To The Rescue. Jean Barrett
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the savage, white landscape. Father Stephen hadn’t exaggerated when he’d told her the storm would leave them isolated, perhaps for several days.
Jennifer was tempted to climb back into bed and bury herself again under the warm blankets. Except…
Turning her head, she gazed at the closed door to the room that connected with hers. If this should turn out to be the opportunity she’d been hoping for, she couldn’t afford to waste it.
Crossing the room, she listened at the door. She could hear nothing but the eternal moan of the wind. The hour was very early. Chances were the occupants of that room were asleep. It was worth the risk. But this time she wouldn’t make the mistake of sneaking in there and getting caught by an alert Brother Timothy, who might not regard a second visit as innocent.
Jennifer’s rap on the door was soft enough not to rouse anyone but loud enough to be heard if one of them was awake. There was no response.
Turning the iron ring that served as a handle, she inched the door open and peered around its edge. Like her own, the room was murky with shadows. But the light from the window, feeble though it was, revealed that Brother Timothy had departed. He must have determined that his patient no longer needed his presence.
Leo McKenzie was not restless this morning. His tall figure stretched out on the bed never stirred as Jennifer crept across the room. Reaching the chair at his bedside, she looked down at him, wanting to be sure he was as deeply, peacefully asleep as he appeared to be.
That was evident with a glance. There was no reason for her gaze to linger on his face, to be interested in those square-jawed, craggy features softened by a wide, sensual mouth. She hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a small, crescent-shaped, white scar high on his left cheek. A result of what? she wondered.
What was she doing? This man could be her enemy, probably was, and here she stood being susceptible again to his masculinity while wondering about a scar on his cheek. What difference did it make how he had come to have the scar?
Just get on with it.
Crouching down beside the chair, she considered the collection of his personal belongings spread out on the seat. A handful of coins, a comb, a belt, a set of keys, sunglasses tucked into a case, his passport and his wallet.
The wallet seemed the likeliest prospect. Jennifer started to reach for it, and then hesitated. She hated this. Hated the necessity of having to mine someone’s privacy, to dig out whatever secrets he might be concealing. But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? It was necessary.
Smothering her guilt, she snatched up the wallet and opened it. It was a bulky thing that carried his American driver’s license along with the usual credit cards. Folded among them were two kinds of currency, American bills mixed in with British pound notes of various denominations.
But what was this?
Tucked between the bills were several identical business cards, probably ignored by Brother Timothy who must have looked no further after satisfying himself with the information provided by the passport and the driver’s license. Jennifer removed one of the cards and read the bold print.
Leo McKenzie, Private Investigator.
Apprehensive now, her gaze flashed from the face of the card to the face of the man asleep on the bed beside her.
Leo McKenzie was a P.I.? But what was an American P.I. doing over here in England? More to the point, why should he be after her?
She supposed she could have waited until he was awake and then demanded an explanation from him. Assuming, that is, he would be in any state today to make sense. Or that he would be willing to tell her.
But she was in no mood to wait. She had waited long enough. She wanted answers now. Still hoping that the wallet could give them to her, she turned her attention back to its contents.
There was a series of plastic windows, the kind that displayed insurance cards and photographs. Jennifer rapidly flipped through them, passed the only photograph they contained and then, seized by something familiar, came immediately back to the solitary picture.
The once clear plastic was clouded from long use, blurring the photo. Removing it from the sleeve for a better look, she stared at it. It was a snapshot of two young men still in their teens, their arms draped over each other’s shoulders as they gazed into the lens of the camera.
The taller of the two wore a cocky grin. Jennifer judged that nearly two decades must have passed since he’d posed for that snapshot, but she was able to recognize him. It was Leo McKenzie. And the other one…
She sucked in her breath and then released it slowly.
Oh, yes, she was able to identify him, too. Guy Spalding, the man whose murder back in London she feared that sooner or later she could be charged with.
Leo and Guy. This was the connection. They’d known each other. But how could Leo McKenzie have—
“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
She’d been so intent on examining the snapshot that she’d forgotten to be cautious. Had failed to be aware that the man on the bed had awakened and discovered her investigating his wallet.
Alarmed, her gaze shifted from the young face in the photograph to its mature, coldly angry counterpart.
“If you’re through snooping,” he said, his voice early-morning husky, “then I’d like to have those back.”
His hand shot out, plucking the wallet and the snapshot from her fingers. With both of them back in his possession, he shoved himself up against the headboard, those mesmerizing, whiskey-colored eyes wearing a challenge as they glowered at her.
“Satisfied yourself, have you?”
“I haven’t even begun to be satisfied.” Jennifer herself was angry now as she got to her feet. “I saw one of your business cards in that wallet, and unless you’re licensed to operate here in the U.K., and I very much doubt that you are, then you have no right to investigate me, much less the authority to follow me to Yorkshire.”
“You think that’s what I’ve been doing and that it entitles you to answers?”
“You bet I do. And you can start with the snapshot. You obviously knew Guy, but I can’t believe you were friends, long-time or otherwise.”
“Why not?”
“Because, frankly, I don’t see how you could have had anything in common with him.”
“Meaning that he had cultivated tastes and I’m some kind of a lout who wouldn’t know Chinese Chippendale from Chinese checkers? Maybe you’re right. But we had something in common all right. Our mother.”
Jennifer stared at him in disbelief. “Are you saying you were brothers? But how is that possible when—”
“He was a Spalding, and I’m a McKenzie? Half brothers, Jenny.”
No one called her Jenny, but she didn’t bother to correct him. “I didn’t know,” she said.
Not that Guy would have had any particular reason to mention it to her. Their relationship hadn’t reached the stage of intimate confidences, whatever his efforts in that direction. But she was still very surprised.
“Didn’t you?” he said.
She didn’t like the way he looked at her, as if she weren’t to be trusted about anything she said.
“So, okay,” he relented, “I guess it’s understandable he didn’t tell you about me. Why should he when Guy and I didn’t see a whole lot of each other after our mother died. We were separated when her first husband, who was English, took him back to London, and my own father kept me in the States. But there was always a bond between us, maybe because we were the only family each other had after our fathers were gone.”
All of which meant he must be determined to bring his brother’s murderer to justice,