The Forgiven Page 3

  But what, legally, could they do? There was no evidence a crime had been committed, no proof, other than a dead woman’s confession, that Naomi’s baby had been stolen fifteen years ago. The local authorities would take their own sweet time investigating. They might eventually be able to enlist the aid of the FBI. Naomi’s sister, Abby, who would be enrolling in the FBI Academy in a matter of weeks, and the man she was in love with, an ex-FBI profiler named Sam Burke, could perhaps pull a few strings, grease a few wheels, but at the end of the day, all any of them might succeed in doing was scaring Alex DeWitt—and Taryn—back to London. Naomi couldn’t sit around and wait for that to happen.

  Still she had to admit that throwing herself on the mercy of a man who may or may not have murdered his wife no longer seemed like a great idea. There was no warmth, no charity in the depths of Alex DeWitt’s sage-green eyes. Just a cold, keen intelligence.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. DeWitt,” the secretary said behind Naomi. “I don’t know how she got past the receptionist. I told her you were busy, but she insisted on seeing you. Should I call security?” she asked a bit hopefully.

  Naomi lifted her chin defiantly as her gaze met Alex DeWitt’s. Go ahead, she silently challenged him. But they won’t get here before I have my say.

  Something flickered in his eyes. Annoyance. Amusement. Attraction? Naomi thought with a flutter of nerves in her stomach.

  She was accustomed to admiring glances. Even crossing the marble-and-brass lobby of the Ventura Oil Building earlier, she’d attracted the stares of more men than she cared to acknowledge, but Naomi neither reveled in nor repelled their attention. Nor did she hide behind false modesty. She knew she was beautiful, but she took no particular pride or satisfaction in the knowledge, because it wasn’t her doing. The genes had come from her parents, and her mother had taught her a long time ago that true beauty came from within, and that courage, perseverance and a good heart wouldn’t fade as the years passed by.

  Naomi tried to call on that courage now as she waited for Alex DeWitt to speak. He was a handsome man, she thought fleetingly. Tall and broad shouldered with dark hair and those extraordinary eyes. She was willing to bet he turned a few heads himself.

  His gaze moved momentarily past her to his well-groomed secretary. The woman still lurked in the doorway, and every now and then, Naomi caught a whiff of her perfume, something rich and exotic. A fragrance designed to attract the opposite sex. Poison, Naomi thought fleetingly.

  “It’s all right, Margaret,” Alex DeWitt said in a deep, cultured voice. He’d lost his drawl while in London, but it would have been a stretch to say he’d acquired an English accent. The inflections were more subtle than that, and much more interesting. “I’ll handle this.” His gaze swept over Naomi, leaving her with a fluttery feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  “What about the helicopter?” the secretary inquired crisply. “Shall I schedule a trip for the end of the week?”

  “I’ll let you know. Might not be a bad idea to let them cool their jets out there on the rig for a few days,” he muttered. “I hear a storm’s blowing in. A little bout with seasickness might smooth over the negotiations.”

  “Whatever you say, Mr. DeWitt.”

  He nodded briefly, as if barely aware of the woman’s departure. He gestured toward a thick, tufted chair in steel-gray leather, and after Naomi was seated, he said with ill-disguised curiosity, “How did you get by the receptionist? She has something of a reputation around here.”

  Naomi shrugged nervously. “I rode up from the lobby in the elevator with one of your colleagues. We got to talking. I told him I was on my way to see you, and he insisted on showing me to your office.”

  “I’ll just bet he did,” Alex muttered, his gaze moving over her legs.

  Naomi resisted the urge to tug at the hem of her beige linen skirt. “He led me right past the receptionist. She didn’t say a word.”

  “Very resourceful, Mrs.—”

  “It’s Miss. Naomi Cross.”

  “The question is, Miss Cross,” he said smoothly, “why did you go to so much trouble to see me? Unless I’m very much mistaken, our paths have never crossed. Have they?”

  Lying awake last night, Naomi had crafted any number of scenarios she could use to persuade Alex DeWitt that Taryn was her daughter. Rather than just blurting out the truth, she would let the story unfold gradually. She would somehow get him to confess that his wife had given birth at Eden Memorial, and then, when Naomi had him hooked, she would tell him why she was here. What she wanted.

