove against the Currans?"

"Fraud."

"Fraud? But who—"

"Your father, for one. Parnell entered into a contract with your father to help finance his work on the engine. He also entered into a contract with Rockefeller, Holiday, and Westinghouse. Those are the only ones I know about for certain. I suspect that the list is much longer than that. He received thousands of dollars from each man in return for the promise of the exclusive patent rights."

"My God," she breathed softly. "Does Jay Mac know?"

"He does now."

Skye shook her head from side to side, feeling for her father. "Poor Jay Mac."

"He wasn't pleased. He thought he owned Parnell."

Skye became very still. "What?" she asked in a small voice. "What did you say?"

"Your father wasn't pleased."

She sat up and away from Walker. "No, the other."

"I said he thought he owned Parnell."

"Did Jay Mac say that?"

Walker tried to remember. It was obviously important to Skye. "It was the same morning Jay Mac came to the St. Mark to find you," he said slowly. "I went to see him later and he asked me about my work. I told him everything. That's when the matter of the contract came up. He even showed his copy to me." He paused, thinking back carefully on the conversation. "I think those were his exact words."

Skye didn't have any trouble believing her father would have thought it or said it. It was so like him to think that the contract for patent rights as ownership of Parnell himself. "My father probably wrote as much to Parnell when he wasn't getting satisfactory answers about the engine. It must have frightened Parnell." Skye made a small grimace. "Even my father's correspondence can be threatening."

"I'm not certain I understand the significance," Walker said.

Skye was filled with restless, anxious energy. She stood and moved away from the sofa. Her hands smoothed the midriff of her hunter green gown before her arms crossed protectively in front of her. "I told you about the intruder I surprised in my father's study."

Walker nodded. "I remember."

"He was looking for something in Jay Mac's desk and when he didn't find it he asked about a safe. Before he left, he said, 'Tell Jay Mac he doesn't own me.' But when I gave my father the message, it didn't mean anything to him."

"You're sure?"

"Jay Mac wouldn't have lied about that. Not when I'd been placed in danger. If he'd associated the words with Parnell, he wouldn't have sent me to Baileyboro. That's what makes me think he probably wrote them to Parnell. Jay Mac had no face-to-face contacts with him after the contract was signed." Skye stepped closer to the fire. She couldn't get warm enough. "It was Parnell who was in my home that night. He's the one who..." Her voice became hardly more than a whisper. "...the one who touched me."

Walker got to his feet, but he kept his distance from Skye. He thought that if he touched her now she would come out of her skin.

"He was in the city that night," she said. "You told me that yourself. He wasn't in the hotel room when you got there."

"Parnell went to a brothel."

She shook her head. "You didn't find him at one, did you? He was probably at our home already, on the property, just waiting for everyone to turn in for the night. He was looking for the contract. He wanted to end it with my father. Jay Mac must have been giving him too much trouble, asking for too much information about the engine. He probably thought it was too risky to stay in business with my father."

Walker thought back to the night in question. He recalled sitting in the hotel room, very much like the one they were in now, waiting for Parnell after the search of New York's seamier sections had turned up nothing. Walker looked toward the door, imagining Parnell coming in as he had done that night.

Skye watched the gradual change in Walker's features. The crease between his brows disappeared. The vague, distant expression of memory retrieval faded. And as knowledge came to him, so did the taut lines of tension and splintered sharpness of his gold-flecked eyes. "What is it?" she asked. "What have you remembered?"

Walker continued to stare at the door as if his vision of Parnell could become real. "The side of his face was reddened. I suppose I thought that it had something to do with an encounter with a whore. Parnell said he'd been with two." Now he turned to Skye. "You left that mark on him."

"I suppose I could have. I slapped him hard."

He swore softly under his breath, berating himself for not realizing it before now. The clues had been there and he hadn't been able to piece them together. "I should have known when you first told me about the intruder. I should have made the connection. Even when I knew it was Parnell going into your room, I didn't—"

"You knew?" she asked, stricken. "You knew Parnell was coming into my room and you—"

Now Walker approached her. When he saw her take a step back, he stopped. He could have reached for her, touched her, but his hands remained at his side. "Skye, I didn't know until the night that I stayed with you in your room. I was hit on the head, remember? No ghost did that. And I didn't suspect you. Who else could it have been?"

"But you didn't say anything."

"I made sure you spent the remaining time with me, in my room. I told you I was protecting you. What could I have said, what else could I have done? If you recall, you weren't honest with me. I didn't know why you were at the mansion or how far I could trust you."

Skye's chin came up. Her eyes accused him. "It didn't stop you from sleeping with me," she said.

Walker stared at her hard. "It didn't stop me from loving you, either."

She became perfectly still. "What?"

The rough, gravel edge of his voice changed. It was husky with feeling now. "It didn't stop me from loving you."

"You've never said..."

"Neither have you."

Skye's hands dropped to her sides. She was careful not to let her fingers twist the folds of her gown. She wanted to command presence, to preserve calm. "I didn't think you would welcome that sort of declaration," she said quietly. "I was afraid you would think I was trying to hold you with it, bind you to me."

"I married you, Skye. Love is supposed to bind us." His eyes narrowed. He tried to see past her shuttered expression. "Are you certain you didn't want it to bind
you?
You're the one who doesn't want this marriage. You're the one who wants the freedom to take your leave as you please. You would have been my mistress, my lover. You didn't want to be my wife."

She couldn't deny it, not the way he had put it to her. But he didn't understand everything. "It doesn't mean I didn't love you," she said. "Or do you think I'd be anyone's whore?"