The Homecoming

“Why?” But she did as he asked.

“I want to check your pupils.”

“Oh.”

They looked fine to him, and he thanked God for that. If they’d been unequal in size, he’d have known something serious was wrong.

He glanced at his watch surreptitiously. Twenty minutes to wait. Leilani would be expecting him for breakfast around seven. When he didn’t show up and wasn’t in the house by then, she would send Johnny to look for him. And since he always ran along the beach before breakfast, the first thing Johnny would do would be to come down the cliff, and Danny would be able to send him back up the hill for something resembling a stretcher. Even though he was in the best shape of his life and the woman beside him looked slender and small-boned, he knew he couldn’t carry her along the beach and up the cliff path alone.

His thoughts were distracted as she put her palms on the ground and prepared to shift her weight onto her feet.

“You probably shouldn’t move,” he said. “I have someone who can help me carry you up to the house in a few minutes.”

“I’m too big to carry,” she said, her lips curving up as if that was extraordinarily funny. “I can walk.” She pushed herself up farther and before he could prevent it, she’d stood up.

Danny stood up, too, fast. He grabbed for her when she started to slide sideways. She was oddly boneless and for a moment he thought she’d passed out as she flopped against him, her head falling into the curve of his shoulder. “Whoa,” he said.

“Sorry.” She sounded as if she’d clenched her teeth together.

“Why don’t you sit back down?” he suggested. “It’s a long walk down the beach to the stairs, and a long, steep climb up to the house. My groundskeeper will be coming this way in a little while and he’ll be able to help.”

She was taller than he’d expected, fitting neatly against his own six-foot frame. Felicia had been short. When they’d danced together, not that they’d ever danced much, he’d got a crick in his neck from looking down at her.

Pain lanced through him. He hadn’t imagined he’d ever hold a woman in his arms again. He hadn’t wanted to. All he wanted was to be left alone.

“…probably should sit down again. Everything’s sort of whirling around me as if I were on a merry-go-round. Sorry. I have this habit of thinking I have to do everything myself.”

“It’s all right.” He struggled to keep his tone level. This poor woman couldn’t even remember her own name. She didn’t need to be saddled with his problems. He lowered her to the boulder, alarmed again at the way her arms flopped down when he pulled them from around his neck.

She sat very still for a moment. “Wow,” she said. “My head is killing me. I must have met a rock headfirst.”

“As soon as we get up to the house,” he said, “I’ll call a doctor.”

“You could just drop me at the nearest hospital,” she said. “I don’t want to be a burden, and I think I probably should get my head looked at.”

He cleared his throat. “This is a private island,” he said. “There is no hospital.”

“No…? You’re kidding.” She knew better than to move her head this time. “Then how are you going to call a doctor?”

His lips quirked but she had her eyes closed again so she didn’t see his amusement. “I’ll manage.”

She couldn’t know that he was so filthy rich he could probably call an entire medical staff over if he wanted. But then the amusement fled. If he had to choose between the Crosby fortune that his father had amassed and having his wife and son back again, he’d give away every dime. He shot to his feet. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll go and hurry my friend along and we’ll be back to take you up to the house.”

She was in pain, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t seriously disoriented. She’d sounded pretty rational and he thought she understood.

Then again, he thought as he climbed back down off the boulder and began to lope along the tide line, she didn’t even know her own name right now.

Two

J ohnny was coming down the steps as Danny ran back toward the house. The two men retraced Danny’s steps to where the young woman waited, then carried her up to the house in a sling made of the blanket.

Danny put her in a first-floor sitting room, then called over to Kauai. First he spoke to a doctor, who agreed to come over and examine the woman. The man was a relative of Johnny’s—no surprise there—and Danny had met him before.

Then he called the Kauai Police Department in Lihu’e and asked for the chief. Another relative of Johnny’s, the chief had welcomed him when he’d first come to the island, though Danny had had no reason to call the department before.

After a cordial greeting, Danny said, “Are you missing any female tourists?”

There was a slight pause and Danny could almost feel the man putting on his official hat. “Why do you ask?”

“I found a woman this morning—”

“Alive?”

“Yes. She’s in good shape, just a little banged up. I have a doctor coming over to look at her. Your cousin Eddie, as a matter of fact.”

