Pull of the Moon Read online

  It’s not her. It can’t be, Nick thought to himself.

  Yet there was something about Valerie that seemed to reach back too far to be faked. How could she possibly have learned the quirks that were Valentina’s? Little things such as the half-dimple that creased her right cheek when she smiled. The way her fingers played unconsciously with the hem of her blazer when she was nervous. The way she tilted her head and looked at him with implicit trust.

  And he really didn’t like the way looking at her kicked up his blood.

  Could Valentina have finally come home? But he had proof—the blanket, the deathbed confession of the chauffeur. There was even a guy in prison serving time for the kidnapping.

  Damn her for showing up now.

  And damn him for doubting what his own eyes showed him.

  SYLVIE KURTZ

  PULL OF THE MOON

  For Chuck—for telling me I’m wonderful no matter what.

  For Ann, Joyce and Lorrie—for your continuing friendship.

  I would like to extend a special thank-you to the following people for their help: Jennifer LeDuc Cusato, Marianne Mancusi, Denise Robbins and Jared Shurtliff.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Flying an eight-hour solo cross-country in a Piper Arrow with only the airplane’s crackling radio and a large bag of M&M’s for company, Sylvie Kurtz realized a pilot’s life wasn’t for her. The stories zooming in and out of her mind proved more entertaining than the flight itself. Not a quitter, she finished her pilot’s course and earned her commercial license and instrument rating.

  Since then, she has traded in her wings for a keyboard, where she lets her imagination soar to create fictional adventures that explore the power of love and the thrill of suspense. When not writing, she enjoys the outdoors with her husband and two children, quilt-making, photography and reading whatever catches her interest.

  You can write to Sylvie at P.O. Box 702, Milford, NH 03055. And visit her Web site at www.sylviekurtz.com.

  Books by Sylvie Kurtz

  HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

  527—ONE TEXAS NIGHT

  575—BLACKMAILED BRIDE

  600—ALYSSA AGAIN

  653—REMEMBERING RED THUNDER *

  657—RED THUNDER RECKONING *

  712—UNDER LOCK AND KEY

  767—HEART OF A HUNTER ‡

  773—MASK OF A HUNTER ‡

  822—A ROSE AT MIDNIGHT

  866—EYE OF A HUNTER ‡

  872—PRIDE OF A HUNTER ‡

  960—PULL OF THE MOON

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Valerie Zea—Her assignment as a segment producer for Florida Alive is to find out as much as she can about the twenty-five-year-old kidnapping of Valentina Meadows Callahan.

  Nicolas Galloway—Rita protected him and his mother when they needed help getting away from Nick’s father. Now it’s his turn to protect Rita from the pseudo-Valentinas who seek to separate Rita from her fortune.

  Rita Meadows—Against all evidence, Rita believes her daughter is still alive. She’ll do anything to find her—even take a chance on the kooks Nicolas works so hard to discourage.

  Holly Galloway—She found the courage to leave her husband to offer her son a more stable life.

  Edmund Meadows—Rita’s uncle owns the TV station where Valerie works.

  Gordon Archer—Nick’s father is famous for his get-rich-quick schemes.

  Marissa Hatch Zea—Her secret could destroy both her and Valerie’s world.

  Mike Murakita—Valerie’s photographer isn’t keen on this assignment.

  Dr. Evan Gardner—This paranormal researcher is there to uncover a ghost.

  Kirby Cicco—This man is serving a life sentence for Valentina’s murder.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  October brought out the ghosts. Not that they weren’t always there for Rita Meadows, but in October, they crowded her, pressured her, demanded she set them free.

  Alone in her big bed, she couldn’t sleep. Returning home to Moongate tended to do that to her, especially now that the anniversary was fast approaching. She had to readjust to the mansion, to the eerie weight of the leaden memories its wooden facade held prisoner. This was her first night home since her secret trip to Chicago—one Nicolas wouldn’t approve of—and already she wished she could leave again, if only for a little while longer.

