Liar's Moon (2 page)

So this was his sister, Jamie thought, chilled and swallowing again. He didn’t want to hear the words she was saying. He just stared at her. Small and slim, so elegant and so pretty—and so passionate now, hurt, as he was, and more. Outraged, stricken, and determined. He didn’t doubt her. He just didn’t want to face it. It had been bad enough to think that their father had died, wounded and alone, the victim of random crime.

It was much more horrifying to believe that someone had coldly and meticulously plotted that crime.

“Jamie?” She spoke softly now, standing tall for her diminutive size, her chin raised. “We have to find out what really happened.”

He didn’t feel that he could talk. “Who—who—”

“I don’t know. The other guys; Leif, Tiger, or Sam. My mother, your mother, or his last wife.”

“Our mothers—”

“Mine is innocent, of course. To me. So is yours—to you. Oh, Jamie, I don’t know. But that’s why I had to see you! We have to know!”

“I didn’t have to know,” he said glumly. “I never suspected anything until you came.”

“Jamie—”

“Okay, okay.” He lifted his hands. “So where do we
start? What do we do? And you left out your grandfather and your stepfather. Neither of them was fond of Dad. And you still didn’t explain why you crawled over the balcony like Spiderwoman. Or Mata Hari.”

She laughed. “I’m sorry, baby brother. The last time I saw you, you were wearing Pampers. I didn’t want to meet you with anyone else around. I must say you’ve grown—but you’re still my brother.”

“But I’m not, Tracy,” a harsh male voice suddenly interrupted.

They both froze; Jamie with surprise, Tracy with— something else.

Jamie was just startled. He hadn’t heard Leif Johnston come into the suite. But then, Leif was like that. He could walk without the sound of a tread, and stand silently, watching any situation, until he decided to talk. Strange, too, because he was a tall man. And once you noted his presence, that presence dominated the room.

Jamie started to smile at Leif, then he noticed Tracy, dead still by the window, pale, still staring at Leif, still— frozen.

He thought to introduce them. He didn’t know if they had ever met or not. He and Leif had never discussed Tracy, and, of course, all he knew about Tracy was what his father had told him.

“Tracy, Leif—” he began, but then he shut up, because they were both staring at each other, and evidently they did know one another, and evidently they didn’t like a single thing they knew about each other. The hostility and tension was so thick in the room that he felt like he was cast in the middle of a brewing storm.

But then Leif moved on into the room, casually sitting on the back of the couch, idly lighting a cigarette that he
pulled from the pocket of his denim western shirt—and still staring at Tracy.

“So, Tracy makes an appearance—at last,” he mused dryly. “And a nice appearance at that. Where’d you buy that frothy piece of near nudity? Paris? Rome?”

Jamie could hear the sizzle as his sister sharply inhaled. Her eyes might have been twin points of flashing blue diamonds.

“None of your business, Mr. Johnston.”

Leif shrugged. “I think that it is. Where have you been that you couldn’t make the funeral? Ah, yes! Prying into the past life of the assassin! We’re after a murderer, now, eh? Brilliant, Tracy. And you’ve got a nice list of suspects. Where do I fit in on that list, Tracy?”

“Right on top,” she replied coolly, having recovered her dignity.

Leif laughed but the sound was harsh. “Me? Right on top? I don’t think so, Tracy. Why in God’s name would I have wanted one of my best friends dead?”

“Best friend? Most bitter enemy, I would say.”

“That was what you wanted, Tracy, wasn’t it? But it didn’t work. It just didn’t work.”

“What in hell is going on here?” Jamie suddenly exploded.

Tracy closed her eyes, briefly, painfully, and shook her head. “Nothing, Jamie. I—uh—I’ll see you later, Jamie. When you’re alone.”

“Tracy, don’t go! You just got here! Tracy, we’ve just—”

“Jamie—it’s very, very late. I just wanted to reach you without any of the media around. We’ll get together in the morning, huh?”

“Uh—yeah, okay. If you have to go.”

“I do. ’Night, Jamie. I’m right next door.”

“And who else is right next door, Tracy?” Leif asked her coolly. “Your mother, your stepfather? Your grandfather
—el dictador?
Maybe you should grab her, Jamie. If they’re around, they’ll whisk her away.”

