The Hunt For Hawke's Daughter

She reached for her purse. “I have a photo of Livie,” Karen explained quickly.

He glanced down at the photograph while she watched his face, waiting for some sign of awareness. There was none. Not yet.

“Her hair wasn’t curled for the picture,” she said. “It’s naturally wavy, and even darker than it looks here. And her eyes—you can’t tell in this—but her eyes are a dark blue.”

Devlin looked up, catching her gaze. “How old is your daughter?”

“Livie just turned three.”

When she thought she couldn’t endure another second of his silent scrutiny, he glanced at the picture again. “It isn’t possible. We took precautions.”

“Yes, and sometimes even the most careful precautions fail.”

“And just when,” he growled, “were you planning to tell me about her? Or, if I hadn’t turned you down just now, would you ever have told me at all?”

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

We have another outstanding title selection this month chock-full of great romantic suspense, starting with the next installment in our TOP SECRET BABIES promotion. In The Hunt for Hawke’s Daughter (#605) by Jean Barrett, Devlin Hawke had never expected to see Karen Ramey once she’d left his bed—let alone have her tell him his secret child had been kidnapped by a madman. Whether a blessing or a curse, Devlin was dead set on reclaiming his child—and his woman.…

To further turn up the heat, three of your favorite authors take you down to the steamy bayou with three of the sexiest bad boys you’ll ever meet: Tyler, Nick and Jules—in one value-packed volume! A bond of blood tied them to each other since youth, but as men, their boyhood vow is tested. Find out all about Bayou Blood Brothers (#606) with Ruth Glick—writing as Rebecca York—Metsy Hingle and Joanna Wayne.

Amanda Stevens concludes our ON THE EDGE promotion with Nighttime Guardian (#607), a chilling tale of mystery and monsters set in the simmering South. To round out the month, Sheryl Lynn launches a new series with To Protect Their Child (#608).Welcome to MCCLINTOCK COUNTRY, a Rocky Mountain town where everyone has a secret and love is for keeps.

More action and excitement you’ll be hard-pressed to find. So pick up all four books and keep the midnight oil burning.…

Sincerely,

Denise O’Sullivan

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

The Hunt for Hawke’s Daughter

Jean Barrett

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

If setting has anything to do with it, Jean Barrett claims she has no reason not to be inspired. She and her husband live on Wisconsin’s scenic Door Peninsula in an antique-filled country cottage overlooking Lake Michigan. A teacher for many years, she left the classroom to write full-time. She is the author of a number of romance novels. You can write to Jean at P.O. Box 623, Sister Bay, WI 54234.

Books by Jean Barrett

HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

308—THE SHELTER OF HER ARMS

351—WHITE WEDDING

384—MAN OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN

475—FUGITIVE FATHER

528—MY LOVER’S SECRET

605—THE HUNT FOR HAWKE’S DAUGHTER

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Karen Ramey—She faced a mother’s worst nightmare and a temptation she struggled to resist.

Devlin Hawke—The private investigator couldn’t refuse the woman from his past, but he feared her effect on him.

Livie—The little girl was a helpless pawn in a game of terror.

Michael Ramey—He guarded a horrifying secret.

Maud Dietrich—She was Karen’s friend and business partner, but could she be trusted?

Bonnie Wodeski—Michael’s assistant knew the truth, but would she live long enough to tell it?

Scott Wodeski—He was a frightened and unwilling player in his sister’s scheme.

Sheriff Neil Holland—He was overwhelmed by the situation.

Veronica Delgado—Her story was a credible one, but was she as innocent as she claimed?

Cassius Bennett—He was a frail old man who didn’t seem to know what was happening.

The Hawke family—Would Devlin ever let them matter to him again?

To the Grutzmachers of Passtimes Books

and to Roxanne of Book World.

Bless you for your years of support.

You’re the best.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Prologue

San Francisco—several years ago

“Oh, what a goddess you are!” he whispered eagerly. “Everything a man dreams of, and more!”

