Praise for Kay Hooper
HAUNTING RACHEL
“A stirring and evocative thriller.”
—Palo Alto Daily News
“The pace flies, the suspense never lets up. It’s great reading.”
—The Advocate, Baton Rouge
“An intriguing book with plenty of strange twists that will please the reader.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“It passed the ‘stay up late to finish it in one night’ test.”
—The Denver Post
FINDING LAURA
“You always know you are in for an outstanding read when you pick up a Kay Hooper novel, but in Finding
Laura, she has created something really special! Simply superb!”
—Romantic Times (gold medal review)
“Hooper keeps the intrigue pleasurably complicated, with gothic touches of suspense and a satisfying resolution.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A first-class reading experience.”
—Affaire de Coeur
“Ms. Hooper throws in one surprise after another.… Spellbinding.”
—Rendezvous
AFTER CAROLINE
“Harrowing good fun. Readers will shiver and shudder.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Kay Hooper comes through with chills, thrills, and plenty of romance, this time with an energetic murder mystery with a clever twist. The suspense is sustained admirably right up to the very end.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Peopled with interesting characters and intricately plotted, the novel is both a compelling mystery and a satisfying romance.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Kay Hooper has crafted another solid story to keep readers enthralled until the last page is turned.”
—Booklist
“Joanna Flynn is appealing, plucky, and true to her mission as she probes the mystery that was Caroline.”
—Variety
AMANDA
“Amanda seethes and sizzles. A fast-paced, atmospheric tale that vibrates with tension, passion, and mystery. Readers will devour it.”
—Jayne Ann Krentz
“Kay Hooper’s dialogue rings true; her characters are more three-dimensional than those usually found in this genre. You may think you’ve guessed the outcome, unraveled all the lies. Then again, you could be as mistaken as I was.”
—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Will delight fans of Phyllis Whitney and Victoria Holt.”
—Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine
“Kay Hooper knows how to serve up a latter-day gothic that will hold readers in its brooding grip.”
—Publishers Weekly
“I lapped it right up. There aren’t enough good books in this genre, so this stands out!”
—Booknews from The Poisoned Pen
“Kay Hooper has given you a darn good ride, and there are far too few of those these days.”
—Dayton Daily News
Bantam Books by Kay Hooper
ALWAYS A THIEF
ONCE A THIEF
SENSE OF EVIL
WHISPER OF EVIL
TOUCHING EVIL
OUT OF THE SHADOWS
HIDING IN THE SHADOWS
STEALING SHADOWS
HAUNTING RACHEL
FINDING LAURA
AFTER CAROLINE
AMANDA
ON WINGS OF MAGIC
THE WIZARD OF SEATTLE
MY GUARDIAN ANGEL
HIDING IN THE SHADOWS
A Bantam Book / October 2000
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2000 by Kay Hooper
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: Bantam Books.
eISBN: 978-0-307-56767-3
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, New York, New York.
v3.1_r1
FOR MY FAMILY
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Dinah
Faith
The Search Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Prologue
DINAH
Kane MacGregor looked up from the morning newspaper as she came into the kitchen, and reflected not for the first time that Dinah Leighton was the only woman he’d ever known who managed to create the illusion of incredible bustle while never moving faster than a lazy stroll. It was a peculiarly endearing trait.
“I am so late,” she said by way of greeting, dropping her briefcase into a chair across from him at the table and going around the work island to pour herself a cup of coffee. He always made the coffee in the morning, favoring a gourmet blend rich with taste, a selection Dinah accepted cheerfully even though she considered the beverage merely a simple and efficient means of getting caffeine into her system as quickly as possible. “You turned off the alarm again.” She didn’t sound annoyed, just matter-of-fact.
“After all your long hours recently, I thought you could use a little extra sleep. Besides, it isn’t all that late. Just after nine. Do you have a meeting this morning? You didn’t mention anything last night.”
“No, not a meeting.” She spooned enough sugar into the coffee to make him wince, and poured enough cream to make him wonder why she even bothered with coffee. “I just … They allow visitors only twice a day, and I’m always too late in the evening.”
It was Thursday. He’d forgotten.
“I’m sorry, Dinah. If you’d reminded me—”
The smile she sent him was quick and fleeting. “Don’t worry about it. I still have time, I think.” She put two slices of bread in the toaster and leaned against the counter.
Kane looked at her, wondering as he had wondered often in recent weeks if it was his imagination that Dinah was a bit preoccupied. He’d thought it was because of the accident, but now he wasn’t so sure. She tended to get wrapped up in her work, sometimes to the exclusion of other things. Was that it? Just another story that had drawn her interest and engaged that lively mind?
