Behind the Shadows (29 page)

“Show us the cabinet and safe,” Callum said.

Max walked them to the study and opened the gun safe. They compared copies of registration forms to the weapons.

“Did he have a silencer for the rifle?”

Max nodded. “It's on the list. Mr. Westerfield never did anything in a small way. He was a hunter. He was fascinated with guns and their history.”

The detective frowned. “Who might have had access to the guns?”

It was a question Max had dreaded. “I don't know,” he said. “I haven't seen his guns since I took inventory after his death. I can tell you those two weapons were there then. I made sure then they were locked up until Leigh decided what to do with them.”

The detective turned to Leigh.

“As Mr. Payton said, my grandfather tried to interest me in hunting. I hated it. I didn't want anything to do with his gun collection. I certainly haven't checked on it.”

The detective looked at his notes again. “Anyone else have access to the guns?”

“Possibly,” Max said. “Locks weren't changed on the house. I don't know who may have had access to the gun safe. Westerfield had several hunting buddies that met here.”

“I want their names as well as those of anyone else who has access to the house,” the detective said. “Let's turn to money. It seems Ms. Howard stands to lose a great deal. What about this charge of a baby switch thirty years ago?”

Max shrugged again. “I think the question has something to do with a possible mistake, nothing criminal. Ms. Howard is taking a DNA test to erase any doubt. She is cooperating in every way. She wants this settled as much as anyone does.”

“Not what we were told.”

“I don't care what you were told.” He handed the older officer a card. “That's the lab that's sending over a technician. Call him yourself if you want.”

The detective ignored him and turned all his attention to Leigh. “Isn't it true you could lose everything if the charge proves true?”

“Ed Westerfield left his estate to the granddaughter he knew,” Max interrupted. “Even if there is any truth to a possible mistake in the delivery room, Leigh Howard is still the person Ed Westerfield meant to inherit his money. Now is there anything else?”

“Not for the moment.”

Max stood. “Then I think this visit is over.”

“For now. We'll be back with a search warrant.”

“If you have the probable cause for one,” Max said with a slight smile. “I don't think you do.”

“We have motive.”

“Not much of one since Ms. Howard has agreed to a DNA test, and I think Ms. Douglas will tell you she doesn't intend to contest the will.”

The dark-haired officer stood. “We'll be back,” he said again.

“It'll be a pleasure to see you again,” Max said wryly as he showed them the door.

A small triumph. They obviously had little to go on, and this was little more than a fishing expedition.

But the next hours might change that.

The phone rang. It stopped suddenly and Max supposed that Mrs. Baker had answered it. Before he could finish the thought, she knocked on the door and came in.

“A local television station,” Mrs. Baker said. “They want a comment on the … the story that babies might have been switched at birth.”

“Tell them, ‘No comment,'” he said.

“It's started,” Leigh said.

“You can handle it,” Max said.

“For how long? And how long am I going to be Leigh Howard?”

He saw the questions in her eyes and wished he could answer them. He couldn't. No more than he could answer the questions in another woman's blue gray eyes. God, he wished he could stop thinking about her. Stop wanting to be with her. He wished he could reconcile his responsibility to Leigh with the need inside him for Kira Douglas.

But he couldn't.

In a few hours the technician would be here to take the DNA test. By then, the press would be in full cry.

Kira knew immediately that Leigh Howard was surprised to see her, and none too happy about it. The woman's expression softened as she greeted Chris behind her. Kira saw something pass between them, a connection that surprised her.

She would have thought that Leigh would be the last woman to attract Chris. She was cool and contained and reserved. As unlike the laughing Risa as anyone could be.

But then, she would have thought the same thing about Max and herself. Maybe it really was true that opposites attract.

That didn't mean it was a healthy thing. She told herself that as she saw Max when they stepped inside. Her heart flip-flopped, then did a nosedive. His eyes were neutral, his expression grim. Even if she hadn't seen him, she suspected she would have recognized the scent of sandalwood that always hovered around him and the way her body reacted whenever he was near. There was a kind of intense energy that played between them.