The chief chuckled. “Dat Eddie, he take care your little wahine.”

Danny was familiar with the interesting brand of pidgin spoken in the islands. He knew the chief would never dream of using it with a tourist or a stranger and he felt oddly flattered. “I hope so,” he said. “She’s having a little trouble remembering how she got here.” And by the way, she doesn’t know her name, either.

As if he were reading Danny’s mind, the chief said, “Sydney Aston. She was staying at the Marriott on Kalapaki Beach. Yesterday she went over to Waimea and rented a boat out of Kikialoa Harbor.”

“Alone?” He couldn’t believe anyone would let a young, single female tourist take a boat out alone.

“Alone.” The chief’s voice held a grim note now. “Ronny Kamehana said he’d take her out. She wanted to go cruisin’ past your island. But Ronny drink too much and when she pay up front and say she know boats, he let her go.”

“I might make a point of coming over there and kicking Ronny Kamehana’s butt one of these days,” Danny said in an equally grim tone. “That woman could have died.”

“Don’worry. Ronny goin’ be sorry,” the chief said. “Besides, his boat gone now, yeah?”

“Yeah. Make sure he doesn’t get another one.”

“So what you goin’ to do with your guest? You want Eddie bring her back?”

“No,” said Danny, “unless she needs urgent medical attention, she can stay here for a day or two until she feels a little better. She’s going to be pretty sore for a while, I imagine.” He didn’t really know why he didn’t just ship her off with Eddie. But he was the one who had found her, and ever since she’d looked at him with those wide blue eyes, he’d wanted to talk to her more.

“Okay,” said the chief. “I’ll let the hotel know where she is. The manager was pretty worried when she was gone all night.”

“Mahalo,” said Danny formally. Thank you.

“You’re welcome,” said the chief in return. “And thank you for your help. Keep me posted.”

Danny hung up the phone and headed for his room to shower and shave. Leilani had taken charge of the guest when he and Johnny had brought her in, and he knew she was in good hands.

Sydney, he thought. Sydney was in good hands.

An hour later Johnny’s cousin Eddie came up the path from the dock on one of the ATVs kept for that purpose. Dr. Eddie Atada was a native Hawaiian success story. He’d gotten a scholarship to Stanford and then gone to medical school before coming back to Hawaii and establishing a practice on his home island of Kauai.

“Howzit?” he inquired when Danny met him at the door, shaking Danny’s hand with such vigor that Danny wondered if he’d need a cast when Eddie was done. Eddie was nearly as tall as Johnny and only slightly less stocky in build. He could easily have been a lineman for any pro football team due to his size alone.

“It’s going well,” Danny said, “except for finding strange women washed up on the beach.”

Eddie laughed, a booming sound that echoed through the wide hallway. “Not such a bad thing, yeah?”

Danny grinned, but made no answer. “She’s back here,” he said, leading the way to the room to which Sydney Aston had been taken.

When he knocked on the door, Leilani’s voice said, “Come in.”

“The doctor’s here,” Danny said, stepping aside so Eddie could enter the room.

Leilani apparently had helped their guest shower, because she looked clean and fresh and her shoulder-length brown hair was shiny and nearly dry. She wore a flowered housecoat-type garment that must have belonged to one of Leilani’s grandchildren, because it was only slightly too large through the shoulders.

“Hello,” she said.

“I’ll wait out here while you examine her,” Danny said to Eddie, suiting action to his words.

He waited in the hallway, hearing the rise and fall of lighter female tones interspersed with Eddie’s rumbling chuckles. Finally, the door opened and Eddie came back into the hallway.

“How is she?” Danny asked.

“Let’s sit down.” Eddie walked back along the hallway until he came to the living room, where he proceeded to park his bulk in one of the comfortable overstuffed chairs.

“Are you going to give me bad news?” Danny tried for flippancy but it didn’t quite come off. Bad news was his middle name.

Eddie regarded him soberly, no teasing glint in his eye now. “You didn’t tell me she can’t remember her name,” he said.

“I thought maybe it would come to her once she was calm and settled.” Danny regarded the doctor anxiously. “You don’t think it’s permanent, do you?”

