The Road Home

by Margaret Way

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

Mystery and romance collide at a glittering soirée when a Sydney businessman meets a stunning beauty who resembles a missing woman.

Bruno McKendrick knows that he can win the attention of any woman he pleases. The well-to-do son of a Scottish-born father and Italian mother, Bruno is one of the most eligible bachelors in Australian high-society. But on this night at a party off the coast of Sydney Harbour, finding love is the last thing on his mind as he makes his way through the usual crowd of movers, shakers, and hob-nobbers. Then he lays eyes on an incomparable beauty whose face Bruno is sure he’s seen before.

Her name is Isabelle Martin—and she says she’s not who Bruno thinks she is. Still, he’s determined to prove that Isabelle is the living image of someone his late private-investigator father spent his life trying to find. Solving this twenty-year-old mystery is one challenge; the burning attraction between Bruno and Isabelle is another. As he closes in on the case and discovers a dark truth from Isabelle’s past, Bruno risks tearing her whole world apart . . . unless she will allow him to help pick up the pieces . . .

“In this enjoyable contemporary, Way . . . combines romance with a decades-old mystery and the dazzling beauty of the Australian outback. . . . The mystery . . . propels the novel forward at a swift pace as romantic tension heats up between Bruno and Isabelle, and readers will eagerly follow them to the satisfying ending.” —Publishers Weekly

Release date: October 31, 2017

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

“Some place, bro!” the cabbie hooted, torn between envy and entrenched resentment of the superrich. “It’s a bloody disgrace, all them lights.” He spoke like a man committed to having the issue addressed ASAP. “Looks like the QM2 at sea, don’t it?”

Bruno had to agree. The Lubrinski mansion was ablaze. Even he, close friend of the Lubrinskis, had to drop his eyes. He reached into his wallet and took out a couple of crisp fifty-dollar bills. “Keep the change.” He put the notes into the man’s outstretched hand. “You wouldn’t expect them to hold a big charity bash in the dark, now, would you?”

“That’s what it is then?” The cabbie acknowledged the size of the tip by landing a friendly punch on Bruno’s shoulder. “Thank you kindly for that, bro!”

“That’s what it is most of the time,” Bruno said, stepping out of the cab without further damage to his person. “These people are among the biggest philanthropists in the country.”

“Yeah?” The driver wasn’t about to let it rest. “All to do with their taxes, I reckon. Okay, bro, enjoy yourself now. Me, I have to get back to the grind.”

He stood for a moment in the golden gleam of the streetlights, watching the cab driver perform a perfect U-turn and then scoot off with a friendly wave. The guy was right. The house did look like a liner at sea.

He was late. Couldn’t be helped. He’d gotten caught up with an old university friend he’d made a bundle for, allowing him to pay off his mortgage. There was satisfaction in that. He liked helping people. Just like his dad. As he made his way up the broad flight of stone steps, he could see guests milling around the huge, brilliantly lit entrance hall. They formed a living, moving kaleidoscope of multicoloured gowns, emerald, scarlet, amethyst, silver and gold, set off to perfection against the sea of black dinner suits. It all looked sensational. People had been known to fight for Marta Lubrinski’s invitations. Often it came down to hissy fits.

Beautiful music was issuing from the living room, soaring above the hubbub of voices and laughter. It conveyed a broad spectrum of human emotions: joy, love, sorrow, hope. He hadn’t started out life as a classical music lover, though he’d been fed a lot of Italian opera in the womb: Puccini, Verdi.

He loved jazz. He had a big collection of the world’s greatest jazz musicians. It was Marta, his self-appointed honorary aunt, who had taken charge of his classical music education, starting with A for Albeniz, the great Spanish virtuoso pianist and composer. He was still working his way through the Bs. Bach. Beethoven. Brahms. Marta had unloaded a hundred CDs on him, exhorting him, “Play them, darlink. Listen, listen. Give your soul wings!”

