Sarah's Surprise Part 15

Chapter Eleven.

Kyle was waiting for her, Sara thought, sad and angry. He was waiting to help Audubon interrogate her. No matter what his motives, no matter how much he might cajole, tease, or gently prod for a truth she wouldn't give, she would never forget that he had conned her into this situation. He had helped steal her baby.

Lucy Wayne's real name was Victoria Coursey. Victoria was an ex-actress turned cop turned Audubon agent. In her purse she carried a small automatic pistol and a picture of her pet hamster. She was disgustingly calm at all times.

Which was the opposite of Sara as Victoria guided the station wagon along the driveway through Audubon's estate. In the darkness beyond acres of manicured lawns sat a Tudor-style mansion. The exterior was dramatically lit by flood lamps; the mansion was both forbidding and stately.

Sara's heart thudded, and the muscles of her back felt as if they would snap. She was frightened nowa and furious and ready for battle. And when she let herself think about a future without Kyle she could scarcely keep herself from crying.

Victoria parked the wagon in a brick courtyard. Together she and Sara walked to an impressive entrance inset with ornately carved doors. Sara jumped when they swung open without warning. A tall, rugged man with dark eyes, dark eyebrows, and a mane of snow-white hair stood there, one hand on each door.

It was a dramatic confrontation; Sara suspected that it had been planned that way. "Dr. Scarborough, how nice of you to let us force you into coming here," he said in a deep, cultured drawl. Then he smiled pleasantly and extended a hand. "T.L.B. Audubon. Please, call me Audubon."

She ignored his hand. "I want my daughter back."

"Of course. Come inside." He angled the hand toward Victoria, who shook it quickly. "Good work."

"Dr. Scarborough made it pleasant."

"I threatened her with a fireplace poker." Sara corrected her grimly. "And I'm not too far from being violent now. I want to see my daughter immediately."

"Please. Come inside. Your daughter arrived just thirty minutes ago. She's happy and comfortable, I a.s.sure you. Now, let's see what we can do about making you feel the same way."

He led them through the mansion to a large study, where a fire crackled under a marble mantelpiece crowded with gleaming trophies. "Sit down. Dr. Scarborough."

Victoria waited by the door to the study. "Do you want me to stay, Audubon?"

He waved a hand at her. "Thank you, no. Good night. I'll speak with you and Mike early in the morning."

Victoria nodded. "Good night, then. Good night. Dr. Scarborough." When Sara didn't answer, she left the room.

Sara stood firmly in the middle of the study, her hands clenched. Audubon flashed a beautiful smile. "Please, let me take your coat."

Sara shrugged her arms out of a wine-colored cloth overcoat but clutched it to her stomach defiantly. Audubon's eyes flickered with intrigue at the sight of her white sneakers, pink overalls, and the pink and white sweater underneath the overalls. The sweater had a line of unicorns across the chest. Sara glared at him coldly.

"I don't look much like someone who's sinister, do I?" she asked sarcastically. "Well, I'm not."

"Your coat, please."

"I'm not staying."

"We have a lot to discuss. Doctor."

"Not until I see my baby."

"No. We talk first." He went to a ma.s.sive desk, where he sat down, and swung both loafered feet onto one corner. He pressed a b.u.t.ton on a phone console and said simply, "Dr. Scarborough is here."

He released the b.u.t.ton without waiting for an answer. Audubon gestured toward a plush leather armchair. "Please. It's against my nature to sit while a lady stands."

"But it's not against your nature to spy on innocent people and coerce them. Hilarious sense of priorities you've got." Sara's ears caught the distant sound of measured, forceful footsteps crossing marbled floors and growing louder with each second. Kyle? She twisted toward the study door, every nerve on alert. Just let the traitor give her one rea.s.suring smile! Just let him try to soothe her hurt feelings!

He stepped through the doorway and halted, gazing at her with blue eyes so cold that she s.h.i.+vered. Sara stared at the contempt she found there, and her throat constricted with horror. He knows about Valdiuia and me.

