Kingsley Baby Trilogy: The Hero's Son\The Brother's Wife\The Long-Lost Heir (7 page)

Hope looked up at him now, the coyness in her eyes vanishing, replaced once again by a wistfulness that left Brant wondering about her marriage. “You really don't care anymore, do you?” she said softly. “You really are over her.”

“It's been a long time, Hope. We've all moved on with our lives. You married Andrew Kingsley, and Kristin married Austin. Maybe that's the way it was meant to be.”

“But you never married,” Hope said sadly.

He shrugged again. “No. And neither did Jake.”

“Don't you ever wonder—” She broke off abruptly, biting her lip.

“What?”

She drew a long breath. “Sometimes it's hard not to think about the old neighborhood, the way we were back then. You and Kristin, me and Jake.”

“And don't forget Austin,” Brant said dryly. “Always trailing around after us like a stray pup. Always wanting to be part of the gang. I guess he finally got his wish. He got the girl, and some say he's a shoo-in for the United States Congress.”

Hope said nothing, but a tiny frown formed between her brows. Brant followed her gaze. She was staring at a couple climbing the staircase. The pair's backs were
to the dance floor, but Brant was pretty sure the man was Andrew Kingsley.

He didn't recognize the woman, but she was a knockout, whoever she was. The simple black gown she wore was subtly seductive, clinging to her curves in a way that made Brant's gaze linger admiringly. Her long, dark hair hung down her bare back like curls of pure silk. She walked with an assurance and grace that made Brant think she must have been born in a place like this.

He watched as she and Andrew Kingsley disappeared around the deep curve in the stairway, then reappeared on the gallery above. With a sharp intake of breath, he saw her face and realized who she was.

Hope glanced at him curiously. “Do you know her?”

His reaction had been anything but subtle. He shrugged casually, but by the look in Hope's violet gaze, he didn't think he could fool her.

“Her name's Valerie Snow. She's a reporter.”

Hope's brows lifted in shock. “The one who wrote about the kidnapping? What's she doing here?”

“I have no idea,” Brant said, annoyed that her presence had thrown him for such a loop. “I assume she's covering my cousin's campaign.”

“I don't think so.” Hope looked pensive. “I think she's here because of the kidnapping.”

“Maybe,” Brant said noncommittally. “Is that your husband she's with?”

Hope nodded, her expression almost painfully empty. “Yes. Leave it to Andrew to find the most attractive woman in the room.”

Brant had heard the rumors of Andrew Kingsley's womanizing, but he hadn't given them much credence.
Like his father before him, Andrew's every move was fodder for the press, and Brant figured you could believe maybe half of what was printed. He looked at Hope's face now and thought that perhaps the reports hadn't been exaggerated after all.

“I don't know about that.” He swept her with an openly admiring gaze.

Hope smiled. “It's good to see you, Brant. I've missed you. I've missed…you all.”

“You don't have to be such a stranger, you know. You still have a lot of friends in the department.”

She smiled again and laid her hand on his arm. “Thanks. Will you excuse me now? Iris has just come down. She wasn't feeling well earlier. I really should go check on her.”

Brant watched Hope as she made her way toward the entourage that had just entered the ballroom. Iris Kingsley was flanked on one side by her son, Edward, a somber-looking man in his sixties, and on the other by her daughter-in-law, Pamela, who even at her age was still a head-turner in a low-cut scarlet gown.

The reed-thin man with arrow-straight posture standing just behind Pamela would be Jeremy Willows, her son and Edward's stepson, Brant surmised.

Even though the Kingsley kidnapping had affected his life in ways that were still hard to understand, Brant had never given the Kingsleys much thought, had never paid the publicity surrounding them much attention until Valerie Snow had come to town and started asking questions, started writing articles and getting herself into more trouble than she could handle.

Suddenly Brant had become interested in not only the kidnapping, but in the Kingsley family as well, and
he'd started reading everything he could get his hands on about them.

He knew, for instance, that Pamela was Edward's second wife, and that he had married her just weeks after his first wife, his twin sons' mother, had died of cancer. He knew that Jeremy Willows had grown up to be an attorney, and that Andrew Kingsley had a penchant for beautiful women and fast cars—evidently a passion that had not dwindled with marriage.