Tonight was one of Marta’s famous dos, with wonderful music and equally wonderful food and wine. It was taken for granted he would attend, especially as he had been, and still was to a certain extent, her husband, Ivor’s protégé. Ivor Lubrinski had started his new life in Australia as a seventeen-year-old Lithuanian emigrant with ten pounds in his pocket, an unshakeable belief in his destiny and an incredibly astute business brain. Ivor was also notoriously society shy. He rarely attended his wife’s grand soirees. It was Marta who had control of that side of things, as brilliant in her fashion as Ivor was in his.

Bruno was devoted to them both. Their philanthropy was legendary, when he happened to know Ivor was as careful with a dollar as his own Scottish-born dad had been. Neither man ever forgot their roots. Hungarian Marta had to a mind-blowing extent. Marta had the craving for luxury lodged in her very being.

As he stepped into the Rococo-on-steroids entrance hall with its glittering travertine floor, his eyes gravitated automatically to the magnificent Bohemian chandelier at its centre. The hundreds and hundreds of crystals bounced light off every surface. If it ever fell, it would surely kill anyone directly beneath it and injure those in the vicinity. It had been his suggestion to place a large library table beneath it to bear the brunt in such an eventuality. Marta had come up with an extraordinary ebonized and parcel gilt centre table with really weird claws for feet.

The table now held a great pyramid of flowers. It must have been arranged in situ. No one could have walked with it. He guessed it was the masses of Asian lilies, pink and white, showing off their beautiful dusky pink faces that gave off the heady perfume that tickled his nose.

Eventually, he was able to move through the throng into the voluminous living room, as big as a football field. A series of open arched and shuttered French doors gave on to a brilliantly lit poolside terrace. It too was paved in travertine, and beyond that a magnificent panoramic view of Sydney Harbour, the most beautiful harbour in the world, and he had seen them all in his travels.

Along his way, he received choruses of hellos, claps on the shoulder, air kisses from the women, some grasping his hand with faintly glazed eyes. He had to know he was one of the most eligible bachelors around. It wasn’t a good position to be in. In fact, he hated it. Being a bachelor didn’t trouble him at all. He had turned thirty, was coming at thirty-one. Being vigorously pursued by young women and determined cougars did his head in. He was in no hurry to get married. He hadn’t met the woman of his dreams. In truth, he was beginning to wonder if he ever would. He did have dreams, but they were locked away somewhere, inaccessible even to him. It was too damned hard for him to forget the disastrous breakup of his parents’ marriage and the way his staggeringly beautiful Italian mother had taken off and left him and his dad, an incredibly nice guy, to fend for themselves.

He well remembered the waves of grief that had come crashing down on them. They had adored her. Even now, he couldn’t think about his mother without feeling a deep, angry hurt. Those early years had been bad, missing his mother. It wasn’t until he turned twelve that he had really toughened up.

He’d gotten the hang of cleaning the house, shopping and preparing meals for him and his dad. His mother had been a wonderful cook. He had watched her often enough, so he soon became a dab hand with pasta, al dente of course, matching the right pasta to the right sauce. It’d got to the point when one evening, after a great dinner of spicy calamari followed by Linguini ai Frutti di Mare, his dad had sat him down, asking very seriously, “Do you want to become a chef, son? You know whatever you want to do, I’ll back you.”

A chef! A great job certainly, if one had a mind to it, but he was on course to secure a place at university. He wanted to finish with a double degree, Master of Laws and Bachelor of Commerce. He could do it in five years, working part time. He was smart. What a good laugh they’d had when he’d explained his ambition. His culinary skills had been inherited from his mother: Italian blood and the love of good food. That was it. Another area where he had shone was organising the household accounts. He saw they were paid on time. He even found better alternatives. He managed the budget far better than his dad. He had made his mark at school, both in the classroom and on the playing field. His father had told everyone who would listen he was meant for big things. Nothing had mattered more than his dad being proud of him. They were survivors. Mates.

