Shadows of the Past Read online

  Rowan threw her a quizzical look from under his tawny eyebrows, his green eyes glinting, emphasizing the contrast between him and his wife. “That’s up to Franc, but I can assure you, I’ll be putting extra security on at Stanhope Electronics, if that makes you feel any better.”

  It didn’t. The more she thought about the situation, the more she was sure she should have moved out of Franc’s apartment with a view to never seeing him again. How would she feel if anything happened to him? Could she ever live with herself again?

  “I’ll be going to work on Thursday, and so will you,” Franc said. “As I told you earlier, if we completely change our lives around because of this guy, Randy—if that’s who it is—then he’s won

  Had she ever truly taken notice of the stubborn jut to Franc’s chin until today? No, if she had, it might have warned her of the downside to having a fling… Some fling! Look how it had turned out, with Franc’s life in danger.

  Jo was messing around in the drinks cabinet, setting out bottles and glasses as if nothing had rocked her world the way it had Maria’s. This must be what it was like to be a cop who lived with the constant threat of danger. She was glad Franc had taken up electronics rather than following in his father’s footsteps.

  Maria stood up and went to help her hostess, needing to do something, anything rather than speculate about the subject of Franc’s death.

  Rowan was holding the photograph of her up to the light. A surge of color slashed Maria’s cheekbones; she could feel the burn as she tensed, waiting for him to speak.

  “Jo, have you worked out what these crosses cut in the photo of Maria are in aid of?”

  Rowan’s stare went straight over Maria’s head as she placed four wineglasses on the table. She could imagine Jo, behind her, mouthing, “Tell you later” but Maria kept her eyes forward, kept them on Franc as if he were her lifeline.

  Maria had gone down to their cabin to change. Franc could tell she felt uncomfortable next to his sister, who looked tall and elegant in a designer outfit she’d probably let Rowan talk her into. Franc liked that Rowan didn’t mind showing how much he loved Jo. They were a couple in a million, and he didn’t mean because of the Stanhope money.

  He wondered if it could have been like that for him and Maria, if they’d had a chance without this stalking business blowing up in their faces. Then again, if it hadn’t been for Randy, what were the chances that he and Maria would even have met?

  “Now that Maria’s gone downstairs, and there are only the three of us, I have something to tell you guys,” said Jo.

  “Something you couldn’t tell Maria?” Franc said.

  “I didn’t want to embarrass her any more than Rowan did when he made the comment on how her photograph had been cut. I thought her name was familiar when you introduced us, but one look at that picture and I remembered. It was one of the first big cases I worked on. You’ll remember it, Rowan.”

  “Costello?”

  Jo pointedly looked over her shoulder to the stairs, then back at Rowan, until he said, “Oh, hell yes! I remember. They found her wandering around naked and bleeding from all these sliced wounds, poor little sod. Hadn’t she been abducted from some girls’ boarding school?”

  “Shh, keep your voice down, sound travels on here.” Jo gave Rowan the look. Franc had often been on the receiving end of it when they were young. He might have become the recipient of Grandma Glamuzina’s vacuum cleaner and tablecloths, but what Jo had inherited was a lot more potent.

  “Here’s the plan,” she said, including both guys. “I’ll send the cards and photographs for forensics to go over. Rowan, you look after the security for these two. And Rowan, you what you can find out about Randy Searle. Find out where he’s been in the ten years since Maria was abducted and I’ll look up the old files on her case, see which suspects we were looking at back then.”

  “Look,” Franc said to his sister. “Maria hasn’t any memory of what happened to her at that time. Post-traumatic stress amnesia.”

  “Has her family ever thought of using hypnosis?” Rowan wondered out loud.

  “No, not that Maria’s ever mentioned. I think they were quite happy for her to forget the whole abduction ever happened. She never could though. She has dreams about it, but can’t remember them afterward. They terrify her. Scared the living daylights out of me, I’ll tell you, the first time I heard her. All she’s told me is that the dreams have gotten more frequent since this business with Randy.”

