Forbidden Dreams (9 page)

“Do you suspect he’s a murderer, as well as a con-artist?”

Jase shook his head. “There’s been no indication of that. Anyway, I continued checking, showing that photo around, asking lots of question. Every so often I’d get lucky, and someone would remember his face, but the name was always different. No one would admit to having had personal dealings with him, but sometimes someone would suggest another place to search, another widow to question.”

“But you’ve found no real witnesses in two years?”

He shook his head, sending a sweep of thick hair across his brow. Impatiently, he shoved it back. “I tracked him to the West Coast and set up my base in Los Angeles a year and a half ago after I’d traced him to Hollywood, then San Diego, then Las Vegas. I lost him then until last week when I was invited to a weekend bash in Palm Springs. I learned from one of your grandmother’s neighbors that a man named Sterling Graves, who looked very much like the man in my photo, had flown up here with her to attend her son’s annual Christmas party. The neighbor boasted that he’d met Evelyn’s son, that Elwin Landry was the man who’d almost single-handedly discovered what was happening with that commercial bank and the South American drug money and put a stop to it.”

He grinned and tapped the back of her hand with one finger. “That
did
make the Los Angeles papers. And that’s why I came up here.”

“I was following Sterling, and even after I knew your grandmother’s name, I hadn’t made the connection between you and the name Landry. Originally, I was going to go to your father, but while doing more research on him after I got here, I saw the picture of you and your name, Shell, in a back issue of the newspaper. I realized that your relationship to Evelyn Landry would provide exactly the introduction I needed. After all, it had to be you. The name Shell isn’t common.”

“It could be. It could be short for Michelle. It could be short for Shelly.” She leaped up, too agitated to sit still, and shoved her chair under the table. She stood there, gripping its back. It all seemed too pat. Too easy. What guarantee did she have that Jase O’Keefe was who he said he was? What if he was the one trying to run a scam of some sort? She had to admit it was an odd coincidence, a con-man supposedly targeting both of their grandmothers. And he’d appeared so unexpectedly, a figure purportedly out of her past, exactly the method he claimed Sterling Graves had used on her grandmother.

Except … she did know him. She did remember him. Sort of. Long before he’d told her any of this, she’d found his face familiar, and she certainly did remember that incident with the live crabs and the candies. She’d never told that story to another soul.

“Why don’t we go right to the police?” she asked, conscious of the note of pleading in her tone. “We have this quaint little organization up here, Jase, that you might not have heard of. It’s called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They’re internationally renowned as prime investigators. I believe they have a reputation of enjoying some small success in catching criminals. People have said of them, ‘They always get their man.’ Or if not them, let’s bring my dad in on it.”

He shook his head. “Sterling Graves has done nothing criminal to your grandmother as yet, so the RCMP won’t be any more able to act than the FBI. What I want is to be on the scene before he does do anything, to warn her and seek her cooperation, so that when he makes his move, I can get the proof I need in order to bring in the right people.”

He leaned forward, his eyes intense, his voice taut with barely controlled passion. “I want proof.” He drew in an angry breath over clenched teeth. “No. Proof alone is not enough. I want to catch him in the act. I want to nail that man to the, cross, Shell! And if I went to your father and managed to convince him, what are the chances that he’d leap in like a one-man S.W.A.T. team, as he did in South America, and scare Sterling away before he does anything actionable?”

“Pretty good,” Shell admitted, still frowning in indecision.

Jase rose, too, and paced toward her. He put one hand on her shoulder and held her in front of him. “You are my only safe and sure link to the man, Shell. I need your cooperation. And your grandmother’s. If she’ll give it.”

Shell bristled. “If you can convince her that Sterling is what you say he is, then of course she’ll help you! She’ll want to nail him to the cross as much as you do. If not more.”

“I hope so, but I know how slim that chance is. Don’t forget, there have been others, all of whom have angrily denied any association with the man.”

“It’s that element of shame, Shell. They don’t want the world to know they were taken in.”

He drew in an unsteady breath and blew it out hard. “Don’t you see? That’s why I have to get a solid make on him before he gets to your grandmother. Help me, Shell. Help me stop this man so I can get on with my life.”

