Royal Heir
Alice Sharpe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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This book is dedicated to my friends in the

Mid-Willamette Valley RWA whose

professionalism, enthusiasm and giant hearts

make a solitary job so much more fun.

Round trip tickets to Montivitz for everyone!

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Prologue

March 2, north of Seattle, Washington

The call came as he prepared to leave the office. He had to scramble to get the phone himself as his secretary had left for the day and the damn thing was hidden under a sheet of architectural drawings.

The caller’s voice caught him at once, though, her anxiety as loud and clear as her voice was furtive.

“I’ve got compromising photos of your wife and my husband. He’ll kill me if he finds out I hired a private detective to follow him. I’m too scared to use the pictures myself, but the bastard deserves to be humiliated. The pictures are yours if you want them…just be careful. He’s chief of police…”

She’d gone on to name a waterside restaurant across the river. She’d get her sister to drive her there. “Meet me in one hour…”

By now he was living on his boat, a thirty-two-foot cruiser with two powerful gasoline engines, and his mind raced as he plotted a course across the river. Her last murmured, “Make sure you aren’t followed,” trailed him all the way down to the marina as he threw cautious glances in the rearview mirror.

He’d known his wife was seeing someone but the chief of police? Who was the chief of police, anyway?

The big engines started at once and he cast off the dock lines without fanfare, replacing his tailored suit jacket with a heavy wool coat as April was cold this far north. He’d crossed the river many, many times, often after sundown. He kept his gaze on the buoys and distant landmarks. He knew the channel, was comfortable with the strong currents. He was an experienced, methodical boater.

But in his mind, the caller’s frantic voice tangled with the memory of his wife’s. She’d promised to ruin him, to take his child…

Not if he could help it.

Revealing, embarrassing pictures might be enough to get her to back down…it was a chance worth taking.

He heard the other vessel before he saw it, a distant buzz that grew louder even though no lights shone on the water. He turned off his own cockpit light, thinking it might be robbing him of night vision, and then he saw it, a black hull, low freeboard, racing toward him like a SCUD missile.

He blinked his running lights back on and flipped the switches of every other light he could reach until his yacht shone like a Christmas tree. Still the smaller boat raced toward him. Mesmerized, it took him too long to admit he was the target, that if he didn’t do something right now he was going to be blown out of the water.

Climbing up on the stern gunwale, he dove into the black river, taking deep, strong pulls with his arms to move as far away from his own propeller and the impending explosion as possible. The coat weighed him down, slowed him down and he slipped his arms free as he surfaced. At that moment, the two vessels collided, filling the night air with fire and smoke.

Debris rained down, falling close by, scorching his face and hair, sending him back below the surface to the quiet depths of water too cold to keep a man alive for long.

Chapter One

April 11, San Francisco, California

With an anxious glance at the clock on her dashboard, Julia Sheridan pulled into the San Francisco airport short-term parking garage. She was more than an hour late, her margin for safety eaten up by a flat tire and the bumbling Good Samaritan who had stopped to “help” her.

As if she couldn’t change her own tire.

The first empty parking spot she found was four flights up and toward the back. She was out of the car in a flash, hair, jeans and leather flight jacket damp from her adventure beside the freeway. Straightening the white wool scarf around her neck and slinging her huge shoulder bag over her arm, she hurried toward the elevator, heart pounding in anticipation.

Once aboard the elevator, she slid to the side and took her cell phone from her coat pocket, punching in the lawyer’s number. As before, she was directed to leave a message but this time she didn’t bother.

She should have given herself more time for potential problems. As an air transport pilot, who knew better than she the inevitable last-minute crisis that threw the best-laid plans awry? But she’d been rushing around this Saturday morning like nobody’s business, buying baby furniture and diapers, a car seat and special shampoo. Even the stuffed blue elephant she’d left on the passenger seat of the car still sported tags dangling from one floppy ear.

The elevator made the ground floor in seconds. As she made her way through the crowd waiting to get on the elevator, she spied several families with small children and her heart lurched. One woman with deep-set eyes and long, dark hair clutched a blanketed baby to her chest while a tall man in a raincoat put a protective arm around her shoulders.

Julia was riddled with self-doubt. Without a husband, could she make a family for Leo? Would she be enough?

The twinge in her heart was replaced by a vow: she would be all the family little Leo ever needed.

She’d spoken to the lawyer two or three times in the week since Nicole’s death, each time struggling to understand the lawyer’s thick French-Canadian accent. He’d emigrated from Quebec to Seattle years earlier, he’d explained, but the accent was part of him and he couldn’t seem to shake it. He’d told her she would recognize him by his dark mustache and bald head.

She also assumed he’d be one of very few men holding a ten-month-old baby.

