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

“In the arrest warrant, I presume?” Cade hadn’t really expected the group to confide all to him, but he had hoped for some cooperation. “My father has gotten wind of questions being asked about him and his business. He knows you two are in town.” Cade gave Sara and Tyler a pointed glance. “I think he’s prepared for trouble.”

His eyes were drawn to Sara, sitting so silent and looking so remote. Whatever happened, there wasn’t a future for them. So what else was new?

Sara listened to the men’s conversation and observed the interactions between them. Her brother wasn’t about to confide in Cade. Tyler stopped just short of being openly hostile about the other man’s motives.

Nick and Mark Banning were noncommittal. Mark shared the information he’d found on the case. It was gleaned from the same newspaper reports that she’d read in the library and contained nothing new. The detective didn’t mention the missing uncle to Cade, she noted.

At ten o’clock, Cade left, going out the back door as usual.

Tyler studied her as he filled his plate with second helpings of everything. “Do you trust him?”

She thought it over before answering. “In the dealings I’ve had with him since moving here, and in watching him with Stacy, he seems to be honest and sincere.”

“But it’s his father we’re talking about putting behind bars,” Mark said, voicing everyone’s concern.

“I don’t think they’re close.” She pressed her fingertips to her temples, where a dull headache had formed. “I can’t say I was close to my father, either. He worked long hours, so we rarely saw him, other than brief periods on the weekend. But I loved him.”

She looked at Tyler. Her brother had never known a father’s love and never would. No matter what DNA tests showed, Walter Parks wouldn’t want his unknown sons.

“Don’t feel sorry for me,” Tyler told her, correctly reading her thoughts. “With Walter Parks for a father, I haven’t missed anything. I don’t think Cade has, either.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I suspect Walter is only interested in his children as a means to his own ends. From what I’ve learned about the man, no one gets in his way, not even his own flesh and blood.”

“He must be a horrible person,” Sara murmured, thinking of Cade and his relationship to the elder Parks. “I want to see him locked up so he can’t hurt anyone else.”

“Well, until we find your uncle, we don’t have anything to go on,” Mark reminded them. “I’ve widened the search for him, but with all the separate towns, each with its own records, surrounding the San Francisco area, it’s going to take time to get through all the deeds and tax records.”

“I can help,” Sara volunteered. “I need something to fill my time since I’m no longer gainfully employed.”

“Tyler and I can adjust our work schedules and pitch in, too,” Nick spoke up. “With four of us searching for Derek Ross, we’ll find him if he’s anywhere in the city or the outlying areas.”

“Right,” Tyler said grimly. “It’s only a matter of time.”

Sara joined the men in plotting the search. Each of them agreed to inspect the records of the various suburbs around the city, looking first at the owners of bookstores for clues to the missing relative.

“I wonder what he’s like,” Sara said when the men were leaving. “He was twenty-two when it happened, according to Mother. That would make him around forty-seven now. I wonder if he ever married and had a family.” She looked at Tyler. “His children would be our first cousins. We may never meet them.”

“We will,” Tyler vowed, looking stubborn. “We’ll find Derek. This time he won’t slip away before we can question him. We’ll make him tell us the truth.”

The Thursday-afternoon traffic was heavy when Cade and Stacy started for home after taking care of their shopping. He took the coast road, a much more pleasant drive than going directly through the city.

Even here, the street was more congested than usual. However, maintaining an even thirty-five miles an hour, he got through the traffic lights without having to stop after passing the Cliff House.

At the duplex, he parked in the driveway and noted that Sara’s car was in the other one. A tightness invaded his chest, while hunger and a yearning he couldn’t name clamored inside him. He hadn’t expected a lot from the meeting with her brother and friends last night, and he hadn’t gotten a lot. Given the circumstances, he could hardly blame them.

For himself, while he knew his father was ambitious and competitive, those traits were far from the calculated ruthlessness it would take to murder someone.

On the other hand, the circumstances surrounding Jeremy Carlton’s death were too strange to be ignored. He, too, felt a need to delve into the past and sort truth from fiction and supposition.

If they did prove Walter had murmured his partner, then what? Cade saw only a black hole where the future should be.

“Sara’s home,” Stacy announced. “I’ve got to show her my kitten. She can help me name her.”

Cade started to tell his daughter to leave their neighbor alone, but thought better of it. Stacy considered Sara her friend. There was no sense in expecting a child to understand adult complications. He would let the girls work it out between them.

Stacy carried the basket that contained the eight-week-old black-and-white kitten while he opened doors for her. She rushed through the town house to the deck.

“Sara, look what I have,” Stacy called as she exited and left the door open behind her. “A kitten. What shall we name her?”

“Let me see her, then maybe we can think of something really good,” Sara said. “Oh, how pretty. Look at those blue eyes, Stace. What’s something that goes with them?”