Tracy stared at him for a moment, smiling coolly, the sizzle of her eyes belying her soft voice and smile.

“If the two o
f you will excuse me, please…”

She turned toward the drapes. Leif was instantly on his feet, clutching her elbow. His smoke-gray eyes were dark and stormy, boring down into her magnificent blue ones. To Jamie, they looked like a movie poster standing there, he so tall and dark, she so small and feminine against him, the sparks flying between them.

“What—” Tracy began, teeth grit, tense as she tried to free herself from his touch.

“You needn’t crawl out the balcony, Tracy. Use the door,” Leif drawled to her softly.

“Thank you!” She wrenched her arm from his touch.

She seemed to glide, to float, from the room. All dignity, all elegance. Jamie marveled again that she was so stunning; after all, it was quite nice to meet a sibling and discover that she was beautiful and lovely, delicate—and somehow tough as nails, too. Proud and determined.

He was still so stunned by all the events of the night that he didn’t even say anything as she left. He just watched her.

But then he noted Leif again. Denim-clad arms crossed over his chest, watching Tracy, too. Smoke eyes dark as thunder. Troubled, brooding, pensive.

Jamie was crazy about Leif. When his own dad hadn’t been around, Leif had been there. Through thick and thin—but then Leif had always been the most responsible of the group. The most level-headed, the most determined, and the most dangerous when he had made up his mind
about something. Of course, Leif had endured the most hard knocks, too. The only American, he’d been shipped off to Nam during the days of the draft. Then he’d fallen in love with and married Celia, and Celia had died. Then he’d been the first one called when Jesse Kuger had died in the park.

Tracy had put Leif in with her group of suspects! But that had to be because she didn’t really know him.

But obviously, they did know one another. Awkwardly, Jamie cleared his throat. “Leif, you and, uh, Tracy have met before, huh?”

“What?” Leif arched one of his jet brows, drawn from an inner reverie by the question.

Jamie cleared his throat again. “You and Tracy have already met, huh? You know one another?”

Leif paused for a second, then chuckled dryly. “Oh, yeah, we know one another all right.”

Jamie sank back down to the plush sofa. “I just met my half sister. After all these years. She slips over my balcony, then disappears. My God. I’ve got so many questions for her.”

“You’ll have the time to ask them all,” Leif said with a little sigh. “She isn’t going to disappear again.”

“How do you know?”

Leif hesitated again, briefly. “Because I think she’s right, Jamie. I think that the man who stabbed your father was a hired assassin. And in this I don’t blame her one bit. We’ve got to find out who it was behind the murder.”

“Oh, God,” Jamie whispered. “First Tracy—and then you! What makes you so sure that it was some kind of a conspiracy?”

Leif answered softly. “It took me a long, long time, Jamie, just to accept the fact that your dad was really
gone. That his life could have been snuffed out like a candle flame—so damned carelessly! Since the killer was already dead, 1 couldn’t shake the man, I couldn’t scream at him—I couldn’t even hate him. I couldn’t stop thinking about what a stupid, senseless tragedy it was. Then I suddenly started wondering if it was really senseless at all. And I hired a private detective to check into it.”

Leif planted a hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “We’ll talk about it in the morning, okay? I’m going to get some sleep.”

Leif disappeared into the left bedroom of the suite. Jamie watched him, then glanced at his watch. Three
a
.
m
.,
and he had practice and a concert the next night. He stood, stretched, and went on into the right bedroom.

He was glad that Leif was with him. Leif wasn’t acting as his manager or anything—nor was he performing with Jamie. He was just along because it was Jamie’s first American tour—and because he was Jamie’s friend. Lending support and experience—and probably keeping a wary eye on the happenings to make sure that Jamie didn’t fall into any of the traps that could wind around the very young who suddenly became the very rich and very famous.

Jamie lay down and tried to sleep. No good.

Two hours later, he was still wide awake. Obviously. He’d just met his mysterious sister, and he’d learned that his father’s murder had been a conspiracy. It seemed that Leif had suspected the same thing for some time and had kept his own counsel. Well, that was like Leif, too. He kept his own counsel a lot. How the hell did you sleep when you had all this running around in your mind?

He frowned against the darkness of his room. Someone was moving around the elegant salon of the suite.