She resented that energy, even as it intrigued her. She liked being in control of her life. She didn't want anyone to have the kind of impact on it that he did.

For the fleetest of seconds, their gazes met and she thought she saw possession in his eyes. It sent a shiver down her spine. Then heat.

She didn't want to feel that heat. Especially since she didn't trust him. He'd been honest about his commitment to Leigh Howard and the Westerfields. Maybe he could live with divided loyalties. She couldn't. Not now.

He stepped back as if burned, then his eyes cooled.

“I didn't realize you were coming,” he said. “Shouldn't you be in bed?”

“Someone tried to kill my mother earlier today.”

She heard a small cry from where Leigh stood. Max's expression hardened. “I'm sorry to hear that. Is she all right?”

“Yes, but the guy got away. I think it's the same one who tried to push me off the platform.”

“You saw him?” Max asked, his gaze focusing on her.

She nodded. “Briefly. He was getting on the elevator when I got off. I think he was surprised when he saw me. He made a sudden turn, just like at the station. Catlike. It didn't go with the stocky build.

“I called the nurse's desk while I waited for the elevator and asked that they check on Mom. The nurse found someone leaning over her IV. Someone who shouldn't be there.”

“What did he look like?”

“Overweight, which is a little different from the impression I had a few days ago. Messy red hair. Glasses.”

“You said the other man was wearing a cap?”

“This one wasn't. That's why it didn't register immediately. It was only the way he suddenly turned when he saw me. He … spun. Just like before.”

Leigh moved closer. “That doesn't make sense.”

“None of it makes sense,” Kira agreed. “My mother's death wouldn't change anything.” She looked directly at Leigh. She could barely control her anger. “If she's murdered or dies because someone who could help, didn't, all bets are off. I'll go after every penny. I would probably end up giving it to charity, but not one person liable for her death will benefit from it.”

“You don't think I had anything to do with the shooting or what happened today?” Leigh's blue eyes flamed.

Chris stepped between them. His gaze warned Kira. Then he turned to Leigh. “No one is accusing anyone of anything. We're just trying to find the truth.”

For a second, Kira felt a profound sense of betrayal. Was Chris taking Leigh's side, too? First Max. Now Chris. He was certainly looking at Leigh with a lot more warmth than Kira felt. “It's obviously someone in this family,” she persisted. “Or someone connected to it.”

“We don't even know there was a switch,” Leigh said stubbornly as she glared daggers at Kira. “You walk into our lives with a lie, then make an outlandish claim. You demand I give a stranger a kidney without proof, then threaten me with blackmail if I don't. You, Ms. Douglas, can go to hell.”

Kira took a step back. The litany of sins hit home. Yet she couldn't back down. Her mother's life was at stake. Why couldn't people understand that?

Max started to say something, but was interrupted by Mrs. Baker, who'd been manning the telephones. “The guard at the gate said someone from a lab is here.”

Max glanced at Leigh. She hesitated, then nodded.

“Tell the guards to let him through,” Max said.

“They also said that television trucks are gathering at the gate.”

“Make it clear to them that we will charge trespassers,” Max said. “We will have a statement later. There will be no comment beyond that.”

“A statement?” Leigh asked.

“If you give them something, they will go away.”

Leigh glared at Kira. “You said you could keep this quiet.”

“I didn't know then that my mother and I would become targets for a homicidal maniac,” Kira said. “I've been pushed in front of a train, my apartment was trashed, I was shot while an innocent bystander was killed. And my mother was attacked hours ago. And you're upset because I wasn't quiet. Come on. Someone on your side obviously has no interest in keeping this private.”

Chris put a hand on her arm, but Kira brushed it off. “I'm sick of all this poor-Leigh stuff.” She faced the person she now thought of as her nemesis. “Grow up. The woman who might be your mother is dying. That's the only thing that should matter now.”

