She broke off suddenly, her eyes wide. “Do you hear anything?”
“No-”
“I do.” She scrambled away from him. “I hear something-”
Zach listened and groaned at the sound of an engine whining as some kind of vehicle-most likely a truck- approached.
“Probably Pete coming early. He does that sometimes,” Zach said, already aroused again. God, he couldn’t get enough of her. He let one hand rest on the curve of her waist.
“You sure?” she asked.
“Mmm.” He listened again and felt his heart knock a bit. The engine wasn’t the deep rumble of a truck, but the smooth purr of an expensive car’s engine as it sped down the lane. An expensive car like a Lincoln Continental. “Oh, God.”
Gravel crunched and brakes squealed.
“Witt,” Katherine mouthed.
“No-” But even as he denied it, he heard the car door open and brisk footsteps sound on the path. Footsteps he’d recognize anywhere. Authoritative footsteps belonging to his father. Footsteps of doom. “Damn it, Kat! You’ve got to get out of here.”
But it was too late. The front door opened and the footsteps continued the short distance to the master bedroom. Kat froze at the muted rap of fingers against wood.
“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Oh, God, oh, God.”
“Leave. Through here.” He was pushing her now, toward the open French doors. She rolled out of bed, grabbed her torn nightshirt and was stepping outside when Witt’s voice reverberated through the rooms. “Katherine? Are you here?” There was a worried edge to his voice.
“Go!” Zach reached for his cutoffs as he heard the first door in the hallway open, then close. Only a few more seconds.
The door to his room opened just as Kat disappeared through the doors.
His father looked gigantic. Zach didn’t bother feigning sleep and Witt didn’t say a word, just looked at the rumpled sheets and sniffed at the lingering odor of Katherine’s perfume. His mouth flattened to a white line of fury and an ugly tic developed under his eye. “Get out,” he said under his breath. Zach rolled off the bed as his father’s fist collided with his face. Pain exploded in his jaw. “You no-good bastard!”
“Witt!” Kat stood in the doorway, her fingers curling over the brass door handle. “Don’t. It…was my fault.”
“Your fault? You forced him to screw you?” He slammed Zach against the wall. Zach’s head smacked against the plaster and pieces of stucco crumbled to the floor. Pain ripped all the way down his spine. “You fucking son of a bitch!” Witt snarled, shaking the life from him as the mirror over the bureau rattled. “I always suspected you were no son of mine and now I’m sure of it. Get out before I kill you!”
Zach staggered toward the door. His eyes barely focused and he felt something sticky and wet running down the back of his head.
“You can’t do this!” Katherine cried and Zach heard a slap that made his stomach turn over. He turned and saw the welt forming on Katherine’s cheek and Witt’s stunned expression, as if he couldn’t believe that he’d struck her.
“Don’t you ever touch me again!” she said, backing outside.
“I’m sorry. Christ, Katherine, I swear, I’d never do anything to hurt you-”
He took one step toward her but she kept backing up. “Stay away from me, Witt. I mean it,” she said, before turning and running into the grayish dawn. Witt’s great shoulders slumped and he sagged against the wall. He turned damning eyes up at his son. “Now look what you’ve done, Zach,” he said, barely able to breathe. With an expression straight from hell, he loosened his tie then reached for his belt buckle. Zach remembered the times he’d been whipped by a thin leather strap. Not again. He wouldn’t suffer like he had when he was eight, leaning over the bed and biting his lower lip until it bled to keep from crying out as his father flayed him with the stinging leather. No way.
“Leave now and don’t ever…” Witt, suddenly ashen, reached into his pocket, fumbled for a vial of pills and popped the top. He stuck one of the tablets under his tongue. “Don’t ever come back here.”
“I won’t,” Zach promised, jaw clenched in determination. Injustice burned through his veins and he held his father with his remorseless stare. “You’ll never see me again.”
Witt’s blue eyes were cold, his fury evident in the white lines of strain near his mouth. “That’s the way I want it, boy.” He took one menacing step toward his son. “However, if I find out that you had anything to do with your sister’s kidnapping, I swear I’ll personally hunt you down like the lying dog you are and rip you apart with my bare hands.”
Zach stumbled back toward the door. His head throbbed, his jaw ached, and he glared at the man he’d called father all his life. He had to leave. Now. Run as far and fast as he could. And if he never saw Witt Danvers alive again, it would be much too soon.
PART FIVE
11
Adria woke up to the squeal of hydraulic brakes and the thrum of a huge engine as a truck idled in the parking lot. With a groan she rolled out of the bed and surveyed her shabby surroundings. It certainly wasn’t the Ritz, or the Benson, or the Hotel Danvers, for that matter. But it would have to do.
The pipes were rusty, the drain of the tub stained, but she closed her eyes to the flaws of the Riverview and quickly showered under tepid water. She towel-dried her hair, tamed it by snapping a rubber band around a ponytail, and ignored her makeup bag. She didn’t need to look glamorous when she planned to spend the day in the library, the offices of the
“Dysfunctional,” she told herself. “The whole family. And you want to be a part of it. Stupid, stupid girl.”
With an eye on the silk dress in its plastic casing, she yanked on a sweatshirt, a pair of worn jeans, and slipped into ancient Reebok running shoes. She grabbed an oversized purse that doubled as a briefcase and was out the door.
Reading an old city map, she drove to the drive-in window of a McDonald’s and while waiting for her coffee, reacquainted herself with Portland.
Basically the city was divided by the river, and the east side spread away from the banks of the Willamette in a careful grid that was infrequently interspersed with winding streets or slashed by a freeway. The west side, however, was more difficult. Though the streets ran north-south and east-west, they were older, more narrow, and tended to follow the contour of the Willamette River, or meander through the hills that rose steeply from the water’s shore.
She paid for the coffee, took a sip, and drove steadily westward, through the low-rising office buildings and shops toward the river and the twin spires of the Convention Center. As she drove she wondered what her half- brothers and-sister were doing.
At that thought, she glanced in the rearview mirror. Worried blue eyes stared back at her. Was she really London Danvers, or was this all a fierce joke that her father had played on her? Well, it was too late to start second-guessing herself. For now, she was London Danvers and Jason, Nelson, Trisha, and even Zachary were not
