The Parks Empire: Secrets, Lies and Loves: Romancing the Enemy

Two pieces of good news in one day. A fine way to start the new year. The gods were truly smiling, even if the heavens were not. He instructed his secretary to call for his car and hardly noticed the rain as he headed to lunch.

Sara Carlton shivered as a gust of wind hit her. Someone needed to tell the weatherman that winter was six months ago and it was now June, not January.

Pulling her jacket closer around her, she stared at the elegant house standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a whole block of equally expensive Georgian-style homes.

Since she’d done her homework before moving from Denver to San Francisco, she knew a kindergarten teacher, which she was, couldn’t afford the rent on such a prime piece of property in the St. Francis Woods area of the city. Fortunately she didn’t have to.

“Isn’t it lovely?” Rachel Hanson commented.

Rachel was a kindergarten teacher at Lakeside, a prestigious private school only three blocks from there and the place, come Monday, where Sara would also be employed. Rachel was also the older sister of Sara’s best friend from her high-school days back in Denver. She had taken Sara under her wing when Sara had written for information about teaching positions in the city back in January.

Five years older than Sara’s own twenty-nine years, Rachel had graduated from college, married and moved to the West Coast while the two younger girls had been high-school seniors. Her husband had abandoned her, so Sara assumed they were divorced. Rachel knew why Sara and her brother had returned to the area and was wholly sympathetic to their quest.

“Very much so,” Sara agreed, her gaze sweeping over the tiny front yard and decorative wrought-iron fence that separated the patch of green from the street. “I can’t believe my luck in getting to house-sit a mansion for six months. Are you sure your artist friend said it was okay?”

Rachel laughed at Sara’s doubts. “You only get half the mansion,” she corrected. “It’s a duplex. And yes, I made sure we got permission in writing since the owner is actually a friend of a friend. Let’s go inside.”

The front walk widened to accommodate three steps and a marble-tiled stoop. Two identical doors—both white with leaded oval windows in beveled, frosted panes that formed a woodland scene on each—were set side-by-side in the sheltered alcove and gave entrance to the two homes.

Rachel had explained in a letter that the mansion was divided into two town houses, which meant the bedrooms of each were directly over their respective living room-kitchen-den areas, which afforded the maximum privacy for each occupying family.

Sara inserted the key Rachel had handed her and opened the door on the left. The chill of an unoccupied house rushed over her as she stepped into the foyer. It settled along her spine like the touch of a cold, unfriendly hand…a ghost who wasn’t happy at her intrusion, she surmised.

“There’s a fireplace,” Rachel said. “This place could use some heat. Let’s see if we can find the thermostat.”

The foyer floor was pink-marble-edged with black granite. Sara followed the other woman into the living room, which opened to the left of the foyer. The wall to the right divided the mansion into the two town houses.

“Don’t you like it?” Rachel asked.

Realizing she’d been silent too long, Sara put on her brightest smile and nodded. “What’s not to like?”

She made a sweeping gesture of the place. The walls and velvet curtains were pale coral, the trim and crown molding glossy white, the accent color black. The colors were taken from a Chinese vase, which was about four feet tall and stood on a black pedestal, with ornately carved balls for legs, to one side of the fireplace. The vase was a mosaic of peaceful garden scenes.

The twenty-foot ceiling was interrupted by a loft that jutted halfway across the room and housed a collection of books and Chinese art in green and pink jade in its wall-to-wall bookcases. Access to the loft was by a library ladder attached to a brass railing with brass rings on the top end.

The loft had a black wrought-iron railing across it with a gate that at present was open. The ladder could be pushed against the far wall when it wasn’t needed.

“Clever,” Sara said, then surveyed the rest of the room. She didn’t think she would ever sit on the velvet sofa of deep coral with shiny, black wood trim. Ebony, maybe? Or Chinese lacquer? She wasn’t sure about the wood.

End tables and a coffee table were also black and inlaid with ivory birds and jade bamboo. A collection of Chinese puzzle boxes was displayed in a glass cabinet that had a lock on it. The carpet looked Oriental.