Brant tried not to think about Valerie being upstairs with Andrew, alone perhaps, in one of the bedrooms. He tried not to think of the way she had looked in that black dress, the way the clinging fabric would slip effortlessly over her curves, or the way a man's hands—Andrew Kingsley's hands—would glide over those same curves.

He tried not to think of Valerie at all. She'd brought him nothing but trouble with her innuendos and accusations about his father and his uncle and Hugh Rawlins. He tried not to think about the fact that her life had been threatened twice, and that the only one standing between her and the person out to destroy her was Brant himself.

With an effort, he tore his mind away from Valerie and concentrated on Iris Kingsley, the matriarch of the Kingsley clan. Brant had never seen her in person before. She had to be eighty-five if she was a day, and she looked every one of her years. She was dressed in an elaborate white gown that matched the color of her hair. Diamonds glittered at her wrinkled throat and around both frail wrists, and Brant thought that the only thing missing was a tiara.

The Kingsleys had always enjoyed near-royalty
status, and it occurred to him again that the only reason someone like him had been invited into their domain was because of a tragedy thirty-one years ago that had intertwined their two families.

And as if to punctuate that very point, Brant turned to see his mother with his uncle. The two of them were standing very close, heads together, whispering as if they were conspirators.

As his mother glanced up and caught Brant's eye, he thought he saw a look of guilt pass fleetingly across her careworn features.

I
T OCCURRED TO
Valerie, as she walked along the second-floor corridors with Andrew Kingsley, that he might have had an ulterior motive for offering to show her the nursery. All the rumors she'd heard about him came rushing back to her, and she couldn't help wondering if his playboy image was well-deserved.

He's married,
she tried to reassure herself.
He has a beautiful wife.

A wife who was downstairs dancing with Brant.

Valerie didn't want to think about that. Her reaction to seeing him with another woman in his arms was too disconcerting, and she needed all her wits about her tonight. The opportunity to be inside the Kingsley mansion, to talk with one of the Kingsleys might never present itself again. Valerie knew she had to take every advantage of the situation.

Besides, she also needed to concentrate on where they were going, and where they had been. The maze of hallways and corridors they'd followed had completely broken down Valerie's sense of direction, and she was very much afraid she would never be able to find her way back to the ballroom alone.

The wing they were in now was on the other side of the house and seemed deserted. She and Andrew Kingsley were completely alone. There was no one about
to see them, and no one would be able to hear anything this far away from the main part of the house.

Not even a scream, Valerie thought with a shiver, but she wasn't thinking of herself. She was thinking of that night long ago and little Adam Kingsley's cries for help.

Andrew took her arm and Valerie jumped.

“This way,” he said grimly. His expression had darkened since they'd left the ballroom downstairs, and Valerie wondered what he was thinking, what he might be remembering about that night.

He stopped before a set of double oak doors with ornate brass handles.

“The nursery,” he said, and gazed at the doors so intently Valerie began to wish she hadn't come up here. Andrew Kingsley was a stranger, after all, and by his own words, considered her the enemy.

But why? Why would the Kingsleys consider her a foe when all she wanted to do was get at the truth?

“No one was allowed inside this room after that night,” Andrew said softly, still gazing at the door. “Grandmother saw to that. It was shut off from us children. We were moved to another wing of the house. But Adam's bed is still inside, along with all his toys.”

Waiting,
Valerie thought,
for the little boy's return.

A homecoming that was never to be.

Andrew unlocked the double doors and the two of them stepped inside.

Although she had immersed herself in the kidnapping for weeks now, Valerie had never felt closer to the truth than she did at that moment. This room held the secrets she so desperately wanted to uncover. The kidnapper had been in here. Somehow his identity
must still be imprinted on the walls, on the drapery, on Adam Kingsley's little bed. If Valerie concentrated hard enough, surely his image would appear.

“There were three of us in here that night,” Andrew said, and walked over to stand beside the lone bed. “All the beds were lined up against this wall.” He motioned with his right hand, indicating where each of the tiny beds had been placed. “I was here. Adam was next to me on this side, and on the other side, a little girl named Bradlee. Bradlee Fitzgerald. Her parents were old friends of the family. They were at my father's fund-raiser downstairs.”

“Go on,” Valerie prompted softly, afraid the sound of her voice might somehow break the spell.

