Jake spent all day Monday showing Eldridge’s photograph to any of his neighbors, acquaintances or business associates who could be located. But the interviews generated more questions than answers. Eldridge, it seemed, was something of a loner. None of his neighbors knew him very well, and he had no close friends that Jake was able to turn up. He’d only lived at the Casa del Sol apartments for five months; before that he’d spent a year in a similar group of apartments a few blocks over on Hillcroft.
According to Jake’s source at the DMV, Eldridge had changed apartments frequently in the last few years, but that in itself was not all that suspicious. Unlike their Northern counterparts, Southern apartment dwellers were always being lured from their current address by a newer, larger, cheaper apartment down the street. Before Jake had bought his house in Memphis, he’d moved five times in as many years and never once changed his zip code.
The strange thing about Eldridge, though, was people’s reaction to his photograph. The few who recognized him did so immediately, but then, without exception, qualified their response with “But I remember him being taller.” Or thinner, shorter, heavier. With darker hair, longer hair, less or more hair. Some even remembered him wearing a mustache.
For the three years Eldridge had been with Richard Crane and Associates, he’d worked almost exclusively from his home, keeping in touch with his office and his clients via phone and E-mail. His supervisor at the brokerage firm had not seen Eldridge in person for several months, but this was not unusual, he assured Jake. Many of their associates were home-based.
On Tuesday morning, Jake drove back to the Casa del Sol apartments, only to find that Eldridge’s place had been stripped. Everything was gone, and two uniformed maids were in the process of cleaning, getting the apartment ready for the next tenant.
Jake crossed the parking lot to the leasing office where a bored brunette informed him that Michael Eldridge had phoned her at home late the night before and arranged to have funds wired to the property management’s account to settle his lease. By the time she’d arrived for work that morning, the moving van had been waiting to clear out his apartment.
“Did he leave a forwarding address?” Jake asked.
The woman hesitated.
“I’m an old friend of his,” he lied. “I think I know where he might have gone. It’s a Memphis address, right? He has family there.”
The woman pulled a piece of paper from her desk and handed it to Jake. He glanced down. It was the address of the Kingsley mansion.
Jake spent the rest of the day tracking down the foster family Eldridge had been living with at the time of his arrest. With the help of his friend who worked in Juvenile at Houston PD, he finally located the couple, an elderly husband and wife named Donovan. They lived in Cypress, a wooded suburb of Houston, on a street that had once been little more than a country lane but was now surrounded by subdivisions, convenience stores and strip malls.
Their home was a small white wood-frame with an immaculate yard and well-tended flower beds that boasted a variety of blooms Memphis wouldn’t see for another few weeks yet.
Mrs. Donovan, a white-haired motherly sort with a whip-thin body and curious gray eyes, came to the door at Jake’s knock. Her expression was friendly, but Jake noticed that she made a point of keeping the storm door between them securely locked. Even out in the ’burbs, the darker side of the city couldn’t be ignored.
Jake introduced himself, and said, “A friend of mine with the Houston Police Department gave me your name because she thought you might be able to help me out. She said you used to take in foster children back in the sixties and seventies, and there’s one in particular I’m interested in. He would have lived here probably around 1974 or ’75. His name was Michael Eldridge. Do you remember him?”
Her expression immediately warmed. “Michael! Of course, I remember him. Oh, my goodness, you don’t know how many times I’ve thought about that boy over the years.” She turned and called over her shoulder, “Clarence! Come here! There’s a friend of Michael’s at the door.”
Her husband hobbled into view, supporting himself with a cane. He was as thin as his wife, but stoop-shouldered and obviously in poorer health. “Who?” he bellowed.
“Michael Eldridge. You remember him. That handsome boy who lived here sometime back in the seventies. Sharp as a tack, that child.”
Clarence Donovan’s memories didn’t seem to be quite so fond. Or else his natural suspicion of strangers was greater than his wife’s. He stumped up beside her and glared at Jake through the door. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
Jake pulled his identification from his pocket and held it out in front of him. “My name’s McClain. I’m a private investigator from Memphis. I’d like to ask you a few questions about Michael Eldridge.”
Mrs. Donovan’s hand fluttered to her throat. “Oh, dear,” she murmured, while Mr. Donovan’s glare turned even icier.
