Born to Die - Lisa Jackson [115]
CHAPTER 24
Kacey glanced at the clock over the kitchen counter. She had been home half an hour and, while waiting for Trace to show up, had fed and walked Bonzi, had turned on the radio for company, and had already accomplished several searches online, looking for information on Gerald Johnson, who had resided in Helena, Montana, for most of his life, before moving to Missoula.
He hadn’t been hard to find, and in a short amount of time she’d learned he’d been a heart surgeon of some prominence before, as her mother had told her; he’d started his own company to help develop stents for heart disease patients. As far as she could tell, he still worked there, along with several of his children.
As he was a prominent citizen in Helena, it hadn’t been hard to find pictures of his family. His wife, Noreen, and six children, two daughters and four sons, though one of the girls, had died ten years earlier. Kacey had printed out the obituary of Kathleen Enid Johnson, the victim of a skiing accident only months before her marriage. She’d been a beautiful girl, twenty-two, and she had the same jawline, cheekbones, and eyes as Gerald Johnson. In fact, most of his legitimate children took after him, she thought as she stared at a photograph from the past.
As did she, and those living and dead who resembled her.... Dear God, was it really possible?
It had to be.
Didn’t it?
She stared at one particularly good shot of Gerald and Noreen, husband and wife, standing side by side at a charity function several years back. Both were dressed to the nines, he in a tux and white tie, she wearing a shimmering silver gown. Both of them had silver hair and lots of it; he showed no sign of fat; his skin was tanned, crow’s-feet fanning from his eyes.
A golfer, maybe. Hours in the sun.
His wife was paler, her makeup subdued, her features sharp and defined. Tall and thin, Noreen Johnson was beautiful in her own right, though her genetic contribution to her children was more difficult to discern, perhaps the curly hair of her daughter Clarissa and one son, Thane, third in line.
Gerald Johnson had certainly fathered a flock of children.
Even more than he might know about, if her theory was right.
She saw the wash of Trace’s headlights, heard the rumble of his truck, and as Bonzi put up a loud, deep-throated ruckus, she stepped onto the front porch. “Hush!” she commanded the dog, and he gave off one final, quiet bark just as Trace cut the engine.
She felt a little uptick in her pulse, which was just plain ludicrous. Bonzi stood beside her, his wagging tail a whip of friendly excitement, once again dispelling any of her hopes that he might just be a guard dog.
Companion? Yes. Final line of defense? Very unlikely.
He was already lowering his head, ready to be petted, as Trace, bundled in a heavy jacket, crossed the snowy lawn in that athletic/ cowboy way she’d never found all that attractive.
Until now.
Swinging from one of Trace’s gloved hands was a laptop computer, which changed his image just a bit.
“Is that what you want to show me?” she asked as he climbed up the few steps and walked into the pool of light cast by the porch lamp.
“Something on it. Yeah.” He paused to pet the dog before they both followed her inside and down the short hall to the kitchen. Trace flipped open his computer. “You got a wireless setup here?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Security code?”
When she shook her head, he said, “Let’s put one on.” He offered her a bit of a smile as he kicked out one of the café chairs. “Just to be on the safe side.”
She wasn’t going to argue. Not with everything else that