13

Max had glanced at the DNA results in the copying room.

They were explosive. If true.

He would check out the detective Kira mentioned, then the lab. But he really didn’t buy the switched babies idea. As an attorney, he knew the liability issues and how careful hospitals were.

He tried to ignore the plea in the eyes of the woman across from him, the fingers that flexed compulsively in her lap.

He knew what her claim would mean to Leigh. If true, it would devastate her just when she was finding her own way.

He looked again at the DNA results. Kira was smart enough to know that he would ask for independent verification. As a matter of law, the paper in his hand was meaningless. But it might be enough to prompt a judge to ask for another test—a well-monitored one. That could take time, though. He could delay it. Repeatedly.

Until her mother was dead.

He didn’t want to do that. Nor did he want put Leigh through the hell that might be coming her way. The publicity could destroy her newfound confidence.

There was no good course of action. He didn’t like the way Kira had obtained the DNA. It had been a lie, and on Leigh’s behalf he was enraged about it. If Kira had come to him directly, or to the hospital or to an attorney, then he might accept what she was saying.

“What do you plan to do now?” he asked.

“I wanted to keep this private, if possible,” she said. “I don’t care about the estate. I just hoped that Leigh would want to help my mom. Our mom.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“I’ll go through the courts. If Mom dies, I’ll try to get everything she has.”

His eyes hardened. “Do you think blackmailing will make her prone to donate a kidney?”

“I don’t have a choice. Mom has a month, if that.”

“And if there isn’t a match for a kidney transplant, you want her to believe you’ll step away and never say anything?”

“Yes.”

There was a naïveté about the short answer that stopped him. Either she was sincere or the greatest con artist in history. And where did his loyalty to Ed lie? With the granddaughter Ed knew, or the one that might carry his blood?

He didn’t want to play Solomon.

He stood. “I’ll talk to Leigh. It’s her decision as to whether she wants to talk to you or agree to a test. You didn’t exactly instill a sense of integrity in this.”

She visibly winced at his words. But he was as angry as he’d ever been. He had liked Kira, more than liked her. And he felt like a fool. He certainly had been taken for one.

He stood. “I’ll be in contact with you.”

She stood as well. “My mother doesn’t have much time. Right now, Leigh is her only hope.”

He merely nodded. He went over to the door and opened it.

She paused, though. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought I was doing the right thing by trying to make sure before approaching Leigh.”

He didn’t answer, and she turned and left.

He returned to his desk and sat down. He leaned back in his chair. Goddamn it. This was something that wasn’t going away.

Kira Douglas obviously believed the story to be true. His first impression after talking to Leigh was that Kira Douglas was a dishonest opportunist. No longer. He was a good judge of character, and he believed her. The fact that she went about this in the wrong way, at least as far as he was concerned, didn’t change the fact that she believed she was right.

What if she had come to him, or Leigh, without any proof?

They probably would have laughed her out of the room.

“Take care of Leigh.” That had been Ed’s last words.

Max closed his eyes. What if he couldn’t take care of Leigh? What would Ed have wanted?

She’d made a complete mess of it.

Kira leaned against a wall outside his office for a moment. She took a deep breath. Her legs didn’t want to work. It was as if they’d turned to rubber. And her mind to mush. She would never forget that look of distaste in his eyes when she walked into the room.

After a few seconds, she finally felt able to walk again. She hurried down the hall to the elevator. Maybe if she reached the hospital quickly, she would see the doctor who usually stopped in around 6:00 p.m. before going home. She wanted an update on her mother’s position on the donor list.

Even if her mother neared the top, so much depended on whether the available kidney was compatible. She could still have to wait months.

What if she had made a new hope impossible?

She blinked back a tear. She’d not shed them in months, but frustration forced them out. She found her car and headed to the hospital.

Leigh went down to the barn as soon as she got back home. Rick had left, and she put Silver Lady into her stall. Maude followed behind.

She checked the water and feed. As usual, both were fresh. But she always checked. There was something about Rick that had disconcerted her from the beginning. Maybe it was the way he showed so little emotion. But Mrs. Baker said he he’d been stationed in Iraq as a dog handler and had lost several friends, as well as his dog …

She gave both Silver Lady and Maude pieces of an apple, and leaned her head against Lady’s.

What if none of this belonged to her? She would lose Lady. Maude.

