The Homecoming
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Gina Wilkins
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16,9K
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15
Chapter One
Sam Fields waited until Jessica’s little red sports car was well out of sight before he broke into her cottage.
There was no need to follow her this time; he knew where she was going. She spent every Wednesday afternoon as a volunteer art teacher at a San Francisco school for emotionally disturbed teenagers. If she followed her usual routine, she would be gone for three hours, after which she would return and retreat to her art studio until late into the night. Something about her volunteer work always seemed to spark her creativity.
Just for curiosity, he walked into her studio after letting himself into her tidy, eclectically decorated cottage. Though he had never been inside the cottage before, he had no trouble finding the studio. The cottage wasn’t big enough to get lost in, unlike the mansion just next door in which she had grown up.
He spent quite a while—too long, perhaps—studying the paintings sitting on easels and stacked against the walls. He had seen her work before, in local galleries, and he was always taken aback by the sheer power of it. It surprised him that such a delicate, almost fragile-looking young woman could create such bold, intellectually challenging works of art.
Had he guessed at her work judging solely by her appearance—a petite, fair-skinned blonde whose dimpled oval face was dominated by astonishingly blue eyes—he would have expected pretty watercolors or tidy still-life studies. Instead, her paintings were unpredictable and untamed, with strong hints of rebellion, anger and simmering sensuality.
His attention was drawn to three canvases propped in a corner, backs facing the room. None of them were finished, he noted when he flipped through them. It was as if she had reached a certain point with each and had stopped. Perhaps she had been unhappy with the way they were turning out.
As he studied them more closely, he could see that they were different, somehow, from her other works. Similar enough that he recognized the style, but more disturbing in content. Some additions seemed to have been slapped on in periods of extreme emotion, and others looked almost assembly line, as if painted by a computerized robot. Paintings that seemed to have begun with one theme had been abruptly altered, then abandoned.
Odd, he thought, putting everything back exactly as he had found it. But then, he had come to expect odd behavior from Jessica Parks.
Methodically searching the little cottage in which she lived on her father’s impressive Pacific Heights estate, he found little of interest until he reached her bedroom. A hardcover romantic suspense novel lay facedown on the nightstand, a bookmark showing it to be half-read. No photographs were displayed in the room, framed or otherwise.
Ignoring the frilly garments that might have intrigued him had he allowed himself to picture her in them, he rummaged through the vanity and dresser drawers. No diary or stashed letters, the two specific items he had been instructed to search for as a clue to her recent behavior. She must keep things like that well hidden, somewhere that would take a bit more effort to find. He found nothing at all of note until he opened a small drawer in the center of her dresser.
He looked thoughtfully at the disparate stash of baubles lying on the velvet lining. All were obviously new, some still bearing price tags. Picking up the stone-and-silver bracelet, he let it dangle from his fingers for a few long moments, his lips pursed thoughtfully. And then he replaced it with the other items, exactly the way he had found it.
A short while later, with plenty of time to spare before Jessica returned, he let himself out of the house, making sure the door locked behind him.
Jessica was being followed. And it wasn’t the first time.
She even recognized the guy. He was the same one who had been tailing her on and off for a couple of months.
He was wearing one of his disguises again—this time a scruffy, dirty brown wig pulled into a ponytail beneath a black knit cap. A pair of oversize dark glasses covered most of his face. He wore a grubby denim jacket over an untucked flannel shirt and faded jeans. She recognized him, just as she had made him in a tailored business suit, motorcycle garb, even a city sanitation worker’s uniform once.
There was something about the way he moved that made him stand out to her, even in a crowd. Apparently he hadn’t taken into account that she was an artist with a keen eye for details.
She didn’t like to think of the number of times he might have spied on her without her seeing him. And she didn’t want to know what sort of impressions he had formed of her while watching her—impressions he would have dutifully reported to the man she was certain had hired him.
Because it made her so nervous, she always seemed to do something stupid when she spotted him. Like the time she had knocked over a display of art supplies, causing such a mess in her favorite art store that she had been too embarrassed to go back since. Another time, she had dashed out of a department store without realizing she was still holding a silk T-shirt she’d been admiring when she saw him. The resulting clamor of alarms at the door had been humiliating.
She had babbled some explanation to the employee at the door about feeling light-headed and needing fresh air, then had bought the expensive T-shirt in three different colors just to prove she had intended to buy it all along. That purchase had cleaned out her checking account, resulting in several weeks of scrimping before the sale of two paintings had replenished the finances her father controlled with such a tight fist.
