Every Breath You Take (2 page)

“That was a nice thing to do.”

Elliott tipped his head back and looked at the sky. “Yes, it was,” he said in the carefully controlled voice of a man trying not to betray any emotion. “William was a thoroughly nice guy—the only male in his family for generations who wasn’t an egotistical sociopath.” Abruptly, he looked back at MacNeil and finished. “When William came back from London filled with glowing accounts of
Mitchell’s amazing successes, Edward didn’t want anything to do with his long-lost son, but old Cecil was evidently impressed enough to ask for a meeting. The meeting took place in August, when Mitchell was supposedly here on business. And then, after William disappeared in November, Cecil asked Mitchell to come back to Chicago so they could get to know each other better. Ironically, the old man is now quite taken with his prodigal grandson—so much so that he’s asked him to be present tonight, for his eightieth birthday party. I have to get going,” he said, already starting toward his car.

MacNeil walked beside him. “You haven’t told me anything that explains why we’re keeping Mitchell Wyatt under surveillance.”

Elliott stopped abruptly, his expression tight, his voice cold and clipped. “Oh, did I leave that out?” he asked. “Here are just two of the reasons: In September, one month after that first reunion between Cecil and Mitchell, Edward—William and Mitchell’s father—‘fell’ off his balcony and plunged thirty stories to his death. In November, William vanished. Coincidentally, according to U.S. passport and immigration records, Mitchell Wyatt entered the U.S. shortly before each event occurred and departed almost immediately afterward.”

When MacNeil’s eyes narrowed, Elliott said, “Now you’re getting part of the picture. Here’s more of it: Mitchell has been in Chicago for two weeks. He’s staying at William’s house, consoling William’s beautiful wife, and befriending William’s fourteen-year-old son.” Unable to keep the loathing from his voice, Elliott said, “Mitchell Wyatt is systematically exterminating members of his own family and restructuring the family to suit himself.”

“You think he’s after the family fortune,” MacNeil concluded.

“I think the Wyatt genes have produced another sociopath. The ultimate sociopath—a cold-blooded murderer.”

When he walked away, MacNeil got back into the Chevy with Childress, and they watched Elliott’s town car stop at the intersection and wait while a group of party guests was transferred into Range Rovers. A gray-haired woman slipped in the slush, and her husband grabbed for her. A middle-aged couple shivered in the cold while a nervous elderly couple struggled to step up onto the Range Rover’s elevated running boards with the help of parking attendants.

“You know,” Childress said, when the vehicles were finally on their way, “when we drove past the security gates tonight, I got a look at the driveway leading to the house, and I swear it looked perfectly clear—at least as far as I could see.”

“It was,” MacNeil agreed.

“Then why in the hell is the security guard making everyone leave their vehicles out here on the main road?” MacNeil shrugged. “Who knows?”

T
HE STREAM OF ARRIVING GUESTS HAD SLOWED TO A
trickle when a new pair of headlights, moving slowly, approached the gates. Childress put down the cup of coffee he’d poured from his thermos and picked up the binoculars. MacNeil reached for the notebook and began jotting down the information Childress gave him.

“The vehicle’s a vintage Rolls—probably 1950s—maroon in color, pristine condition,” Childress said. “Chauffeur at the wheel. Female passenger in the backseat. God, she’s a
beauty!”

“The Rolls or the passenger?” MacNeil asked.

Childress snorted with laughter. “The Rolls. The passenger is about ninety years old, and her face is wrinkling up like a prune over whatever the security guard is telling her chauffeur—who also happens to be about ninety. I’m guessing the old lady’s unhappy about having her Rolls parked on the street.”

Childress was wrong about that. Cecil Wyatt’s sister, Olivia Hebert, was not unhappy over her brother’s no-parking-on-the-drive edict: she was furious.

“That arrogant tyrant!” she exclaimed to her chauffeur as he drove through the gates behind three Range Rovers. “Look at this driveway, Granger. Do you see any snow on it?”

“No, madam.”

“Cecil is herding his guests around like sheep, just to prove he can!”

“So it would appear, madam,” her chauffeur of forty years replied, his voice quavering with age and indignation.

