Big Easy Temptation (The Perfect Gentlemen 3)

“I know, but I found out that his mother is in a nursing home not two miles outside of New Orleans.” She’d made a few phone calls, talked to some staff. They’d been more than happy to tell a “social worker” that Peter Morgan’s mother got a weekly visitor without fail. “I think he’s seeing her. The nurses at the home say it’s her nephew who stops in, but his mother was an only child. Needless to say, I think he’s visiting his momma and he usually does it at the same time every week. Which happens to be this afternoon.”

Lara clapped her hands. “We’re staking out a nursing home.” She stopped suddenly and frowned. “Wait. The last time we did that someone died horribly.”

“Yeah, how about you stay here and hold down the bayou with Freddy.” Connor patted his wife’s hand. “Holland and I will stake out the old folks’ home and figure out where Peter’s hidey-hole is. I don’t want to spook the man, at least not until we’re ready and know everything we want to ask him.”

Dax frowned. “I’ll go with Holland.”

She shook her head. “You have to talk to your mother, find out if there’s any connection at all between your father and Zack’s mom.”

“There’s this little invention I call a cell phone,” Dax offered.

“I think you should see her.” Holland didn’t like the idea of Judith rattling around that big house with only bodyguards and her housekeeper for company. “After we nearly got burned alive last night, you should check on her. Talk to her. Pick her brain. Search your father’s office. It might spur something. I know it’s been years. Maybe something was overlooked.”

“By NCIS? I doubt it,” Dax replied, then sighed. “But I should make sure all is well and no one has come near my mother.”

“Besides, she needs to lay eyes on you. I’m sure she’s heard about the fire.” Holland would be worried out of her mind if she were Judith. She would want to see Dax, reassure herself that her baby boy was all right. She wouldn’t be able to sleep otherwise. “Did you even call her to tell her you’re okay?”

His face turned a dull red. “Fine. I’ll visit her, but I’m going in quietly. I don’t want anyone to follow me back here. I know an indirect route in. As a teenager, Gus was really good at sneaking in and out of the house. She taught me well. Connor, take care of my girl.”

He was gone before she could protest that she wasn’t his girl.

He would probably just argue anyway.

“So we’re staking out an old folks’ home. That sounds like a blast.” She’d be alone in a car with Connor for hours. Yeah, nothing could possibly go wrong.

Connor sat back. “We should definitely get there soon. You know, I could tell you some stories about Dax on the way. That will be entertaining.”

Holland suspected that was Connor code for I’m going to ask you a bunch of questions you don’t want to answer. She sighed. It was going to be a long afternoon.

* * *

Dax eased into the house, the bodyguard at the backdoor nodding his way.

“Hello, sir.”

Dax held out a hand and shook the other man’s. He was a big guy dressed in an impeccable if nondescript suit, despite the fact that he would spend almost all day indoors. But that was how the Secret Service tended to roll. Dax had pegged the agent the minute he saw the guy. Gus hadn’t sent out mere paid guards. She’d talked Zack into sending the big guns.

“How have things been around here?” he asked.

“Quiet, sir. Though your mother took me and Bentley for fifty bucks apiece when we played cards last night.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. That was fake money. I never play for real money. Buying shoes is what real money is for,” his mother said as she walked into the kitchen, her arms wide. “You come here, boy. If you weren’t too big I would turn you over my knee for scaring me like that.”

So Holland had been right. His mom had heard about the torch and burn at Holland’s place. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. Obviously we escaped but things were a little crazy. I didn’t realize you would know that Holland and I were involved. They didn’t mention names on the news.”

“Holland’s uncle called looking for you. He was worried about his niece. I had to tell him I had no idea where you were. It’s not the same thing as when you’re deployed, Daxton. You have to call.”

He stepped toward his mother, pulling her slender frame in for a hug. “Sorry. I promise. Can we talk for a few minutes? I have to get back out to Holland, but you should know we’re not alone. Connor is with us.”

She patted his back. “Well, that makes me feel better. He’s a good man. Shall we go to the parlor?”

“Dad’s office is more appropriate.”

Her face tightened. “Oh. This isn’t a social call.”

He hated having to grill her, but she was the only one still alive who could talk—and he wanted to keep it that way. “No, Mom.”

She nodded and turned, her shoulders squared, a true Southern belle about to do her duty. He loved his mom. Holland reminded him of his mother at times. She had that same steel in her spine.

She was silent as she walked into his father’s office. The shades were drawn and she drifted to the windows as if to open them, but stopped with a shake of her head.

Instead, she sat in the seat across from the desk, her hands in her lap. “What do you need to know?”