She wouldn’t do anything stupid this time, she promised herself with a deep, steadying breath, but she would give her unwelcome shadow the slip. He couldn’t be allowed to spy on the secret meeting she was to attend in less than an hour.
Making sure there was nothing in her hands—or her pockets—she glanced furtively around the pharmacy she had popped into for a refill of the medicine she took for occasional migraines. The man was now skulking on the other side of the store, examining a rack of over-the-counter pain relievers.
Wishing she could personally give him a reason to need an analgesic, she slipped through a narrow row of feminine hygiene products, then dashed out a side door and into a long, dim alleyway. She hoped by the time the guy realized she was no longer in the feminine products aisle, she would be too far away for him to find her again.
It was a heavily overcast afternoon, typical for San Francisco in early November. Gray clouds continued to deepen, throwing the alley into shadows that made it look more like early evening than midafternoon. She never even saw a man standing in the darkness of a recessed doorway until he stepped out in front of her.
Stumbling to a stop, she pressed a hand against her pounding heart. Her first thought was that it was the man she had escaped in the pharmacy, that he had somehow gotten ahead of her. But a second look showed her that this was a stranger. A very large and mean-looking stranger.
The man who had been following her was perhaps six feet tall and slim—this guy was a six-foot-five mountain.
“Excuse me,” she said, making an effort to keep her voice brusque and her manner confident. “You’re blocking my way.”
“Am I now?” His face looked strange in the shadows, filled with deep hollows and sharp angles. His dark eyes swept her body with an insolence that set her teeth on edge.
“Yes.” She took a step sideways, hoping he would let her pass now that he’d had fun scaring the spit out of her.
He moved in front of her again, taking a step closer at the same time. “Don’t be in such a hurry.”
Abruptly deciding she would rather take her chances with the man who had been following her than with this guy, Jessica turned on one heel to dart back in the other direction. Moving with a speed she wouldn’t have expected from someone so large, the man grabbed her from behind.
After being mugged by a purse snatcher five years ago, she had taken several self-defense classes, but her diminutive size was most definitely a disadvantage in this situation. Still, she prepared herself for a fight, opening her mouth to scream like a banshee at the same time.
Before she could let out a sound, someone else appeared in the alley. Moving with a swiftness that made the bigger man seem to be stuck in slow motion, the newcomer grabbed Jessica’s arm and shoved her roughly out of the way, his eyes never leaving the bigger man’s face.
“You want a real fight?” the man who had followed Jessica into the pharmacy demanded, his entire body braced for battle.
This was the time to get out of here, Jessica decided, climbing to her feet with a wince. She had landed flat on her butt when her rescuer shoved her, and she was a bit sore, but not so badly hurt she couldn’t run. Keeping an eye on the two men engaged in a snarling measuring match only a few feet away, she looked frantically around for her big red tote bag. She couldn’t leave it behind. It held everything that was of particular importance to her just now.
On her knees, she leaned to look under a Dumpster. Spotting her canvas tote bag beneath the wheels, she dived forward to fish it out, snagging a handle and yanking it toward her. Cursing when the bag caught on something, she used both hands to pull, nearly tumbling over backward when it came loose.
Someone steadied her from behind. Clutching the bag to her chest, she scrambled around and to her feet, not sure whether she was relieved to see the man she had first spotted in the pharmacy. There was no sign now of the big guy who had accosted her. Apparently, he’d had no interest in fighting someone closer to his own size.
Holding both hands up in a gesture meant to reassure her, her rescuer asked, “Are you all right?”
She was already sidling away from him. “I’m fine.”
“I’m sorry I made you fall. I didn’t mean to push you so hard.”
“Just stay away from me.”
Though she couldn’t see his eyes behind his dark glasses, she had the distinct impression they narrowed in response to her tone. “You’re welcome,” he muttered.
“I’m supposed to be grateful that you’ve been following me for weeks?” she snapped, hugging the bag more tightly.
That shut him up—but only for a moment. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Right.” She turned away. “And I suppose you aren’t working for my father, either.”
He didn’t say a word as she walked away. At the end of the alley, she looked over her shoulder to say, “If I see you again, I’ll call the police and charge you with stalking me.”
