“The room is gratis.”
“I wasn’t talking about money.” Her eyes met his for an instant and again Zach felt an unwanted tug on his gut. She was getting to him, with her clear blue eyes, sexy smile, and quick wit. He didn’t say another word until they were finished with their meal and he insisted on paying. She argued, of course, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer and in the end, she gave up, deciding that she’d forgo the small battles for the larger ones to come, or so she’d said.
The streets were crawling with people by the time they started walking back to the library. Cars, trucks, bicycles, and pedestrians clogged the alleys and sidewalks. Adria yanked the rubber band holding her hair away from her face and shook the loose curls free. Zach’s mouth went dry as the wild blue-black strands shimmered in the sunlight. She looked so damned much like Kat it was eerie.
“So what was it that caused the rift between you and your father?” she asked as she shifted her shoulder bag from one arm to the other.
“I was a pain in the neck.”
She let out a little laugh. “That, I believe.”
“Always getting into trouble with the law.”
“Oh.”
“Witt didn’t approve. He wanted all of us to graduate at the top of our class from an Ivy League school…or if we couldn’t get in, then Reed College would do since it’s kind of a family tradition…afterward we were to finish law school and join a prestigious firm.”
“You’re a lawyer?” She knew better, of course, but wanted to see his response.
“Not hardly,” he said with a distasteful snort.
“But you just said—”
“I didn’t really count, though, remember?” His face was set in a hard expression she was beginning to recognize, though he didn’t look contrite, nor did he seem to want to elicit her sympathy. His eyes were hard, his chin thrust forward as if he were about to prove his worth.
But to whom?
“Just what is it you do, when you’re not renovating hotels?”
“Come on, Adria, don’t play stupid. It doesn’t wash. You already know that I’m a builder. I spent a lot of years remodeling houses, then ended up fixing the ranch. I guess I just stayed on.”
“The family’s ranch?”
He shot her a look. “Yep.”
“You run it, now?”
“You already know this.”
“What about building?”
“Still have a construction company. In Bend.”
“A jack-of-all-trades?”
“I do what I have to.” They reached the park surrounding the library. Cocking his head toward the building, he asked, “So did you dig up all the dirt on the family?”
“Not yet, but I will.”
“And then you’ll know if you’re really London.”
“I hope so.”
His lips compressed. “I can save you a whole lot of time and money and effort—you’re not.”
A breeze feathered through her hair. “How can you be so sure?”
“Practice,” he said.
She lifted a finely arched brow in a gesture that mimicked his stepmother’s so perfectly that his stomach squeezed. “So are you going to follow me around for the rest of my life?”
“I’m just waiting for an answer.”
“An answer?” she asked, squinting a little as the sun was behind his shoulder.
“That’s right. What’s it going to be, Adria?” he asked, unable to camouflage the contempt in his voice. “Are you content to stay in that dump on Eighty-second or are you going to gamble and move into a higher-rent district and take the all-expenses-paid suite at the Hotel Danvers?”
This one is different.
No one could dispute that she looked so much like Kat. The eyes, the hair, the cheekbones, the smile…Damn it all to hell! Why now? Why?
A fist pounded the steering wheel and the car shimmied and shivered along the familiar, rain-slickened streets of the West Hills. Heart hammering, the driver grasped the steering wheel in a death grip, straightening the wheels while disturbing images of Katherine LaRouche Danvers came to mind.
So supple.
So sexy.
So assured of her sexuality—that with a come-hither smile or naughty laugh she could cause any man, any man, to do her bidding.
And she’d been right.
Bile rose in the driver’s throat with the erotic pictures that Kat could evoke.
But it had all changed in the end.
A smile toyed at the edge of the driver’s mouth as the car approached a traffic light.
The images of a healthy, sleek woman changed to the pathetic creature Kat had become. A skinny, scared, naked woman who had lost most of her beauty and perhaps part of her mind. How easy it had been to push her off the balcony.
This one would be more difficult.
Adria Nash was young. Vibrant. Strong. Not broken because of the loss of a child. Not dependent upon pills to get through the day. Not depressed and frail.
And yet she had to be destroyed.
At the traffic light, the car idled and Katherine’s killer checked the glove box. A tiny light illuminated the knife, its blade gleaming through the plastic bag.
Sharp.
Deadly.
Ready.
For anyone who pretended to be London Danvers, including Adria Nash.
She was an enemy.
And all enemies had to die.
12
He wasn’t cut out to be a detective. Zach shoved his hands deep into his pockets and watched Adria run up the steps to the library. Though she hadn’t agreed to take the family’s offer of a free room at the hotel, Zach figured it was only a matter of time before she caved in and gladly accepted the first of what would be a string of gifts—bribes, really—to get rid of her. He’d thought, well, at least he’d hoped that she was smarter and had more integrity than that.
Of course she hadn’t. She was a gold digger, for Christ’s sake—a gold digger who looked a helluva lot like his dead stepmother.
Clouds were beginning to gather again when he jogged back to the street where he’d left his Jeep. He had more important things to do than chase after Adria Nash and yet a part of him was reluctant to leave her. She was an interesting creature—sly and beautiful, shrewd and fascinating. He wondered just how much like Kat she was. For an instant he imagined what she would feel like writhing beneath him in bed.
“Stop it!” He was as bad as the rest of the family. Slamming the door on those dangerous thoughts, he drove toward the river, pulled into the parking garage under the hotel and told himself that he’d stay a couple more days. That was all. Just until things with Adria were settled. It shouldn’t take long. A little game of cat and mouse, money offered and declined until the family reached a number she liked or until someone dug up the dirt on her and threatened to expose her for a fraud.
Either way, the end result would be the same. She’d be gone. He sat in the Jeep for a minute and listened to the engine tick as it cooled. Sightlessly he stared into the middle distance but was unaware of other cars or people emerging from the elevator. Adria was getting to him and he didn’t like a woman—any woman—starting to turn his thinking around.
Snapping back to the present, he hoisted his bag from the back of the Jeep, then walked to the service elevator and rode to the main lobby. Three clerks in green jackets were working at computer terminals at the front desk and bellboys ducked in and out of the front door. Several people loitered in the lobby and one woman was angrily arguing with a clerk about the telephone charges on her bill. Though the Hotel Danvers had passed final inspection and was up and running, there were a few bugs left to iron out. Cable television trouble on the upper three floors, plumbing leaks in the basement, faulty locks on the doors on the sixth floor, a chlorine problem with the pool, and a touchy stove in the kitchen were just a few of the minor headaches that his crew was fine-tuning.
He found Frank Gillette in the kitchen, with one of the ovens pulled away from the wall. He frowned and checked the wiring. Glancing up, he spied Zach. “Whatever we paid for this, it was too damned much.”
“You ordered it.”