The Parks Empire: Secrets, Lies and Loves

“I won’t.” Sara waved goodbye before opening the door to her place. No one seemed to be in next door.

Thinking of Stacy, she was filled with regret for the future and the possible hurt to the girl and her father. But then, there was all the regret of the past that Marla Carlton and her four children had had to live with.

“You’re all dressed up,” Stacy said Saturday evening, coming out the door and sitting on the stoop beside Sara.

Sara wore a red knit pantsuit that was one of her favorite outfits and a splurge last year when she’d been happy. Before her fiancé, Chad, then her mother, had died.

“I’m going out to dinner with my brother and his friend tonight. Miss Hanson is going, too.”

Stacy nodded as if she approved.

Sara glanced up and down the street. “She’s supposed to be here by now, but she’s late.”

“Maybe she had a wreck like my mother did.”

The child’s matter-of-fact suggestion startled Sara. Stacy’s world had been shaken by her mother’s death when she was three. Sara wondered again how much the child remembered. Did the bright youngster recall anything her grandfather and father might have said—

Realizing where this thought was leading, Sara broke it off, appalled at the idea of quizzing a child about her family’s private conversations. She could never be a detective as Tyler was, asking intrusive questions and suspecting people of lies and evasions.

“Hello,” a masculine voice said behind them.

Sara stood, her gaze held by Cade’s as he stepped out the door. His smile was warm and beguiling, but in an open way, as if his thoughts were as innocent as his daughter’s.

Since meeting this man, she’d realized how self-centered her fiancé had been. He’d always insisted on having his way. Cade was considerate and good-natured.

“Good evening,” she said, sounding breathless and unsure of herself as undefined emotion clutched at her throat, making it difficult to breathe.

“You look especially lovely tonight.”

“She’s waiting for her boyfriend,” Stacy informed him.

Sara felt heat rise to her face. “Just friends,” she quickly corrected. “And my brother.”

Two cars arrived at the same time. Rachel pulled into the driveway behind Sara’s car. Tyler stopped at the curb and got out. “Ready?” he asked, coming up the sidewalk.

“Yes,” Sara answered.

She realized she had to introduce the two men. She did so quickly. Tension crawled along her nerves like a poisonous snake as the men shook hands and spoke.

“You look like Sara,” Stacy said.

Tyler dropped to his haunches and shook her hand as Sara introduced the child. “Yes, all of the kids in my family look like our mother.”

“I look like my daddy,” Stacy told him.

Tyler studied her, then her father. “You sure do,” he agreed. He smiled at the child, then stood. “We have dinner reservations, so we’d better get along.”

“Have a pleasant evening,” Cade said.

Rachel was already seated in the back of Tyler’s car along with Nick Banning, Sara noted when she and Tyler joined them. She sat in the front passenger seat.

“I recognized Cade Parks,” Nick said when they were on their way. “The child was his daughter, I presume?”

“Yes. Stacy. She’ll be in my class Monday.”

“I don’t think I’m ready to face a roomful of rowdy kids.” Rachel made a fearful grimace.

Nick chuckled, then became serious. “Mark is meeting us at the restaurant.”

“Has he learned anything?” Tyler demanded.

“I don’t know. He’ll tell us when he sees us.”

At the cozy Italian restaurant, complete with an accordion player, the two couples met Nick’s older brother.

“My brother, Mark,” Nick introduced them. “He’s a private detective and is helping us on the case.”

Mark Banning wasn’t old—early thirties, perhaps—but his eyes said he’d seen enough to last a lifetime. A terrible scar under his right eye spoke of his days with the New York police force, before he and Nick had moved to San Francisco and he’d opened his own detective agency.

Sara took Mark’s hand. Smiling into his eyes, she said, “Thank you for helping us.”

His manner was introspective and serious. “I believe in justice being done.”

After they were seated, she leaned close to him. “Have you found anything on Derek Ross?”

“Yes. At least, I think I have. Tyler mentioned your mother once said her brother was a book lover and collected antique volumes.”

Sara nodded. “Yes, she did.” She waited impatiently as they placed their orders with the waiter. “You’ve traced him?” she asked as soon as they were alone again.