“We were restless, the nanny said later. She couldn't get us to settle down. We knew we were missing something, and so we didn't want to go to sleep. It was a warm night, and the French doors were open, though she claimed later she'd closed and locked them before turning in.”

The twins had been three years old then. Andrew's memory of that night was extraordinary. Or was he only recounting what he had been told? Sometimes that happened. Sometimes memories turned out not to be memories at all.

Valerie wondered if that was the case with Andrew, but if so, he'd heard the story so many times he sounded completely convincing. He held her enthralled as he spoke, and she had no trouble at all visualizing the scene in her own mind.

She could picture the nursery perfectly as it must have been that night.

Andrew hesitated. “Adam fell asleep first. He was
tired. Pamela had spanked him that morning for misbehaving at the breakfast table, and he'd fretted about it all day. That's how Adam was. He took everything to heart. He was a very serious little boy.”

“You remember him that well?” Valerie asked, trying not to sound intrusive.

He shrugged. “He was my identical twin. I remember everything about him. When he was taken, a part of me was taken, too.”

“You still miss him, don't you?”

He lifted his head and stared at her. “No one can understand what it's been like for me all these years. Maybe that's why I do the things I do. The fast cars. The women. The danger. Maybe I'm trying to live life for both of us.”

“I think I do understand,” Valerie said. “I know what it's like to have your life altered forever at a very young age. I know what it's like to always wonder what might have been.”

“He would have been successful, you know. He got the brains, I got the charm.” Andrew grinned suddenly, disarmingly, and added, “And the looks.”

“You were identical, weren't you?”

He laughed out loud, relieved, it seemed, to have the moment lightened. “Touché.” He walked over to the window and stared out. “I didn't believe them when they told me he was dead. I didn't believe he was never coming back. How could I still be alive and Adam dead?”

Valerie said nothing, but watched him turn from the window and walk slowly toward her. He reached inside his shirt collar and withdrew a gold medallion that dangled from a chain. He flipped the medallion to
show her that the other side was smooth—like a one-sided coin.

“Adam wore the other side of the coin,” he said. “My grandmother gave them to us for our third birthday. We never took them off.”

Again Valerie remained silent, sensing something important was about to be revealed.

“After the trial, when Adam's personal effects were returned to us, the medallion was missing.”

“Maybe it got lost,” Valerie said. “Maybe the chain broke somehow…”

Andrew shook his head. “He was found wearing the same pajamas he'd had on that night. His blanket was in the grave with him, along with a stuffed animal, a little dog, that he always slept with. A signet ring that our mother had given to him was still on his finger. Everything was exactly as it was the night he was taken.”

“What are you trying to say?” Valerie asked, not sure she was following his logic.

“I'm saying the medallion was deliberately removed. Maybe the kidnapper planned to send it to us, as proof he had Adam. I don't know. But when Cletus Brown's house was searched, the medallion never turned up.”

Valerie's heart began to beat faster. “Are you saying you believe Cletus Brown is innocent?”

Andrew turned to her, his blue eyes deep and dark, so intense they took Valerie's breath away. “I don't know. But for some reason, that medallion has haunted me all these years. I've always thought if I could find it, I'd know once and for all what really happened to Adam. I'd have that one final connection to my brother.”

* * *

W
ITH ONE EYE ON
the stairs, Brant listened as his uncle hastily explained how Judd hadn't felt up to coming
tonight, and so Raymond had talked Dorothy—Brant's mother—into accompanying him to Austin's fundraiser.

“I didn't want to come,” Brant's mother said nervously. “Not without your father. But Raymond said Austin was counting on the entire family being here for moral support, and I didn't want to let him down. Mrs. Thurman, next door, agreed to look in on your father, and so here I am.” Her eyes sparkled as she gazed around the glittering ballroom. “I've never been anyplace like this before, except maybe for the policemen's ball. And even the Peabody isn't this grand,” she said, referring to the hotel where the policemen's ball was always held.

Brant had never heard his mother chatter on so, let alone seen her so excited. Her face was flushed, her eyes sparkled, and she looked at least ten years younger.

His father's illness had taken a toll on her, but tonight Dorothy Colter seemed to have put all that behind her. Brant thought again about that guilty expression on her face, and wondered just what the hell she and Raymond had been talking about earlier.

“You belong in a place like this, Dot,” Raymond said fondly. Then, catching himself, he added, “You and Judd both. I wish he could be here tonight. He and Austin have always been close.”