As she hurried toward the gate where he’d told her he’d wait, she found herself crossing her fingers that he was a patient man, that he wouldn’t have given up and caught a flight back home or that Leo wouldn’t be howling…

She found the lawyer with no trouble, his mustache small and tidy. He wore a camel-hair coat over a black suit, his shoes as polished as his balding dome. He sat on a chair near the windows, a briefcase on his lap, a book in his hand, which he seemed to be studying. There was no sign of Nicole’s baby.

Your baby now.

Julia came to a stop in front of him. “Monsieur Henri Pepin?” she gasped.

Lowering the engagement diary, he looked up at her with round, brown eyes. “Oui.”

“I’m Nicole Chastain’s cousin.”

The man blinked a couple of times. His gaze raking her up and down, expression guarded, he said, “Mademoiselle?”

Julia finger-combed long, damp, dark tendrils away from her face, tendrils that had escaped her habitual ponytail. Assuming his hesitation had something to do with the fact that she looked more like a drowned rat than a soon-to-be guardian of her cousin’s baby, she added, “My tire blew. On the interstate. Some klutz stopped to help…It’s raining out there and windy. Anyway, I tried calling to tell you I was running late, but—”

“My phone is not on,” he said. “It was not necessary to turn it on.”

“Didn’t you wonder where I was?”

“But, no, mademoiselle. I was met at the gate as planned. Most expedient.”

Julia sank down on the chair beside him. She said, “I don’t understand. Where’s Leo?”

He looked as confused as she felt. He said, “Nor do I. You are Nicole Chastain’s cousin? She had another?”

“No, no, just the one, just me, Julia Sheridan, Leonardo’s guardian as named in Nicole’s will. You called me, monsieur, the day after her death, six days ago. You said since Nicole’s husband died last month—”

“Oui, in a boating accident. Most unfortunate.”

“Yes. Well, you told me Nicole wanted me to become Leo’s guardian. You said you would bring him to me as instructed in her will. Where is he? Where’s Leo?”

Now his mouth was as round as his eyes. “Yes, yes, this is all true, but there must be some misunderstanding. I was met right here. By Julia Sheridan.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Julia Sheridan was waiting for me when I arrived.” He narrowed his eyes before adding, “She is different than you but much the same. Her voice is lower, her speech more formal. Her fiancé is a fine fellow. Quiet.” With a scolding expression as though he disapproved of Julia’s attempt at a hoax, he added, “I assure you, she had all the right papers.”

Julia swallowed the knot in her throat. “But I’m Julia Sheridan.”

They stared at each other for a long moment until Julia felt another gaze boring into her back. She turned to catch a tall, well-built man glancing away.

He appeared to be in his early thirties, black hair, gray eyes, dressed in an ill-fitting gray suit. His gaze followed a parade of straggling teenagers with the studied indifference of a policeman.

The lawyer said, “Mademoiselle?”

Blinking, Julia looked back at Pepin. “Do you mean that you gave Leo to someone pretending to be me?”

Trembling now, the lawyer opened his briefcase and shuffled through the contents. “Here, here,” he protested, shoving papers complete with Julia’s signature. Only it wasn’t Julia’s handwriting, but how was he supposed to know that?

“When did this happen?” she asked, her voice rising in alarm.

He glanced at his watch. “The other…Julia…she left a half hour ago. Maybe a few minutes more. She took the infant, Leonardo Chastain, with her.”

Julia opened her shoulder bag and brought out all the identification she had been told she would need to verify her identity: social security card, birth certificate, passport, driver’s license. She’d even included a picture of herself taken with Nicole a few weeks before. In the photo, Julia held Leo as Nicole hadn’t wanted to take a chance the baby would spit up on her dress. Julia shoved the photo beneath a protesting Henri Pepin’s nose.

He blinked as he studied the image of Julia—brown hair tamed into a long ponytail, no makeup, grinning—and Nicole—flaming red hair, hips thrust forward, shoulders back, expression grim. Julia recalled the conversation preceding the photo snapped by one of Julia’s friends. Nicole had been complaining about her soon-to-be ex-husband, saying how tightfisted he was, how mean, how he was going to rue the day he met her.

The lawyer gasped. “Mon dieu!” he said, as tiny beads of perspiration popped out on his high forehead. “How can this be?”

Julia echoed the sentiment as she rifled through his copies of what appeared to be legal documents and photocopies of fake identification.

“Why?” she insisted. “Why would anyone go to such lengths to claim Leo?”

“There is no reason. He is just an ordinary baby. His parents, before their deaths, ordinary people, a little savings, a little debt…”

“Who knew you were bringing him here?” Julia added.

“My office, child protection, the police. It was even in the newspaper. It was no secret.”

“Monsieur Pepin, we need to alert security at once. We need to find Leo.”

“Oui, oui,” the lawyer said, snapping his case shut again and rising.

Julia was already on her feet. “Tell me again what the woman looked like,” she pleaded as they hurried toward a uniformed airline employee.