“Not quite, but I did some checking with a dealer in rare books who I ran into while investigating a theft once.” Mark paused while he studied first Tyler, then Sara. “I asked him if he’d heard of Derek Ross. He hadn’t, but he had done business over the years with a man called Derek Moss.”

“Oh,” Sara said in disappointment.

“Lots of times, when people change their names, they use the same initials…or something very similar to their real names, usually by changing one or two letters.”

“You think…” she began, then stopped, almost afraid to voice the question.

Mark shrugged. “I’ve got a trace going on the man. The dealer couldn’t find an address in his records, but he’s pretty sure Derek Moss has, or had, a bookstore. Moss got a discount on the books due to having a retailer’s license.”

Sara’s mind whirled with the possibility of finishing the case so soon. She pictured the tall, older man she’d seen in the jewelry store behind bars, paying for his crimes against her family.

Tyler must have had the same thought. “It’s odd,” he said, “to discover that you belong to another family, that your father is a man you despise, that you have other brothers and sisters you’ve never known. And a five-year-old niece who’s bright and friendly…and innocent.”

At once another image imposed itself in her mind—Cade Parks and Stacy, their eyes accusing as they stared at her.

Pressing a hand to her chest, where a ball of pain and misery formed, she wondered for the hundredth time that week if she and Tyler were doing the right thing. People were going to be hurt….

“You and Rachel might have an additional worry,” Mark told them. “Cade Parks is on the board of directors at your school. Cause trouble for his family and he could get you fired.”

Chapter Four

Walter Parks paced the floor in quick, furious strides on Monday morning. Someone was checking into his life, both personal and business, and he didn’t like it, not one bit.

Get rid of one problem, it seemed, and two appeared. That was certainly the case in the present situation. Marla was dead, but her brats weren’t.

Just to be sure the past stayed in the past, he’d had the detective check on them. One, a rather well-known mystery writer, had moved from Denver to New York. One of the twin boys had stayed in Colorado. So far, so good.

He paced some more as rage rose to a choking level inside him. He wanted to punch somebody. He wanted to rip something to shreds, to destroy the things that stood in the way of his complete freedom and relief from worry.

Like the two Carltons who now lived in San Francisco.

Dammit, twenty-five years was long enough to suffer for a moment of madness. He’d paid for it. He’d spent his life always having to watch over his shoulder, wondering if Marla would speak up—

“Mr. Parks, Cade is here,” his secretary interrupted his pacing with the announcement.

He glanced toward the open door. Connie was forty-three, a single mother with a gifted son who attended the university at Berkeley, thanks to him. She’d worked for him for fifteen years. He provided her with a good living and a few other perks. In return, she was a totally reliable secretary and a discreet mistress.

Why couldn’t all of life be as simple?

“Tell him to come in,” Walter said impatiently. “Close the door,” he said to his son as soon as Cade was inside.

A fleeting expression of annoyance crossed the boy’s face. Well, he could just be annoyed. Walter was furious.

“Do you know who lives next door to you?” Walter demanded as soon as they were alone.

Cade was surprised by the question. “Yes, Sara Carlton,” he admitted warily. Knowing his father, he felt there was more to the question than paternal curiosity.

“Yes. Sara Carlton,” Walter repeated in a nasty tone.

Cade waited until the irritation settled before he asked, “What about her?”

His father paced the room like an angry lion, caged and resenting it, ready to lash out at anyone who got in his way. Cade was familiar with Walter’s temper. Usually he waited it out without saying much. At the moment, he didn’t like either his father’s attitude or the subject.

“Do you also know her brother is a detective on the police force here?”

Cade nodded.

“And you never thought to mention it to me?”

“No. Why should I?”

“Someone has been making inquiries about…about the family business,” Walter announced, his face becoming red as his anger rose higher. A vein throbbed in his neck.

Cade noted the hesitation and knew his father had changed what he’d been about to say. Lately, in dealing with the family patriarch, he’d had uneasy hunches that all was not well. His father’s mood swings had grown increasingly unpredictable.

“How do you know?” Cade asked.