  Franc took a swallow of his drink, and for a few minutes they all kept their own council as if the answer could be found in the liquor swirling inside their glasses. At last Franc broke the silence. “So what is brother Scott up to these days, Rowan. He hasn’t been in my neck of the woods for a while.”

  “He’s looking at some properties that might come up for sale soon in Australia. He’s heard a rumor and thought it would be worthwhile checking it out. A pretty mixed bag from what I hear. From electronics to pastoral land.”

  “Electronics? Let me know if he needs an opinion.”

  Rowan grinned. “Scott doesn’t much care for asking anyone’s opinion these days, not even mine. He’s been pretty restless.”

  Jo caught Rowan’s smile and passed it back. “He needs to find himself a wife. I keep telling him, ‘Find a nice woman and settle down,’ but he doesn’t want to hear it.”

  Franc looked up. “Talking about nice women, here comes mine now.” Maria looked fantastic, and about as far removed as possible from the woman in his en suite this afternoon who had tried to dump him. “Come and sit by me, hon. I’ve missed you, but the wait was worth it. Is that the outfit you bought from Perdito’s?”

  She nodded and did a twirl for him. “What do you think?”

  The wide neckline left one shoulder bare. He could tell straight off she wasn’t wearing a bra and he had a sudden desire to stand in front of her, or cover Rowan’s eyes. Either way, she looked beautiful. The lilac top brought out the deep pansy-brown in her eyes. And he couldn’t wait to strip it off her.

  “Franc’s awfully protective of you.”

  Maria felt the cords at the back of her neck tighten. This was the first time she’d been alone with Franc’s sister. Was this the moment when Jo gave her flack for putting her brother’s life in danger?

  Jo halted her preparations for midnight and the beginning of the new year and did little more than cast a glance over her shoulder. “It suits him. I can’t remember the last time he thought of anything but work,” she said, turning back to her task of picking out four matching champagne flutes. But she wasn’t done. “Don’t gewrong, I’m not implying Franc is selfish, just driven.”

  Would Jo be as pleased if she knew everything? Maria let out a sigh that scraped the soles of her new boat shoes and left a dent in her lungs as it wrenched loose. “Don’t get your hopes up. Chances are it won’t last. I come with an awful lot of baggage.”

  “You couldn’t come with any more baggage than the Jellic family. Has Franc told you about our father?”

  “He did, I’m sorry. I bet you adored him.” Maria thought about her father. If her abduction had been hard on Mamma, it had been much worse on Papa, but being the man, the head of an Italian household, he hadn’t been able to let it show. “Little girls always favor their fathers, I did mine. He took it hard when they never caught the guy who abducted me. He aged overnight.”

  Maria cocked her head to one side as she told Jo, “I couldn’t help noticing you realized who I was.”

  “Cops never forget their first big case. I wish we could have put the bastard away for what he did to you.”

  “So does my family. That’s why I never reported Randy to the cops. Apart from the fact I didn’t have any real proof, just a feeling, I didn’t want my parents having to relive it all again. But it could still happen, if the newspapers get hold of the story…you know, and connect the two. My name is probably on file.”

  “As a cop I can’t help wishing you had reported the stalki
ng. You’re a strong woman, Maria, but don’t try to take on too much by yourself.”

  Maria shrugged off the compliment. “I try to be strong, it only works sometimes.” It didn’t always work. As she’d proven that afternoon, when it came to Franc she was putty.

  “But don’t let your strength isolate you. You’re exactly what my brother needs. You make a good team.”

  “You think he needed all this hassle? I don’t think this is what you meant when you told him to have a quiet Christmas. It certainly hasn’t worked out that way.”

  “It’s early days yet. So far he’s only had his life threatened once. I almost got Rowan killed twice.” Jo halted midbreath to hand Maria two champagne flutes. “As I said, early days. Now we’d better join the guys or New Year’s will get there before us. You go up first,” she urged, gathering up the bottle of French champagne plus two other flutes.