Jamie leapt out of his bed and rushed to the door,
cracking it slightly. Maybe it was Tracy again, coming secretively to try to finish her conversation with him. Obviously, she hadn’t known that Leif was traveling with him. She’d thought to find him alone.

But when he stared out into the darkened salon, he didn’t see Tracy. Again there was movement in the room. It was Leif. Tall and towering in the night, he was a dark lean shadow. Agile, soundless.

He went to the drapes, pulled them back, and disappeared onto the balcony.

A second later, Jamie heard a soft thud, and he knew that Leif had hopped from their balcony to Tracy’s.

They were both crazy, he thought first. Insane. Hopping from balcony to balcony when their suites were on the fortieth floor!

Then he began to chew his lower lip in concern. Leif had just gone after Tracy. Leif and Tracy didn’t seem to be any too crazy about one another. Tracy had even put Leif
on her murder suspect list…

Oh, God! What if it was true? What if Leif thought that Tracy had some kind of proof, and what if Leif was hopping over the balcony to go and kill his sister in the night.

“Oh, God!” Jamie groaned aloud.

He couldn’t believe that. He’d known Leif all his life. Leif could be stern and demanding and blunt and sometimes autocratic; he could also be gentle and understanding when no one else in the world was. Leif could not possibly be a cold-blooded killer.

Okay, that was a fact that Jamie knew.

But then, what was Leif doing crawling over the balcony to accost Tracy in the dead of the night?

CHAPTER TWO

O
nce in the hallway, Tracy dashed for her own suite. Once inside, she leaned against the door, gasped for breath—and longed to kick herself.

What a fool! Trying to return via the balcony! But then, Leif had that kind of effect on her. Oh, God! She coveted her face with her hands, furious with herself. Leif should have had no effect on her—none whatsoever! It had been seven years since she had seen him. Seven long, long years.

She pushed herself away from the door, then, on second thought, turned back and twisted the top dead bolt. She gazed at her hands, and they trembled, and once again she was angry with herself.

Exhaling a long sigh, she walked through the posh, nearly identical salon of her own suite to her nearly identical balcony. The breeze touched her cheeks, cooling, reviving. Far below her, horns tooted and brakes squealed. The night never died here. Little tiny play people seemed to move about despite the hour. There was a very nice sense of normalcy about it all.

Tracy inhaled and exhaled again and leaned against the building, trying to still her shivers. Nothing about her life had ever been normal, but in the last few years she thought that she had achieved a pleasant stage of acceptance—maturity and stability. Just seeing Leif Johnston had torn that all to shreds. If she hadn’t been taken so completely by surprise
…

Idiot! she accused herself with disgust. She’d been so meticulous and careful when delving into the life of her father’s assassin! How could she not have known that Leif Johnston was traveling on this concert tour with her brother!

But she hadn’t. Leif had become a very private person —not even the tabloids ever seemed able to get anything on him. Still, the information should have been somewhere! And it had been common knowledge that he had been close to Jamie Kuger—closer than his own father. It was natural that Jamie
would have turned to Leif…

“Oh, God!” she breathed aloud, and all the hurt came back; all her feelings of shame and humiliation.

She spoke out loud again—maybe it was because the words seemed more assuring that way.

“You weren’t that terrible, Tracy! You were very young, and what they did to you wasn’t in the least bit fair!”

No, of course, it hadn’t been fair in the least. She had been—in the eyes of her grandfather and mother—a most ungodly mistake. Arthur Kingsley was a rich, rich man. Tracy didn’t even know his total worth—it was in the billions. When his daughter had become involved with a long-haired seventeen-year-old pop singer, Arthur had quickly seen that the affair ended. Tracy was bo
rn
under very discreet circumstances in a clinic in Switzerland; a year later her eighteen-year-old mother had married Ted Blare, a young man with the impeccable type of family background that old Arthur could stomach. Yale all the way.

Tracy thought then how she loved Ted; he was a dear,
dear man, far more of a caring parent than either of the two who had biologically bred her!

She hadn’t known anything about her real father, though, until she was eight years old. She was playing on her most beloved object—a grand piano—that Ted had bought especially for her despite her mother’s protests. Protests she hadn’t understood at the time but had come to comprehend fully on that fateful day.

