Lisa Jackson: Treasures aka See How She Dies

Anthony ignored his son’s ravings and clicked his glass yet again to the rim of Mario’s. There were many possibilities for a wife for his son and he hadn’t ruled out Adria Nash-London Danvers-as a potential candidate. She was beautiful and rich and smart. Who could ask for anything more from a daughter-in-law? Of course there was the chance she wouldn’t want him. Well, there were other eligible young women. Fertile women, beautiful, but not necessarily as smart as this London.

“There’s only one woman I’ve ever wanted to marry,” Mario said, suddenly sober, and Anthony had to tamp down his old feelings of disgust. “Trisha.”

Gritting his teeth, the old man swallowed his last bit of false pride. “I won’t stand in your way.” Then, he took a sip of his champagne, stared up at his son’s disbelieving face and laughed, long and hearty, as he hadn’t laughed in years. He patted Mario on the knee with a fondness that he’d forgotten-a fondness he’d once felt when his wife was still alive, and Mario was four or five and hardly any trouble at all. “Drink up. Enjoy. And let me tell you what happened tonight…”

Zach was grim as they walked out of the hospital near downtown Portland. He’d watched without a word as the police, Eunice’s lawyer, and Nelson had arrived, all arguing and shouting. Jason had shown up and his mood had been sour. Trisha, when she’d deigned to appear-in a full-length ermine coat, no less-had breezed past Adria and said to Zach, “Now look what you’ve done.”

A crowd of reporters was clustered near the door. Voices shouted over one another, trying to capture her attention.

“Ms. Nash? Is it true that you’ve finally proven yourself to be London Danvers?”

“It looks that way, yes.”

“How does it feel to finally know your natural family?”

“I haven’t sorted it all out yet.” She felt odd about it all. Though Eunice was expected to live, she was still in the hospital under police guard.

“You’re inheriting a great deal of money, aren’t you? What are your plans?”

“I don’t have any yet.”

Zach looked about to step in, but Adria placed a hand on his arm. “Look,” she said, speaking into the microphones thrust in her direction. “I’m very tired right now. Of course I’m glad to know that I’m London,” she said, refusing to meet Zach’s eyes, refusing to listen to the pain in her heart, knowing that he was her half-brother, “and I’ve no immediate plans for the future.”

“Will you move to Portland permanently?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about the charges pending against Eunice Smythe?”

“I can’t comment on them.”

“Is it true she attacked you in that motel in Estacada?”

“I have nothing more to say at this time.”

“But now that you’re one of the wealthiest women in the state, surely you-”

“Excuse me.”

She shouldered her way through the crowd and Zach was with her every step of the way. She couldn’t meet his eyes, didn’t want to think about her future. For nearly a year she’d thought that if she could prove that she was London, if she could find her real family, her life would change for the better. She could make a difference. She’d fantasized about the money, of course, and seen herself as a shrewd businesswoman who would sit on the boards of charities as well as handle the affairs of Danvers International. Witt Danvers’s little lost princess. The treasure he’d loved above all else, including his other children.

She’d been a fool. A silly fool with girlish dreams.

And she hadn’t planned on falling in love with Zachary.

They climbed into his Jeep and Zachary nosed the Cherokee into the street. Half a dozen cars followed his lead. “Great,” he muttered, eyeing the rearview mirror. “Just great.” He glanced at Adria. She was dead-tired, leaning against the window, staring at him with eyes that seemed to see straight to his soul. “They’ll be at the hotel,” he said, turning abruptly and watching the headlights follow him.

He drove crazily, changing lanes at the last minute and turning corners abruptly. She sensed the change in direction, saw the towering lights of downtown fade behind them.

“Where are we going?”

“Someplace private.”

“Just the two of us?”

He hesitated, his fingers curling over the steering wheel until his knuckles showed white, then nodded curtly. Something inside her-something she’d rather not acknowledge-began to awaken. “Just the two of us.”

Jack Logan was too old to be driving like a wild man, chasing a lunatic in a Jeep. He was tired and grumpy and if it wasn’t for the bottle of Irish whiskey that kept him going, he would have called Jason Danvers and told him to follow his own damned family. But he’d been paid and paid well and he figured that later he could sleep all day if he wanted to.

Retirement hadn’t settled well with him; he missed the action and excitement of the department. True, his arthritis was bad enough to make him limp and he wasn’t as quick as he used to be, but his mind was sharp and he could spend only so much time gardening or fiddling at the workbench his daughter, Risa, had insisted was so therapeutic. No, he missed the sport of it all, the feeling alive, and hated the notion that just because he’d reached a certain age, he’d been put out to pasture.

So he kept taking Danvers’s money, not so much to supplement his social security and pension, but to keep his blood pumping, to make him feel alive again. He followed the Jeep, hanging back, turning off at different streets, nearly losing the rig several times, but always finding it again.

He had an uncanny sense about these things and he guessed where the rig was heading in its crazy, zigzagging course that always led north, toward the interstate bridge, toward the huge body of water separating the southern boundary of Washington from Oregon: the Columbia River and the marina where the Danvers yacht was berthed.

The Jeep turned off the interstate and Logan continued on driving, across the bridge, barely noticing the wide black abyss that was the Columbia. On the far side of the river, in Vancouver, just over the Washington border, he turned his car around and headed back to the freeway, this time heading south. To celebrate, he took a little nip from his bottle and drove unerringly back to the marina. Flashing his outdated badge at the guard manning the gate, he drove quietly into the parking lot and saw Zachary’s Jeep tucked in a darkened space.

Bingo.

“You still got it, Logan,” he told himself, and uncapped his bottle yet again before taking a long swallow that warmed the pit of his stomach and spread through his blood. He didn’t have a cell phone, but he knew there was a Safeway store nearby with a couple of phone booths near the front doors. He’d let Jason sweat awhile, have himself a couple of drinks at a topless bar not all that far away, then call the bastard. While he was at it, he might just ask for a raise. Hell, he deserved it.

The smell of the river rose off the water and tickled Adria’s nostrils as she walked along the wooden pier that rimmed the dark water. Her footsteps echoed loudly over the rush of the river and the wind that raced down the gorge from the east. Expensive boats, moored at the marina, lay empty, their masts spindly, their sails furled, their engines silent as they undulated with the ever-shifting water.

She let Zachary help her onto the Danvers yacht, a gleaming vessel that, she supposed, was now partially hers. It was all such a waste, she thought, considering Eunice and her hatred of Katherine. Adria didn’t doubt that Eunice had not only terrorized her, but killed Kat and Ginny Slade, despite Nelson’s vehement claims otherwise.