Stranger on the Shore - lanyon Josh. Страница 35

Pierce, on the phone—possibly to another PI, this time one not personally acquainted with Griff and more willing to snoop into his private life—looked momentarily taken aback. He regrouped fast, looking from Griff to his secretary and covering the mouthpiece with his hand. “It’s all right, Ms. Gordon.”

“Are you sure?” Ms. Gordon threw a worried glance at Griff. He gave her a tight smile. The last thing he needed was her calling the cops.

Pierce nodded. “I’m sure.” As the door closed behind Ms. Gordon, he told Griff, “Take a seat.”

“I need to talk to you,” Griff said.

“I noticed.” Pierce’s hand was still clamped over the mouthpiece. “But I’m on the phone with Jarrett at the moment.”

Griff grabbed the back of the leather wingchair and dragged it out a foot. He sat down. It was irritating and anticlimactic to have to sit there waiting politely for Pierce to finish his conversation. Doubly aggravating that the phone call was to Jarrett.

“I understand,” Pierce said patiently into the phone, as though there had been no interruption. “But it’s important that we follow—” He stopped. He picked up a fountain pen and drummed it nervously on the desk blotter.

Who the heck used fountain pens anymore?

The rain prickled against the bank of windows behind Pierce’s desk, dotting the glass.

“I realize that,” Pierce said into what was apparently the next pause for breath.

Griff forgot how mad he was and began to pay closer attention. He realized that Pierce was worried. Worried enough that Griff sitting fuming right in front of him was a secondary consideration.

“Jarrett. Sir, please don’t—” Pierce broke off again, biting his lip.

As pissed off as Griff was, he found the lip gnawing sort of disarming. Pierce’s eyes met his, their gazes locked. Griff scowled.

“But surely there’s no hurry?” Pierce said. His voice was controlled, calm. You’d never guess, listening to him, that he was upset. That might be useful to know for future clashes.

Silence but for the beat of rain on the window and the agitated tap, tap, tap of Pierce’s pen. As though he was telegraphing for help.

“Well, there’s not a lot of point in having a legal advisor if you’re not going to listen to me.” Somehow Pierce managed to sound amused even as he closed his eyes as though in prayer.

Another silence. “All right. I’ll see you in a bit.” He put the receiver in the cradle and stared at it. He turned to face Griff. “There’s been a development.”

“There sure has.” Griff grabbed the arms of the chair but managed not to launch himself forward. “Did you actually try and hire a PI to poke into my private life?”

“Yes.” It was crisp and uncompromising.

Griff’s anger skyrocketed. “How d—”

“Am I supposed to apologize for looking after the interests of my clients?”

“How does hiring someone to investigate me, to dig up dirt on me, add up to looking after the interests of your clients?”

“I didn’t tell him to manufacture the dirt. If it’s there—”

“If what’s there? What do you think there is to find?”

“You don’t add up,” Pierce yelled, surging to his feet. The sudden slip of his usual tight control was startling. “You’re hiding something and I want to know what it is.”

Griff, also on his feet now, yelled back, “What doesn’t add up? I’ve been completely transparent with you.”

“Give me a fucking break,” Pierce said. “Your middle name is Neptune?”

“I can’t help my middle name!”

“You got interested in the Arlingtons because of The Great Gatsby? Your birthday just happens to fall on the same date as Brian’s kidnapping? Do you think we’re all stupid? Do you think I’m stupid?”

“I do now!”

Pierce’s glare dimmed. All at once he was ice cold again. “I don’t know what you were up to. I don’t know what you hoped to get out of all this, but it’s water under the bridge now.” He raked a hand through his hair, which promptly fell back over his forehead. “In fact, it’s a goddamned tsunami under the bridge.”

“What are you talking about?”

Pierce smiled unpleasantly. “Someone beat you to the punch, Mr. Gatsby.”

“What punch? What are you talking about?”

“Brian has returned.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” Pierce was still smiling that smile that raised the hair on the back of Griff’s neck. “Brian has been found. Or so a young man by the name of Leland Alvin claims. And this time Jarrett seems determined to believe him.”

Griff opened his mouth but no words came to him.

“You were too slow,” Pierce said. “You missed your shot. Whatever that shot was going to be. Reincarnation? Amnesia? Cloning?”

Pierce was furious, so furious that he was lashing out at any moving target. That much Griff registered. And Griff didn’t blame him. This was a turn of events guaranteed to turn a control freak like Pierce into a gibbering madman.

“That can’t be,” Griff said. “Brian has to be dead. Nothing else makes sense.”

“Jarrett says this Alvin character has irrefutable proof.”

“His DNA? Because that’s the only irrefutable proof I can think of.”

Pierce stared at him as though Griff was only now coming into focus. He said slowly, “You believe Brian’s dead.”

“Yes.”

Pierce’s expression grew skeptical again. “What are you up to?” he asked softly.

Griff remembered why he’d shown up at Pierce’s office in the first place. He remembered the night before—and the way Pierce had brushed him off that morning. He remembered why he didn’t get involved with guys like Pierce.

“Don’t worry. You’ll figure it out,” Griff said. He turned and walked out of the office.

* * *

Mrs. Truscott was crying.

She sat in the wooden chair in front of the brick fireplace in the kitchen sobbing quietly into her hands. Molly Keane stood over her, patting her back soothingly. Molly looked up as Griff quietly opened the door. She nodded for Griff to go through, and he did, though the sounds of Mrs. Truscott’s breakdown followed him down the hall.

Voices drifted from the drawing room. It sounded like everyone in the house was in there and talking at once. It did not sound like any gathering in Winden House he had heard before. The air seemed to buzz with energy and excitement. The very expressions on the portraits in the long hall seemed lighter, relieved. Nicole Arlington beamed at him as he walked past.

Someone laughed. The voice was young, male, unfamiliar.

Griff’s heart began to pound in that old mix of anxiety and anticipation. He felt like he was walking through some fantastic dreamscape. Everything was the same but different. None of this could be happening, and yet there was no alternative except to continue with the dream.

Brian was home. It was a miracle. But Griff was not someone who believed in miracles, so this just felt surreal. Granted, it wasn’t the first time something at Winden House had struck him as surreal.

Michaela’s dogs began to bark as he reached the entrance of the drawing room. He paused on the threshold, scanning the faces staring back at him. The family was all present and accounted for. Marcus, Muriel, Michaela, Ring. They all wore strange, almost rapt expressions.

Just as on the first night, Jarrett turned and beamed in welcome. “Come in, my boy. Come in, Griffin. It’s only right that you should be here too.” He clapped a friendly hand on Griff’s shoulder, and Griff could feel excitement and tension humming through the old man like an exposed wire. “Brian, this is the young journalist I was telling you about. Griff, this is my grandson. This is Brian Arlington.”

Brian was seated on the sofa between Muriel and Michaela. Muriel was actually holding his hand. He raised his head, met Griff’s gaze, and smiled a wide and guileless smile.

It was not like looking into a mirror, exactly, but all at once Griff understood why everyone but Jarrett had believed Griff was trading on his resemblance to Matthew. Brian too was tall and slender and very blond. He had the striking combination of black brows and the blue, blue eyes that all the Arlingtons possessed. Though he was boyishly handsome, he looked maybe a little older, or at least a little harder, than his twenty-four years warranted. He didn’t look like someone who had had an easy life.