She’d been supposed to pick up her toys, but had become entranced with a melody on the piano. She hadn’t heard her mother yelling at her at all. Then suddenly beautiful Audrey had been standing before her like the wrath of God, screaming and swearing and telling her that she was just like her father—all she cared about was the bloody-awful music.

Ted explained the truth to her—more or less—saying that her real father had loved music and that he, Ted, had adopted her because she was the loveliest little girl that he had ever seen. He did it all so gently that she loved him all the more. But the seeds of curiosity had been sown in her young soul, and she could never forget that in her fury her mother had called her a “little bastard.”

Jesse Kuger and his group went on to become very famous and immensely rich—and idolized by millions of women across the globe. Audrey was very bitter about it, and it wasn’t until Tracy was eight that she discovered that one of her absolute idols was her own father. It was right after a group of her school friends had been over and they’d all been screaming with delight over the newest album by the Limelights. Tracy mentioned very casually that she had dreamt of Jesse Kuger falling madly in love with her and marrying her in a dream. Audrey had turned pale, and then she’d been furious all over again. She’d told Tracy that she was Jesse Kuger’s daughter,
and that if she had any sense, she’d dislike the man intensely.

There was no way that Audrey would ever be rational about the man, so Tracy’s stepfather was the one to bring her to meet her natural father.

He was wonderful to her; he was all a child could dream of. At his massive estate in Connecticut she met his wife and her baby brother, and she received all kinds of presents. Except that she wasn’t really wanted, of course.

She wanted to daydream that her famous and unique father could be a prince to marry her mother. But she adored her stepfather! And then, of course, there was Carol, Jamie’s mother.

Jesse’s marriage to Carol had only lasted ten more years, but by the time they divorced, Tracy had been seventeen and in
total rebellion. Jesse had written to her steadily over the years—but never again had he seen her. He was just so busy
…

She loved him; she hated him. Just as she resented and adored her mother. There had really been nothing for her to do but create her own separate life and seek ou
t her father again herself…

Tracy started to shiver in the cool of the night; she turned away and reentered the suite. There was a bottle of champagne cooling in her salon, too, and though she felt as if she’d like something stronger, she decided champagne would be better than nothing. She uncorked the bottle, then sat back on the sofa with a little sigh, sipped the bubbling brew, and continued remembering.

She managed to get close enough to see him at a party to which she had obtained an invitation through her own merits—she had sold a ballad to a country-and-weste
rn
singer and the song had risen high on the charts. In gratitude, the singer had urged her to come to a massive bash she was having in Nashville. “Everyone” who was “anyone” was supposed to have been there.

The champagne went down badly suddenly; Tracy felt a hot flush rise to her cheeks, and her palms went instantly damp.

She was tiny, but she’d always looked so mature. At seventeen she had passed for twenty-five. She wrote her songs under a pen name. And after everything, she’d had this vivid dream that her father would see her, cry joyously, and welcome her with absolute adoration.

The dream had been dashed when Jesse Kuger hadn’t recognized her and hadn’t given her a second glance. Crushed, still shy of her eighteenth birthday, she had reacted horribly. She’d wanted to hurt Jesse as badly as he had hurt her. And being so young and inexperienced, she hadn’t cared how she set about to do it.

In the end, she’d been the one to pay because Leif Johnston had been there. Leif was slightly aloof, but charming—a center of attention. Striking in his manner, striking with his brooding dark eyes.

Leif—untouchable until now, so the gossip went. Since he’d returned from the service he’d been very private and very discreet, shunning the press—and living quietly with a beautiful blond classical pianist he had met in Paris. According to the gossip columnists, he and Celia had suddenly parted, and no one knew why. They only knew that h
e might be available again…

Tracy hadn’t been bowled over by him at first—she’d been upset and furious and determined to get even with her father. When Leif had started to flirt with her, she’d been more furious still. So stupidly determined to get even! She hadn’t known where the idea had begun, or if it had ever really been a solid idea. She’d never seduced
anyone in her life. She’d coldly set out to seduce Leif Johnston just to be able to tell her father that she was his best friend’s latest conquest.

“I will not think about it!” Tracy whispered aloud.

But it was as if a dam had broken, and she had no choice.

She couldn’t hate Leif for what she had done herself; she’d lied about her age, and her first taste of martinis had certainly given her boldness.