  Maria went ahead. The steps led to the upper saloon, which was part of the boat’s flying bridge. Rowan and Franc had busied themselves planning where they should spend the next couple of days while Jo organized the wine for the midnight toast.

  Franc stood up from the curved, blue-gray leather lounger, one of two built into the window-lined bridge. “I’ll take them,” he said of the glasses, as if she wasn’t capable of carrying them another two feet. But the smile that accompanied the words made up for them. For once Maria wasn’t going to argue that she could do it herself. Jo was right. Franc was concerned for her, and this was his way of showing it. Maria no longer looked on it as the kind of concern her parents had displayed when she was younger when she’d felt locked inside a glass case, away from liAway from the good things life brought, as well as the bad.

  Rowan occupied the twin-size driver’s seat that had been turned around to face the saloon. “We’ve decided to sail out to Waiheke Island tomorrow. It’s one of the most beautiful spots in the Hauraki Gulf. Maria, wait till you visit our favorite cove.”

  Jo placed the champagne bottle and the rest of the glasses on the table beside the two that Franc had taken from Maria. “Almost ready. There’s still a champagne bucket filled with ice in the galley.”

  Rowan stretched and stood up. “No problem.”

  Jo raised her eyebrows at Franc, laughing. “Such gallantry. And we’ve only been married a year.”

  Rowan grinned with the easy humor of a big man who knew how to roll with the punches. “It’s all these late nights. This woman is insatiable.”

  Maria had been under the impression that being a homicide detective at Auckland Central, Jo wouldn’t have a blush left in her, but her husband could do it for her. Stepping round the table to stand next to Jo, Rowan took the opportunity to steal a quick kiss. “Getting in training for midnight. Ten minutes to go.”

  Franc laughed, “Yeah, go for it, boss. I’m sure you need all the practice you can get.”

  When you saw them together, Jo and Rowan took up a massive amount of space. Yet, from the minute she’d been introduced, Maria had thought them a perfect match. Tall, Jo might be, but Rowan stood five inches taller than his wife.

  In less than a few minutes they were all comfortably ensconced in the soft island of light the upper saloon made on the dark harbor. Through the windows they had a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the lights on the North Shore, the Harbour Bridge and Auckland City, where the Sky Tower above the casino was putting on a laser-light display. Rowan sat with his arm circling his wife’s shoulders, the champagne in front of them ready for midnight and the fireworks display to strike.

  “What’s the news on the investigation you’re doing on Dad?”

  “My goodness, Franc, I thought you were just like Kel.”

  Maria felt Jo’s gaze switch to her. “Kel is one of our twin brothers. When he was last in Auckland, he acted as if he’d been conceived in a test-tube and never had a father. He flew into a rage when I tried to tell him how our investigation was going. But he’s had a change of heart since he fell in love.”

  Franc couldn’t hide his surprise. “Where did you hear that?”

  “I had a call from him today. He wanted to bring me up to speed on the case he’d been working on. Remember, I told you he’d been here in November?” Franc nodded. “Well, right about now he should be flying from Singapore to San Francisco to propose marriage to the woman he was tailing back then. Kel’s a drug enforcement agent, some sort of squirrelly organization.”

  Rowan gave Jo a nudge as if to watch what she said in front of Maria. “Don’t be like that,” his wife complained. “Maria’s almost family.”

  It was Maria’s turn to blu. She hoped Franc didn’t think she’d been spinning Jo a line when they were in the galley.

  “But, as I was saying, since Kel was in the country, we’ve discovered the name of the woman Dad was seeing, and it doesn’t look good. Her husband was someone Dad had put behind bars. The trouble is, just over a year ago, Rowan and I had a sniff of the same guy when we were down in Nicks Landing, and there was a definite connection to Dad’s old partner, Rocky Skelton. But since Rocky managed to get himself murdered by his wife…”

  Jo raised her eyebrows at Maria. “That was one of those incidents I told you about where Rowan nearly lost his life because of me.”

