Her Galahad (24 page)

Jirrah rose, and opened the door for her.

"Go on ahead." She turned away from him. "I need to talk to Rod. I'll catch up in a minute."

He didn't move for a moment, and she knew she'd moved her face too late; he'd seen the desperate resolution trying to fight the prompting of her guilt-filled heart. "Tess, don't do anything you'll regret later. That's what I'm here for. I'm good at that."

Then he walked through the door.

Chapter 13

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S
he hopped in the car within three minutes. "Let's go."

They were silent until after he'd started the car. Then he said, sounding more sincere than he had all morning. "Thanks, Tess. I know how hard it was for you to show us those keys."

She nodded, trying not to give in to the pain she felt.

"Where should we head first? The apartment or the bank?"

"Duncan's like Cameron—he likes personal control." She gazed straight ahead. "And if Dad doesn't know about all this, Duncan wouldn't put the evidence where my father would find it."

"So we go to the apartment, then."

"Yep."

"Tess, I'm sorry for being such a bastard in there. I know you're going through a lot for me, but this morning—"

"Don't," she broke in wearily. "I know you're sorry, okay? So am I. Let's not
talk about it. Let's go look for the evidence."

He rubbed his forehead, his mouth tight and hard. "Which way to the apartment?"

She directed him in as few words as possible.

She opened the door a few minutes later. "Wait. I'll turn off the surveillance cameras. It's best if he has no evidence you were ever here. Unless he's changed the numbers, it's his and Cameron's birth dates," she muttered, working on the motherboard. With a quiet click, the cameras went into shutdown. "Come on in."

Jirrah's brows rose. "Your brother uses Beller's birthday for his security?" She nodded. "Don't you find that weird?"

"Not really." She shrugged. "He's not gay, if that's what you're thinking. He's just—empty, somehow. I can't explain it, but having someone to worship fills whatever it is that's missing inside him. Cameron saved his life in a rowing accident at Parkes College when he was fifteen, and he's been his hero since—and Cameron works hard at keeping up the faith. That's why Duncan was so set on my marrying Cameron. Keeping him in the family, as well as giving me the life he thinks I must want." Her mouth twisted.

Duncan's apartment was typical of his fanatical nearness and precision. Not a speck of dust lay on his antique furniture. The carpet was pristine white, the walls pale-washed blue. Sunlight streamed in the mellow bay windows from pulled-back velvet curtains. Cool, understated elegance. "Nice place," he commented.

"You look in here. I'll take the study and bedrooms." She turned back at the door. "I don't want to be here longer than half an hour. Make sure you put everything where it was, or he might call the police on you."

He nodded tensely, scanning the shelves in the living room, pulling books out, replacing them. But though they pulled the place to pieces, opening drawers, looking under beds and sofas, even in the seat chest beneath the bay window, there was nothing. Tessa slumped on the seat she'd just searched. "I was so sure…"

"Does he have a safe here?" Jirrah sounded frustrated.

"Yes. I won't touch it, though. It could be alarmed, and the safe isn't mine. That
is
trespass."

"Looks like we head for the bank."

She frowned, shaking her head. "I'll be surprised if there's anything in it. If…" Her face twisted. "If Dad doesn't know about all this, why take the risk he'd find out?"

"If he doesn't know, it wouldn't make sense."

She stiffened. "Do you always try and condemn everyone without a hearing, or is it only members of my family you hate so much?"

"At least I didn't trump up a charge against them, fill their house and car with fake evidence to put them away!" he flashed.

She turned aside, hating that he was right.

"Tess, it's time you faced the facts," he said, very quiet. "Your father had to be in on Emily's adoption. He was there. The midwife said they
all
told her those lies. If he'd adopt his own granddaughter out, would he stop at having me put inside?"

She could find nothing to say in response to that, either.

He sighed, running a hand through his curls. "I shouldn't have said anything. It's not like I'm an uninvolved bystander in all this, and I'm just making you feel worse. I'm sorry, I—"

"Stop it," she burst out suddenly. "Stop saying that all the time. Don't say sorry. Don't
be
sorry. He never was—none of them were ever sorry! Let's get the damn evidence and find Emily. Clear you name. Have the life you want. Buy your dog, get your driver's license and carpenter's license, use your name, see you family. And while you're at it, find a new wife and start on your half-dozen kids, so you can get the hell out of my life!"

The silence was absolute.

After a few minutes, she passed a hand over her eyes and said wearily, "I didn't mean that."

"Yeah, you did." He walked to the window, looking out over the bright reflections of Sydney Harbour, the ferries and ships sailing beneath the Harbour Bridge. "Let's be honest. You hate everything I'm doing. You hate knowing that you wouldn't stop me if
you could. Your sense of justice won't let you interfere."

Her head fell. Oh, yes, he still knew her, all right.

