“All that would explain was Benjie’s knowing Cooper’s feelings about Cyrill.”
“No.It was more.Benjie’s vehemence was exactly like that of a kid being loyal to his mother—or wishing that one day his parents would get back together.”
“It could have just been Benjie’s natural raunchiness,” Peter said.
I was wondering the same thing.Then I shook my head.“Cooper wouldn’t keep something like that from him.”I paused.“Would he?”
“I’m the wrong one to be asking.You’ve known him far longer than I have.”
“But as a man, looking at Cooper, considering your impressions of him, what do you think?”
Peter seemed confused as he looked into my face.“I’d guess no, but that’s all it is, a guess.”He let out a soft breath.“But whether Benjie knows the truth or not, the facts of his parentage go a long way in explaining the complexity of Cooper’s feelings toward him.”
I returned my cheek to Peter’s chest.“It’s so strange—Cooper being Benjie’s father.So hard to believe, after all these years.”But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it wasn’t so hard to believe after all.“It gives new meaning to lots of things Cooper’s said about Benjie.”For a minute, I was lost in thought.Then, looking up at Peter, I went straight to the heart of the matter.“Do you think Benjie smuggled those diamonds onto theFree Reign?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think Cooper knows?”
Peter arched a brow and shrugged.
I thought of Cooper loving Cyrill and being hurt.I thought of his loving Benjie and being hurt.“Cooper’s always been so good.He’s always been there for Benjie.But the stakes have never been so high before.It breaks my heart to think of his going to prison for him.”
“If he’s as innocent as he claims, he’s prepared to go to prison forsomeone.”
He fell silent, but something in his words caught in my mind.The same something caught in his mind, too, because I felt the slight pickup of his pulse at the same time that his eyes opened wider.“I wonder.”
“Is it possible?”
“Anything’s possible.”
“Probable, then?”
“If he loved deeply, he’d protect one nearly as staunchly as the other.”
“But where is she now?”
“Good question.”
“How do we go about finding an answer?”I asked, but Peter was already shifting me on the sofa and rising.Wearing nothing but a pair of sleek navy briefs, he padded around the desk, opened a drawer and removed the Manhattan phone book.
“No Cyrill Stockland,” he concluded after he’d run through the list.He removed a second phone book from the drawer and checked, then a third.He wound up with five C.Stocklands, none of whom he could call at one in the morning, and by that time, I’d had enough of looking at the bunching muscles of his shoulders as he leaned over the desk.With the afghan draped shawllike around me, I went to his side and spread the shawl to cover him, too.
Turning to me, he said gently, “We’ll find her, babe.Trust me.We’ll find her.”
He did, though it took four more days and a private investigator to do the trick.But the wait produced a bonus.Cyrill Stockland did, indeed, live in New York, but under the name of Cyrill Kane.Though she hadn’t quite made the fortune she’d hoped for twenty years before, she was still trying.She ran with a fast and dubious circle of friends, one of whom was reputed to be a jewel thief.
Even more condemning, one of the investigator’s sources had heard rumor that Cyrill and the thief had a new angle that involved Cyrill’s “kid.”
Peter told me all of this on the phone in the middle of the week, and I nearly went out of my mind with frustration keeping it to myself until he arrived late Friday afternoon.But I couldn’t tell Swansy, who already felt guilty for having put us onto Cyrill, and we’d agreed to confront Cooper together.
It was a wise agreement.In all the years I’d known Cooper, he’d never turned as dark as he did when Peter told him about what we’d learned.
Cooper kept his voice low, but there was a palpable tension in it.“I said I didn’t want an investigator.”
It was a revealing first statement.“You knew?”I asked in a dismayed whisper.
He glared at Peter.“Who told you to hire an investigator?”
