Kane (13 page)

“I mean it,” he insisted. “Regina isn't…”

“What?” His cousin waited for him to go on.

“I don't know.” Kane closed his hand into a fist as he tried to find words for a situation he didn't quite understand himself. “There's something about her, something that needs time.”

“Time and a slow hand? I happen to have both.”

Kane felt the hair on the back of his neck rising to a bristle. Through clenched teeth, he said, “Leave her alone, Luke. I mean it.”

“Listen to yourself, man. You sure your interest is business?”

“I know what mine is. I'm just wondering about yours.”

“Pure devilment. What else?” Dry humor had returned to his cousin's voice.

Kane shook his head even as he forced down the
possessive urge to stake a claim. “You've got a point. What is it?”

“Maybe I'm worried about you,” Luke answered as he turned and ambled back toward the house, sublimely careless of the misting rain.

“You sure it's not Regina on your mind?” The question Kane called after him was blunt.

“Might be. Might not.”

Kane let him go since it was pointless to do anything else. Luke was like a force of nature, hard to second-guess, impossible to stop once he got an idea into his head. The only good thing was that his instincts were excellent.

The things he had said turned in Kane's mind as he watched the explosions of bottle rockets and boom blasters light up the raindrop-fogged sky. Some of the phrases he rejected, some he filed for future reference, but a few he sifted word by word for hidden meaning. It did no good. As the last bright fire blossom faded into nothing, he was no closer to the truth than he had been when the evening began.

He returned to the party, but it was already winding down, dampened by the rain. Pops and Miss Elise were among the first to leave. He saw them to their car with a doorman's big umbrella, then went back inside with Roan and Luke and a couple of other guys to have a beer and talk about ice hockey in the Superdome and who would be starting quarterback for the New Orleans Saints in preseason. They were working on their third long neck and second bowl of peanuts when Roan's beeper went off. The sheriff heaved his long frame to a standing position and stepped out onto the gallery, taking out his flip phone from a shirt
pocket as he went. The discussion, such as it was, went on without him.

A moment later, Roan stalked back inside. Kane glanced up, saw the set look of officialdom on his cousin's face, and felt his gut tighten in immediate reaction. He was already on his feet when Roan jerked his head in a beckoning gesture. Kane set his beer on a side table and went to join him.

“Sorry,” his blond cousin said, putting a big hand on his shoulder. “It's Pops. There's been an accident.”

Kane felt his heart jerk in his chest. “Is he…?”

“He's alive, but that's all I know. Come on, we'll go in my squad car. I'll have you there in five minutes.”

“I might need my own wheels. You clear a path and I'll keep up with you.”

“You got it.”

When Kane and Roan pulled up at the site of the wreck, it was only a blur of glaring lights, flashing blue and white in the rain-drenched darkness. They had beaten the ambulance. Pops was lying on the wet ground with his head in Elise's lap while she held a pathetic, half-crushed umbrella over him with one hand and smoothed his cheek with the other. Roan stopped to speak to the patrolman in charge, but Kane strode straight to his grandfather and went down on one knee beside him.

“Pops,” he said tightly, “I'm here.”

Lewis Crompton opened his eyes, his gaze bewildered yet angry. His voice was querulous and frighteningly weak as he spoke. “Damn fool ran me off the road.”

A strong mixture of relief, grief and anger tightened Kane's throat. Roan had said Pops was alive, but Kane had needed to see for himself before he believed it. He didn't like the looks of the dark red blood that matted his grandfather's mane of white hair, or the flaccid immobility of his arm that lay across his chest. Still, he would be taken care of soon. The wailing of an ambulance siren could be heard in the distance.

Kane cleared his throat of its sudden obstruction. “Who was it, Pops? Who did this?”

“Don't know.” His grandfather grimaced and pressed a hand to his ribs. “All happened so fast.”

Elise broke in then, as if to spare him the effort. “The car came up from behind us and started to pass. We mostly saw headlights. I think it was dark colored and a fairly late model, but I don't know one kind from another these days. I'd like to be more helpful, but…” She gave a tired shake of her head.

“You're all right?” Kane asked, his gaze assessing as he turned his attention to his grandfather's lady friend.