His father paused again, as if deciding on how much to tell him. “Someone claiming to be with the IRS called the bank and asked about the company’s accounts and my personal ones. When I called the local IRS chief, he indicated they were looking into certain matters on companies dealing with imported diamonds. He wouldn’t say why.”

“There could be lots of reasons—money laundering or gem smuggling from countries engaged in war. The press calls them ‘conflict diamonds.’” Cade shrugged. “Since we don’t do business with those countries or with smugglers, and the taxes are in order, we don’t have anything to worry about.”

Walter stopped pacing and spun around. “A man in my position always has to worry.”

“Why?” Cade asked, keeping his tone neutral.

His father glared at him so hotly, Cade wouldn’t have been surprised if a laser beam burned right through his forehead.

“People are envious of those who pull themselves up and make it in life.”

By marrying into the business, Cade thought but didn’t voice the accusation. For a second, he felt the overwhelming loss of his mother. Like Sara, his world had changed when he was four. He’d never understood why she had to be sent away.

When asked, his father had sorrowfully admitted that Anna Parks was “unstable” and couldn’t be trusted outside the mental hospital, that she was in the most progressive sanitarium in the world and, if she could be helped, the doctors there were the ones to do it. All he would tell the children was that Anna was safe and happy, insofar as she could be, and living in Switzerland.

Seeing his father’s agitation, Cade tried to figure out what the old man was getting at. “So, is someone threatening you in some way? Did you get a poison pen letter or a call or something like that?”

“No,” Walter snapped. “But I don’t trust the Carlton brother and sister. They’re here to make trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” Knowing Sara and having met her brother, Cade couldn’t bring himself to take his father’s odd worries seriously.

“Their father…”

Again the odd hesitation, Cade noted.

“Jeremy Carlton and I were partners on a project long ago,” Walter said, his eyes narrowed as if he saw directly into the past. “Things were going bad for him, but I didn’t know he was in financial trouble. Anyway, there was a rumor about smuggled diamonds, but I never paid it much attention. When Jeremy drowned—”

“Aboard a yacht our company owned at the time,” Cade interrupted. “I was curious and checked into it after Sara moved in next door,” he said when his father gave him a questioning glare.

“Yes,” Walter said. “He drowned and that was the end of it. His family apparently lost everything. They moved to Colorado and I lost track of them after that.”

“I see,” Cade murmured. “What kind of project were you and Carlton working on?”

Walter’s strained features relaxed somewhat. “We were going to produce the most expensive diamond necklace in the world, using nothing but the rarest of flawless stones. That was to be our launch into the market for the ultrarich.”

“Celebrity chasing,” Cade murmured, a degree of scorn showing through.

“Not celebrities. The truly rich,” his father asserted, “are those who can afford a string of polo ponies, who have their own planes and seagoing yachts. Their net worth is over half a billion, and they take pains to stay out of the public eye.”

“A very small market base.”

“In that price range, we wouldn’t have needed many sales to ensure our fortune.”

A chill crept along Cade’s nape at his father’s smile. Cold, greedy and calculating wouldn’t begin to describe it. “The company has done just fine over the years.”

“We’re overextended,” Walter stated flatly.

“The economy has slowed down some, but the rich are with us always. And they always want something bigger and better than their neighbors.”

“In business, a man can never relax. I want you to have the Carlton girl fired.”

“What?” Cade wasn’t sure he’d heard right.

“You’re on the board of directors at the school. Get rid of her. Make sure she has to move, too. You have the phone number where the artist can be reached, don’t you? Tell him she’s throwing wild parties or something.”

“I’ll do no such thing,” Cade informed his father, his own anger building at his father’s scheming.

Walter placed both hands on his desk and leaned closer, his eyes boring into Cade’s. “You will if you want to keep that ranch you’re so crazy about. I got you your position with the law firm. I can take it away.”

Cade took a deep breath. Another one. It was no use. He headed for the door.

“Where the hell are you going? I’m not through talking to you,” his father said in a snarl.

“I’m leaving,” Cade said, keeping his own tone quiet and carefully controlled. “Before I punch you out. It’s never good form to beat up one’s father.”

