Kingsley Baby Trilogy: The Hero's Son\The Brother's Wife\The Long-Lost Heir (44 page)

At the thought of Jeremy, Jenny winced. Though she loved children,
no one
could consider Jeremy Willows anything but a brat. Thank God he’d been allowed to attend the party downstairs, and Jenny didn’t have to put up with him in the nursery tonight. He teased and tormented the twins whenever he thought he could get away with it, and Pamela always took his side.

Outwardly, of course, she made a fuss over Adam and Andrew, smothering the poor little motherless boys with love and attention, but Jenny had seen the way Pamela looked at the twins when she thought no one was watching. She clearly resented Adam and Andrew who, even though they were younger than Jeremy, would someday be the Kingsley heirs.

Opening the door to the nursery, Jenny stepped inside. Moonlight flooded into the room from the French doors that opened onto a balcony overlooking the rear gardens. Out of habit, she checked the latch to make sure it was secure, then crossed the room to close the hallway door. Hadn’t she shut it earlier? Had someone been in the nursery without her knowing?

Probably the Fitzgeralds, she decided. Their three-
year-
old daughter, Bradlee, was asleep in one of the beds, and Mary Fitzgerald couldn’t bear to be parted from the little girl for more than an hour or two at a time. And no wonder. The child was incredibly sweet, and her open adoration of little Adam had immediately endeared her to Jenny. Bradlee was the only one who had been able to make him smile since his mother’s death.

One by one, Jenny tiptoed passed the little beds. Andrew was sprawled on his back, a smile playing at his lips. Unlike his brother, Andrew hadn’t been traumatized by his mother’s death. He’d missed her, of course, but like most children, he’d quickly bounced back, readily accepting the affection of anyone willing to give it to him—even his new stepmother. Andrew seemed quite taken with Pamela’s excessive beauty and charm, whereas Adam wanted nothing to do with the woman.

Stepping to the next bed, Jenny gazed down at Adam. As usual, he was curled on his side, a pillow clutched to his chest. His eyelids fluttered rapidly in his sleep, as if he were dreaming about something troubling. The premonition Jenny had been experiencing all evening came back full force as she stared down at him, and it was all she could do not to lift the child from his bed and hold him tightly to her breast. Adam was so vulnerable right now. He brought out all her protective instincts.

As Jenny moved on to the third bed, she was surprised to find little Bradlee’s eyes open. The child didn’t say anything, didn’t fuss or fret, just lay there quietly in her bed. Wide-
awake. Alert. As if she’d had the same premonition as Jenny.

Jenny shivered. “What’s the matter, sweetie?” she whispered. “Did you have a bad dream?”

Bradlee shook her head. She lifted her hand and pointed to Adam’s bed.

Jenny smiled. “You’re watching out for him, aren’t you?”

The little girl nodded, her expression solemn.

Tears stung Jenny’s eyes. The bond between the two children was a touching thing to witness.

“Adam’s fine.” She smoothed back Bradlee’s bangs. “He’s sleeping. You can sleep now, too. I’ll look out for him, okay?”

Bradlee nodded, but her eyes remained vigilant, as if she had no intention of letting herself fall asleep. Jenny tucked the cover around the child’s shoulders and then went back to her own room. The uneasiness still hung heavily over her, and she knew she would have a hard time sleeping.

As was her habit, she warmed some milk in the kitchenette next to the nursery, then carried the glass to her bedroom and drank the contents before climbing into bed. Within minutes she fell into a deep slumber.

She didn’t hear the nursery door open sometime later nor the soft footfalls that crossed the room. She didn’t see the dark shadow standing over her bed nor the empty glass being taken away. She didn’t know when the French doors in the nursery were opened nor when the signal was given to someone waiting below in the garden.

Jenny knew nothing until hours later, when a scream awakened her, and she rushed into the nursery to find little Adam Kingsley missing from his bed.

Thirty-
two years later=m

* * *

Something was wrong. David Powers knew it as surely as he knew his own name. He frowned, glancing at the stack of phone messages he’d found on his desk after returning from court that morning. Three were from his mother.

