10

Her heart pounding against her chest, Kira stood at Leigh’s door and knocked.

It was exactly 11:00 a.m. Not a moment earlier. Not a second later. She’d used the combination to the gate Leigh had given her earlier.

She mentally ran over the words she’d so carefully planned. She’d lain awake all night, thinking about how she could explain the inexplicable. Her mind vacillated between how she would persuade Leigh to give a kidney to a stranger and the image of Max Payton’s face. She knew which was by far the most important, but the latter kept intruding …

She wished now she hadn’t refused Chris’s offer. She’d never felt so alone. Not only was she going to drop a bombshell, but she would have to admit her own somewhat dubious behavior and, at the same time, beg a near stranger to donate a kidney.

Faced with the same message from a stranger, she would throw her out of the house. Or call the cops. Or Max Payton. Was he still on the premises? God, she hoped not.

The door opened and she came face-to-face with Leigh Howard.

Leigh’s hair was pulled back in a long braid, and she again wore slacks and a long-sleeved shirt. Apparently no shorts and tees for her. Did she ever not look elegant? She belonged in this house, in this setting.

Leigh had curiosity written all over her face as she led her into the same room where Kira had interviewed her just days earlier, to the same sofa. They both sat.

“Coffee?” Leigh asked. “Mrs. Baker’s off today, but I made some.”

Kira shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m fine.” Another lie. She wasn’t fine at all. Be strong. Be strong for Mom.

Leigh apparently read her tone and face. “What is it?” she said.

“I have some information … It’s … devastating in some ways but maybe not in others.”

Kira had rehearsed the words over and over again last night and this morning. Now they were all jumbled up.

A look of alarm came over Leigh’s face. “Max? Seth?”

“No,” she said quickly as she noted Leigh’s easy familiarity with Max’s name. Not like an attorney. More intimate. How intimate? It had been the first name that apparently entered Leigh’s mind.

Leigh waited for her to continue.

“You’re not going to believe what I’m going to tell you. I don’t expect you to. I just want you to listen, think about it, check it out.”

Leigh stood. “I think you had better say what you came to say.”

Kira stood as well, decided to plunge in. There was, after all, no easy way to tell the story. She remembered her anger and disbelief when the possibility arose. “I think you and I were switched at birth.”

Leigh’s jaw fell. “You what?”

“I think my mother is your mother.” What a ridiculous way to describe it. She was a wordsmith. She should be able to do better. But there were no reasonable words for a bizarre situation.

“You’re insane.”

Kira expected disbelief. Rage even. She realized she shouldn’t have tried this herself. A hospital spokesman. An attorney. Any would be preferable, but that might take too long. And she didn’t have time.

She hurried on. “My mother needs a kidney to live. I volunteered to donate a kidney, but the blood tests said we weren’t related. I have the test results with me. I also have copies of birth certificates of baby girls born at the same time. You were born in the same hospital within a few moments of my birth.”

Leigh stared at her. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“It does because I had a hole in my heart. I would have been taken immediately to pediatric critical care. Any switch would have had to be made within a few minutes of the birth.”

“Why would anyone …?”

“It could have been an accident. Two babies born at the same time …”

“No! What kind of scam are you pulling?”

“I don’t want anything other than for my mother to live. If she doesn’t receive a kidney in the next few weeks, she’ll die. I can’t give one. My tissue doesn’t match. Yours might.”

“I don’t believe any of this,” Leigh said, then paused. “Is that why you wanted to do the story?” She turned on Kira in a fury. “Get out,” she said.

“That was my reaction when I first heard,” Kira said, ignoring the demand. “Anger … no, rage. And disbelief. I had three tests before I accepted it.” Pure desperation made her go on. “My only interest is to ask you to consider an independent DNA test to prove or disprove the possibility and, if it shows you are a match with my mother, to think—just think—about donating a kidney.”

The words came out in a flood. She was losing Leigh. She was doing this all wrong, But there wasn’t a right way. How do you tell someone her life has been a lie?

“I had a mother and father,” Leigh said through tightly clenched teeth. “I saw them both die. Get out.”

Kira stood. “Just consider what I’ve said. I truly don’t want anything of yours. I just want you to meet Mom. Think about taking a DNA test. If it proves you are mother and daughter, you gain a mother. You can give her the gift of life.”

“Why did you do the newspaper article?” Leigh asked suddenly. “Is there even a story?”

“It’s running tomorrow on the front of the feature section.”

“But you didn’t come here because of the horse show?”

“No.” Kira wasn’t going to lie any longer. Not overtly. “I wanted to meet you, and then it turned into a damn good story.”

“You lied.”

“Yes.”

“And this is all supposition on your part? Because we were born a few moments apart?”

Kira paused. Weighed her options. She had to get Leigh to listen. She hadn’t wanted to use the DNA. It had been an invasion of Leigh Howard’s privacy. It might even have been illegal. But there was no time for niceties. If she was fired from a job, so be it. “There’s something else,” she finally said. “I took a piece of the cup you used. I had it tested. Your DNA matches my mother’s. Katy Douglas’s DNA.”

Kira took Chris’s card from her pocket and pressed it into Leigh’s hand. “Chris Burke has been investigating this for me. He’s a former detective with the police department. Have Mr. Payton check him out. He can confirm everything I said.” She swallowed hard. “This isn’t easy for me, either. I had your same reaction last week. I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. But I had to. I had to accept I couldn’t help my mother.”

Leigh simply stared at her, unblinking. Like a deer in headlights. “I went through the same shock,” Kira said, her fingers knotting into a fist. “I’ll sign a paper to say I won’t claim any part of the Westerfield estate. My one and only concern is my mom. Think about it,” she pleaded. “Just think about it.”

Leigh’s face paled. Her lips had thinned and yet she was quite beautiful. She went over to the phone. “Please leave,” she said coldly. “You’re trespassing. If you don’t go, I’ll call the police.”

Kira started for the door. She turned. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I don’t think I would ever have told you if my mother wasn’t so ill. She only has weeks to live without a new kidney.” Her voice broke and she fought to hold back tears. “But you have a right to know you still have a living parent.”

“And I have money,” Leigh said coldly.

“I don’t care about that.”

“Everyone does,” Leigh retorted with bitterness. She opened the door and held it open. “I’m asking my attorney to get a restraining order. I think we will also be calling your newspaper.”

The door closed behind her. More like a slam.

Tears gathered behind Kira’s eyes. Could she have handled it worse? Had she just destroyed her mother’s last chance?

Leigh leaned against the door. There was no strength left in her.

Lies. They had to be lies.

Someone else who wanted part of the Westerfield legacy. Just like her former husband. Like her former fiancé.

Her mother and father were dead. She’d watched them die as she’d struggled to live.

She closed her eyes, and the scene came back. The nightmare that wouldn’t go away. Driving home from an afternoon campaign affair held by Seth’s father. There had been liquor, and her father drank a lot of it. An argument. Then the screams, the crash of metal, then moans that faded away. Her own pain. And the guilt. The terrible guilt that somehow she had been responsible …

The reporter’s words brought it all back again. Damn her.

Hot. She was hot. She touched her face and it was burning.

Max! Max would know what to do.

He would expose Kira Douglas as a liar and cheat.

She opened her hand and let the card Kira had pressed into her fingers fall onto the floor.