Her name was Antonia, and she had the sleek, classic lines of a creation so perfect, so thoroughly devoted to pleasure, that she could almost be defined as obscene. He didn’t care. She was worth every penny of what it had cost him to possess her.

“You’re mine now,” he gloated. “Every precious inch of you.”

Fletcher Stowe’s eyes glowed as they devoured her exquisite, gleaming surfaces. His aging, veiny hand trembled when he leaned forward from his motorized wheelchair to stroke the white leather that sheathed this portion of her elegant body.

Fletcher had told Dennis, his caretaker and bodyguard, to go away. He wanted to be alone with Antonia, to savor her at leisure and in private while she was still as fresh and untouched as a virgin. Tomorrow he would share her with the others, introduce her to his young bride, but tonight he wanted Antonia to be exclusively his.

Thirty-five million dollars. That’s what Antonia had cost him. Thirty-five million dollars of pure luxury delivered to him only hours ago. Almost two hundred feet from bow to stern, furnished with every high-tech system imaginable, fitted with exotic woods and precious fixtures, Antonia was already the envy of every yachtsman on the West Coast.

The crew would arrive tomorrow to prepare Antonia for her maiden voyage to Asia, which would also be Fletcher’s honeymoon cruise with his bride. But at this moment he and Dennis were alone on the yacht. Having toured its guest staterooms in his chair, admired the magnificent master suite he would share with Veronica and approved the entertainment room with its mahogany dance floor he would never use, Fletcher had reached the sky lounge.

It was his favorite of the several public rooms with its ceiling, as well as its walls, clad in white leather trimmed in Madagascar ebony and its six-foot-high windows framing views of the majestic San Francisco skyline. He parked his chair in front of one of those windows and gazed out at the winking lights, chuckling to himself.

This night was his triumph. He had fought them and won. They had all been against him, his family, his friends, his employees. They said the car accident had changed him, robbed him of his wits as well as the use of his legs. Said that he was old and foolish, the victim of a conniving young woman interested in nothing but his money.

One of his sons had tried to have him declared incompetent. The other had tried to gain control of his computer software company. They had both failed, along with their army of lawyers. Fletcher Stowe was still in charge of his accumulated millions.

“And I intend to go on spending them,” he chortled to the hills outside the window. “The frugal days are over.”

There was a six carat blue diamond ring locked away in the safe of his mansion. He was going to present it to Ronnie at the end of the week when they were married. They were already discussing plans for an extravagant new house. He would build it for her when they returned from their honeymoon. No expenses spared. She made Fletcher happy, which was more than either of his sons or his late wife had ever done for him.

He had survived the car accident. A near-death experience that had taught him his fortune meant nothing if he didn’t spend it. So now he was going to live. Starting tonight. Ronnie was waiting for him back at her apartment, and he was suddenly restless, anxious to join her.

Fletcher seized the small, two-way radio hanging from the arm of his chair and pressed the call button. “All right, Dennis,” he spoke into the mouthpiece, “I’m ready to leave.”

He waited a few seconds. There was no response. Irritated by the delay, he repeated his summons. “Dennis, I want to leave.”

Silence. Damn the fellow! Where was he? Fletcher had told his caretaker to leave him alone, not leave the yacht. If he had disobeyed and gone ashore….

He wasn’t used to being kept waiting. Angry now, he tried again. “Dennis, you’d better be there.”

Still no answer. There had to be a problem. Maybe it was a malfunction with the two-way, because even if Dennis had gone ashore he would have carried the instrument with him clipped to his belt.

No choice about it. Fletcher would have to go looking for him. Muttering his displeasure, he pivoted and headed for the nearest exit, his chair whirring softly. The Antonia had been fully equipped on every level for the comfort and convenience of his handicapped condition. The door slid open automatically as he approached it.

Once out on the covered deck, he lifted his head and shouted. “Dennis, I need you!”