Taller than most, his eyes ranged easily over the heads of the usual crowd, the movers and shakers, the society crowd, the hobnobbers and the fringe dwellers. He recognised the piece the quartet Marta had hired were playing. Borodin. The Polovtsian Dances. The reason he knew it was the Polovtsian Dances because it had opened the Winter Games in Sochi. He, Ivor and a couple of Ivor’s cronies had been witness to the dazzling opening ceremony, when a beautiful Russian girl had flown across a winter dreamscape to that music. He recalled how the works of Russia’s greatest classical composers had filled the stadium, rousing every heart, including his, with a highly emotional Ivor in unashamed floods of tears. The same beautiful Russian music was now being generated in the Lubrinski living room. The musicians were very good, as was expected.

The work came to an end. The applause began. He moved further into the monumental room that certainly had the wow factor, if you didn’t shy away from opulence. Sumptuous silk-taffeta gold curtains with tasselled tiebacks swept the floor, a pair of antique Italian chandeliers hung from the elaborately plastered ceiling, a huge portrait of a striking-looking woman stood on a gilded easel. Marta allowed people to think it was a portrait of her great-grandmother. Of course it wasn’t.

Loads of Louis XVI furnishings were mixed in with the plush modern stuff. Not Louis style; the real McCoy. Marta had a gimlet eye for such things. It made a praiseworthy balance, because Marta was as devoted to her charities as they were rightly devoted to her.

He was getting his first clear view of the musicians in the group, first and second violins, viola and cello. He started to lift his hands to join in the wave of applause, but they fell back to his sides as shock took over. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He probably would have given vent to a gasp, only his breath was lodged in his throat.

The focus of his attention was the cello player, a young woman in her early twenties. He knew the group from other occasions. An attractive, plump young woman showing a lot of bosom played viola. The second violin was a tall, earnest young gent with a mop of unruly black curls, a pronounced Adam’s apple and black-rimmed glasses to lend a bit of gravitas.

The cellist was new. A replacement for the evening. She could even be a graduate from the Con. She was that young. In a huge room, surrounded by many attractive, even beautiful women, she stood out as a single red rose would be a standout in a bouquet of carnations. He had no interest in the other members of the quartet. His sole focus was the girl. He was staring, when staring wasn’t his style. Not that he was the only male caught out looking his fill. He didn’t think he had seen anyone as sexy as this beautiful girl with a gleaming cello propped between her long, slender legs. The length from the knees was tantalizingly on view as the sheer top layer of her long black skirt fell away. Not that she gave off any overtly sexy aura. She looked chaste. Absolutely. Ultrarefined, very romantic. The princess in a fairy tale. A magical creature.

Curling masses of titian hair flowed away from her face and over her shoulders. Her porcelain skin, face, throat, décolletage were shown to priceless advantage against the black lace of the sleeveless V-necked bodice. She would be of above average height when she stood up, and willow slim. She had light eyes. At this distance, he didn’t know if they were blue or green. He was prepared to bet they were green, if only because he had seen a blown-up photograph of a large bravura portrait of this girl’s double. People did have doubles in life, he reminded himself, only he had the certainty this girl had Hartmann blood.

A Hartmann, for God’s sake!

He was so certain, his nerve endings were doing a slow burn.

A seminal moment in your life, McKendrick.

Through his late father, Ross McKendrick, a private investigator and a former ex-chief of detectives, he had developed a fascination with so-called cold cases: mysterious disappearances of certain individuals, male and female, that were never solved. The old Hartmann case was one his dad had laboured over to the point of obsession. It was as much a mystery today as it had been twenty years earlier.

Not anymore.

Tonight had opened up a powerful new lead. The young woman he had under close observation had to have Hartmann blood in her. That was his gut feeling, and he trusted his gut feelings.

At one time of his life, after the untimely death of his father in a hit-and-run accident—the culprit never found—he had wanted to crack the case if only to finish the job for his father and give closure to the Hartmann family. Other ambitions had gotten in the way. He now ran his own wealth management company, The Fortuna Group. His company was getting bigger by the day. He was very good at whatever he did. Consequently, he was doing extremely well. An increasing number of other people were doing well because of him. To be a success had always been expected of him. No way was he going to let his dad down. He honoured his memory.

