“I know. Hush.”
“And now…and now.” He kissed her then, silencing her lips with his own. She tasted sweat and tears and rainwater and saw, when she looked into his eyes, the torment, as deep as her own, the anguish of it all.
His dark hair was lank and flat against his head as he broke off the embrace and whispered her name, his voice cracking a little.
If only they could run away to a place where the truth and the press and the Danvers family would never find them. She watched his throat as he swallowed. “Come on,” he said gruffly.
“Where…?”
His lips thinned dangerously as he guided her back toward the hotel. “We have to go to San Francisco. This isn’t finished yet.”
Adria’s nerves were strung tight as piano wires as they approached the house on Nob Hill in San Francisco. After camping out in the Portland Airport, then taking the first flight to the bay area, they’d landed and Zach had rented a car and located a hotel where he’d reserved separate, but connecting, rooms. Just like before. Only this time, she knew, she’d never be able to see him again; never be able to trace the scar that lined his face, never touch his flat male nipples beneath his dark, whorling chest hairs.
She’d never make love to him again.
God, she was crazy just being alone with him.
Somehow, out of sheer exhaustion, she’d dozed for a few hours in the hotel while Zach had started trying to locate Ginny Slade. He’d begun by calling the number that Sweeny had given him, and then when a woman told him Ginny—or Virginia—no longer worked for her, he’d forced the issue, getting more numbers of people who had contacted the first woman, checking on Virginia’s references, then dialing each and every one.
It had taken hours, but he’d finally gotten lucky and reached Virginia’s current employer, Velma Bassett. Now they were walking up the steps to a grand Victorian house painted gray and trimmed in white. Wide brick steps led to a long porch and an oak door surrounded by narrow, cut-glass windows.
Zach pushed on the bell.
Soft chimes responded in clear, dulcet tones.
Adria’s stomach clenched.
Within seconds, the door was answered by a svelte woman of about thirty, with worried eyes and fingers that moved constantly from the doorjamb to her throat.
“Mrs. Bassett?” Zach asked. “I’m—”
“Mr. Danvers, yes, I know. And this is Ms. Nash,” she guessed. Her smile was friendly but nervous. “Please come in. I did as you suggested and called Portland. They faxed me pictures of you both along with the articles about this London thing. I have to apologize,” she added, leading them past a grandfather clock that ticked in the foyer, to a small room that had once been the parlor. “We don’t pay much attention to anything other than the local news. My husband’s a banker and he’s more informed than I, but I really didn’t know anything about the kidnapping. I was only a child when it happened and I lived in New York City…Ah, well, I’ve rambled on, haven’t I? I’ll call Virginia down and you can speak with her in here. Please, please, have a seat. I’ll have Martha bring you drinks—tea, lemonade, something stronger—?”
“We’re fine,” Zach assured her.
“Yes, well, I’m sure there’s something. Now, if it does turn out that she’s this Slade woman…oh, dear, well, she can’t be looking after Chloe now, can she?” Still fluttering on, she left them alone in a room decorated in soft taupe shades.
Adria sat on the edge of a love seat and Zach stood near the window, staring out across the bay.
While Mrs. Bassett was away, a maid slipped into the room and left a silver tea service on a glass-topped coffee table.
Footsteps echoed in the hallway and Adria braced herself. Would she recognize the woman who may have stolen her away from her natural parents, the woman who had changed the course of her life forever?
“—but I’m not expecting anyone,” a reed-thin voice protested.
“I know, but they say they’re friends of yours, long-lost acquaintances.”
“Really, Mrs. Bassett, I don’t know anyone—”
The voice, like the scent of a sachet locked for years in a forgotten drawer, drifted into the room and caused Adria’s heart to skip a beat. The floor seemed to fall away from her feet as a woman stepped into the room. She was small, birdlike, with graying dark hair and plain features, but when her gaze landed on Adria, she stopped stock-still. “No,” she mouthed, but emitted no sound. What little bit of color had been in her face drained quickly away. “Oh, dear God,” she whispered faintly. Recovering slightly, she asked, “Who—who are you?” She forced a detached smile, but her lower lip trembled slightly.
“Take a guess,” Zach suggested.
“I don’t know—”
“Sure you do, Ginny. This is London.”
Virginia’s eyes darted from one to the other. “London?”
“London Danvers, the girl you took to Montana to live with Victor and Sharon Nash, the girl you pawned off as your daughter though your own child had been dead for years.”
“No!” she said, but she licked her lips nervously. “Mrs. Bassett, I don’t know what kind of lies these people have been telling you, but—”
“The police have been called, Virginia,” Velma said calmly. “If they’re lying—”
“Oh, Mother Mary!” Her hand flew to her chest, covering heart. “You didn’t—”
“Why don’t you explain everything,” Zach said, motioning to a chair. “There’s a chance we can work something out.”
“Oh, my Lord—” she protested, but dropped onto the sofa and gazed out the window to the clouds rolling over the green waters of the bay. Tears collected in the corners of her eyes and ran slowly down her cheeks as her gritty determination gave way to acceptance of what had to be. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”
“Tell us, Ginny,” Zach said, relentless while Adria’s heart went out to the woman who seemed to have aged twenty years since stepping into the room.
Velma Bassett stood near the doorway, bracing herself on the painted woodwork as she stared at the nanny she had trusted with her child for over eighteen months.
“I—I didn’t want to do it,” Ginny said, reaching into her pocket and finding a handkerchief to dab at her face. “But it was so much money.”
“What was?”
“I was promised fifty thousand dollars if I would take London away.”
Adria’s heart twisted painfully.
“I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t resist. All I had to do was disappear with the girl.”
“But why? And who?” Zach demanded.
“I don’t know.”
Adria could hold her tongue no longer. “But someone paid you, met with you—”
“It was all arranged over the telephone. At first I thought it was a joke. Then I got a package. Ten thousand dollars. More money than I’d ever seen in my life, and I was called again, offered another forty thousand dollars. All I had to do was leave town. Five thousand dollars more was sent to a private post offfice, and the rest when I got to Denver. From there I was to head anywhere, to put as much distance between myself and Portland as I could. It was supposed to happen earlier, but London wouldn’t go to bed and we almost didn’t make it. I was so scared, but so desperate. Oh, God, what am I going to do now?”
“Well, you’re sure as hell not going to take care of my daughter any longer,” Mrs. Bassett said. “I’ll pay you severance pay, whatever it takes, but, believe you me, you’ll not be spending another night in this house!” So enraged she was shaking, she hurried out of the room and the soles of her prim red pumps clacked loudly on the steps as she hurried upstairs. “Chloe? Where are you?”
Ginny shoved a strand of hair from her face and her fingers quivered. “How did you find me?”
“It took some time,” Zach admitted.
Adria leaned closer. “But surely you know who paid you?”
She shook her head and turned guilt-riddled eyes on Adria. “I don’t have any idea.”
“Man? Woman?”