There was no reply. Fletcher became aware of the lonely stillness. He wasn’t a nervous man, but suddenly he had a case of the jitters. Being bound to a wheelchair like this made him feel vulnerable. And it was late. There was no one down on the dock. He didn’t like it.

Nonsense. He wasn’t helpless. No reason at all to panic. Dennis had to be somewhere on the yacht. The crew quarters were located forward on the lower level. His caretaker-bodyguard would occupy one of those cabins. Probably he had gone down there to inspect that area. That’s where Fletcher would find him.

He rolled along the deck to the nearest of the two elevators. Ah, he was right. The indicator light revealed that the car was rising from the crew deck. Dennis was on his way up.

Fletcher faced the elevator, ready to lecture its occupant. The car arrived, the door whooshed back to reveal the caretaker inside. His brawny figure was sprawled on his back, staring sightlessly at the finely paneled ceiling overhead. Fletcher gazed in horror at the blood that was already caking around the wound in the man’s chest.

There was no sound behind him. But Fletcher knew. He could sense the danger. Alarmed, he whirled around in his chair. He had no time to cry out and only a second to register the image of a powerful revolver in a gloved hand. Then the weapon, equipped with a silencer, spat at him, drilling him cleanly through the forehead.

THE TWO homicide detectives leaned over the rail of the Antonia, watching the morning sun emerging through the mist that cloaked the bay. They were alone now on the yacht. The last of the assorted evidence-gatherers had departed from the crime scene.

“Got a nasty feeling about this one,” the heavier of the two men remarked.

“Yeah, I know. No witnesses, no real evidence, and the night watchman out at the gate said he didn’t see or hear a thing. Whoever pulled it knew just what they were doing.”

“And anyone with a worthwhile motive has a solid alibi.”

“The two sons?”

His partner shook his head. “Nope. Both of them conveniently elsewhere. One of them on vacation in Hawaii, the other in L.A. on business.”

“Hired killer?”

“Maybe, but try proving it.”

“So we go through the motions and hope for a break, which we probably won’t get.”

“Yeah.” He swung his bulk away from the rail and gazed along the impressive length of the luminous white yacht. “Some toy, huh?”

Chapter One

Minneapolis-St. Paul—the present day

“Good-looking sonofagun!”

Karen, who was having difficulty concentrating on anything but the collapse of her marriage, stared at the young assistant employed by her interior design firm. “Who?”

“This sexy guy I’ve been telling you about,” Robyn explained. “The one who was in here first thing this morning asking for you. He must be awfully anxious to see you because he stopped by again at noon, even though I told him we had no idea when you were arriving from Atlanta. Anyway, I promised him I’d give you his card the minute you walked in the door, which is what I’m trying to do if I can just find where I laid the danged thing….”

Robyn’s bright chatter was accompanied by her busy hands searching though the clutter on her desk. Karen was too hot and emotionally drained to be interested.

I should have gone straight home from the airport, she thought. Not come here. But the idea of being alone in the house with her defeat was unbearable. Soon enough to deal with all of that tonight when she faced Michael with her decision.

Besides, she had needed the reassurance that she knew Dream Makers would offer her. Its showroom, with the traditional fabrics and furniture that were a specialty of the interior design firm, told her that at least she could count this part of her life as a success.

Her friend and partner, Maud Dietrich, was on the phone occupied with a client. She had lifted her hand in welcome when Karen stepped through the door of the turn-of-the-century yellow brick building located off Hennepin Avenue. And that, too, was a comfort.

“Here it is!” Robyn announced triumphantly, handing her a rectangle of cream-colored pasteboard.

Karen, who had impatiently started to edge away from Robyn’s desk, accepted the card and glanced at it casually. The prominent logo of a golden hawk on its face leaped up at her. Clutching the card, she could suddenly hear the blood pounding in her ears.