She nodded. “Lewis swung the car so it struck the trees on the driver's side. He saved me.”

Kane's grandfather gave a dissenting grunt. “She's the one who saved me. Reminded me to put on my seat belt.”

“No such thing,” Miss Elise said.

Lewis Crompton reached up to take her hand. “I know better.”

That they could argue over it said a lot for their condition, Kane thought, feeling his concern ease a fraction more. They were both banged up and would
feel their scrapes and bruises for some time, but it could have been worse. Much worse.

The ambulance came tearing up and shrieked to a halt. The driver and the EMT piled out and hustled toward them. Short minutes later, Pops and Elise were speeding on their way to the hospital. Kane followed behind Roan at a faster clip than he'd driven since his racing days.

The next three hours passed in a surreal time warp, moving with both excruciating slowness and incredible speed. At the end of that time, the report was fairly decent. Pops had a broken arm and cracked ribs, plus multiple contusions and abrasions. They wanted to keep him a couple of days but, barring some unforeseen problem, he would be fine.

Miss Elise was fixed up with a couple of butterfly bandages before being released to go home. She wanted to stay with Lewis, but he wouldn't hear of it. Kane thought she finally agreed to leave only because she didn't want to upset his grandfather by going against his wishes.

Kane drove her home. At her house on the edge of town, he opened his car door to get out and see her inside. She reached over to touch his arm. Voice tremulous, she said, “Wait.”

“What is it?” Something about the way she searched his face with her faded gaze, in the greenish light from the control panel, made his heart kick into a faster rhythm.

“There's something I need to tell you. I know I should've mentioned it to Roan for his report, but I just wasn't sure….”

“Something about the accident?” he asked to help her get whatever she wanted to say out in the open.

She dipped her head with its soft silver wings of hair. “Everything was muddled. I couldn't think straight until I knew Lewis was going to be all right.” She stopped, pressing her lips together until they were white.

He put his hand over her cold, frail fingers that still clutched his arm. “Just tell me. I'll sort it out.”

She took a fortifying breath. “The first time that car crowded us was at the old bar pit. You know where I mean?”

Kane nodded in grim acknowledgment. The bar pit was a deep slough left behind after sand and gravel were excavated for roadwork. Any hole in the ground in Louisiana inevitably filled with water. The bar pit was a death trap nearly thirty feet deep that had claimed more than one victim. If Pops and Miss Elise had gone off into it, their chances of surviving the plunge would have been slim to nonexistent.

“Lewis swerved, or we would have gone through the guardrail. The next time, he—he couldn't stay on the road. And then…” She put the fingers of her free hand to her mouth, staring straight ahead with her eyes wide.

“What? Tell me.”

“I was so shaky, trying to get out of the seat belt to see to Lewis. Then there was the rain. The man driving the other car stopped down the road from where he ran us off, then he reversed and stopped on the road above us. At first, I thought he meant to help. He got out and started back toward us. I thought…but it was dark except for his taillights and I wasn't seeing
or thinking too clearly. I was so worried about Lewis, too, because he was unconscious for three or four minutes right after we hit.”

“Miss Elise, please.” Urgency made Kane's voice husky.

She turned her hand in his and clasped it tight. “He had a gun, dear. I'm sure of it. For a minute, I just knew he meant to—”

“Don't think about it. Just tell me what happened.”

She gasped, shook her head as if to banish a bad dream. “Then a truck came over the rise, a big eighteen-wheeler. The man ran back to his car and tore off like hell's hounds were after him.”

“Did you get a look at him?”

“I don't know. It was so dark.”

“Was he short, tall, fat, skinny, white or black, wearing a hat or not?” Kane asked in grim concentration. “Can you remember anything? Anything at all?”

She blinked as she met his gaze. Then she said, “Not short or tall, but sort of medium and skinny. I don't think he was black, but I might be mistaken. He had on one of those ski caps, and something over his face like—I think it may have been a stocking.”

“That's great, Miss Elise,” he said, smiling as he warmed her cold hand in both of his own. “You did fine.”

“Oh, I'm so glad I told you,” she said on a long, relieved sigh. “Now maybe I can sleep.”

