Was there any chance Teresa was the name Jonathan had called her when they"d first met? Was that just coincidental, something she was trying to make up inside her mind? A connection that wasn"t there?
She recalled it feeling strange, at the time, all the attention the wealthy and charming Jonathan Cantrell had suddenly showered on her. She"d been walking out of a coffee shop when he practically ran into her. Steadying her by her arms as she juggled her paper coffee cup, he"d said a name, then had caught himself up as if he"d just snapped out of a dream. He apologized for almost knocking her down and insisted on helping her to her seat. He"d been charming and good-looking, and wore designer label chinos, shirts, and deck shoes with ease. He"d sat down with her at the metal table for two and coaxed her cell number from her with very little effort, and then had pursued her as if she were the jewel in the crown. In a matter of months he"d gotten down on one knee and proposed and Callie, a teaching a.s.sistant at a nearby school who"d been thinking about going for her master"s to become a full-fledged teacher, had accepted with tears in her eyes. The only relationship she"d really had was with Bryan. Bryan had followed his dream while Callie tutored, waited tables, and generally put her life on hold for him. It was years before she could make a final break, and only then when she learned he"d been seeing another wannabe actress who just happened to be pregnant with Bryan"s child.
She was about a year out of that relationship when she met Jonathan. It was a fairy tale from the beginning. The handsome prince saving the drifting, slightly lost midtwenties gal with the red-gold hair. Except nothing about their marriage was magical except Sean.
Teresa . . . or Marissa . . . ?
She remembered Jonathan calling out to her and literally running into her, almost as if he"d done it on purpose. She recalled wondering if it was some ploy on his part. A way to meet women by practically knocking them off their feet. Hey, it was Los Angeles and she"d seen a lot of crazy things.
Her mind reached for that missing piece again. She failed, as ever, to grasp it, but a deep recognition filled her. There was a connection. Something . . . something . . . and thinking of Jonathan, and the name Teresa, brought it closer. Had Jonathan seen something of this Teresa in her? Was that why he"d been so eager to make her acquaintance in the first place? G.o.d, she wished she could remember fully, but there were big blanks in her memory since the accident. She"d tried to believe they were the result of her injuries, and maybe they were, but she"d needed time at Del Amo to put herself right mentally and emotionally.
Or maybe she was just trying to force a connection as much as West Laughlin was, in order to make sense of everything.
West"s jaw was slid to one side, as if he were fighting back something he wanted to say.
"Tell me about West Laughlin," she said.
"You really don"t know who I am?"
"I thought we"d established that I"m not Teresa."
"Like I told you, I"m the black sheep of the family."
"That"s all I get? How come you"re unemployed, Mr. Laughlin?"
"Mr. Laughlin," he repeated ironically. "Okay . . . Ms. Cantrell . . . I got myself fired from the LAPD. They call it furloughed, but I p.i.s.sed off my captain and he"s trying really hard to keep me from getting rehired."
"What did you do?"
"Broke off a relationship with his daughter."
"Oh, really. That doesn"t sound like something that would hold up."
West grinned for the first time, and Callie looked away, concentrating hard on the horizon instead of that devastating smile. She didn"t like this man, she reminded herself. All she wanted was information from him that might explain something about Tucker.
"It wouldn"t," he admitted. "But I didn"t really give a d.a.m.n at the time. My grandmother, Victoria, has believed for years that Teresa had something to do with Stephen"s death. I always thought it was just that she wanted her grandson back. Tucker. Kinda had my own issues and ignored her, which is how she"d treated me most of my life. But then, some things happened and I wanted to make sure Tucker was okay too."
"Why are you looking for Teresa in Martinique?"
"The e-mail trail on Victoria"s computer. Teresa tried to wipe it off, but it was still there. I got the right people to find a way in and see what was written. There wasn"t much."
"You know the right people."
"I know tech people," he said. "The e-mail went to an Internet cafe in Fort-de-France. I"ve already been there but no one remembers anything and it was a while ago."
He was watching her closely as he gave her this information, as if expecting her to jump up and scream, "You got me!" She shook her head and said, "Still not me."
"You were on the pier this morning, wearing the bracelet." His gaze drifted upward. "You didn"t even change the color of your hair."
"You"ve never actually met this Teresa," she said.
"No, but I"ve got a picture."
"You do?" she asked in a tone that suggested he"d been holding out on her.
He pulled out his cell phone, touched the screen for the photo app, and scrolled until he came to a picture. He then held the phone up so she could see. Callie shaded her eyes from the bright sun and examined the image on the screen. It was a picture of a man and a woman standing beside each other in front of a rambling, two-story house with a wide, covered porch that looked straight out of the Old West.