“I’m having trouble imagining that this P.I. has come looking for you to redecorate his office,” Robyn said, too busy closing drawers she had opened in her search to notice her employer’s distress. “Not when that office is way out in Denver, anyway. Hey, maybe you’re a missing heir he’s trying to—” The sight of Karen’s face finally stopped her. “Are you okay, Mrs. Ramey? You look kind of flushed.”

Karen snatched at an excuse. “It’s the heat out there.”

True enough. The Twin Cities were wilting under a blast of summer heat, and it had been a long walk with heavy luggage to where her car had been parked at the air terminal.

Robyn nodded, but she continued to eye her with curiosity.

I must look as shaken as I feel, Karen thought, gazing again at the business card. The Hawke Detective Agency, it said. She had never told anyone about Devlin Hawke, neither Maud nor Michael, and she had no intention of trying to explain him now, and certainly not to Robyn.

“I have no idea why this P.I. wants to see me,” she said.

But Karen had a fearful suspicion of exactly why Devlin Hawke was here in the Twin Cities. His arrival, with what she already had to contend with regarding her marriage, couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

“Is he planning to show up here again today?” she asked Robyn.

The young woman shook her head. “He didn’t say. He sure looked like he had questions on his mind, though. I’m just glad he didn’t try asking them, because it would have been awfully hard not giving him whatever answers he wanted to hear.”

Yes, Karen thought, she knew all about Devlin Hawke’s rugged appeal and what it could obtain. But she didn’t want to remember that. Nor did she want to deal just now with his sudden reappearance in her life. Her mind and heart were already too heavy with the burden of her failed marriage.

She was tucking the business card in her purse, trying to bury it along with the image of the man it represented, when Maud got off the phone. The tall, attractive blonde rose from her desk and came forward to greet Karen.

“Sissy Baldwin,” she said, explaining the call with the slight trace of the accent she still bore, though she hadn’t lived in Germany since her childhood. “She was trying to reschedule that canceled visit you were going to pay her in Savannah after the trade show. I told her we’d have to let her know.”

Sissy Baldwin was a good client, Karen thought, but she could be a problem.

Head tipped to one side, Maud considered her. “So, how was the trade show?”

“Well, you know how exhausting they can be, and Atlanta was no exception.”

Maud didn’t press her for an explanation, but Karen knew that she had to be aware of her anguish. Her face always seemed to betray her emotions, even in moments when she was convinced she registered the look of a perfect stoic.

Maud deserved to know that she had used the trade show as an opportunity to get away on her own for some serious thinking, and that the tough decision she had reached had brought her home ahead of schedule. Karen would tell her everything, but not until after she faced Michael tonight.

“You do look beat,” Maud observed sympathetically. “Why don’t you just collect Livie from her sitter’s and go on home?”

Her partner’s suggestion was a strong temptation. She would have liked nothing better than to be with her daughter, but she resisted. “She’s scheduled right about now to go down for her nap, and I don’t want her routine upset.” This whole thing was going to be hard enough on Livie as it was.

Maud nodded understandingly, but Karen knew that her friend thought she was overprotective. Well, Maud wasn’t a mother, and even though Livie hadn’t suffered an asthma attack in months, Karen needed to be careful with her.

“Besides,” she added, “I have all these dealer quotes from the show that I want to log into the computer.” It was another excuse. She needed to keep busy.

The phone rang. Robyn answered it. “It’s the salvage outlet about that Victorian fireplace mantel,” she said.

Maud went to take the call. Karen used the opportunity to flee into the office off the rear of the showroom. Despite the air-conditioning, her face still felt warm. She didn’t know whether to blame it on shock or the sweltering weather.

Slipping into the bathroom that adjoined the office with its clutter of catalogs, wallpaper samples and designs in progress, she splashed cold water on her face. Then she spent several minutes at the mirror, combing her casual-style, jaw-length auburn hair and repairing her makeup.

Her wide hazel eyes stared back at her, a troubled expression in them. Well, why shouldn’t they look haunted? Dissolving a marriage was a painful prospect. Not that she expected Michael to object to her request for a divorce. He no longer seemed to care about anything.

