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“Is it true she attacked you in that motel in Estacada?”
“I have nothing more to say at this time.”
“But now that you’re one of the wealthiest women in the state, surely you—”
“Excuse me.”
She shouldered her way through the crowd and Zach was with her every step of the way. She couldn’t meet his eyes, didn’t want to think about her future. For nearly a year she’d thought that if she could prove that she was London, if she could find her real family, her life would change
for the better. She could make a difference. She’d fantasized about the money, of course, and seen herself as a shrewd businesswoman who would sit on the boards of charities as well as handle the affairs of Danvers International. Witt Danvers’s little lost princess. The treasure he’d loved above all else, including his other children.
She’d been a fool. A silly fool with girlish dreams.
And she hadn’t planned on falling in love with Zachary.
They climbed into his Jeep and Zachary nosed the Cherokee into the street. Half a dozen cars followed his lead. “Great,” he muttered, eyeing the rearview mirror. “Just great.” He glanced at Adria. She was dead-tired, leaning against the window, staring at him with eyes that seemed to see straight to his soul. “They’ll be at the hotel,” he said, turning abruptly and watching the headlights follow him.
He drove crazily, changing lanes at the last minute and turning corners abruptly. She sensed the change in direction, saw the towering lights of downtown fade behind them.
“Where are we going?”
“Someplace private.”
“Just the two of us?”
He hesitated, his fingers curling over the steering wheel until his knuckles showed white, then nodded curtly. Something inside her—something she’d rather not acknowledge—began to awaken. “Just the two of us.”
Jack Logan was too old to be driving like a wild man, chasing a lunatic in a Jeep. He was tired and grumpy and if it wasn’t for the bottle of Irish whiskey that kept him going, he would have called Jason Danvers and told him to follow his own damned family. But he’d been paid and paid well and he figured that later he could sleep all day if he wanted to.
Retirement hadn’t settled well with him; he missed the action and excitement of the department. True, his arthritis was bad enough to make him limp and he wasn’t as quick as he used to be, but his mind was sharp and he could spend only so much time gardening or fiddling at the workbench his daughter, Risa, had insisted was so therapeutic. No, he missed the sport of it all, the feeling alive, and hated the notion that just because he’d reached a certain age, he’d been put out to pasture.
So he kept taking Danvers’s money, not so much to supplement his social security and pension, but to keep his blood pumping, to make him feel alive again. He followed the Jeep, hanging back, turning off at different streets, nearly losing the rig several times, but always finding it again.
He had an uncanny sense about these things and he guessed where the rig was heading in its crazy, zigzagging course that always led north, toward the interstate bridge, toward the huge body of water separating the southern boundary of Washington from Oregon: the Columbia River and the marina where the Danvers yacht was berthed.
The Jeep turned off the interstate and Logan continued on driving, across the bridge, barely noticing the wide black abyss that was the Columbia. On the far side of the river, in Vancouver, just over the Washington border, he turned his car around and headed back to the freeway, this time heading south. To celebrate, he took a little nip from his bottle and drove unerringly back to the marina. Flashing his outdated badge at the guard manning the gate, he drove quietly into the parking lot and saw Zachary’s Jeep tucked in a darkened space.
Bingo.
“You still got it, Logan,” he told himself, and uncapped his bottle yet again before taking a long swallow that warmed the pit of his stomach and spread through his blood. He didn’t have a cell phone, but he knew there was a Safeway store nearby with a couple of phone booths near the front doors. He’d let Jason sweat awhile, have himself a couple of drinks at a topless bar not all that far away, then call the bastard. While he was at it, he might just ask for a raise. Hell, he deserved it.
25
The smell of the river rose off the water and tickled Adria’s nostrils as she walked along the wooden pier that rimmed the dark water. Her footsteps echoed loudly over the rush of the river and the wind that raced down the gorge from the east. Expensive boats, moored at the marina, lay empty, their masts spindly, their sails furled, their engines silent as they undulated with the ever-shifting water.
She let Zachary help her onto the Danvers yacht, a gleaming vessel that, she supposed, was now partially hers. It was all such a waste, she thought, considering Eunice and her hatred of Katherine. Adria didn’t doubt that Eunice had not only terrorized her, but killed Kat and Ginny Slade, despite Nelson’s vehement claims otherwise.
She glanced at Zachary. Tall. Rugged. Troubled. The kind of brooding, dark man she should run from. She was alone with him for what was to be the last time in her life. It just had to be.
The wind tugged at her hair and she told herself this was the price she had to pay for the truth. She’d gotten everything she wanted, and more than she’d bargained for. A heavy weight had settled deep in her heart and she thought about her future—so bright to the outside world, so barren and bleak without Zach’s love.
Don’t even go there. Get over it, for crying out loud. It’s not life-or-death. Just heartache. You’ll live.
“Drink?” he asked, once they climbed down a short staircase and entered the main salon, a long room decorated in gleaming teak and brass.
“Why not?” She dropped onto a navy blue sofa that was attached to the wall. What would one drink hurt? It had been a long couple of weeks and she was dead tired, but too wound up to fall asleep. She watched him sort through the bottles and felt a pain slice through her heart.
He’s forbidden.
