Читать книгу: «Pull Of The Moon»

Flying an eight-hour solo cross-country in a Piper Arrow with only the areorplane’s crackling radio and a large bag of M&Ms for company, Sylvie Kurtz realised a pilot’s life wasn’t for her. The stories zooming in and out of her mind proved more entertaining than the flight itself. Not a quitter, she finished her pilot’s course and earned her commercial licence and instrument rating.

Since then, she has traded in her wings for a keyboard, where she lets her imagination soar to create fictional adventures that explore the power of love and the thrill of suspense.

You can write to Sylvie at PO Box 702, Milford, NH 03055, USA. And visit her website at www.sylviekurtz. com.

For Chuck – for telling me I’m wonderful no matter what. For Ann, Joyce and Lorrie – for your continuing friendship. I would like to extend a special thank-you to the following people for their help: Jennifer LeDuc Cusato, Marianne Mancusi, Denise Robbins and Jared Shurtliff.

Prologue

October brought out the ghosts. Not that they weren’t always there for Rita Meadows, but in October, they crowded her, pressured her, demanded she set them free.

Alone in her big bed, she couldn’t sleep. Returning home to Moongate tended to do that to her, especially now that the anniversary was fast approaching. She had to readjust to the mansion, to the eerie weight of the leaden memories its wooden facade held prisoner. This was her first night home since her secret trip to Chicago—one Nicolas wouldn’t approve of—and already she wished she could leave again, if only for a little while longer.

Maybe she should just skip October this year, come back in November when the ghosts’ grip lost its fierceness. After all these years of vigil, her aging bones deserved a rest. She could spend October bobbing on a yacht in the Caribbean or tasting her way through Napa Valley.

Oblivion. That would be nice.

She bolted up at the renegade thought. “No, baby, I didn’t mean that.”

Her fault. Her cross to bear. She hadn’t given up hope; she never would. But sometimes, she just wanted the pain to end.

Outside a storm boiled over Mount Monadnock and down into the valley, spilling into Moonhill. Like a brew bubbling over from a witch’s pot, rain flooded against the roof and deluged the windowpanes with waterfalls. Wind pounded against the walls, and thunder reverberated through the empty halls. A tomb would feel much like this: cold, dark and empty.

The plague of insomnia had her staring at the ceiling, finding the face of evil in the plaster as a necromancer might in a scrying bowl. One answer to one question. That’s all she wanted. Why was it so hard to find?

The storm’s fury ebbed, and the faint whimpers of a baby’s cries imprinted themselves on the air. She slid under the covers as the frightened pitch increased. Closing her eyes, fisting her hands against her ears, did nothing to vanquish the child’s terror.

Only one thing would.

Tears coursing down her cheeks, she rose from her bed. As she’d done on countless other nights, she crept into the hallway and wound her way toward the third-floor tower room. There she pressed the plunger of the antique iron latch. The door creaked open and the cries instantly ceased.

The cries weren’t real. They were just a trick of her mind, giving form to her guilt. There were no babies here, dead or otherwise—only her misguided hope.

Wrapping one arm around her stomach, she stepped into the yellow pool of artificial light burning from the night-light that had made Valentina feel safe. An expectant hush weighted the room as if the walls were listening for the missing four-year-old’s return.

Nothing had changed in this room. For twenty-five years the tic-tac-toe play rug, the child’s bed with its princess-pink canopy, the pile of stuffed animals on the butterfly-stenciled storage chest had remained as they were on the day Valentina had disappeared.

The static landscape her daughter had left behind stared back, ripe with accusation, and a lightning jag of pain, raw and deep, clawed at Rita’s heart. “I’m so sorry, baby, so sorry.”

If she could do it all over again…But no, there was no rewinding time.

As Rita turned to leave, a gray shape formed along her peripheral vision.

A sigh, no more than an exhale, seemed to sough against her ear. Mama.

Breath held, Rita stopped and pressed a hand to her thundering heart. “Valentina?”

The hope, so sharp in her voice, cut through the thick fog of memories. Of course not. What had the doctor called it? Projection? The disappointment of reality resettled heavily on her shoulders.

