Worth Dying For (4 page)

Dante lifted his gaze. Tessa stood only a couple of feet away, her body tense, a fine mist of tears in her blue eyes. “What did you lie to your daughter about? What truth has she found out?”

“Hell, Moran, this is all nonsense,” G.W. said. “The child is sixteen. She’s confused about everything. That’s only natural for someone her age, isn’t it? Why she’s gotten some cock-and-bull notion in her head that we’ve lied to her, I don’t know. It really doesn’t matter, does it? What does matter is finding her as soon as possible before she gets into trouble.”

“Daddy, please.” Tessa looked pleadingly at Dante. The muscles in his belly tightened. “We have…I have lied to my daughter all her life, but only in an effort to protect her.”

“Protect her from what?” Dante asked.

“From my past.”

He couldn’t breathe.
Hell, man, don’t do this to yourself. Tessa Westbrook’s past has nothing to do with Amy Smith’s past and you damn well know it
.

“Tessa, don’t—” G.W. barely got the two words out before his daughter turned sharply and glared at him.

Returning her attention to Dante, she sighed deeply. “I lied to Leslie Anne about her true parentage. We—I allowed her believe that she was the result of a teenage affair I had with a young man named John Allen. There is no John Allen.”

He had to ask Tessa the one question that had been tormenting him from the moment he saw Leslie Anne’s photograph. “Who are Leslie Anne’s biological parents?”

“Are you asking if my daughter is adopted?” Tessa stared at him inquisitively.

Dante nodded.

“No, Mr. Moran, she is not adopted. I’m Leslie Anne’s biological mother.”

“And her father?”

An expression of unbearable pain, of a soul-deep agony appeared on Tessa’s face. “Leslie Anne’s biological father was the monster who raped me.”

L
ESLIE
A
NNE
pulled off the road at the first rest stop she found on Interstate 59 after crossing the state line into Alabama. She’d drunk a large Diet Coke at lunch and was about to pee in her pants. Three eighteen-wheelers lined one parking lot while an assortment of vehicles took up half the other parking spaces. With a crowd of people entering and leaving the rest rooms, she felt relatively safe to leave the car. The attendant greeted her when she entered the facility. She smiled and nodded, then rushed into the bathroom. After using the first available toilet, she washed and dried her hands. Her mouth and lips felt dry, so she rummaged around in her purse until she found her lip gloss. When she lifted the wand to her lips as she stared into the mirror over the row of sinks, her hand paused in midair. She stared at the face looking back at her.

She had her mother’s blond hair and slender figure, although at sixteen, she was already three inches taller. But her nose, mouth and facial structure didn’t resemble her mom’s.

Leslie Anne’s heartbeat accelerated.

Did she have his nose? His mouth? Was her face shaped like his?

It was possible, wasn’t it? After all, if the information she’d received was the truth—and why would anyone tell her such a horrific lie?—then
he
was her father. His evil
blood flowed through her veins. Had he passed down his malevolent genes to her?

The lip gloss wand fell from Leslie’s Anne’s fingers and hit the sink with a distinctive clink. As she swallowed her tears, she picked up the wand and stuffed it back into her purse.

“Honey, are you all right?” a kind voice asked.

Leslie Anne swatted away her tears. A sweet-faced grandmother with her two preschool grandchildren in tow looked at Leslie Anne with motherly concern.

“Oh, yes, ma’am, I’m fine. I think I’ve got an eyelash in my eye, that’s all.”

Leslie Anne rushed out of the bathroom and back to her friend Hannah’s car. After locking the doors, she flipped open the glove compartment and yanked out a tissue from the dispenser inside, then wiped away her tears and blew her nose. She dumped the used tissue in the empty ashtray, then lifted the large manilla envelope from the floorboard on the passenger’s side. Her hands trembled as she opened the package and removed the newspaper clippings. Sorting through the ones with photos, she searched for one that showed the man’s face. Several had no accompanying photo and several that did showed the man from the side or with his hand up over his face. Just as she’d given up hope of finding one that gave a view of his face, Leslie’s Anne’s hand trembled.

There’s one!

A photo taken outside the courtroom the day he’d been found guilty and sentenced to death in Texas showed the face of an angry man. She studied that face, searching for any resemblance to her own and found none. Was she seeing the truth or was she seeing what she wanted to see?
She didn’t want this man to be her father. But if he was, she certainly didn’t want to look like him.

Please, God, please. Don’t let him be my father. I can’t bear it if he is.