What happened? Karen wondered. In the beginning Michael Ramey had been a loving husband and the perfect father for Livie. But in these last months he had turned into a glacial stranger.

Michael had refused to discuss their problem, wouldn’t agree to counseling. He just kept pulling away from her, becoming someone so remote she was no longer able to reach him. She had wondered at first if he was having an affair, but somehow that didn’t seem to be the explanation.

Maybe it was all her fault. Maybe she had deceived herself that she’d loved him because she had wanted so much to have a father for Livie. She had tried to be a good wife, needing perhaps to compensate for the passion that was never fully there in their marriage. And if Michael ultimately resented that…

She just didn’t know, but she refused to remain in an empty marriage.

Leaving the bathroom, Karen resolutely seated herself at the desk. She eyed the telephone while she waited for the computer to bring up the program she needed. Should she call Michael at his office, tell him she was no longer in Atlanta? No, bad idea. He would want to know why she was home ahead of schedule, and she didn’t want to risk getting into anything over the phone. They needed to be face-to-face for this.

She spent another moment struggling with the urge to call Livie’s sitter, longing for the reassurance that her three-year-old daughter was thriving but eager to see her mother. But that also wasn’t a good idea, not when she had called so often from Atlanta that first day and a half to check on Livie that Mrs. Gustafsson must have considered her a nuisance. Livie was in safe, capable hands, and she would be with her in another few hours. Karen could wait.

She began to enter her trade show data into the computer. When she found herself making repeated errors, her fingers drifted from the keys. It was no use. Though she was able to put Michael and Livie on mental hold, there was someone else who refused to go away.

Devlin Hawke. Why was he here, when in all this time he had never tried to contact her? Why now?

She tried to persuade herself she had nothing to worry about. Since Devlin was probably in Minneapolis in a professional capacity, he’d decided to look her up. Just wanted to say hello.

Yes, maybe. But then why had he visited Dream Makers twice in the same day? As if it was imperative that he see her. She didn’t like it. She kept remembering he was a private investigator, that collecting information was his business, and if he had somehow—

As if on cue, the office door opened. Robyn slipped into the room, a look of warning in her eyes. “The persistent P.I. is back.”

Karen’s heart sank. Devlin Hawke was about to intrude on more than just her thoughts.

“Do you want me to stall him?”

She knows I don’t want to see him, Karen thought, aware that her face must be guilty of its usual treachery. She had to be careful. She didn’t want either Robyn or Maud to start wondering why she was so reluctant.

“No, send him back.”

Robyn left. She got to her feet, willing herself not to be nervous. As she faced the door, she folded her hands beneath her breasts, fingers laced together. It was a familiar, unconscious pose meant to convey serenity. Only those who knew her intimately understood how deceptive it was, masking an inner turmoil.

Devlin found her like this when he entered the office seconds later. The first thing she noticed was that he wasn’t wearing the warm smile of an old friend paying a casual visit. His lean, good-looking face with its wide mouth and strong nose was as sober as a condolence. Not a good sign.

After that, she was aware of how his rangy, six foot body overwhelmed the small room. There had always been a latent power in him that she had found a little daunting. And that hadn’t changed.

She could see that those riveting blue eyes of his were busy reacquainting themselves with her in turn. He nodded slowly, as if satisfied by her slender figure and a face she had always considered as rather ordinary but which, to her secret pleasure, he had once insisted was eye-filling. His husky voice said as much.

“Looking good, Karen. I guess I forgot how good.”

She might have returned the compliment. His jaw was as square as ever, his thick hair as black. Only the grooves on either side of his mouth seemed more pronounced than she remembered. Not surprising that they should have deepened. He must be—what? Somewhere in his mid-thirties by now.

But she didn’t compliment him. It wasn’t safe. All she gave him was a pleasant, innocuous, “It’s nice to see you again, Devlin. Uh, sit down, please.”