“Ryan.” I stand as the handsome young man steps into my office, my smile genuine. It’s not just his arrival that pleases me. Security also warned me that Amy has dragged herself back to the office. I have to give the girl credit for showing some spine. Now let’s see if she shows her true colors after she has a few drinks and bothers to open her desk drawer. “Thank you so much for stopping by.”
“No problem.” Ryan Landon flashes his charming smile and sets his satchel carefully on top of my console by the door. The gorgeous cognac leather has warmed and grown supple with use. Kane carries the same satchel, only in black, and gifted Ryan his after he’d expressed appreciation for Kane’s. “I needed to chat with Kane anyway. Is he in a meeting?”
I’m momentarily startled by the question. “No ... You haven’t spoken to him lately?”
“We touched base the day before yesterday.” He adjusts his trousers and jacket for comfort before settling into one of the two visitor’s chairs in front of my desk. Relaxed and unaware of any issue, he sips his takeout coffee.
Ryan’s the type of male a woman enjoys perusing. Tall and dark, easy on the eyes, with a powerfully self-possessed physicality. Like Kane, he’s a man whose father was careless with his family’s financial security. The elder Landon invested and lost everything in Geoffrey Cross’s Ponzi scheme. Having unreliable, selfish and foolhardy fathers is an experience that has bonded Kane and Ryan in an unshakeable way. They seem to trust each other to some degree, although not entirely, which is not unexpected after they both grew up with – and overcame – the disastrous consequences of someone else’s failure on such a massive scale.
They’ve done well, though in different ways. Ryan is now married, and Kane has been a widower, limiting their opportunities to spend time together, but they’ll always look out for each other. Some college friendships last lifetimes, and I believe theirs will.
“Did he tell you he was in the office?” I ask.
“When isn’t he? He practically lives here.” Ryan is plainly bemused by my questions. I’m equally puzzled as to why Kane hasn’t leaned on his closest friend more heavily in a time of upheaval. “What’s going on?”
I focus on my cream palazzo pants as I fluff them, trying to hide how my thoughts are scrambling. I’ve been preparing for this meeting for days now, planning exactly how I’d introduce the subject of Lily’s past and elicit Ryan’s help in dealing with the risk. Now, I’m wary of saying too much. I don’t understand why Kane wouldn’t mention his absence from the office. Perhaps the two men have drifted apart. If so, how much do I want to share?
“Aliyah?”
I straighten and decide to take the other visitor’s chair next to Ryan. Position is everything, and for this, I want him to feel like a confidant. “You’ve known Kane a long time,” I begin.
“You could say that. Columbia does seem like it was a lifetime ago.”
“Did you know Lily?”
“Lily …” Ryan’s gaze darts away. “Yes, I knew her.”
“Knew her well?”
He smooths an imaginary wrinkle from his slacks, then looks at me. “She was my girlfriend when I introduced them.”
“Oh.” And yet I find I’m not that surprised. “Would you mind telling me why you broke up?”
His gaze narrows on me in a way that is out of character for him – at least as I know him. “Why do you ask?”
I consider how to speak truthfully without showing my hand. After all, Ryan and Kane are friends who share confidences – or so I believed – and neither feels any loyalty to me. If I don’t tread carefully, I’ll alienate them both. “She has a powerful hold on him. If I just understood her better, I think I’d have a better understanding of my son.”
He sighs. “I don’t see how this helps, but … She’s the one who broke things off.”
“To be with Kane?”
“No. I don’t think so.” His jaw tightens briefly. “I don’t know, honestly. I know they weren’t together immediately after the breakup because he spent all his free time with me. He practically moved in for several months afterward. I didn’t handle losing her well. Spent some time drowning my sorrows and being promiscuous. I dragged Kane around for moral support.”
He takes another sip of coffee, and I note how he spins his wedding band with his thumb. Frowning, he stares straight ahead, his thoughts elsewhere. “I knew he wanted her,” he says quietly. “I caught him looking at her a few times, and it was obvious how he felt. Then he started refusing invitations to do things with us as a group. But every guy I knew had a little crush on her. He wasn’t the only one.”
“It didn’t bother you?”
“What’re you gonna do? With a gorgeous, sexy woman on your arm, you have to expect other men will want her to some degree. Kane was respectful about it. I felt bad for him, actually.”
“Did you feel bad for him when he went on to marry her?” I ask bluntly. Maybe there’s a rift there. It would be good to know either way.