He wanted to go to her, but didn’t; he was experienced enough to recognize the warning in both her actions and her body language. She had not touched him, had not even come near him, in fact. She was across the room with the island and the table between them and showing him most of her back.
She might just as well have worn a no-trespassing sign. In neon. It irritated him.
“Will you stop on the way to work?” he asked, keeping the conversation going while he decided whether or not it was time to do something about this.
Dinah checked the wide, leather-banded watch she wore and nodded absently. “For a few minutes.”
“You don’t have to go twice every week.”
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
“Dinah, it wasn’t your fault.”
/> “I know that.” But her voice lacked certainty. She seemed to realize it, because she cleared her throat and quickly changed the subject while she buttered her toast. “Anyway, we’ll be going in opposite directions this morning. Just as well, I expect. Steve has me chasing after that building inspector for an interview and the wretched man is never in his office, so I’ll need my Jeep.”
Steve Hardy was Dinah’s editor at the small but well-known magazine where she worked, and he tended to push her almost as hard as she pushed herself.
“Another exposé?” Kane said lightly. “Bribery and kickbacks in the city?”
She laughed. “I wish. No, this is just for a series on our local officials. You know—a day in the life of, and how, exactly, your tax dollars are being spent.”
“Easy stuff for you.”
Dinah shrugged. “Easy enough.”
Kane watched her load the toast with grape jelly and take a healthy bite. She was, he decided, very watchable no matter what she was doing. She wasn’t beautiful, but damned close. Regular, not-quite-delicate features that fit together well, the best of which being a pair of steady blue eyes that sometimes saw more than one would guess. Her pale gold hair was cut casually short in tousled layers—“wash and wear,” she called it—and her tall, voluptuous body was clothed in a simple tunic sweater and jeans. Dinah didn’t care much about clothes, and it showed. On the other hand, what she wore hardly mattered because the enticing figure underneath was what caught the eye. The male eye, at any rate.
His eye, certainly, more than six months ago.
It hadn’t taken them long to get intimate, but getting to know each other had become a much more complex, drawn-out process. And a cautious one. Both were fiercely independent, with busy careers and cluttered lives and rocky past relationships that had left scars, and neither had been in a hurry to delve beneath surface passion.
It had been enough, for a while.
But even wary relationships either evolved or fell apart, and theirs was evolving. Almost against their wills, they had been drawn together to share more than a bed, tentatively exchanging views and opinions and comparing tastes and basic values. They liked what they had discovered about each other.
At least, Kane thought so.
They were not quite living together, but after nearly four months of my-place-or-yours, Kane had been wondering if he should be the one to suggest they stop the shuttling back and forth almost every night.
And then, a little more than a month ago, the accident happened and Dinah began to distance herself from him. He had assumed the cause was Dinah’s worry for her friend and the ridiculous guilt she felt. For the first time, though, he asked himself if that was the case.
“I’ll probably be late tonight,” Dinah said, eating the second piece of toast.
“More research?” It had been her excuse so often of late. Was it time for him to pick a fight and clear the air between them?
“Just something I need to check out. I’ll probably be closer to my place than here by the time I get finished, though, so—”
“Why don’t I meet you there?” he interrupted, unwilling to hear her suggest another night apart. There had been several recently. Too many. “Eight? Nine?”
Her hesitation was brief. “Eight. I should be through by then.”
“I’ll bring Chinese,” he said. “Or would you rather have something else?”
“No, Chinese is fine. Sesame chicken.”
“And no egg rolls. I remember.”
Dinah sent him another brief smile, but her mind was clearly elsewhere.
Kane sipped his coffee and watched her. He could accept that her job was important to her; his was to him, after all. So it would hardly be fair of him to protest her abstraction, to demand all her time and attention for himself. But was that really it?
An easy story about the city officials of Atlanta was the sort of thing she could do with her eyes closed. But she had more than once juggled two stories at a time, one of them unknown even to her editor; it was her way of combining the routine work of a magazine writer with the more gritty and urgent instincts of an investigative journalist.
“Dinah?”
Finishing her toast, she sent him a glance, brows lifting inquiringly.
“Why don’t we go away this weekend. Maybe drive out to the coast?” He had a beach house, a peaceful retreat that both of them found a welcome change from the hectic pace of the city.
Her hesitation was almost imperceptible. “I wish I could. But I have an appointment on Saturday.”
“Can’t reschedule?”
“No, I’m afraid not.” She smiled regretfully. “There’s an assistant D.A. I’m supposed to talk to, and she’s got a big case coming up, so her schedule is full. It has to be Saturday.”