Closer than he ever was to me,
Brant thought, though, for the life of him, he could never understand why. Austin had never been a particularly likable or admirable person, even as a child, but he'd always been able to wrap both Raymond and Judd around his little finger.

A born politician,
Brant reckoned, spotting his cousin
across the room, pumping hands, working the crowd for all he was worth.

Kristin was at his side, looking radiant and angelic in her gown of pure white, her blond hair piled high atop her head, accentuating her delicate features. She, too, had the crowd eating out of her hand—the successful businesswoman, the polished campaigner, the adoring wife. Perfect in every way except for one fatal flaw.

She could be ruthless as hell.

Brant remembered the night he'd told her of his plans to enter the police academy. He'd just passed the bar and had offers from several law firms he was considering.

Brant had expected resistance from Kristin, had prepared himself for her disappointment, but the temper tantrum she'd thrown had taken him completely by surprise. She'd turned on him, scratching and clawing at his face like a wildcat. If she'd had a gun, Brant had no doubt she would have shot him, so great was her anger. How dared he destroy all her plans?

Brant hadn't thought about that night in years. He'd gotten over Kristin a long time ago, but every once in a while, when he saw her at his cousin's side, her soft, sweet smile lighting up her heart-shaped face, he couldn't help wondering about the woman hidden inside, the woman he'd glimpsed the night she'd broken their engagement.

A woman who had seemed capable of almost anything.

He turned away to find his mother watching him, a sympathetic look in her eyes.

She thinks I'm still in love with Kristin,
Brant realized.
They all do. The whole family. But they don't know
her like I do. They don't know what a selfish, vindictive woman she really is.

His mother touched his arm. “I'm going over to talk to Austin. Would you like to come with me?”

“No, thanks,” Brant said dryly, although he knew his mother would misconstrue his meaning.

After she'd disappeared in the crowd, Raymond's hand fell on Brant's shoulder. “You don't have to worry about her, you know.”

Brant looked at his uncle in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“I'm talking about Judd. Your father suffered a stroke, Brant. He's never going to be the man he was.”

“He's getting better all the time,” Brant insisted, automatically coming to the defense of a man who'd never shown him the slightest bit of loyalty, other than to remind him from time to time that Brant was a Colter, and Colters always stuck together.

“Let's face reality,” Raymond said. “He's my brother, and it hurts me to admit it, but Judd isn't going to be around much longer. You and I both know that. But I want you to know that when the time comes, your mother will be well taken care of. I'll see to that.”

“She isn't your responsibility,” Brant said, feeling slightly offended but not understanding why.

“I've done well in my life,” Raymond continued, as if he hadn't heard Brant's comment. “I've been very fortunate. Sometimes I think the best thing that ever happened to me was taking that bullet in the leg that forced me to leave the department. I never was much of a cop, at least not the way Judd was. Never could measure up to him.” A faint bitterness crept into his words, but he shrugged it away. “Hell, we're all cut out
for different things in life, I guess. Me? I'm a damned good businessman and a helluva security expert. I've made a good living for myself. Put away a nice little nest egg, more than I'll ever need. I've always thought the world of your mother, Brant. You know that.”

Brant's mouth tightened as he listened to his uncle. “Are you asking for her hand?”

Raymond looked shocked. Anger flashed in his eyes, and something that resembled guilt. Brant thought about the way his mother had looked earlier, when she'd found Brant watching them.

Raymond's hand dropped from Brant's shoulder. “That was not called for, son.”

I'm not your son,
was Brant's first thought. Then he smiled tightly. “You're right. I apologize. But I'm a little uncomfortable with this conversation. I don't know exactly where you're going with it.”

“Maybe this isn't the best time to talk,” Raymond muttered. He gazed across the room and nodded slightly, as if he were answering someone's signal.

He excused himself suddenly and disappeared among the throng just as Brant saw Valerie and Andrew Kingsley walk down the broad staircase. Both of their faces were carefully devoid of expression.

* * *

“A
LONE AT LAST
,” Brant said, and took Valerie's arm to sweep her onto the dance floor.

Valerie looked up, startled by Brant's sudden appearance, and by the way her heart tripped inside her at his nearness. “We're hardly alone,” she said lightly. “There must be two hundred people here.”