Fear darted through her and took hold.

How long before Max called?

She went back into the house and to the office that had once been her grandfather’s. She turned on the computer and did a Google search on Kira Douglas, something she should have done before inviting her to her home. A short biography came up, as well as a number of articles. A native of Atlanta, graduate of Georgia State University, recipient of an Associated Press award for a feature she’d written in 2005.

Nothing about her character that resembled, in Leigh’s opinion, a bottom-feeder. She had never been good about people. She’d always taken them at face value, and although that character quirk had resulted in disaster several times, she’d stubbornly stuck to it. Maybe not again.

She felt betrayed. Tricked. She detested being made to feel the fool.

She took comfort in Seth’s words. In Max’s take-charge personality.

The pretender would be exposed.

When the doorbell rang, she dashed for it. Anyone but Max or the groom or Seth would have had to phone from the fence to gain entrance. She stilled at the expression in Max’s face.

“You met with her?”

“Yes.”

“She’s a fraud,” she said confidently. Surely Max had reduced the woman to tears and a confession. God knows, he’d done it to her ex-husband and several times to herself.

“Let’s go inside,” he said, and she froze. That wasn’t what she expected to hear.

She led the way to the study. Max went to the bar and poured himself a bourbon and water.

“You saw her,” Leigh said.

“Yes. She had the DNA test with her. That doesn’t mean the DNA belongs to you. It only means that she has something to take to a judge who could order a controlled test.”

“How can she do that?”

“There’s a substantial claim involved. Millions of dollars.”

Anger mixed with an all-too-familiar feeling of helplessness. “What can you do?” she finally asked.

“You have a choice. You can agree to take a DNA test and, if her claim is true, a test to see if your kidney is a match. In return she will give up any right to the name or estate. Or we can fight it. I can probably get repeated delays, but eventually you’ll be required to submit to a DNA test. By then, Mrs. Douglas might well be dead, and if the tests confirm what Kira Douglas says, she will probably go after your throat for not helping.”

“You know how I feel about hospitals,” she said. She hated the tremor in her voice.

“I know,” he said softly.

He hadn’t been with the family when the accident happened, but he knew that she’d incurred multiple fractures and cuts, had lain beside her dead mother and father before she was cut from the car. She’d been in the hospital for months, then back again for reconstructive surgery. To this day, she couldn’t go into a hospital, not even to visit someone.

Her head swam. It wasn’t fair. Not now. She reached out and clasped Max’s hand. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I just can’t. I still … dream about the pain, the blood. I’ve relived it so many times. I can’t … breathe.”

He nodded as if he’d already known—and accepted—her answer.

She turned to Max. “Will you stay for supper?”

“Isn’t this Mrs. Baker’s day off?”

“She left a casserole.”

He started to decline, hesitated, then nodded his head.

“Sounds good,” Max said.

“What if it’s all a lie?” Leigh said. “A fantasy she concocted?”

“A DNA test can prove that.”

“Can we do one privately?” she asked. “Do to her what she says she did to me? Without anyone—even her—knowing?”

He’d been playing with the same idea. “I think so. I can tell her I need more information and offer her coffee.” He paused. “You have to consider the fact it could be true. She knows we would get another test, so it doesn’t make sense to lie. And a woman is dying. What if Mrs. Douglas is your genetic mother?”

She shook her head, denying the fact. She knew who she was. Her mother had adored her. She thought of both parents: her mother who once sang her to sleep, her father who’d tossed her up in the air as she screamed in delight.

A memory flashed for a split second, then was gone. A shiver ran down her spine.

She forced it back in her mind and walked to the kitchen. She took out a dish from the fridge and put it in the microwave.

While waiting for it to heat, she set the table, then looked at Max. He’d always had a stone face. She never knew what he was thinking. No one did.

“What if it is true?” she said in a broken whisper.

“She could go after the house and the trust.”

“Could she actually win?”

“Truthfully, I don’t know. The will bequeathed the house and the proceeds of the trust to Ed’s granddaughter, Leigh Howard, who was born June 26, 1976. The question before a judge—if it came to court—would be whether he intended it to go to his biological granddaughter, or the woman he loved and believed to be his granddaughter. I did some preliminary research this afternoon. I think it could go either way, depending on the judge.”