  Rowan’s foot kicked the coffee table as his wife grabbed him and gave him a kiss. Those two didn’t care who knew they were in love. “My hero,” Jo chuckled as Rowan pulled her onto his knee. “Now, what was I saying? Yes, I’m afraid that line of inquiry might have died with Rocky, but I’m still hopeful.”

  A minute before midnight, the champagne flutes were filled ready for the toast, and as the seconds ticked down Franc gazed into her eyes. She wondered what he saw. Did he see that she didn’t know how she could let him go? That she was sure that once he reached Stanhope Electronics in two days’ time he’d forget all about her, plus the problems and threats she’d brought into his life? As Jo said, Franc was driven. She hadn’t said why, but just as her past had pushed her into trying to confront Randy Searle, Franc’s family history reflected his need to succeed, to be a better man than his father.

  Suddenly the eyes that looked into hers were filled with stars and it took her a second to realize the fireworks display had begun. “Happy New Year, honey.”

  He bent his head to kiss her, but didn’t have to strain as Maria was already stretching up to meet him, needing to discover if the magic between them still existed.

  It did.

  Lifting his mouth from hers, he whispered, “When we go down to our stateroom, let’s make a fireworks display of our own.”

  She felt in complete accord and murmured, “Yes, let’s.”

  Their extra two days together passed in a flash, and soon Maria was being dropped off at the old villa at Northcote Point in a taxi. She knew her friends, Tess and Linda, had already arrived—their car was already in the carport—and as promised, the mechanic had delivered Maria’s car.

  A dreadful ache invaded her heart. Seeing everything so normal made it feel as if the last couple of weeks had never been. As if it was all a dream.

  It was a dream she awoke from when the cell phone Franc had loaned her rang, breaking into her discussion with Tess and Linda about families and what gifts they’d been given and what they’d done during the break.

  She slipped into the hallway to speak to him, knowing it would be him, as no one else had this number. “Hi, how you doin’, hon?”

  “Good, it feels funny being back, as if I’d never been away.”

  “Don’t say that. I thought I’d made a big impression on you.”

  She could hear him chuckling. The sound rippled through her and plucked at her funny bone. In her heart of hearts, Maria knew she was going to miss Franc so much. She missed him now, and hearing his voice spelled out what she had lost in huge letters.

  He’d become a friend as well as a lover, and their association had grown to the stage where she didn’t get into a flap over teasing him. “Well, it was definitely
big, some might say huge. I’ll let you know when I’ve had more experience.”

  “Ouch, you know how to hit where it hurts, hon, but no more funning, let’s get serious. Rowan has organized a team of security guys to keep an eye on you round the clock—don’t worry, you won’t notice them,” he told her as she made a sound of protest. “These guys are the best, count on it.”

  “I’m trying to decide whether to tell Tess and Linda. Do you think they’re in any danger?”

  “I don’t think so, hon, if this is Randy, and I’ve no reason to suspect otherwise, his eyes seem firmly fixed on you. Though if he knows me at all, he’d have realized his threat wouldn’t work…” He paused as if considering his words. “I called to tell you, when I got home there was a message on the answering machine from the mechanic who fixed your car. The motor had been deliberately disabled by removing the motor from the distributor; presumably to prevent you leaving Auckland. Seems even back then Randy was prepared to go further than we imagined.”

  When she reentered the sitting room, Tess said, “I take it that wasn’t another of those hang-up calls. We’ve had four since we got back. I thought a heavy breather had latched onto us.”

  Had the stalking progressed to this, or was Randy checking on her whereabouts? As she sat down, Maria made up her mind to tell her friends what had really been happening in her life. And finished by saying, “But if Mamma or any of the family call, don’t say a word. I don’t want them insisting I go back to Falcon’s Rise to live. They have their own plans and I refuse to let them put them on hold because of me. Papa needs to retire.”

  It wasn’t until the next afternoon when she returned to her office at Tech-Re-Search that she got the phone call. This time it wasn’t a hang-up and it wasn’t Randy. But she recognized Kathy Gilbertson from the experimental lab; she’d dealt with her before. But why would she call, instead of Franc, when he’d assured her she would only have to deal with him from now on.