Satisfied that Granger understood and agreed, Olivia Hebert leaned back against the soft leather seat of her car, filled with impotent ire. Like everyone else who knew her brother, Olivia was all too familiar with Cecil’s habit of developing sudden, rigid “eccentricities”—the ones he invented from time to time for no other purpose except to inflict his will upon his social equals, thus proving to himself, yet again, that he was still superior to one and all.

“I can’t believe that people still put up with his arrogant behavior after eighty years,” she said bitterly. “In fact, I’m amazed these people didn’t turn around and go home the instant they realized this drive is perfectly clear!” Olivia added, but that part wasn’t true. She understood exactly why Cecil’s guests were willing to put up with tonight’s pointless inconvenience. For one thing, Cecil was a generous benefactor who’d donated tens of millions of dollars to their favorite charities. For another, they’d come to join Cecil on his eightieth birthday not to help him celebrate but to help him get through an occasion that was marred by the disappearance of his beloved thirty-six-year-old grandson, William.

“On top of everything else, he’s taking advantage of people’s sympathy tonight, that’s what he’s doing,” Olivia added as they pulled up in front of the house and she watched people climbing down from the Range Rovers.

Instead of replying, Granger conserved his strength for the arduous journey around the front of the Rolls to her back door. His shoulders were stooped with age, his back and knees were severely bent from arthritis, his hair was a thinning fringe of silver beneath his black chauffeur’s cap, and his thin frame was swallowed up by a
black overcoat that had lately gotten too large for him. He opened her door and held out his gnarled hand to help her out. Olivia put her gloved hand in his. “We shall have to see about getting your coat altered,” she said as she eased herself out of her car and reached for her cane. “It’s a little large for you.”

“I’m sorry, madam.”

Gripping her cane with her right hand and clutching his coat sleeve with her left, Olivia let him guide her slowly toward the house, where Cecil’s butler was already waiting in the lighted doorway. “Do try to eat more, Granger. I used to buy a new car for what clothing costs these days.”

“Yes, madam.” As he helped her up the three flagstone steps that led to the front door, he said, “How will you let me know when you wish me to come for you?”

Olivia halted, stiffened, and glowered ferociously at him. “Do not even consider leaving this driveway!” she warned. “We, at least, shall not accede to the whims of a petty tyrant. Park over there under the porte cochere.”

Cecil’s butler heard that and coolly countermanded the order as he reached out to help her remove her coat. “Your car is to wait outside the gates, not under the porte cochere,” he informed her imperiously as Granger turned and began making his slow way back to the flagstone steps. “Please instruct your driver—”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort!” she interrupted scathingly, thrusting her cane at him and struggling out of her coat herself. “Granger,” she called after him.

Granger turned on the second step and looked at her, his silver brows raised inquiringly.

“While you are parked under the porte cochere, if anyone approaches you, you are to run over them with my car!” Satisfied, she gave the butler a frosty stare. “There’s a black foreign sports car parked under the porte cochere,” she said. “To whom does it belong?”

“Mr. Mitchell Wyatt,” the butler replied.

“I knew it would be his!” Olivia exclaimed gleefully, shoving her coat at the butler and snatching her cane out of his grasp. “He is not subject to the whims of a petty tyrant, either,” she proudly informed him. Leaning heavily on her cane, she began making her awkward way across the foyer’s uneven slate floor, toward the sound of voices in the living room. Behind her, the butler said, “Mr. Cecil said you are to await him in his study.”

Despite her brief show of bravado, Olivia was uneasy about confronting her formidable brother in private. He had an uncanny way of anticipating defiance, even before an outward act took place. Rather than go directly to his study, she angled toward the living room on the left. Stopping beneath the arched entry, she craned her head, hoping to catch sight of an ally—an exceptionally tall, dark-haired man who’d also defied Cecil’s order and parked his own car under the porte cochere.

The living room was crowded with guests, but there was no sign of Mitchell, nor in the dining room, where more guests were partaking of a lavish buffet. She was retracing her steps back through the living room when Cecil glanced up from the people talking to him and saw her. He stared at her with the cool, speculating expression of a long-standing opponent; then with a curt jerk of his head in the direction of his study, he ordered her to get herself there at once. Olivia put her chin up, but she complied.