"Your daughter is asleep," he told her, his voice threaded with distaste, as if it took great effort for him to speak to her at all. "You can see her after you answer my questions. If you want something to drink or eat before we get started, say so right now. There's a bathroom down the hall if you want it."

"No," Sara muttered, stepping back numbly. She went to the armchair and sat down, still hugging her coat against her stomach. She was empty, beaten, ruined. No one could prove or disprove that she had been Valdlvla's willing accomplice, but the accusations would destroy the secrets she had so desperately hoped to keep for Noelle's sake. And for Kyle's.

Sara gazed at him wretchedly as he went to a bookcase beside the hearth and leaned against it, his arms crossed over his chest. He had changed into dress shoes, dark trousers, and a pale blue dress s.h.i.+rt, open at the neck. The cuffs of the sleeves were fastened with monogrammed silver links. The silver matched that on the latches of the dark leather suspenders he wore. His hair was neatly styled in a way she'd never seen before. The man who gazed down at her with his face set in a rigid mask was not the same man who had been her friend and lover, and he wanted her to know it.

"Well start at the beginning," he told her. "And it will be simpler if you tell the truth. When did you first meet Diego de Valdivia?"

Sara leaned back in the chair and shut her eyes. She could only hope to escape from this ordeal with a little of her dignity intact. If she thought about the loathing in Kyle's eyes, she would fall apart. If she thought about her own innocence, she would become too bitter to talk. "I met him one year before the kidnapping."

"Well get to the so-called 'kidnapping' later. Where did you meet him?"

"In Quetano. I'd gone into the city for a short vacation, after working in the rain forest for several months. He was there on business. We met in a hotel restaurant. I was eating alone. He asked if he could join me. We had a mutual acquaintance, a professor at the local university. He was interested in my research into agricultural herbicides. We talked about his coffee bean plantations."

"When did the relations.h.i.+p become personal?" Sara gazed at him. His tone of voice whipped her. In self-defense she let sorrow and frustration build a wall that allowed only the most essential details to escape. "Are you asking mea""

"How long after the first meeting in the hotel restaurant did you start sleeping with him?"

She sucked in a tight little breath. "Eventually."

Kyle's mouth formed a merciless smile. "A few months later? A few days? A few minutes after dessert? What?"

"A few months."

"You saw a lot of him before then?"

"Yes. Whenever we were both in the city."

"Let me tell you what we know, and then you think about repeating this part of your storya"and give me the true version. Diego de Valdlvia had a reputation with women. The kind of reputation that a bull in a barn full of eager cows might envy. He wasn't known for patience. He wasn't the type who would chase a woman for several months before he got her into bed."

"Think what you want. I told you the truth."

"So you successfully played innocent with a s.a.d.i.s.tic, amoral man who as far as we know never had a long-term relations.h.i.+p with a woman before. You want me to believe that?"

Sara dug her fingernails into the chair arms. "I met him, he was interested in my work; he was intelligent, charming, and very attentive. I thought he was a legitimate Suradoran businessman. He was good at hiding what he really wanted, which was to know about my work with viral herbicides. I explained that what I hoped to do was create a cheap, environmentally safe compound for agricultural use. A weed killer that wouldn't hurt anything but the weeds."

"So, what attracted you to him s.e.xually? His fascination for farming?"

"I had aa a relations.h.i.+p with him for several months," she continued doggedly. "I thought for a very brief time that I loved him; But before long I realized that he was using me to get information. I told him so. I broke off the relations.h.i.+p. He made some very ugly threats, but I thought he was bluffing. He left me alone. I a.s.sumed that I wouldn't have to worry about him. I never expected that he was so determined that he'd follow when I went back to the States to visit my mother."

Audubon interjected. "Where you're saying that he kidnapped youa"and Dinah McClure, a friend who happened to be with you at the time."

"Yes."

"A pretty d.a.m.ned weak story," Kyle told her. "So you let Valdivia haul you back to one of his plantations in Surador where he forced you to create the kind of herbicide he wanted, something so deadly it could be of military value. And you did what he asked without quibbling."