Kane hoped she could because he wasn't sure he would be able to, not for some time. The man she described sounded familiar. He sounded, in fact, a lot like Dudley Slater.

There was one person who might know for sure. That person was Regina Dalton.

He could ask nicely, but that might not do the trick. In which case he'd have to force the truth from her. He had a good idea of what method to use. It might not be particularly noble, but it was sure to be effective. All he had to do was get her alone someplace where there was no possibility of her running away from him again.

He knew just the spot.

The only trouble was, there would be no escape for him, either, and he wasn't sure how far he could trust himself with her. How long he could remember all the cold, hard reasons for what he was doing.

What he had in mind was explosive. There was no doubt about it. One wrong move and it could blow up in his face.

Why, then, did he have such a reckless urge to see just how short he could cut the fuse?

R
egina slept late. It was hardly surprising since she had tossed and turned for hours before dropping off. The sound of sirens tearing in and out of town from the direction of the lake had disturbed her, so she lay worrying about the wet weather and all the people who had been at Luke's party. The main reason, however, was the turmoil in her mind. Even after she woke, she didn't get up, but lay staring at the plaster ceiling above the bed with its flecks of starlike glitter and trying to make sense of the night before.

She had not been repelled by Kane's kiss. The hard heat of him against her and the strength of his arms had ignited impulses she had felt only in dreams. His firm, smooth lips and tender exploration were revelations. The taste of him had sizzled through her veins like champagne until she felt euphoric and careless of the sweet, sinful consequences of making love to Sugar Kane. Or perhaps even eager for them.

Then his hold had tightened until it seemed there was no escape. She had suddenly become too aware of what she was doing. The familiar, panicky need to get away surged up inside her and she acted on it in blind, conditioned response.

Yet the instant he released her, she had felt so alone
and desolate with the need to be in his arms again. Even now, she would like to be lying with him. Not in passion, no, but in simple security, with the kind of protective affection she had sensed between him and the members of his family, the people he loved.

Impossible. There could be no security for her anywhere near Kane Benedict.

Even if she could overcome her distrust of physical intimacy, even if she and Lewis Crompton's grandson fell into a mad, delirious affair, there would never be anything in it for her except heartache. The instant he learned of her connection to Gervis Berry he would despise her. It would be over. And if by some remote chance she discovered information to help defeat his grandfather, then he would never forgive the betrayal. Never. He was far too upright and law-abiding to understand the gratitude and loyalty that made deceit not only possible but necessary.

She had hurt Kane with her rejection, for she had seen it in his eyes. The injury was only to his male pride; still she regretted it. She had also angered him and that was another problem altogether. What in the world was she going to do to get back on the intimate footing that Gervis demanded? Even if she could manage it, how was she to prevent the same situation from coming up again?

She shouldn't, according to Gervis.

What would it be like to release all the doubt and fear she kept hidden and trust a man? Could she do that for Gervis and Stephan? Would she ever be able to trust Kane that far? If she did, could she bear it when he turned on her as he would, inevitably, when the truth came out?

He had been betrayed by a woman once. What would it do to him to have it happen again? Did she really want to know?

The sound of footsteps along the walkway outside her room caught her attention. Hard on them came the quick tattoo of a knock on the motel door. Regina shoved herself upright in the bed. Her immediate thought was that it had to be Kane. She wasn't ready to face him again, had no idea what to say to him.

The knock came again. She threw back the covers and reached for her robe, dragging it around her. At the door, she peeped through the fish-eye viewer.

Betsy North. Regina closed her eyes, let out the breath she had been holding, then reached for the knob.

“Sorry to disturb you, hon,” the motel owner said, setting a hand on her ample hip clad in purple cotton knit. “I know you're probably working or something, cooped up in here, but I thought you should know about Mr. Lewis.”

Betsy was obviously bursting with news she couldn't wait to impart. Still, there was a grim cast to her features that sent alarm along Regina's nerves. “What's wrong?”

“Mr. Lewis and Miss Elise had a wreck last night, coming from the lake. Somebody ran them off the road.”

“Oh, no.” Regina put her hand to her amber pendant, holding tight. She could feel its warmth against the sudden chill of her fingers.