“I didn’t find out until after she was gone. I only learned they’d been together and married when he told me she’d passed.” He runs his hand through his dark-chocolate waves. “I never saw or even thought of them together, so I suppose how I felt about it didn’t register. Things were serious with Angela by then, so …”
I study him, registering his restlessness and the practiced answer as if he’s thought of Lily’s death often enough to have a canned reply. I don’t know what to make of it or how I can use it. Baharan certainly wouldn’t benefit from any tension between Kane and Ryan. Lily’s causing enough trouble as it is.
“Are you saying it didn’t affect you when you found out?” I prod him.
“Sure. Of course it did. Lily was important to me once. Which reminds me, I saw Amy on the way in,” he murmurs, “and for a second, I thought she was Lily. It knocked me sideways.” He takes another sip of coffee. “I haven’t thought of Lily in a long time, and now twice in one morning … Anyway, I don’t see how this is of interest.”
“It’s fascinating.” Not many years ago, on the cusp of marrying Ryan, a wealthy and successful CEO, Lily pivoted to marry Kane instead, when he had few prospects and a mountain of student loan debt. It would suggest she genuinely loves him and possibly loves him still. Call me a cynic, but I simply can’t believe it. The woman detailed in Rampart’s investigation doesn’t act without ulterior motive. But I can’t risk making insinuations or outright accusations that might get around to the wrong person. Better to lead Ryan to his own conclusions and let him go from there. “Kane’s been working from home the past two months.”
“Really?” He’s noticeably taken aback. “Well, he’s certainly earned that much leave, although I wouldn’t say working from home constitutes a break. If that’s what you’re worried about, I can tell you he sounded really good on the phone, like he used to back in the day. He even laughed and ribbed me a little. Said we should grab a drink soon. We haven’t done that in ages.”
My jaw sets. Men are such fools. A pretty face and a sinuous body could so easily turn off their common sense and their self-protective instincts. To hear that my son seems happier now than he’s been in years incites a burning in my chest. I feel nothing but revulsion for Lily.
“A steady sexual partner is usually a mood lifter,” I say snidely, unable to help myself.
Ryan’s brows lift. “Is he finally seeing someone romantically? Good for him. I was getting worried about him. I’ll admit I hoped that Sexiest Man coverage would put him in the crosshairs of a woman he couldn’t resist.”
With every word he’s spoken, I’ve felt the temperature drop until I shiver with cold. My top is cropped, with short, puffed sleeves engineered so that one shoulder is bare. My upswept hair leaves my neck with no warmth. I come to the awareness that goosebumps dot my skin. I almost expect to see my breath frost in the air.
“In thinking about it,” Ryan continues, crossing one ankle atop the opposite knee, “I couldn’t be mad at him about Lily if I wanted to. He had her for less time than I did, and he’s grieved for her a hell of a lot longer.”
He’s much too forgiving, in my opinion. There’s no way my son simply forgot to mention his wife’s re-emergence, especially to his closest friend.
Is Lily that devious? Has she deliberately isolated Kane from everyone who cares about him, tightening her grip until she has total control? With power over Kane, she controls the money and Baharan. She’s already pulled him away from his home and Witte. And it was probably far too easy to do. Years of sleeping beneath her picture and surrounding himself with reminders of her primed him for an even deeper obsession. Like his father and me, Kane is a sexual creature, and he’s essentially been alone for too long, blowing off steam far too infrequently with one-night stands.
Did she beg him? Stay home with me. I need you. Did she suggest they leave? Let’s go somewhere, lover. Let’s be alone to reconnect.
How could Kane say no when he’s been fixated on her so completely for so long?
She already has a legal claim on at least half of his assets. If she gets pregnant, she’ll be able to claw out even more.
A baby. Could there possibly be anything worse?
I know he won’t take precautions; she’s his wife. Wearing a condom when he fucks her won’t even enter his mind, and it’s been patently obvious every time I’ve seen them together that all he’s thinking about is fucking her. He might’ve been the one to suggest they go away, leaving Witte behind, so he’d have fewer distractions from his frenzied rutting. He’ll rely on her to protect against pregnancy, and why would she?
“Was there something else on your mind?” Ryan asks.
With his intimate knowledge of both Kane and Lily, Ryan may be the only one who can get through to my son. Then again, maybe Kane won’t listen to Ryan at all out of jealousy. I don’t know what to do, what move to make.
“Aliyah?”
“He’s with her,” I blurt out. “Lily, I mean. And as worried as I am about her, I’m more worried that Kane is hiding her from you.”
“What are you talking about?” He straightens, his hazel eyes turning a stormy green.
“Kane hasn’t come into the office since she came back. He’s been with her constantly –”
“Who?”
“Lily!”
