Beast stayed right with her, as if he knew he was to keep her safe. Or perhaps he, too, wanted companionship. Perhaps he even sensed her restlessness. And sadness.

Tomorrow, she would bury the mother she never really knew. And she couldn't even go home to get ready. Not without being in fear for her life.

She finally grabbed a book and sat down. For about two seconds. Then she was up again, staring out the window.

It was growing dark when she saw Gage's car drive up, another behind him. Gage got out and went over to the other car. The driver got out and she stared at him.

Recognized him. Dominic Cross. He was legendary in New Orleans.

The hard-driving director of a shelter for runaways and a pa.s.sionate advocate for young people at risk.

She had even met him several times, and she'd been intrigued by his craggy face. He must be in his mid-fifties, and his hair was short. If he was the intense-looking thin boy in the photo, he had gained weight. He had a powerful body now, and his face looked as if he'd been a fighter. Like Gage, his nose was crooked, and she doubted whether he'd broken it on a football field. Like everyone else, she knew he had once been in prison. It was a large part of every story in the shelter.

Her heart beat erratically. Could he have been the father of her half sister? It seemed impossible.

She went to the door and opened it before they reached it.

Gage gave her a victory signal from just behind Dominic.

So Dominic Cross had been her mother's lover all those years ago. She couldn't imagine a more unlikely one. And then she remembered the photo again. The laughter in her mother's face, the happy smile on her lips. The possessive way the young man had his arm around her. There had been an intimacy conveyed in that pose.

She stuck out her hand. "Meredith Rawson. I've met you before at the courthouse."

He took her hand and held it a moment. "Gage told me about your search."

Gage showed them to the living room. He stood, watching. "I think a drink is in order here."

"A beer," Dom said.

Meredith nodded.

Gage disappeared into the kitchen.

"I didn't know about the baby," Dom said. "I was arrested--bail was set very high--and I heard her father had sent her to a relative in Europe. I never knew about a child."

She heard the pain in his voice. "I think few people did."

"What did she tell you?"

"Very little. She knew she was dying. I think she wanted to give me something. Perhaps even you."

"She kept me from my daughter all these years," he said roughly. His hands trembled slightly.

"I don't know why. I don't even know how," Meredith said. "I wish I did. I wish I could tell you more." She realized that her own sense of loss in not knowing her sister must be magnified a hundred times in him. He had lost a daughter.

"What exactly did she say?"

Meredith tried to remember. "First she said 'You have a sister.' Then that she had been seventeen. Pregnant. Her parents were furious. I think she used the word 'mortified.' That 'Daddy' thought it would ruin his career. She asked me to find her. She said she was leaving her trust fund to me. And to her."

She remembered the shock she'd felt, the words that had beggared understanding. They were still vivid in her mind. "I asked her, 'How?' and she said, 'Memphis. I was sent to Memphis.' Then she asked me to promise again to find her. I did and asked whether my father knew. She didn't answer. She simply said ..."

"What?" Dominic demanded. "What did she say?"

"She apologized and said she was sorry for not being a good mother. She said she 'didn't have anything left after ...' Then she lapsed into a coma. She never regained consciousness."

A muscle worked in his face. "That's everything?"

"Yes."

"Nothing about me? About the father?" It was more a plea than a question.

"I'm sorry," she said gently. "I wish I could help more."

He seemed to collapse within. She ached for him. Heartbreak was in every gesture. Heartbreak and anger.

Gage returned with three beers, distributed them and took one of the chairs. He looked from her to Dominic and back again.

"I can go away."

Meredith shook her head, then looked at Dom.

"Stay," he said. "You're a part of this."

Gage visibly relaxed.

Dominic turned his gaze back to her. "Tell me everything that's happened. Gage told me some but I would like you to fill it out."

She'd wanted to ask him about her mother. Not only wanted to. Needed to. Yet he had the greater right. He'd lost a daughter as well as the girl he'd obviously loved.

"Did you go and see her?" she asked suddenly.

He nodded.

"The nurse told me she'd seen someone in the room when she went out to the desk for a moment."

"I'd read she was in the hospital when your father was killed." His face hardened. She saw the effort it took to control his fury. "I wanted to see her."

"There was only a sh.e.l.l left," she said.

He nodded.

"Lulu Starnes had a photo of her. Gage probably told you about it. I never saw her smile like that. She and my father ... well I never saw an affectionate gesture between them. It was almost as if a wall had been constructed between them."

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said after a long moment. "I really am. I loved her. I didn't want to see her unhappy."

Meredith reached out and touched him. "I am so sorry."

"What did you do then?"

"I confronted my father about what my mother said. He knew she'd had a daughter, but he wouldn't tell me anything else. I think he knew it all. He just kept telling me to leave it alone, that I didn't know what I was doing by opening the past.

"Right after that someone tried to run me down in the hospital garage. My house was trashed. I thought it had something to do with one of my cases--I specialize in domestic cases. But then I started to go through my mother's yearbook, looking for her old friends. I hoped someone would know who the father might be, and that he might know something."