“I doubt it. Long-term amnesia is very rare. But often after head injuries patients lose chunks of time surrounding the accident that they never recall. She may never be able to tell you how she got on your beach.”

“She’s already remembered bits and pieces of that.”

“That’s a good sign,” Eddie said. “All she really needs is peace and quiet. She’d be better off here than at a hotel. And I really wouldn’t recommend she fly home right away. The whole traveling thing is stressful enough when you’re well, much less when you’ve just landed headfirst on a piece of prime Hawaiian real estate.”

Danny smiled because the other man seemed to require it.

“Don’t worry,” Eddie said. “I’ll bet that after a few restful days here her memory will return and your mystery guest will be able to tell you everything.”

Everett Baker entered the law offices of Gantler & Abernathie hesitantly. The waiting area was expensively appointed, with leather chairs, some kind of pretty tables with inlaid marquetry on the tops, and rugs thicker than his mattress. He could never afford a lawyer like this. But Terrence Logan could, and he’d insisted on getting Everett the best criminal defense lawyer in Portland. The sharp edge of guilt’s knife twisted in his stomach as he thought of his biological father’s generosity.

There were two other people in the reception area and as he gave his name to the woman at the large desk he wondered if either one of them was an arrested criminal out on bail.

Bail. When he’d stood in that Portland courtroom and heard the hefty sum that guaranteed he wouldn’t take off for Timbuktu at the first chance, he’d felt another load of despair land squarely on his shoulders. He’d never be able to raise that kind of money.

But then Terrence Logan—his father—had whispered in the bailiff’s ear, the bailiff had approached the judge, and the next thing Everett knew he was walking out into the warm Oregon air, a temporarily free man. He’d looked at the man who had signed his bail bond and said, “Why?” although it barely squeaked out past the lump in his throat.

Terrence Logan had smiled, and the warmth in his eyes made Everett feel even worse than he already did. “Because you’re my son,” he’d said.

But I tried to ruin your adoption foundation! Everett wanted to say. I’m not worthy to be called your son. But the words wouldn’t come. He couldn’t fathom how the Logans could bear to look at him after the damage he’d helped to cause to Children’s Connection. He’d been so stupid! So…gullible, lapping up Charlie’s pretended friendship like a starving dog. He was pathetic. There was no way he could ever be associated with the Logans now, even if he did have that biological connection. Too much time had passed.

“Mr. Baker? Mr. Abernathie will see you now.” The receptionist smiled as she stood and led him into the lawyer’s office.

“Everett.” Bernard Abernathie crossed the room to shake his hand and guide him toward a chair before his desk. “I bet it feels good to be a free man again.”

Everett nodded. “But I shouldn’t be.”

“And you probably wouldn’t be,” the man said sharply, “if you’d continued on with that harebrained notion of representing yourself. I’m glad you’ve decided to accept your parents’ offer.”

Everett shrugged. “I didn’t want to hurt their feelings.”

The lawyer nodded, clasping his hands together. “Whatever your reasons, it seems your parents are most interested in doing whatever they can to help you refute these charges. They’ve offered to pay for your legal defense.”

“I can’t refute the charges,” Everett said dully. “I did everything they say I did.”

“Yes, but it’s why you did it that’s important,” Abernathie told him. “Charlie Prescott manipulated you right from the very beginning.” He leaned forward and placed his hands flat on his desk, pinning Everett with his gaze. “This morning I talked with the prosecutor. Since Prescott’s dead, they’ve come to the end of what they can accomplish in terms of recovering any of the children he stole. That Russian idiot is useless. If you’ll agree to give the cops all the information you have, and if it leads to the recovery of at least some of them, you’ll receive a suspended sentence during which you’ll be required to attend court-appointed psychiatric counseling.”

A suspended sentence. The words echoed in his head. Everett hesitated. It wasn’t right, was it, that he got off unpunished? “But—”

“But nothing,” his counsel said. “There’s no room for nobility when you’re facing prison.”

Everett swallowed. “I broke the law, too.”

