TO HOLD AN EAGLE Page 13

  Chandra turned to Linc again. He was grinning at his sister's words, but when he saw Chandra looking at him, he became serious.

  "We've seen the media manipulated too often," he explained. "And seen too many stories that took the facts and distorted them, or had them wrong to begin with."

  "In other words," Con drawled, "just because they say you jumped doesn't make it so."

  Chandra fought the urge to cry, fearing it would only prove to them that Shiloh had been right in her original assessment. And when she saw Linc reach out to take her hand, she feared his touch would be the last straw, that she would loose the battle and start to cry like the child she was. Instead, when his warm, strong fingers wrapped around hers, she felt strangely fortified, as if some of his own steady strength had flowed from him to her through the connection.

  "We can do something, Channie, if you'll let us," Linc said. "Con and I have been in the business of dealing with men like your husband for a long time."

  "Her husband?" Shiloh's voice was sharp. "Are you saying he's behind this?"

  "Channie?" Linc said softly.

  She met his gaze. He was leaving it up to her, she realized, whether to tell them or not. And somehow, knowing that he wouldn't force her to do it made it easier. She drew in a deep breath, turned her gaze to Shiloh, and nodded.

  "I jumped … before they could push me. He, uh, ordered it."

  Con swore, low and ugly, and Shiloh let out a word that was none too polite. Chandra barely heard them; the feel of Linc's hand squeezing hers gently, the look of encouragement that warmed his hazel eyes when she looked up at him as he tightened his grasp, wiped nearly all else from her mind. She couldn't speak, couldn't go on, not because of fear but because her throat was so tight at this unexpected support. She gazed at him helplessly. After a moment, Linc nodded, seeming to understand. He released her hand. Then, in slow, measured, emotionless tones, he told them her story.

  They seemed to believe it without question. She didn't understand, until Linc's words came back to her. Con and I have been in the business of dealing with men like your husband for a long time. And Shiloh had grown up knowing men like Daniel existed, just as Chandra had. The difference was, Shiloh had known that men like her brother existed, too; Chandra had only wished that they had.

  "Well, that explains the Mexican border business," Con said when Linc had finished.

  Linc nodded. "The way they were watching her, they must have known she'd gone over up here. But by saying it was near the border, they diverted the search to where they knew it would be fruitless. Lansing's idea, I'd bet."

  "I'd like about five minutes alone with that guy," Con muttered.

  "Five minutes, hell," Shy said fiercely. "Give me ten seconds and my .45." She looked at Chandra again, and Chandra had a sudden vision of Shiloh going after Daniel with gun in hand. It didn't seem at all impossible, and the image, held up against her own helplessness with that same weapon, made her feel more inadequate than ever. "I'm truly sorry, Chandra. I had no idea what you'd been through."

  "It's all right," she said quietly, warmed by their vehemence. "It's over now."

  "Not for Mr. Daniel Lansing it isn't," Shy said fervently. "Boy, will he be surprised when he finds out you're alive."

  Linc coughed. "She … doesn't want him to find out."

  "Well, not too soon, of course," Shiloh agreed, "but—"

  "Ever."

  Shiloh looked from Linc to Chandra in shock. "You can't mean to let him get away with this?"

  "I…" Ashamed at her weakness in the face of this woman's strength, Chandra looked away. "I can't. I just can't face him. You read the paper, you know what they'll say, that I'm crazy."

  "But you can't just walk away," Shy protested.

  "Easy, Green-eyes," Con said. "Not everyone has your strength."

  Chandra's head came up then. "No. I wish I did. But I don't, Shiloh. I just don't. And you don't know him. If he knows I'm alive, he'll come after me again. I don't ever want to see him again."

  Silence hung over the small table, oppressive amid the sunshine and color of the cheery, glass room. After a long, tense few minutes, Chandra couldn't bear it anymore.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered. "But if I try to testify or something, he'll just scare me, confuse me, like he always does. He just looks at me in that awful way, and I…"

  Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head helplessly. She couldn't look at any of them, knowing that disgust would be on all their faces. Including Linc's. Especially Linc's; even with the promise of help from all of them, she didn't have the strength.