He’d been a wonderful lover and he’d been stunned by her lack of experience. Quiet, pensive—and then irritated. But even then she’d played it well. Perhaps it hadn’t been play—she’d been in awe, terrified of intimacy. Then she’d made her fatal mistake—she’d started to fall in love with him. Her game didn’t mean anything anymore.

She’d spent a month with him. Secretly, they’d traveled to Connecticut, and in that time they’d shut out the world. There’d been no plan in Tracy’s mind anymore; she was simply in love. She didn’t want to get even with her father; she just wanted Leif. Someday she knew that she would have to tell him who she really was—she knew that. But she couldn’t break the spell. Not then. She let herself believe that the right time would come. And she lived in the enchantment. Waking up beside him, sipping morning coffee on the terrace that overlooked the rose garden and the pool, curling beside him and watching movies late at night, clad in velour robes th
at could be so easily shed…

Enchantment.

Then her mother had finally reached her father, and, with Arthur Kingsley in tow, they had burst in upon a most intimate moment. Tracy had been furious and indignant, but not half so much so as those around her! Her
father had accused Leif of horrible things—and Leif had been the most furious of all, glaring at Tracy with those smoke-and-fire eyes, aware that he had been duped in Tracy’s plot against her father. There was no way to tell him that it had only begun that way. She didn’t have a chance.

Oh, God! It had been horrible! Tracy could still feel sick, recalling that night. Her father—Leif—

They’d come to blows. Jesse had been wild, thundering against Leif. And Leif had taken it for a while, trying to tell Jesse that he hadn’t known, that he hadn’t had the faintest idea—that Tracy had gone by her pen name and told him that she was twenty-three.

In frustration, Leif had finally decked Jesse. And her grandfather had come up from behind and decked Leif with his old baseball bat, and Leif had gone out like a light.

Well, she’d meant to hurt her father. And she had.

He and Leif didn’t speak for a year after the incident. And protesting all the way, she’d been hauled back to grandfather’s estate in Switzerland, her nightmare really just beginning. She’d expected to pay for the incident— never as seriously and painfully as she did in that cold retreat where she felt she had lost everything.

Automatically, she sipped more champagne. Maybe it had all done something—though that price she had paid had been so high. She’d seen her father right after Zurich, and afterwards they had been close, seeing each other somewhere at least every six months.

Until he had died.

Tears welled hot behind her eyes; she swallowed and did not shed them. He’d been dead almost a year. It still hurt. Tracy knew all his faults so clearly! She had borne the brunt of many of them. But she’d still loved him and
now she had to find the truth. At first she’d been stunned, then so terribly hurt—then furious because he had been such a young man—barely forty-two—and because he’d had so much more to give the world. He’d been so full of life
…

Her father’s murderer had been shot down before he’d ever left the park. For Tracy that hadn’t been enough. She’d dug into the man’s past with the help of a private investigator. And when she’d found out about the money, she’d realized with horror that one of Jesse’s love/hate relationships had been dangerous enough to bring about his death.

“Which one had him killed?” she whispered aloud.

“Me—remember.
”

Naturally, she screamed. Luckily, she was so stunned that the sound was nothing more than a pathetic squeal.

Leif was in the salon and the draperies were drifting softly behind him.

“How dare you?” she whispered, embarrassed that he had caught her so off guard, annoyed that all his emotions were neatly hidden behind the smoke-gray shield of his eyes.

He shrugged, moving easily into the room, plopping down on the sofa as if he intended to stay. Relaxed, long, jeans-clad legs stretched out on the teak coffee table, fingers laced behind his dark head as he settled into the plush upholstery. He shouldn’t fit there, she thought; he was in worn Wranglers and a blue denim work shirt, and the room was far more conducive to a man in a tux.

But Leif fit. Here, in a park, on a horse, in costume, out of costume, Leif simply fit. He could be comfortable in any surrounding, with any group. He liked to be comfortable; he liked casual clothing. He looked wonderful in three-piece suits and tuxes, too. He would be forty in
May, she knew; he could have passed for thirty. He was lean and trim—and not a speck of gray yet to dust his dark hair. Only his eyes and his manner reflected his maturity. His smoke-and-steel gaze gave off a certain hard-edged confidence, a certain weariness; a look that somehow warned he was not a man with whom to trifle.

“What are you doing here? Sneaking in through the balcony,” she muttered.