Hidden Legacy (10 page)

She shook her head. She couldn’t afford to lean on him. She had to hang on to herself for strength.

“I’m here if you need me.”

She turned on the motor.

Find your focus. Everything will be all right.

Briana would be home tomorrow. Juliana had to believe that. Until then all she could do was trust.

The relaxing sound of surf pounded through the earpieces over the buffer’s whine. She concentrated on the notes riding the waves, let her mind slow, her purpose sharpen, and for Briana’s sake, tuned out the world.

* * *

She finished the ring, but it wouldn’t showcase her best work. She wasn’t happy to see the piece go out the door with her jeweler’s stamp on it. Brent seemed pleased, though. For now, that was all that should matter.

As promised, Ella had dinner waiting for them when they returned from the workshop. As she made them sit and served them their chicken with mole sauce, she talked about her pepper-locating adventure, but did not once refer to Lucas or Briana or their resemblance. For that, Juliana was thankful. As Ella tottered out the door, she gave Lucas one last smile and headed home.

He ate with appetite. Juliana picked at her food. They dined in silence—just as they’d spent the afternoon. Focusing on her task of finishing Brent Horton’s ring had drained her of energy. She longed for bed and the oblivion of sleep. But night loomed ahead like an eternity. Staring out the window, watching the darkness pulse around her, wondering where Briana was, how she was faring.

“There’s ice cream in the freezer,” Juliana said, clearing the table.

“In a bit. I’ll make myself coffee. Do you want tea?”

“Thanks.”

He put on the kettle and made coffee while she loaded the dishwasher and put the remainder of their meal away. So normal these tasks, if it weren’t for the horror that had brought them together again, for the lies waiting for exposition.

His cell phone bleated, stopping both of them mid-action.

“Business,” he said, palming the receiver. “I’ll take it outside.”

Through the living room window, Juliana watched him pace the length of the porch, listening with rapt attention to the speaker. Business, he’d said. About Briana? About the Phantom? Had they located them?

* * *

“I’ve got the information you wanted,” Jeb Harris said. Though it was nearly nine, Lucas heard the squad room drone with activity around the younger agent. “I don’t see how this relates to the Phantom.”

“Yours is not to wonder,” Lucas said, salivating to get straight to the point. “You’re a smart kid. You’ll get the hang eventually.”

“Yeah, well, you owe me. Regan almost busted me while I was doing your search and retrieve. He’s really hot under the collar about you not responding to your pages. Thought he’d pop an artery on the spot.”

Temple would understand what Lucas was trying to achieve, but then Temple saw the SOP manual as a guide not a bible. Unfortunately, according to Regan, skipping rank would prove an even more unforgivable sin than playing turtle for a day or two while the job got done. “He’ll get over it when he has the Phantom to parade in front of the SAC and the press.”

“I hope you’re right. Where do you want to start?”

Turning away from the house, Lucas switched the phone from one ear to the other. “Juliana Shales. The last six years.”

“There really isn’t much,” Harris said while he shuffled papers. “She worked as a gemologist for Farakis Jewelers in downtown Nashua until five and a half years ago. Then, after taking a year off, she opened Precision Jewels in South Nashua near the mall. She’s got one full-time assistant, Callie Mercier, and a couple of part-timers—Sara Coles and Ben Reeves. She’s got a steady business and a good reputation.”

Lucas paced in order to keep his voice calm, his impatience in check. “Married?”

“No, but she’s got one daughter, Briana Hope Shales.”

Shales? He frowned. “Divorced?”

“No.”

The hairs on the back of his neck bristled. “How old is the baby?”

“She was born on September 25…let’s see…one, two, five years ago—”

“Five years?” Lucas stopped in his tracks. His nerves jangled as if he were connected to a live wire. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, is there a problem?”

Slowly he turned. Yeah, there was a problem. A big problem. “Who’s the father?”

“Unknown.”

The word hit him like a punch.
Unknown
. After all they’d shared. Unknown! His gaze connected with Juliana’s through the living room window. Pale blue curtains frothed around her head, covering her hair like a Madonna’s veil. Her blue-gray eyes widened with alarm, and in her fear, he saw the truth. Taking away five from just over six years and getting nine months didn’t take a genius.

Briana was his.

He was a father. He had a daughter.

Joy briefly flickered, then died. Juliana had left him because she was pregnant. What had she thought? That he would flee? That he wouldn’t take responsibility for his actions? Had she understood so little about him, about what he felt for her? Rather than take the chance of being rejected, she’d turned her back on him, walked away, and she’d kept his child from him for all these years.

Briana was missing. His first sight of his child might be as a corpse.

Fire spread through his veins. His jaw ached from the force of grinding his teeth. His muscles quaked with the seismic force of his anger. He wanted to shake Juliana. He wanted to blister her with his rage. He wanted to whip her with his words until she explained why she’d been so stupid, so cruel.

As if she sensed the depth of his fury, she recoiled from the window and disappeared.

“Hey, you still there?” Harris asked.

“Yeah, I’m here.” She could try to hide from him, but she wouldn’t leave. Not while her—
their!—
daughter was missing. He would get his answers—all of them. “What else do you have?”

“That’s about it for Juliana Shales. Clean record. Clean finances. The rest of the names you gave me are a bunch of all-American white bread. Not so much as a speeding ticket on any of them, except one.”

“Who?”

“Albert Tilton.”