Shell steeled herself against giving into his impassioned plea before she’d had time to think it through. Shrugging out from under his hand, she spun toward the sink, where she shoved the few dishes to one side, put the plug in the drain and squirted in some soap.

“Shell?” He followed her. “I have to know. Will you help me?”

“I don’t know!” she flared, whirling back to face him. “What if you’re wrong? What if I have to break my grandmother’s heart for nothing more than a suspicion on your part?”

“I promise you. Your grandmother will know nothing of this until I’m positive he’s the one I want.”

Shell gnawed on her lower lip as she searched his face. She could see that he was convinced already. Either that or he was a talented actor. “All right,” she said finally. “I have to admit that what you’ve told me could be true. If it is, of course I want to help. But I’ll need to think about it for a while.”

She slipped past him to the living room. A kettle of hot water sat on the stove, and she carried it back to the kitchen.

He watched, frowning, as she poured the water into the sink, making a froth of suds bubble up from under the plates.

“Shell, don’t spend too much time thinking, okay? There’s no telling when the man might strike. He may have done so already. Even today, your grandmother could be cashing in debentures at his request. The scam he pulled on my grandmother was well-thought-out and perfectly set up, like the trap it was.”

Shell set the kettle on the useless electric range. “There is nothing either of us can do until the road is repaired, or until the phones are hooked up again. In the meantime we’ll simply have to be patient and trust my grandmother, who is, as I said, a canny, cautious lady. She won’t do anything before year’s end. She’d hate to miss out on a cent of interest.”

Dismissing the subject, she tapped the kettle with a fingernail. “There’s plenty of hot water left in here, and a package of fresh razors in the bathroom. Feel free to use them to shave.”

Sighing impatiently, Jase snatched the kettle, hitched up his blanket, and limped toward the bathroom. He slammed the door. Hard.

Shell washed the dishes, her shoulders slumped, annoyed she’d been so distracted she’d given Jase the last of the hot water. Now she had to rinse the dishes in cold water, which made them harder to dry. She turned away from them, mentally telling them to drip dry. Her mind whirled. Could what Jase had told her possibly be true? And even if it was, what reason was there to think her grandmother would be taken in?

She was deep in thought when a cheerful voice called, “Good morning, Shirl! Are you busy?” Shell spun to see her mother in her electric wheelchair rolling into the kitchen off the ramp that accessed the back door. Lil wore a bright yellow jacket with a vibrant print silk scarf at her throat, gray slacks, and black leather gloves. Her short silver-shot dark hair had been whipped by the same cold wind that had put a glow into her cheeks and a sparkle in her brown eyes.

“Lil!” Shell’s voice cracked as she cast an apprehensive look at the bathroom door. “You shouldn’t be here! You have to leave. Now!” Grasping the handles of her mother’s chair, she turned it around and pushed it back the way it had come, her heart hammering in her chest, her head spinning with fear.

Lil was having none of that. She clamped on the brakes. Rubber tires gripped wood floor, bringing the chair to an abrupt halt. “I’m here,” she said with a laugh, twisting around to look up at her daughter. “And you can’t get rid of me now.

“Anyway,” she added, her gaze following Shell’s, which was fixed on the turning porcelain knob of the bathroom door, “what are you trying to hide, darling? Have you got some gorgeous hunk stashed away in there? Ned said—”

On cue, Jase stepped out, freshly shaven, his hair damp, his torso bare, looking great even under all the bruises. His green blanket trailed around his bare feet.

Shell groaned softly and covered her eyes with one hand.

Lil gaped, then smiled that delightful, teasing smile that had first captivated the world four decades earlier. “Why, Shirl.” She put her chair into gear and rolled forward slowly, never taking her eyes off Jase. “For the second time in your life, you’ve managed to surprise me. Not to mention delight me.”

“The first time,” she went on, clearly addressing Jase, “was when she was born. I was certain she had to be a boy. All the Landry family ever produced was boys. Her father was one of five brothers, and now she has three young Landry half-brothers, to say nothing of what seems like several dozen male cousins on her father’s side. Of course, along with my immense surprise at having a daughter was intense joy. I’d wanted a golden-haired daughter just like Shirley Temple for as long as I could remember. I named her Shirley Elizabeth, for two of the women I most admired in all the world. She’s exactly what I had yearned for. I used to dress her in the prettiest things and—” Shell pressed her fingers against her mother’s shoulder, and Lil drew a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

“But I’m talking too much, aren’t I? I always do when I meet someone new. It’s because I see so few fresh faces. Shirl, introduce me to your friend.”