"I was a prisoner. He threatened to send people to hurt my mother. He threatened to hurt me. He even threatened to hurt Dinah, who was pregnant. He would have, too, even though he was obsessed with Dinaha"he actually seemed to love her."

Kyle slashed the air with one hand. "So you ignored your romantic feelings for him? You were some sort of martyr for Dinah's sake, when your lover admitted that he loved her?" His voice rose. "Tell the d.a.m.ned truth, Dr. Scarborough. You were still sleeping with Valdivia, the kidnapping was a hoax, and Dinah McClure was the only innocent person in the whole deal."

Sara trembled with rage at the unfairness of her situation. She had no proof, Kyle would never believe her, no one would believe her, and nothing she could say would make any difference. "I hated him," she retorted, her voice low and fierce. "I was forced to work for him. I was glad when he died. I'm innocent. You can despise me for having been Valdivia's lover before the kidnapping, but you're wrong for thinking I collab-arated with him."

"Despise you?" Kyle said softly, his eyes narrowing. "It might be different if I thought you were telling the truth."

She held his gaze levelly, cruel and unrelenting. "No. I've always known that you wouldn't want me anymore if you knew that I had been touched by the man who put those scars on you."

His eyes glittered with fury that was mixed with an anguish that made her heart ache no matter how much she tried to ignore it. "You're still telling one lie after another."

Sara laughed wearily and put her head in her hands. "What now?"

Audubon cleared his throat. "Noelle is Valdivia's laughter."

She jerked her head up instantly. "No." She would never stop protecting Noelle. She would reveal nothing, not even in self-defense, that might be repeated to Noelle someday.

"Yes," Kyle countered sharply. "You were sleeping with the b.a.s.t.a.r.d up until the time my brother showed up. You were lucky that you were able to pull off the innocent-victim act."

"I must be a great actress. Diego de Valdivia is not Noelle's father."

"Give us the father's name, then."

She flinched. "Ia I never learned his name."

"Convenient. You must have been hot as h.e.l.l for the guy to be in too big a hurry to catch even a first name. I tell you. Doctor, I had no idea that you used so little restraint."

She was drowning in despair, and suddenly so tired that she could barely fight anymore. It was hopeless anyway. "A rebel soldier is Noelle's fathera""

"Why did you fake the herbicide you gave us?" Audubon asked, his dark eyes boring into her. "And who got the real herbicide?"

"You mean it didn't hold up under further testing?"

"That's right. It's worthless as a weapon."

"Thank G.o.d!"

Kyle gave her a derisive look. "You're going to go to prison if we find out that you gave a different version of the herbicide to Valdivia's people. And if you go to prison, your daughter will probably be put up for adoption."

She stared at him in shock. His announcement almost broke her. "I didn't. I didn't." She gulped for air and said loudly, "I did not give anything to anybody else! I did the .best I could to create a hoax that would fool Valdivia, but I didn't know if I had succeeded!" She stood, shaking badly. "You can't make charges against me, because I didn't do anything wrong. All you have is suspicion and circ.u.mstantial evidence. I want my daughter now. We're going home."

Audubon shook his head. "In the morning we'll be doing a blood test on her. You see, Valdivia had a number of children by different women. We've got blood samples from a few of them. You're a biologista"you know what kind of conclusions the new tests can give us when we compare Noelle's genetic material to that of the other children. We'll know for certain whether she's Valdivia's daughter."

Sara grasped the back of the chair and held on. Her knees threatened to buckle. "I think you're lying about the other children."

"No," Kyle told her, his tone thick and troubled, as if he'd had as much as he could take for the moment too. "But if you want to put Noelle through the pain of giving a blood sample, we'll do it. Personally, I don't like the idea of sticking her with a needle to get an answer that you could give us easily."

Sara looked from him to Audubon. "It's pointless to keep pretending," Audubon said, not unkindly.

"Ia we don't want to draw Noelle into this," Kyle added, his voice leaden.