“No, Rita. It’s me, Holly.”

Rita swiveled toward the doorway where her faithful friend and housekeeper stood, her long gray braid a beacon in the night.

“I thought I heard—” Rita’s hand fluttered like a surrender flag toward the window. “I thought Valentina was…home.”

Holly’s solid arm wrapped around Rita’s waist, supporting her, and gently led her away from the center of her agony.

“You must think me a fool.”

“No, of course not, Rita. It was just the storm. Let me walk you back to your room.”

“I’m okay.” Shoulders stooped, Rita shook off Holly’s helping hands and made her way back into her bedroom alone, fading into the shadows of the house…just another ghost.

Chapter One

Pewter shrouded the October afternoon as Valerie Zea and Mike Murakita—her photog and soundman for the shoot—made their way to Moonhill, New Hampshire. Here and there a red maple leaf or a yellow beech leaf, still clinging stubbornly to a limb, flickered like a tongue of fire.

Valerie had seen photos of the White Mountains blazing with fall color, of the misty lakes like milky beads of moonstone wreathing the endless vistas from high atop the mountains, of the bellowing moose that required warnings to motorists every few miles on the highway. And she’d wanted to see all that rugged beauty, so different from the lush flatness of Central Florida she was accustomed to.

She’d been disappointed enough when she’d read that the Old Man of the Mountain—a nature-made Indian head of stacked boulders perched precariously on the side of a mountain for centuries—had fallen a few years ago and no longer watched over Franconia Notch. Just the name—Franconia Notch—conjured up a grand and magnificent picture. Not that they were anywhere near the White Mountains, since Moonhill was located in the southern part of the state. But the fog was cheating her out of her anticipated sense-stunning experience.

She compared the MapQuest directions she’d gotten online against the road signs popping up out of the low clouds on the narrow road. “Turn here.”

Mike jerked the car onto the country lane. “A little more warning next time.”

“Aye, aye, captain.”

On the right side, a low stone wall framed a cemetery whose granite headstones and statuary poked out of the mist. Not quite on the scale of a mountaintop view, but filled with mystery, suspense and intrigue.

On the left, a Stick-style Victorian with a wraparound porch glared through the murk like some sort of movie set haunted house. Orange fairy lights dripped from the eaves. Giant glow-in-the-dark spiders and webs clung to the decorative trusses. A life-size mummy with arms out-stretched seemed poised to lumber out of the six-foot tall black coffin leaning against the oak by the front walk. On the lawn, strobes blasted on and off at intervals, lighting up red-eyed bats, moaning zombies and shrieking gar-goyles. There were enough special effects there to make a Hollywood techie jealous.

“Talk about overkill,” she said. The overblown drama of the scene would make an interesting segment of its own, though, especially if she could find a Florida angle to it. Maybe the owner’s parents were part of the snowbirds that flocked to the Sunshine State every winter. She made a mental note to look into the possibilities before she pitched the idea to Higgins, her executive producer. He’d appreciate maximizing the bang for his travel-expense buck.

She peered at the web-encrusted mailbox by the entrance for the address. “We’ve got a way to go yet.”

Mike warbled his voice to make it sound spooky, but it came out sounding more like the Count on Sesame Street. “Maybe it’s the local haunted house for Halloween.” He shot her a mischievous grin. At thirty, he still looked like a kid with his boyish face that couldn’t grow a beard, except for a sparse tuft on his chin that looked like a smudge of dirt. “Want some B-roll of that for your segment?”

“Yeah, Higgins would go for that. He’s already ticked off Krista’s doctor wouldn’t let her fly, and he had to send second-choice me to do the job.” The assignment was high priority since it had come down as a special order from Edmund Meadows, the station’s owner. He’d requested a package about the kidnapping of his great-niece twenty-five years ago in hopes of stirring up some new evidence that could lead to finding the missing girl.

“On the plus side. He put you above Bailey.”

Bailey-the-Beautiful who had Higgins wrapped around her long legs. Valerie snorted. There was too much at stake for Higgins to risk needing to mop up after Bailey. “Efficiency won out over looks.”