Helen Powers never “bothered” him at the office. It was a point of pride with her. In the twelve years David had been with the public defender’s office in New York City, he could count on one hand the times his mother had called him at work.

“You’re a busy man,” she would tell him, ladling another helping of chicken and dumplings—comfort food from her Southern background—onto his plate at their weekly Sunday dinner. “The last thing you need is for me to call you at work and make a nuisance of myself.”

David would reply indulgently, if a little impatiently, “I appreciate that. But as I’ve told you before, if you ever need me, you don’t have to be afraid to call the office, okay? Margaret won’t bite.”

Actually, he wasn’t altogether sure that was true. Margaret Petermen, the receptionist at the P.D.’s office, was a sixty-
year-
old barracuda who swore profusely, screened calls to a fault, and kept a plaque on her desk proclaiming, I Have One Nerve Left And You’re Getting On It.

In spite of his mother’s protests to the contrary, David knew Margaret intimidated her. So many people did. His mother was quiet and shy and didn’t mix well with others. She liked to keep to herself, rarely even used the phone. Something had to be wrong if she’d gotten up enough courage to brave Margaret’s sharp tongue, not once, but three times in as many hours.

He instantly thought of the doctor’s appointment she’d had the previous week, the one she’d refused to talk to him about on Sunday. She’d been experiencing severe headaches, and David had insisted she go in for a checkup.

Hesitating for only a second, David picked up the phone and placed the call to Richford, the small town in upstate New York where he’d grown up.

His mother answered on the first ring, as if she’d been sitting by the phone waiting for his call. “David?”

He could hear the tremor in her voice, and his concern deepened. “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”

The pause that followed was so long he thought for a moment the connection had been severed. Then, in a near whisper, she said, “Come home, David. Come home now.”

“What’s—”

The phone clicked in his ear before he had a chance to finish the question. David stared at the receiver for a second, then hung up and grabbed his briefcase, hurrying out of his cramped, downtown office. He’d never heard his mother sound so distressed. Something was definitely wrong.

“I’m leaving early,” he told his secretary, who looked up from her computer in astonishment. “Cancel my appointments for the rest of the day.”

“But you have a meeting with Mr. Hollingsworth at four-
thirty—”

David swore. He’d forgotten about the interview he had that afternoon at Hollingsworth, Beckman, and Carr, a prestigious Manhattan law firm that had approached him about joining their ranks. A thousand other attorneys would have killed for such an interview, but David was less than enthusiastic. Perhaps if he thought their interest had more to do with his merit and less to do with the fact that J.C. Hollingsworth’s daughter, Rachel, was his fianc;aaee, he might have been able to muster a little more excitement.

Besides, he liked working in the public defender’s office. He’d made a name for himself here, and every case was a challenge. If he entered the cutthroat world of Hollingsworth, Beckman, and Carr, he had the disturbing feeling he might never be his own man again.

“But Mr. Powers—”

He was out the door and heading down the hallway toward the bank of elevators before his secretary could finish voicing her protest. The doors slid open and Rachel Hollingsworth, dressed in a red Chanel power suit, stepped out. As always, her dark hair was pulled straight back, accenting the perfect angles of her face and the exotic tilt of her gray eyes. She looked elegant, sophisticated, and completely out of place in the institutional surroundings—not at all what she was accustomed to at the Madison Avenue offices of Hollingsworth, Beckman, and Carr.

“Perfect timing!” she exclaimed with a dazzling smile. So dazzling, in fact, that harried passersby in the hallway stopped to stare at her. “I have a one o’clock reservation at Justine’s, and I won’t take no for an answer.”

David glanced at his watch, a functional black Seiko his mother had given to him when he graduated from Columbia. “Sorry, but I’ve already had lunch, and besides, I’m on my way out.”

The smile slipped a bit. “But I came all the way down here just to see you, and you know what traffic is like on Fridays. The least you can do is keep me company while I eat. I need to talk to you about your meeting with Daddy this afternoon—”

“I’m sorry,” David said again, placing his hands on her shoulders and bending to give her a perfunctory kiss on her smooth cheek. “I don’t have time to talk.” Quickly he stepped into the elevator and jabbed the Down button with his thumb. “I’ll call you later.”

