The Heiress (30 page)

It was a hurt that never went away.

And what Tom had done, nobly intentioned as it was, had still been wrong. As long as the secrets continued, Daisy would feel rejected, that she wasn’t good enough. But how, Jack wondered, as Daisy parked the SUV in the driveway at his house, could he possibly convince Tom Deveraux of that? Tom was his boss. And not likely to take his advice on any matter this sensitive, even if Jack was now Daisy’s husband.

“I’ll get the mail,” Jack said as Daisy headed toward the house.

He walked back out to the mailbox, next to the street, while Daisy unlocked the door. She let herself in as he was closing the metal front of the box. He was only halfway up the walk when he heard her scream. And then scream again, even louder. Heart racing, Jack took off at a run, closing the distance in a matter of moments, and then he was inside the darkened foyer. “Daisy!”

She came out of the inky shadows at him, thrusting herself into his arms. “What happened?” he demanded, able to see the sliding glass door to the deck standing
open, moonlight streaming into the rear of the house, partially illuminating the family room.

“There were two burglars here with flashlights. They were dressed in black, and they had watch caps pulled over their heads.”

“Where?”

“I saw them slip out the back just as I came in.”

Jack tried to put her aside, to go after them, but Daisy merely held on all the tighter, trembling so badly she could hardly stand. As much as Jack wanted to continue holding her, he had to make sure they were safe. Right now, he wasn’t sure they were alone. He pushed Daisy into the living room and back into a corner of the darkened room. “Stay here,” he ordered gruffly. “Don’t move until I tell you.” He let her go and headed back into the foyer and the hall that ran the length of the house.

At the opposite end of the first floor, the sliding glass doors to the deck still stood open. Jack could feel the breeze off the ocean and smell the tang of the salt air. There was broken glass on the floor from the multipaned window next to the doors, and that window was open, too. So this was how they had gotten in, he thought as he quickly made a tour of the rest of the house, hitting light switches as he went. There was no one there, nothing of value missing that Jack could see, but the place had been thoroughly ransacked, he noted dispiritedly. Every drawer opened and overturned, linens torn off the bed, the mattress askew.

He headed back to Daisy. The living-room lights were now on and she was, not surprisingly, not where he had left her. Instead, she was across the hall in the study. Staring grim-faced at the files strewn over the floor. Seeing what she was looking at, Jack let out a low oath. He had never wanted her to find any of this.

“H
OW LONG HAVE
you been keeping files on me?” Daisy asked in an accusing tone.

Jack knelt down to pick up some of the clippings spread out over the floor. Photos of Daisy at her cotillion, graduating from prep school, initial police reports written up about a vandalism perpetrated by her and some others students, until her involvement had been cleared up behind the scenes by former policeman turned private investigator Harlan Decker.

“And why do you have correspondence with the deans of the colleges where I was kicked out or flunked out?” Daisy demanded. “Why were these huge donations made?” She stood on shaking legs and advanced toward him. “Was this all your idea?”

Feeling guiltier than he knew he should, Jack began cleaning up the mess. Figuring he owed her an explanation, he admitted gruffly, “Tom’s.”

“Why?”

So much emotion in such a single word. Jack shrugged as he formed the loose papers into one big stack, aware the last thing he wanted to do right now was explain his actions. He paused to look Daisy in the eye. “Tom never said why. He just asked me to keep a discreet watch over you. If there was any sort of mention in the newspaper, he wanted me to clip it out.”

Daisy stiffened, the expression on her face as annoyed as it was wary. “Why are the files here instead of at Deveraux-Heyward Shipping?”

Jack grimaced. “He keeps a firewall between the office and his personal life. He didn’t want anything on you kept at Deveraux-Heyward Shipping. If I happened to see something in the newspaper while I was there, I made sure it came to his attention in some innocuous way, then brought it home and filed it here. If you got into a scrape, or in some way harmed your permanent record, I was to see what could be done to help.”

“Hence the letters to the colleges,” Daisy guessed, still struggling to put it all together.

Jack lifted the stack onto the desk. And figuring the hell with it—he could clean up later, Daisy’s feelings were what was important now—he stepped toward her. “Tom’s a generous man and quite the philanthropist in his own right.” He paused, struggling to word what he had done in a way that wouldn’t sound quite so much like a payoff. “I wrote letters on his behalf, pointing out that once you had left an institution of higher learning, there was no point in furthering the matter, when good could instead be done for the university, as reparation for any problems that had been caused.”

Daisy’s eyes turned as stormy as the ocean on a gloomy winter’s day. “So in other words, you bribed them on my behalf, without my ever knowing about it?” Daisy summarized bitterly, glancing past Jack, toward the door.

Jack had the feeling if Daisy left, it wouldn’t just be the room, and it wouldn’t just be for that night. He moved subtly to block the exit. “Tom wanted you to be able to start fresh somewhere else. He knew you were having a hard time, and that you didn’t have a lot
of support from Richard and Charlotte.” And for that, although they had never come right out and discussed it, Tom’s and Jack’s hearts had both gone out to Daisy.