He hated the fact that she couldn’t open the blinds. She couldn’t let sunlight into this room. When this was over, he was hiring someone to redecorate, to make this into a room his mother could love again. “Dad took a trip to London shortly before the scandal broke out. Do you know anything about it?”

“It was a conference of some kind.”

He shook his head, hating that he had to tarnish his father’s memory more and further disillusion his mother. “He didn’t actually attend a conference. We think he went overseas for personal reasons. Have you ever heard of an institution called Homewood? It’s a small hospital in the English countryside.”

She frowned. “Was your father hurt?”

“No. He went there to request the records of a patient named Jane Downing.”

“I know that name.” She put a hand to her forehead as though trying to recall where she’d heard it. “Downing was a family name. Oh, why can’t I remember? Hayes. Downing was Constance Hayes’s mother’s maiden name. They were a very genteel family. From Sussex, I believe.”

His mother had an interest in genealogy. “Was there a family member named Jane?”

“Oh, I did Zack’s genealogy for him back when you were in college. Such an interesting family. I don’t recall a Jane in the last few generations, though if memory serves, it was Constance’s middle name. I’ve got the family tree here somewhere.”

“No need, Mother. I think that answers the question.” She’d gone into the hospital under an alias. “Did Dad have some kind of connection with Constance Hayes?”

“Are you asking me if your father had an affair with her?” His mother waved a hand in utter dismissal. “Not a chance. Your father liked them younger and far less troubled than Constance. That woman was a mess. I don’t think I ever encountered her when she wasn’t drinking. She had a serious problem. And lord, she could talk your ear off. About the strangest things, too. Never made any sense. I wasn’t surprised to find out she was intoxicated when she died in that car accident.”

The hair on the back of his neck was prickling his skin. Constance Hayes’s name had been on Natalia’s list. People who talked got silenced in this world. Had her fatal wreck really been an accident? Probably not. So what had Constance known? “What kinds of things?”

“I don’t recall specifics.”

“I need them, Mother.”

She frowned. “What does this have to do with your father’s case?”

He had to tell her. He hated dragging her back in before they knew all the facts, but he couldn’t keep it from her. “I think Dad was drugged when he was in bed wit

h Amber Taylor.”

“Why would you imagine that?”

“The police had actual photos of him in bed with her, but he appears to be drugged. He’s not actively participating and those photos weren’t taken at the motel in which he supposedly assaulted the girl. I think they were taken in England and used later to frame Dad because he was investigating something dangerous.” He quickly gave her a rundown of what they’d uncovered.

“A list? And everyone on the list is dead?”

He nodded. “At least all the people I recognize. I think Dad must have suspected that Constance hadn’t died because she’d been driving drunk. When he began digging into her life and her death, they invented dirt on him. When he refused to be blackmailed, they killed him. I don’t believe he committed suicide, Mom. Not for a second. Neither does Gus.”

Tears pooled in his mother’s eyes. “You really think he didn’t sleep with that child?”

At least he could give her some comfort. “No. And I think I can prove it. The entire incident was staged to strip him of credibility and give him something else to focus on.”

His mom drew in a shuddering breath, seeming to steady herself. “Constance would talk sometimes. Mostly gibberish. We didn’t see them very often, you know, but she seemed to gravitate toward your father when we got together. I thought it was because he was so handsome, but maybe she had another reason. Do you remember Zack’s wedding day?”

“Vividly. I remember I had to help Dad get Mrs. Hayes out of the sight of reporters and cameras because she was so wasted.”

“Yes, but you didn’t sit with her. Your father and I did until her husband arrived. I do believe she was afraid of him. At the time, we decided not to interfere. She was so out of sorts that it was impossible to know which of her fears were real and which were in her head.”

“Did she talk about anything specific? I know it was a long time ago, but anything at all could help.”

“She talked about Joy. Constance was worried about her. At first I thought she was distraught about the marriage, as though she thought Joy wasn’t good enough for Zack. Then she said something puzzling about Joy finding out. I wasn’t sure what she meant precisely. She wasn’t always coherent. But it sounded as if something happened in Russia. She said that if Joy found out about Moscow, they would kill her. No idea what that meant. She also talked about Zack being a baby and how difficult it was. Was he a cranky child? Constance didn’t say more and I didn’t really understand. But I do remember that your father was disturbed by something she said to him in private.”

“What was that?”

“He said that Constance asked him to protect her. She said, ‘One day they won’t need me and they’ll kill me.’ So you really think her accident wasn’t an accident at all?”

He shook his head. “I’m beginning to suspect someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to hide something that’s deeper and goes back further than we ever imagined.”

“Your father didn’t really hurt that child? I’m sorry. I need to say it out loud.”

