Kingsley Baby Trilogy: The Hero's Son\The Brother's Wife\The Long-Lost Heir (56 page)

“I just felt sick. Dizzy. I had to pull over.”

His hand was still in her hair, soothing her. “Do you need to see a doctor?”

“No. I don’t want to see a doctor.”

He paused. “All right. Why don’t I take you back to the house, then?”

“I don’t want to go there, either,” she said. “At least, not right now.”

“Look, I think you’d better tell me what happened.” His tone brooked no argument. Bradlee glanced at him. His expression had deepened, hardened. His hand dropped from her hair.

She shivered. “I think Dr. Scott drugged me,” she said. “David—” Her breath caught in her throat as fear swept over her again. “I think she tried to kill me.”

* * *

“W
HAT
?
W
HAT THE HELL
are you talking about?”

Bradlee drew a ragged breath. “I think she drugged me while I was under. She must have known I’d be driving—”

“Damn it!” he exploded. “You shouldn’t have gone to see her alone.”

“But you said we should keep our distance—”

He swore under his breath. “I know what I said. I also told you I didn’t want you going to see Dr. Scott at all. I was afraid something like this might happen.”

“But I’m all right,” Bradlee protested. “And maybe nothing did happen. Maybe I just got sick.”

“You said she tried to kill you,” David reminded her.

“I know.”

“What happened, Bradlee?”

She put her hands to her pale cheeks and closed her eyes. “When I came out of the trance, I couldn’t remember anything. And I felt sort of…disoriented. Not rested like I did the last time. Dr. Scott said I didn’t remember anything. She implied she didn’t think there was anything for me
to
remember.”

“Go on.”

“When I got out into the hallway, I realized I hadn’t made another appointment. So I went back.” She paused. “I overheard her on the telephone in her office. She said she’d done what she’d been told, but she didn’t like it. And then she said something like, `Convincing Mary to take her away back then was one thing, but this…’”

She trailed off, shivering, and as David stared at her pale, frightened face, he didn’t think he’d ever felt so helpless as he did at that moment. Or so enraged. He wanted nothing more than to drive back to Dr. Scott’s office and confront the woman, make her tell them the truth.

Who paid you to betray a patient? Who paid you to screw up a three-
year-
old child’s life?

Damn her,
he thought.
Damn her to hell.

Right now, however, his main concern was for Bradlee. Her color was coming back and she appeared to be feeling better. But there was still something in her eyes—a kind of dazed fear—that made David want to pull her into his arms and hold her there forever. The thought that her life had been threatened because of him…because she wanted to help him…

My little guardian angel,
he thought with an unexpected tenderness. Only she wasn’t so little anymore. She was a grown woman and he was a man, and he was the one who wanted to do the protecting now.

The attraction he’d felt for Bradlee from the start had never been stronger than at this moment. She lifted her gaze to his, and slowly the fear in her eyes turned to something else. Before he could stop himself, before he could listen to the warning inside his head, David reached out and took her hand, drawing her fingers to his lips.

She sighed deeply, the sound going straight to his soul.

“You don’t know how glad I am to see you,” she whispered.

“Why did you come here?” he asked, glancing around at the shabby neighborhood. The two men who’d been eyeing her car had long since vanished.

Bradlee shrugged. “I don’t know. All I remember is being sick and dizzy and knowing I had to get off the road before I hurt someone. Thank God, I didn’t.”

“Thank God
you
didn’t get hurt,” he murmured. He released her hand and stood. “What do you say we get out of here?”

“As long as you’re driving.”

He raised a dark brow. “Are you kidding? I’ve been wanting to see what this baby could do ever since I first saw her.”

“No fancy stuff,” Bradlee warned. “I’ve had enough stunt driving for one day.” When she tried to stand, her legs were still shaky. David took her arm and helped her around to the passenger side of the car. Then he climbed in and started the engine.

He glanced over and found her staring at him. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. You.”

He cocked his head slightly. “What about me?”

“You look right at home behind that wheel.”

He grinned. “I’ve handled a Porsche or two in my day.”

“I can tell.” She was still staring at him, her eyes glinting with something he couldn’t quite define.

