The house was dark. Quiet. The only sound Marla heard came from outside her window, the rush of wind through the branches of the fir trees in the backyard. It’s now or never, she thought, throwing back the covers of her bed and grabbing her robe. As she tossed the robe over her pajamas she heard the soft chink of keys—Eugenia’s keys—in her pocket. And now it was time to use them. She had forced herself to stay awake until she was certain her mother-in-law, the servants and Cissy had gone to their rooms. Nick had disappeared earlier and Alex hadn’t returned from wherever it was he went after dinner. At least she hadn’t heard him come home.
She closed the door to her room and walked across the suite, one hand in her pocket holding the precious keys to keep them from clinking. She tried the door to Alex’s room. Locked. No surprise there.
“What are you hiding?” she wondered aloud. She let herself into the hallway and, aided by one lamp left on all night, she padded stealthily to the office door. Her nerves were strung tight as piano wires, her hands clammy, nervous sweat beading between her shoulders. She tried to insert the first key. No go. She used the second. It slid into the lock but wouldn’t turn. She withdrew it, put in the next. It, too, wouldn’t budge. In the foyer downstairs the grandfather’s clock struck one.
Come on, come on, she thought, trying two more keys before finally the lock gave way with a soft click. Heart in her throat, Marla stepped into a room that smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and Alex’s aftershave. “Now, Marla, think,” she whispered, closing the door softly and dropping the keys back into her pocket. She turned on the desk lamp and walked through the office to the exercise room, past the seldom used equipment and into Alex’s closet. His scent was stronger here where his jackets and suits lined the wall. Quietly, she pushed the door of the closet open just a crack to peer into her husband’s private sanctuary. Relief poured over her as she noticed that his bed was undisturbed, the covers as tight as if he expected a surprise military inspection.
Letting out her breath, she hurried back to the office and as quickly as her nervous fingers could move riffled through Alex’s Rolodex. Since the first time she’d looked, she’d remembered more and more of the names listed, as in the intervening few weeks, she’d met some people, heard conversations about others and recognized about a third of the names in the file.
Concentrating, she made mental notes of the friends, family and business associates of Marla and Alex Cahill, but stopped short as she flipped over a card and the name Kylie Paris caught her eye. Kylie. Again. Her heart stopped. So there really was a woman by the name Conrad Amhurst had called her.
Her throat went dry. She bit her lip. Dear God, was Kylie her name? She’d thought as much before, but that didn’t make any sense. Why would everyone, her husband included, think she was Marla? Or did the name Kylie belong to someone else? Was it possible that she, Marla, did have a half sister, as her father had suggested, or was his anger just the ramblings of a sick, disoriented old man?
You never understood, did you? You’re not my daughter. Get out of here, Kylie. And don’t ever come back. You’re never getting a dime from me!
Money? He was concerned about money? This man who was giving everything he’d amassed in his life to one tiny baby?
His raspy accusations still ringing in her ears, she pulled the card from its holder, reading the address and phone number listed under Kylie Paris’s name. Telling herself that it didn’t matter that it was the middle of the night, she licked her lips and picked up the receiver. “No guts, no glory,” she whispered as the dial tone seemed to blare in her ear.
With trembling fingers she dialed. Waited. Crossed her fingers. Within seconds there was a click and then a woman’s voice—playful, catty, mischievous. “Hi. Guess what? You blew it. I’m out. Sorry you missed me, but you know the routine. Leave your name and number and I’ll call you back. If you’re lucky. Ciao.”
Then a beep. Marla hung up. Fast. Swallowed hard. Should she have left a message? Who was that woman? Her sister? A stranger? Or had she recorded that flippant message as Kylie Paris?
If she could only remember! She stared at the phone and considered calling back. What would it hurt to say that she was Marla Cahill and was looking for her sister . . . No, it would be better to meet the woman on the other end of the line in person. Face-to-face. Maybe seeing Kylie’s face would jog her memory. As it was, Marla couldn’t waste any more time, so she dropped the card into her pocket with Eugenia’s keys, and searched through the remaining names in the Rolodex one more time, hoping that seeing a name or address or phone number would trigger her memory, but she was disappointed.