She made her escape before he could reply, hoping he would admit defeat now that she had identified him. That was usually the pattern of the men her father hired to keep watch over her. The only reason she hadn’t confronted this guy before was because he would only be replaced with someone she might not be able to identify so quickly.
Better the devil she sort of knew…
Sam Fields didn’t give up quite so easily. Though it galled him that Jessica had spotted him often enough to know he had been tailing her—how the hell had she done that, anyway?—his irritation simply made him more determined to do a better job in the future.
He was confident that she didn’t see him watch her meeting with Derek Ross that afternoon.
As he had predicted, she had rushed back to her place after their confrontation in the alleyway to change out of the clothes she’d soiled in her fall. Parked outside the estate walls where she couldn’t see him, he had changed his own appearance while she’d freshened up.
He had ditched the cap and wig to reveal his own shaggy, dark blond hair, swapped his dark sunglasses for glasses with brown plastic rims and thick, clear lenses and shed his flannel shirt to reveal the long-sleeved Cal Tech T-shirt beneath. He replaced his ragged denim jacket with a V-neck sweater, and his dirty boots with a pair of brown loafers. He ran some pomade through his hair, slicking it back and making it look darker than his usual gold. That quickly, he changed from grubby street guy to young businessman on a day off.
When Jessica met Derek Ross at a dimly lit café in downtown San Francisco, Sam was in a nearby booth, his back turned to them. He was able to see them in a wall mirror, but he positioned himself so they couldn’t see him in return.
Jessica wasn’t making him this time, he promised himself.
He didn’t know why he was being so persistent with this case. Yeah, sure, the money was good and his private investigation agency could certainly use the infusion of capital. But damn it, his client was in jail and the woman he was supposed to be watching was…well, Jessica Parks was a kook. Impulsive, unpredictable, temperamental. Always getting into trouble.
One expected artists to be that way, of course—at least from what Sam had observed over the years. But Jessica took eccentricity to new heights, according to her father. She had been getting into scrapes since she was a kid, enough that her family worried about her emotional stability. Apparently, her mother had been the same way, ending up committed to a mental institution for the past twenty-five years.
Maybe Jessica had inherited her mother’s emotional problems, but Sam couldn’t help wondering if the inclination for shoplifting he had been warned about had been passed down from her father. After all, Walter Parks was facing a preliminary hearing for a variety of charges, including gem smuggling, embezzlement—and murder.
While Parks fiercely maintained his innocence, claiming to have been set up by the enemies he had made during his climb to fortune and power, he insisted that his primary concern in hiring Sam had been Jessica’s safety. He worried about his youngest child, with everything so chaotic and unsettled in their family, he had told Sam. Jessica didn’t handle change and pressure well. She tended to respond by reverting to behavior that had plagued her in the past—shoplifting, sleepwalking, paranoia, even memory lapses.
Walter also expressed concern that his money made her a target for unscrupulous opportunists—as it had when she had been kidnapped eight years ago and held two weeks until Walter had paid a ransom. The kidnappers had never been captured, and Walter said it had been a miracle that Jessica wasn’t harmed. He didn’t want to tempt fate again, he insisted.
Walter seemed particularly disturbed by Jessica’s recent friendship with Derek Ross, the brother-in-law of an old business partner of Walter’s—the partner Walter was now accused of murdering. Walter had confided in Sam that Ross had once had a romantic interest in Jessica’s beautiful, but unbalanced, mother. It worried him that Ross seemed to be cultivating an acquaintance with Jessica—what was the lying cheat up to now?
Jessica had long been obsessed with her mother, unable to accept that Anna Parks was too deeply disturbed to live without constant supervision. Of course, it was only natural that with her father ripped from his family and her siblings all very recently married, Jessica would focus on her long-absent mother, Walter had added plaintively.
Sam risked another glance at the mirror. Behind him in the café, Jessica and Ross were deep into a low-voiced conversation, neither touching the rapidly cooling cups of coffee in front of them. Sam would like to know what they were talking about. He didn’t trust the way the older guy was looking at Jessica.
Sure, she was hot—as Sam had noticed way too many times, himself—but young enough to be Ross’s daughter. Walter said Ross had once had a thing for Jessica’s mother, whom Jessica was said to closely resemble. Surely the old guy wasn’t turning his romantic attentions to this younger copy of his onetime love?
Repelled by the idea, Sam scowled into his own mug. It was bad enough that he had to fight an unwelcome attraction to Jessica, and he was only twelve years her senior. Ross had to be more than twenty years older. Gross.
