The Rivals (5 page)

Libby wondered now why she'd made that giant leap on such insubstantial evidence. Maybe it was a mother's intuition, but she'd had a premonition since she'd first listened to Kate's voicemail that her daughter was in trouble. She turned the question back on Clay and said, “Why did you come?”

Clay's gray eyes locked with her blue ones as he said, “I don't know. I can't explain it. I had a feeling something was wrong. It's strange enough that Kate would leave school in the middle of the term like that. Since she called you, I presume she wanted to talk to you about something. So why didn't she come straight here and wait for you?”

“I know what you mean,” Libby said, her hands clutched together to keep Clay from seeing that they were shaking. “I can't stop thinking about those other two girls who disappeared. And the third one, who was found dead.” She met Clay's gaze and said, “I'm scared.”

In the eighteen years since they'd been lovers, they'd never once touched. But the child they'd made together was missing, perhaps in mortal danger. When Clay opened his arms, Libby walked right into them. His body was warm and he smelled faintly of some masculine cologne. His arms were strong and she felt safe within them.

Memories swamped her, of long lazy afternoons in the sunlight. Of his callused hands on her flesh. Of his long, tanned flanks in the leaf-dappled sunlight. It had been a heady time, she'd been so much in love. So had he.

Until she'd sent him away.

Libby felt Clay's body tense as she turned her face up to his, saw his eyes narrow as she reached up to curve her hand around his nape and draw his head down to hers.

But he didn't release her. And he didn't turn away.

“Clay,” she whispered.

His shoulders were rock hard under her hands, and she caught her breath as she stared up into gray eyes that had turned dark and stormy. His lips were surprisingly soft as they met hers, and Libby felt a sudden surge of desire as his tongue traced the seam of her mouth, urging her to open to him.

His arms tightened around her as she let him in. The kiss was searing, and Libby felt overwhelmed by sensations. The silkiness of his hair under her hands, the warm wetness of his tongue, the crush of her breasts against his muscular chest. She couldn't catch her breath, couldn't catch up to the powerful rush of emotions that made her throat ache with love and regret and need.

He backed her up against the wall, capturing her there with his hardened body, grasping her breast and kneading it, thrusting his tongue into her mouth as his hips sought the welcoming cradle of her thighs. He reached for the button of her jeans, growling when it wouldn't come free, ripping the cloth as he shoved his hand inside to reach skin.

Libby moaned and pressed her hand against the front of his trousers, feeling the hot, hard length of him.

Suddenly, he separated them with a guttural sound of torment. They were both panting, and she stared with stunned surprise into gray eyes that looked equally shocked at the violence of their mutual desire.

“Libby, I—”

Someone knocked hard on the door.

Libby refused to look away, willing Clay to finish his thought.
“Libby, I need you.”

A muscle worked in his jaw, and his gray eyes became inscrutable. He might want her, Libby realized. But he was never going to forgive her. She swallowed hard over the sudden lump of sadness in her throat.

She reached up with a trembling hand to caress his cheek. When he flinched, she gave a cry of woe, then pulled free and ran for the door.

When the petite, worried-looking blond woman opened the door, Sarah held up her badge, a five-point gold star in a leather folder, and said, “I'm Detective Sarah Barndollar, with the Teton County Sheriff's Office. I'm looking for Libby Grayhawk.”

“You've found her.”

“May I come in, Ms. Grayhawk?” Sarah asked.

“Please, call me Libby,” the woman said as she stepped back and opened the door wider. “I wasn't expecting a woman. I don't know why I thought—”

“No problem,” Sarah interrupted. “I'm here about your daughter's disappearance.”

“Of course,” Libby said. “The dispatcher said you'd want a picture of Kate. Let me get it for you.”

When Libby Grayhawk turned, she ran into the tall, black-haired, gray-eyed man who'd come up behind her. Sarah managed not to hiss in a breath when she recognized him. U.S. Attorney General Clay Blackthorne was one of Jackson's many celebrity residents. She hadn't recognized Drew as a part owner of Forgotten Valley, but she'd seen Clay Blackthorne more than once on television, standing beside the president of the United States.

Sarah saw the tightening of Clay Blackthorne's jaw as he took the woman's shoulders in his hands and moved her away. Evaluating people was an important part of Sarah's job, and she was aware of the tension between them.

Libby was clearly flustered when she turned back to Sarah and said, “This is Clay Blackthorne.” Libby hesitated, and Sarah waited with bated breath to hear how the petite woman would explain the U.S. attorney general's presence this late at night—in his shirtsleeves. “A friend,” Libby said at last.

Clay reached past Libby and shook Sarah's hand. “Thanks for coming, Detective Barndollar. How soon will the Amber Alert go into effect?”

Sarah turned to Libby before she could escape and said, “How old is your daughter?”