M
Y PLAN WORKED
even better than I thought it would. Leslie Anne must have believed everything I told her in my letter; otherwise, why would she have run away? If I’m lucky, maybe she’ll disappear off the face of the earth. Maybe someone else will dispose of her and save me the trouble. That little brat’s very existence is an offense to good, decent people everywhere. She should have been drowned at birth. With her out of the way, there’s nothing to stop me from getting what I want, what I’ve always wanted.

And what I deserve.

Yes, of course, it’s what I deserve.

But what if those Dundee agents G.W. hired find her and bring her home? What will I do then?

I’ll have no other choice. I’ll have to kill her. I’ve known this day would come. It’s not as if I’ll be doing anything wrong. By destroying the spawn of the devil, I’ll be doing God’s work. And if I benefit from her death, all the better.

T
ESSA BREATHED A
sigh of relief when Lucie Evans asked if she’d take her upstairs to see Leslie Anne’s room. She had desperately wanted to escape from the pained expression on Dante Moran’s face. He’d looked as if someone had landed a fatal blow and he’d suddenly realized he was going to die. Odd that she should have felt his reaction so strongly. She seldom related to men on a personal level and what she’d sensed from Mr. Moran had been extremely personal. He might as well have shouted to the world, “I’ll kill the son of a bitch who hurt you.” Now, with several minutes and a good sixty feet separating them, Tessa wondered if she’d simply imagined the passionate anger she’d seen in Mr. Moran’s sable-brown eyes.

“Are you all right?” Lucie asked as they neared the front staircase.

Tessa paused. “Only a handful of people know the truth about what happened to me—that I was raped and…”

“It’s all right,” Lucie told her. “You don’t have to explain.”

“I hope Mr. Moran will be all right with Daddy.” Tessa took the opportunity she’d been given to change the subject. “I suspect they’re going to lock horns.”

“And you’re concerned about Dante?” Smiling, Lucie
eyed her quizzically. “Don’t be. Dante could hold his own against the devil himself.”

“Do you know him well?” Tessa started up the stairs, Lucie Evans at her side.

“We’re friendly acquaintances and business associates. But I used to be an FBI agent and so did he. The guy had quite a reputation. Everybody at the bureau knew you didn’t mess with Dante Moran. He was a bit of a maverick, liked to do things his own way. That’s why he left the bureau and joined Dundee. We’re allowed the freedom to use our individual skills as long as we don’t blatantly break the law in accomplishing our goals.”

When they reached the landing, Tessa turned right. “Leslie Anne’s room is this way. Her suite is across the hall from mine.”

“Suite?”

Tessa managed a weak smile. “Bedroom, sitting room and bath.”

“Hmm.”

“How long have you worked with Mr. Moran at the Dundee agency?”

“May I ask why you’re so interested in Dante?”

Tessa stopped dead still, turned and stared at Lucie. “Did I give the impression that my curiosity was personal?”

“Do you want the truth, Ms. Westbrook?”

Tessa nodded, but her stomach did a nervous flip-flop.

“I have a rather keen intuition,” Lucie said. “I seem to have a gift for reading people. I suppose that’s why I wanted to work as a profiler for the bureau.”

Tessa nodded again, suspecting what Lucie was going to say.

“You and Dante were sizing each other up down there. Checking each other out. I doubt your father noticed anything more than Dante staring at you, but I picked up on the tension between you two almost immediately.” Lucie held up a restraining hand. “And before you deny it, let me say that these things happen and often under the oddest circumstances. We can’t choose who we’re sexually attracted to or when it’ll happen.”

Tessa wanted to adamantly refute what Lucie had said. She wanted to deny that her reaction to Dante had been based on sexual attraction. But she couldn’t. “Actually I don’t know how to respond to what you said.”

“The only reason I brought it up was to warn you.”

“Warn me?”

“Look, Ms. Westbrook, Dante’s a good guy, but he’s got a rep as a real womanizer. You seem like the one-man-woman type, so if that’s the case, steer clear of Dante.”

“I can assure you that—”

“Just take the advice.”

Tessa let the subject drop. There was no need for Lucie Evans to give her any advice about Dante Moran because she had no intention of acting on the totally unwanted attraction she felt for the man.

After opening the door to Leslie Anne’s suite, Tessa ushered Lucie inside and then closed the door behind them. “Everything is just as she left it.”

The bedroom was decorated in varying shades of pink, white and cream, with a mahogany canopy bed that reached almost to the top of the ten-foot ceiling. Lucie figured all the furniture was antique, probably possessions of the Leslie family dating back well over a century, if not a century and a half.

