Soldier's Redemption (17 page)

Cole was just coming through the hall door, carrying her carry-on in his hands. He smiled when he saw her, a smile that lit every inch of his face. She hurried to his open arms, lifting herself on her tiptoes and kissing his cheek. “Good morning,” she whispered.

He embraced her, kissing her forehead in a fierce, almost defiant manner. His skin was cold and a little ruddy. “Where did you find that?” she asked, glancing at her bag. He looked so strong and so very male, her opposite in many ways. She yearned for him to pick her up and carry her back to the bed.

“Stuffed in a garbage can,” he said. “I went to the pier and looked around. It appears someone came back during the night and evened everything out. The depression you made when you fell has been covered and all our tracks obliterated both on top of and under the pier.”

Whatever peace she’d been able to find that morning now fled. Someone had come back. Was their intention to finish her off? Had they had second thoughts about leaving her alive? She dropped her arms and stepped away from him, the room suddenly a sanctuary she was afraid to leave.

“I should’ve staked it out,” he added. “I might have been able to catch whoever is behind this.”

Was that why he was acting odd, because he’d allowed himself to go to bed with her instead of sitting in the cold all night to catch a bad guy?

“Let’s order breakfast from the room service menu,” she said.

“I already did,” he replied, taking off his jacket. “I have something to talk to you about before we head back to Traterg.”

“That sounds serious,” she said lightly, but her words landed like a brick in a punch bowl. He only nodded. Her stomach clenched; her appetite disappeared. Nevertheless, breakfast showed up a few minutes later. Cole met the waiter at the door and sent him away, rolling the tray of covered dishes into the room himself.

They sat at the round table again and picked at eggs and fruit. He could hardly meet her gaze, and that alone disturbed her.

“This is about last night, isn’t it?” she said.

He looked up from studying a strawberry. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry about?”

“I shouldn’t have mentioned love. It’s too early. I said you were going too fast and then I blurted that out. Don’t feel bad because you don’t care for me that way. I was just caught up in the moment.”

“Stop,” he said, laying his fork down on his plate. “This has nothing to do with that. Your telling me you love me did not upset me. Quite the contrary. Let that go.”

“What then?” she asked, getting to her feet. She crossed to the window and looked down at the castle grounds. All she could think about when she looked through the window were snipers on the battlements looking up at her. She moved away.

“I need to talk to you about my meeting last night.”

She tilted her head. “Okay.” She waited as he wandered over to the window and stared outside, a knot in his jaw. “You told me a little bit about it already,” she reminded him.

“Yeah. Well—” he turned around and pinned her with his intense blue gaze “—it wasn’t actually a business meeting.”

She sat down on the bench at the foot of the bed. “What kind of meeting was it?” she asked.

“Personal.”

“Oh.” What she didn’t add was
I knew he was hiding something! What is it? A wife or a child or heaven forbid, both?
“So it wasn’t the main reason you came to Kanistan?” she asked, hopeful he could reassure her.

“It’s exactly why I came,” he said.

So much for hope. “You’re confusing me.”

“I’m not here for the import/export business.”

“I figured that. But you’re legitimate. Uncle Luca checked you out.”

“Yes, it’s a legitimate business and I’m part owner, and it’s true I’ve only been doing it a few weeks. But that’s a cover for the real reason I’m here, which, as I said, is extremely personal.”

She wished he would just say whatever it was he had to say. “And the real reason you’re here is to do what exactly?”

He crossed the room and sat next to her on the bench, his hands folded in his lap. No parts of their bodies touched, and that in itself struck Skylar as ominous. “You’re scaring me, Cole,” she added softly.

“I apologize for that. You know, this might be easier if I told you a little more about myself.”

“Yes,” she said, detecting a tremor in her voice.

“First off, I was adopted. I didn’t know anything about it until after my adoptive mother died. What I told you about my adoptive father is true. We did not have an easy relationship, and I guess I now understand why.