“Either that or he couldn’t give her up for four whole nights.”

“There is that.”

High on Windemere Drive, Moongate Mansion materialized out of the shifting mist. First the six-foot granite wall and the black iron gate, canted open, daring intruders to trespass. Then the estate itself, a gray nineteenth-century Victorian with an eclectic mix of Italianate and Queen Anne. Each generation of Meadowses, seeking no doubt to stamp their mark, had added to the original two-story, four-room house until it sprawled over 13,000 square feet, looking like some sort of Frankenstein creature.

Valerie couldn’t imagine living in such a dreary place, especially with its constant bruise of painful memories. But she also understood why Rita Meadows stayed. For Valentina. If she came back, her home would be there, waiting for her, lights shining bright, and her mother would be there, too, arms open wide.

Valerie swiped surreptitiously at the moistness in her eyes. Her mother called Valerie’s tendency toward the melodramatic maudlin. But what could she say, she liked happy endings. There were so few of them in real life.

Mike crunched the rental up the gravel drive. She rolled the window down for a better look at the house. The scent of decomposing leaves and wood smoke infiltrated the car. Dark trees on each side of the lane swayed and whispered as if in warning. Ahead light gleamed from what seemed like a hundred windows, brightening the gloom of the day with their glow. But even that wasn’t enough to dispel the aura of decay that clung to the house’s wooden boards like ivy.

Her blood quickened as the voice-over wrote itself in her head. Cohost Dan Millege’s deep bass vibrated with gravity in her brain, hitting just the right emotional tone for the introduction to a twenty-five-year-old kidnapping. She ripped out her portfolio and scratched furious notes to capture the inspiration before it vanished. “Can’t you just feel the mystery in the air? We have to get the fog on tape before it lifts.”

Off to the side of the house, Mike shoved the rental into Park. “Don’t you ever look at anything without seeing it from a story angle?”

Valerie shrugged. The story was everything. She couldn’t explain it to Mike—or to her mother—but some inner force drove her to ferret information, any information, about everything. Her mother called it a disease and, although Valerie preferred to label her flaw as curiosity, she couldn’t quite disagree. She couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t looking for something, anything, to fill the hollowness in her soul.

We give you everything, Valerie. Isn’t that enough?

It should be, and that it wasn’t, truly pained her.

This curiosity had landed her the job as coordinating producer for Florida Alive, a half-hour magazine format program that aired Monday through Friday at seven, right after the nightly news, and showcased people, places and things of interest in the state.

So, okay, Florida Alive was considered soft news and didn’t exactly hit life-altering issues. That didn’t mean she couldn’t find the deeper meaning in a sand sculpture competition or the creation of pastry masterpieces or the raising of camels. What fired up other people, what gave their lives purpose, what made them feel alive fascinated her. Passion fascinated her. And traveling all over the state to see new places and meet all sorts of different people was an amazing bonus for a girl with wanderlust who hadn’t traveled more than fifty miles from home until after graduating from college.

Mike peered at the massive house, no doubt gauging shot angles. “So, you think she’s dead?”

Valerie’s gaze climbed up the polygonal tower, and a shiver rippled down her spine. Crazy, but the child’s frantic cries seemed to vibrate against Valerie’s chest and the child’s panic to shudder down Valerie’s limbs, making her hands cold and clammy.

She reached for the French vanilla coffee she’d bought at the Dunkin’ Donuts a few towns back and warmed her hands against the paper cup. With a fervor that rocked her, she wanted that baby to be safe somewhere. Who took a child from her own bedroom? Who could purposely cause such grief? And why?

Valerie swallowed and ripped her gaze back to Mike. “After twenty-five years…”

“It’s kind of sad to think of this lady pining away for her dead kid for so long.”

But what else could a mother do? Without proof of death, she couldn’t give up. As much as Valerie and her mother didn’t see eye-to-eye on practically anything, her mother would search the ends of the earth to find her, and Valerie would do the same for her mother. Recalling their argument that morning, Valerie winced and made a mental note to call once she got back to the inn and apologize. “That’s why we have to do the best job we can with the story.”