“That’s impossible,” he snaps, his spine painfully straight. “I don’t know what you’re –”
“I know.” I speak in a rush, leaning forward. “I could hardly believe it, either. It’s such a bizarre situation, and Kane is –”
“Aliyah.” His voice cracks my name out like the lash of a whip. “Lily is dead.”
“She’s not. We don’t know what happened. She has some sort of amnesia and –”
Ryan stands abruptly. “Who told you this? Kane?”
“Yes, of course. He explained it to all of us.”
His head is shaking back and forth in a quick, violent negation. “He’s lying to you. I don’t know why, but he’s lying. I’m going to call him.”
I watch him pull out his phone and jump to my feet. “Ryan, wait! You should know more before you talk to him. There’s a reason he’s been hiding her from you. We need to figure –”
“Aliyah, I know he’s lying!” His face has blanched. “There’s something very wrong here. I’ve been growing increasingly worried about him. He shouldn’t still be grieving this deeply. It’s been too long. And the lilies he has on everything …? It’s sick. He’s sick. He’s been out of the office for two months? Have you seen him? Talked to him?”
My heart is beating too quickly, making me feel off-balance and dizzy. “I’ve been to the penthouse, of course, to meet her. And they were in the offices just –”
He holds me off with an outstretched palm. “You’ve met the new girlfriend?”
“Lily! Ryan, you’re not listening to me. Lily is back. She’s with Kane.”
“That’s fucking impossible!” he roars, hot color flooding his bloodless face. “Lily. Is. Dead. I was with Kane when he identified the body. I identified the body with him. She was my girlfriend, too. I’d know her anywhere.”
“What? No. That can’t … Rosana asked Kane about a body. He said there wasn’t one. That the Coast Guard stopped looking and declared her lost at sea.”
He sets his cup on the edge of my desk, then grips the edge in both hands, his head bowed. “Yes, they initially declared her lost. But then her body was recovered in a fisherman’s net. It was …” His muscular shoulders quake. “It had been a few weeks. Her beautiful face was unrecognizable, and one of her arms was gone. She was the right height, though. And slender, even after being in the water so long.”
“You misidentified … whoever that was. Under the circumstances –”
“No! She had tattoos. She had a massive phoenix on her back. And it wasn’t flash – the art you pick off the wall in a parlor. A friend had drawn it specifically for her. There were still parts of it identifiable on the body. There’s no way to mistake her for anyone else.”
I breathe carefully through my mouth, feeling like I might vomit. I remember Lily in the library, dressed in black slacks and a corset. Her short, sleek cap of hair allowed a lot of skin to show. I remember the tattoo. One doesn’t forget body art of that size. I remember looking at the photograph above the fireplace and realizing they were identical – the photo of Lily’s back and the back of the woman who entered the library.
“She has the tattoo,” I get out, my voice hoarse. “The woman with Kane.”
Ryan’s head jerks up and swivels to look over his shoulder at me. “I need to see her – face to face. There’s no one like Lily. The best plastic surgeon in the world couldn’t re-create her. I’ll know right away.” His teeth grind audibly. “Whoever this woman is, she’s preying on a desperate man’s grief.”
I nod repeatedly. “Yes. She’s dangerous. I knew that the moment I laid eyes on her.”
“There’s a reason he’s kept her from me, Aliyah. He knows Lily is gone. He knows I know. If he tells me about this woman, the fantasy doesn’t hold up and falls apart. It’s a stage of grief: denial. The first stage. The fact that Kane hasn’t progressed past that after all this time is a serious red flag. He needs help.”
Swallowing the rush of bile that has filled my mouth, I struggle to make sense of it all. I’ve looked at that photo of Lily hundreds of times. The woman I met in Kane’s library has her face. Ryan won’t be able to grasp that until he sees her himself. The resemblance is beyond uncanny, although there’s clearly been a passing of time.
Who had Giles Rampart been investigating – the woman pulled from the Atlantic or the woman presently sleeping with my son?
We knock on doors, ask questions and dig. They’d shown her photograph and relied on people’s memories of that unforgettable face. It would be all too easy to conflate the histories of two equally stunning women.
Maybe the woman he married six years ago was exactly who she’d said she was. Perhaps the woman he found recently is the one Rampart was actually investigating.
Whenever an inquiry is made into her background, someone becomes aware that she’s being sought. You make a lot of inquiries; a lot of people know.
What if this woman found out Kane was looking for her, thinking she was his wife, and saw an opportunity? Is it possible two different women’s lives became tangled up together? An orphan and a con artist?
Turning, Ryan resumes his seat and leans forward with his elbows on his knees. His face is taut and solemn. “Start from the beginning and tell me everything.”