“What’s he done?” he asked in a tone that implied he just might believe the worst.
Jake hesitated. “May I come in and speak with you for a few minutes?”
“We’ll come outside.” He motioned Jake away from the door with his cane. “We don’t know you from Adam, and I want to make damn sure we’re in plain view of plenty of witnesses.”
“Good idea.” Jake backed away from the door, giving them ample space. He tried to look as nonthreatening as possible as he waited for Mr. and Mrs. Donovan to seat themselves in the wicker rockers on the front porch. Jake sat down on the top step of the porch.
“Is Michael all right?” Mrs. Donovan asked anxiously, in a tone that made Jake think they must have been recently in contact.
But when he said as much, Mr. Donovan shook his head. “Haven’t seen hide nor hair of that boy since the police took him away that day. Esther remembers all those kids like it was yesterday. We used to have one or two staying here most all the time. Troublemakers, for the most part. Kids who drifted in and out of the system for years, until they either cleaned up their act or were sent up the river.”
“Now, Clarence,” Mrs. Donovan said with mild reproach. “You make it sound as if we didn’t make a difference in any of those kids’ lives. I like to think we did.”
Mr. Donovan shrugged, but his expression told Jake he had a differing view of the foster kids who’d passed through their home.
“How long did Eldridge live here?” Jake asked.
“A little more than a year,” Esther replied. “He was basically a good boy. Just a little high-spirited.”
“High-spirited, hell!” Clarence thundered. “He was a thug and you know it.”
Esther glared at him. “Well, was it any wonder? He’d been abandoned when he was five years old. His mother left him in some dirty old Laundromat down by the ship channel and she never came back for him. He was never adopted, either, just shuffled from one foster home to the next, never really having a home or feeling he was wanted. Little wonder he had problems.”
“What kind of problems?” Jake asked.
She made a dismissive gesture with one blue-veined hand. “Oh, you know, the usual things boys get into. Skipping school, vandalism, drinking.”
“Breaking and entering,” Clarence interjected.
“There was just that one time,” Esther said, her tone peevish.
“Was that when he was arrested?” Jake asked.
Clarence nodded. “He was fifteen. Just missed being tried as an adult. As it was, some hotshot law firm downtown took his case and he got off with just a stint in juvenile detention. We never saw him after that. Esther here was like a mother to that boy. He was always her favorite. He could charm the damn birds right out of the trees when he had a mind to.”
Jake took out the picture of Eldridge and handed it to the Donovans. “Is this the Michael Eldridge you knew?”
Mrs. Donovan took the picture while Mr. Donovan fumbled in his shirt pocket for his glasses, then slipped them on. The two studied the photograph for a long moment, then Mrs. Donovan said, “Oh, my. He’s turned out so handsome. And he looks so prosperous.”
“He’s a stockbroker here in Houston,” Jake told them. “He seems to be doing quite well for himself.”
“You see, there!” Esther beamed at her husband in triumph. “I knew he would make it. I knew he was someone special.”
“If he’s turned out so all-fired respectable,” Clarence said, eyeing Jake accusingly, “what’s your interest in him? He involved in that insider trading scam I been hearing Katie Couric talk about on the Today show?”
“No, nothing like that,” Jake replied. “Turns out, he may be the long-lost son of a wealthy family in Memphis. I’ve been hired to check out his background.”
“Michael’s from a wealthy family?” Esther clapped her hands together in excitement. “Imagine that, Clarence.”
“I’m trying to,” Clarence said dryly. “What’d they do, give him away at birth?”
“He may have been kidnapped,” Jake told them.
Esther gasped. “How tragic.”
“You’re sure this is the boy you knew as Michael Eldridge?” Jake nodded toward the picture.
“Oh, yes,” Esther said, without equivocation. “That’s Michael.”
Clarence took the picture from his wife and studied it a little longer. “He was just a kid back then. Fifteen years old. This man’s what? Thirty-four, thirty-five? People change in twenty years.”
“I’d know him anywhere,” Esther declared.
“You don’t seem quite as sure,” Jake said to Clarence.
The older man rubbed his chin, still staring down at the picture. “Oh, that’s him, all right. Only…”
“What?”