It was her.

She who had been lost was found.

Well, not the she his father had never been able to trace, but an offspring?

The crowd parted like Moses parting the Red Sea as Marta, dressed in one of her eye-popping outfits, a glittering gold kaftan—made of material left over from the curtains?—with a matching jewel-adorned turban, rushed towards him. Marta didn’t hesitate to gild the lily. Her arms were spread in rapturous welcome. “Bruno, my darlink, you’re here. Mwah! Mwah! Mwah.” Multiple kisses were dispensed, landing on both cheeks, one near his mouth.

Marta was followed closely by Penelope Pfeiffer, Sam Pfeiffer’s daughter; Sam of the supermarkets. This wasn’t the first time Marta had taken on the job of finding him someone nice. There had been a very difficult time last year with Gemma Walker. Three dates and Gemma and her twittering girlfriends had started running around like headless chickens, spreading the word the big engagement bash at the Lubrinskis’ was barely a month off.

The word had spread like wildfire. He’d had to take steps to call a halt to it. Sweet little Gemma had then shown her true colours, flying into a right tizzy. In the old days, she would have had him up for breach of promise. He had to wonder if many a guy hadn’t been caught in this way. He was always on the bloke’s side. No surprise there.

Penelope was Marta’s current choice for him. At least Gem had held down a job. Penelope didn’t. No need, with a doting dad worth just short of a billion. Bruno tried not to be angry. It was hard to be angry with Marta, but he didn’t welcome this matchmaker role she had taken on. If he wanted to find a dream girl, he would find her himself, when he was good and ready.

“It’s too wonderful to see you, Bruno,” cooed Penelope, a sight for sore eyes in a figure-hugging scarlet bead-and-sequin number. He kissed her on both cheeks as expected, after which Marta took both their arms with abandon, as if announcing to the crowded room that after a few false starts, Penelope was the one. They moved off, a trio, with Marta and Penelope chattering away like geese.

Belatedly, he realized young fire head had been fully aware of his intense scrutiny. She was looking right back at him with surprising directness. Colour flooded her creamy skin, but her gaze was supercool, especially for one so young, and would you believe it, dismissive into the bargain. It was obvious she took exception to the boldness of his scrutiny. Had they been in ancient Rome, she probably would have had him thrown to the lions. Such imperiousness unlocked him. He would catch up with the mystery lady later. That was if he could ever fight free of Penelope. A single man on the up-and-up was a positive magnet for women, and men had to understand that.

“So, who’s the vision on Faraday’s arm?” he asked a hectic hour later, bending his head to Cassie Taylor, his journalist friend who barely came up to his shoulder. Cassie had once done an article on him that had proved very helpful. They had become friends. He was good friends with her husband, Ian, as well. He was godfather to their only child, Josh, who was autistic. Cassie, who had almost died in childbirth, had been advised not to attempt another child.

Cassie knew just about everyone and everything about so-called celebrities. She certainly knew Faraday. She had written many an article on him. None of them kind to the on-the-dodgy-side entrepreneur.

“Phil is showing better taste, huh?” Cassie snorted. “She looks really classy, doesn’t she, but way, way too young and innocent. Not Phil’s taste. She’s standing in for Jonathon Rule. Remember, Jon was offered a place in that German quartet?”

“I seem to remember Marta telling me.” He tore his gaze back to Cassie.

“She didn’t tell you anything about his replacement?”

“No.”

“Well, we’ll soon find out. You could do it just bowling up to them. Faraday is a great admirer of yours, though he does his best not to show it. He was really miffed when you left Wallace-Upton.”

“I always wanted to do my own thing, Cass. I didn’t particularly like working for George Upton. Underneath the day-to-day brush with the man, it was hard to know who the real George was.”