Bernard Abernathie sighed. “Look, Everett, or Robert, or whatever you’d like to be called now. I deal with a lot of criminals. I see con artists and liars and worms every day. I represent some of them. You—” He looked Everett squarely in the eye. “—are not a hardened criminal. Jail is the wrong answer for you. If you feel you have to atone, do some kind of volunteer work. But you don’t walk away from a gift like this. This is your freedom we’re talking about here.”

Everett still hesitated, evaluating Abernathie’s words.

“Isn’t there anything you care about enough to avoid prison?” His lawyer’s voice was laced with exasperation and what sounded like a trace of compassion.

Anything you care about. Nancy Allen’s face flashed across his mind. His heart squeezed in pain. He could never approach her again. She knew about what he’d done, knew the full story. He’d used her to gain information about the babies at Portland General Hospital. Surely she wished she’d never met him. She must hate him.

Even so, he realized he wouldn’t get her out of his heart so easily. Nancy was everything good and right, the best thing that had ever happened to him in his entire life, and he’d never forget her.

Danny’s unexpected visitor slept and rested most of the rest of the day. The next morning, when he went down for his first cup of coffee, Leilani said, “The young lady’s awake. I could set up breakfast for the two of you on the lanai.”

Danny glanced at his housekeeper sharply, hoping she wasn’t having visions of matchmaking. But Leilani’s broad, pretty face was serene and she met his gaze as she waited for his answer.

“I guess that would be all right,” he said slowly. He wanted to talk to Sydney Aston anyway. Did she even know she was Sydney Aston yet? Eddie had warned him to let her set the pace of her recovery. If she asked, he would tell her what her name was. But he hoped she’d remember on her own.

He went out to the terrace after his workout and shower to find Leilani just seating his guest.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning.” She smiled at him. “You know, I’m not sure I even got your name yesterday. Did you tell me you’re Danny?”

He nodded, smiling in return as he extended a hand. “Daniel Dane Crosby, but everyone calls me Danny.”

“Well, Daniel Dane Crosby called Danny,” she said, “I owe you an enormous debt. If you hadn’t seen me, I can’t imagine what might have happened.”

“At the very least, a really nasty sunburn,” Danny said, trying to lighten the moment.

She laughed, but a moment later, her lovely face lost its glow. “I still can’t remember my name.”

“Eddie—Dr. Atada—says you’ll probably begin to remember soon. You just need a little rest and relaxation.” He poured a glass of the fresh strawberry papaya juice and offered it to her. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.”

She smiled again, and he noticed that she had a small dimple in her left cheek. “Careful. It’s so lovely here I might be tempted to stay indefinitely.”

“Danny?” Leilani came to the French doors that led into the house. “You have a telephone call. From Portland,” she added. “I think it’s your brother.”

Danny was puzzled as he excused himself to take the call. Why would Trent be calling him this early? Although, he supposed, it was late morning on the mainland’s West Coast. Normally he and his brother corresponded through e-mail and instant messaging. The last time they’d spoken in person was a month ago.

He headed for the phone in his office. Picking up the handset, he punched the talk button. “Danny here.”

“Danny.” It was Trent, as he’d anticipated. “How are you?”

“Good,” he said cautiously. “How are you?”

Trent laughed. “I’m fine. You sound like you think I’m coming through the phone to bite you.”

“Well, you don’t usually call unless there’s something urgent,” Danny pointed out. “What’s up?”

Trent hesitated.

Danny felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. A shiver rippled down his spine. He had no idea what his brother was about to say but something in the constrained quality of that momentary silence raised every alarm he possessed. “What is it?” he demanded.

“Sit down,” Trent suggested. “I have some news that is going to weaken your knees.”

Danny sat. “All right. Tell me.” His mouth was so dry he had to try twice before the words came out. They found Noah’s body. He knew before Trent spoke again what his brother was going to say. His son was dead, just as he’d feared for the past four endless years.

“Robbie Logan is alive.” Trent’s voice was hushed.

The words didn’t register for a long moment. Uncomprehending, Danny said, “It’s not about Noah?”

“God, no!” Trent was suddenly more animated. “I’m sorry, Danny, I should have realized what you were thinking.” More gently, he said, “There’s still no news of Noah. This is about Robbie. Your friend Robbie’s been found.”

Robbie. Found. “But Robbie’s dead.” He still couldn’t grasp it. “He can’t be alive. He was buried a long time ago.”