“What?”

She shook her head. “It’s just that… I don’t know. You look very Kingsley-
like, all of a sudden.”

* * *

B
RADLEE THOUGHT FOR A
while they were driving around aimlessly, but then she realized they were in east Memphis, near the airport. “Where are we going?”

David glanced at her. “I’m debating whether or not to take you to a hospital.”

Bradlee sat up in alarm. “I’m feeling better, almost back to normal. What good would it do to go to the hospital now?”

“If Dr. Scott gave you a drug, don’t you think we need to know what it is? And how she administered it?”

“It was probably some sort of sedative. I don’t think the drug itself was meant to hurt me. Besides, we can’t prove she gave me anything. If we go to the hospital or to the police, she might find out about it, and I’d rather she not know we’re on to her.”

“We can’t let her get away with this.”

The darkness in his voice made Bradlee shiver. “I know. But…I don’t want to go back there. I don’t want to have to deal with any of this right now.”

David dragged a hand through his hair. “This should never have happened to you. You should have stayed out of it.”

“But I couldn’t,” Bradlee said. “Don’t you see? I was lied to, too. I was used and manipulated, just like you were. What they did back then affected my life in ways I’m just now beginning to understand. That’s why I’ve never been able to trust anyone. Why I’ve never been able to commit to anyone. Unlike you,” she added, almost under her breath.

“Bradlee—”

“Look, don’t tell me not to get involved. I am involved, okay? And I can take care of myself, so don’t worry about me.”

He spared her a glance at that. “Like you took care of yourself earlier?”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?”

He shook his head helplessly. “You are without a doubt the most stubborn woman I’ve ever known.”

More stubborn than Rachel?
she wanted to ask. But she didn’t want to think about Rachel at all. Didn’t want to know about the woman who would soon be David’s wife.

He pulled into a slot in the short-
term parking lot at the airport and shut off the engine.

“Why are we at the airport?” Bradlee asked.

He hesitated, then said, “It’s like this. There’s a flight leaving for St. Louis at one o’clock. I plan to be on it.”

“Who’s in St. Louis?” she asked in alarm. Rachel?

“Jenny Arpello. Do you remember her?”

Bradlee stared at him for a long moment. “The nanny?”

“She’s agreed to see me—
us
—this afternoon.”

“Us?”

David nodded but he still looked doubtful. “If you’re up to it.”

“How on earth did you find her?” Bradlee asked in amazement. “She left Memphis over thirty years ago.”

He shrugged. “I have my ways. So are you coming with me or not?”

“Just try to keep me away,” Bradlee told him.

“I’ve already tried that,” he said dryly. “It didn’t work.”

Jenny Arpello lived on the outskirts of St. Louis, in a white frame house in serious need of a paint job. She was sitting on the front porch when they arrived and rose to greet them as they got out of the cab and walked up the cracked sidewalk to her house.

She had been a young woman thirty-
two years ago, and lovely from the pictures Bradlee had seen of her. But she hadn’t aged gracefully. She looked thin and haggard, the signs of an unkind life deeply etched into her face. But her blue eyes sparkled with excitement when she saw them.

She embraced them both, first David and then Bradlee. “I can’t believe it,” she said, wiping her eyes with the hem of her cotton apron. “Look at the two of you, together again after all this time. You always were inseparable.”

With an arm around each of them, she ushered them into a living room that was neat but sparse. There were no pictures of children or grandchildren gracing walls and tabletops. No personal mementos to reveal the life Jenny Arpello might have led.

The barren house made Bradlee sad.

Jenny seated them on the sofa next to each other, then bustled off to the kitchen to bring back freshly squeezed lemonade and peanut-
butter cookies still warm from the oven. “Your favorites,” she said, beaming down at them. “I remembered.”

When she’d seated herself across from them, she couldn’t stop looking at David. Her eyes grew moist again. “I thought you were dead,” she said. “To see you here like this…” Overcome with emotion, she dabbed at her eyes again.

David cleared his throat, as if unsure how to proceed. Finally he said, “We’d like to ask you some questions about that night.”

“Of course. I’ll tell you anything I can. I’ve relived it in my mind so many times it still seems like yesterday.”