Daisy studied Jack through narrowed eyes. “What else do you do for Tom on the sly?”

“That’s it,” Jack said evenly.

She propped a hand on her hip. “Just watch over me.”

She didn’t sound as if she believed him. Jack approached her, hands outstretched. “He wanted you to have a sort of guardian angel.” At the disbelief in Daisy’s eyes, Jack continued pragmatically, “It didn’t begin that way. He didn’t phrase it that way or think of it that way at first, but over the years that’s how it evolved.”

“And you were a willing participant.”

Jack thought of the hours and days and nights he had spent worrying over, watching her. “Yes,” he said simply.

“Why?”

Jack shrugged. That, he thought, was a lot harder to explain. “At first I was thrilled to be asked to do something so confidential for a man like Tom, to know he trusted me and had faith in me to that degree.”

Daisy’s blond eyebrow arched. “And then…?”

I became fascinated with you. I fell in love with you.
But knowing how cheesy and completely unrealistic that would sound, Jack merely said instead, “I enjoyed being able to help someone, because I’d been in the same situation myself.”

“Except you got something in return, Jack,” Daisy pointed out sardonically. “You had your boss’s undying gratitude.”

“Okay, so there was a payoff for me, too,” Jack
conceded, although he hadn’t thought of it that way at the time, and he still didn’t.

“And you’re not ashamed?” Color flooding her cheeks, she studied him openly.

“I had a job to do,” Jack retorted evenly. “I did it.”

Daisy nodded her understanding, looking less than pleased. “For exactly how long?”

“About ten years.” Jack admitted reluctantly. “Right after I graduated from law school and took a permanent job with Deveraux Shipping Company. You were about thirteen at the time and just starting to get into real trouble.” And she had fascinated him, albeit on a completely different level, even then.

“How did he explain it to you?” Daisy asked curiously.

Jack watched her begin to pace. “That was just it—he didn’t. It seemed like some sort of test.”

“Which you passed with flying colors,” she observed.

Heart in his throat, Jack watched Daisy sift through the stack on his desk. He felt like a defendant facing an unfavorable jury. “Look, as an attorney my job is to operate within the law but see to my clients’ wishes. I regarded Tom as my client as well as my boss.”

Contempt colored her low voice. “And you looked up to him.”

Daisy spoke as if Jack’s feelings of gratitude and respect toward his mentor were foolish and ill-placed. Jack struggled against the impatience rising in him. He had explained to Daisy how much he owed Tom Deveraux and always would. He’d thought, at the time anyway, that she understood how much Tom’s attention and guidance had meant to him. Doing his best to contain his mounting frustration, he said, “I knew, what
ever the reason, that Tom was deeply concerned about you, that he wanted to be able to watch over you directly but couldn’t. So I did it for him.” And for that, Jack had no regret.

Daisy had needed someone.

That guardian angel had turned out to be him.

D
AISY SUPPOSED
she shouldn’t have been surprised to find that Jack had been deployed by Tom to keep tabs on her for more than the one night she’d returned from Switzerland, hurt and furious, and ready to confront all those who had lied to her.

Nevertheless, the notion that Jack had been secretly watching over her all those years was as unsettling as it was, in retrospect, utterly predictable. Tom Deveraux had obviously felt a lot of guilt for abandoning her the way he had. He’d been able to tell himself his actions were for the best when she was a baby, but as she got older, it had become apparent to everyone in Charleston what a mistake Richard and Charlotte had made in adopting her, Daisy thought. So Tom had dispensed Jack. And her husband, eager to please, had been all too happy to play her guardian angel for his boss.

“So now you know,” Jack said quietly.

Daisy nodded, not sure when she had ever felt so betrayed. First by Iris and Tom and her parents, and now even Jack. The one person, the only person, in recent weeks, whom she had felt she could trust.

Which just went to show what
she
knew.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Suddenly unable to discuss it anymore, to think what his past surveillance of her might mean to the two of them now, beyond the fact that once again Jack’s loyalty had been first to Tom and then to Daisy, she looked
at the mess surrounding them. Then asked with unbearable weariness, “Do you want to call the police or shall I?”

Jack cut her off before she could reach for the phone. “I’m not going to report it,” he said firmly.

Her heart knocked against her ribs as she noted the way he towered over her. She swallowed around the dryness of her throat. “Why not?”

“Because,” Jack told her practically, once again all efficient male, “I want Harlan Decker to take a look first.” Jack consulted the PalmPilot on his desk, picked up the phone and punched in a number.

Daisy knew if anyone could figure out who had done this, it was probably Harlan. The ex-cop had worked vice, robbery and homicide while a member of the Charleston police force, before retiring and opening his own detective agency.

“Harlan’ll be over in about ten minutes,” Jack said when he had hung up the phone. “He asked us not to touch anything else until he gets here.”

Feeling frustrated, Daisy perched on the edge of Jack’s desk while he prowled his study restlessly. She rubbed her arms against the chill that had come out of nowhere. She knew by the way he was acting, something else was up. “You don’t think this was just a random break-in, do you?”