“Son of a gun didn't bother to stop. It wouldn't surprise me if it was deliberate.” Betsy's lips thinned with her angry disgust.

“Are they…?” Regina couldn't finish the question, couldn't bring herself to say that final, so final, word.

“They're okay, no thanks to whatever low-down skunk—well, never mind. They released Miss Elise, but Mr. Lewis is still at the hospital.” Betsy went on to recite his injuries.

Regina was so glad Mr. Lewis was alive that she felt weak. She couldn't stand the thought of anything happening to him. It was a special horror to think he might have been killed because of her and what she was doing.

She said hesitantly, “You don't truly believe there's a connection between the accident and the trial?”

“Looks that way to me.”

“Couldn't it have been a coincidence, somebody who had to much too drink, or who couldn't see for the rain?”

The other woman wagged her head in a negative. “Mr. Lewis is a good driver in spite of getting on in years, and he don't scare easy. If he says the man was after him, that he meant to run him off the road, well, I'm inclined to believe him. Besides, it's too much of a coincidence.”

“Meaning?” Regina was sure she knew, but needed to hear Betsy's reasoning.

“The suit against this Berry Association, Inc. was filed by Mr. Lewis. He's not only the plaintiff, but the star witness against the big funeral company. Nobody knows the background of the charges, or the business itself, the way he does. If there was no Mr. Lewis, there'd be no suit. You figure it out.”

“But you said the other day that Kane is the force
behind the legal action. Surely he would go ahead if anything happened to his grandfather?”

“Maybe, maybe not, depending on what else he's dug up against this Berry. But I wonder if that scumbag didn't figure putting Mr. Lewis out of commission was worth the risk.”

“It sounds like something out of a television movie,” Regina protested.

“Yeah, well, maybe that's where he got the idea,” Betsy said darkly.

Regina did her best to conceal the shiver that rippled over her skin. In an attempt at a more normal reaction, she said, “You've been to see Mr. Lewis?”

“Not yet. I'll go this evening, after my night manager comes on duty. I did call the hospital and talk to the nurse on his station. She gave me the lowdown because she's—”

“A Benedict?” Regina supplied before Betsy could finish.

“Married to one,” the other woman answered with a fleeting grin before she launched into a complete description of the accident as culled from the nurse who had gotten it from one of the patrolmen.

Regina listened while stifling a strong urge to drive straight to the hospital to see for herself that everything was really all right. She might have given in to it except for a distinct feeling that it would be hypocritical. She was far from eager to face Kane just now, too. Nor was she sure he would welcome having a near stranger around during the family crisis. At the same time, she turned the details of the accident over in her mind, searching for something, anything, to make her feel more easy about it.

As Betsy paused again, she said, “They haven't identified the other driver?”

“No, and Kane is mighty upset about it. There'll be hell to pay if he ever discovers who it was.”

“I would expect so.”

“He'll keep searching, don't you ever doubt it. I hope he finds him because it's only God's mercy that both Mr. Lewis and Miss Elise weren't killed. Why, I could strangle the man with my bare hands myself.”

Regina made noises of agreement. At the same time, she glanced beyond Betsy to where Dudley Slater's car had been sitting for two days. It was gone, just as it had been gone the night before when she got back to the motel.

Following her gaze, Betsy asked, “You looking for the guy who's been over there? I wondered myself what became of him. Won't hurt to mention to Kane that he took off.”

Regina gave the motel owner a quick look. “I imagine Kane noticed.”

“Could be. Not much he misses.”

“I'm beginning to realize that.” The words were grim.

“Well, I'll let you get on with your rat killing.” Betsy turned away. “Just wanted to let you know Mr. Lewis won't be available for a day or two, in case you needed to change your plans.”

“Yes, thank you,” Regina replied, and added a few more words of appreciation before closing the door. She thought that the other woman was disappointed that she had not had more to say about the incident. Regina couldn't help it. She was in no mood for meaningless chatter.

She paced up and down the room, squeezing her hands together in front of her while her thoughts ricocheted in her head like the metal spheres inside a pinball machine.

Had Slater forced Mr. Lewis off the road? If so, whose idea had it been? Could Gervis have engineered it? Would he go that far?