“But I can’t be forced to give a kidney?”

“No,” he said. “And you don’t have to make a decision now.”

“You’ll support me whatever I decide?”

“Other than murder, yes,” he said with a slight smile.

“No murder,” she agreed.

Despite her taut answer, a familiar black cloud enveloped her. She tried to fight her way out. She knew what could happen if she didn’t.

The microwave buzzed. She ignored it.

“Your grandfather asked me to look after you,” Max said. “I intend to do just that. Try not to worry.”

“I won’t,” she lied, straightening her back. But maybe, just maybe, she could do something to help him.

“You need to know what’s happened,” Leigh told David as the three second cousins had brunch on the patio. She’d phoned both of them and asked them to come, sans wives.

Both, she knew, could well be affected by a public court case. David’s father delivered her. Seth was a public figure.

“Nonsense,” David said after she’d repeated what Max had told her last night after meeting with Kira Douglas. “Dad delivered you,” David continued. “A perfect girl, he said. A beautiful girl. I was only seven, but I remember it well. I’d always wanted a sister and you were the next thing to it.”

“Where is Uncle Michael?”

David shrugged. “Someplace in Africa. We usually don’t hear from him for weeks.”

She knew David worried about his father, though they had not been that close. After he’d retired, his father joined Doctors Without Borders and was assigned to every armpit of the world. David bitterly resented the fact that his father had never had time for him when he was a boy, nor as an adult. Never went to ball games. Never took a family vacation. It was one reason the cousins—she and Seth and David—were close. None of them had a normal family life. Her father died when she was young, Michael’s father was a workaholic, and Seth’s had become an alcoholic after he lost his congressional bid.

“If she filed a suit, she would have to do it in Fayette County,” Seth said. “I know the judges, several of them quite well. I helped them raise money. But maybe it’ll all go away when you make it clear you’re not going to fold easily.”

“Max is researching the legal implications.”

“I wouldn’t place all your hopes in Max,” Seth said. “He’s a corporate attorney. He knows contracts and wheeling and dealing. God knows he wheeled and dealed with my great-uncle.” Resentment crept into his voice.

But then, they’d all felt that way at one time or another. Max had been Westerfield’s hatchet man for as long as the three could remember. “Go to Max,” their grandfather always said when they wanted something.

“Any ideas?” she asked.

“Only a warning that Max has a stake in this,” Seth says. “That trust has been a gravy train for him.”

David glared at him. “You’re saying it might be true.”

“I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying it might benefit him if he joined forces with this woman. Only a fool—or an opportunist—would think Leigh’s incompetent to take care of her own money. Once that happens, he’s out as trustee and control of the stock. Maybe he thought that time was coming and …”

Leigh couldn’t quite comprehend what he was saying. Not Max. But then, she’d been wrong before.

“No,” she said.

“Just keep that in mind,” Seth persisted. He took out a business card and handed it to her. “This is the name of a good attorney. You might talk to him. I’ll tell him you might call.”

Leigh nodded and took the card. She didn’t intend to use it, but she didn’t want to argue with Seth.

She looked at both of them. “Do you think I should agree to a DNA test?”

Seth shook his head. “It’s a scam. It has to be.” He paused, reached out, and touched her hand. “You’ve told us about those nightmares. I can’t even imagine what you went through during and after the accident. Even if this woman’s story is true, and I don’t think for a second that it is, you don’t owe her anything. And I doubt any judge in Fayette would rule against you. For many reasons.”

His words solidified what she’d been thinking. “David, what do you think?”

He’d been silent during the conversation. “I’m not you,” he said slowly. “I can only tell you I simply can’t believe there’s any way babies could have been switched. It’s just not possible.”

“But were there as many precautions thirty-two years ago as there are now?” she asked.

“Yes. The protocol has been there for decades.”

Leigh was already beginning to feel better. Maybe Max was simply being cautions. Still, the sick feeling in her stomach hadn’t receded. It didn’t help that she hadn’t had much sleep and that what she did get had been colored with blood.

She had a riding lesson at noon. She would have to concentrate then on the horse, and nothing but the horse. Then she would call Max and tell him she’d decided to fight. She fingered the card that she’d dropped on the table and put it in her purse.

Maybe she wouldn’t need it. Maybe something would happen to keep the reporter from pursuing what David said could not have happened.