“Much like you, mademoiselle,” the lawyer said, his accent growing thicker as his panic escalated. “The man, I don’t know, very quiet,” he added. “Fair complexion, name of George Abbot, wearing a raincoat…”

“George Abbot?” Julia asked, forehead wrinkled.

“Oui. I had wrapped the baby in a white blanket…”

Julia pushed away the alarm that her boss’s name had produced as she recalled the people getting on the elevator as she got off. Man with blond hair, much like the real George Abbot, but too tall, too thin, baby bundled in a light-colored, perhaps white, blanket, its face hidden against the woman’s shoulder, deep-set brown eyes on the woman herself.

Eyes like Julia’s.

With Monsieur Pepin’s voice ringing in her ears, Julia darted off down the bustling corridor. “Call the police,” she yelled as she shouldered her way through the crush.

Someone grabbed her arm. She twirled and faced the man she’d noticed earlier. The one in the gray suit. He blurted out, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Julia did not like strangers touching her or asking questions that were none of their business. But there was a look in this man’s eyes that stopped her from rebuffing him. Besides, she was scared to death her tardiness had put Leo’s life in jeopardy and this guy looked official. She said, “A kidnapping. My baby—”

“Your baby?” the man said, and now there was something new in his eyes and she felt a new wave of apprehension.

“It’s too difficult to explain. Let go of me, I need to search—”

“I’ll go with you,” he said.

“Who are you?”

“Airport security,” he snapped as he dropped his hand. “Quick, tell me what happened.”

Julia related the facts. As she spoke, they hurried to the elevator, retracing her steps, scouring the elevator when it emptied of people, searching each floor of the parking garage, looking in among the sea of cars for a tall blond man, a woman with dark eyes, a ten-month-old baby in a white blanket.

“It’s useless,” Julia cried as they reentered the airport. She faced the fact that the couple could have transferred to a different terminal, boarded a private plane.

A knot of uniforms surrounded the lawyer. Julia’s heart leapt in a surge of hope.

“Maybe they found him,” the man said.

Julia called out, “Monsieur Pepin? Is Leo safe?”

As one, the crowd turned to face Julia. “No, no,” Monsieur Pepin said, his face now pale, his voice jittery. “There is no sign, I’m afraid. He’s vanished into thin air.”

A huge man with tiny glasses perched on his nose and white-blond hair parted in the middle strode toward Julia. “San Francisco police,” he said, flipping open a badge. “Detective Morris. I need to ask you a few questions, Miss Sheridan. Let’s start with why you ran off.”

“I remembered seeing three people fitting the descriptions Monsieur Pepin gave me,” Julia said, her voice shaky and it wasn’t just because of Leo. Standing face-to-face, more or less, with a uniformed police officer who towered over her made her feel small and vulnerable. “I thought there might be time to catch them in the garage. This gentleman—” She paused here, turning to face the man who’d been helping her, hoping to enlist his aid in this explanation but he’d disappeared. She glanced in a full circle—he was gone.

“Miss Sheridan?”

“Where did the guy from airport security go?”

“Airport security is fanning out all over the airport. I need to ask you a few questions.”

Julia’s head threatened to explode. Years of helplessness, of being shuffled between foster homes, of never being in control, never belonging, never understanding, never being able to count on anyone or anything came charging back.

“Miss Sheridan?” The detective’s voice sounded softer this time.

“Leo’s gone,” she said, tears flooding her eyes as she gazed up at him. “Oh, my heavens, he’s gone.”

Detective Morris took her arm and guided her to a plastic chair. She closed her eyes. Leo had been her chance to make the world a better place for one small, orphaned child.

And she’d failed him.

HOURS LATER, after answering a million questions, Julia made her way back to her car.

She attempted to make a mental list. George Abbot needed to be alerted—there would be questions asked of him, embarrassing questions about why anyone would pretend he and Julia were engaged. And the babysitter she’d arranged to watch Leo on Monday morning when she had to fly a load of computer parts to Fresno had to be cancelled. Unless Leo was back by then, unless his kidnappers returned him—

Face it: the hoax was too elaborate for an easy resolution. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to take Leo. The police expected a ransom call and had arranged to tap her home phone. She was directed to keep a close account of all incoming cell phone transmissions.

She had to shake this fuzzy feeling that made each step an effort. She had to get past the horror of what had happened and work on a solution.

Trouble was, Julia didn’t have anything to ransom. She owed money on her car, on her house, on every credit card. She had no rich family—for that matter, no family at all now that Nicole was dead. She had several friends but they were poor, too. Except for George Abbot, but he was her boss and his money was tied up in his company. The bank would laugh in her face if she asked for a loan.

How was she ever going to find Leo and get him back? Oh, why had her tire blown out this morning of all mornings? Why had she been so polite to the man who had been determined to put the spare on for her? Why hadn’t she told him to get lost, that she’d do it herself? Why hadn’t she given herself more time? What good was baby furniture without a baby?