Wasn’t any of Sam’s business, of course—his job for now was simply to keep Jessica safe and out of trouble while her father was away. With his money, influence and crack legal team, Walter was justifiably confident about his chances of beating the twenty-five-year-old charges against him.
Still, Sam wondered whether he should quit. Walk away from the dysfunctional family and their money and let someone else take on their problems. Someone Jessica couldn’t spot so easily, he added with a scowl of self-reproach.
Maybe it was time for him to take another assignment. Tailing a cheating spouse, perhaps, or gathering evidence on a sticky-fingered employee. If he was really lucky, he’d get an insurance fraud case or an interesting background check.
Anything had to be better than baby-sitting a beautiful young blonde who kept his head spinning with a combination of exasperation and unwanted attraction.
“I’m glad you could take the time to meet me today,” Caroline Harper told Jessica Friday afternoon, the day after Jessica’s meeting with Derek Ross. “I really needed this chance to talk.”
Her friend’s call had come at a very inconvenient time, when Jessica had been immersed in plans for the secret trip she would be taking soon. Since she had just seen Caroline last week for their shopping outing—after which Jessica had found the bracelet in her pocket—she had been tempted to make an excuse not to meet at this popular coffee shop. But Caroline was pretty much Jessica’s only friend, and she had sounded so blue when she’d called that Jessica hadn’t been able to refuse.
“You know I’ll always make time for you, Caroline. Haven’t you done the same for me, too many times to count?”
Without answering, Caroline gazed down at the spoon she was slowly swirling in an oversize cup of hazelnut coffee. There were many times—such as this one—when Jessica found her friend’s strikingly attractive face difficult to read.
On the surface, Jessica and Caroline were quite different. Jessica was five foot four on her tallest days, while Caroline was closer to five-ten. Jessica’s figure was slight, but curvy; Caroline seemed to be made up of intriguing planes and angles. Both were blond, but while Jessica’s shoulder-length hair was naturally silvery, Caroline’s stylishly short cut was more golden, and straight out of a bottle.
They were different in other ways, too. Jessica constantly fought nerves and self-doubt; Caroline was the most implacable and confident person Jessica knew—outside the Parks family, anyway. To Jessica, who had been raised in wealth and privilege and knew how little true happiness either provided, money was simply a means to an end. Caroline was admittedly and unrepentantly materialistic.
After finishing the same art school three years earlier, they had gone separate directions careerwise—Jessica into painting and private showings, Caroline into the faster-paced and higher-paid world of advertising. Yet somehow they had remained friends.
It turned out that Caroline’s problem on this afternoon was that her mother had been nagging her to fly home to Ohio for Christmas, which Caroline simply didn’t want to do. She had just been back in July for her mother’s birthday, she complained, and she had planned to ship her Christmas gifts next week, almost six weeks before the holiday so that they would arrive in plenty of time.
Family problems. Now there was something Jessica understood all too well. “You are her only daughter, after all.”
Caroline groaned. “And she never lets me forget it. The only reason she wants me there is to parade me around in front of her friends. She’s decided it will make her look bad to her acquaintances if I don’t make the effort to come home for the holidays. She’s whining and carrying on about her poor health—which is a crock—and her breaking heart—an even bigger crock—and telling me how unnatural and ungrateful I am. You know how it is when a mother gets into wounded-martyr mode.”
Jessica’s hands tightened a bit convulsively around her own coffee mug. “No, actually. I don’t.”
Caroline bit her lip. After a moment, she murmured, “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
Jessica shrugged to indicate she wasn’t letting the gaffe bother her. Caroline knew, of course, that Jessica’s mother was institutionalized. But not even Caroline knew about Jessica’s plan to bring her mother home.
Which only proved that Jessica could lie without flinching to anyone, even her best friend, when she felt it was necessary. When it came to her impending plans, she trusted no one—with the possible exception of Derek Ross.
Caroline sighed. “I’m sorry. I’ve been rattling on, and I know you’ve got a lot on your mind. So much has happened in your family. We should talk about how you’re doing.”
Jessica was very fond of Caroline, who could always be counted on for dry humor, witty observations and total acceptance of Jessica’s personality quirks. Caroline was not, however, one who enjoyed deep, emotional discussions or introspective psychological dissections. So, Caroline’s occasional questions about the latest soap-operatic developments in Jessica’s family were probably prompted more by idle curiosity than genuine empathy.