“When I was about two years old, my birth parents were killed and my two older brothers were adopted out to different families. So was I. The family that took me originally, however, had health and financial troubles and couldn’t keep me so they released me. I was adopted by the people who raised me.”

“That must have been very hard for them and for you.”

“I don’t recall any of it, but according to my adoptive father, I cried pretty much all the time. It turned him off completely, and he washed his hands of me. My adoptive mother was different. She was a kind woman with a million causes pulling her a million directions, but she’d never been around children, and then she got stuck with a traumatized toddler. Hardly the cozy scenario she’d pictured. Anyway, because of the two families, I ended up with a different last name than the people who arranged the adoption originally knew about.”

“Does that matter?”

“Yes. But first things first.”

“How did your parents die?” she asked. There was a part of her that was so relieved this didn’t have anything to do with her that she was beginning to relax. Whatever his problem was, she would be there for him and help him fix it. She leaned forward, anxious now to understand.

“They died in a fire.”

“That’s terrible!”

“They were murdered. Someone didn’t want my father to act on information he had that would have landed them in jail and ruined their career for good. So they killed him and my mother, too. Then they framed another man’s family, killed half of them and ran the others underground.”

“This sounds like the plot for a movie,” she said.

“I know, but it actually gets worse. This person was responsible for the well-being of my brothers and myself should something happen to our parents, so they had total control. After the explosion, this guy and his cohort spread the story that the children had died, too. The oldest one had been injured and his memory affected, so they kept him close by, but the two little ones—and that includes me—got sent off to the United States with forged documents and passports and adopted out to unsuspecting families.”

“You were separated from each other,” she said, holding her stomach, her thoughts flying to her siblings. “Does this mean you know where your brothers are now?”

“It does. They managed to find me with the help of the woman I met with yesterday.”

“And your brothers told you all of this?”

“They want justice for our parents and for themselves. The older one, John, especially suffered because of this.”

“But what about the police? Surely they can reopen the case.”

“The police were in collusion back then, and there’s every reason to suspect they are now, too. For instance, when John came back here to find out about his past, the people who raised him were murdered for speaking with him, and every indication is that it was the police who were behind it. John actually came face-to-face with the man who orchestrated that part of the cover-up.”

“Came back here? You’re from Kanistan originally?”

“No, my father worked here. He was an American. And yesterday I met the last member of the family that was wrongly accused of killing him. The old guy doesn’t have anything to live for anymore, which means he doesn’t have much to lose. He wanted me to know the truth. He told me the name of the man who did all this.”

She sat back on the bench. “Who is it?”

He stared deep into her eyes. “Skylar, I’d give anything in the world if I didn’t have to tell you this.”

“Who?” she demanded, her stomach now halfway up her throat.

He whispered the name. “Luca Futura.”

She sat there staring at him, trying to make sense of one thing he said,
anything
he said. “You’re mistaken,” she finally said on an exhaled breath that emptied her lungs.

He took her hands in his. “My father was Charles Oates. Ambassador Oates. And your uncle was his right-hand man here in Kanistan—not an American but a trusted ally and friend.”

She pulled back her hands and covered her ears. Before she knew it, she was standing. The room, which had seemed a sanctuary moments before, now resembled
a trap.

Her hands fell to her sides as her mind raced to keep up with a million questions, all coming too fast to make sense.

“He betrayed everyone, Skylar. He got a girl pregnant then had her murdered.”

“No!” she said. “The ambassador is the one who did that. My uncle had just married Aunt Eleanor—”

“Which is probably why he panicked.”

“You’re wrong, Cole. I know you are.”

“Just listen to me. Roman, I mean the girl’s father, went to my dad when he found her body.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have said that name though I can’t see why it matters. Just don’t repeat it. Few people know he’s still alive. Anyway, this man pointed a finger at your uncle. He’d seen Luca with his daughter. He knew. But even then, Futura was not a man to be crossed. The girl’s father asked my father to help him find justice. My father agreed to talk to Luca that very night while his family was away—at the circus, no less. But we came home early because I ate too much junk food and got sick. Futura had no intention of facing murder charges. By then he owned the police chief, and the two of them cooked up this plan. They delivered a bomb to our house.