“Can’t put my finger on it precisely. Something about his eyes…”
* * *
JAKE ARRIVED BACK in Memphis just after seven in the evening and drove straight to the Kingsley estate. His father was out, and Jake headed for the shower, brooding over everything that had happened in Houston as he let the hot water sluice over him. Instead of coming home with answers for Hope, he’d returned with more questions.
For instance, what had the blonde been doing at Eldridge’s apartment? What was her connection to Andrew Kingsley? Who was the “boss” the two men in the warehouse had referred to? What the hell was the Grayson Commission? And, perhaps most important of all, what had Clarence Donovan seen in Michael Eldridge’s photo that had worried him?
As Jake dried off, someone knocked on the front door of the cottage. Slipping on a pair of jeans, he hurried down the stairs to answer it.
Hope stood on the other side.
“I saw you drive up a little while ago. I need to talk to you. May I come in?” She glanced back at the Kingsley mansion. “I don’t want anyone to see us.”
Jake stood back to let her enter, then closed the door. “Come on out to the kitchen,” he said. “I’ll get us something to drink.”
He started to put his hand on her arm, but she moved away from him, a subtle act, but one he thought he understood. She’d pulled away from him once before, after her father had died. That, too, had been subtle at first. So subtle, Jake hadn’t known what was happening until it was too late.
And now she was doing it again. What had happened while he’d been gone?
In the kitchen, he poured them both a glass of iced tea. They sat down at the table, Hope leaving her drink untouched.
“What did you find out in Houston?” she asked.
“Quite a lot, but I’m not sure what any of it means.” He gave her a rundown of almost everything, leaving out only a few details he wasn’t sure he wanted her to know. Her expression darkened when she heard about the incidents at Eldridge’s apartment and the warehouse.
“My God,” she whispered. “You could have been killed.”
“But I wasn’t. So there’s no use worrying about it.”
“But I got you into this,” she protested. “If anything happened to you because of me—”
Her violet gaze fastened on his, and Jake found himself drowning in those eyes. What kind of hold did she have over him? Why couldn’t he stay away from her? Why couldn’t he forget her? Why couldn’t he get on with his life and let Hope do the same?
Because you were meant for each other, a little voice whispered inside him. You’re a part of each other.
And no matter how much he wanted to deny it, no matter how many times she pulled away from him, Jake knew he would never get Hope out of his system. She lived in his soul. She haunted him.
As if sensing his thoughts, Hope tore her gaze from his and stared down at her glass. “Something happened while you were away.”
Her tone sounded ominous. Jake’s heart dropped to his stomach. “What?”
She traced a drop of condensation down her glass with her fingertip. “Michael told me that he…has feelings for me.”
Did he, by God? Jake managed to remain silent, staring at her inquiringly.
“He said…he said Iris has indicated to him that she would like to see us get together. And she’s hinted as much to me, too.”
“How do you feel about that?”
Hope drew a long breath. She didn’t answer for a moment, and Jake’s anger blazed into a bonfire of rage. “Hope, you don’t even know this guy. Surely to God you’re not thinking of taking up with him—”
Hope stared at him in shock. “Of course not! Why would you even think such a thing?”
“He does look like Andrew,” Jake said grimly. “And he just may be the next Kingsley heir.”
She looked more hurt than angry. “It was never the money with Andrew. Yes, he took me to fancy restaurants and on exotic vacations, bought me beautiful clothes and expensive jewelry. And yes, a part of me enjoyed that way of life. For a while. But it was never enough. It could never take the place of…”
“What?” Jake prompted.
“Of being in love.” She stared down at her hands. “Only, I don’t think Andrew ever understood that. I don’t think he ever gave up the notion that if he lavished me with enough gifts, I might someday fall in love with him.”
Jake’s gaze impaled her. “And did you?”
“No. I’ve only been in love once in my life.” She lifted her gaze to him. “And Andrew knew that. He couldn’t stand that.”
Jake wanted more than anything to believe her. How long had he waited to hear those words? But something inside him wouldn’t let him give voice to his emotions. Not yet. He ran a hand through his damp hair. “Yeah, well, knowing the woman you love is in love with someone else is pretty damn hard to take for anyone.” He felt a flash of unexpected sympathy for Andrew Kingsley.