To get her started, David asked a few specific questions, but then, after a while, she needed no prompting. Stopping to wipe the moisture from her eyes every so often, she told them all she could remember about that night, about Edward and Pamela and Iris coming into the nursery to say good-
night. About finding the hallway door open and assuming Bradlee’s mother had been in to see Bradlee. About remembering to check the balcony doors before she went to bed.

“Are you absolutely certain the doors were locked before you went to bed?” David asked her.

“Absolutely. I remember checking to make sure because I’d had this premonition all day.”

“Premonition?” Bradlee asked.

She nodded hesitantly. “It runs in my family. Sometimes I can sense when something bad is about to happen. I had the strongest feeling all day long that day.”

“Did you tell anyone about it?” David asked.

Jenny’s eyes teared again. “You don’t know how many times I’ve wished I had. Maybe something could have been done to stop that monster, but as it was, I didn’t think anyone would believe me. And I was so very afraid of Iris back then.”

“Why?” David’s voice sharpened.

“Your grandmother was a very powerful woman. The most formidable person I’d ever known. The staff were all terrified of her.”

“What about my father?” David asked. “What do you remember about him?”

Jenny shifted uncomfortably, not able to meet his eyes. “He was very handsome and charming. Very ambitious.”

It was hard to imagine those words describing the Edward Kingsley Bradlee knew now.

“He was also a bit impulsive,” Jenny added. “Not one to think things through too well before he acted.”

“You mean his marriage to Pamela?” David asked.

Jenny’s lips thinned. “That woman should never have been brought into the house. She should never have been allowed around you boys.”

“Why?”

Jenny glanced at David. “She had a cruel streak, that’s why. I always had the feeling she could be abusive if she got half a chance.”

David exchanged a look with Bradlee. “Did she ever hit Andrew or me?”

Jenny’s eyes hardened. “I never actually saw her, but I suspected she’d done something to you the day of the kidnapping. She’d been into the playroom to see Jeremy, and when I came in, you were very upset. Andrew said she’d hit you.”

“Did you confront her?” Bradlee asked, her tone a little more accusatory than she intended.

Jenny didn’t seem to take offense. “I would have,” she said. “I was all set to have it out with her the day after the fund-
raiser, regardless of whether or not I lost my job. But then, Adam was taken and everything became a nightmare after that. I was questioned by the police, and I know for a while, the Kingsleys suspected I had something to do with the kidnapping. Why else did I not hear the intruder that night? I’ve asked myself that same question a thousand times. I knew something was wrong. I
knew
it. Why didn’t I stay up? I only meant to lie down for a little while to rest. I was so keyed up, I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep, but after I drank my warm milk, I must have dozed off. I didn’t hear anything. It was as if I slept the sleep of the dead.”

Bradlee glanced at David. His expression looked grim and forbidding. “Did you always drink warm milk before you went to bed?”

Jenny nodded. “Almost always. I had a hard time sleeping back then. Still do. There was a little kitchenette off the nursery where I used to heat it up.”

“Did anyone know about this particular habit of yours?”

Jenny shrugged. “I never made a secret of it. One of the maids remarked to me once that I should borrow some of Pamela’s sleeping pills. But I would never take any kind of drugs while children were under my care.”

Maybe it was because her own recent experience was still so fresh in her mind, but the talk of drugs made Bradlee uneasy. “Is it possible someone in the house that night put something in your milk?” she asked.

Jenny looked shocked. Her gaze met first Bradlee’s, then David’s before she slowly asked, “Why are you two really here? What’s going on?”

If possible, David’s expression grew even more grim. “We have reason to believe someone in the house that night may have helped Raymond Colter kidnap me.”

Jenny’s eyes rounded with shock. Her right hand went to her heart. “Oh, dear God, are you saying one of the Kingsleys had you kidnapped? Their own flesh and blood?”

“Not necessarily. There were a lot of people at the fund-
raiser that night. Any one of them could have come upstairs, unlocked the balcony doors, and then signaled to Colter in the gardens. They may even have drugged your milk, as Bradlee suggested, to make sure you wouldn’t hear anything.”