Mike slanted her a knowing grin. “You just want Krista’s job when she goes off on maternity leave.”

Valerie had eyed the news producer’s job ever since Krista had announced her pregnancy. It was a stepping-stone to producing harder-hitting stories, one Valerie had to cross if she ever wanted to get to New York. “So what if I do?”

Mike cranked off the engine and shot his hands up. “Hey, I’m just saying, word is, you’ve got competition for the spot.”

Bailey-the-Beautiful. “Sure and steady wins the race.”

“Only in fables, babe.”

“Don’t call me babe.”

Racking up a mental to-do list, Valerie juggled her cell phone, purse, portfolio of notes and cup of coffee. “I’ll introduce myself to Ms. Meadows and set up a time to look through her archives tomorrow. I’ll see if I can find more potential witnesses. I have that prison interview set up for Thursday. Then we can shoot Ms. Meadows’s interview on Friday.” Which would mean spending the whole weekend editing to get the package ready to air next week. No wonder she didn’t have a social life. That wouldn’t be so bad, except for the coming-home-to-only-a-dog part. “You can get started on the exteriors. Can you get a tracking shot coming up the drive? Low angle so the house seems to pop out of the fog? Maybe a Dutch angle to make it look spooky?”

“No problem.”

Mike had a great eye. She could count on him getting her the shots she needed. She pointed at the third-floor room of the turret. “That’s where she disappeared from. Make sure you get some shots from all angles. And this living room window, too. That’s where the party was held. I want the window to look as if it’s glowing so the viewer can imagine the party in full swing.”

“Got it.” Mike got out of the car. “Keep it short, will ya? I haven’t eaten anything all day, except for those stale airline pretzels.”

Valerie nodded distractedly. She’d add festive sounds during editing for the full effect. Sipping on her coffee, she stared at the window. What was it like to realize that while you were entertaining guests someone had sneaked upstairs and stolen your only child while she slept? Her heart tripped on a beat. The guilt had to crush poor Rita Meadows.

Mike was sorting through his gear in the trunk of the rental by the time she reached the solid-oak front door. She was about to ring the antique bell when the door blew open and the hard body of a man, carrying a briefcase and an air of hurry nearly crashed into her.

“Who are you? What do you want?” The timbre of his voice was deep and vibrant, echoing in the cavern of the foyer behind him. Costumed in a thousand-dollar suit and a hundred-dollar haircut, he exuded the righteous bearing and win-at-all-costs menace of a corporate sharpshooter. At the sight of those eyes, so dark and primal, a flash of awakening skittered through her brain and a choked jolt of something more acute than simple recognition made her catch her breath.

Nicolas Galloway. The man Rita Meadows had hired to run her father’s investment firm after Wallace Meadows’s death.

And, wow, Nick-the-Pit-Bull certainly lived up to his reputation as a rabid guardian. Voted most eligible, yet most elusive bachelor of New England by Boston Magazine. Smooth, charming and appealing. And definitely effective, if his investment track record was true. Although why anyone would want to pursue a man who ran his love life like an investment was beyond her understanding.

Somewhere over Virginia, she’d decided that he was going to be a problem. Meeting him did nothing to change her mind. But she could put personal prejudices aside. She pinned on a smile, freed one hand and stuck it out. “Hi, I’m Val—”

He fired a poison eye-dart at her. “Good God, don’t tell me you’re one of them—”

“I’m—”

“How did you get past the security?”

“The gate was—”

“I don’t have time for this today. Go away and don’t bother coming back. We won’t even talk to you unless you agree to a DNA test, and you’ll need to contact our lawyer’s office for that.”

He tried to bulldoze his way past her, posture straight, a relentless quality on a face with an unsmiling mouth and a strong bone structure. Armored with her portfolio, purse and cup of coffee, she stepped in front of him, blocking his path. She may look small enough to squash, but he wasn’t going to step all over her that easily.

Their eyes connected like lightning, and Valerie had a sense of space rushing dizzily. Wow, those eyes. Beneath the power, they bore a scar of pain. And sadness. How could that be when his bio spelled out an idyllic childhood?