  But facing Alex DeWitt across the breadth of his desk, equivocating no longer seemed an option. Those green eyes were far too shrewd.

  “Actually, our paths have crossed, Mr. DeWitt.”

  His dark eyebrows rose, but he waited for her to explain.

  “Are you familiar with a town in Mississippi called Eden?” she asked tentatively.

  He lifted a careful gaze to hers. “Why do you ask?”

  The moment of truth. Naomi grasped the arms of her chair as she drew a long breath. “Fifteen years ago, your wife gave birth in Eden Memorial Hospital on a night when two tornadoes all but destroyed the town.”

  His gaze went very dark. “My wife was driving from New Orleans to Memphis when she went into labor. She drove into Eden, trying to find a hospital, and she got caught in the storm. But I don’t see how any of this is your concern, Miss Cross.”

  “I was in Eden Memorial Hospital that same night,” Naomi said as calmly as she could. “I gave birth to twin daughters. I was told that one of them died shortly after her birth.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alex DeWitt said. “But I still don’t understand what that has to do with me.”

  “I believe I gave birth to two healthy babies that night. I believe your wife was the one whose baby died. I believe that—”

  Alex DeWitt stood so abruptly his chair rammed the credenza behind him and turned over. His fist slammed against the surface of the desk as he leaned toward Naomi, his eyes, not blazing with anger, but cold and deadly. “What the hell is this?”

  “I’m trying to explain what happened—”

  “He put you up to this, didn’t he?”

  The question, spoken with such deadly contempt, took Naomi aback. Her hand fluttered unconsciously to her heart. “Aubree DeWitt’s murder was never solved, and there are some people in New Orleans who still point the finger at her husband.”

  Yes, Naomi thought almost breathlessly. She could see the way it might have happened that night. Alex DeWitt’s suppressed passion and rage exploding in an act of violence. His hands, large and strong, closing around a delicate throat—

  Except Michael Donnelly said that Aubree DeWitt had been bludgeoned to death.

  Even worse, Naomi thought, her hand creeping to her chest.

  When Alex DeWitt strode around the desk suddenly, it was all she could do not to scream for help. But she doubted that the dour-faced Margaret would come rushing to her aid.

  “Why?” he demanded, staring down at her. “Why are you doing this? How much did he pay you to come up with this garbage?”

  Naomi finally found her voice, and she rose on shaky legs to face him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. No one paid me to come here. I came because I want to find my daughter—”

  His gaze on her hardened. “If you dare to come within ten feet of my daughter, if you try to contact her in any way, I swear I’ll—”

  “What?” Naomi shot back, her own anger finally overriding her shock. “What will you do to me if I try to see my daughter?”

  “Your daughter? God, woman. Are you crazy or just morally corrupt?”

  “I’m neither,” she said angrily. “I’m a mother whose baby was stolen from her fifteen years ago. And you can make all the threats you want, Mr. DeWitt, but nothing you can do, just short of murdering me, will ever make me give up on finding my daughter.”

  This time, it was he who looked taken aback. He lifted a hand, and for a moment,
Naomi thought he was either going to grab her or strike her, and she braced herself, although her pride wouldn’t allow her to flinch.

  But what he did, instead, was drag his fingers through his dark hair, and for the first time, Naomi noticed the sprinkle of silver at his temples. He was older than she’d first thought, probably somewhere in his late thirties or early forties. He had experience and connections and a past fraught with secrets. But he also had Naomi’s daughter, and that alone gave her the courage to stand up to him.

  “It’s true,” she insisted. “I know it must come as a shock, and I don’t blame you for your reaction. But I assure you, I’m acting on my own here. No one paid me to come and see you. I’m from Eden, Mississippi, and...recent events there uncovered the truth about the night your wife and I both gave birth.”

  “And I’m expected to just take your word for that?”