“Never give up,” she told herself and turned her attention to the computer. She needed a password to get into the e-mail and used combinations of dates and names, information she’d learned over the past couple of weeks, but nothing opened the damned files. The clock in the foyer chimed the half hour. One-thirty. How long would Alex be out? All night? She tried to open the desk, but the drawers were locked. Of course. “Damn it all to hell . . .” she said, then reached in her pocket for Eugenia’s keyring. There were three small keys on the ring. One was probably for the liquor cabinet, the other presumably for the secretary in Eugenia’s room and the third . . . fit into the desk perfectly.
With a click the drawers opened.
Hallelujah!
Quickly she sorted through the files and found copies of tax statements and bills, mortgage and bank information, all neatly filed in manila folders. The bills were staggering, the loans against several properties, this house included, more than she could imagine—into the millions of dollars. Hadn’t Alex inherited the house and ranch
from his father? She scanned an investment portfolio, and noticed as the months had passed that withdrawals had been made, not just dividends and interest, but the principal balance as well until it had dwindled to less than a tenth of what it had been three years earlier.
Where had all the money gone?
If she could believe what she saw, Alex and Marla Cahill were in debt to their eyeballs. No wonder Alex worked late and was talking with foreign investors. She closed the drawer, opened another and found medical records, going back several years. She opened the file marked Marla and in the pool of light from the single lamp she perused each statement, learning that a few years earlier she had been treated for tendinitis in her elbow and had suffered from a sprained ankle four years ago. She shuffled through the bills, several for minor surgeries—facial work done in the past two years, plastic surgery to keep the years at bay.
What a waste, considering the accident. She was about to slip the billings back into their file when she saw a last itemized bill for surgery. She read the notes and frowned, her brow puckering. Surely she’d gotten something mixed up. But the bill stated very clearly that Marla Amhurst Cahill had undergone a hysterectomy three years earlier.
Nearly three years before her son James had been born—two before he’d been conceived.
“Oh, God,” she whispered her mind spinning wildly, a thousand thoughts racing through her brain. She remembered the night at the clinic when Dr. Robertson had refused to let her see her own medical records, placating her, while Alex had insisted she go home, that she was too tired to be rational, but he’d wanted to hide her medical records from her.
Because of the hysterectomy.
Because it would prove that James couldn’t possibly be her baby.
Her insides churned. She was sweaty all over. She leaned hard against the desk as her mind spun with questions. What the hell was going on? She remembered her son’s birth. It was one of the few complete memories that she had. But then she’d found the empty bottle of premarin—female hormones—in the medicine cabinet, prescribed for people going through menopause or after having hysterectomies.
But the baby . . . the baby . . . Oh, God, had her anxious mind dreamed the birth? And why didn’t she remember Cissy’s?
Because you’re not Marla Cahill, damn it! You’ve sensed it all along!
She was going out of her mind . . . this couldn’t be happening. Get hold of yourself, Marla. Now! Don’t fall into a million pieces. Search. Hunt through Alex’s things. Find out why he’s keeping secrets from you!
With fumbling fingers she folded the damning document into small sections, then stuffed it into the pocket of her robe with the keys and the Rolodex card with Kylie Paris’s phone number and address. Was she James’s mother? Or had she, in fact, had her female organs removed? She hadn’t been out of the hospital long enough to have a complete menstrual cycle, only about three weeks, but she had no visible scars from an operation. They don’t cut you on the outside any more. She wasn’t taking estrogen and hadn’t had any hot flashes, unless someone had slipped them into her meals . . . But you don’t know, do you? You don’t know if you’re Alex’s wife or the children’s mother? You don’t know if you’ve got your uterus and ovaries, you don’t even know your damned name.