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Another van from a rival station pulled up and reporters started through the doors.
“Now!” Zach ordered and the clerk called over a security guard.
“Give these people an escort out and have Bill come up to handle the rest.”
“This way!” The guard, a burly black man with a grim I’ve-seen-it-all expression, ushered them to the back of the lobby and through a set of double doors toward the kitchen. Excited voices drifted after them and Adria ducked gratefully into a stainless steel elevator. She wasn’t ready for the press. Not just yet. She needed time to prepare a statement, time to get herself ready for all the questions and accusations that were sure to be hurled her way.
Minutes later they were on the street and walking the short distance to the Hotel Danvers, where another crowd had gathered. Holding her arm fiercely, Zach guided her to a private entrance, through a tangle of hallways, down to the parking garage and into his Jeep.
“Where are we going?”
“Does it matter?” he asked, throwing the rig into gear and backing out of the narrow parking space.
“I think I have the right to know.”
“You got yourself into this mess. I could just leave you here to the piranhas.”
“I didn’t call the press.
“Like hell.” Zach aimed the nose of the Jeep toward the exit of the parking lot.
“You don’t believe me?” she said, disappointed as they sped out of the lot and joined the sludge of traffic clogging the city streets.
“No,” he admitted, glancing in her direction. “But if it’s any consolation, I haven’t believed a word you’ve said since you blew into town.”
18
Her face was a mask of calm resolution. Her chin was thrust forward with determination and her eyes, so blue, moved from one reporter’s face to the other. As the clouds overhead threatened rain and the cool wind caused the leafless tree branches to sway, Adria stood on a small rise in the park walkway blocks and addressed the throng of reporters. Her cheeks, stung by the wintry wind, were pink, her smile sincere, and Zach guessed that she’d had years of public speaking in college.
So far, her hastily convened press conference had gone well, and along with the reporters, a few passersby listened to her strong voice. “…that’s why I’m here. To uncover the truth. To find out for myself if I’m really Witt and Katherine Danvers’s daughter.” Six microphones were thrust in her face while photographers snapped still pictures and shoulder-held minicams rolled. The wind teased at her hair, whipping it across her face, and traffic continued to flow, the sounds of engines running, tires throwing up water, and hydraulic brakes squealing as a backdrop.
A pushy reporter with thin lips and a pointed nose asked, “Do you have any proof, aside from this tape of your adoptive father, that you’re London Danvers?”
“No, not really—”
“Isn’t that a little thin? Home video cameras are a dime a dozen now. Anyone could put together a stunt like this.”
Zach’s eyes narrowed on the man and he hooked his thumb into his belt loops just to make sure he didn’t start pushing the little bastard around.
“It’s not a stunt,” Adria replied firmly.
“You don’t think. But you don’t know. You have no idea what your adoptive father’s motives were.”
A red-haired woman with a deep voice asked, “What happened to Ginny Slade?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Why didn’t she demand ransom?”
“Again. I don’t know,” Adria said, as a truck roared past, sending pigeons scattering through the park and trailing a plume of blue exhaust.
“What about the million-dollar reward that Witt left for anyone who found his daughter? Wouldn’t Ginny have wanted a piece of that?”
“I can’t speak for her.”
Another woman asked, “At the time of the kidnapping, some people thought a local businessman, Anthony Polidori, was behind the plot. Witt Danvers always maintained that Polidori was involved.”
“I don’t know who was behind it.”
