“By whom?”
Sweeny hesitated a beat and Jason had the sickening feeling that he was being strung along. “Well, that’s the kicker,” Oswald Sweeny finally drawled. “Seems as if your good friend Anthony Polidori took her out to dinner.”
“Listen,” Nelson said, tossing his jacket over the back of a chair. “I’m telling you she’s a wild card. There’s just no knowing what she’s going to do next. She’s said she’ll go to the press, do whatever it takes to get what she wants and I believe her. She wasn’t just jacking me around.”
Zach stood near the fireplace, resting his hip on the Italian marble, feeling uncomfortable in the formal living room—the room he’d never been allowed to walk through as a child. Decorated in white, with touches of black and gold, it was a cold room and he would’ve preferred to be anywhere else in the world, rather than cornered here at the old family home with his brothers and sister.
Now, his eyes narrowed on Nelson. The youngest Danvers brother was known to exaggerate and for that reason he’d probably make a good politician.
Nelson had been pacing the length of the living room, nervously eyeing Zach ever since his middle brother had shown up.
“What do you think we should do?” Zach asked, unable to read his younger brother. Zach had never understood him, not even when Nelson was just a kid.
“Shit, I don’t know what we should do! That’s why I’m here.”
“You’ll make a helluva mayor, Nelson,” Zach remarked before lifting his bottle of Coors to his lips.
“Governor,” Nelson clarified.
Trisha flicked a lighter to the end of her cigarette. “So what would you do, Zach?”
“Leave her alone. Let her play out her hand.”
Through a cloud of smoke, Trisha laughed. “Just because you don’t give a rat’s ass, doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t.”
“You’ve got a better idea?”
“Hire a hit man.” Trisha crossed her legs and settled back into the plump white pillows of the couch.
“Don’t even say it!” Nelson bit out.
“Christ, don’t you know when I’m joking?” Trisha rolled her eyes, but Zach noticed something darken her gaze, something she quickly disguised.
Nelson faced his sister. “No one knows when you’re joking, Trisha. Not even you.”
“Clever, Nelson. Clever.”
Nelson shoved both hands through his hair. “We’d all better be careful. She’s already received a couple of threatening letters and some damned package that she wouldn’t say too much about.”
“How nice,” Trisha purred but Zach felt every muscle in his body grow instantly taut.
“What do you mean?”
As Nelson related his conversation with Adria, Zach’s insides grew cold. Someone was threatening Adria? But who? Only the people in this room, his mother, and the Polidori family knew she was in town. No, that wasn’t right; there were all the people who worked for the family, servants who could have overheard phone calls, and then there was the private investigator and anyone else Jason had put on the payroll.
Trisha, her expression unreadable, crushed her cigarette in a crystal ashtray. “Have any of you thought about the fact that Adria could just be who she claims she is? Maybe she is London and if she is, we’re all up shit creek without our proverbial paddle.”
“London’s dead,” Jason said, cutting off further speculation.
“How do you know? How do any of us know?” Trisha asked.
“We all know it. She obviously died years ago, or maybe there’s a one-in-a-million chance that she’s living somewhere, oblivious to the fact that she’s a Danvers.”
“Or maybe she just found out who she is,” Zach drawled, narrowing his eyes on his family.
“It’s all just a pain in the ass,” Trisha said as she climbed off the couch. “You know, I hate it when this happens, when someone comes in with all that crap about being London—Witt Danvers’s little princess. That’s what he called her, you know.” She turned her shadowed eyes on Zach. “You remember, don’t you? She was all he cared about. The rest of us could have dropped off the face of the earth and he wouldn’t have blinked an eye. But because it was London—it was a really big deal!”
“She’s got to be dead,” Jason said.
Zach couldn’t help rising to the bait. “Maybe one of us killed her.”
“Jesus, Zach, listen to you. Don’t even think about it.” Nelson shoved the sleeves of his sweater to his elbows as he looked from one of his siblings to the other. “Look, arguing among ourselves isn’t doing any of us any good. What we’ve got to do is find a way to discredit her. She assured me that if we found out the truth and proved to her that she wasn’t London, she’d take a hike.”
“And you believe that?” Trisha asked with a low-throated chuckle. “Jesus, Nels, you really are a dumb shit, aren’t you? The more I think about it, the more I think you’re the perfect public servant.”
“Knock it off,” Jason ordered. “I’ve got Sweeny checking her story and he’s got a man following her. If she’s got an accomplice, we’ll hear of it.”
“Sweeny?” Zach said, disgusted. He’d suspected that Jason would have Adria followed, but Oswald Sweeny was lowlife trash who would sell his own mother if the price were right.
“He’ll get the job done.”
“He’s a fucking creep,” Trisha said.
For once Zach agreed with his sister, but he didn’t have time to argue with Jason’s choice of private investigators.
Zach turned his attention to his younger brother. Nelson seemed incredibly nervous—like he was on speed. “Are the notes legitimate threats?” he asked, forcing himself to think logically. On one level he wanted to tear his siblings limb from limb for all their disparaging remarks about Adria, and yet, he was a fool to think he could trust her one little bit.
Nelson eyed him curiously. “What’re you getting at?”
“Could she have written them herself?”
“What for?” Nelson asked.
Zach peeled the label off his beer. “Public sympathy.”
“You are perverted, aren’t you?” Trisha said.
“Wait a minute. Why not?” Jason asked, warming to the subject. “She’s clever enough to have written the threats herself. Shit, yes, that’s probably just what she did.” There was genuine admiration in his eyes.
“Or else she might be in serious danger,” Zach said aloud and that thought chilled him to the bone. “Why don’t you tell me where she is?”
“She’s got a room at the Orion,” Nelson supplied. “Don’t know the room number.”
The Orion. He hadn’t been in that hotel since the night of the kidnapping, had never been able to drive past its cold concrete exterior without feeling a time warp that dragged him back to the horrid night when he’d been beaten, left for dead, and ended up a suspect in his kid sister’s abduction. “Who knows she’s there?”
Nelson bit his lower lip. “Probably half the people in Portland by now. Hell, Zach, didn’t you hear me? She’s talking about going to the police and the press! Do you know what will happen? It’ll be a circus—”
“Why do you care?” Trisha asked Zach as she reached for another cigarette. “As I said, you’ve never given a good goddamn about the family.”
“Still don’t.”
“But you’ve got a bug up your butt, don’t you?” She flicked her lighter to the end of her filter tip. “You know, Zach, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were interested in Adria. Romantically speaking.”
He didn’t bother answering.
“Just like Kat. Couldn’t keep your hands off her, even though you knew it was suicide.” Trisha studied the glowing tip of her cigarette as if it held all the answers to the universe. “I’d hate to think this copy-Kat’s got her claws into you already.”
Zach forced a cold smile. “Hell, Trisha, and here I thought you were the only one with claws.”
She glowered at him through smoke.
Jason said, “I still think the best idea would be to hide her away somewhere like the ranch.”
“Forget it.” Zach told himself he wasn’t interested.