Worse thoughts crept into her head as she exited the elevator and started toward her car. Was Leo okay? Would the kidnappers take good care of him? At least he was too young to identify them. The worries circled around in her head like vultures over carrion.

One thing was more or less certain. The child was no longer at the airport. All exiting vehicles and departing flights had been searched but the time delay between his disappearance and the start of the investigation meant there had been plenty of time for Leo’s kidnappers to whisk him away in a car or even on a plane if the timing was good. The police would check every flight manifesto, looking for an unexplained babe in arms, but Julia had a feeling it would all be in vain. Whoever took him was a wizard with identification papers—Leo would be well documented under a phony name. Anyone could claim Leo was theirs. Who would ever suspect?

She’d never before considered how vulnerable a baby was. He couldn’t talk for himself. If he cried, his kidnappers would pat him on the back and onlookers would think he was just fussy. Without fingerprinting or DNA samples, Leo was a ten-month-old Caucasian boy just like any other ten-month-old Caucasian boy. He had a little strawberry mark on the back of his neck, but who would see that with blankets pulled up around his head?

Even in the dim light of the parking garage she could see ahead to her car and discern the fuzzy raised blue trunk of the huge stuffed elephant she’d bought to welcome Leo. That elephant had been her version of a promise: Everything will be okay. I’ll make it okay.

Tears filled her eyes. The emptiness of her arms mirrored the big hole in her heart.

The sound of a car engine revving broke through her thoughts. She looked up to find two headlights bearing down on her. In the next instant, someone tackled her from the right. She felt as much as heard a dull thud as she flew, still trapped in her tackler’s arms, until they landed on the pavement, his body cushioning hers. She looked up to see two red taillights turning the corner toward the exit ramp.

The man spent little time righting himself and dragging Julia to her feet as well. The fall had knocked the breath out of her.

She looked up to find clear gray eyes, eyes she’d seen just hours before as he helped her search for Leo.

“Are you okay?” he said.

She tore herself from his grip. “You!”

“Listen—”

“No,” she said, stepping away from him, brushing off her clothes, ashamed of the way her hands trembled. “You’re not with airport security, are you?”

Wincing, he mumbled, “No.”

Noticing the tear in the sleeve of his suit and the blood-streaked white shirt beneath, she said, “You’re hurt. The car hit you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said.

She took off her wool scarf and wrapped it around his arm. “You need to get it cleaned and disinfected.”

His face reflected none of the pain the gash must have inflicted. He said, “It’s nothing.”

Tucking one end of the scarf under the makeshift bandage, she narrowed her eyes. “What do you have to do with the disappearance of Leonardo Chastain?”

“Nothing, I swear,” he said.

She stared hard at him, the weaker part of herself wanting to believe him, wanting to think he was as he portrayed himself. But he’d already lied to her.

She said, “I was late today picking up Leo because some doofus on the freeway stopped to help me when my tire blew. I couldn’t get rid of him and he didn’t know what he was doing. And then right after I found out Leo was gone, you appeared and led me on a merry chase up and down the elevator—”

“I led you?” he said. “You were the one leading.”

“And now Leo is gone and you show up again—”

“You’re forgetting the car that came within inches of killing you just now,” he said, his voice tight. “The one I saved you from.” Brow wrinkled, he addressed his next comments to himself. “I don’t get it,” he mumbled. “Who was driving that car?”

“A bad driver—”

“I don’t think so. I’ve been watching you since you got off the elevator and began walking this way. You’ve been preoccupied. That car came out of the shadows, headed straight for you. And that doesn’t fit—”

Julia, digging in her shoulder bag for her keys, kept moving toward her car, aware he followed. She zeroed in on the blue elephant. “Fit what?” she said.

No answer.

Keys in her fist, arranged as a weapon with one poking out between each finger, she faced him. She said, “If you take one more step—”

He stopped, holding up his hands. He smiled then—the first smile she’d seen. If he thought she was one of those women who rolled over when a handsome man smiled at them he was in for a surprise. Julia had been smiled at many times by men she didn’t know and seldom had anything good come of it. But then she’d been weaker, smaller, more frightened—a victim. She reached inside herself, reclaiming the gutsy broad she’d had to become to survive. “Go away,” she said.

“Julia, listen to me.”

She couldn’t remember giving him her name. It jarred her into mumbling, “I’m listening.”

“I came here to see you. I came to get Leo back.”

“I knew you were in on this!” she said, tightening her grip on the keys.

“You don’t understand,” he said.

“How can I understand? You haven’t said anything.”

He looked down at his feet and then at her. Eyes smoldering with an intensity that unnerved her, he repeated, “I came to get Leo back.”

“Get him back? If you didn’t know he was going to be kidnapped then how—”

“I didn’t know about the kidnapping. I came to get him back…from you.”