“Robbie Logan is alive,” Trent repeated. “He’s already had testing done that proves it. And, Danny, there’s more. He was arrested in Portland under the name Everett Baker.”

“Arrested?” He felt as if he’d followed Alice down the rabbit hole.

“Yes. Apparently he’s been involved with a scheme to kidnap babies for resale to wealthy families. He worked for Children’s Connection and used his contacts there to set up the snatches.”

“My God.” Danny was horrified. Kidnapping babies. How could he? He was a kidnapped child. And even worse, the Logans were ardent supporters of Children’s Connection. Had he known who he was all along? Had Robbie deliberately set out to sabotage his parents’ project? If he hadn’t, it sure was a huge coincidence.

The talk of kidnapping and baby-snatching inevitably led to an image of his son, Noah, bald as a billiard ball, waving his little arms and squealing with pleasure as Danny lifted him high in the air. Drool glistened on his chin and several tiny white teeth were plainly visible through his grin.

True, this story was different from his own situation in that the babies were being provided to the wealthy instead of taken from them, but still… Where had Robbie gotten those babies in the first place? Somewhere, some parents’ lives had been changed forever when their child was stolen. The similarities made his stomach churn.

“Where has he been all these years and why didn’t he ever come home?” Anger was beginning to curl around the edges of the shock. “How could he let them—all of us—think he was dead?”

“From what little I know, I don’t think he knew he wasn’t Everett Baker until the woman he thought was his mother passed away a few years ago. He must have been treated pretty badly by the people who had him, and by the time he learned who he really was, he believed the Logans didn’t care about him.”

“But he was six years old when he was taken!” Danny protested. “How could he not remember his family?”

“We don’t know what he went through, Danny.” Trent was quietly reproving. “And you know firsthand the living hell an adult can put a kid through. Maybe he had to forget to survive.”

Danny fell silent. Trent had hit a nerve. Their own mother was a sick, abusive witch. She’d damn near succeeded in making him believe he was worthless, so Trent was right: He shouldn’t be judging Robbie.

Robbie! He couldn’t believe the little boy had lived. For years they’d thought he was dead. The police had even found a child’s body along the Willamette River that had been widely accepted to be Robbie’s. And now here he was, alive!

He had another moment’s pity for some other family still waiting in vain for their little boy to come home. Maybe now that they knew Robbie was alive, the Logans would exhume the child they’d buried. Surely DNA testing was sophisticated enough to figure out who that little victim had been.

“God,” he said slowly. “This creates a host of issues to resolve, doesn’t it?”

“Sure does,” Trent said. “But I’m mostly concerned about how it’s going to affect you.”

Danny shrugged, then realized his brother couldn’t see him. “I don’t think it’s going to, in any significant way. I mean, I’m glad he’s alive, but it’s not going to change my life.”

“No, but it should give you hope. Doesn’t it make you think it’s possible that Noah is still out there somewhere?”

“I don’t think about Noah,” Danny said flatly. “I can’t. It’s terrific that the Logans have found their son, but let’s face it. Most children abducted by strangers are killed within the first few hours if they aren’t found.” And besides, with Noah’s heart defect, he didn’t have much of a chance in the first place. Even if whoever took him hadn’t killed him, they wouldn’t have known that he desperately needed surgery within the next year.

What he didn’t tell his brother was that he knew Noah wasn’t still alive for another reason—because he’d had the misfortune to be Danny Crosby’s son. Danny knew that the therapists he’d once seen would say it was ridiculous, but even now he couldn’t shake the gut-deep certainty that his son’s disappearance was a cosmic payback for his failure to save his little friend all those years ago. And even learning that Robbie had been found alive didn’t alleviate the feeling. Because he hadn’t acted quickly enough, Robbie had been through God only knew what, and he and his family had lost an entire childhood together.

He realized suddenly that there was a strained silence from the other end of the line.

“I do appreciate the call, Trent,” he said. “That’s really good news.” And then he disconnected.

Sydney was still sitting on the lanai having a cup of decaf coffee when her rescuer returned from his telephone call. As Daniel Crosby walked toward her, she studied him from beneath her lashes.