He crossed the floor to his mother, sinking to one knee in front of her and taking her hand. “He might have been guilty of a lot of things, but not this.”

“And you really think he didn’t kill himself?”

“No, Mom. That was a setup, too.”

Her hands tightened on her lap. “I was going to divorce him. I was so angry. I didn’t know how he could possibly be the man I’d married and had two children with. I thought . . .”

“You must have never known him? You did.” All these years and she’d been drowning in unanswered questions and guilt? “He was going to fight. He told me that in a letter he never mailed. He wrote that no matter what happened he would fight to clear his name and save his family. He didn’t kill himself to escape his shame or guilt or his marriage. He was going to fight for you.”

She squeezed his hand. “I loved him. I truly did.”

“He loved you, too. I know he didn’t always show it. He did things that hurt you, but I truly believe he loved you.” Dax couldn’t find it in his heart to judge his parents any longer. Their marriage had blossomed in a different time, and its inner workings would always be a mystery to him. The fact that his father could dishonor his vows and his wife with another woman still pissed him off, but anger served no purpose. There were always two sides to every marriage. The best any son could do was to love his parents.

Dax vowed to work as hard as he could for his own marriage and treat it with the sanctity it deserved.

After a moment’s tears, his mother reached for a tissue and dried her eyes. “But if he didn’t hurt that girl, then why did he walk into the motel with her?”

That was a very good question. “You know, we never see his face in that video.”

“It was his uniform. I know because I’d had to patch it. He’d torn the sleeve and they were getting him a new one, but he was stuck wearing the two jackets he had until they replaced it. I don’t know why he chose to wear the one that needed to be fixed, but I recognized it.”

“Did you ever ask why the hell he would wear a uniform to the scene of a crime at all? I know you were angry with him, but give him some credit. He wasn’t a foolish man.”

“He was drunk that night. He did stupid things when he’d had too much Scotch.”

He couldn’t argue with her on that. “Did they leave you a copy of that video? I know Dad’s attorney got a copy of it. You don’t happen to still have one, do you?”

She sighed. “The lawyer left a box with me. I’m sure it’s in there, along with all the legal filings. I have a copy of everything, though I’ve never really looked through it. Dax, if your father was innocent, we have to clear his name.”

He cupped his mother’s shoulder. “That’s exactly what I intend to do.”

EIGHTEEN

Holland got out of the car, stretching after hours of being cooped up and listening to Connor tell stories of how amazing Dax Spencer was. According to Connor, Dax had singlehandedly helped him pass algebra, saved him from drowning once, and given Zack the idea to run for office. Holland wasn’t sure when he’d had time to do those things since apparently young Dax had spent a whole lot of time helping the poor and guiding old ladies across the road. Oh, and Connor had worked in a story about Dax saving a dog, too.

“You know, if your back’s giving you trouble, you should really see Dax.”

She rolled her eyes. “Give you a lot of back massages, did he?”

Connor grinned. “Overplayed my hand?”

For a former CIA operative, he wasn’t very smooth when it came to building up his friend as a potential mate. “A long time back, Sparks.” She sighed as she closed the car door. It looked like Dax was already back at the remote fishing camp and waiting inside. “I’m not so sure we shouldn’t have confronted Peter Morgan. He could easily disappear again.”

“I don’t think so,” Connor replied. “He seems pretty settled into his house. It’s off the beaten trail. He thinks he’s pulled himself off the grid. I can promise you, he didn’t catch me tailing him. We know where he is. When Dax is ready, we confront him. But we need to know what we’re going to ask him first.”

“We should ask him why he turned in an innocent man.” It seemed pretty simple. If it had been up to her, she would have hauled him in and questioned the little bastard until he gave everything up.

Connor shut his door. “I want Dax there. He deserves to be involved in whatever goes on. You know he took a bullet to save Gabe’s fiancée a few months ago.”

“Yes. I saw the scar.”

Connor’s jaw tightened before he spoke. “I know you think you have to push him away, but don’t throw something good out because it might go bad someday. I thought I needed to do that but it’s better on this side, Kirk. It may sound stupid, but it’s true. Take a leap. You’ll see. And if you don’t, well, if you ever need anything, you come to me because whether you’re brave en

ough or not, he’ll always love you and that means I’ll always help you.”

Holland blinked, stared. She had zero idea how to handle that.

Connor turned toward the house. “Don’t stay out here too long. We need to catch up with Dax, see what he might have learned and decide how we want to proceed. We can’t hide out here forever.”

No. They couldn’t, which meant she would have to decide what to do about Dax soon. She’d walk away. Wasn’t that decision already made?