“From me?”

Staring into her eyes, he added, “Of course I came for him. I’m his father.”

Chapter Two

Julia absorbed this latest shock for a moment before mumbling, “Are you saying that the late William Chastain wasn’t Leo’s father?”

“No. I’m telling you that I am William Chastain.”

“He’s dead,” Julia said.

“Well, no.”

“Nicole called me the week before she died and told me he was killed when his boat blew up.”

“And his body?”

“Between the explosion and the river currents, what body?”

“Exactly. I know it’s hard for you to believe, but I didn’t die on the river. I escaped.”

Julia shook her head. “Preposterous. Why would Nicole say you were dead if you weren’t?”

“Because she didn’t know I wasn’t.”

Julia shook her head again. “This is crazy—”

“I know it sounds nuts. But I can explain.”

“So do it.”

“Not here.”

She stared at him.

“Listen, Leo has big blue eyes and fuzzy reddish hair, like his mother. Like she had. He has a little mark on the back of his neck, a birthmark. You’re Julia Sheridan, Nicole’s cousin. You’ve just known Nicole a couple of years. I believe she took advantage of your generosity by calling on you to watch Leo when she flew down here to party with her pals. Am I close?”

“Close,” Julia said. “Trouble is, the people who took Leo knew all about me, too.”

“Then ask me something unique about Nicole.”

Julia rubbed her temples. Would this confusion never stop? She looked into his eyes and once again resisted the pull to trust him, to take him at face value. She said, “Why don’t you just show me some identification?”

He smiled again, but this time the thought crossed her mind that the gesture was fueled by frustration. “I don’t have any identification,” he said. “My wallet was in my suit jacket when my boat blew up. I wasn’t wearing it at the time.”

“Of course you weren’t,” she said.

He waved aside her sarcasm. “If I understood what was happening in there with the lawyer, the kidnappers produced all sorts of fake documents, right? If I was one of them, don’t you think I’d at least have made myself a nice official-looking Washington state driver’s license?”

He had a point.

“Look at me,” he added.

She did as he asked and for the first time, she noticed the details that she’d been too preoccupied to notice before.

“What happened to you?” she said. “Why are you wearing someone else’s clothes? What happened to your forehead and cheeks? When’s the last time you slept?”

“The clothes belong to some poor guy who left his car unlocked and his dry cleaning in the backseat.”

“You stole a suit?”

“I just wish he’d been a taller man,” he said and they both glanced down at the pant legs, which were too short. The sleeves were, too.

“What about those marks on your face? And your hair…?”

“The marks are leftover burns from the boat explosion. The hair got burned, too. Not too bad, but it frizzled off in spots.”

Julia suppressed a sigh. Things just kept getting more and more bizarre.

“After the crash, I managed to swim to shore. I had a friend with an old cabin cruiser in a small marina. He’s out of town. I jimmied the lock on his boat and hunkered down to figure things out.”

“Why? Why not just go home?”

“Because my home blew up. I wasn’t living with Nicole by then. And I suspected she might have had a hand in trying to kill me.”

“Why would you—”

“Later. Right now, you’re the one in danger. Someone tried to run you down a few minutes ago. It doesn’t fit with what I think happened to Leo, but maybe there are two different agendas at work or maybe your boyfriend went postal—”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“You think he’s too stable? You never know—”

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, wincing as the muscle in his upper arm flexed. “Do you think we could get out of here and go somewhere a little less…open?” he said.

“I need to go home. I need to be there to answer the phone.”

“Why?”

“The police think someone will call with a ransom—”

“No,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“If my suspicions are right, Leo is in no danger of being hurt. There’ll never be a ransom call. The danger will be that he’ll all but disappear off the face of the earth. We have to move fast.”

She studied his eyes for a second then swore under her breath. She wanted to believe him. She wanted Leo to be safe, but how? “I don’t understand. You know who kidnapped him?”

“I have my suspicions.”

“Then tell me. Tell the cops or the FBI. Why are we standing here talking—”

“Because I’m not going to tell anyone anything until I use a phone and make certain.”

“I have a cell phone—”

“It’s not that easy. Finding the right number is going to take a little work.”

“Listen,” she said, turning again to the car, “it’s been a long day and I’m tired of your riddles. I’m going home.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said.

Bristling, Julia whirled to face him. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean someone just tried to mow you down.”

“So you say.”

“Your house might be the next place they try.”

She swallowed a jolt of fear. Her house was her refuge. The thought someone might breach it—

“Go to a friend’s house for the night,” he said.

“I can’t. I have to be there if the kidnappers call.”

“But—”

“I can’t bet on your suspicions even if I understood them, which I don’t. I’m going home.”

“Then I’ll go with you.”