  Naomi lifted her shoulders helplessly. “You can have me checked out if you want. You can call the sheriff in Jefferson County. His name is Mooney. Or my sister. Until recently, she was a detective with the sheriff’s office, but she’s attending the FBI Academy—”

  “Wait a minute,” he cut in coldly. “If the police are involved, why aren’t they here instead of you?” When Naomi hesitated, his expression hardened. “Because they think you’re a crackpot, too, don’t they? It’s true, isn’t it? You’ve concocted this bizarre story for God only knows what reason, but I’m willing to bet the local authorities, let alone the FBI, wouldn’t give you the time of day. Because the simple fact is, you have no proof. Am I right, Miss Cross?”

  * * *

  YEARS OF DELICATE NEGOTIATIONS in the volatile international petroleum markets had taught Alex when to hold back and when to pull out all the stops. He saw defeat flicker in Naomi Cross’s gorgeous brown eyes, and without hesitation he moved in for the kill.

  “I don’t know who you are or why you’ve decided to come forward with this outrageous claim. Instinct tells me it has something to do with money. It almost always does. But I can promise you this, Miss Cross. If you try to harm my daughter in any way, I’ll make your life a living hell.”

  Naomi glared at him. “And I promise you this, Mr. DeWitt. I’m going to prove Taryn is my daughter. With or without your cooperation. And when I do, I won’t lose her again.”

  She turned then, pulling herself up to her full, impressive height and strode from the room, leaving in her wake the light, subtle fragrance of her perfume and something potentially much darker. Something that Alex feared had the power to destroy his whole world.

  What lingered in the air was the ring of truth in her words. The absolute conviction in her voice sent a chill up his spine. Naomi Cross believed every word she’d spoken, and that made her a very dangerous woman.

  Looking at her, no one would believe that dementia lurked behind such an appealing facade. She was quite possibly the most beautiful woman Alex had ever laid eyes on, and that, too, made her dangerous. He was not a man given to impulses, not since his hasty marriage to Aubree had proved so costly, but Naomi Cross was a woman few men could resist. She was the kind of woman who made intelligent men do stupid things.

  She was tall and lithe, with glossy dark hair—nearly black—and large, soulful eyes. Eyes that could weaken a man’s knees as well as his resolve.

  He’d been tempted before, by women far more experienced and sophisticated than Naomi Cross. But the stakes had never been this high, and that alone readied Alex for battle. He would do anything to protect his daughter. She was going through a difficult time right now, and the last thing she needed was for some stranger to show up on their doorstep, claiming to be her long-lost mother.

  It was the last thing Alex needed, too.

  He walked back over to his desk and picked up a framed photograph of Taryn, studying her features for a moment as he tried to dispel his lingering disquiet. He’d snapped the picture in the garden of their London town home just months before they’d returned to New Orleans, and he still couldn’t get used to how much she’d changed in such a short time. He hardly knew her anymore.

  Gone was the shy smile, the sweet disposition, the beguiling child who’d been so anxious to please it sometimes broke Alex’s heart. In her place was a sullen, moody teenager, a complicated, unpleasant stranger who barely had two civil words for him these days.

  He supposed it served him right. It was hard to believe now, but there’d been a time when he hadn’t wanted a child, when he’d been adamant about not bringing a baby into the world for the sole purpose of trying to resuscitate an already dying marriage.

  When Aubree had told Alex she was pregnant, after first admitting she’d thrown away her birth control pills, he’d been furious with her and too proud and stubborn to turn down the position Ventura Oil had offered him in their London office.

  Instead, he’d tried to convince Aubree to go with him, even though by then he’d known the marriage was in trouble. But out of the country, far away from her father’s meddling, it was possible the two of them could still make a go of it, if only for the baby’s sake.

  But Aubree had remained just as stubborn, storming out of their modest home in Metairie to ensconce herself in a lavish house a block off St. Charles Avenue, bought and paid for by her father. And Alex had left for London alone. He’d returned as often as he could, but because of the miles and the growing estrangement between him and Aubree, he’d seen little of Taryn during those first few years of her life, and for that, he would never forgive himself.

  This was his punishment, he decided. There’d been a time when he’d had no room in his life for a child, and now there was no room in Taryn’s life for him. What goes around comes around, as his mother used to say.