“Seventeen.”

“Almost eighteen,” Clay said.

“We've never done an Amber Alert in Wyoming,” Sarah said. “Kids around here that go missing are mostly taken by divorced parents. We're too small a town to have a local TV station, and the only flashing sign we have to announce an Amber Alert is on the Snake River at Hoback Canyon, and it's used to warn folks there's road work ahead.”

“Christ.” Clay shoved both hands through his hair in agitation.

“I'll have the dispatcher alert everyone to be on the lookout for your daughter, and we can e-mail your daughter's picture to statewide law enforcement. We usually wait twenty-four hours to post information on missing persons with NCIC.”

“What's NCIC?” Libby asked.

Sarah had made the explanation so many times, she had it memorized. “The National Crime Information Center,” she said. “It's a centralized computer system with statistics and information about crimes and missing persons that allows different jurisdictions to make comparisons of data.”

“Does it work?” Libby asked.

“It's how we identified the girl who was found last spring buried in the mountains. NCIC came up with a match on a missing persons report out of Las Vegas.”

Sarah realized the mistake she'd made when Libby's face paled and she began to tremble. Before Sarah could reach out to the other woman, Clay Blackthorne had stepped up behind Libby and steadied her by wrapping an arm around her waist. Libby immediately turned and buried her face against his shoulder.

Blackthorne's cold-eyed gaze dared Sarah to say anything. She kept her mouth shut, but that kind of body contact between a man and a woman suggested a relationship beyond that of mere friends. Was the U.S. attorney general having a clandestine affair with Libby Grayhawk? Then she remembered reading that Clay Blackthorne's wife had died a while back of cancer. Not clandestine, then. Just private.

“In a special case, you could put the information on NCIC without waiting the full twenty-four hours, couldn't you?” Blackthorne asked.

“In a special case,” Sarah agreed.

“I want Kate Grayhawk's info put on now,” Blackthorne said.

“I don't think—”

“I don't like pulling rank, but I will,” Blackthorne said, his arms tight around Libby Grayhawk. “I want that information posted on NCIC immediately.”

“I'll see to it.”

“I'll go get that picture,” Libby said, pulling free of Blackthorne's embrace and heading toward the back of the house.

Sarah pulled her purse strap higher on her shoulder and said, “I didn't realize you were visiting in Jackson, Mr. Blackthorne. Usually the Secret Service asks that someone from our office be assigned to help protect dignitaries when they're in town.”

“I'm not here on official business,” he said.

“Where are you staying?” Sarah asked.

Blackthorne's gray eyes turned to ice. “That's none of your business.”

Sarah flushed. She glanced at Libby, who'd returned with the picture of Kate, then turned back to Blackthorne and said, “I just dropped off Drew DeWitt at the ranch house at Forgotten Valley. He mentioned the two of you own it together.”

“We do,” Blackthorne said.

“I asked where you were staying because I towed his truck out of the river tonight—that's another story—but he was hurt in the accident and it might be a good idea if someone stayed with him tonight to make sure he doesn't have a concussion,” Sarah said. “So I wondered if—”

“I see,” Blackthorne said. “I am staying at the ranch. I promise to keep an eye on him, Detective.”

“Here's the picture of Kate,” Libby said, handing over a 5x7 color photo of an extraordinarily beautiful black-haired, gray-eyed young woman. “I gave a lot of information to someone over the phone. Is there anything else you need from me?”

“Is there anyone in town your daughter might have gone to see? A girlfriend? A boyfriend?” Sarah asked.

Libby shook her head. “I already gave a description of the stranger Kate left the Mangy Moose with to someone at the sheriff's office. I can't imagine who the man was. No one I know, for sure. I called all of Kate's friends here in Jackson when I got home around four-thirty, but none of them had heard from her recently. Kate has been attending a private school back East for the past four years, so her friends live all over the country.”

“There's no one—”

“I said there's no one here in Jackson,” Libby said sharply. “Just my brother North and me.”

Libby was caught up in her thoughts when the detective asked, “What about Kate's father? Any chance he might—”

“Kate's father doesn't live around here,” Libby said quickly.

Too quickly, Sarah thought. She watched Clay Blackthorne stiffen beside the petite woman.

“Have you been in contact with him?” Sarah said, her eyes on Blackthorne. “Maybe your daughter—”

“He's been informed,” Libby said. “He doesn't know where she is, either.”

Sarah looked from Clay Blackthorne to Libby and back again and waited, letting the silence do its work. She wondered what Blackthorne had to do with this situation. She'd learned better than to make guesses, but her gut told her there was more going on than she was being told.

When it became clear that Blackthorne wasn't going to offer any further explanation for his presence, she handed her card to Libby and said, “If you think of anything you believe might be useful, give me a call.”

