Sunshine and the Shadowmaster Read online

“Good. That oughtta teach ‘em.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Heather turned back to the sink. She’d found it painful to look at him. He looked even worse than he had earlier at the sheriff’s station. She couldn’t help feeling that she was witnessing a man being slowly destroyed, from inside, by fear for his son.

  “Your housekeeper was here a few hours ago.” Heather scraped at the potato she was peeling as she talked. “I asked her to stay but she was anxious to get back. The things she brought are in your room. Except for the answering machine. That I hooked up myself, so we can be sure we never miss a call, even when we’re outside or something.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I hope that’s okay.”

  He forced a grim smile. “It’s great. Thanks.” Then he excused himself to take a shower, as he had the night before.

  After he finished his shower, dinner was ready. The two of them sat down to eat. They hardly spoke through the meal. And Lucas had to jump up to answer every time the phone rang, which was often.

  Once, after he sat down from taking a call, Lucas looked up and told her, “I’m going to offer a reward. A million dollars. For information leading to Mark’s safe return.”

  “Can you afford that?”

  He nodded. “You think it’s enough?”

  “Yes. I think it’s plenty.”

  When dinner was out of the way, Lucas called his publicist at home to break the news that he still had no idea when or if he could continue with the book tour. Next, he contacted his agent—also at home—and repeated the same thing. After that, he made other calls. He arranged for a notice to go out on the national wire services about the million-dollar reward.

  Between calls, the phone rang. It seemed to Heather that every time Lucas hung up, the phone shrilled out again. Most of the calls were from reporters who’d managed to obtain Heather’s number from someone in town. Lucas spoke to them all, because he wanted the news of the reward to get out. After a while, Heather left him alone with the phone and went about taking care of a few household chores.

  She was down in the basement, putting a load of clothes in the dryer, when Lucas called to her from the top of the stairs. She started the dry cycle and ran up the steps to the kitchen.

  Lucas gestured at the phone receiver, which he’d laid on the counter. “Eden, I think she said.”

  Heather reached for the phone eagerly. Eden was her stepmother, and Heather adored her.

  “How are you holding up over there?” The warm, vibrant voice lifted Heather’s sagging spirits a little. Eden was a wonderful woman. She’d taken Heather’s bitter, reclusive father and made him into a happy man.

  “Things have been better.”

  “Your father’s lurking by my elbow. He says to say we’re here if you need us.”

  “I know. And I’m glad.”

  “How is Lucas doing?”

  Heather glanced at the man in question. Lucas is a wreck, she thought, but opted for saying, “Could be better,” so he wouldn’t guess they were talking about him and she could avoid getting one of his disdainful frowns.

  “Why don’t you bring him over?” Eden suggested.

  “Now?”

  “You bet. We’ll have coffee. Or something stronger, if you’d like. And we’ll talk. It helps to talk, at a time like this.”

  “You know your stepmother.” Heather heard her father’s teasing voice near the mouthpiece. “She thinks talking solves everything. That’s why she never stops.”

  “Oh, you...” Eden chided. “Go away. I’m doing the talking here.”

  “Exactly,” Jared Jones growled.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Eden said to Heather. “Listen to me. And bring Lucas over here. Now.”

  Heather looked at Lucas. He regarded her through those hooded, unreadable eyes. She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s my stepmother. She’s invited us to come over there.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. But tell her thanks.” He turned and went out through the dining room.

  Heather spoke to her stepmother. “I don’t think so, Eden. But thanks.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Then promise me...”

  “Yes?”

  “If Mark isn’t found tomorrow, you and Lucas will come here for dinner.”

  Heather thought about that. The idea was appealing to her. It would be so comforting, to hold her baby half sister, Sally, in her lap and bask in the glow of the happiness that Eden and her father shared. But she was pretty sure Lucas would never go for it. And she knew she was not going to want to leave him alone if another day had gone by with no sign of Mark.

  “Oh, Eden,” Heather started making her excuses. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. It would be very late. After eight.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You get him here. And yourself, too. You need family around you now. This is a hard time.”

  “But I don’t see how—”

  “Find a way. Promise me.”

  “I—”

  “I’m not taking no.”

  Heather surrendered. Right then, tomorrow night seemed a million years away. She’d worry about getting Lucas to go with her when the time came. “All right. We’ll be there, if they don’t find Mark.”

  “All right, honey. And don’t forget. We love you.”

  Heather told Eden that she loved her, too.

  Of course, the phone started ringing again the moment the receiver met the cradle.

  “I’ll take it,” Lucas said from behind her. He was carrying what looked like a small gray suitcase. “It’s probably for me anyway.”

  “All right.” She moved out of his way.

  He set the little suitcase on the table. Heather realized it was a laptop computer when he flipped it open and she saw the screen. Then he went and answered the ringing phone.

  The call was from Mark’s mother. Lucas launched into a detailed explanation of the day’s events.

  Heather left him alone and went into the living room, where she tried her best to watch a situation comedy while she waited for her clothes to dry. When the show was over, she went down to the basement, folded the clothes and took them upstairs to put away.