Kane thought she was lying to him. “Well, it was just a thought. Maybe next weekend.” He let the exasperation in his voice lie there in the silence between them.
Her eyes flashed, but her voice remained calm when she said, “Relationships are hell, aren’t they?”
“Sometimes.”
“I gather you’re feeling neglected?”
“Dinah, don’t try to make me feel and sound like the typical selfish male.”
“There’s nothing typical about you,” she murmured.
He decided not to ask if that was a compliment. “Look, I know work gets the best of both of us from time to time, and that’s as it should be.”
“But?”
“But there’s more to life than work.”
Her lips twisted in an odd, fleeting smile. “I know.”
“Then talk to me, dammit.”
“I don’t talk about my stories, Kane, you know that.”
“I’m not asking you to betray a confidence. I just want to know what could be so important that you barely have time to eat or sleep these days. And don’t give me that bullshit about the story on city officials. That isn’t what’s making you toss and turn at night.”
Disconcerted, she said, “Am I doing that?”
“Yes. Since the accident.”
“Well, it’s that,” she said, grasping the handy reason with relief. “The accident. I’ve been worried about her, and—”
“It isn’t the accident. Or it isn’t only the accident. So it has to be a story. Or it has to be us.”
“I don’t know why you would think—”
“Dinah. I know when something is off-kilter in your life. And what affects you affects me. Tell me what’s wrong. I can’t fix it until I know what it is.”
She looked across the room at him, and something changed in her face. She went behind his chair and bent to put her arms around him. Her warm, smooth cheek pressed against his.
“I really don’t appreciate you, do I?” Her voice sounded shaken.
He lifted a hand to her head, letting his fingers slide into her silky hair because he loved it and she never minded. “No,” he said a bit dryly. “I’m a prince.”
She chuckled. “You certainly are. And I have been neglecting you, I realize that. I’m sorry.”
He looked down at her hands on his chest, the fine-boned strength of them, the red-polished nails that showed her one vanity. “So what’s going on? Is it just work, or have you met a better prince?”
She hesitated, then moved around him to lean a hip against the table and smiled down at him. “Let’s just say I’ve stumbled onto a story with a lot of potential. A story that could make my reputation.”
He frowned. “Your reputation is already made.”
“Locally, sure. Even regionally. But this … this could put my name on the national map.”
Kane felt a prickle of unease. “What kind of story is it?”
“You know better than that.”
“I’m not asking for details, Dinah. Just a general idea. Is it criminal? Political? Business?”
“Criminal and business. Maybe wanders into the political arena as well, although I’m not sure about that yet,” she re
plied, still smiling.
“Jesus. Dinah—”
“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.” She reached over and brushed the backs of her fingers down his cheek in a familiar caress.
He didn’t allow it to distract him. “Just don’t tell me you’re on your own in this. If Steve doesn’t know—”
Her smile vanished. “He’s my editor, Kane, not my nanny.”
“That isn’t what I meant and you know it. If there’s a criminal element in this story, things could get very nasty in a hurry.”
“I know that.” Her voice was patient. “I have been doing this for a number of years, in case you’ve forgotten.” She went to pick up her briefcase, the tension in her shoulders obvious; that alone told him he’d crossed the line.
She was already moving toward the door; it was too late to apologize, to explain that he was worried only because he cared, not because he doubted her instincts or abilities.
“Just be careful,” he called after her.
“Always,” she tossed back lightly. And then she was gone.
The silence of the apartment settled over him. With a new anxiety in his mind, the morning seemed darker and much less peaceful than it had only minutes before.
Unlike Dinah, Kane seldom had to cope with downtown traffic, which, in Atlanta, could be truly horrendous. His company was on the outskirts of the city, a five-story stone and glass structure of considerable beauty set on five acres of sprawling grounds just as lovely. It was an engineering and architectural firm founded by his father and his mother’s brother, named MacGregor and Payne; Kane hadn’t felt the need to change the name, despite the fact that his uncle, Jonah Payne, had died a bachelor, leaving his share of the business to his nephew.
Kane had been in charge since his father, John MacGregor, had taken an early retirement more than ten years before, happily setting off with his second wife to see the world, then choosing to settle in California when his traveling was done.
Kane enjoyed the work, although lately he seemed to concentrate more on administrative details than on the engineering and architecture he loved.
Which was probably why, after Dinah left that morning, he decided on the spur of the moment to visit the construction site where MacGregor and Payne was building new offices for the mayor’s support staff and other city officials.