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

Sara sat on the sofa in the den Thursday night and watched a bead of moisture gather, then meander down the window, gaining speed as it collected more water.

No rain fell. With darkness, the fog had rolled in off the ocean and tumbled over the low hills like spirits released on the unsuspecting city folk. It condensed on the panes and formed the droplets.

Inside, she had a fire going in the grate, which held artificial logs, the flames fed with gas rather than wood. But it was still cozy and cheerful.

She needed cheering.

During the day, her first full one in the city, she’d kept busy. There’d been groceries to buy and errands to run, then she’d walked over to Lakeside School for the Gifted to be sure she could find it come Monday.

The private school was housed in elegant brick quarters, which had been a donation from the school’s founder in memory of his son, much as Stanford University had been established.

On her walk along St. Francis Boulevard, she’d passed the California Scottish Rite Temple and a forest preserve called the Sigmund Stern Grove. Directly across the street from the preserve, she’d found the school.

She’d also discovered that street names often changed at a cross street for no discernible reason. Junipero Serra became Portola Drive which became Market Street as it neared downtown. However, the area was interesting and lovely, with the ocean, several parks and golf courses, plus three universities within a two-mile radius of her temporary home.

Like Rome, San Francisco was built on hills. Mt. Davidson at nine hundred and twenty-seven feet was the highest peak in the vicinity while Twin Peaks, a short distance north of it, was next at nine hundred and ten feet. They were nothing like the rocky, snow-covered crags near her old home in Colorado.

During the fall and winter, she’d often sat for hours and gazed at those lofty spires as she’d waited for her mother’s life to be over….

“Sara?” the feeble voice said in a whisper.

“Yes, Mom?” Sara rose from the hospital chair, which also made a bed, and went to her mother’s side. It was the day after Christmas.

Marla Carlton gazed intently at her daughter. “You remember everything I told you? Kathleen and the twins…they know, don’t they?”

Sara took her mother’s restless hand. It felt like a skeleton’s, it was so thin and bony now. “Yes, they know. We all know.”

“Find my brother. Find Derek.”

“He’s here, Mother. He arrived this morning. He’ll be back at visiting hours.”

“He knows…he saw…everything.”

“Shh, don’t talk. Rest now,” Sara urged.

It hurt to look at her mother. The vestiges of her former beauty were still visible. Full, sensuous lips. An enchanting smile. Black hair threaded with gray but still thick and luxurious. Green eyes with long black lashes. A petite, lovely Cleopatra once, she was ravaged by illness more than time. At fifty-five she was dying of heart disease and there was nothing the doctors could do.

Pain speared through Sara at the thought. As the oldest of her siblings, she’d taken on the responsibility for the family during her growing years. Their mom had never been well. Depression and dark moods had plagued her.

Now Sara understood why. Marla had carried a horrible burden in her heart for twenty-five years, ever since her husband had disappeared from a yacht off the coast of California. Now Sara understood why she and her sister were snatched from their familiar world in San Francisco and taken to Denver to a life of struggle and uncertainty.

“Derek was there,” Marla said, clutching Sara’s hand as if to hold her captive to the tale the daughter had already heard more than once of late. “He saw Walter….”

Sara bent close as her mother’s eyes closed and her words lapsed into agitated mumbling. The story she’d heard during the past week had been a strange, terrifying Christmas gift—a disclosure of greed, murder and ruin visited on her father by the man who was supposed to be his friend and business partner in the diamond trade.

Walter Parks.

The name conjured up unspeakable evil in her mind as she stared into her mother’s pale face. The man had threatened Marla with her life if she didn’t disappear from San Francisco forever. He’d threatened the lives of her children, Sara and Kathleen, too. He hadn’t known Marla had been pregnant with the twins, Tyler and Conrad.

Or that those two unborn babies were his—

The ring of the doorbell startled Sara out of the painful memories. It was almost nine o’clock. Maybe her brother was making an appearance at last. She’d expected him yesterday.

“About time,” she scolded when she opened the door and saw that it was indeed Tyler.

He was still in the suit he wore as a detective with the police department. Giving her a grin, he swept her into a bear hug.

It never failed to amaze her that the twins she’d adored—at five, she’d thought they were some sort of living dolls made especially for her—had grown into men, six feet tall with broad shoulders and muscular bodies.

“Oomph,” she said to let him know he was squeezing the breath out of her.

“Sorry, sis,” he said, not at all apologetic. “God, it seems like years. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me, too. I think.”

Their eyes met in grave acknowledgment of the task they’d set for themselves before leaving Denver—find their uncle, sole witness to the crime against their family, then present the case to the local district attorney.

“The den is through here.” She led the way.

His low whistle told her he was as impressed by the town house as she’d been. Tyler had arrived in town a few months ago, landed a job as a police detective and found a best friend in Nick Banning, his partner on the force.

Nick was responsible for the connections that had led to her living in the town house, right next door to Cade Parks, son of the man they were after. Step Two of their plan was now in action.

The first step had been for both of them to get jobs here. The second had been to find a way to infiltrate the Parks family. What better way than to live next door to the oldest son, who was also the Parks family attorney?

“Pretty nice digs,” Tyler said, settling in one of the easy chairs before the hearth. “You should see the place Nick found for me.”

His wry laughter dispelled any impression of envy. Her baby brother didn’t waste time on useless emotions.

“Irish coffee?” she asked. “There’s a latte machine, if you’d prefer that.”

“Can you make it both?”

Sara foamed nonfat milk into fresh coffee, then added a generous splash of Irish cream liqueur. After placing a stirring stick coated with brown sugar crystals in each tall mug, she carried them into the den where Tyler waited, his eyes, green like hers, fixed on the flames leaping over the fake logs.

Marla had left her stamp on all her children, bequeathing her black hair and cat eyes to each of them, along with a megawatt smile and a metabolism that enabled them to eat anything and stay thin, a fact their friends often lamented.

“Have you met your neighbor?” Tyler asked.

Sara was drawn out of her introspection. “Yes, yesterday. Cade’s daughter, Stacy, is friendly and inquisitive. As soon as she saw me weeding the front yard, she came over and demanded to know if I was the new gardener and what had happened to Mr. Lee.”

“Cade?” Tyler questioned, at once picking up on the use of the first name.

“He and Stacy had me over for dinner last night. They made a surprise cake. And sang happy birthday to me.”

Tyler muttered an expletive. “I forgot about your birthday.”

“That’s okay. Some friends in Denver took me out for a gala celebration.”