Chapter 22 #2
“I paint pet portraits. It sounds kind of fluffy, but there are a surprising number of people who want to have their pets memorialized that way.”
Wes chuckled. “I guess so. So you’re from the area?”
“Yeah. I grew up in DC, and I still live here.”
“Where did you go to school?”
Kelly was starting to get uncomfortable with all the questions. Wes was probably just being friendly, but he was obviously curious about her and convinced he’d seen her somewhere before. Plus, she preferred to avoid personal questions.
The more information she gave about herself, the easier it would be for someone to find out who she really was.
Her mother had gone to great lengths to fake the records, but still… She didn’t want to give anyone any clues that could be followed.
No one was perfectly safe.
In response to his question, she mentioned the private high school she’d gone to and glanced around for Caleb, hoping he would come soon and rescue her. But he’d been waylaid by an elderly woman and clearly couldn’t get away immediately.
“That’s a really good school,” Wes said.
“Yeah. Don’t get the wrong idea though. I’m not that smart.
” She was feeling trapped and rattled, although the conversation shouldn’t have been particularly dangerous.
She really wished she hadn’t drunk so much since her mind wasn’t working as quickly as it needed to.
“The Watsons were donors, which is the only reason I was admitted.”
“The Watsons?”
Kelly blinked, trying to figure out what he was asking.
Then she realized her mistake. Most kids didn’t call their parents by their last name the way she did her adoptive parents.
She froze for a moment, a wave of terror overwhelming her at the idea she’d somehow given herself away, but she pushed through it.
She’d given away nothing. She just needed to focus again.
“My folks,” she explained, trying to make it sound casual.
“You call them the Watsons?”
Damn it. Why didn’t he just let things go? “Yeah. It was the cool thing to do with kids my age, and I just got in the habit.”
“Was it? I don’t remember anyone doing that.”
Maybe he was one of those people who ask a lot of questions on first introduction. He probably thought it was natural, normal, but it left Kelly naked and exposed. “Well…”
For just a moment her mind went blank with the kind of blind terror she’d felt in an oral exam her senior year in high school, like her whole future rested on one answer that she simply couldn’t think of.
“Well, you’re a lot older than me,” she finished. “What does it matter?”
Her tone must have been too snippy because his brows shot up. “It doesn’t. I was just curious. Caleb has never been serious about a woman before, and I wanted to know more about who had managed to enthrall him.”
“Of course.” She looked again for Caleb and was relieved to see him approaching them again, three glasses of champagne in his hands. “But if you want a clear picture of what’s going on in Caleb’s mind, then you should probably ask him instead of me.”
It was a good answer. Convincing. She gave Wes what she hoped was an ameliorating smile, and he returned it, but she still saw an unanswered question in his eyes.
Like she’d triggered a suspicion in him that was going to be a problem.
Caleb gave them both a glass and then pulled Kelly against his side again. She burrowed against him instinctively, feeling safer, almost protected, now that he was back.
He leaned down to give her a soft kiss on the lips. “What’s wrong? Has Wes been harassing you?”
“No,” she said with a smile, trying to hide her mood from both men now. “He’s been telling me that you’ve never been serious about a woman before and that I’ve enthralled you.”
Caleb shot a look at Wes, but he was smiling down at Kelly when he said, “Enthrall? Is that what we’re calling it?”
“It’s what I’m calling it,” Wes said, looking friendly and unconcerned, although his eyes kept going back to Kelly with that same lingering question. “I still feel like I’ve seen you somewhere before.”
His eyes met Kelly’s and his expression shifted just a little, as if his words were meant as much for her as for Caleb.
Kelly swallowed hard, realizing she’d messed up. A lot. She’d made Wes suspicious with the reference to the Watsons, compounding the possibility of his having seen her before, and he was going to keep asking questions she didn’t want to be asked.
She bit her lip, feeling like cursing and wishing she could go back in time just a few minutes so she could fix that conversation.
It had been such a silly slip. Hardly anything. A person simply couldn’t pursue perfect strategy every moment of the day. It wasn’t natural. But she might have ruined her entire plan in the one moment.
Caleb laughed and shook his head. “Good luck with that.”