"Gage told me about Lulu," he said. "I remember her. She was shy and quiet but I liked her."

"I decided then the attacks had something to do with my mother and my search for my sister. Particularly when there was a dead end everywhere I turned. No birth certificate. No record of any kind. Then my father's death.

"When my mother mentioned Memphis, I immediately thought she must have stayed with my great-aunt, but that was also a dead end. She died in a robbery years ago. It seems every trail ended in violence."

She looked at him. "I'm reluctant now to bring anyone into it."

"It's my daughter," he said. "I want to find out as much as you do."

"Tell me what happened with you and my mother."

She listened intently as he told his story. His face rarely changed expression but his voice shifted from a gentle tone into a more angry one as he went from falling in love to being arrested.

"I know my mother didn't love my father," she said. "They even had separate rooms. I could never understand why they stayed married.

"My father told me a few days ago that she had never loved him. His voice was sad. Regretful. It was one of the first times I ever heard him say anything about the marriage. They just treated each other like strangers who didn't particularly like each other."

"That must have been hard for you."

"I thought it was normal when I was a child, that everyone lived that way. Many of my friends had divorced parents and some of the divorces were pretty ugly. I supposed I counted myself lucky that at least they didn't fight."

"Have you had time to go through your father's papers?"

"Which specific ton of them? He's an attorney." Then she caught herself. 'Was'. Was an attorney. When was everything going to sink in? She knew from other people that there was a numbness, a disbelief at first. She still felt it.

She looked away. And into Gage's eyes. She saw understanding there. The empathy that had developed between them continued to fl.u.s.ter her. She'd always been suspicious of love. She certainly wasn't a believer in marriage.

But the heat of s.e.xual attraction had forged something more than that. She enjoyed looking at him. She enjoyed just being with him. She loved watching him make coffee and the way he took her hand. She liked the feeling that puddled in the stomach when 'he' looked at 'her'. She had no doubt that he saw something no one else had. To him, she 'was' beautiful, and that made her beautiful.

She was suddenly aware of the lengthening silence.

"Where do we go from here?" she asked.

Dom stood and paced the room.

Gage continued to sit. "Perhaps we've been going about it from the wrong direction."

Dom stopped. She stilled.

"We start here and now instead of in the past," he continued. "Who had something to lose? Something so important that they would risk killing someone of your father's prominence? And he wasn't the only one. I think Prescott's death is connected in some way."

He looked at Dom. "I want to know everything that happened thirty-three years ago. And I want Meredith to hear it. Then I want Meredith to tell you everything she knows from the time of Prescott's murder. Maybe we can find a common denominator."

Dom broke in. "You think whoever killed Prescott also killed Charles Rawson?"

"And Lulu Starnes. Perhaps even Meredith's great-aunt. Loose ends. That's if we're right in thinking that Marguerite Thibadeau stayed there during her pregnancy."

"But why?" Meredith asked. "What secret could be so important?"

"It was Prescott who framed Dom. Your mother's father was probably involved and possibly your father. Perhaps Prescott became a danger. The investigative reports said he was known as a heavy drinker. Perhaps he tried blackmail or said something he shouldn't have."

"But why would an adoption become so deadly?"

"There's no records. That means it was probably a black-market baby. Or an informal adoption. One friend to another. For some reason that friend may not want the world to know that his, or her, daughter isn't really a biological child."

"But why would someone kill for that?"

"That's what we need to find out."

Meredith was already beginning to think along new lines. Which one of her grandfather's friends had a daughter who was born in February 1970?

"It's a long shot," Gage said.

Dom looked at Meredith, then at Gage. "But it appears to be the only shot we have."

*Chapter Twenty-six*

'NEW ORLEANS'.

Gage accompanied Meredith to her mother's service and sat next to her. His presence was a lifeline.

He took her hand in his and held it tight. She didn't dare look at him. The sympathy in his eyes would reduce her to tears.

She didn't want to shed any today.

The church was filled even more so than for her father's funeral. The mayor was sitting behind her, along with a number of other local politicians. Justice Samuel Matthews, who had sent flowers to her mother in the hospital, was present, as were Judges Haywood and Johnston, who sat together with their wives. She mentally filed the names of each of them. She would go over them later with Gage and Dom.

There would be the guest book, as well, but not everyone might sign it.

She knew that Dominic Cross was somewhere in the crowd. She wondered whether his presence would interest anyone. They had discussed the possibility of him sitting with them, but it was best to keep the bad guys guessing.

They had also discussed the probability that if someone believed that she and Gage knew Dom's connection to her mother, all three of them would become targets.

A cold target. She had heard that expression somewhere. That's exactly the way she felt at the moment.

She knew that the only way she could reduce the danger was to give up her search. Both Gage and Dom had suggested that possibility.

But she didn't intend to do that.