“Wow! What young girl wouldn’t love this. It looks like something out of a fairy tale. A room fit for a true princess.”

“That’s the way Daddy thinks of Leslie Anne,” Tessa admitted. “And me, too. He’s spoiled us both terribly.”

“You’re lucky to have a father who loves you so much.”

“Yes, I am. He—he’s been the most wonderful father any girl could ask for.” Tessa didn’t often allow herself to remember those endless months she’d spent in the hospital after her “accident.” She’d suffered unbearable pain and yet somehow she had borne it, mostly due to the fact that her father had been not only her loving support system, but her encouraging cheerleader. When time and again she’d given up, wanting to die, her daddy had been her strength and her courage.

“Does Leslie Anne keep a diary?” Lucie asked.

“Not that I know of,” Tessa replied. “And, yes, I’ve searched her room thoroughly and found absolutely nothing.”

“Do you think that somehow Leslie Anne found out that you were raped and she is the…that her birth was a result of that rape?”

“I don’t know. I pray to God not.” Tessa picked up a framed photograph off her daughter’s dressing table. “Here we are on her sixteenth birthday this past summer.” She handed Lucie the photo.

“You both look very happy.” Lucie gave the framed picture back to Tessa.

“We were.” Tessa set the photo on the dressing table. “If she found out, I can’t imagine how or who might have told her. Only a handful of people know the truth—” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words aloud again.
My daughter’s biological father is the monster who raped me
.

“Exactly who knows?”

Tessa took a deep breath. “I suppose the police who were involved at the time know, but you’d have to ask Daddy about that. He protected me from the legal aspects of what happened.” She’d never been interrogated by the police and had only a vague memory of being told what had happened to her. Later on, she’d been grateful to her father, grateful that G. W. Westbrook was so powerful and influential that he could manipulate the law to protect his only child. “Daddy knows, of course. And Aunt Sharon knows. Daddy confided in his sister because he couldn’t burden my mother with the truth. Mother was battling cancer at the time and—” Tessa swallowed her tears as memories of her mother enveloped her. Those memories were so very bittersweet. “As far as I’m aware, no one else knows that I was raped.”

“What’s your relationship with your aunt?” Lucie asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Is there any reason your aunt would tell Leslie Anne about—”

“Certainly not! Aunt Sharon would never do anything to hurt Leslie Anne or me.”

“I’m sorry. I had to ask.”

“Yes, I suppose you did, but even implying that Aunt Sharon would tell someone is ludicrous. After Mother died, she became a second mother to me. And she adores Leslie Anne.”

“I need to ask you another question.”

Dreading the question, but understanding that Lucie was simply doing her job, Tessa nodded.

“If you intended to never tell your daughter the truth about her father, why didn’t you put this fictitious John Allen’s name on her birth certificate?”

“Because at the time, neither Daddy nor I was thinking straight,” Tessa said. “It wasn’t until Leslie Anne was a preschooler and started asking about her father that Daddy came up with a name to go with the tale about my boyfriend dying in the fictitious car crash.”

“Oh, I see.”

“We agreed that a lie—any lie—was better than the truth.”

“What did you tell her when she saw her birth certificate?”

“I almost caved in, but Daddy rescued me. He swore to Leslie Anne that John Allen was her father. He even made up some elaborate tale about how John was this brilliant orphan Daddy brought in to work for him and when this John and I met, we fell in love and—” Tessa heaved a deep sigh. “Of course, Daddy and I and Aunt Sharon weren’t the only ones who knew John Allen was a figment of Daddy’s imagination. The whole family knew I hadn’t been seeing a young man named John Allen, not when I was practically engaged to Daddy’s godson, Charlie Sentell, and Daddy just let Mother believe the baby was Charlie’s. And dear Charlie willingly played along. Thankfully, Mother died not ever knowing the truth.”

“I’m surprised you were engaged at eighteen.”

“I wasn’t really engaged. Let’s just say that Daddy had chosen Charlie for me.”

“Why didn’t you marry Charlie?”

“That wasn’t possible.”

“May I ask why not?”

“I made it impossible,” Tessa admitted. “Charlie offered. Daddy pleaded with me. But I refused. I suppose my refusal had something to do with the rape and with the endless therapy I endured afterward. I’m not sure. Looking back,
I realize marrying Charlie probably would have been the wisest course of action.”

“Hindsight and all.”

“Right.” Tessa smiled. “Is there anything else?”

“I suppose not.”

“Then shouldn’t we go back downstairs and see if either Daddy or Mr. Moran is mortally wounded?”