“It wasn’t just that,” Hope said. “I sometimes think it had more to do with you than it did with me. Because you were the man I had fallen in love with. Because you had something he didn’t. He hated you, Jake. It sometimes scared me how much he hated you.”
“He wasn’t exactly on my Top Ten list, either,” Jake said. “But what does any of this have to do with Michael Eldridge’s feelings for you?”
“Maybe nothing,” Hope said. “Maybe…everything.”
“You’d better explain that.”
“I hardly know where to start.” She got up and paced to the kitchen window, staring out at the tiny backyard Jake’s father had turned into his own private garden. “You’ll think I’ve lost my mind.”
“Why don’t you try me?”
She turned, toying with the pearl button at the top of her blue sweater. “You’ve seen him for yourself, Jake. You know how much he looks like Andrew. How much he acts like Andrew.”
A tiny buzzing in Jake’s ears sounded a warning, but he ignored it. He had to hear this, no matter how much it might hurt. “Go on.”
“If he really is Adam Kingsley, then that explains why he looks so much like Andrew. Identical twins, even raised apart, would still bear a strong resemblance to each other, might even look exactly like each other. But…that doesn’t explain his mannerisms. The reason why he walks like Andrew, talks like Andrew. Uses the same words Andrew would use…” She drew a long breath. “It doesn’t explain the way he looks at me.”
“You think he is Andrew,” Jake said, almost accusingly.
Hope closed her eyes briefly. “I know it’s crazy. But there’s something about him…something that sends cold chills through me every time I look at him. Every time he looks at me. Jake, what if Andrew didn’t die in that car crash—”
He crossed the distance between them in two strides and took hold of her arms, forcing her to face him. “Andrew is dead, Hope. He’s dead.”
“But I didn’t see his body, and neither did you. You said yourself there wasn’t an autopsy—”
“Plenty of people saw Andrew dead. The Shepherd authorities, the EMTs, doctors and nurses at the hospital. You said Victor Northrup identified the body.”
This last seemed to jolt her. Her gaze shot back up to his. He saw a glimmer of something he couldn’t identify in her eyes. “That still doesn’t explain the picture.”
“What picture?”
“The one he has in his room…of me.”
Jake realized he still held her arms and that his grip had tightened. He forced his hands to drop to his sides. “What were you doing in Eldridge’s room?”
She glanced up at him. “I went there to search it.”
“You what?” He glared at her incredulously. “I don’t have to tell you how stupid that was, do I? Hope, for all we know, this man is dangerous. A homicidal maniac or worse.”
She laughed shakily. “What could be worse than a homicidal maniac?”
“Believe me, you don’t want to know. Just what the hell were you thinking?”
“I thought I might find a clue to his real identity, okay?” She glared up at him defiantly. “Something that might help us in the investigation. What I found was a picture of me. A newspaper clipping of me leaving the cemetery after Andrew’s burial. He…oh, God, Jake. He’d framed it.” The last traces of defiance drained from her face, and what Jake saw was a woman very much afraid. Not for her life, he suspected, but for her peace of mind.
“I found it in his drawer, under some socks. Then I heard him coming back. He was right outside the door before I realized it. I shoved the picture back inside the drawer and hid in the closet.” When Jake would have said something else, she held up her hand. “It’s okay, he didn’t find me. He’d only come back because he’d forgotten his wallet. But before he left again, he went over to the bureau and took out the picture. I saw him…” She faltered, glancing away, not quite able to meet Jake’s eyes. “I saw him kiss my picture,” she finished in a whisper.
Something closed over Jake’s heart. A knot of fear. A fist of rage. I’ll kill him, he thought. I’ll kill him before I’ll let him touch you.
“What did you do?” he asked with as much calm as he could muster.
Hope shrugged. “Nothing. I just felt sick. I waited until he’d left, and then I went back to my room as fast as I could.” She paused again, as if summoning her own calm. “What do you make of all this?”
“I don’t know.” The image of Hope’s face against Eldridge’s lips—Andrew’s lips—was something Jake couldn’t quite dispel. He took a few steps away from her, staring out at the gathering darkness in his father’s backyard. “Was your wedding videotaped?”