“What neither one of them knew was that Tyler—he’s the middle brother—had decided to return to the circus by himself and crawled out his window. Once he got outside, the darkness scared him so he hid beneath the bushes. He heard someone whistling and recognized the tune as one his father’s friend often hummed. It was coming from the other side of the fence where your uncle was keeping watch while the bomb was taken to our door. It was disguised. My other brother, John, remembers thinking the box was for him, a present. Anyway, before Tyler could do much of anything, there was an explosion. The crooked cop belonged to some old club of conspirators who used to run things here. Their symbol was an owl ring—”

“This is crazy!” she cried. “Crazy.” She paced up and down the room, the large muscles in her legs begging for more. She wanted to run—run hard and fast and away.

And then she stopped and stared at him. “You’ve been lying to me since the day you walked into my aunt’s gallery, haven’t you?”

He looked from her face to the floor. “Yes.”

“You knew about her illness, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And you chose me because you thought I would give you an in to my uncle.”

“Yes.” He looked up at her, his eyes pleading with her to understand.

Oh, she understood, all right. “That’s why you kissed me. That’s why you came on so strong and fast.”

“Yes. And no, Skylar.”

“Which is it?”

“Yes, I used you. No, it wasn’t all just that. It never was, not from the moment our eyes met.”

“Oh, my God. I told you I loved you. That must have been the icing on the cake.”

“No, Skylar, it’s not like that. You and I—”

“There is no you and I,” she said. She didn’t believe him. He’d conned her. Her voice dropped as her eyes widened. “Did you have something to do with Aneta’s murder?”

He got to his feet, and as he stepped toward her, she backed away. “Of course not.”

“Did you arrange that attack on me?”

“Skylar, please.”

“Well, think about it. How better to worm your way into my uncle’s graces than to save me—again? Is Svetlana also part of your scheme? Is that why she’s not answering her phone?”

“Just stop a minute. I don’t know Svetlana. As far as I know she’s exactly who and what she appears to be. If you’ll just listen. I’ve been thinking about what the man I met last night said about how your uncle forged papers and passports. What if that’s what’s happening with these girls who are missing? That would make the whole ‘going to America’ thing make sense. What if they’re being shipped overseas? Sold, maybe?”

“I suppose my uncle is behind that, too?”

“I think so.”

She stared at him with her mouth open. She’d read about people having out-of-body experiences. Perhaps this was what it was like. Watching things unfold, impossible things that could destroy everyone she cared about and not finding one thing to say or do to put a stop to it. “Why should I listen to you?” she asked at last.

“Because you know in your heart that I care for you. You know most of what’s happened between us is as real as the air we breathe.”

“No, I don’t,” she said. “What I know is you conned me into trusting and needing you so that you could live out some fantasy to clear a family name you don’t even use and ruin the life of a good man with a very ill wife who needs him. When I think of how stupid I’ve been! How delusional! I should have listened to Uncle Luca.”

The back of her nose burned with unshed tears. She did not want to show one ounce of weakness to this man, this stranger.

“Then what about the girls?” Cole asked. “What about Zina and Malina and maybe even the other one, Katerina?”

“What about them?”

“Where are they? Why did Aneta risk everything to try to get her sister back? Who killed her for her efforts?”

Skylar rubbed her eyes. Her throat ached with the emotion she strove to keep inside, out of view. She’d been headstrong and gullible, a deadly combination. She narrowed her eyes and planted her hands on her hips. “I don’t know what’s real or not. I don’t know that anything I thought happened actually happened. I know Aneta is dead and that she stole a painting, and I know that you are a conniving double-crossing jerk. I don’t know if your story is real, if you’re adopted or have brothers or have ever been in the military or who your parents really were. All I know for sure is you picked what you determined was the easiest way to get close to my uncle so that you could do whatever it is you want to do. And I was the idiot who let you.”