  Maybe she should just skip October this year, come back in November when the ghosts’ grip lost its fierceness. After all these years of vigil, her aging bones deserved a rest. She could spend October bobbing on a yacht in the Caribbean or tasting her way through Napa Valley.

  Oblivion. That would be nice.

  She bolted up at the renegade thought. “No, baby, I didn’t mean that.”

  Her fault. Her cross to bear. She hadn’t given up hope; she never would. But sometimes, she just wanted the pain to end.

  Outside a storm boiled over Mount Monadnock and down into the valley, spilling into Moonhill. Like a brew bubbling over from a witch’s pot, rain flooded against the roof and deluged the windowpanes with waterfalls. Wind pounded against the walls, and thunder reverberated through the empty halls. A tomb would feel much like this: cold, dark and empty.

  The plague of insomnia had her staring at the ceiling, finding the face of evil in the plaster as a necromancer might in a scrying bowl. One answer to one question. That’s all she wanted. Why was it so hard to find?

  The storm’s fury ebbed, and the faint whimpers of a baby’s cries imprinted themselves on the air. She slid under the covers as the frightened pitch increased. Closing her eyes, fisting her hands against her ears, did nothing to vanquish the child’s terror.

  Only one thing would.

  Tears coursing down her cheeks, she rose from her bed. As she’d done on countless other nights, she crept into the hallway and wound her way toward the third-floor tower room. There she pressed the plunger of the antique iron latch. The door creaked open and the cries instantly ceased.

  The cries weren’t real. They were just a trick of her mind, giving form to her guilt. There were no babies here, dead or otherwise—only her misguided hope.

  Wrapping one arm around her stomach, she stepped into the yellow pool of artificial light burning from the night-light that had made Valentina feel safe. An expec tant hush weighted the room as if the walls were listening for the missing four-year-old’s return.

  Nothing had changed in this room. For twenty-five years the tic-tac-toe play rug, the child’s bed with its princess-pink canopy, the pile of stuffed animals on the butterfly-stenciled storage chest had remained as they were on the day Valentina had disappeared.

  The static landscape her daughter had left behind stared back, ripe with accusation, and a lightning jag of pain, raw and deep, clawed at Rita’s heart. “I’m so sorry, baby, so sorry.”

  If she could do it all over again… But no, there was no rewinding time.

  As Rita turned to leave, a gray shape formed along her peripheral vision.

  A sigh, no more than an exhale, seemed to sough against her ear. Mama.

  Breath held, Rita stopped and pressed a hand to her thundering heart. “Valentina?”

  The hope, so sharp in her voice, cut through the thick fog of memories. Of course not. What had
the doctor called it? Projection? The disappointment of reality resettled heavily on her shoulders.

  “No, Rita. It’s me, Holly.”

  Rita swiveled toward the doorway where her faithful friend and housekeeper stood, her long gray braid a beacon in the night.

  “I thought I heard—” Rita’s hand fluttered like a surrender flag toward the window. “I thought Valentina was…home.”

  Holly’s solid arm wrapped around Rita’s waist, supporting her, and gently led her away from the center of her agony.

  “You must think me a fool.”

  “No, of course not, Rita. It was just the storm. Let me walk you back to your room.”

  “I’m okay.” Shoulders stooped, Rita shook off Holly’s helping hands and made her way back into her bedroom alone, fading into the shadows of the house…just another ghost.

  Chapter One

  Pewter shrouded the October afternoon as Valerie Zea and Mike Murakita—her photog and soundman for the shoot—made their way to Moonhill, New Hampshire. Here and there a red maple leaf or a yellow beech leaf, still clinging stubbornly to a limb, flickered like a tongue of fire.

  Valerie had seen photos of the White Mountains blazing with fall color, of the misty lakes like milky beads of moonstone wreathing the endless vistas from high atop the mountains, of the bellowing moose that required warnings to motorists every few miles on the highway. And she’d wanted to see all that rugged beauty, so different from the lush flatness of Central Florida she was accustomed to.

