Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

Molly woke slowly, taking several minutes to gather her thoughts before turning to look at the bed beside her. Which was when she discovered that the warm weight on the duvet beside her was Angus and not Rufus.

Well, of course it wasn't Rufus.

He'd orgasmed the life out of her—she'd eventually lost count—as he'd said he would. On the last occasion, he had tightly gripped his own cock and stroked himself to climax at the same time as Molly reached hers.

After which, Molly had fallen into an exhausted sleep and Rufus must have decided it was time to leave.

That's how purely sexual relationships worked, she believed. A brief hookup, and then the one whose bed it wasn't simply left and went back to their own home.

The fact that Molly had now realized she was in love with Rufus had absolutely no bearing on his behavior. In fact, if Rufus had realized how deep her feelings for him went, he probably wouldn't have agreed to them having even that one night together.

Well…part of a night together, because he had still been here when Molly fell asleep, but had left sometime afterward.

One more day, she reminded herself. That was all the time she had left here, and she was only staying that long because she knew Mia was depending on her to manage the second open day at the shelter.

Would she even see Rufus again before she left, or was last night all she would ever have with him?

The fact he had gone down and got Angus before leaving, bringing the dog up here to keep her company this morning, seemed to indicate the latter.

She intended to see Mia and the baby one more time before she left, and there was a possibility Rufus might be there at the same time she was, but otherwise, Molly knew there was no reason for them to ever meet up again.

"No point lying here feeling sorry for myself," she told a now-awake Angus as she threw back the bedcovers. "We have lots of work to do today, young man."

Angus accompanied her as she went through to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee, leaving it to percolate as she took the dog downstairs before letting him out into one of the runs. She stayed long enough to put out a bowl of food and some water for the little dog before going back to her apartment to enjoy a mug of freshly brewed coffee and then taking a shower.

All the time she was doing those things, she refused to allow thoughts of Rufus to intrude to disturb or upset her.

They had spent an evening and part of the night together. The most memorable time of her life, admittedly, but now it was over.

She had never allowed herself the time for regrets in the past, and she wouldn't do so now either over Rufus.

She didn't see the note he'd left on the pillow beside hers until after she'd showered and dressed and began to straighten the bedclothes.

Molly,

Sorry to leave without saying goodbye, but there's a work emergency I need to deal with.

Rufus.

Call me on this number when you wake up.

He'd written his cell phone number next to that request.

Molly's hand instinctively clenched into a fist after reading the note, crushing the scrap of paper in her hand. Longing and practicality warred inside her for several long minutes before she took aim and threw the brief letter, and Rufus's cell phone number, into the bin in the corner of the kitchen.

Only to immediately cross the room and take it out again before placing it on the breakfast bar to straighten out the creases so she could read it again.

There was no endearment in front of her name. Or before or after the signing of Rufus's. Also, the cell phone number and request for her to call him on it seemed to have been an afterthought.

Or a guilty conscience.

Either way, Molly had no intention of calling him.

Now.

Or later.

Ever, in fact.

But she couldn't resist the impulse to neatly fold the brief note and place it in the back pocket of her jeans to carry about with her all day.

* * *

"What am I looking at here, Linus?" Rufus demanded as he frowned at the screen in front of him. "Who is Serena Jenkins, and what do these payments into an account in her name every six months or so actually mean? I can see the first deposit made thirty years ago was for fifty thousand pounds, and that they slowly increase over the years to the last one of a quarter of a million pounds five months ago?" He turned to look at his cousin as the other man hovered near his shoulder. "Who is Serena Jenkins?" he repeated.

Linus grimaced. "When you asked me to search for Ronan Harper, I came up with a blank, so I turned my attention to Sarah Harper. I got all the background information I needed and then concentrated on searching security footage from the airport archives from seventeen years ago. I did that on the basis that if Sarah Harper, or her body, hadn't been found in this country, then she must have traveled, or been taken to, another one."

"For what purpose?" Rufus frowned.

"I like to look into all the angles of a situation, put all the pieces together, and make an accurate assessment rather than guessing at the answers," Linus dismissed. "I still don't have any hard evidence on this one."

"But you obviously have something for me?" Otherwise, Linus wouldn't have requested Rufus come here.

"I do," his cousin confirmed. "Obviously, security wasn't as intense then as it is now, but my face recognition program eventually found and identified a Serena Jenkins boarding a plane to Paris a week after Sarah Harper's disappearance. She'd changed her hair color and style and was a redhead rather than a blonde, had no makeup on, and was wearing bulky, shapeless clothing and flat shoes to conceal her slenderness and height, but my program doesn't lie. Serena Jenkins was once Sarah Harper." He clicked a few keys on the keyboard and brought up a split screen image of what initially looked like two different women.

Rufus's eyes widened as Linus merged the two images and it was possible to see that the bone structure of the two faces was exactly the same.

He winced. "Did she have Molly's baby brother with her?"

His cousin shook his head. "Serena was alone when she flew to Paris, as I said, and then on to Canada. She crossed the border into the US and made her way by road to Miami, where she took a flight to the Caymen Islands. At no time was there any evidence of an infant accompanying her, nor have there been any sightings of a son living with her since she moved permanently to the islands seventeen years ago."

"This is all fucking unbelievable." He had told Molly he would do his very best to find her brother, and had subsequently asked Linus to do exactly that. But if Ronan wasn't with their mother, Rufus had no idea where to even start looking for him. It sounded as if Linus was just as puzzled regarding the boy's location.

"The police didn't have the software then, nor the skills I have now, to put all this information together. But I assure you, everything I've told you is accurate." Linus was only stating fact, not chest beating.

