Shadow Lover (12 page)

She didn't want to be having this conversation with a ghost. Even though she knew he was flesh and blood, with no connection to the real Alexander
MacDowell
beyond an eerie resemblance. "Everyone assumed you simply ran away."

"But you didn't believe that. Why, Carolyn? Why did you think I was dead? What did you see?"

She was hypnotized by the sound of his voice. By the soft insistence that was reaching past all her careful defenses. "Nothing," she said.

"Then why were you certain I was dead?"

"Because the real Alex loved his mother. He wouldn't have just disappeared into thin air and never be heard from again. Sally had the best private investigators looking for him—a seventeen-year-old wouldn't have been able to avoid them."

"You'd be surprised what a clever, determined seventeen-year-old can do. So what did you think really happened to me? Did someone cut me into little pieces and bury my body all over the island?"

She hated the faint mockery in his voice. "I think someone shot Alex in the back and threw him into the ocean. His body was probably carried halfway to
France
before the fish made good work of it."

"Gruesome, aren't you?" He was watching her with utter stillness, his face giving nothing away. "Was that a morbid fantasy on your part, or do you have any particular reason to believe that was what happened?"

He knew. Whoever and whatever he was, he knew that Alex
MacDowell
had been murdered that night; she could feel it in her bones. And now he knew she knew too. She realized she'd just put herself in danger, and she could have kicked herself.

"Just wishful thinking," she said lightly.

He smiled then, a faint, humorless smile. "And then I suddenly return and blow your theory out of the water. What a disappointment for you. On many levels."

"Not particularly."

"Did you ever tell Sally you thought I was dead?"

"I never told anyone."

"Why?"

Unbidden, the memory of the dark figure came back to her, the blood on the beach, the icy mist covering her as she crouched behind the rock. "It was just a theory," she said, shrugging. "Obviously a mistaken one. Because here you are, big and strong and healthy."

"Obviously," he said, looking at her, the expression in his suddenly opaque eyes unreadable. And the truth, the possibilities were strung between them like a spider's web, sticky and entrapping. "So where did you put the portrait, Carolyn?"

She didn't say a word, simply walked away from him, into the adjourning back parlor. He followed her,
then
stopped in front of the portrait, staring up at it with an unreadable expression on his face.

It was a marvelous painting. Edward
Wicklander
was the premiere portraitist in the seventies, and he'd done a magnificent job with the gorgeous, sulky features of Alexander
MacDowell
, age thirteen. He could have been a symbol for all disenchanted youth, tasting the first fruits of the forbidden and not certain he liked it. Carolyn stared up into the painted eyes, but this time she didn't marvel at how snide and mocking and lifelike they were. Instead she was riveted by the clever blue gaze that was an absolute twin to the man who stood just behind her.

Somewhere she found her voice. "The resemblance is amazing," she murmured.

He didn't misunderstand her, but he had his own way of playing this game. "Isn't it? He captured me to a tee, didn't he?"

"Do you remember posing for it?" The real Alex had raised holy hell about the hours he was supposed to sit, motionless, while the renowned
Wicklander
worked his magic. It was only the promise of a racing catamaran that had kept him marginally still for even a few minutes at a time.

"Now, now, Carolyn, you know better than that," he chided gently. "You aren't supposed to cross-examine me about the past."

"How very convenient for you," she murmured. "What will you do, tell Sally on me?"

He moved in close, but she held her ground, determined not to flinch. "No," he said. "George was always the tattletale, remember? I can be much
more wicked
. I can simply refuse to answer your questions." He reached out and caught a stray lock of her hair, letting it drift through his fingers. She didn't move. "Or even worse, I can answer them."

Their eyes locked. It was something she'd been avoiding, and she knew she'd been right to do so. There was something unbearably intimate in his cool blue gaze, as if he could see past all her diversions and defenses, deep into the very heart of her where she let absolutely no one in. The small, soft vulnerable part of her that still throbbed and ached and bled. The part she'd tried so hard to stifle and control.

She stared up at him, unable to break the moment, even as she felt the breath catch and strangle in her throat, and she was transported eighteen years back, to a hot summer night in this very house, when Alexander
MacDowell
had looked down at her with those same eyes full of wicked longing and she'd been ready to give him anything he wanted.

With the small exception of her gold charm bracelet. But they weren't the same eyes, no matter how similar they were. And that longing had been the lovesick imagination of early adolescence, and nothing to do with the reality of Sally
MacDowell's
wayward, thieving, randy son.

She jerked away, not caring if he pulled her hair, but he let her go with a faint smile. "Poor Carolyn," he murmured. "I won't torment you any longer. Why don't we go see if there's a way to get you off this island so you don't have to spend another moment in my company?" It was as if the odd, breathless moment hadn't even existed. "If worse comes to worst maybe one of the guest houses will be open."

She couldn't do it. At that moment she couldn't willingly get back in the close confines of his car, breathing the same air he breathed, feeling his body heat envelope her. He had far too powerful an effect on her, and she needed physical distance, a few moments away from him to pull her tattered self-control back around herself. "You go ahead," she said. "I'll wait here."

He looked at her in surprise. "You trust me?"

"Not particularly. I just want a few minutes' peace."

He didn't argue. "I didn't come to disturb your peace, you know."

"Didn't you?"

"A thirty-one-year-old woman who's lived the life you've lived shouldn't be desperate for peace. You need unsettling."

"How do you know? Alexander
MacDowell
hasn't been around for eighteen years."

"I admit I'm curious. I asked."