  She’d been disappointed enough when she’d read that the Old Man of the Mountain—a nature-made Indian head of stacked boulders perched precariously on the side of a mountain for centuries—had fallen a few years ago and no longer watched over Franconia Notch. Just the name— Franconia Notch—conjured up a grand and magnificent picture. Not that they were anywhere near the White Mountains, since Moonhill was located in the southern part of the state. But the fog was cheating her out of her anticipated sense-stunning experience.

  She compared the MapQuest directions she’d gotten online against the road signs popping up out of the low clouds on the narrow road. “Turn here.”

  Mike jerked the car onto the country lane. “A little more warning next time.”

  “Aye, aye, captain.”

  On the right side, a low stone wall framed a cemetery whose granite headstones and statuary poked out of the mist. Not quite on the scale of a mountaintop view, but filled with mystery, suspense and intrigue.

  On the left, a Stick-style Victorian with a wraparound porch glared through the murk like some sort of movie set haunted house. Orange fairy lights dripped from the eaves. Giant glow-in-the-dark spiders and webs clung to the decorative trusses. A life-size mummy with arms outstretched seemed poised to lumber out of the six-foot tall black coffin leaning against the oak by the front walk. On the lawn, strobes blasted on and off at intervals, lighting up red-eyed bats, moaning zombies and shrieking gargoyles. There were enough special effects there to make a Hollywood techie jealous.

  “Talk about overkill,” she said. The overblown drama of the scene would make an interesting segment of its own, though, especially if she could find a Florida angle to it. Maybe the owner’s parents were part of the snowbirds that flocked to the Sunshine State every winter. She made a mental note to look into the possibilities before she pitched the idea to Higgins, her executive producer. He’d appreciate maximizing the bang for his travel-expense buck.

  She peered at the web-encrusted mailbox by the entrance for the address. “We’ve got a way to go yet.”

  Mike warbled his voice to make it sound spooky, but it came out sounding more like the Count on Sesame Street. “Maybe it’s the local haunted house for Halloween.” He shot her a mischievous grin. At thirty, he still looked like a kid with his boyish face that couldn’t grow a beard, except for a sparse tuft on his chin that looked like a smudge of dirt. “Want some B-roll of that for your segment?”

  “Yeah, Higgins would go for that. He’s already ticked off Krista’s doctor wouldn’t let her fly, and he had to send second-choice me to do the job.” The assignment was high priority since it had come down as a special order from Edmund Meadows, the station’s owner. He’d requested a package about the kidnapping of his great-niece twenty-five years ago in hopes of stirring up some new evidence that could lead to finding the missing girl.

  “On the plus side. He put you above Bailey.”

  Bailey-the-Beautiful who had Higgins wrapped around her long legs. Valerie snorted. There was too much at stake for Higgins to risk needing to mop up after Bailey. “Efficiency won out over looks.”

  “Either that or he couldn’t give her up for four whole nights.”

  “There is that.”

  High on Windemere Drive, Moongate Mansion materialized out of the shifting mist. First the six-foot granite wall and the black iron gate, canted open, daring intruders to trespass. Then the estate itself, a gray nineteenth-century Victorian with an eclectic mix of Italianate and Queen Anne. Each generation of Meadowses, seeking no doubt to stamp their mark, had added to the original two-story, four-room house until it sprawled over 13,000 square feet, looking like some sort of Frankenstein creature.

  Valerie couldn’t imagine living in such a dreary place, especially with its constant bruise of painful memories. But she also understood why Rita Meadows stayed. For Valentina. If she came back, her home would be there, waiting for her, lights shining bright, and her mother would be there, too, arms open wide.

  Valerie swiped surreptitiously at the moistness in her eyes. Her mother called Valerie’s tendency toward the melodramatic maudlin. But what could she say, she liked happy endings. There were so few of them in real life.

  Mike crunched the rental up the gravel drive. She rolled the window down for a better look at the house. The scent of decomposing leaves and wood smoke infiltrated the car. Dark trees on each side of the lane swayed and whispered as if in warning. Ahead light gleamed from what seemed like a hundred windows, brightening the gloom of the day with their glow. But even that wasn’t enough to dispel the aura of decay that clung to the house’s wooden boards like ivy.