Kelly was desperately relieved when a couple of other people moved their way and the conversation broke up. She wanted to get away from Wes. She wanted to never see him again.
She wanted Caleb to never see him again either even though he was evidently one of the few real friends Caleb had.
Things had been going so well. She hadn’t made any mistakes that threatened to expose her. Until now. And now she was vulnerable. Now it all might be on the verge of falling apart.
She took a deep breath as Caleb introduced her to someone else, and she reminded herself that, even if Wes wanted more information on her, the evidence of her identity had all been hidden. Caleb had certainly already done a background check and found nothing.
She was okay. She would be done with this whole thing before he could uncover her identity.
She had to believe she hadn’t lost everything in one slip of the tongue.
Her mind returned to the situation at hand with a hard bump when the name of the man she was shaking hands with suddenly clicked.
Vinnie DiMauro.
An older, balding man with a plain face and very dark eyes. Caleb’s cousin. Originally from Baltimore but moved to DC years ago.
Caleb’s supervisor when her father was killed.
If Caleb wasn’t responsible for her father’s death, then this man probably was.
She pulled her hand away from his, wiping it discreetly on her dress. Vinnie looked harmless enough, but she didn’t want to touch him, to be close to him in any way.
He might have killed her father. He probably had. It didn’t feel quite true of Caleb, but it felt true of this man.
This could be the real murderer, the absolute bastard who’d taken her father away from her.
This man. In front of her.
Kelly felt a wave of nausea overtake her as she saw again her father’s body on the trail in the woods, his blood soaking into the dirt.
She managed to smile and act like she was listening to the conversation, but all she could hear was a buzzing in her ears.
This party had become hell, filled with these fake, smiling people who were secretly her enemies. Even Caleb with his intelligent mouth and warm eyes and strong hands might be someone she could only hate.
She was surrounded by them—no way to escape—and she kept fighting the nausea as it grew increasingly difficult to act normal.
She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be around these people. They weren’t her friends. They would only hurt her.
All she wanted to do was get away, but there was absolutely nowhere to go.
Except the bathroom.
The idea came to her like a gift, and she excused herself to go to the restroom before the growing feeling of panicked claustrophobia completely overwhelmed her.
It was a large individual bathroom, so she locked the door and went over to the sink. She stared in the mirror at her face.
Her hair was still slightly rumpled and falling in loose waves all down her back. Her cheeks had been flushed before, but now they were a little pale. It looked like she’d even broken a sweat.
She wanted to splash water on her face to wash away the helpless feeling and the fuzziness from the champagne, but she was only carrying a clutch purse, so she didn’t have all her makeup with her to redo her face afterward.
So she washed her hands for a long time, trying to relax and pull herself together.
She didn’t want to go back to the party right away, so she checked email on her phone, just for something to do, and she was surprised to see a text message from her mother. From the same anonymous number she always used to contact her.
She pulled up the message and read, Why haven’t you finished this yet? Stop stalling and get it done .
Kelly stared at the words for a long time, sick and guilty and angry.
She deleted the message without answering it and slid her phone back in her little clutch purse, trying to pretend she’d never seen the text.
Trying to pretend she wasn’t so pitifully weak that she would stall in seeking justice for her father’s murder.
Maybe she could have gotten this thing over with sooner if she hadn’t fallen for Caleb so hard.
She was even more rattled and upset than before when she finally left the restroom. She glanced around the large ballroom, looking for his familiar face and body.
She didn’t see him, so she started to circulate, wondering why she couldn’t spot him since Caleb stood out in any crowd. It wasn’t only because he was so attractive. There was something about him that called attention, summoned any eyes in a room.
But he wasn’t in this room, even though she’d left him just a few minutes ago to run to the bathroom. He wouldn’t have left her, and he couldn’t have disappeared.
But she had no idea where he was.
So soon she was flustered on top of all the other tangled feelings, at a loss because Caleb was no longer at the party.
When she happened to pass his engaged friend, who was the honoree of the evening, he must have noticed her futile search because he said, “I saw him go off into the anteroom back there.” He gestured toward a door at the far corner of the ballroom.