Cecil’s study was on the opposite side of the slate hallway from the living room, beyond the main staircase and toward the rear of the house. Normally, the heavy paneled study doors were closed during large parties to discourage guests from congregating in Cecil’s private domain, but tonight a thin strip of mellow light glowed from between them. With one hand on the door handle, Olivia paused to give her legs and lungs a brief rest; then
she straightened her back, lifted her head—and froze in surprise at the scene revealed to her in that narrow shaft of light.

Mitchell had his arms around William’s wife, and Caroline’s cheek was pressed against his chest, a handkerchief clutched in her hand. “I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this,” she said brokenly, lifting her face to his.

“We have no choice,” he said flatly, but not unkindly.

Olivia’s momentary shock gave way to sympathetic understanding. Poor Caroline looked as thin and pale as a waif. Naturally, she’d seek comfort and support from a male family member, but her profligate father was honeymooning somewhere in Europe with his fifth wife, and Cecil would offer her only more of his terse lectures on the need to show strength in times of travail. Caroline’s fourteen-year-old son needed all the comfort his mother could give him, and Caroline put on a brave face for him, but she had no one to lean on herself—no one except Mitchell.

Olivia felt a rush of gratitude that Mitchell had come into the Wyatt family fold at exactly the right time to help Caroline and Cecil through their grief. Unfortunately, Olivia had the feeling Mitchell wouldn’t “help” Cecil out of a burning house if he had a choice. He obviously had no desire to further a relationship with his family or meet any of their friends, and—worst of all—Olivia was quite certain he intended to leave Chicago very soon and without a word of warning to anyone except Caroline.

Olivia understood exactly why he felt as he did. The Wyatts had disposed of Mitchell as an infant as if he had been nothing but an offensive piece of litter cluttering up their perfect, tidy lives. She’d known a little about the fate of Edward’s unwanted baby long ago, and Olivia had done nothing to change it; therefore, she accepted
Mitchell’s contempt for her as her just deserts. What she could not accept was the thought of his leaving Chicago too soon. She wanted him to get to know her first and realize he could trust her. She wanted him to call her “Aunt Olivia” before he went away. Just one “Aunt Olivia” before he left, and she’d be satisfied. But there was something else Olivia wanted much more, something she had to have from him before it was too late: forgiveness.

At the moment, however, her most pressing concern was that Cecil might stalk up behind her, yank open the doors to his study, and put an entirely wrong interpretation on the scene inside. Rather than barging in on the couple and, in so doing, make Caroline feel guilty and force Mitchell to give unnecessary explanations, Olivia decided to alert them to her impending arrival. Accordingly, she banged her cane on the heavy door as she fumbled with the latch, and then for good measure, she held her cane out in front of her like a blind person’s walking stick and entered the study, tapping and poking at the oak floor, her gaze fixed upon the old planks as if they weren’t to be trusted with her weight.

“Do you need more light?” Mitchell asked.

Olivia raised her head as if surprised by his presence, but it was the irony in Mitchell’s voice that startled her. He stood in front of the fireplace, exactly where he’d been before, but Caroline had dropped into a nearby chair. Olivia’s heart ached at the sight of the dark smudges beneath her hazel eyes. “My poor child,” she said, laying her hand on Caroline’s golden hair.

Caroline tilted her head back and pressed Olivia’s hand to her cheek instead. “Aunt Olivia,” she said in a forlorn voice.

Olivia would have stayed at Caroline’s side, but she realized Mitchell had stepped back from the fireplace and was idly surveying the study’s many portraits. The large room was a veritable shrine to the Wyatts, with framed
portraits of every size and description crowding the walls and covering the mantel. This was the first overt indication she’d seen him give that he had any interest whatsoever in any of the Wyatts—or at least Olivia wanted to think this was an indication of interest. “That is your great-grandfather,” she told him, moving to his side and gesturing to the portrait above the fireplace. “Do you see the resemblance?”

“To what?” he said, deliberately mocking the notion.

“To you,” Olivia persevered stubbornly, but he shot her a cold warning glance—one that looked exactly like those warning glances of his great-grandfather’s; then he slid one hand into his pants pocket and strolled a few paces away. Olivia heeded his warning, but she watched him from the corner of her eye, hoping for another opportunity to chip away at his glacial defenses if he showed interest in a different portrait.