"Victoria said that it was taken shortly after the wedding," he explained. "I scanned it and put it on my phone after she asked me to find you and the boy." At her studied silence, he added, "It"s the best I could do."
Callie was only half-listening. The young woman in the picture was definitely not her, though she did bear a striking resemblance. It was the hair that was the same, distinctive, and their body type. Facially, it was difficult to tell as the woman was looking into the sun, squinting against the glare. Callie estimated her age in the midtwenties and as Callie herself was over thirty, she asked, "How old is this photograph?"
"It was taken about five years ago."
"Well, it"s not me. I see the resemblance, but it"s not me." It didn"t look anything like Aimee, either. "Who"s the guy? Your brother?" She turned her attention to the man in the picture standing next to Teresa, his arm wrapped protectively around her waist. He was dark, like West, with a serious face, but otherwise there was little resemblance.
"Half brother," he said again.
"And Victoria"s your grandmother?" Callie asked.
"The Laughlin matriarch," he agreed.
"And she put you on this quest?"
West held out his hand for the phone. "That"s right."
"Maybe you should call her and let me talk to her," Callie suggested. "She knew Teresa. She should know I"m not her, right?"
"Maybe if she met you in the flesh. She"s in her eighties, and my phone"s not working internationally," he said. "Tried to set it up before I left, but apparently there"s some hiccup."
"So, where are these tech people when you need them," she murmured dryly as she handed his phone back to him.
"Yeah, well . . ." He gazed around the restaurant as if seeing it for the first time. "I"m halfway convinced you"re not Teresa."
"Only halfway? Really?"
"Tell me who really gave you the bracelet. Lead me down that path the right way. Convince me I"m wrong, and I"ll apologize and go away."
Far across the bay a flock of gulls swooped down, crying plaintively. Callie watched a ferry chug toward the Pointe du Bout terminal and silently wondered what she could say that would still keep Tucker safe. A part of her believed him halfway as well.
She reached for her iced tea, thinking hard. She recalled the first few times she"d met Tucker. The way he"d meditatively rubbed Callie"s red-gold hair between his fingers and wrapped his arms around her like he never wanted to let go, a behavior she"d unabashedly encouraged. If she accepted what he was saying, then it seemed probably that Aimee was not Tucker"s mother, that this mysterious Teresa was, and that Callie wasn"t the only one using someone as an emotional surrogate. Tucker was using her for the same purpose.
Chapter Four.
Teresa feigned sleep beneath the weight of Andre"s arm-Lord knew she was tired enough to crash for a week-but her mind was racing. It kept traveling in circles around the events of the night before-her date and the meager amount of money he"d given her, and then her hours of driving, thinking, and planning-to the bank account with its four zeroes, an account Andre didn"t know about, an account where she deposited the bounty of her nights of stealing. She"d become adept at pretending, lying, and thieving; she"d pulled a lot more jobs than he knew and had pocketed the money herself. She"d even managed some burglary and the adrenaline high was just as good as the cash she walked away with. She had close to twenty thousand dollars stuffed into a secret account, and though she suspected Andre sensed something was up, she"d been so good, so constant, that he hadn"t been able to figure out her intent completely.
And that intent was to leave. Soon . . . now. To run back to Tucker and take him far away. She had a U.S. pa.s.sport and one for him as well. All she had to do was find the right opportunity, steal away from her "home" with Andre and the handmaidens, and beeline for her little boy. It had been years since she"d seen him, and it practically killed her to think of the many terrible things she"d done since to keep him safe and off Andre"s radar.
If Andre knew about him, he would kill Tucker.
Her heart started pounding from the direction of her thoughts, and she studiously and firmly shut her mind down. She"d learned to compartmentalize with greater and greater efficiency over the years and could almost make herself believe she lived a different life. If called upon, she could give one h.e.l.luva performance, Oscar-winning, really, because it was less about acting and more about believing.
But how had she so foolishly believed in Andre? At one time he"d filled her thoughts, her heart, all her needs. If he"d been lost to her then, she might have killed herself like some tragic Juliet. She knew this to be true. She just couldn"t believe it any longer. Couldn"t feel it.
Tucker had done that to her. Her love for him was bigger than anything else. Had changed her. And it was such a fluke, the pregnancy. Not part of the plan, not part of her aim, her job. As soon as he was born there was a shift inside her. Afterward, even though she"d kept doing Andre"s bidding, playing her part, she"d kept the fact that she"d borne a child a secret from him. Even after Stephen"s death-especially after Stephen"s death-she"d had to come up with a plan for the future, one that didn"t include Andre. She"d done the only thing she could think of: she"d entrusted her son to the care of someone she believed in.
But she was going back for him soon. Tonight, maybe.