She turned to stare at him in disbelief, her elegant brows arching in icy outrage as the doors slid closed between them. Rachel Hollingsworth was not used to such treatment, and David knew there would be hell to pay later. But right now, he didn’t give a damn.

He wondered if he ever had.

* * *

A
STRANGE CAR WAS
parked at the curb in front of his mother’s house, and the uneasiness David had been experiencing on the drive up from the city strengthened. He pulled into the driveway, parked his own car, and got out, striding up the flower-
lined walkway to the front door. He had his key, but before he could insert it into the lock, the door was drawn back, revealing his mother’s careworn face.

She was not a pretty woman, nor had she aged particularly well. Her hair had gone completely gray at a young age, and the deep lines that etched her face had been there ever since David could remember.

She used to tell him fondly that he had gotten his dark good looks from his father, who had died in Vietnam while David was still a baby. She would show him pictures of a handsome young man in a military uniform, and David would stare at his father’s image, trying to find his own features in the stranger’s face, but never seeing them there. After a while he quit searching. After a while he stopped asking the questions that always upset his mother so much.

“I came as soon as I could.” He stepped into the tiny foyer and closed the door behind him. Over his mother’s shoulder, David saw a man in the living room watching them. He looked to be about David’s age, mid-
thirties, tall and lean, with inquisitive eyes and a solemn expression that matched the somber atmosphere of the house.

David glanced down at his mother. “Are you all right?”

She nodded briefly, her eyes not meeting his. “Come into the living room. There’s someone you need to meet.”

Behind him, his mother said, “Mr. McClain is a private investigator from Memphis, Tennessee.”

David glanced at her in astonishment. “A private investigator? What the hell is going on here?”

“Maybe I should leave you two alone,” McClain suggested. He looked at David’s mother, and his gaze seemed to soften in spite of himself.

She nodded. “Maybe you should.” When David started to say something, she put a hand on his sleeve. “Let’s sit down.”

An eerie sensation crept over David as he sat down on his mother’s worn sofa and watched her take a seat in her favorite rocking chair near the fireplace. In the background, the front door closed discreetly as Jake McClain slipped away to allow them privacy.

What the hell was going on? David wondered again, but for some reason, he remained silent. He had a feeling that what his mother was about to tell him was something he just might not want to hear.

Don’t ask the question,
his legal mind told him,
unless you know the answer.
And right now, he didn’t have a clue.

Out of habit, his mother rocked to and fro, her hazel eyes glinting with an emotion David could only call fear. And despair. But it wasn’t until they heard Jake McClain’s car start up outside and drive away that she broke the silence.

“I’ve prayed this day would never come,” she murmured. “But I somehow knew it would. Secrets always have a way of coming out, my mother used to say. No matter how deeply you bury them.”

“Just tell me one thing.” David leaned toward her, resting his forearms on his knees. “Does this have anything to do with your doctor’s appointment last week?”

Her eyes clouded. “Not really. This day would have come regardless of what my doctor told me. It just makes things…a bit easier in some ways.”

“What do you mean?”

Without responding, she got up from the rocking chair and crossed the room to the antique walnut wardrobe in the corner. As long as David could remember, she’d kept the key to the wardrobe on a satin ribbon around her neck and only opened it to take out the picture of David’s father when he asked to see it.

Once, when he was about seven, she’d caught him trying to pick the lock with a hairpin, and her censure had been so severe he’d never tried again. The contents of the wardrobe, including the photo of his father, had soon been forgotten because that summer David had discovered Little League, and sports had taken over his life.

His mother took the key from her neck and in the almost-
preternatural silence of the tiny living room, David heard the distinctive sound as the old-
fashioned lock clicked open. Spreading the doors, she withdrew the white, leather-
bound photo album he remembered from his childhood and another book he’d never seen before. She retraced her steps across the room, but rather than taking her place in the rocker, she sat down beside him on the sofa and opened the photo album to the picture of his father.