  Her blood quickened as the voice-over wrote itself in her head. Cohost Dan Millege’s deep bass vibrated with gravity in her brain, hitting just the right emotional tone for the introduction to a twenty-five-year-old kidnapping. She ripped out her portfolio and scratched furious notes to capture the inspiration before it vanished. “Can’t you just feel the mystery in the air? We have to get the fog on tape before it lifts.”

  Off to the side of the house, Mike shoved the rental into Park. “Don’t you ever look at anything without seeing it from a story angle?”

  Valerie shrugged. The story was everything. She couldn’t explain it to Mike—or to her mother—but some inner force drove her to ferret information, any information, about everything. Her mother called it a disease and, although Valerie preferred to label her flaw as curiosity, she couldn’t quite disagree. She couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t looking for something, anything, to fill the hollowness in her soul.

  We give you everything, Valerie. Isn’t that enough?

  It should be, and that it wasn’t, truly pained her.

  This curiosity had landed her the job as coordinating producer for Florida Alive, a half-hour magazine format program that aired Monday through Friday at seven, right after the nightly news, and showcased people, places and things of interest in the state.

  So, okay, Florida Alive was considered soft news and didn’t exactly hit life-altering issues. That didn’t mean she couldn’t find the deeper meaning in a sand sculpture competition or the creation of pastry masterpieces or the raising of camels. What fired up other people, what gave their lives purpose, what made them feel alive fascinated her. Passion fascinated her. And traveling all over the state to see new places and meet all sorts of different people was an amazing bonus for a girl with wanderlust who hadn’t traveled more than fifty miles from home unt
il after graduating from college.

  Mike peered at the massive house, no doubt gauging shot angles. “So, you think she’s dead?”

  Valerie’s gaze climbed up the polygonal tower, and a shiver rippled down her spine. Crazy, but the child’s frantic cries seemed to vibrate against Valerie’s chest and the child’s panic to shudder down Valerie’s limbs, making her hands cold and clammy.

  She reached for the French vanilla coffee she’d bought at the Dunkin’ Donuts a few towns back and warmed her hands against the paper cup. With a fervor that rocked her, she wanted that baby to be safe somewhere. Who took a child from her own bedroom? Who could purposely cause such grief? And why?

  Valerie swallowed and ripped her gaze back to Mike. “After twenty-five years…”

  “It’s kind of sad to think of this lady pining away for her dead kid for so long.”

  But what else could a mother do? Without proof of death, she couldn’t give up. As much as Valerie and her mother didn’t see eye-to-eye on practically anything, her mother would search the ends of the earth to find her, and Valerie would do the same for her mother. Recalling their argument that morning, Valerie winced and made a mental note to call once she got back to the inn and apologize. “That’s why we have to do the best job we can with the story.”

  Mike slanted her a knowing grin. “You just want Krista’s job when she goes off on maternity leave.”

  Valerie had eyed the news producer’s job ever since Krista had announced her pregnancy. It was a stepping-stone to producing harder-hitting stories, one Valerie had to cross if she ever wanted to get to NewYork. “So what if I do?”

  Mike cranked off the engine and shot his hands up. “Hey, I’m just saying, word is, you’ve got competition for the spot.”

  Bailey-the-Beautiful. “Sure and steady wins the race.”

  “Only in fables, babe.”

  “Don’t call me babe.”

  Racking up a mental to-do list, Valerie juggled her cell phone, purse, portfolio of notes and cup of coffee. “I’ll introduce myself to Ms. Meadows and set up a time to look through her archives tomorrow. I’ll see if I can find more potential witnesses. I have that prison interview set up for Thursday. Then we can shoot Ms. Meadows’s interview on Friday.” Which would mean spending the whole weekend editing to get the package ready to air next week. No wonder she didn’t have a social life. That wouldn’t be so bad, except for the coming-home-to-only-a-dog part. “You can get started on the exteriors. Can you get a tracking shot coming up the drive? Low angle so the house seems to pop out of the fog? Maybe a Dutch angle to make it look spooky?”