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“How do you know about—?”
“Only makes sense.” She sat back against her chair and regarded him coldly. “It’s what I would do if the situation were reversed.”
“You could go away from this empty-handed.”
“That’s not exactly a news flash.” She stared at him steadily and he blinked before finding interest in his half-empty glass. “I just have to know the truth, Nelson. Maybe you aren’t interested in that, but I’d say it’s a shame if the public defender wasn’t looking for it around each and every corner.”
He took a quick swallow of Scotch and Adria thought that he, of all the children, looked the most like his father. Witt had been a bigger man, but he had the same startling blue eyes, aristocratic, straight nose, thick hair, and square jaw. Aside from the similar facial features, the resemblance ended, however. Nelson was decidedly different from Witt—or at least what she imagined Witt to have been from all the articles and newspaper reports she’d read of him, the pictures she’d seen. Witt Danvers had been imposing and ruthless and cruel. Nelson seemed to have a gentler side to his character and Adria guessed there had been little, if any, gentleness in Witt Danvers. Whatever tende
rness had been trapped in his black soul had been given only to his youngest child: to London. His little treasure.
She felt suddenly sick and surprisingly empathetic for this man sitting across from her. All Witt’s children bore emotional scars that might never heal. But she wouldn’t learn anything if she showed any sign of weakness, if she let her emotions get the better of her. “What if I do turn out to be London?” she asked, lifting an eyebrow. “What would you do then?”
“I don’t know…it’s impossible to even consider it. She’s been dead too long…at least dead to me. Us. The family.”
“If I do turn out to be dear little London, you’ll have to see me day after day and have to deal with me regarding all the family business, won’t you?”
“I don’t work for the company.”
“You’re on the board of directors. You aren’t high-profile, but you’re involved. Sure, Jason pulls all the strings, but you and your sister are always hovering in the wings.” When he didn’t respond, she plunged on, determined to make her point. “I could be helpful to you, you know. I read somewhere that you’d like to go into politics. If you assisted me in uncovering the truth, it would look good on your record, wouldn’t it?” She winked at him, as if they were co-conspirators. “The headlines could be a veritable bonanza of goodwill—which wouldn’t hurt you in the final ballot count. I can see them now: DANVERS BROTHER FINDS LONG-LOST SISTER; or NELSON DANVERS PROVES WOMAN IS HIS HALF-SISTER. CANDIDATE FINDS LONG-LOST RELATIVE. It could go on and on.”
Nelson’s eyes grew wary.
“Then again,” she said, with a lift of her shoulder, “if I really do turn out to be London, I could throw a monkey wrench in all your ambitions. You’re probably banking on getting your share of the fortune.” She clucked her tongue and wondered what it was about him that made her second-guess herself.
“You know, Adria, I came here hoping that we could settle things. I don’t need to be threatened.”
“Glad you brought it up, ’cause neither do I.” Reaching into her purse, she retrieved the nasty little notes she’d received and slapped them onto the table. “Someone has been sending me notes and…gifts, if you would call it that.”
The color seeped from his face. “Who gave these to you?”
“Don’t know. Notice that they’re not signed. The mark of a true coward.”
“How’d you get them? Were they delivered?” he asked, a muscle ticking near the corner of his jaw.
“One turned up on my bureau. The other, a nasty little surprise, was left at the desk. Not many people know that I’m a guest here, Nelson, but obviously you did, so I assume the rest of your family does as well. My guess is that the guy you’ve got following me reports back to you and you all know when I’m out of my room.” She glared at him. “Give the family a message—it won’t work. I won’t back off. I’ve been told that I’ve got a stubborn streak that becomes obvious when people try to force me into doing what they want.” She leaned across the table, bringing her face closer to his. “The bottom line is this—the more you push, the harder I’ll push right back. These”—she pointed to the letter—“are a waste of my time, and the package just evidence that someone needs to see a shrink.”
“I have no idea where those letters came from,” he said, blinking hard, as if trying to put his thoughts in some sort of order. “And a package—what was in it?”
“Believe me, you don’t want to know. Why don’t you give your siblings a message for me, okay? Tell them to knock it off. I’m about ready to go to the police and the press as it is and this is just one way of pushing me right through the open doors of the Oregonian. I know of several columnists who would have a ball with this story and probably a dozen freelance reporters who would cut off their right arm if they could create a little controversy in this town. They’d love to shake up the social strata a bit by writing an exposé of some sort on the Danvers family.” She took a long drink from her glass. “What do you think?”
“What I think, Adria,” Nelson said, his voice surprisingly low and calm, “is that you’re just like all the rest. A fraud.”
“And what I think is someone in the family is running scared.” She tapped a fingernail on the letters. “Really scared.”
“You don’t even know that they’re from the family.”
“Who else?”
She folded the notes and put them in her purse. She didn’t like pushing so hard, but she had no choice. Someone in the family had decided it was time to play hard ball. Was it Nelson? She didn’t think so, but she didn’t know much about him. If Nelson were really her half-brother, she’d feel sorry for him, wearing his expensive suits during the day, and his new black leather jacket at night, while holding on to a job he didn’t want just because he was a part of the political game started long ago by his father. She suspected that even though good old Witt was in the grave, Nelson was still trying to prove to his father—or to himself—that he was truly worth something after all.
“Is there anything else you wanted to know?” she asked.
“Why don’t you just leave us alone?”
“I can’t.”
“This is your mission, right?”