He wasn’t looking at her, but he could sense her shock and confusion at his question. “Why?”
“Just answer the question, and then I’ll explain.”
“Yes, it was. In fact, it caused a big row between Andrew and Iris. She said videotaping such a sacred ceremony was vulgar, but Andrew insisted. He said he wanted to capture the happiest moment of our lives on tape so that years later, we could share it with our children. He assured Iris he would hire a professional, someone who would blend in with the guests and we’d hardly know he was there.”
“Did you ever see the tape?”
Hope shook her head. “I asked Andrew about it a few times, but he said it was too soon to look at it. It would be better if we waited until some sort of milestone in our marriage, like our tenth anniversary. By then, of course, neither of us cared to see it. At least, I didn’t.” She paused. “Jake, what’s this about?”
He hadn’t wanted to tell her about the videotape in Eldridge’s VCR, but now he didn’t have a choice. She had to know what she was dealing with here. When he explained, the color drained from her face. “If he isn’t Andrew, how did he get that tape?”
“Any number of ways,” Jake said. “Whoever Andrew hired to tape the wedding could have kept a copy for himself, thinking he could peddle it to the tabloids. I don’t know how it might have come into Eldridge’s possession, but I do know this. There is a Michael Eldridge. I talked to too many people in Houston who knew him.”
She still didn’t look convinced. “If he is Michael Eldridge, nothing more than a stranger, why would he have that tape and that picture of me?”
Jake shrugged. The obvious answer wasn’t one he much cared to explore. “He must have studied the Kingsleys for some time, figuring out the best way to approach Iris. Maybe he became…interested in you in the process.” He would have said fixated. Obsessed. But then he might have had to explore his own psyche a little too closely.
“What about the blonde?” Hope asked, changing the subject so quickly, Jake knew she was have trouble dealing with the explanation as well.
“She is definitely a connection between Eldridge and Andrew,” Jake said. “It was no coincidence she was at Eldridge’s door. Someone sent her there for that videotape. And she was with Andrew the night he died.”
“Are you implying she may have had something to do with the car crash? That Andrew’s death—”
“May have been murder,” Jake finished bluntly.
“Dear God.” He didn’t think her face could go any whiter; but for a moment, he thought she might actually pass out. He reached for her, but Hope waved away his hand. It seemed a point of pride with her that she handle this, that she not succumb to her fear. That she not depend on him for strength.
“We talked about this before.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I’ve never thought Eldridge was working alone, and now we know for sure there are at least four other people involved in this thing. The blonde, the two men in the warehouse, and the `boss’ they talked about. And, of course, something called the Grayson Commission.”
“You told me once that an attorney in Victor Northrup’s firm was from Houston, that he’d defended Michael when he was a teenager. You thought he might have been the one to mention to Victor or to Jeremy that he had a client who looked like Andrew. Do you remember that?”
“Yeah. And I still say that’s a likely possibility,” Jake said.
“There was one other person he might have mentioned the look-alike to.”
Jake glanced at her warily. There was something in her tone he didn’t like. “Who?”
Her gaze met his. “Andrew. Supposing the attorney saw Andrew in Victor’s office and told him how much he looked like his Houston client? Supposing Andrew is the one who filed that tidbit away until one day when he was desperate, fearing for his life from Simon Pratt. What if he thought he could switch places with Michael Eldridge so that Pratt couldn’t find him? Then by coming here and pretending to be Adam, he could still be the Kingsley heir. He could still live in luxury and still have Iris’s adoration. And he might even be able to win me back. That would explain the picture and the videotape. That would explain so many things,” she finished softly.
Jake’s gaze hardened on her. “How far are you willing to take this, Hope?”
“What do you mean?”
“A body was recovered from that crash. If it was Andrew’s double, then someone had to have made the switch. Someone had to have killed the real Michael Eldridge. Do you believe Andrew capable of murder?”
“I’ll see you both dead first.”
Andrew’s words echoed through Hope’s mind. An empty threat, she’d thought at the time; but the look in his eyes had come back to haunt her. He would have done anything to keep her away from Jake. Hope had no doubt about that. Rage and obsession were powerful motivators, but Andrew had an even stronger one. The instinct for survival. If Simon Pratt had been closing in, how far would Andrew have gone to save himself? To win the ultimate game?