  "She's probably right," Con said after a moment. "She'd be a shaky witness at best, with all the seeds he's planted about her instability."

  "I know." Linc's voice, carefully neutral. Chandra suppressed a shiver. He would give up on her now; she could only hope he would still help her disappear, as he'd promised.

  "So how do we take the monster out?" Shiloh said.

  Chandra's head shot up in surprise at the words.

  "Short of outright murder?" Linc intoned, as neutrally as before. "I'm not sure yet."

  "Maybe we could use the fact that he thinks Chandra's dead," Con suggested.

  "Maybe," Linc agreed.

  Chandra listened in shock as they talked on, discussing and discarding possibilities. Why were they doing this? Why, now that they knew the whole, ugly story, when they knew she was too weak to help them, were they pursuing it? Why on earth did they care, when all she wanted was out of this? What did it matter to them whether Daniel ever paid for what he'd tried to do?

  She understood why they'd offered to help in the first place; it had been for Linc's sake. What she didn't understand was why he was doing it. He'd made it painfully clear it wasn't for the only kind of payment she could offer, she thought, the memory still stinging. The only salve to her humiliated spirit was that he hadn't known that payment of the huge debt she owed him had had so little to do with what she had offered him.

  As she sat there in silence, listening to them, feeling more insignificant than ever as Shiloh contributed as much as either of the men, she began to realize that they took it for granted that something had to be done about Daniel. A fragment of a quote came to her mind, something heard once in school, long ago, and remembered despite her father's belittlement of the idea. Something about all that was necessary for evil to succeed was for good men to do nothing.

  Was it truly that simple? Had her halfhearted, wistful jest about the white horse, and Linc's response about the white hats been closer to the truth than she'd ever imagined? That these were good people, she couldn't deny. Just as she could no longer deny that her father and Daniel had been wrong when they'd told her there were only two kinds of men in the world, those who bought and those who were bought; the two men before her proved that.

  Yet what else could she have believed? Growing up she'd been paid for good grades or behavior with money, had watched her father put a price on everything, had heard her every success, her every attribute evaluated for its financial worth someday. Just as her mother, she realized with a little shock, had been paid, with jewelry, a new car—

  God, no wonder she'd believed Daniel when he told her that women always fell into that second category, those who were bought, in one way or another. Yet there was not a doubt in her mind that no one had ever been, or ever would be able to buy Shiloh that way. And a man like Con—or Linc—would never try.

  "Hey, Mrs. McQ," Con was saying teasingly, "where did you fade off to? We're trying to mastermind the overthrow of a fiend here, and you're reading the morning paper."

  "Yes, I am," Shiloh said, still staring at the newspaper Chandra had seen her fiddling with for a long time before something had caught her eye and she'd unfolded it, pulled out a section, and begun to read.

  "This is no time for the comics, Green-eyes."

  Con was grinning at his wife, but when Shy looked up at him, the expression faded. "Uh-oh. I've seen that look befor
e."

  "Me, too," Linc said. "What'd you find?"

  "Just this." She slid the paper over so that both men could see it. Chandra watched, wondering, but said nothing, feeling that overpowering sense of unimportance again despite the fact that none of them would even be here talking about this if not for her. And the mess she'd gotten herself into.

  "'Possible Miracle Drug Cleared for FDA Testing,'" Linc read from the headline. He glanced up at Shiloh. "So?"

  "Keep going."

  Linc lifted a brow, but kept on, murmuring phrases aloud as he read, "…drug with near miraculous implications … immune system disorders … testing to begin early next year … far-reaching implications … if successful … hundreds of thousands of lives … drug developed by—"

  He stopped dead, his head coming up sharply as he looked at Chandra. She drew back a little, startled. Without looking back at the page, he quoted softly, "The new drug has been developed by a major west coast company. Lansing Pharmaceutical, Incorporated."