Shell gulped. “This is Jason O’Keefe,” she managed to say, her voice a croak of dismay. “Jase, this is my mother, Lil Harris.” Silently, she prayed he wasn’t an old-movie buff. Years of living with multiple sclerosis had changed Lil greatly. Still, enough of her beauty shone through the lines of pain brought on by the debilitating disease, and her—and Shell’s—greatest fear was that she might be recognizable to someone who would tell the world where she was.

And why.

Shell risked a glance at Jase. Hanging on to his blanket with his left hand, he stepped forward to shake the hand Lil had extended to him. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Harris.”

“It’s ‘Miss,’ ” she said. “I’ve never been married. But call me Lil. I much prefer it.”

He smiled and released her hand. “I believe we have met, Lil, when I was a small boy, one summer in Rhode Island.”

Lil shot an inquiring glance at Shell, who could say nothing sensible at the moment. All she wanted to do was scream, or run, or hide her head, preferably in her mother’s lap. Her heart beat too high, too fast, in her throat. Her palms were clammy. Her stomach was churning. She felt exactly as she had when she was six and some stranger had poked a camera into her face, shattering the world into bright shards of light.

“We’ve met?” Lil said, readily taking up the slack. “Really? Rhode Island … that was a long time ago. I’m surprised you remember me.”

Jase looked momentarily uncomfortable. “I’m afraid I don’t remember you. What I remember is playing with Shell, and I recall in the vaguest way that she lived with her mother. I don’t think I saw much of you.”

Lil smiled again, gaily. Shell could feel her relief. She only wished she could share it. “Probably not,” Lil said. “I wasn’t very sociable that summer, if I remember.” She patted her wheelchair arm. “I was developing MS at the time, although I didn’t know it, and felt extremely ill. The disease has had a slow progression, though, for which I’m grateful. I’m in a nice, solid remission now and feeling much more congenial, so why don’t you let me make it up to you for my past neglect? I was just about to tell Shirl that I’m getting together a blackout party for luncheon. Why don’t you get dressed and join us?”

“Lil, no!” Shell managed to find her voice. “You—we—you can’t do that. You’re not—”

“Nonsense, darling.” Lil patted Shell’s hand, gazing up at her with the big, deep brown eyes that had made more than one man fall in love with her image on the movie screen. “I’m having a very good day for once, and I mean to enjoy it. Kathleen is making a huge pot of soup, so as I said, I came to invite you for lunch. Ned said you wouldn’t be able to get to work today. I’m going to ask him, too, especially since he had to leave Nola back in town with her sister, and with your friend here, we can make a real party of it.”

Lil loved parties. At one time in her life, the smallest event had been excuse enough. Now, though, the events were scarce, and her strength too unpredictable for many “occasions,” despite the remission she claimed. She still had bad days.

“No,” Shell said. She hated to refuse, but she had to. Jase was, after all, from Los Angeles, where Hollywood legends held far more importance than they did in any other part of the world. If he wasn’t aware now of who her mother was, he very likely would be when all the sensationalism and speculation about her disappearance was rehashed in a few weeks, along with photographs. Even if he didn’t recognize Lil Harris as the long-missing Lilianne, possibly the first really big star to use only one name, he’d surely connect Shell with Shirley Elizabeth, Lilianne’s little daughter, who had gone missing at the same time.

It was one thing having impromptu parties with friends they all knew and trusted, but it was another thing inviting a perfect stranger into Lil’s home where her two Oscars stood proudly on the mantelpiece.

What is the matter with Lil today?
Shell wondered.
Why is she sitting there beaming at Jase, who was beaming back like a bloody jack’o-lantern, clearly responding to that once-world-famous smile? Maybe recognizing it! Doesn’t Lil realize the danger she’s in?

“Lil, please,” Shell begged in a strained voice. “Jase, let me speak to my mother in private, will you?”