“Hold on,” she said. If this man was Nicole’s husband, he was turning out to be just as infuriating as her cousin had always insisted he was. Julia didn’t have the time or energy for any more verbal sparring. Time was passing, Leo was gone…

She added, “I don’t want you to come to my house. If you follow me, I’ll drive straight to the police station—”

“I can’t follow anyone right now,” he said. “I hitchhiked down here when I read that Leo was being sent to you. I was lucky to make it to the airport on time. Come on, Julia, think. There must be something about Nicole that wouldn’t make its way onto a fact sheet and would convince you I was married to her. Some habit, some gesture. Like the way she flipped that mane of hair. The way her eyes could turn you to stone when she was unhappy with you. The obsession with red underwear, the mole on her left thigh, the way she flossed three times a day. Something.”

His description of Nicole was right on the mark. But anyone meticulous enough to dig up George Abbot’s name could dig up all these things as well. On the other hand, she realized she was beginning to give up. If he wasn’t William Chastain, who was he and what did he want with her?

“Okay, I’ll play along,” she said, searching her memory for some obscure detail of Nicole’s life. “I know. Tell me what kind of diet she started after Christmas.”

He looked startled by her question. “I was living on my boat by then. I saw her when I came to see Leo and she did as much to make that next to impossible as she could.

“Besides, she was always on a diet. Wait, we met for lunch in January. She complained she’d gained half a pound over the holidays. Half a pound. I didn’t even know they made home scales that measured down to half a pound. Let’s see. She settled on some kind of seaweed algae smoothie. It looked like bilgewater. Smelled like it, too.”

“It did smell like bilgewater,” Julia said.

“Well?”

“You’re William Chastain?”

“Call me Will. Only Nicole insisted on calling me William.”

“Nicole told me a lot…well, about you.”

“None of it good, right?”

“No, not much.”

His voice softened. “Things were good at the beginning, but you didn’t know her then. By the time you discovered she existed, things had gone sour. My fault as much as hers.”

It was decision time. Julia, trusting her gut instinct, said, “Okay.”

“Does that mean you’ll take me along?”

“Yes. But I’m warning you, I know how to defend myself.”

This time his smile reached his eyes. “I don’t doubt it for a minute,” he said.

WILL CLOSED his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept without visions of exploding boats tearing him from sleep. Days, maybe. His eyes felt gritty, as though he’d been caught in a sandstorm. His arm throbbed where the car had thumped him. His hip no doubt sported a black-and-blue mark the size of a salad plate.

And he was hungry. For the first time in days, he was hungry.

“When’s the last time you saw Nicole?” he asked. They were just exiting the freeway, Julia driving fast. He found her impatience reassuring.

She didn’t answer.

He’d been thinking about Julia ever since he’d learned his child was to be given to her, handed over by Nicole’s directive. He’d tried to recall what Nicole had said about her cousin. “Mousy and shy” were the terms Nicole had most often used when describing Julia.

He sneaked a look at Julia’s profile. No, she wasn’t flashy like Nicole. It didn’t look as though she spent a lot of time pouting or posturing, either. She came across as a loner. From the first moment he’d spied her in the airport, he’d recognized in her the same aura of isolation he carried inside himself.

Mousy? No. Her brown hair was windblown but luxuriant, her dark eyes intelligent, her tall frame athletic but curvy. She wore her blue jeans like a second skin, and the suppleness of the sable leather jacket set off her hair and eyes while mimicking the smooth texture of her skin.

His hand drifted to the bandage on his arm—her white scarf—ruined now by his blood. Well, no wonder Nicole wrote her cousin off as little more than a babysitter for those times when Leo became an inconvenience. His wife had been a tad egotistical. She seldom picked up on nuances, either, and wouldn’t have differentiated shyness from restraint.

“Two weeks before you were reported dead,” Julia said.

It took him a second to realize she was answering his question.

“Nicole called to ask me if she could leave Leo with me for a weekend. But I was working and I said no.”

Her voice choked up on the last word. He was beginning to understand that Leo’s plight was personal to her. He hadn’t understood how close she’d become to his son.

Okay. Nicole had wanted a weekend free. Out of town, out of state, for that matter. A lover’s tryst with a man whose face and position were too well known to stay close to home while romancing a woman other than his wife? Would Nicole’s chief of police boyfriend come along or would they have met somewhere? He said, “Did she ever bring any friends to your house when she brought Leo over?”

“Friends?”

“Men,” he said.

She darted him a glance and then turned her concentration back to the road. “No,” she said.

“Does it surprise you to hear she had a boyfriend?”

“No,” she said, not looking at him this time. “Tell me why you pretended you were dead and why you let Leo leave Washington.”

He had known this was coming. He’d prepared a few lies. But now, sitting in the dark car, too tired to dissimilate, he chose the truth. “I’m pretty sure Nicole set up my supposed accident. I got a call from a woman claiming to have compromising pictures of my wife and her husband. She said she’d hired a private eye to get them. Told me they were mine for the taking.”