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  « ^ »

  Chandra stared at Linc as his words seemed to echo in the room. Then she reached for the newspaper; Linc gave it up without a word. She read the article swiftly, then looked up at Linc, bewildered.

  "But this is impossible," she said. "It couldn't be ready. There were too many things still wrong with it. Al said so."

  "Wrong?" Linc asked, staring at her so intensely she couldn't answer for a moment.

  "The drug wasn't ready," she repeated at last. "There were some side effects, too many of them, and they were too unpredictable."

  "Oh?"

  Linc didn't say it sarcastically, or even doubtfully, but Chandra knew what he meant.

  "I realize I'm hardly a chemical genius," she said, more resigned than defensive.

  "I didn't say—"

  "You didn't have to. I know I barely got through high school chemistry. But I know about this because a few weeks ago Al Cleary, Lansing's head research chemist, was at the house. He and Daniel were arguing, and it was about this drug."

  "Arguing?"

  "Daniel was pushing, as usual, and Al was saying they couldn't go public yet."

  "Because of the side effects?"

  "Yes. Al said he thought it could be fixed, but that it would take months, maybe even years to work out all the problems. And Daniel was saying they didn't have that kind of time."

  "What happened?"

  Chandra didn't see what any of this had to do with anything, but she was unable to withstand Linc's sudden intensity.

  "Daniel…" She swallowed and tried again. "Daniel got angry. Very angry. They started yelling, and Daniel threatened to fire Al. Al just told him to go ahead. He said that since Daniel had insisted Al be in sole charge of the project, reporting only to him, Daniel would lose everything, because no one else knew about it at all, let alone enough to take over."

  She took a breath, then went on when she realized they were all watching her intently, waiting.

  "That made Daniel calm down. They quit shouting after that." She shrugged. "That was all I heard, except that when Al left an hour later, I heard Daniel apologize to him at the door."

  "You're sure of this?"

  "Yes, I am, because—"

  "You're positive that it was just a few weeks ago, not the months the chemist said he'd need?" Linc interrupted, sounding oddly urgent.

  "That's what I was trying to tell you. I'm positive, because it was just a week before the accident."

  Linc stiffened. "What accident?"

  Chandra was aware of them all staring at her, and she had the oddest sensation of collective breath being held. But she couldn't look away from Linc's burning gaze. "A car accident. A horrible one."

  "And?" Linc prodded when she paused.

  "Al was killed. That's why this doesn't make any sense. He was the only one who knew about this project."

  "And it should have died with him," Linc said on a long breath.

  Chandra nodded. "Al was the only one who was working on it, the only one who knew the steps already taken, what had and hadn't been tried, and the current status. No one could have taken it over and accomplished this—" she gestured at the newspaper "—so quickly."

  "Damn," Con muttered, his first words since Shiloh had discovered the story.

  Chandra glanced around the table; they all looked so very solemn. And all she felt was confused.

  "I don't understand," she whispered, feeling more a fool than ever.

  "Of course you don't," Shiloh said, grimly but not unkindly. "You didn't grow up in this damned shadowy world. I wish I hadn't, either."

  Chandra looked at Linc. She hesitated, then realized she couldn't look much more foolish to him then she already did.

  "Is it because I said Daniel and Al argued?" she asked. "I told you they made it up before he left. We even had dinner with Al a few days later. The evening of the accident. That's partly why it was so awful. I mean, he was fine, cheerful even, at the restaurant, and barely an hour later, he was … gone."

  "Then the chemist and your … husband weren't arguing that night?"

  Chandra wondered at Linc's hesitation on the word, but she was too aware of all the eyes upon her to ponder it for long.

  "No, they were fine. Everything was fine, they were getting along like they used to. In fact, Daniel insisted that it was to be a real night off for Al, and that work was a forbidden subject."

  "So they didn't talk about the drug?" It was Con this time, looking at her steadily.

  She shook her head. "Daniel specifically said Al wasn't to worry about it that night, that he should just enjoy dinner, and the wine. They didn't mention it again."

