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He poured himself another drink and kicked off his Jockey shorts, so that he was completely naked. From his bedroom he stood at the sliding glass door, backlit by the light from the hall, as he stared over the tops of trees and across the lights of the city. He was a man of action, a
man who made quick decisions and lived with them, a person who got things done.
Without a qualm he reached for the phone and dialed a number he’d memorized and used years before. An answering machine clicked on and Jason sighed. His message was brief. “Yeah, it’s me. Danvers. It’s time to call in all my markers and you owe me one. A big one. I’ve got a job for you. I’ll call back tomorrow.”
His conscience twinged a bit, but he took a long swallow and felt the familiar warmth of Scotch as it burned down his throat, curled in his stomach, and warmed his bloodstream.
A few hours of rest and he’d be ready to face anything. And that included exposing Adria Nash as a fraud.
Adria’s head was pounding as she turned out the light. The room smelled musty and stale with the lingering odors of old cigarettes and years of filth. But the motel was cheap and anonymous. At least for now.
She fell back on the bed and closed her eyes. Images of Zachary went through her mind. She couldn’t be distracted by him. She had to stay focused. She’d spent too much time on her mission. In the past few years she’d written letters, met with lawyers, people from government agencies, and kept a diary, trying vainly to find Virginia Watson. Only now, after her father’s death, did she have an inkling as to who she was.
And she was going to go through hell and back trying to find out if, as her father insisted, she was really London Danvers.
Zach glanced at his watch. Not long until daylight. Staring through the windshield to the motel where Adria Nash was sleeping, he wondered if she might just be his long-lost half-sister.
Impossible.
Crazy.
But she looked so damned much like Kat.
His gut tightened when he considered his hot-blooded stepmother and all the pain she’d brought his family. He didn’t want to think about her and what had happened after London’s abduction, didn’t want to consider his part in tarnishing the Danvers name. He slid lower on his back as rain began to drizzle down the windshield in earnest.
He remember standing, bleeding in the rain, the night London had been abducted. He’d run into the policemen who had pointed their weapons at him and demanded answers…
PART FOUR
1974
8
“I asked you a question, Danvers,” Steve, the taller cop barked. “What happened to the girl?”
“What girl?”
“Your sister.”
Trisha? London? “What about my sister?” he asked. “Where’s Jason?”
The stocky one took hold of his arm and Zach nearly fell into the street. “Jesus, get your hands off me!” He sucked in his breath through loose teeth.
“Look at this, Bill.” The officer opened the front of Zach’s jacket, shoving aside the expensive lapel with his riot stick, showing off the sticky purple stains of blood. “You okay, kid?”
“Let’s get him up to his old man. There was a paramedic in the hotel—with the mother. And the old man’s called his personal physician. Come on, son, through the back door. We don’t want the press to get a picture of you looking like this, do we?”
“What happened to Trisha?” Zach asked, dazed. The two thugs, Joey and Rudy, they’d found his sister. She’d been drunk and…Oh, God. Rage burned through his blood.
“Maybe you can tell us,” Bill said as he hauled Zach in the direction of the service entrance. “My guess is you’ve got one helluva story.”
“I don’t give a good goddamn what time it is,” Witt yelled, his patience worn thin. London was missing. His precious little girl—gone without a trace! His heart had nearly stopped at the news and he’d been foggy, but after six cups of coffee he was clearheaded and he knew who the bastard was behind the kidnapping. “I want you to send a car over to Polidori’s house. You wake up that goddamned son of a bitch and find out what he knows about this!” Witt yelled at Logan.
“Back off, Witt. We’ll question Mr. Polidori, after the search of the hotel is complete.”
“You bet your ass you will,” Witt said, reaching for the humidor of cigars he kept on the desk of his office on the main floor of the hotel. Katherine was sleeping, thanks to Dr. McHenry and several sleeping pills. Witt lit up and stalked around his massive desk. “You’ve checked all the rooms?”
“Twice,” Logan snapped. He had no patience for Witt’s inference that he and his men weren’t capable of doing their jobs.