Sara turned furious, tear-filled eyes on him. "Don't offer your concern. She's nothing to you anymore." Tears slid down her face and she almost sagged. "To you she's justa Diego de Valdivia's daughter."

Kyle's expression tightened, and his eyes no longer looked cold, only sad. The scars stood out vividly, almost as if taunting her to remember that she was indirectly responsible for them. "Thank you for making this simple for all of us." He turned away and stared into the fire, his fists clenched by his sides.

"So tell us about your relations.h.i.+p with Valdlvia," Audubon prodded. "Let's say that you did break off with him, that he did kidnap you later and hold you hostage for upwards of a year, that you were forced to work for him, and that you weren't personally plotting anything illegal with your research. How would you describe your romantic relations.h.i.+p with Valdlvia during the time in which you were held hostage, the time when your daughter was conceived?"

Sara faced him bitterly, reckless and broken-hearted. "None of your business. I don't care what else you say or do, or what else you threaten me with. I've been humiliated enough. I wanted to protect my daughter from the past, and I failed." She glanced at Kyle, who still had his back to her. "I wanted to have a new life with a man I trusted and loved. That's lost, now, too."

She was dimly aware of Kyle pivoting to gaze at her. She couldn't bring herself to look at him. Instead, she kept her eyes riveted to Audubon's. "You can accuse me of having poor judgment about Diego de Valdivia. That's the only thing I'm guilty of. Now let me go and try to make a life with what little peace of mind I have left."

Audubon's expression never changed. But after a moment of looking into her eyes he slowly lifted one hand and gestured toward the door. "Your daughter," he said softly, "is upstairs in the fifth bedroom on the right. You may spend the night as my guest, or you may take her and leave."

Sara looked at Kyle, then. "Is there any reason why I'll ever have to see you again?"

He seemed drained, troubled, as tormented as he was angry. "No."

"Then I hope you respect my privacy. I'm sure you agree that Noelle should be allowed to forget you as quickly as possible." Sara had to fight with her voice to keep it from revealing all her despair. It was a losing battle. "Shea she couldn't possibly understanda of course."

"Saraa""

"Things are different," she said in a rush of emphasis. "You've destroyed so mucha please don't destroy the rest."

"I understand," he said wearily.

She s.n.a.t.c.hed her coat up and ran from the room.

Ft. Lauderdale. It should have felt good to be back in the sun again, good to be near the beaches and the ocean, in a pastel-hued city where the most pressing problem was how to handle the annual spring break madness. But it all seemed dark and colorless to Kyle as he left the airport in a low-slung red convertible. The weather was warm and muggy, typical for October. Before Kyle went to his brother's town house he stopped by his own place, an old beach cottage that he had restored, as he had the car he was driving. He told himself that home was where he wanted to be, and he changed into shorts and a polo s.h.i.+rt.

Tess Gallatin was similarly attired when she answered the bell at Jeopard's town house, though her darkly exotic beauty made even shorts and a T-s.h.i.+rt seem special. With one hand she was trying to fasten a long clip into her shoulder-length black hair, but when she saw Kyle's face she dropped the clip and clasped both hands to her mouth in astonishment.

"What did you do? Oh, Kyle. Kyle!" Her lilting English voice made even shock sound musical. She turned and called toward the back, "Jep! Kyle is home! Come here quickly!" Then she grasped Kyle's hands and pulled him inside a coolly elegant, white-on-white living room.

She barely had time to shut the door before Jeopard Surprise came striding into the room, a long white robe belted around his waist, his light blond hair still wet from a shower. He stopped abruptly and stared at Kyle as Tess had done.

"When did this happen?" he asked.

Kyle sat down on a sofa and rubbed his face wearily. He was more distraught over it than happy, at least at the moment. "It was this way when I got up this morning." To say it had been that way when he woke up would have been inaccurate, since he hadn't slept last night after Sara's departure from the mansion.

"You want to explain?" Jeopard prodded. He and Tess sat down on a facing sofa.