She had always known there were certain business matters he never discussed. Though she helped him with his private computer records kept at the apartment and often served as a sounding board for him, she didn't push it out of respect for his privacy. Still, that didn't keep her from wondering or putting certain facts and figures together until she had a far firmer grasp on how Gervis ran his operation than he realized.

She wished now that she'd paid even more attention. It had suddenly become extremely important to guess how far he would go. If he would order the death of an elderly man who happened to be his opponent in a civil suit, then saying hurtful things to a small boy might mean nothing at all.

No, no, it wasn't possible. She couldn't accept such a thing. To do that would be to acknowledge everything she had thought and felt for years was a lie.

Regardless, Gervis's threat toward Stephan, whether he meant it or not, had left her shaken. It struck at the foundations of her world back in New York. Without Gervis, what would she do? She would be alone, she and Stephan. They would have no one in the world who cared what became of them.

Regina was so disturbed in her mind that she could settle down to nothing. She took a shower, dressed in
a T-shirt and slacks. With a great show of industry, she made a few phone calls about an estate sale and two or three antique jewelry exhibitions she was due to attend over the next couple of months. She read an auction catalog that she had brought with her, making notes on the values of pieces for future reference. The room turned stuffy and overwarm as the sun brought out the mugginess left by the rain. She turned on the air conditioner and stood in front of it for long moments with her eyes closed. After a quick lunch for which she had no appetite, she tried to watch an old Fred Astaire musical on television. The plot was contrived and silly and even the music couldn't hold her; she clicked it off again.

When she could stand it no longer, she placed a call to the hospital. They would tell her next to nothing about Mr. Lewis, perhaps because of harassing calls from the press or the defense lawyers. When the operator offered to put the call through to his room, Regina, suddenly nervous that Kane might answer, hung up at once.

Mr. Lewis's housekeeper, Dora, might tell her something if she rang Hallowed Ground, she thought, then again, perhaps not. The best bet was probably Luke. He wasn't close to Mr. Lewis, but she was fairly sure he would know what was going on.

The phone at Chemin-a-Haut rang endlessly with no answer, nor was it picked up by anything so recklessly modern as an answering machine. She would try again later in the evening.

It was almost sundown when she decided to go in search of something to read, a couple of magazines or maybe one of April's books if she could find it. She
brushed her hair, smoothed on a little lip gloss, then picked up her keys and headed out the door. It was then she saw the car.

Slater was back, parked in the same place across the street. She hadn't noticed, hadn't heard him, for the pulled draperies in the motel unit and the roar of the air conditioner.

Her lips tightened and a frown pleated the skin between her eyes. The need to do something, to have concrete answers, congealed inside her. Without stopping to think, she stalked toward the car.

The evening was suffocatingly humid. Damp heat rose around her ankles from the pavement, coating her skin in a light glaze of perspiration. The odor of exhaust fumes caught in her nose, mingling with the smell of frying chicken from the motel restaurant and honeysuckle fragrance drifting from where a mass of vines climbed a roadside utility pole. Somewhere a dog barked, then was quiet.

The man in the car watched her approach. He spat out the window, a warning shot that brought her to a stop a couple of steps away.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded without preamble.

His lips curled in his sharp face. “Don't know what you're talking about. I'm just sitting. No law against it, is there?”

“I know exactly who and what you are, or pretend to be.” As she spoke, she stepped back a pace. The sour miasma of old sweat, beer breath, and stale cigarette smoke from inside the car was nauseating.

“Yeah? You read my stuff?”

“Not if I can help it. If you were any kind of reporter, you'd be at the hospital, wouldn't you?”

“You've got a smart mouth, you know that?”

“I'm well aware Gervis Berry is calling the shots here for you. What I want to know is how much of what you're doing is on his orders and how much on your own hook.”

“The setup is real simple, sweetheart,” he drawled. “I stick around here, do what I'm told, and I get a story, a big story. If I stumble onto the same thing you're looking for, then I get a bonus that'll set me up for life.”

“What I'm looking for?”

“The secret, the key, the skinny, the info that's going to blow the case these hick lawyers are putting together to-hell-and-gone.”