“Why didn’t the woman use them herself?”

“She said she was afraid of her husband. Claimed he was the chief of police. She told me to meet her at a restaurant across the river. The fastest way there was on my boat so I took it. Only someone who knew me well would know that’s what I would do.”

“Nicole, for instance.”

“Of the people interested in our small world of problems, only Nicole. Anyway, I was living on the boat by then so all my papers, everything I valued besides my son, were aboard.”

“And it exploded?”

“It was hit by another boat going like a bat out of hell. I got off in the nick of time. The newspaper the next day said that human remains were found were are being tested for DNA to see which boater they belong to, me or the nameless other guy. Contrary to what television leads us to believe, the testing can take a while. A small speedboat was reported stolen from a nearby marina. Recovered wreckage confirmed that it was the boat that hit mine.”

“But you don’t think it was an accident?”

“No.”

“Why?”

He thought for a moment. “It came right at me. I turned on every light and still it came. The next day I called the chief of police’s house. A servant informed me that the chief’s wife was in the hospital following childbirth complications. Had been for several days. Hard to picture her calling me from a hospital bed, then sneaking out to rendezvous at a restaurant across the river. I don’t doubt the affair. I just doubt the pictures and the setup.”

“So you determined Nicole must have been behind it?”

“Who else? I didn’t want her or the boyfriend to know they weren’t successful. A man in that position has serious clout. I’m just an architect, a relative unknown. I thought if I was declared dead, I could uncover some kind of evidence that would prove Nicole and her lover guilty of attempted murder. Then I could use that proof to gain custody of Leo.”

“But before all that could happen, Nicole drove off the side of the highway and crashed into a tree.”

“Yes. With Leo in the car. It’s a miracle he wasn’t hurt. By the time I found out she was dead, Leo was in protective custody. How could I prove who I was without sounding like a nutcase? How could I tell the authorities my story, including the chief’s part in it without endangering my chances of ever recovering my boy?

“In the end, I decided it would be best to let Leo come to you. It would give me time to reestablish my identity before approaching you. But I had to make sure he got here safe and sound and that you were…capable…of watching him.” He paused for a second. The truth was that he’d been afraid Julia was a carbon copy of Nicole. He’d had to make sure she was willing to take on a child for even a few weeks, as well as be responsible enough not to do him harm. He added, “I thought if you were halfway reasonable, I could talk to you about this and we could work something out.”

His voice trailed off. He didn’t know what else to say. Everything so far made him sound like an idiot.

“That’s why you were at the airport? Just to watch me take custody of Leo?”

“Yes.”

Her voice took on an impatient tone as she added, “Then did you see the imposter? The woman pretending to be me? A tall man in a gray raincoat?”

He shook his head. “I was late. I got there after you. I recognized Nicole’s lawyer so I had to stay out of his line of vision. The panic on your face when you turned to catch me staring at you just about tore my gut open.”

She cast him a quick glance. Even in the dim light, he caught the sparkle in her eyes that suggested pooling tears.

Julia’s hand strayed to her face where he presumed she brushed away the tears. Damn, her raw emotions touched him more than he liked. She was a grown-up. Her past and her problems were not his concern.

“Where do you think Leo is?” she asked at last.

“I think he’s with my aunt,” he said.

This earned him a longer glance, which she jerked away only because she needed to watch the road. As she guided the car around a corner, she almost whispered, “Why would your aunt steal your son in such an elaborate ruse?”

“Fiona Chastain is sophisticated and wealthy and she hated Nicole’s guts. The feeling was mutual.”

“So that’s why I was chosen as guardian and not your aunt.”

“I can’t imagine the words the two of them must have exchanged after my supposed death. I’m betting Aunt Fiona caught wind of Nicole’s decision to provide for Leo in the event of her death and over-reacted. She’s got lots of connections. I think she put this elaborate hoax into operation as soon as she learned she’d been bypassed as Leo’s guardian. I checked the airline schedules. There was a flight leaving for Spokane just minutes after you think you spotted Leo and his abductors in the elevator. My aunt happens to have relocated to Spokane.”

“But I would have been happy to share Leo with your aunt,” Julia said. “I would have loved knowing he had more family—”

“My aunt wouldn’t see things that way,” he said. Picking the next words with care, he added, “She’s very…controlling.”

“What did you mean that he was in no danger except for disappearing?”

“Fiona has the means and knowledge to disappear at will. If she goes underground with Leo, I don’t know how I’ll ever find him again.”

He could tell she thought he was overstating things. He didn’t blame her. He added, “I know this, Julia, because that’s how she raised me.”

“Moving you, hiding you—”

“Yes.”

“Nicole told me you were orphaned.”

“Father disappeared before birth, identity and location unknown. Mom died after giving birth. Her sister, Aunt Fiona, stepped in and took me. She was a fierce parent.”

“Who would never hurt you.”