She could almost hear him laughing at them now. The image was so strong she had to fight the childish inclination to cover her ears with her hands.
“The scenario you’ve just outlined would have taken an incredible amount of planning to pull off,” Jake said. “Andrew couldn’t have done it alone. Someone with money and clout would have had to pull a lot of strings, bribe a lot of people, and that would make the risk of discovery fairly high. Do you know anyone like that, Hope?”
She knew who he was getting at. Iris. The same thought had even crossed Hope’s mind. But the status and power of the Kingsley name meant everything to Iris, maybe even more than the family itself. Would she have been willing to risk losing all that she held dear to help her grandson pull off such an elaborate hoax?
She’d adored Andrew, no question. And as fond as Hope was of Iris, she had no delusions about the Kingsley matriarch. Hope knew Iris had done things in her life that Hope herself probably wouldn’t approve of, might even find shocking. But there was no way Iris would ever be a party to murder. No matter what else she might have done.
“What other choices do we have?” she asked.
“There’s always good ol’ Jeremy and Mommy Dearest,” Jake said. “Although I haven’t ruled out Northrup. There’s something about that man I don’t trust, other than the fact that he’s Iris’s oldest and dearest friend. But regardless of who’s behind this scheme, it’s obvious that with Andrew out of the way, an impostor would have a much greater chance of worming his way into Iris’s affections.”
“Pamela’s greedy and ambitious, and God knows, Jeremy is…strange enough. And I’ll admit Victor is a little on the slick side. But to commit murder. To kill Andrew in cold blood…” She shuddered.
“There is another possibility,” Jake said. “Maybe Michael Eldridge really is Adam Kingsley. And he already knows it.”
“But then where would the blonde come in? She’s the connection between Michael and Andrew. You think she may have had something to do with Andrew’s death. But if Michael knows he’s the real Adam Kingsley, why would he have his own brother killed?”
“Do the math, Hope. One heir would inherit twice as much money as two.”
Even though the evening was warm, Hope shivered. Somehow the notion of Adam Kingsley deliberately plotting to murder his identical twin—a brother he didn’t even know—for the Kingsley fortune was more chilling than anything they’d discussed so far.
“I want you to stay away from him, Hope,” Jake warned, as if reading her mind. “Get out of that house. Now. Tonight. Go to your mother’s. Wherever. But don’t go back there.”
“I can’t do that,” Hope said, even as she wished desperately to do exactly as Jake instructed.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because if he is Adam, if he killed his own brother to become the Kingsley heir, then what’s preventing him from killing Iris, so that the money becomes his immediately?”
“Iris isn’t my primary concern at the moment,” Jake replied. “Damn it, Hope, be reasonable.”
“I am being reasonable. She’s an old woman, Jake. Far more vulnerable than she wants to admit. Edward is completely useless, and Pamela and Jeremy… For all we know, they’re in on this thing. I can’t leave her to the wolves. You wouldn’t be able to, either.”
Jake scowled as he glanced out into the darkness. “Okay. I guess you’re right. But for God’s sake, be careful. If you feel even a hint of danger, promise me you’ll get the hell out of there. Don’t try to take care of this yourself. Whoever these people are, they may already have killed once. I don’t think they’d hesitate to do so again.”
* * *
JAKE WALKED HOPE to the fringes of the Kingsley gardens, not daring to go any farther for fear they’d be seen together. The less anyone suspected Hope’s involvement in Jake’s investigation into Eldridge’s background, the safer she would be. And at the moment, Hope’s safety was all Jake cared about.
The light had faded rapidly, but the moon was already up, a waning half-globe against a black velvet sky sprinkled with stars. They paused near a flowering bush that Jake couldn’t name, but the fragrance was as familiar as a lover’s perfume.
He stared down into Hope’s upturned face and thought again how extraordinarily beautiful she was. How much he wanted to hold her. Keep her safe. Keep her all to himself.
But tonight there was someone else in the garden with them. An invisible presence that kept them apart. That made Hope pull away from him even when he knew that she wanted him, too.
Andrew is dead, goddamn it.