“I've agreed to the DNA test,” Leigh protested as she took a step backward.

“But not the blood tests for compatibility with Mom.”

“Your mom. Not mine. I didn't have one. I haven't had one for twenty-six years.”

The doorbell rang, and the conversation stopped. Max stepped past by Kira on the way to the door. His face was like stone.

Not for the first time, she wondered whether there wasn't something more than a client/attorney relationship. He obviously held the purse strings of the trust, and he was lead attorney for a billion-dollar company. He was a chameleon. Someone who turned colors to meld into the background. She'd seen it several times now. He had been a different person at Lucchesi's. Warm. Accessible. Now he was a stranger.

She would never know what he was thinking. He'd been gentle. Even tender. But that Max was gone now. He was in full protection mode of his client, and to hell with her.

To be honest with herself, she didn't even know whether he was a murderer. Or a protector of one.

An hour later, a caller dialed a number from a public phone booth only to receive the message: “This number is out of service.”

No way to reach him now
.

He was out of control. No one was to be badly hurt, and now a bystander was dead and others wounded.

What to do now? Someone had been killed. An accessory would be held equally guilty.

Never tempt a tiger
.

The rage in him hadn't been evident. The offer of five thousand dollars to scare off a pretender had seemed the only way to avoid disaster, to conceal a secret that could ravage the family, and the family's fortune.

No one was to be hurt. Only frightened away. It had seemed the only way to avoid disaster.

Now the caller was probably the most frightened of all.

30

Kira watched as the technician carefully packaged the DNA sample and left. Chris took another. It would go to a different lab.

Max turned to her. “I'll take you home.”

“I came with Chris,” she said. “And I'm going back to the hospital. I want to make sure Mom's okay.” She tried to ignore the pain as she moved. It had worsened, but she didn't know whether it would be any better at home.

She glanced at Leigh. She wanted to drag her to the hospital for blood tests. She wanted to get on her knees and beg Leigh to help their mother. And that's what Katy Douglas was: mother of both of them.

She didn't want to understand what Max had been trying to tell her. That Leigh wouldn't—couldn't—believe it until she saw the test results in black and white, and maybe not even then. Kira hadn't believed it at first, either. It had been her mother's urgent condition that had made her accept the truth more rapidly.

She didn't want to be understanding, and she deeply resented Max for making her feel she
should
be. Understanding could come later. Not now. Not when every moment counted.

Chris, who was standing nearby, looked from Kira to Leigh and back again. “I have another stop on the way home,” he said. “You might want to go with him.”

Traitor
. Throwing her to the wolf.

She had been thinking just moments ago that Max was one of those with a very big stake in whether she lived or died. Maybe that was why he was showing so much interest in her. Maybe Ted Bundy showed the same tenderness and thoughtfulness before he killed his victims.

Yet deep down she didn't believe it. Neither did Chris, or he never would have suggested she go with Max. Chris must have his reasons for suggesting it.

Or was it Leigh?

The thought was ungracious to the extreme. Chris had been a true friend. A lifesaver in so many ways. He'd practically given up his life for her mother. He certainly had the right to be attracted to Leigh, just as she was—unfortunately—attracted to Max.

She feared they both were going to pay dearly for those attractions.

She shrugged. “Maybe you can meet me there later,” she suggested to Chris. A warning. For both Max and herself.

“I'll do that.” Chris looked at his watch. “Say in two hours.”

Kira saw Chris glance at Leigh. A long, measuring glance that lingered a second too long. Well, Leigh was pretty, even beautiful. Kira had a second of apprehension, then dismissed it. Chris was about as straight an arrow as ever lived.

Instead she forced herself to address Leigh. “Thank you,” she said, trying to make amends for her earlier truculence. After all, the woman did finally agree to the DNA test, if not the blood tests.