“She thinks I’m dead, remember? I should have contacted her, but I didn’t trust her not to say something to Nicole. In retrospect, it was cruel on my part to do this to her.”

“Then the thing in the parking garage,” Julia said, her glance taking in his bandaged arm this time, “had to be an accident.”

“No. I don’t think so. I don’t know what that was about, but there was a calculated air about the whole thing. It wasn’t until the car revved up and headed straight for you that I realized I’d been aware of an idling engine for some time.”

“Just a moment. Your aunt tried to run me down?”

“No, of course not. That’s what I mean about things not making sense.”

“You can say that again,” she said, making another turn.

“Fiona wouldn’t have done any of this herself. She would have arranged it. Maybe one of her minions got creative.”

This remark was met with silence.

“It’s at least a place to start,” he said as they turned yet another corner. Though it had stopped raining and a full moon bathed the streets, he knew he’d never find his way out of this maze of streets and look-alike houses without help. He pushed aside the thought of leaving. First he had to make sure Julia’s house was safe for her to return to, and then he’d contact his aunt and figure out transportation—

She said, “The police—”

“The police aren’t going to be able to solve this situation,” he said. “They’ll wait for a ransom call that will never come. They’ll appeal to the public. My son’s photo will end up on a milk carton if they still do that. If I want Leo back, I’m going to have to get him myself.”

As she made another turn, her voice turned thoughtful. “I’m going to go about this the traditional way,” she said. “I’m going to rely on the cops and wait for a call. I can’t take the chance that I’ll let Leo down again, that I won’t be there when the right time occurs.”

He sneaked another look at her. Was it possible she’d forgotten that Leo no longer needed her as a guardian, at least for the long term, that his father was alive and well and sitting in the seat next to her?

Or did she still not believe he was who he said he was?

Or maybe she’d just written him off. God Almighty, she wouldn’t try to take Leo away from him, would she? Claim he was unbalanced or that his wacky aunt had undue influence?

That aunt of his. She’d been his salvation and his cross to bear, as touchy as a rattlesnake, as crafty as a third-world despot.

Irritated with Julia’s obstinacy, he looked out the window. The neighborhood through which they traveled wasn’t ritzy. Lawns looked sparse. The moonlight revealed too many abandoned toys littering driveways and front yards. Lots of cars, most older than the compact in which he rode, which had to be entering its teens. Compared to the lakeside community he’d been working on before his supposed death, this place looked like a slum. Even his and Nicole’s high-rise condo looked classy in comparison. It was hard to picture Nicole even visiting such modest surroundings.

But more to the point, how could Julia believe anyone would stage such an intricate kidnapping to gain custody of Leo just to ransom him back to a woman who drove an old car and lived in a very modest house? The certainty his aunt was behind this doubled.

Julia pulled her aging sedan into the driveway of a small square house. The wash of headlights revealed well-tended plants and no accumulated junk. Other than that, it looked very much like every other house on the block.

“Home,” she said with a touch of anxiety he realized he’d planted. She was nervous. Good. Might keep her on her toes.

Okay, he shouldn’t have accompanied Julia home. Now he was stuck out here with a phone tapped by the police. But he couldn’t let her return to a house that could be booby-trapped when she wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for him. He’d check out the house, figure out his next step, warn her about locking up and disappear into the night.

Easier said than done, but he’d do it just the same. The most important thing was to get Leo back.

Clothes and ID weren’t the only things he’d lost when his boat exploded. Also gone were his laptop, cell phone and address book, all of which held his aunt’s unlisted number. He’d never bothered to memorize her number. Why bother when it was always handy? A man doesn’t expect to have his whole life blown apart.

“Do you have a computer?” he asked.

“Yes.”

She was soon out of the car, pulling the blue stuffed animal from the back where he’d tossed it when he got in the passenger seat. Maybe he could use her computer to access the address book on his computer at work. Of course, since the architectural firm of Wainwright and Co. thought he was dead, they may well have terminated his access…He’d have to see.

And he’d also have to talk Julia Sheridan out of her car.

Reenergized with a plan of action, he got out of the car and followed Julia up the front walk toward her door. She should have left lights burning for her return, but then he recalled she hadn’t expected to get back after dark.

He was about to step in front of her when he noticed a faint line of light stripping the long vertical edge of the door. He glanced to his left, through what appeared to be her kitchen window.

He pulled Julia back against his chest, moving backward.

“Hey—” she gasped before he slapped a hand over her mouth. Loosening his grip, he leaned forward until his lips brushed her ear. “Your front door is ajar. There’s a light bobbing around in there,” he whispered. “Someone with a flashlight.”

To his absolute amazement, she tore herself free and stormed toward her unlocked door, ripping it open and charging inside before he could stop her.

Raised voices reached him as he crossed the threshold in her wake.

A moment later, a gunshot thundered through the house.

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