When they left Leslie Anne’s suite, Tessa closed the door and turned to go down the hall. Lucie reached out and grasped her arm.

“Yes?” Tessa asked.

“I want you to know that I think you’re an amazing lady and your daughter is lucky to have you as her mother.” Lucie released her hold on Tessa. “We’ll find Leslie Anne and bring her home to you. Safe and sound.”

Emotion lodged in Tessa’s throat. “You must know what my greatest fear is.”

“We’ll find her. You have four of Dundee’s finest on the job.”

Tessa prayed that Dundee’s finest would prove to be her child’s salvation. The thought of her precious little girl enduring the same hell that she herself had lived through was Tessa’s worst nightmare.

A
HALF HOUR LATER
, Lucie walked Dante to the rental car still parked at the front of the mansion. To Tessa’s apparent surprise, when they’d come downstairs earlier they’d found Dante and G.W. sitting in front of the fireplace sipping G.W.’s best bourbon and talking as if they were old friends.

“Keep a tight rein on G.W.,” Dante said. “You might have to remind him again of all the reasons offering a half-mil reward for info about his granddaughter is a bad idea.”

“Check in often, will you?” Lucie told him. “Tessa Westbrook isn’t as tough as she appears to be. Any news, even if it’s that there is no news, will help her. She’s terrified that Leslie Anne might wind up in the hands of a rapist.”

“Even without her past history, her concern is a legitimate one.”

“Find that kid, will you?”

“You like Ms. Westbrook, don’t you?”

“Yes, I like her.” Lucie eyed him speculatively. “Do me a favor, will you—pass on this one, okay?”

“What do you mean—”

“Don’t pretend you aren’t personally interested in her. All I’m saying is find Tessa’s daughter, then move on. Your next conquest shouldn’t be this woman.”

All right, so he’d enjoyed his fair share of the ladies over the years and had acquired a reputation for breaking hearts, but surely Lucie knew he would never take advantage of a lady such as Tessa Westbrook. She might appear to have it altogether, but what if she didn’t? He certainly didn’t want to be the man to shatter her protective shield. After all, that shield might be all that was holding her together emotionally.

“I promise that I won’t do anything to hurt Tessa Westbrook. Good enough?”

“Good enough.”

Dante slid behind the wheel of the rented Chevy and started the engine. Why he glanced back at the front door, he didn’t know, but when he did, he saw Tessa standing there, about ten feet behind Lucie. At this distance, with the bright afternoon sun shimmering all around her, Tessa looked breathtakingly beautiful.

Aggravated at himself for his unprofessional behavior,
Dante shifted gears into Drive and headed for the main road leading back into town. Within twenty minutes, he’d picked up Dom and Vic, gone over the info they’d gotten from the local sheriff and told the other Dundee agents that they’d start by questioning the eight names on the list of Leslie Anne’s closest friends. They split the list G.W. had given Dante, rented two more cars and moved forward with their official investigation.

“I
HAVEN’T SEEN
Leslie Anne in over a week,” Hannah Wright said.

“When’s the last time you talked to her?” Dante asked, convinced that the young woman was lying. His gut instincts told him that this cute little brunette, with the big chocolate-brown eyes of a puppy dog and the pole thin body of a boy, knew something about Leslie Anne’s disappearance.

“Uh, you mean, like talked on the phone?” Hannah kept avoiding direct eye contact with Dante.

“Yes, I mean like talked on the phone with her. Or exchanged an e-mail. Or communicated in any way.”

“Well, sure. We talk on the phone all the time. Like every day.” Realizing she’d slipped up and confessed to daily contact with her friend, Hannah gasped, then laughed. “Well, at least usually. But I haven’t talked her in…oh, at least four days.”

Dante crossed his arms over his chest and gave the teenager his most deadly, fear-inspiring glare. Her face paled. Her eyes widened and she took a step backward, away from him.

“This isn’t a game we’re playing, Hannah,” Dante told her, his tone harsh. “Whatever reason Leslie Anne ran away,
she could be in serious trouble. A pretty young girl on the run all alone often winds up murdered or raped or—”

“That won’t happen to Leslie Anne.”

“Why won’t it?”

“Because she’s smart. And it’s not as if she’s hitching rides or anything.”

“By that, I assume you mean she took her own car.”

“I—I didn’t say that. I told you I haven’t—”

“Talked to her in four days. Yeah, I know what you said. But knowing Leslie Anne the way you do, you assume she drove her own car. Right?”

Hannah nodded nervously, then twisted a lock of her curly brown hair around her index finger. It was only a matter of time before the girl broke down and told him what he needed to know.