  "At all?" Linc asked. "Even in passing?"

  "No, just that they'd resolved their differences…"

  Her voice trailed off, uncertainly. Then she shook her head again; they'd been talking about proof, and that was what they needed. Solid proof, real evidence, not the silly speculations of a woman who didn't know the first thing about what Daniel had been up to. A woman who had been so utterly naive, incapable of even realizing that he had been up to something.

  "What, Channie? You thought of something."

  She looked at Linc when he spoke. His gaze was still intent upon her. When he looked at her like that, with such attention, with that unusual warmth in his hazel eyes, he almost made her forget what a fool she'd been. He was looking at her as if what she said mattered, as if she truly had something to contribute to this. And it flashed through her again, that wish, that futile wish that she could live up to that look, that she could be someone like his sister; someone who could earn his respect.

  As it was, all she had was his protection, a protection he extended without thought, as he no doubt had with his mother. A habit, a natural response to a helpless, hapless female. Because, Chandra thought glumly, she and Linc's mother apparently were, as Shiloh had said, cut from the same cloth.

  "Channie? Come on, what is it?" Linc urged.

  "Nothing."

  "But it could be something."

  "No, I … it was just an impression I got. It doesn't matter, and I'm probably wrong, anyway."

  "Impressions are sometimes the most useful tool in this business," Con said gently, and for an instant Chandra marveled that she had ever thought this man forbidding or his blue eyes cold.

  "He's right," Linc agreed. "So what was the impression you got that night?"

  "It seemed like Al was relaxed, but still excited about the project. When Daniel said they'd worked out their differences, I got the feeling…"

  "Go on," Shiloh encouraged when she faltered again.

  There was a trace of an edge in Shiloh's voice, and Chandra smothered an inward sigh. No wonder, she thought. Shiloh, she was certain, would never feel this kind of incertitude.

  "I got the feeling Daniel had told Al to just keep going. Al acted like he had all the time in the world now, and before he left, he promised that some day we'd
have a celebratory dinner at that same restaurant, no matter how long it took."

  Linc let out a long breath. "You see what I mean? You do know things."

  "But it doesn't mean anything. Except that Daniel and Al weren't angry at each other anymore."

  "But didn't you think it was strange? That they had had this fight and then Al … died?"

  Chandra paled. "No. People were always arguing with Daniel, about lots of things. And besides, it was an accident. The police said so. Al's car hit a light pole. They said that he fell asleep at the wheel. He'd been tired, at dinner, yawning…"

  Linc reached out and clasped Chandra's hands, openly, firmly. She began to tremble, dreading whatever his next words were going to be.

  "Channie," he said softly, "did Daniel know that you heard them that night?"

  "Not … not then."

  "But he found out?"

  "Later. When Daniel mentioned Al was meeting us for dinner, I said I was glad they'd patched things up, because Al is … was … I liked him. Daniel seemed furious at first, that I'd heard them arguing. He accused me of snooping, but he was so nice afterward that I thought I'd been mistaken again—"

  Her breath caught in her throat at the thing that glittered, cold and hard, in Linc's eyes. Her eyes shot frantically to Con, to Shiloh, and saw the same harsh knowledge in their faces.

  "Oh, God," she moaned.

  "Damn him," Linc growled, and it was the last thing Chandra heard as the room began to swim around her.

  "It's true, isn't it?"

  Linc let out a long breath, then swallowed against the lump that rose in his throat at the tiny sound of her voice. He had seen her start to sway in her chair, and had quickly grabbed her before she could topple. Without a word, Shy had risen to lead the way into the living room, then, while Con shifted pillows to make room for Chandra on the sofa, she had gone for a cool, damp cloth.

  "She'll be all right," Shy had assured him when, after wiping the wet cloth over Chandra's pale face, the golden lashes had fluttered. Linc sat on the edge of the sofa in the place Shiloh vacated, aware of his sister's assessing scrutiny, but not caring much at the moment. And then Chandra had opened a pair of wounded blue eyes and asked him that question.