Jessica could understand that. She was fully aware that her family had kept the tabloid gossips practically salivating during the past year. “I’m fine.”
Caroline looked vaguely dissatisfied with the noncommittal response. “Come on, Jess, it helps to talk, sometimes—how do you really feel about what’s happening?”
Jessica’s mouth twisted. “Depends on what you’re referring to. My father being in jail, charged with embezzlement and the murder of his onetime business partner? Or my oldest brother, Cade, a formerly conservative widower and single father, recently eloping with the daughter of the man my father is accused of murdering? Or maybe you’re alluding to my only sister, Emily, marrying a European ruler and moving to his country to bear his child and to live as royalty.”
Caroline shook her head. “Any of those things are enough to upset you.”
But Jessica wasn’t finished. “Don’t forget that terrible time a few months ago when we thought my brother Rowan had died in a motorcycle accident, only to find out that he was living on a cattle ranch in Texas. Now he’s gotten married to the mother of an adorable baby boy, leaving me the only single sibling—the one everyone thinks is emotionally unbalanced, by the way.
“And I haven’t even mentioned my twenty-four-year-old half brothers, Tyler and Conrad Carlton, who just appeared out of the blue and announced that they were conceived during an affair my father had with the wife of the same man he is now accused of murdering. So they’re Cade’s half brothers and his wife’s half brothers, which is really just too bizarre, when you think about it. I can’t imagine why I would walk around these days feeling as if my head is going to spin right off my shoulders, can you?”
Caroline winced. “When you put it that way, my family annoyances don’t seem half as bad. Yours sound like a daytime soap opera.”
Jessica sighed gustily and shook her head. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to unload on you. It’s just that everything is so crazy right now.”
“I understand. And it’s enough to put anyone on edge. Maybe you should just hole up and rest awhile. You could paint, read, watch your favorite DVDs—at least until your father’s out of jail.”
Jessica had no intention of telling her friend that she planned to make good use of the time her father was away by slipping off, herself. But she couldn’t resist commenting, “You make it sound as if there’s no question that my father will be out of jail.”
Caroline lifted one narrow, arched eyebrow. “Really, Jess, as often as you’ve complained about your father being controlling, distant and critical, you’ve never implied he could be capable of murder. Maybe he wouldn’t be above a little creative accounting or a few shady business practices, but murder?”
Jessica would have given anything to look her friend in the eye and state with absolute confidence that she did not believe Walter Parks was capable of such a deed. But the truth was, she couldn’t say that. Not after talking to Derek Ross. And not knowing what Walter had done to her mother.
“Jessica?” Caroline looked startled by her continued silence. “You don’t think—”
“I don’t know what I think,” Jessica said wearily. “I told you, I’m too confused to think. For now, I’m just going to trust the courts to sort everything out and find the truth.”
“He really does worry about you. As much as you complain about his overprotectiveness, it shows he cares. That’s more than my long-absent father ever did for me.”
Caroline didn’t know, of course, exactly how closely guarded and totally controlled Jessica had been, and this wasn’t the time to get into it. But Jessica increasingly doubted that love had anything to do with Walter’s actions.
After a moment, Caroline sighed lightly and reached for her purse. “I’ve got to run. My calendar’s full for the rest of the afternoon. Thanks for meeting me. I needed the break.”
Jessica forced a smile and accompanied her friend to the cash register. A display of pretty, whimsical refrigerator magnets caught her attention, and she studied them while Caroline paid. Caroline had insisted on treating. And then Caroline turned to give her a quick hug and an air kiss aimed at her cheek. “See you later, kid. Don’t do anything crazy, okay? Everything will work out.”
Jessica was left to wonder what Caroline had meant by that “don’t do anything crazy” crack. Maybe she was a little sensitive about such things, but the remark seemed particularly grating considering her mother’s predicament.
Still replaying the conversation with Caroline, she stepped absently onto the sidewalk. Caroline was already gone, having headed in the opposite direction.
“‘Don’t do anything crazy,’” she muttered, tucking her ever-present tote bag beneath her arm and stepping onto the crosswalk. “I wonder how she would classify flying off to Switzerland to break my mother out of a mental institution. I wonder if she would consider that cr—”
A sudden squeal of brakes—much too close for comfort—drowned out her grumbling. Before Jessica even had a chance to look around, something hit her hard from behind and sent her flying.