Jack shook his head. “If they had just wanted to steal stuff for money, they would have taken the laptop, stereo, TV, but none of those things have been touched. Instead, they broke into my files, and from the looks of it—” Jack gestured at the information on Daisy littering the floor “—were very interested in everything on you.”

“So I’m the target,” Daisy guessed unhappily, al
ready heading back to the master-bedroom closet, where she kept her stuff.

The master bedroom, if possible, was in even worse shape than Jack’s study. Daisy’s clothing had been pulled out of the dresser drawers and dumped onto the floor. The covers and the pillows had been ripped off the bed, the mattress left askew. The drawers in the bathroom had been opened and rummaged through. Even the contents of the nightstand and Daisy’s portfolio had been dispersed around the room.

Daisy swallowed, aware she had never felt so violated as she did at that second. “I know it may be impossible to know for sure, but is there anything missing that you can tell?” Jack asked gently, coming up behind her, and putting his arms around her.

Daisy shivered as the doorbell rang. It was so hard to tell. There was nothing that couldn’t be replaced easily, except…oh, no. Daisy looked behind the bureau, next to the wall. And realized with a sinking heart that the red expanding file containing her real birth records was gone.

W
HILE
J
ACK WENT
to let Harlan in and show him the rest of the house, Daisy kept visually searching through the bedroom mess. By the time Jack brought the cigar-smoking Harlan back to see their bedroom, she knew with certainty her file hadn’t just been picked up and rifled through, it was gone.

“Sorry about this,” Harlan told Daisy sympathetically.

Daisy nodded at Harlan and looked at Jack before telling both, “I think they stole everything I had from my trip to Switzerland, the airline sleeve that had contained my tickets, the information from the embassy,
the adoption agency and the convent, copies of my passport as an infant, and the real record of my birth, as well as copies of the legal documents that pertained to my name change.” Daisy scowled at the emptied-out nightstand drawer, “They also got—if you can believe this—my post-op instructions from the hospital and the information booklet I received about dealing with a miscarriage.”

Harlan frowned. “Who would want that, or even have known to come here looking for it?”

Daisy could think of only one person. “Bucky Jerome?” Daisy and Jack said in unison.

“Except…” Daisy hedged.

Harlan and Jack looked at her. “It just—it doesn’t seem like Bucky’s style. He’s usually more in your face about his nosiness.”

Jack frowned. “Bucky’s the only one who’s been asking about either of those things, Daisy. And the only one who would benefit from knowing.”

“But there were two people here, Jack,” Daisy countered with a perplexed frown. “Who would the second person have been?”

Jack shrugged. “A friend of Bucky’s? Someone else from the
Herald?
”

Daisy felt the color drain from her face as she sank onto a corner of the bed. “Oh my God. If any of this shows up in the newspaper,” Daisy said miserably. It would be like having her guts spread all over the streets for everyone to see.

Jack sat down next to Daisy and put his arm around her. And in that moment, Daisy didn’t care what Jack had done for her biological father in the past, she needed and wanted Jack’s protection more than ever.
Because Jack was the only one in this world who made her feel safe.

“I’ll have a talk with Bucky Jerome,” Jack said, jaw set. He gave her a reassuring hug then stood, his expression grim, and said, “I’ll make sure he understands if any of this shows up in print we are going to sue him and the paper.”

Harlan continued looking around. “I can’t say whether Bucky Jerome did this or not. But I can tell you this, the break-in tonight was definitely the work of an amateur. A pro would have been able to pick those locks without any trouble at all.”

Daisy took pictures of the carnage. Jack took a piece of the plywood he kept on hand for hurricane season and boarded up the broken window. There was nothing he or Harlan could do about the file cabinets behind Jack’s desk, however. They were going to have to be replaced. The flimsy metal doors of the sleek black cabinets had been permanently bent out of shape with what they assumed was a crowbar.

It was past two by the time Harlan left, promising to help them get to the bottom of this. After three by the time Jack and Daisy had set the house to rights and remade the bed with clean sheets. Daisy still felt a little uneasy as she and Jack climbed into bed. But he put his arms around her, and exhausted, she fell into a deep sleep.

The next thing Daisy knew, she was back in that windowless room. It was black and awful and smelled slightly musty and mildewish. She was curled up on the corner of what felt like an uncomfortable iron cot—the kind she had slept on at summer camp—and she was crying so hard the tears were just streaming down her face.

The door opened, a shaft of light swept the room, and the person in the mask came in. “Be quiet now,” the person breathed in a threatening whisper as goose bumps broke out all over her skin and she felt the unbearable urge to wet herself, “or I’m going to have to hurt you and I don’t want to hurt you.” Daisy still couldn’t stop crying, so the person reached for her, fingers pinching into her bare skin. Daisy heard what sounded like a woman’s voice, high-pitched, upset, in the foreground. And then the imprisoning hands closed all the harder around her upper arms, the voice telling her to shut up! Knowing this was her only chance for discovery, Daisy opened her mouth to scream.