  Then she stuck her head in the kitchen, where Lucas was sitting at the table typing at the laptop. The phone rang again just as she entered the room. He got up to answer it. She mouthed a good-night at him and he waved in response as he muttered “Hello?” into the mouthpiece.

  Heather went upstairs, brushed her teeth and changed into her pajamas. She climbed between the sheets and switched off the light, thinking she was tired enough that she’d be asleep in minutes.

  But sleep was fickle after all. The phone kept ringing. And since she had an extension by her bed, she was jarred from a doze twice before she reached over and unplugged the darn thing. But then she could still hear it, down in the kitchen, distant but disturbing. And after a while, she found herself waiting for the low drone of Lucas’s voice as he dealt with the people who called.

  Finally, very late, the house fell silent. Either Lucas had turned off the ringer and let his answering machine handle things, or they were giving him a break for the night.

  Heather lay, wide-eyed, listening to the silence, wondering what was the matter with her. It was perfectly quiet now. She shouldn’t be lying there staring at the ceiling waiting for...what, exactly?

  She realized what it was. She was waiting for sounds of Lucas moving around down there, for the noises that would mean he was getting ready for bed. She was having trouble relaxing because she hadn’t heard the water running in the bathroom, or the creaking of floorboards that would tell her he was settling down in the room below hers. As soon as she heard those sounds, she could relax.

  So she waited some more.

  But the sounds didn’t come.

  After a while, she just couldn’t stand it. She slid from her bed, pulled o
n her robe and tiptoed barefoot out to the small landing at the top of the stairs. She leaned over the rail and looked down the stairwell into thick, unrelieved darkness. As far as she could make out, all the lights were off down there.

  Treading carefully, Heather went down the stairs. When she reached the dining room, she paused, her hand on the newel post. The door to Lucas’s room was opposite where she stood. It was closed. No light gleamed under it. Apparently Lucas had gone to bed without her hearing him.

  Heather dropped to the bottom stair and leaned her head against the newel post. She wanted to go to Lucas’s door and knock on it, to ask him if he was all right. But then again, it seemed inappropriate to go knocking on his door in the middle of the night.

  So she did nothing. She sat there in the dark at the base of the stairs, tired enough that she fell to musing.

  Across the hardwood floor, between herself and the door to Lucas’s room, loomed the big, polished mahogany dining table. The rich wood gleamed in the spill of moonlight from outside.

  That table had once belonged to Lucas’s grandmother, Cecilia Drury, back all those years ago, when the Drury Ranch claimed most of the land for miles around.

  Rory, Lucas’s father, had been Cecilia’s only child. People said Rory had loved only one woman: Bathsheba Riley, whom he’d lost forever when Oggie Jones came to town. After Bathsheba married Oggie, Rory became a wastrel—because of thwarted love, most folks said.

  Over the years, the massive tracts of Drury land had been sold off, parcel by parcel. When Rory died, Lucas and his mother, Norma, had been the only Drurys left. The land was gone, and so was all the money.

  Norma had married Jason Conley, bringing with her to Jason’s house the few fine pieces of furniture she had managed to keep. And now Cecilia Drury’s table held the place of honor in the Conley dining room—while the Conley house and everything in it belonged to Heather, who was a Jones by birth.

  What would cruel old Rory Drury have thought had he known that one day all that was left of his family’s belongings would be owned by the granddaughter of his archenemy, Oggie Jones?

  Heather shook herself. This was ridiculous. She couldn’t sit here on the stairs all night, ruminating on the origins of her furniture. Either she had to get up and knock on that door or go back to bed.

  She put her hand on top of the newel post and pulled herself to her feet.

  And then, from the dark living room to her left, she heard the smallest sound. She held utterly still, not sure really what she had heard.

  No more sounds were forthcoming. But it didn’t matter. She was suddenly sure of where Lucas could be found.

  Her feet whispered across the bare floor as she approached the arch that led into the living room. She saw Lucas sitting in the easy chair in the corner. He’d opened the curtains and run up the shades—so he could look out at the night, she supposed.

  Though he said nothing, she knew he watched her as she went to the end of the couch nearest his chair and sat down, gathering her feet up to the side and wrapping her bare toes in the softness of her robe.

  After she was still, he seemed to watch her for a moment more, then he asked in a voice that sounded vaguely amused, “Worried about me?”

  She sat a little straighter in her corner of the couch. “Yes, I was. A little.”

  “Only a little?”

  “All right. More than a little.” She looked at him levelly—or at least at the shadowed shape of him. She couldn’t see his features very clearly in the dark.

  “I’ll survive,” he told her. “I always do. Worry about Mark. He’s the one who needs it.”

  “I am. I do.”

  Lucas looked away, toward the front windows. “Candace needs one more day, to get things squared away. And then she’ll be flying into Sacramento. She’ll rent a car from there.”

  “All right.” Heather shifted a little, leaning on the armrest—and wondering why she didn’t say good-night and retreat to her room where she belonged. She’d checked on him and he was all right—or as all right as a man whose only child is missing can be.