Get real, Valerie. She shook her head. Figuring out what made Nicolas Galloway tick wasn’t on her busy agenda.

“I’m Valerie Zea, like sea.” Her name—like her life—seemed an abbreviation of something bigger. “I’m the coordinating producer for WMOD-TV in Orlando, Florida. Ms. Meadows is expecting me.”

“What for?” His icy calm chilled the already cool air and made her wish she’d put on more layers under her blazer.

Stay professional. You were invited. You have the right to be here. “We’re producing two segments on her daughter’s kidnapping twenty-five years ago.”

Without a word, he pulled her inside.

“Hey, let go of me!”

He slammed the door shut behind them. Panes in the narrow windows framing the door reverberated in their casings. Light glazed the walls of the foyer with false warmth, clouding details, reviving that dizzy feeling. For a moment, her system went haywire at the thought of being caged with him inside this house. Reaching for the closest solid thing, she steadied herself on the firm bicep of her captor, then recoiled with pinball speed at the thought of seeking safety there.

She yanked her arm to free her elbow from the hand he’d clamped around it and frowned at him when he didn’t immediately let go. “I’d say a refresher course is in order.”

“Pardon me?”

“Manners. Last time your style was in, men wore mammoth skins and carried clubs.”

He jerked her arm down as if to plant her in place and gave a sharp growl. “Stay here and don’t move.”

Movements tight and controlled, he spun on his heel and headed into the bowels of the house.

“Sure thing, Mr. Galloway. I’ll be right here when you come back to apologize.”

NICK FOUGHT HIS TEMPER all the way to Rita’s sitting room on the second floor. He hated that the mere sight of the intruder had saturated him with a sense of fullness the way food, water and air never could, just because she looked like Valentina would, and part of him was still searching for his childhood friend.

A mask. A fraud. Just another scam artist out to separate Rita from her fortune. How could his brain let itself get fooled so easily?

Valentina was dead.

The woman’s pale blue eyes had met his straight and clear, dancing with eager life and a streak of stubborn resistance. She’d done her homework, all right. Hair the color of moonlight. Natural, not bottle-bought like so many others. He’d noted things about her he hadn’t wanted to notice—like the gingery smell of her skin, like the crescent scar at her temple, like the heat of certainty that she belonged in this house.

He liked even less the twitch in his chest that had been much too close to panic. Just the thought of her now shocked him all over again.

Valentina. When would she stop haunting him?

And pseudo-Valentinas, would they ever stop showing up on Moongate’s doorstep preying on Rita’s hopes?

He hung on to his control long enough to stop and knock on Rita’s door rather than barrel right through.

Rita looked up, a flush creeping over her too-pale skin, like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Her hands folded over the age-progressed image of Valentina that had arrived in that morning’s mail. His heart sank. Why did she insist on torturing herself like this every October?

“Did you forget something, Nicolas?” Though still regal in bearing, she seemed to have shrunk in the past few years, as if the burden of hope was finally getting too much to bear. He wanted to ease her pain, but she wouldn’t buy any of his proofs—the blood, the DNA, even the conviction.

Hand still on the brass doorknob, he squeezed it with all his might to keep his irritation out of his voice. “There’s a woman downstairs who claims you’re expecting her.”

“From Edmund’s television station?”

He nodded.

“Yes, she’s the coordinating producer who’ll help me air Valentina’s story.” Rita’s spine straightened and her chin jutted out as if she were readying for a fight. That wasn’t how he wanted things to stand between them.

How could Edmund Meadows have let his niece talk him into this folly? “I wish you’d talked to me.”

“Why? So you could tell me I was a doddering old fool?”

“She’ll hurt you. Like all the others.” Nick had gotten good at sniffing out frauds. He knew this woman’s type. The kick in the gut he’d gotten when he’d seen her outside determined to get in only proved she was nothing more than another opportunist.

He jerked his chin at the photo beneath Rita’s hand. She’d be embarrassed if he told her he knew about her nightly supplications with God in the tower room. But if he told her, then he’d have to admit his own guilt, and he couldn’t bear the look of disappointment in her eyes. “She looks just like the picture.”