"Oh, I believe you," Rufus reassured heavily, more than aware of his cousin's skill at hacking. He just had no idea what he was going to tell Molly.

"At the beginning of the investigation, it must have looked to the police, from the fact her daughter had been left alone in their apartment, as if Sarah Harper had disappeared under suspicious circumstances," Linus continued. "It took them a couple of weeks, and the continued absence of Sarah, to reassign it as a missing persons case rather than a possible murder."

"A missing persons case that would have since been classed as a cold case because of a lack of any new evidence." Rufus gave a shake of his head. "Considering that for several days after Molly was found abandoned there were pictures in the newspapers appealing for witnesses to come forward if they had seen Sarah, it's incredible that no one recognized her as she traveled from place to place. Or since."

"It was a long time ago, and, as you know only too well, public interest is fickle and short-lived." His grimace conveyed his apology for mentioning what he and all the Wynter family knew to have been a devastating time for Rufus. "Besides, as I said, she changed her hair color and wore shapeless clothing and flat shoes. I doubt anyone would have made the connection between the glamorous Sarah and the frumpy Serena. Well, obviously, they didn't."

Rufus was still having trouble taking all this in, so God knew how Molly was going to feel.

"Sarah went back to the glamorous appearance after a suitable amount of time had elapsed," Linus added. "She's had a little facework done since then, a nip and a tuck here, regular fillers in her lips and Botox in her forehead. The red hair has remained too, rather than her going back to being a blonde. It was only because I was specifically looking for her that my face recognition program identified the woman on the airport security footage, then again living in a house in a gated community on the Cayman Islands for the past seventeen years, as having once been Sarah Harper."

"This is really good work, Linus, as always." Rufus thanked him, despite feeling as if he now had more questions than answers.

Linus nodded dismissively. "What is most significant is that the bank account was opened in the name of Serena Jenkins thirty years ago, which means it must always have been Sarah's intention to assume that name and move there at some point in her life."

Rufus's gaze sharpened as he glanced back at the screen. "It sounds as if you're describing an escape plan."

Linus nodded. "Yes."

"But an escape from what?"

"I'm still working on that." Linus stared at the screen. "There's a sort of pattern to the timing of the payments into the account. I just have to work out what, if anything, those payments might coincide with. I don't have any solid evidence yet of what they might be but… I'll let you know when or if I find anything concrete to support what is currently only a theory."

Rufus was still preoccupied trying to decide how he could tell Molly any of this.

She had been asleep in his arms, in her bed, when he received the text to call Linus at seven o'clock this morning. Rufus hadn't questioned the timing, knowing that Linus slept and worked when the mood took him, with very little consideration as to whether or not the person he wished to speak to might be asleep. It wasn't the first time he'd woken Rufus this way.

Rufus had carefully extricated himself from Molly's arms earlier and quietly left the bed to collect his clothes before going through to the kitchen and dressing.

He'd written a brief note to Molly on a piece of paper he'd taken from a pad on the breakfast bar explaining he had to leave, and left it on the pillow he'd used before driving to his cousin's London apartment.

Rufus glanced at the bank statement again and saw that the last payment into the account, of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds this time, had been made five months ago. "All this time, all this fucking time," he repeated fiercely, "Molly's mother has been living a life of luxury in the Cayman Islands, and for some reason, having hundreds of thousands of pounds paid into her bank account every six months or so. Without, apparently, so much as giving a thought to the young daughter she abandoned, who then grew up in care and has struggled since to support herself."

"Yes," Linus didn't even try to sugarcoat it.

What would this knowledge do to Molly?

For most of the past seventeen years she must have assumed her mother was dead.

But the evidence Linus had presented to Rufus now implied her mother had simply packed her things and gone to live in the Cayman Islands under another name. That the house her mother already owned there and the thirty-year-old bank account in another name meant it had always been the older woman's intention to do exactly that.

"Who makes the payments into the account?" he demanded to know, angry on Molly's behalf.

Linus shrugged. "It's never the same name, and the accounts the money transfers from are all closed down within hours of the payment going into Serena's account. But," he added purposefully, "several days before the payment is made, Serena always leaves the islands to fly somewhere else in the world. Usually the US or somewhere in Europe, but she never goes to the same location twice."

Rufus frowned at the screen again, still trying to make sense of all Linus was telling him. "Is it possible she might be an assassin, and these payments were for her hit having been successful?" Incredible as it seemed, Sarah's behavior definitely had all the hallmarks of that being the case.

"I believe she offers some sort of service that she's paid a lot of money for, yes," Linus confirmed cagily. "When she was younger, it could have been because she was the mistress of a wealthy man or men. But she's in her fifties now, and the payments have gone up, not down, so I very much doubt that's the explanation."

Rufus nodded grimly. "I agree. Blackmail, maybe, for information that's become more valuable rather than less as time passes?"

"Maybe." Linus shrugged. "I'm going to look into that more deeply now. I just thought you should be aware of what I already have."

"Definitely," Rufus agreed.

Whatever the reason was behind Sarah/Serena's behavior, it was too smoothly orchestrated, professionally so, to be the work of the single mother Sarah Harper had given every appearance of being for the first ten years of Molly's life.

Rufus tapped his fist on the desk before standing. "I need to arrange to go to the Cayman Islands and confront Sarah/Serena." He would do whatever he had to do to give Molly the answers, and closure, she needed and deserved.

"That's the thing," Linus said slowly. "It's also the main reason I contacted you so early this morning."

"Well?" Rufus prompted sharply when his cousin hesitated.

Linus released a noisy breath. "Flight records show that Serena Jenkins flew into London two days ago, and so far, I haven't been able to find any record of where she went after getting in a taxi outside the airport."