“This looks too expensive to use,” she murmured to the other teacher. Rachel’s one-bedroom flat, where Sara had gone upon arriving in town that morning, didn’t compare to the opulence of this place.

“I agree. The kitchen and den are through here,” Rachel told her. “They’re more comfortable.”

White cabinets on either side of the fireplace had glass doors opening to both the living room and the kitchen. Fine china and more collectibles were inside.

The kitchen had black granite counters. The cabinets were white. The coral walls continued in here as did the oak floors that were stained rather dark for her taste.

Not that anybody would ask her.

Once she’d lived in a mansion only a few miles from this neighborhood, but that had been years ago. She’d been in junior kindergarten herself back then. Back before her father mysteriously disappeared, presumably drowned, from a yacht off the coast of California. Back before her family had lost its diamond-trading and jewelry business. She pushed the bitter thoughts aside as she continued the inspection of her new, albeit temporary, home.

The stainless-steel appliances stood in modern contrast to the Oriental feel of the town house. Between the kitchen and den was a small, formal dining room—table and chairs in the shiny black wood, two vases holding peacock plumes, Chinese scrolls with black lettering on the walls.

“Ah,” Sara said, entering the den, “this is lovely.”

While the floors and walls repeated the Oriental theme, the sofa was leather and two easy chairs were covered in fabric, all in earthy browns and tans. Tiny figurines carved in jade, onyx and ivory were displayed in another small glass case hung on one wall. There was a fireplace in here, too, one that obviously had been used. A staircase led to the two second-story bedrooms.

“Here’s the television and stereo equipment.” Rachel opened the door of a built-in cabinet. “And the thermostat. What temperature do you like?”

“Sixty-eight.”

“Brr, that’s too cold for me, but you probably still have antifreeze in your blood, coming from Colorado.”

Sara had grown up counting every penny. Her family had been frugal about utilities and food and clothing out of need, but she didn’t say any of this. She heard a soft click, then the gentle stir of air in the room. “Well,” she said. “I’d better settle in. It looks like rain.”

Rachel shook her head. “Not at this time of the year. That’s just the morning fog. It’ll burn off by noon.”

It was Wednesday, the last day of June, and a cool sixty-two degrees. On Monday, July the fifth, she would start her teaching job at Lakeside. It had been pure luck that the former teacher had taken maternity leave for the year just when Sara had contacted Rachel about a position.

They brought in her clothing and the few household items she’d packed in her ancient compact car. She decided to leave her dishes and pans in their box and store them in the closet. In less than two hours, they were finished.

“Let’s go to lunch,” Rachel suggested. “There’s a Chinese place on the next block that’s wonderful. I love their noodle bowls.”

Sara shut and locked the door behind them. The sun broke through the low cloud cover as she joined her friend on the sidewalk. The city was bathed in bright warmth, and she felt comforted, as if the sunlight was a benediction on her and her quest for the truth behind her father’s death.

And vengeance for all her family had suffered?

Maybe she could find a way. With her brother’s help. Tyler was a detective with the SFPD. They would work together to solve the mysteries from their past.

The first thing Cade noticed upon arriving home that evening was an older model compact car in the driveway of the adjoining town house. Hmm, his neighbor was supposed to be in the Far East, studying the Chinese art he found so fascinating. Who was at the house?

He would investigate, but first he needed to check in with Stacy and Tai. After pulling into the garage, he dashed up the short flight of steps and into the kitchen.

Five-year-old Stacy and her sitter were in the middle of dinner preparations. “Now stir,” Stacy ordered.

Tai stirred the contents in the mixing bowl. She was twenty-one and a student at the nearby medical school. She picked up Stacy at day care every afternoon and stayed with her until Cade got home. She prepared dinner for the three of them, too. At times, his arrival was very late, but Tai never complained. She used the time to study.

Cade paused at the door and smiled. Sometimes he wondered who was the boss in this household, but then he knew—it was Stacy.

“Daddy!” she squealed when she saw him. “We’re making a cake. It’s a surprise.”

He closed his eyes. “I won’t look,” he promised.

She giggled. “It isn’t for you,” she informed him. “It’s for Sara.”

“Sara?” Cade glanced at Tai.