"Who?"

"Ah, you want me to name my accomplice in crime," he said lightly. "Sorry, Carolyn, but I asked Sally why you were still dancing attendance on the lordly
MacDowells
."

"And what did she say?"

"That you loved her. And that you were afraid of leaving, of living life out in the cruel, cold world."

"Sally doesn't know me as well as she thinks she does," Carolyn said with deceptive calm.

"Sally doesn't know anyone that well, including her own mind."

"Including
her own
son."

"You couldn't resist that, could you?" He was
unoffended
. "My mother is a woman of narrow vision and indomitable will. She knows just enough about the people who surround her to make them do exactly what she wants them to do. Anything beyond that is extraneous and she doesn't bother with it."

"Your filial devotion is inspiring."

"Maybe there was a reason I've been gone for eighteen years."

She wanted to scream at him, but she bit it back. One more minute in the darkened back parlor and she'd start hyperventilating, and she hadn't had a panic attack since she was twenty years old. She wasn't going to let a con man bring her back to that vulnerable state.

"I thought you were going to see if there's a way for me to get off this island," she reminded him with pointed calm.

"True enough. Let me just dump my bag before I go in search of a telephone. That way you can search through it if you get bored."

"I doubt you'd leave anything incriminating within my reach."

"Oh, you never can be too sure. Maybe I like to live life dangerously. Maybe I want you to find out the truth," he taunted her.

"And what is the truth?"

He didn't move any closer to her, didn't say a word. He didn't need to. His presence was powerful, intimidating, even from across the room. He simply smiled.

She searched the bag he dropped inside the front door. His clothes were good quality but well worn. He obviously hadn't invested in a new wardrobe as part of his impersonation scheme. He wore silk boxers, he shaved with a disposable razor, and he had a bottle of aspirin. He also had condoms.

She zipped up the bag, shoving it away from her in distaste. The jeans were American, the t-shirts
French,
the aspirin was actually
paracetamol
from
England
. He was as well traveled as he claimed to be. Or at least his possessions were.

She wandered toward the back of the house, through the dining room and butler's pantry to the large, old-fashioned kitchen.
Constanza
had steadfastly refused to let Sally refurbish it, insisting she liked the old ways. The heavy iron sink still stood separate, the aging refrigerator let out a soft hum. It took Carolyn a moment to realize just what that humming noise signified.

The refrigerator had been turned on and stocked. There was fresh fruit, coffee beans, heavy cream, and orange juice. And a six-pack of Alex's favorite dark beer.

She slammed the door shut and moved to the sink. The water gushed forth obligingly, when it should have been turned off for the winter.

The telephone was dead—at least Alex hadn't lied about that. Though he had a cell phone in his jeep—he could have found out whether there was a way off the island without disappearing.

She moved back into the front parlor, sinking down in one of the linen-covered chairs. The light was strange, and she realized she'd never been on the island in any time other than high summer. She wasn't used to the way the spring light cast long, eerie shadows across the water.

She closed her eyes and she could see him. Alex—the real Alex—young and strong and healthy, a lithe, beautiful creature as irresistible and untamed as a unicorn. How could she have resisted, even having felt the sting of his torments and teasing over the years? She'd watched him that summer, bare-chested and tanned and smooth skinned, wearing only a ragged pair of cut-offs, and she'd dreamed about him.

Her knowledge of the basics of sexuality had been woefully inadequate back then. Alexander
MacDowell
had been the center of her first romantic fantasies, and her first full-fledged sexual fantasies. Dream sex had been idealistic and delicate, a worshipful experience consisting of closed-mouth kisses and disembodied pleasure. She shuddered to think how she would have reacted to the reality of it all. But Alex had disappeared, giving her just a taste of what real sexuality was, leaving her more shattered and vulnerable than ever. He'd had more than his share of older, wiser girls—he didn't have to prey on his own family. If he'd stayed, if he'd lived, he probably wouldn't have touched her again.

Though she hadn't been family, she reminded herself. She had belonged to nothing and no one. Not even Alexander
MacDowell
.

She tried to summon up the remembered golden beauty of the lost boy, but the interloper kept forcing his way into her imagination. Instead of Alex's sexy, youthful pout she could only see the stranger, with his elegant, Cossack eyes and wary beauty.

Maybe he was an actor, hired by a mastermind to bilk Sally of her millions. Or maybe he'd been hired for a kinder motive, to give Sally peace of mind during her final days, weeks, and months. To give her back her beloved, long-lost son so she could die in peace.

Even Carolyn couldn't quibble with a motive like that—she would have done anything to make Sally's passing easier, even if it meant lying, stealing, or putting up with a dangerously seductive con man. But for some reason she couldn't quite believe that altruism was behind the imposter's arrival.

He had to be working with someone close to the family, someone who would be privy to all the private goings-on, the layout of the houses, the nuances of relationships between the three disparate
MacDowell
siblings, the family memories, family secrets. Alex was smart enough, subtle enough, and brass balled enough to try to carry off such a masquerade, but he needed help. It was all well and good in a detective novel or a romance, but in real life posing as someone else should have been just about impossible to carry off.

There was no way he could convince her, even if he'd managed to bamboozle the rest of the
MacDowell
family. Even the usually paranoid
Warren
had accepted him with barely a protest. Obviously the imposter was damned good.

Would she have believed him if she hadn't seen the real Alex die? She liked to think that she wouldn't, that she would have known immediately, instinctively, that this wasn't the bane and delight of her adolescence, come back to haunt her.