"You can't forgive me for knowing you well enough to play on that." His fists balled in his pockets. "I respect you for not trying to stop me. But we both know all we have is another day, maybe two." He wouldn't look at her. "If you're angry now, you'll blame me, even hate me, once they're arrested. But for Emily's sake, you have to hide it." Standing in the refracted light from the sun-dappled water, he looked tense, beautiful, so tired, and years older than thirty-one. "Can
you do that?"

"Yes. For Emily's sake, anything." But she knew with absolute certainty she could never hate him, or blame him for his vendetta. Her family took his life from him—and maybe from others. Someone had to stop this mad crusade of theirs to keep their little world of power intact.

She just wished it didn't have to be him, and she didn't have to help him to do it; but Jirrah was right. She wouldn't stop now if she could. No one else knew her father, Duncan and Cameron as she did. All the little things, like—

She gasped, clicking her fingers. "That's it. I know where he's hidden the stuff!" She ran to the muted cream bedroom. "Help me lift this. No, not the whole bed, just the top mattress."

He lifted it up for her, and she groped along the base of the top mattress through the bedclothes. "When he was a kid he'd hide his issues of
Playboy
and dirty pictures here. He had a thing for long legs and big busts and tanned blondes."

"Who didn't?" he replied dryly. "The usual boy's fantasy."

"Yes," she retorted, "but then he graduated to hiding his debts here. He went through a casino phase. You know, poker and stuff. He hid his IOUs in this place, too."

Jirrah grinned. "You seem to know all about his addictions."

"Bet your sister does about you, too. Little sisters are the pits." She grimed, still groping around. "We girls
love
getting dirty details on our brothers so they'll take us places or stop teasing us."

He laughed. "Yeah, Leslie always knew what I got up to. She must have crawled around in my room, too."

She wiggled her brows. "Even if we never use it, oh, it's a powerful feeling, knowing your brother's secrets…" A crackling sound interrupted her. "I knew it!" She tugged at the hollowed-out cavity she'd found right in the center of the top mattress.

A sheaf of papers fluttered around her as she fell backward, landing with a thump on her bottom. "Woo-hoo! Yee-hah. We did it!" she cried, throwing the papers in the air.

"Whoa, Tess. We don't know what you found yet," he laughed. "We could be about to see more of Duncan's big-boobed blondes."

She pulled a face. "Ick." She grabbed a stapled sheaf of papers, and scanned the top line of the front page.

"Jackpot! It's the butt of the fifty-thousand-dollar cheque he gave me." Jirrah lifted up a small rectangle of paper. "And these are the detective's notes about where you went after you left—Tess?" He dropped to his knees beside her. "What is it?"

She still stared at her handful, shaking so hard she couldn't lift her arm to show him the top page. "Emily's birth certificate and the original permission for adoption papers."

He looked at the page.
"Emily Anne Beller. Mother, Theresa Rachel Beller. Father unknown,"
he read, without expression.

She flipped the page to the original permission to adopt. "It
is
my signature," she whispered.

He nodded. "Beller wouldn't have bothered to leave one for me if it was a forgery. I might have picked up the differences."

"They drugged me and talked me into signing this, knowing I wouldn't remember later."

"More likely they said you were signing something else, like hospital release forms," he suggested.

She frowned. "I—remember them mentioning that…" Her eyes filled with slow, wondering horror. "Wanting me to marry Cameron I could understand. A rich man who fitted into their world, who they loved. But Emily … m-my baby … they said they loved me…"

Seeing the unbearable pain threatening to overwhelm her, he took her in his arms, rocking her.

She shook her head, clinging to him. "I feel so alone."

And she was. Because of him, the only woman he'd ever loved was about to lose her entire world.

He'd been so certain he was doing what was right—but what if they didn't find Emily? He'd have his life back—and Tessa's would shatter for the third time in six years. Because she'd met him. Because she'd loved him once.

He couldn't stop the tide now. He owed it to his family, to Emily, to himself, to all the others the Earldons and Beller might cheat of their lives in the future, or had already cheated. It was justice, pure and simple.

But Tess was paying the highest price for that justice.

"Ah, mulgu." He kept rocking her as she lay dry-eyed in his arms. "I'm here, Tess. I won't leave you."

"Yes, you will," she whispered. "No promises, Jirrah." She pulled out of his arms. "We'd better fix the bed and get out of here." She picked up the scattered mess of papers and started tugging at the skewed mattress. "No, I'm fine here," she added as he moved to help her. "Check out what else you can use before we put the rest back. I'll manage this on my own."

And in her calm acceptance of her empty future, she'd never looked more beautiful. Or more alone.

He wanted to reassure her, to take her in his arms and kiss her pain away; but he was the cause of her anguish. He'd started this. He had to see it through to the finish.

He'd be damned if he'd leave her suffering like this; but while they were amid the reminders of Duncan's betrayals, he'd play things her way.

"Let's go," he said tersely, when all was back in order. "We can't do any more here."

"I'll just reset the camera. You wait outside—"