Cracking open an eye, she slid a look toward Andre. Her heart clutched and she gave a little gasp to see he was wide awake as well and staring at her speculatively. Lifting the arm he"d held possessively around her, he ran his index finger down her arm, sending an arctic chill through her that it took her considerable skill as a con artist to hide.
"You"re going to have to start being more honest with me, Teresa," he said with that faint smile that spelled trouble for her in the future.
"About what?" When in doubt, pretend ignorance.
"About last night, for starters."
"I went to the Boathouse to meet him and he came in, but he brought his wife with him."
"And then what?" he asked silkily.
"I followed them back to their Laguna house." She mentally crossed her fingers against the lie. The Laguna Beach house was several hours" south and she hadn"t been anywhere near it, but she was counting on its distance to keep one of Andre"s spies-Naomi, probably, or maybe that psychotic b.i.t.c.h, Jerrilyn-from tracking her. "I might . . . be able to break in sometime . . . ?" she suggested.
"Do you want to?" he asked, climbing atop her.
An automatic protest fought its way up her throat. There was a time when she"d panted for his lovemaking. Back in the day when they were a team. Andre was a good lover when he wanted to be, and in the beginning he"d been just about perfect. But everything had changed since then. His style had definitely altered and now there was more impatience and dominance than any desire to please her. Maybe, with the other handmaidens so available, he just didn"t try as hard. Or maybe the frustration that had always fed him was growing too huge and he couldn"t be bothered with anything but his own, immediate pleasure.
He reached up and pulled the chain that held his ankh from around his neck, then slid the cross along her cheek and to her mouth. Then he pressed down harder until the ankh"s metal sides dug painfully into her bottom lip. Hard. A rise of panic made her insides quiver. She breathed in air through her nose and met his gaze deliberately. She had to act like her old self or he would know how much she"d changed.
"You have to stop lying," he said.
Carefully, slowly, he pulled the ankh away and replaced it on the nightstand. She automatically sucked her bottom lip into her mouth. She could feel fury licking its way inside her; a hot wind that could consume her if she let it.
"Where were you?"
"I told you."
He shook his head slowly. He"d taken his hair out of its band and it hung around his face. "You shouldn"t make me discipline you," he said, sounding like a weary parent.
"I"m sorry," she said. Her plan to leave became more cemented.
His hands slid down her body and he fit himself in the cradle of her thighs. They looked at each other and Teresa kept her face carefully expressionless.
Tonight, she thought. I"m leaving tonight.
Time was pa.s.sing and Callie had managed to avoid his question about the bracelet, sticking with her story that a friend had given it to her. But he was right in that being the sticking point. If it was indeed the Laughlin heirloom, then it must have come through Teresa and logically that made her Tucker"s mother.
But where was she? And who was Aimee?
She knew West was biding his time, waiting for her to cough up the truth. Did she want to? Not yet . . . not until she knew what it would mean for her to give up Tucker.
"Well, I think it has to all be a strange coincidence," Callie said. "If there"s a connection, I don"t know what it is."
"You came here on your honeymoon."
"Well . . . yes."
"That"s why you chose Martinique now. Why you came back here."
"That"s right." She didn"t like the careful way he was approaching some train of thought that was clearly behind his questions.
"The accident, where your husband and son were killed . . ."
Callie took a careful breath. "You want to know about it?"
"I just want to know how you ended up here with the Laughlin bracelet."
"I only have your word it"s a family heirloom," she pointed out.
"True enough."
Callie shook her head. She needed to end this conversation and get back to her apartment, find Tucker, and most of all, keep him safe. She said with as little emotion as she could, "They said another car struck us and sent our car over the cliff. Sean and Jonathan died at the scene. I was taken to a hospital."
"They said?"
"The police. Whoever investigated the crash."
"Do you know who that is?"
"You mean the policeman? No. I was in a hospital, and then I was . . ." Grief-stricken . . . sick with guilt and failure and pure misery. She had to bite down hard on her lip to keep from going into that abyss again, the one that was always waiting for her. She waited till the tide receded a bit, then managed to say in a nearly normal voice, "Nothing was the same. They were gone and I didn"t care how it happened. All that mattered was they were no longer with me."
Callie squeezed her hands tightly together, d.a.m.n near cutting off the blood flow. It was an effort to get herself to loosen her grip.
"I"m sorry," he said, sounding like he meant it.
No, she thought. Don"t be nice to me. Don"t act like you care. She could manage if people weren"t nice to her, but if they were she lost all of her defenses. And she couldn"t afford to break down completely like she had when the realization had crashed down on her. She"d been a blithering idiot. Completely undone. And she"d ended up hiding from reality for a while.
"I was just wondering who checked out the crash."
"I don"t know. LAPD . . . you probably have a better idea than I do."
"Your husband chose Martinique for your honeymoon?" he asked.