But the doubt was still there in Hope’s eyes. And as long as she believed there was a chance her husband remained alive, Andrew would keep on winning. He would succeed in keeping them apart.
“I’d better go,” she said softly. “Someone might see us.”
When she would have turned away, Jake caught her arm and pulled her back to him. “Hope,” he said urgently. “Andrew is dead. You do know that, don’t you?”
She hesitated, a part of her resisting his touch even as her eyes told him what he wanted to know. “That’s what I keep telling myself. But what if he’s not, Jake? What if he’s still alive? What if I’m still his wife?”
“It wouldn’t make a damned bit of difference to me,” Jake said darkly.
“But it would to me. And it certainly would to Andrew.”
* * *
HOPE SLIPPED THROUGH the gardens, trying to keep to the shadows, so that anyone looking out from one of the rear windows of the mansion wouldn’t see her returning from the direction of the gardener’s cottage. But as she skirted the edge of the pool, someone rose from one of the lounges. She gasped, her hand darting to her throat.
Michael Eldridge, dressed in dark trousers and a collarless dark shirt that made him blend with the night, walked slowly toward her. He’d lit a fire in the brick hearth near the end of the pool, and the flickering flames reflected in his eyes and cast dark shadows across his face, making him look almost savage. Jake’s warning echoed in Hope’s ears.
She laughed nervously. “Michael, you startled me. I wasn’t expecting to see anyone out here.”
He took another step toward her, and Hope had to fight the urge to turn and flee. A myriad of possibilities flashed through her mind—none of them comforting. Michael Eldridge/devious impostor. Michael Eldridge/the real Adam Kingsley. Michael Eldridge/Andrew.
Michael Eldridge/murderer.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.
Something in his tone sent a shiver of fear down Hope’s spine. She glanced up at him, trying to keep her expression from revealing her emotions. “Why?”
“I heard from my boss down in Houston today. He said a private investigator from Memphis came around asking questions about me. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
“Why would I know?”
“Let’s don’t play games.” His voice hardened. “Iris made her wishes clear to the family. She didn’t want me investigated. What do you think she would do if she found out you’d hired McClain, of all people, to snoop around in my business?”
Hope forced a bravado into her tone she was far from feeling. “What makes you think I hired him? I imagine there are a lot of people who would like to know who you really are.”
“The DNA tests results will be back soon. They’ll tell you everything about me you need to know.”
“And if it turns out you aren’t Adam Kingsley?” Hope met his gaze without wavering. “Will you go back to Houston? Disappear from Iris’s life?”
“If that’s what she wants.” He gazed down at her with a smile that sent a chill through Hope’s heart. “But Iris has become quite attached to me, you know. She has high hopes for my future. And for yours.”
“You can leave me out of this,” Hope said. “Regardless of who you are, I’m not part of the equation. As soon as everything’s settled, I intend to find a place of my own.”
“You really think it’ll be that easy? Just pack up and walk out, and leave the past behind you?” The flames in the hearth had died down, leaving his face more in shadow. “Life is rarely that simple, Hope. Iris has a way of getting what she wants. Or so I’ve been told.”
“That may be true,” Hope replied. “But she can’t force me to stay here against my will. No one can do that.”
“There are always more subtle ways of getting what we want.” He reached out and grasped her arms with his hands, pulling her toward him so quickly, Hope had no time to resist. His mouth came down on hers, hot, fierce and possessive. His tongue tried to part her lips, but Hope shoved him away, resisting the urge to bring her knee up between his legs as her father had taught her to do to ward off an attacker.
Instead she pulled away from him, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. “Don’t ever do that again,” she warned.
“You’re right.” His tone was surprisingly contrite. “That wasn’t very subtle. I apologize.”
Hope had expected him to laugh in her face or try to grab her again, but instead he turned and walked back to the hearth, holding his hands over the flames.
She studied his face in the flickering light, wondering who he really was. Wondering if the man standing before her was capable of murder. And if she had just provoked him.
As if reading her thoughts, he looked up, meeting her gaze in the firelight. “I am sorry, Hope. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Believe it or not, that’s the last thing I want to do.”
His expression held genuine regret, and his eyes were shadowed with something that looked very much like pain. In that instant, Hope thought he had never looked more like Andrew.