The President's Daughter - Mariah Stewart [59]
Think about what could happen to her.
In the dream the woman had been caught in the headlights of the speeding car. He’d seen her face, eyes widened in terror, her hair a dark tangled halo, as she had turned to him, pleading for help. There was no question whose face he’d seen, whose screams still rang in his ears.
Think about the girl. . . .
I do. Simon gazed out onto the night.
All the time . . .
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The figure stood at the edge of the cliff and looked down into the dark water far below. One agitated foot tapped on the rock as the most pressing problems— and the most prudent solutions—were considered.
A child. There’d been a child . . .
The words, still too impossible to be true, resounded over and over and over, like the taunt of a mean-spirited seven-year-old.
Push it away. Out of sight, out of mind.
Still, Kendall’s words rang clear. . . .
Graham’s baby . . .
A shake of the head, marveling that such a secret had been kept all these years!
But where was the child? Who was she? Who had raised her? Someone who knew her origin? Surely Graham Hayward would not have entrusted the safety of his child to someone who did not know exactly who that child was. There must have been a someone. . . .
This sent yet another surge of anger coursing through limbs already taut with emotion.
How could such a secret have been kept?
The answer was all too obvious. Someone had gone a long way to protect the child. Secrets, deceit, whatever it took, to protect the President’s daughter.
A shout from the house carried on the breeze. The party was about to begin. A wave of the hand acknowledged the message.
“I’ll be just a minute.”
But first, breathe. Breathe the anger away. Leave it here; leave it all behind. . . .
One deep soothing breath followed another, and then another, on and on until some semblance of normalcy returned. Once the rage had passed, it was dismissed. It no longer mattered. On to something else . . .
A twinge of regret over Kendall’s demise snaked into the subconscious, but only momentarily.
Miles should never have told Simon Keller about that one little indiscretion. Had he lived, who else might he have told? What else might he have told? No, the risk had been too great.
The bottom line remained:
Graham Hayward’s good name must be preserved at any cost. Safeguarding the legacy was all that mattered. Well, that and protecting oneself, of course . . .
A crisp breeze blew in from the ocean. Far below, waves dashed onto rocks, sending white spray ten feet into the air. The scent of salt water soothed.
Now. Concentrate on the task at hand.
How to find the daughter?
How to find the person who had raised her?
Follow Simon Keller, of course.
Sooner or later, he would find them, if he hadn’t already, sooner being better, of course. After all, Keller was a reporter and couldn’t be trusted to keep a story like this quiet for long. Surely he’d want the glory, want to gloat at his cleverness in having found a story that had been buried for almost thirty years. . . .
Deciding how best to dispose of them—starting with the daughter and ending with the reporter—now that could present a challenge. But it was a challenge that could be met. After all, such challenges had been met successfully in the past, had they not?
Putting all in order soothed the spirit and restored a certain . . . balance.
Soon everything would be all right again, wouldn’t it?
Once the daughter was found . . .
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
By ten o’clock on the following morning, Simon was in the Mustang headed to Henderson. If, in fact, there was a real danger to Dina, she needed to know the truth about who she really was. There was only one person who could tell her. He felt obligated to make Jude aware