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A light rap at his door, and Bart struggled to pull himself together. His secretary would have messages for him. She’d taken a late lunch. He had work to do. He had to focus.
“Come on in.”
He straightened and drew in a deep breath.Move on. Don’t look back.
The door opened, but it wasn’t his secretary.
It washer... Louise Cagle.
His heart stuttered to a near stop. He shot to his feet as if a spring had been released.
“Hello.” He forced his lips into what he hoped passed for a smile. “I’m sorry, did we have an appointment?”
She closed the door behind herself and walked right up to his desk, her face set in stony determination. “I want to know how you were involved with my daughter?”
“I ...” Fear strapped a stranglehold on his throat. “I’m not sure what you mean. I didn’t—”
“Yes, you did,” she snarled. “I hired a good private investigator, and he found evidence of your meetings with my daughter.”
She glared at him with such ferocity that he had to force himself not to stumble back. “I knew your daughter,” he confessed. “She came here to my office for research on her thesis paper.”
“You expect me to believe that story?” She shook her head. “If my daughter needed research sources, I could have given her an endless supply.”
He moistened his lips, struggled to slow the organ now floundering in his chest. “She ...” He swallowed the lump swelling in his throat. “She didn’t want you to know the subject of her paper.”
This statement gave the poor woman pause. The weakness, the defeat, the devastation she felt showed through her anger. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“She wanted to surprise you with an in-depth story that would rise to the level of the work you do.” He managed a half smile that trembled on his lips. “She was so in awe of you. She wanted to show you she could do it too.”
“Why?” Louise shook her head. “This makes no sense. My Lucy was headed to medical school.”
This was a part he didn’t really want to share, but he wasn’t sure he had a choice.
“Lucy wasn’t interested in medical school.”
Louise launched into a tirade.
Bart held up his hands and waited for her to quiet. “She didn’t want to tell you for just this reason. You and her father had her future all mapped out for her, but Lucy had other ideas.”
Louise’s face fell. The stark new flash of devastation in her eyes knifed into his chest. God almighty, he did not want to be the cause of more pain.
“She admired you so,” he hastened to add. “She wanted to be just like you.”
Louise shook her head. “Why should I believe you?” Fury tightened her features once more. “I haven’t turned your name over to the police yet, but they will figure out she came to see you all too regularly. If you’re not telling me the whole truth, you will regret it. I know who your wife is. I can cause both of you a great deal of trouble.”
Good Lord. If Ruth learned about this, he would never hear the end of it.
More importantly, he could not become a person of interest in this case. He could not tell anyone all that he knew. Not to help this poor, sad woman. Not to keep his wife from learning about his involvement.
Not for anything in the world.
“You tell me,” Louise said, snapping him back to the here and now, “what I want to know, and I assure you that your name will never come up in the investigation.”
How could she offer a promise like that?
Every part of him started to shake. “How can you make such a statement?”
If she knew what he knew ... she would go straight to the police, and then—