He walked out without looking back. The secretary kept her gaze pinned to the papers on her desk as he swept past.

Cade was careful around her. He and his siblings had figured out long ago that anything they said to her would be repeated to their father.

In the hall, he nearly ran over Linda Mailer, his father’s accountant. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“It was my fault,” she said. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.” She gestured at the sheaf of papers in her hand. “Do you have a moment? I have some questions—”

“Later,” Cade said and forced a smile. “I have to be somewhere.”

Anywhere but in the vicinity of his father, Cade thought, going outside and breathing deeply.

The day was clear and warm, an invitation to be outside in the summer sun. Perusing the display of jewelry in the store window, he experienced an overpowering need to get away from everything that bore his father’s touch. The ranch was just the place for that.

“It’s no problem,” Sara assured Tai Monday afternoon. She’d agreed to take Stacy home and let the child stay with her until Cade arrived.

“Thanks, Sara. That’s a load off my mind,” Tai said, relief mingling with the worry in her eyes.

The young woman’s mother had undergone emergency surgery during the night for a ruptured appendix. Tai, an only child, needed to take care of her for a few days until the older woman was on her feet again.

“Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll explain what happened to Cade.” Sara walked the premed student to the classroom door and waved as Tai hurried from the school grounds.

It was lunch recess and the babble of conversation and laughter on the playground was reassuring to Sara. As long as there were children and laughter, then the world couldn’t be all bad.

But it could be harsh.

She thought of Tai’s concern for her mom, of the past winter and her own mother’s slow fading, those thin hands growing paler and colder each day as Marla’s heart failed in its effort to supply the vital link to life.

With the death of her mother, Sara had felt adrift in life, cut off from her roots and all the past generations that made her the person she was. The future had seemed dark and fuzzy, an endless road leading to a place she couldn’t see. Sensing Tai’s fear had revived her own.

The bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch period. The children ran about in seeming disorder, but soon sorted themselves into lines in front of their classrooms, then marched in with their teachers.

Sara put the past out of her mind and finished her teaching duties. She ended the day by having the children dance around the classroom in time to a lively tune, then she and the twenty students straightened up the room in preparation for the next day.

“Stacy, you’ll walk home with me,” she told the youngster when the final bell rang. “Tai’s mom got sick and Tai will have to stay with her for a couple of weeks.”

Stacy smiled happily. “I like being with you. And Tai,” she added, loyal to her sitter.

“You’re a very likable person to be with, too,” Sara said. “Shall we plan dinner for your father tonight since Tai won’t be there to start it?”

“Let’s have spaghetti. That’s his favorite food.”

Sara gave a little skeptical snort. “I think I know whose favorite it is,” she said as Stacy skipped along beside her.

Stacy pressed a hand over her mouth and giggled.

At the town house, they worked together and soon the spicy sauce was bubbling in the pan. While it simmered, the two weeded the front flower beds, not that they needed much work. The mysterious Mr. Lee—Sara had never seen him—kept the grounds in tip-top shape.

That’s where Cade found them when he arrived at six o’clock.

After the usual hug, swing and nose-rubbing with his daughter, he turned to Sara. His stare was so intent, she became flustered and dropped the small bunch of grass sprouts they’d pulled from among the flowers.

“We cooked dinner,” Stacy told him.

“Where’s Tai?” he asked Sara.

“Her mommy’s sick,” Stacy answered. “Tai has to stay with her ’cause she had a op’ration.”

“An operation,” he corrected.

“Mommy wanted Daddy to have one, but he got mad,” Stacy said to Sara. The child gazed earnestly at her father. “Sara and I could stay with you if you had one,” she volunteered.

Before Sara could quite figure out the implications, Cade abruptly set the girl on her feet, unlocked the door and disappeared inside with her. His face had turned an interesting shade of red.

Sara felt her own face heat up as she sorted through the conversation. While working together last week, Rachel had told Sara all she’d read about Cade’s wife. The woman had been an ardent partygoer. It didn’t take a strong leap to imagine her not wanting more children…or that she’d wanted Cade to do something about it.

Had he?

