See How She Dies by Lisa Jackson Page B

you stay wherever it is you came from?”
    â€œBecause I need to know.”
    â€œSo this isn’t about money?”
    She didn’t answer and Jason smiled without a trace of warmth. His companion, the woman he’d called Kim, watched her with interested eyes.
    â€œIt’s always about money, Adria,” Jason said as the pianist took a break and the music suddenly stopped. “No reason to lie about it.”
    Before she could respond, Zach had grabbed her and this time he didn’t let go. No amount of wriggling could pull her arm free and rather than make a scene, she allowed herself to be shepherded from the familiar ballroom. She knew she’d been here years before; everything was nearly the same. The lights, the music, no…there had been a band instead of a solitary pianist and the champagne glasses had been a different shape. And there were other changes as well: there had been a huge green cake ablaze with sixty candles and the ice sculpture had been of a running horse rather than a rearing stallion. And the rose petals had been cast upon the floor, creating a fragrant pink carpet.
    Surely she was remembering Witt’s sixtieth birthday, her last night with her parents—or was she only dreaming, caught in the fantasy that was London Danvers? In the past few months she’d read every newspaper article, studied every photograph, read every word she could find about the Danvers family. She recognized her half-brothers from the pictures she’d seen of them and would have recognized her parents, had they still lived.
    Witt had never given up believing that his favorite daughter would return to reclaim her heritage and he’d left a million-dollar reward for anyone who could find her; he’d also provided for London in his will, and his estate was rumored to be valued at well over a hundred million.
    The money wasn’t important, she told herself as Zachary retrieved her coat, but she was determined to find out the truth, and damn the consequences.
    Â 
    Gold digger! Bitch! Fraud!
    Watching from the shadows of a tiny alley, Katherine LaRouche Danvers’s killer stared after the car that sped away. Rain drizzled relentlessly from the sky, gurgling in the gutters, dripping from the eaves, doing nothing to soothe the white-hot rage that was being experienced by Katherine’s killer.
    Hadn’t Katherine’s death been enough?
    Why would this spawn of the she-devil show up now?
    If Adria Nash did prove to be the bitch’s daughter, then everything would be ruined, the Danvers fortune splintered…but, of course, she was a fraud. She had to be.
    The fists of Katherine’s killer were clenched so hard they ached. Near the curb there was the scratch of tiny claws, barely discernible over the gurgle of water in the gutters and downspouts. Glancing down, the killer spied a wet, half-crippled rat, long tail dragging behind, slide toward a crevice in the sidewalk. Tiny eyes caught in the reflection from the street lamps and blood dripped from a wound near one motionless back leg.
    â€œGo away,” the killer hissed, rattled for a second before thoughts of Adria Nash and her outrageous claim returned.
    Calm down. Collect yourself. You can handle this. Haven’t you always? The family owes you a big debt and they don’t even know it.
    â€œShe’s not London.”
    Probably not. Most likely not. But you can’t take a chance. You’ve worked too hard to let it fall apart now. You have to stop her.
    â€œShe’s not London.”
    Perhaps so, but she’s the right age, isn’t she? And she’s the spitting image of Kat. You saw the features of her face; she has the same bone structure, identical cheekbones and eyes. And her hair. Could it be more like Kat’s? She’s a dead ringer.
    Rage curled white-hot at the thought of Katherine. Beautiful. Sexy. Sleek. No wonder she’d turned so many heads. Women had found her