“I will,” Libby said as she followed Sarah to the door. “Thank you, Detective.”

“You're welcome, Libby. And please, call me Sarah. I'll go back to the Mangy Moose and see if anyone noticed your daughter leaving or saw the vehicle she left in. If I find out anything more, I'll be in touch.” She didn't offer platitudes. They weren't going to help find Libby Grayhawk's missing daughter.

Sarah didn't look back as she headed for her Tahoe. She had a bad feeling about this one. Clay Blackthorne's presence lent more weight to the girl's disappearance. Why had he come here? What, exactly, was his relationship to Libby Grayhawk? And why did he seem to care so much about Libby Grayhawk's daughter?

“I should have told her Kate is my daughter,” Clay said.

“Why?” Libby asked. “What difference can it possibly make?”

“They'll do more to find her if they think she's the daughter of someone important.”

“She's a Grayhawk,” Libby said. “In Jackson, that's enough. I'd rather you say nothing.”

Clay lifted a brow in question and Libby explained, “Whoever has her may kill her if he realizes that both the Grayhawks and the Blackthornes will come down on him for taking her,” Libby said. “I don't want her connection to you made public yet. Besides, aren't you afraid of the political repercussions if it gets out that you have a grown daughter you've never told anyone about?”

“I think my career can survive it.”

“And if you thought it couldn't, would you still make the ultimate sacrifice for your daughter?” Libby said bitterly.

“You know I would.” Clay put his hands on Libby's shoulders, looked into her eyes, and said, “I love Kate. She's all I have left in the world.”

Clay saw Libby wince before she pulled free and turned away. He'd known the words would hurt, but he hadn't been able to curb his tongue. At forty-six, it was getting harder not to say exactly what was on his mind. To hell with diplomacy. He'd spent his whole life being careful not to offend the right people. If ever there was a time for plain speaking, this was it.

“What's going on, Libby? What is it you haven't told me? Why did Kate leave school and fly back here?”

Libby turned to face him, her arms crossed protectively over her chest. “That's the worst part. I don't know. She called to say she was coming home, that she had something important to talk to me about. She never said what it was.”

“She's pregnant,” Clay said flatly.

He watched as Libby sucked in a breath. “I thought the same thing,” she said.

“So maybe Kate met the father here, and that's who she was with at the Mangy Moose,” Clay speculated.

Libby shook her head. “I don't think so. The bartender seemed to think they didn't know each other. He overheard a little of what they said,” she explained when Clay lifted a skeptical brow.

“How could this have happened?” Clay demanded.

Libby's eyes looked bleak.

Suddenly Clay was remembering how he and Libby had met. How easily he'd succumbed to Libby's flirtatious smile and her young, supple body. She was still slim, still beautiful. But the smile was gone. He rarely let himself think about the good times they'd shared. Staying focused on her betrayal was the only way he'd been able to keep his distance from her. She was a dangerous flame, and this moth already had singed wings.

“I'd better go,” he said, crossing to the door.

“Clay…”

He unrolled his sleeves before putting on his tux jacket, then turned to her as he slipped into his cashmere overcoat. “Any ideas where I should start looking in the morning?”

“I've already looked everywhere I thought she might be,” Libby said.

“I'll go by the sheriff's office—”

“You can't do that,” Libby protested.

“Why not? I'll go as a friend of the family.”

“You're being naive if you don't think someone will call the newspapers to tell them you were there,” Libby said.

“Thanks to you, there's nothing to connect me to Kate,” Clay said bitterly. “My name doesn't appear anywhere. I've never contributed a dime to her support.”

“You've never complained,” Libby retorted.

“Would it have done any good?” Clay pulled on his black leather gloves. “You've had everything your way for nineteen years,” he said. “That ends now. I'm going to do whatever I think needs to be done to find my daughter.”

“
Your
daughter?” Libby said, her chin up, her eyes sparkling with anger.

“
Our
daughter,” Clay corrected.

“Even if it means the past will come out?”

“It was never my choice to keep the fact I have a daughter a secret,” Clay said angrily. “I did it because you convinced me it was the best thing for Kate. The only thing I'm concerned about now is getting Kate back home safe and sound, and then helping her through whatever crisis got her into this mess in the first place.”

Clay was nearly out the door when Libby said, “I want to go with you.”

He turned to stare at her. “Now?”

She flushed. “No. When you go hunting for her tomorrow.”

“What purpose will that serve?”

“I won't be here worrying all alone.”

“What if she calls and there's no one here to take the call?” Clay asked.

“I can have the calls forwarded to North's house. He can call me on my cell if there's any word.”

Clay didn't want to spend the day with Libby. He still found her far too attractive. Holding her in his arms tonight, kissing her, touching her, had brought back memories he would rather forget.