Going inside, she prepared the pasta and salad and rolls, then studied the ebony table with its perfect finish. She’d never used it.

Getting a colorful tablecloth from her belongings, she went onto the deck and spread it over the patio table there. With the table set and the food ready to bring out, she wondered what to do next.

Feeling embarrassed and more than a little foolish, she knocked on Cade’s back door.

He answered in less than a minute. He’d changed to jeans and a blue chambray shirt, the sleeves rolled up and the buttons not yet fastened down the front.

His chest was lightly sprinkled with dark hair. His skin was tanned. She wondered when he spent time outside to acquire it. He wasn’t a brawny man, but he looked strong and fit, with a whipcord leanness to him that spoke of latent energy, ready to be unleashed on a second’s notice.

Unexpected hunger uncoiled and flooded her with intense longing. She hadn’t felt passion in so long it took a moment to realize fully what it was.

She wanted this man. She wanted his arms around her. She wanted to feel his warmth, his intimate touch. She wanted to caress him, to explore his masculine flesh with her hands…with her body…

“Yes?” he said.

Sara hesitated at his tone—not exactly cold, but not exactly friendly, either. “Uh, did Stacy tell you we prepared dinner?”

“Yes. I was just about to call and see if the invitation was still open.”

“Of course.” She dredged up a smile. “I don’t want to eat leftover spaghetti for the next six nights.”

His answering smile was forced. “I’ll get Stace. We’ll be over in a minute.”

“I, uh, thought we would eat on the deck.”

“Great. We’ll be right out.”

Sara retreated, leaving her door open so they could come inside if they wished. Her fingers trembled slightly as she removed crisp sourdough bread from the oven and placed it in a cloth-lined basket. She made a nest for the sauce in the center of the pasta, which she’d placed on a platter with a high rim.

“I’ll take that,” Cade said, coming to the door. He removed the platter from her hand.

“Thanks. Stace, if you’ll put these rolls on the table, I’ll get drinks. Milk or iced tea?”

“Tea for me, milk for the young lady,” Cade said.

Since it was early, the air hadn’t cooled to the point of being chilly. The temperature was a pleasant seventy-two degrees. With the irrepressible Stacy there to bridge any awkward pauses, the tension between Sara and Cade eased and the evening became quite cheerful.

“So, did both of you enjoy your first day of school?” he asked when they were seated.

The two females gave him a thorough review of their day while the shadows lengthened and the sun hid behind the fog bank on the horizon. They finished the meal, but lingered at the table and talked.

“There’ll be no flash tonight,” Cade told them, gazing at the horizon.

Sara thought he looked wistful, but in the next instant, as his eyes met hers, she decided she was wrong. She’d been aware of his gaze on her several times during the meal, but his thoughts had been too obscure to read. Now he merely looked amused and somehow distant.

Not that they’d ever been close, except as children in school together, she mused, her senses keenly aware of him and his physical presence, the innate masculinity that called to something equally strong but feminine in her.

After eating, they all pitched in to clean up the dishes, then Cade and Stacy went to their place so the child could get ready for bed. Sara draped a sweater over her shoulders and returned to the deck.

Twilight deepened into night, and still she lingered. No mosquitoes came out to annoy her. Few sounds from the street penetrated back here. It didn’t even feel as if she were in a city.

“Would you like a glass of wine?” Cade asked from his doorway an hour later.

“Yes, that would be nice.”

He joined her on the deck and handed her a glass of wine, which was red and mellow, holding only a hint of tannin from the oak barrel in which it had been aged.

“Very good,” she murmured after taking a sip.

“An eight-year-old Cabernet,” he told her. “It won the blue ribbon in a recent international competition.”

“You should have saved it for a special occasion.”

“I think this is special enough. A fine dinner and interesting conversation, two beautiful women to share the evening—what more could a man want?”

The cheer sounded somewhat forced, but his voice had deepened. It flowed over her with the same dark complexities as the wine, a subtle weaving of spicy flavors that spoke of other pleasures to come—

She stopped the train of thought with an effort. She couldn’t afford to think like that. Rising, she stood by the railing and stared out toward the sea.