The Night Before (41 page)

But Caitlyn didn’t trust him. Not yet. Nor had she forgiven him.

Granted, she was thawing, and there was the nagging suspicion tucked far back in her mind that had circumstances been different she might have fallen in love with him.

However, things weren’t different. Nor would she have met him if she hadn’t been some bizarre head case.

She couldn’t forget that Adam was an accomplished liar. A very accomplished liar. And she figured she was really little more to him than an interesting case, a unique case, a case that might be able to garner him some fame and fortune by means of a lucrative book contract and movie deal. If he wasn’t interested in her because he was a greedy son of a bitch, then maybe he was hanging out because of guilt. If that was the situation, then it was his problem.

She struggled into her shorts and T-shirt. The bandage around her middle would be with her for a couple of weeks, but the drain had been removed and she was given a clean bill of health by her doctors, told to come back for a post-op checkup. Her mind was another matter, but she felt stronger mentally than she had in years and so far, the personality of Kelly hadn’t manifested itself . . . except that Caitlyn had her own sharp tongue and new-found determination, remnants of her twin’s stronger personality.

The good news was that Hannah was going to live. One of the few Montgomery children to have avoided Amanda or Atropos’s deadly scheme.

A nurse with a wheelchair appeared in the doorway. She must’ve expected Caitlyn to protest. “Hospital policy,” she insisted, dismissing any of Caitlyn’s complaints before they were voiced. “Is someone coming to get you?”

“My brother said he’d be here at ten.” Adam had offered to pick her up but Caitlyn had declined, insisting that Troy, less enthusiastic, could pick her up.

“Then we’d better get going.” The nurse checked her watch. “It’s five after now.”

An aide with wild, curly hair clipped in springy clumps gathered up her personal items, the cards and flowers, and pushed them on a cart that rattled and jangled Caitlyn’s nerves.

She was still on pain pills, and sleeping pills. She was still suffering from nightmares and her doctor had put her in touch with a new psychiatrist. Her first session was a week from Friday. She wondered if it would ever end, if she’d ever be completely normal.

As the nurse pushed her down the hallway she thought of the past few days. Would it be possible to put all this behind her, she wondered as she was wheeled into the elevator car. God, it was hard to think of Amanda as Atropos, the murderess, that she’d killed everyone in the family including Josh and Jamie. There were so many things Caitlyn didn’t want to believe . . . that Rebecca Wade had wanted to write a book about her, that Adam had been married to Rebecca, that Amanda had set her up, staged Josh’s fake suicide to make it look like a bungled coverup on Caitlyn’s part. Amanda had stolen her lipstick, tripped over the cord of the alarm clock, sneaked Jamie’s bunny out of the house, had pretended to be her daughter on the telephone and tried to drive Caitlyn crazy—well, even more crazy than she really was. And to think that Adam had known some of the truth and held it back from her, at least for a little while. It still made her blood boil.

She snorted in disgust. Adam had lied to her. Used her.

Just like every other man in her life.

The voice nagging her was her own, no longer sounding like Kelly’s. Now Caitlyn wondered if the voice had ever belonged to her twin. Kelly was dead. Though her body hadn’t been found after the boating accident, everyone had accepted the fact that she’d died. Only Caitlyn had fought the notion and so her personality, already shattered, had split into a second entity. If the psychiatrists were to be believed. She’d been told that she had years of therapy ahead of her, that eventually she would be able to mold the Kelly personality into her own, to be one whole person rather than two distinct entities. It would take time but she would be complete, her own person, happy and secure, left with only memories of her twin.

The elevator doors opened on the first floor and Caitlyn froze. In the lobby of the hospital, camped out near the doors, were two reporters. Max O’Dell, square jawed and dressed in a sport coat, polo shirt and khakis was with a cameraman from WKAM and Nikki Gillette was flipping through a battle-scarred magazine in a lounge near the information desk.

Just what she needed.

Both reporters saw her within the same millisecond and pounced. “Mrs. Bandeaux, if I could have a word,” Max said, striding closer and flashing his most charming smile.

“You know hospital policy,” the nurse said.

“No comment.” Caitlyn returned his aren’t-we-the-best-of-buddies grin with a cold replication. She turned to Nikki who, backpack slung over one shoulder, was swiftly approaching. “The same goes for you.”

The nurse pushed her wheelchair through the double sets of glass doors and the aide rolled the rattling cart of flowers behind them. Undaunted, Max and Nikki trailed like bloodhounds. It was all Caitlyn could do not to scream at them that she wanted to be left alone, that she didn’t want to see her face or name splashed all over the evening news or the front page of the
Savennah Sentinel
, that she just wanted some peace in her life.

Outside Adam was waiting, one jean-clad hip resting against the fender of his double-parked rig. A beat-up leather jacket was stretched across his shoulders and one side of his mouth lifted at the sight of her. He opened the passenger-side door, as if he expected her to climb inside.

“Wait a minute, where’s Troy?” Caitlyn demanded.

“Hung up at the bank.”

“What? I just talked to him an hour ago.”

Adam’s eyes glinted with a bit of mischief. “It was last-minute.”

“Bull.”

“That’s what he said.”

“Maybe we should call him.” Caitlyn didn’t have any time for this nonsense.

“My cell’s in the car.”

“Good, maybe you could bring it to me,” she said, then realized the nurse was becoming impatient, the aide had pushed the cart of flowers and gifts to the back of the SUV and Max O’Dell, Nikki Gillette and the cameraman were all hovering nearby, waiting for a story, watching the drama playing out between Caitlyn and Adam Hunt.