Chapter 6

Lucas found Juliana in the kitchen. She sat at the table, chair drawn tightly under her. Her elbows rested on the white-washed wood, her hands splayed flat on the table top, her gaze stared straight ahead. Striding forward, he had every intention of demanding answers, but couldn’t find his voice through the thick lump of anger.

He leaned his fists on the table, pushed his weight onto them and skewered her with his gaze. Trying to sort through the maze of his emotions, his all-consuming need to understand came out as one word. “Briana.”

The pulse at Juliana’s throat jangled irregularly. “What about her?”

“She’s mine?”

Juliana’s eyes were bleak, gray like clouds heavy with rain. She nodded.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” The question ripped from his throat.

“I-I thought…” Her features contorted. She shook her head helplessly.

“What, Juliana, what did you think? How dare you keep such a thing from me? How can you possibly justify your actions?”

She lowered her gaze, laced her fingers together. “I thought it was the best thing to do—for all of us.”

At that moment, he hated her with all the passion and fury he’d hated the man who’d shot his father for the five hundred and sixty-eight dollars in a teller’s drawer.

He was out of control. He needed to calm down, cool down. With his temper at full throttle, he’d do or say something he’d regret, and lose whatever chance he had to get to know his child. But he couldn’t completely let go.

“I want a picture of her.”

Juliana nodded once, then scraped the chair back. He followed her stiff gait to the living room where she crouched beside a cedar chest. The cover creaked. From beneath a red, white, and blue quilt she extracted a resin frame decorated with sculpted alphabet blocks. She pressed the frame against her heart, then slowly rose, tears streaming down her face.

She had kept his daughter from him. She had deliberately hidden her.

“Juliana.” The plea for an explanation croaked from him, harsh and raw.

She flinched. Her body braced against his fury.

He grabbed the picture frame from her hand, then swerved and left.

Once in the car, he sat with the frame upside down in his lap. Part of him couldn’t wait to look upon his daughter’s face; part of him feared the moment.

He reached overhead and turned on the dome light. Blobs of red, blue and yellow stained the cream-colored resin along the back edge of the frame. He ran a finger along the bumps, then holding his breath, he turned the frame over.

He took in the background first. Snow. A hill. Tracks in the snow. A purple sled. A turquoise jacket and snow pants. Pink hat. Pink mittens. A young girl’s smiling face.

His breath came out in a tortured groan.

She looked like his sister Nadya had when she’d been a bratty five—only Nadya had worn two pigtails, not one. She looked like his pixie of a niece Alexandra who would be six in May. Briana’s hair was brown like his mother’s, a lighter shade than his own. Her cheekbones, high and prominent even at such a tender age, were a gift from his father. In her eyes, he saw a reflection of Juliana’s. In the shape of her face, a mirror image of his own.

Briana. Their child. His daughter.

This changed everything.

* * *

“What’s wrong with your dog?” Briana asked. She hunkered beside the dog’s bed—which he’d brought to the kitchen earlier when they’d come down to make dinner together—but made no attempt to pet Bijou.

“I don’t know.”

He’d been worried about Bijou for the last couple of weeks. He’d noticed a progressive decline. Her hair, usually lustrous and silky, hung limp. Her eyes, like shiny beads of dark jasper, had lost their shine. Now the brightest thing about the dog was the collar of pink diamonds around her neck. Her boundless energy had waned like a battery running on empty, making her go slower and slower and slower every day. Her appetite had exhausted its greed. She hadn’t begged from the table in days. Instead,
he’d
had to spend time convincing her to accept the tasty morsels he prepared for her.

She was twenty-one. Old by dog standards. But Bijou was not an ordinary dog. She was special. Abandoned like him. By a wardrobe mistress whose new love didn’t care for the tiny dog. So she’d put Bijou outside with the night’s garbage and left her to fend for herself.

He’d watched her self-assured little body hop the ladder of empty boxes, pick out the choicest morsels from the Dumpster, then pull a discarded costume from the refuse and make a nest by the stage back door. And he’d known she was a soul mate when she’d laid her head on the cape’s fur collar, wrapped her paws around the shredded black silk and drawn the bright red brooch to her, holding it against her heart like a child would a doll.

She’d loved the pink diamonds he’d chosen especially for her from Mrs. Van Waldenburg’s collection, and they’d loved her, too. They’d shared their fire with her, kept her young and active all these years.

He knelt beside the child, fingered the stones on Bijou’s collar. They still shone bright, still looked strong. Could their power be abating?

He glanced at Briana, thought of how enchanting she was, then shook his head. No, the child would mature. She was a jewel now, but give her a couple of years and she would grow as rude and as inconsiderate as the rest of the loitering teenage brats who jeered at him when he bought his groceries late at night.

No, he needed Bijou, not a replacement. What she needed, he decided, was stronger magic. He smiled. A sixty-five carat sapphire should do the trick. The diamonds and rubies couldn’t hurt, either. He’d thought he’d keep the Nadyenka Sapphire for himself, but he now saw Bijou needed it more.

Tomorrow, after he returned Briana, he would stop at the fabric store and get some brown velvet. He would make Bijou a collar fit for a queen.

“I think you should take her to a vet,” Briana said, eyebrows scrunched pensively. “My cat looked just like that before he died.” She reached for the dull hair and stroked Bijou’s coat gently. “Now Mom won’t get me another one because she says it’s too hard when they die.”