Rita’s gaze went wide and a little desperate. Her hands flattened over the photo, covering it completely. “She works for the station.”

“This pretender’s good. I’ll give her that.” Patient and resourceful. Hitting just the right notes to instantly win Rita’s confidence. The worst kind of con artist. He should know; that same blood ran through his veins. “She could’ve been using her job to dig deeper into your past.”

“You’re reaching, Nicolas.” Rita searched through the Notes section of her red leather agenda and tapped a paragraph on the page. “Valerie Zea has worked at WMOD for six-and-a-half years. She started as an intern right after college and has moved up to coordinating producer. She took a year off after her father died, but came back. Last year she won an Emmy for a segment she produced on a private investigator who specializes in missing children. Simon Higgins, the executive producer, tells me she’s the best person for the job.”

Was Higgins in on this farce? What would he gain by it? Time to run some background checks and stop this before the situation got out of control. “I’m trying to protect you from another fraud.”

“I understand.” Rita glanced at her notes. “She’s requested access to the archives for research, and I’ve agreed to let her sort through my collection.”

A growl formed at the base of Nick’s throat, but he swallowed it back. “You’re inviting trouble, and you hired me to keep you out of trouble.”

“You do your job well, Nicolas. This time, though, you’re wrong.”

“Rita—”

Rita closed her agenda with a snap. “She’ll want to interview you and Holly, as well.”

Something in Nick froze. “No, that’s not going to happen. I’m not going to put my mother through public humiliation again.”

Rita’s lips quivered into a tremulous smile. “It’s the twenty-fifth anniversary. I have to do something. Someone knows where my baby is. I just want to bring her home.”

And like that, a mountain of shame swamped him. Rita had exhausted every possible avenue to find Valentina—the police, private detectives, offering exorbitant rewards for information and promising no questions asked if only her daughter was returned. She’d followed every lead, no matter how thin. Once, on another anniversary, she’d even admitted she’d take a body just to know for sure what had happened to her precious daughter.

“Rita,” he started, but had no idea what to say to ease her grief and make her see that her desperation would only add to her pain.

Her pale blue eyes turned to him. “I know you think I’m a fool, but I don’t care. I know Valentina is alive.” She banged her chest with a fist. “I can feel her in my heart.”

How could he argue with that? Which didn’t mean he had to set her free with the wolves. “Okay, but I’m not leaving you alone with her.”

Rita stood, tucked her agenda against her chest, blood-red against her ice-blue blouse. “Don’t you have a meeting with Emma Hanley and Carter Stokke about the Valentina Pond project?”

Another scam as far as he was concerned, but Rita’s friend, Emma, had made a killing on Phase One, and Rita thought that, if she got in on Phase Two, it would add value to the acreage she owned on the back side of the pond. So he’d run the numbers for her and give her the black-and-white proof of his initial gut feeling. “It’ll wait. You’re more important.”

She rounded her desk and squeezed him into a quick hug. “Thank you, Nicolas, for indulging me.”

Stepping back, he nodded. She was no more than a small and fragile bird in his arms. “I’ll go get her. We’ll meet you in the library.”

Nick’s steps ate up the Oriental runner lining the hallway. Cripes, he didn’t need this.

Loyalty to Rita as much as love for this place kept him rooted at Moongate. Though he was raised at the mansion, he didn’t mistake himself for something he wasn’t. And although Rita treated him like a son, he was ultra-aware he wasn’t family. He was CEO of Meadows Investments. Nothing more. He understood that his value here was in his achievements. Which was why he’d worked at building an identity for himself outside the mansion walls with the soccer and the tutoring and the carpentry. Yet he was determined not to let Rita down, to prove she could count on him to watch out for her best interests—just as she’d once watched over him and his mother when they were helpless.

Mostly, he needed to prove that his will was stronger than the tainted blood that ran through his veins.

He wouldn’t let anyone con Rita out of a single penny. He knew all the tricks. After all, he’d learned from a master.

No pseudo-Valentina with dreams of easy riches was going to get the best of him, no matter how realistic her mask.