Deidre looked down at her pattern. “Yes. Before you ask, Blake and Betty never knew. Carl and I decided to keep the secret forever, once he was home and recuperating.”
The secret was out now. Laurel started knitting, her heart and head at war. This time, her heart was going to win.
Zeke Caine was going to pay. If he was still alive.
* * *
After Deidre went to bed, Laurel headed out into the rain, driving across town.
Dr. Abigail Caine lived in an exclusive gated neighborhood separated into five-acre parcels where neighbors wouldn’t have to see each other. Laurel waited to the right of the gate, her vehicle pummeled by freezing rain, until a car drove in, and then she followed, winding through perfectly plowed roads and spectacularly decorated mansions to the farthest house from the gate. One house, surrounded by trees and brush, set away from the road and closer to the dangerous river. The structure rose, tall and stately, with snow-covered trees surrounding it. The house was of a modern design, all angles and hard materials, and the plowed drive seemed to be paved with some type of marble.
Laurel parked in the driveway and took several deep breaths. This was a mistake. She wasn’t at top form right now; she should go home and knit some more. Instead, she pushed open her door and stepped into the drizzle, instantly drenched and cold. Her hair stuck to her face, but she lowered her head and strode to the walkway, which was edged with prickly bushes protecting the house.
She climbed three wide stairs and reached toward the massive steel door to ring the doorbell. There were no decorations softening the hard planes of the house. She shivered again, and even her heart chilled.
Abigail opened the door, her eyes widening. “Agent Snow.” Her gaze ran over the freezing water drenching Laurel’s face. “Come in. My goodness.” She opened the door.
Laurel stepped inside an ultra-modern house built with glass, steel, and sharp angles. A wide wall of windows covered the farthest wall, right up to the pitched ceiling. Snowblood Peak rose in the far distance beyond the rushing river and groves of trees, the snow glowing in the night. Laurel stood in the entryway, cold rain sluicing off her to pool on the massive piece of white tile. She shivered, her mind going numb but her body still firing.
“Stay here.” Abigail hurried into what appeared to be a guest bath and returned with a plush white towel. “You’re a mess. What is going on?” Without waiting for permission, she unzipped Laurel’s jacket and set it on the nearest hook before rubbing the towel in her thick hair. Her eyebrows rose when Laurel allowed her to minister to her. “How did you find me, anyway? I’ve kept my home address private.”
“I’m with the FBI—I found your location with one phone call,” Laurel said, her teeth chattering. “Did you know?”
Abigail finished fluffing Laurel’s hair. “That’s an ambiguous question, isn’t it? Come join me for a glass of wine.” She strode on bare feet across the chilly-looking tile to the open concept kitchen with its cement backdrop and gleaming pure-white marble countertops. “I just opened a lovely bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild Paullac from 2010.”
Laurel kicked off her boots and followed Abigail, her body tingling from cold and adrenaline. What was the correct approach? There was too much going on in her head. She ought to return home and prepare for this meeting. Instead, she pulled out a pristine white bar stool with chrome accents and sat at the counter, her body feeling a thousand years old.
Abigail poured two generous glasses of deep red wine. “Are you a wine connoisseur?”
“No.” Laurel accepted the glass and watched the light flicker over the red color. “Not at all, but this smells good.” Her voice sounded wooden, and her body was numb. So was her brain. This wasn’t a smart idea or a safe one. She needed all her faculties in order to deal with Abigail, but she sat frozen in place. Her new reality was too much to absorb right now.
“You really must learn. What is life without enjoying good wine?” Abigail set her nose near her glass and inhaled deeply. “Yes. That’s delicious.” She wore a thick gray sweater over white yoga pants, and her white-blond hair cascaded over her shoulders. Her deep-blue eyes glowed against her pale face. “Now. Would you care to tell me why you’re on my doorstep well into the evening, when the last time we met, you called me crazy and told me to stay away from you?”
She should have followed her own directive. Laurel studied the woman she couldn’t read. A woman every bit as intelligent as Laurel, if not more so. Laurel took a drink of the potent wine. She murmured her approval. It was delicious. She set the glass down. “Did you know that Zeke Caine is my father?”
Abigail blinked. Once and then again. She set her glass on the spotless counter. “Excuse me?”
“It’s true. Did you know?”
Abigail looked at Laurel, her gaze wandering from one eye to the other. Then she smiled. “Isn’t this an unexpected development?” Reaching for her right eye, she pinched out a contact, taking the blue away and revealing a light green iris in its place. She did the same with her other eye, showing a lighter blue than the contact . . . along with a partial heterochromatic spot in the lower corner.
Laurel couldn’t breathe. Not at all.
Then Abigail reached beneath her hair, at her nape, bent over, and yanked off the blond hair. It had been a wig? Laurel hadn’t had a clue. Thick auburn hair, brown and red, sprang out around Abigail’s ears, cut fairly short but still showing a bit of curl at the ends. She looked up at Laurel and her smile showed a slight gap beyond her incisors. “Yes, sister. I knew.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Laurel could only stare at the face so similar to her own. “Why didn’t you say something?” Her voice was hoarse.
Abigail reached for her glass. “What would I say? Hey, sister. I know you’re enjoying this blameless life of yours, that you’re content and admired in your job and comfortable and enviable in your home life with a mother who’d do anything for you, but hey, you come from bad stock. Really bad stock, and now the father who never would’ve wanted you in the first place is missing . . . you should go find him?” She took a healthy drink of her extravagant wine. “What kind of sister would that make me?”
Laurel reclaimed her glass for another taste. Her initial analysis of Abigail hadn’t changed. It was just as likely as ever that Abigail had enjoyed having the upper hand in their relationship, relishing the fact that she held all pertinent information. “Why the blond wig?” The woman had worn that long before Laurel had appeared in town.
Abigail swirled her wine around in her glass, watching the liquid catch the light. “It’s his hair color. His stamp, and I can’t get rid of it.” Her gaze rose, piercing Laurel. “I’ve tried. If I dye it any lighter shade, it grows in rapidly, showing the roots. Auburn roots. If I dye it a darker color, the red still shows up, marking me. So wigs are the best idea, and I like to change colors every couple of years. The students think it’s eccentric and cool, and I enjoy reinventing myself.”
Laurel sipped again.
Abigail looked at Laurel’s hair. “Until I met you, I never realized how gorgeous the color really is, when it’s not associated with that bastard. Perhaps I’ll go natural now.”