  His head swiveled toward her again. “Candace is one hell of a lawyer, you know?”

  She nodded. “I’ve heard that, yes.”

  “If it weren’t for her, I might still be locked up tight in an Arizona penitentiary.”

  “Yes.”

  “What does that mean, yes?”

  “It means I’ve heard about...how she defended you.”

  “I’ll bet you did. This is North Magdalene, after all, right? And people will talk.”

  She saw no reason to argue with that. “Yes, people will talk.”

  But he wouldn’t let it go. “Small minds in small places.” Now his voice was bitter. “How the hell can you live here?”

  She answered gently and firmly. “I love it here. I would never live anywhere else.”

  He said nothing for a moment. Then he softly sighed,

  “I’m sorry. I’m being an ass.”

  She smiled. “It’s okay. You’re entitled. Up to a point.”

  He rested his head on the back of the chair. Silence filled the darkness.

  Heather looked out the window across the room, at the stars and a tiny sliver of moon gleaming between the leaves of the locust tree beyond the gate.

  “Did you know that Mark changed my life?”

  She started at the sound of his voice and looked at him. He seemed to be watching her again. His head was lifted and facing toward her.

  “No,” she said. “Not really. Though now I think about it, it doesn’t surprise me. Kids have a tendency to do that.” She suggested, carefully, “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

  “About how Mark changed my life?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s not important.”

  Heather peered at him through the darkness. She wished she could see his face more clearly, but she knew that if she switched on a light everything would be ruined. In spite of what he said, she was reasonably sure that the tone of his voice meant he was willing to talk a little about himself and his son—here, under cover of darkness in the middle of the night. She thought that would be a good thing, lights or no lights.

  “I’d like to hear it,” she said, “if you’ll tell me.”

  “What you should do is go to bed. It’s late.”

  “I know.”

  “Well?”

  “Talk. Tell me about how it was for you, after you left home. And about Candace. And Mark.”

  “Heather?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re too good.”

  “It’s true. I’m wonderful. Now please. Tell me.”

  He moved around in the chair, settling in as she had done on the couch. And then he began, “I left home the day after I graduated high school.”

  “Yes. I remember that.”

  “And after I left, I wandered around a lot, taking odd jobs, kind of living on the road, really.”

  “Wasn’t that lonely?”

  He gave a dry chuckle. “What’s lonely? Everyone’s lonely.”

  “Not everyone. Not always.”

  “Tell me you’re not lonely now, Heather.”

  She smoothed her robe a little. “This isn’t my story. It’s yours.”

  “Right. My story.”

  “Go on.”

  He looked out the window again. “You’ve heard about the assault and battery charge?”

  “Yes. But only in bits and pieces. Tell me about it.”

  He let out a breath. “Well, when it happened, I was living in Phoenix, working as a roofer, making fairly good money, or so it seemed to me then. At least, I had enough money to get an apartment. One of those courtyard type of places, where you look across a walkway lined with century plants into your neighbor’s living room.

  “The apartment across from mine was rented by a woman who had two little boys. And lots of boyfriends that came and went. But then after a while, she seemed to settle down with one guy.”
/>   “And?”

  “Unfortunately her steady boyfriend had a bad habit.”

  “What?”

  “He liked to beat up her kids. Twice, I heard one or the other of those kids yelling and I’d go over there and make him stop. Finally, that bastard went too far. I heard one of the boys screaming and I went over there. When I broke in the door, the kid was bleeding. And he wasn’t screaming anymore.”

  Lucas made a low, disgusted sound. “I don’t know. I just lost it. I’m sure it’s all wrapped up in my father, and the way he used to beat on me and my mother. But whatever it was, I saw red. I jumped on that worthless piece of garbage. And when I was done with him, he couldn’t crawl out of there.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I drove him and the kid to the hospital.”

  “And then?”

  “The cops came after me at work the next day. It turned out I’d beat up the son of a very important person. They threw the book at me. Since I didn’t have more than a few hundred dollars to my name, they gave me a public defender.”

  “Candace?”

  “Right. No one believed I had a chance, because that guy I’d beat up was in bad shape. I had done major, permanent damage to him. But Candace was good, you can’t believe how good. She got me off.”

  Lucas shook his head and gave a low chuckle. “I idolized that woman. And she deserved it. She was—is the best. I was twenty-four. She was thirty. She came from a good family and she radiated class. The kind of woman who would never look twice at a loser like I was. But she shocked me. She did look. We became lovers.”

  “And she got pregnant?”

  “Yes. But by the time that happened, it was pretty much over between us. It had been ‘lust’ at first sight, I guess you could say. But it wasn’t something that lasted that long.”

  “So...she came to you, and told you about the baby?”

  “Yeah. She was straight with me. And when she told me, I don’t know, something happened inside me.” Lucas leaned forward in his chair, as if seeking a clearer view of Heather than the darkness would allow him. “Do you understand? Can you believe what that meant to me? I had nothing. I was nothing. And yet she and I had made this baby. And the baby was everything I never was. Hope. A possible future. A chance to start over and make a different kind of life.”