“Come on. I don’t bite.” His eyes actually sparked for an instant. “Well, not usually.”

“Maybe I do.”

“Oh, you definitely do.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Very funny.”

She glanced over her shoulder. Was the cameraman really filming this? Oh, for God’s sake! “Isn’t there something more newsworthy than me leaving the hospital?” she asked of Max O’Dell before turning back to Adam. “I’ve changed my mind. Let’s go.”

He helped her into the rig, and she wondered if she was making the worst mistake of her life.

She didn’t want to think about it. She watched him climb into the driver’s seat and twist on the ignition. He smelled of leather and the faint scent of some masculine cologne. She remembered kissing him, the feel of his lips on hers and quickly killed the thought.

“Let’s see if we can lose the press,” he said as he gunned the accelerator, wheeled out of the parking lot and she relaxed against the tufted leather. She was just too tired to fight. Glancing out the window to the sunny day beyond she wondered again about falling in love with him. Would it be so wrong? Wouldn’t he just break her heart?

It was almost as if she could hear her sister’s advice again and she figured that every once in a while it didn’t hurt to imagine that she was listening to her twin. Every once in a while she needed to remember. Even now she could recall Kelly as a child, pushing her to climb a tree, or swim in a deeper part of the river, of laughing at her and teasing her, the girl who looked so much like her and was so different. As a teenager Kelly had been daring, nearly as accomplished as Amanda at sports and yet feminine and a tad naughty. She’d been so confident and free on the day of the boating accident . . . Yes, it was good for Caitlyn to remember. She just wouldn’t let it go too far.

Hell, Caitie-Did
, Kelly seemed to say now,
give Adam a break. You’re an idiot if you can’t see that he’s in love with you.

Caitlyn glanced over at him as he shoved a pair of sunglasses over the bridge of his nose and angled the Jeep through traffic. As if feeling the weight of her stare, his lips twitched and he placed his hand over hers to give it a quick squeeze before letting go.

Her heart stupidly skipped a beat.

“Just drive,” she said.

“Your wish is my command.”

“Yeah, right.”

He laughed and so did she. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.

Time would tell.

It always did.

“So that does it. The Bandeaux case is officially closed,” Morrisette said a week later as she strode into Reed’s office. She was waving a check and smiling broadly.

“What’s that?” Reed looked up from his paperwork and leaned back in his chair.

“Money from Bart. Can you believe it? He’s actually caught up with the child support. First time in years!” She plopped onto the corner of his desk and folded the check into her pocket.

“He win the lottery?”

“Close enough. An aunt died, left him a little and before he ran out and bought a new pickup—oh, yeah, he did that, too—his conscience got the better of him and he decided to pay me what he owed me before I sicced a bevy of lawyers onto his ass. What a prince. Did I say prince? I meant dickhead.” She ran fingers through her spiked hair. “So—we’re all clear on the Montgomery thing?”

“Think so. Paperwork has to be caught up, but yeah, we’re done. The remains dragged out of the river did turn out to be Marta Vasquez’s. Her mother’s having a memorial for her. I talked to Lucille on the phone and she gave me the whole story. That she had a one-night stand with her boss.”

At the lift of Morrisette’s eyebrows he shrugged. “One-night stand, that’s what she says and does it really matter? The point is who would have thought Marta Vasquez was another one of Cameron Montgomery’s illegitimate kids? Man, did that guy ever keep his pants on?”

“Bad luck for her that she ran into Amanda, or Atropos or whoever she was, before anyone else.”

“One more kid after the old man’s money—she just got a late start. Didn’t realize Cameron was her father until around last December when Lucille told her on the phone.”

“And she didn’t bother telling Montoya about it?”

“She didn’t tell anyone. Except Amanda, as she was part of the law firm that handled Cameron’s estate.” Reed leaned back in his chair and rotated the muscles of his shoulders.

“So where is Montoya?” Morrisette asked as if the thought had just jumped into her head, but Reed recognized the signs.

In the few short days Montoya had been in Savannah, tough-as-nails Detective Morrisette had taken an interest in the younger man. That was the trouble with Sylvie; she was always swearing off men, then falling for the next guy who caught her eye. Reed had to give her the bad news. “Montoya already took off.”

If Morrisette was disappointed, she hid it as she scanned some of the reports littering his desk.

“He said something about taking a leave of absence from the New Orleans force. Seems to think his partner, Bentz, will understand. It’s just a matter of convincing the higher-ups.”

“Why doesn’t he come back here?”

“Probably a lot of bad memories.”

“Yeah, but
some
woman might make him forget Marta.”

Reed leveled his gaze at her. “As long as
some
woman doesn’t get too involved with a young buck ten or twelve years her junior.”

“Or even seven?”

“Yeah, even seven.”

Morrisette’s eyes twinkled, but she changed the subject. “I hear Dickie Ray Biscayne is still after the Montgomerys for his share of their estate. He’s kept Flynn Donahue on retainer. Now he wants Cricket and Sugar’s share and maybe even Amanda’s. It seems he learned something about wrongful death from Josh Bandeaux.”

“Greedy son of a bitch.”

“Aren’t they all?” Morrisette asked. “Ian Drummond, Amanda’s ex, is being courted for a tell-all book and he wants his wife’s share of the estate, even though he was banging Sugar Biscayne. For a guy who just lost his two lovers, he sure has his hand out. Money must be able to heal a broken heart.”