Cassie fixed her keen hazel eyes on Bruno McKendrick’s strikingly handsome face. She felt pleasure and, it had to be admitted even by a happily married woman, a trace of excitement, a thrill otherwise missing in her life. Bruno was the stuff of a woman’s dreams. He had a great head of hair, wonderful dark eyes, burnished skin, golden even in winter. Any woman would envy the natural glow.

“You were a real asset to Wallace-Upton,” she said, “but I can see how you felt about Upton. You’re no one’s yes-man. You would never turn a blind eye. You have a reputation for honesty.”

“One I prize.”

“So go to it,” she urged. “Mosey over to Phil’s group. See, he’s looking this way. So is his young friend. The really odd thing is that she reminds me of someone.” Cassie screwed up her eyes, obviously trying to think who. “I can’t for the life of me think who it is, but maybe it’ll come to me. She has the kind of face one doesn’t forget, don’t you think?”

“I do indeed,” he said, very dryly.

“Remember Sunday,” she called after him as he made off.

“Couldn’t keep me away.” Sunday was his godson Josh’s sixth birthday. He’d bought him a toy he thought would capture Josh’s attention, a tall, colourful robot that could walk and flash lights. Josh was receiving the very best attention and ongoing therapy, but it hadn’t been easy for Cassie or Ian. Oddly, though Josh usually shunned people, he had taken to Bruno right from the start.

“You’ve got the knack with kids, Bruno,” Cassie often told him, tears of gratitude swimming in her eyes. But then, he had insight into troubled kids. He had been one, hadn’t he?

A moment more and he braced himself for a Faraday hug. “Ciao, Bruno, you old son of a gun. Good to see you. You look great.”

“So do you, Phil. I’m loving the tie.” It appeared to have Philip’s winning string of racehorses on it.

“You know I’m a racing man. Hell, you learned to ride on my property.”

Philip had a splendid country retreat in the Blue Mountains. “I did too. You’re a great host, Phil.” It was perfectly true.

“They’re missing you over at Wallace-Upton, I hear.” Faraday looked up. One thing Phil couldn’t buy with all that money: height. He compensated by having his handmade shoes and boots built up. “I know you’re doing well, but you could have gone right to the top with the firm had you stayed. Not too late for you to go back.”

“Nice try, Phil, but I’m never going back,” he said, deliberately shifting his gaze to James Kellerman’s companion.

Faraday half-turned, a proprietorial expression on his attractive, fleshy face. “Isabelle, here’s an up-and-coming man I’d like you to meet. Bruno McKendrick, Isabelle Martin.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Martin. I thoroughly enjoyed the performance tonight, especially the Borodin.”

“Thank you.” She did not offer her hand. He’d known she wouldn’t. She was clearly on her guard.

Faraday had turned away for a moment to fawn over the governor-general, which was fine by Bruno. “Shall we move on?” He barely touched her elbow.

To his surprise, she made no protest. She went with him through the parting crowd, aware in their wake, that a few of the guests would be prodding one another. For some reason that escaped him, of late people had taken to running bets on how much longer he would remain a bachelor. Especially as Marta Lubrinski had elected to find him a suitable bride.

“Why the interest in me, Mr. McKendrick?” The girl gave him a sideways green glance.

“Oh please, Bruno. I have an Italian mother.”

“I’d never have guessed. Back to the question. Why the interest?”

“Let me explain. I’ve no wish to offend you, Isabelle; may I? But you’re the living image of someone my late father, a private investigator, had been hired to find. I’m talking just over twenty years ago.”

She raised finely arched brows several shades darker than her titian hair. “You’d have been a child.”

“Of course.”

“Was this woman found?”

He shook his dark head. “Never. Her disappearance devastated her family. She went missing of her own accord.”

She considered that for a moment. “Very likely big problems on the home front. That’s my guess. Didn’t your father investigate that?”

“My father left no stone unturned.”

“What has any of this to do with me beyond a superficial res. . .