  But putting it all into perspective didn’t make his recent difficulties with his daughter any less painful. Nor did the animosity between him and his former father-in-law ease the tension. Joseph Bellamy was an old Louisiana aristocrat who had never accepted his daughter’s marriage to a penniless nobody who’d grown up in Gentilly, who’d attended New Orleans Community College for two years before he’d gotten a scholarship to Tulane.

  From the beginning, Joseph Bellamy had insinuated himself into his daughter’s marriage, undermining any kind of bond Alex and Aubree might have forged. He’d discouraged her from joining Alex in London, and once Taryn was born, he’d tried to turn both his wife and daughter against him.

  And Alex had been only too willing to supply the necessary ammunition. He could have given up his job at Ventura Oil, could have come back to New Orleans and fought for what was rightfully his, but he’d been young and ambitious. He hadn’t wanted to turn down what he’d viewed then as the opportunity of a lifetime.

  If he’d only known...

  He’d made a lot of wrong choices back then, Alex thought grimly, staring down at his daughter’s picture. Choices he wouldn’t repeat if he had it to do over again. Nothing would keep him from his daughter now, and no one was going to take her away from him, either.

  He returned Taryn’s picture to the corner of his desk as a cold, dark anger spread like a cancer through his soul.

  Ever since they’d returned to New Orleans, Joseph Bellamy had been trying to undermine Alex’s relationship with Taryn by feeding her lies about the past, by making her become almost obsessed with a mother she barely remembered. A mother who had fallen far short of the sainthood Joseph had anointed her with after death.

  When Alex had found out he was being transferred back to New Orleans, he’d hoped that age would have mellowed the old man, but at seventy-six, Joseph was still just as shrewd, still just as ruthless, still just as consumed by hatred as he’d ever been. And he still blamed Alex for Aubree’s death.

  In those terrible first days after Aubree’s body had been found in the house off St. Charles, he’d lashed out at Alex, had railed against him to anyone who would listen. He’d even convinced the police, for a while at least, that Alex might have somehow slipped into the country aboard a
Ventura jet, done Aubree in for her money and then returned to London before anyone was the wiser.

  When the investigation cleared Alex, Joseph hadn’t been satisfied. In his mind, justice would never be served until Alex got what was coming to him. And so he’d tried to take Taryn from him.

  And now it seemed that he’d picked up right where he’d left off on the night he’d vowed vengeance for his daughter’s murder. The price, he’d said, would be Alex’s own daughter.

  Alex didn’t know how or why, but he was certain Joseph was behind Naomi Cross’s visit here today.

  Grabbing up the phone, he punched in his ex-father-in-law’s number. The Bellamys resided in one of the restored mansions along River Road, but Joseph, a former federal judge, maintained an office and a senior partnership at his old law firm, one of the most prestigious in the city.

  When Alex heard the old man’s voice, he dispensed with the formalities and got right to the point. “I don’t know what the hell you’re trying to pull this time, but it’s not going to work, do you hear me? I’m not going to let you drive a wedge between my daughter and me.”

  “Taryn is Aubree’s daughter.”

  Amazing, Alex thought, how much venom could drip from just four words. His grip tightened on the phone. “She’s my daughter, and nothing you can say or do will ever change that. I know you sent Naomi Cross to my office with that cockamamie story about her being Taryn’s real mother—”

  Joseph’s breath sucked in sharply. “What?”

  “You heard me. Naomi Cross just left here. I don’t know where you dug her up, but I have to give you credit. She was pretty darn convincing. Almost had me believing there for a minute that she and Aubree had given birth in the same hospital in that podunk town in Mississippi, and that one of her babies had been swapped for Aubree’s and mine.”

  There was dead silence on Joseph’s end. Then, his voice quivering with rage, he said, “Now you listen to me. I don’t know who this woman is. I never heard of her. But if she repeats this nonsense to anyone else—if you repeat it—I will make you both very, very sorry. Taryn is Aubree’s child. She’s all that I have left of my daughter. God help anyone, including you, who tries to take that away from me.”