The Night In Question Page 11

  “Then I’m your man, Agent.” Noel stood up abruptly, his tone holding some of the mockery Julia remembered from the past. He held out his wrists. “Cuff me and take me away. I might as well come clean—I dropped by to see Babs just as Julia was leaving, so I was probably within the magic twenty feet during that crucial two-hour period that night. I zapped the box with my special decoder ring, and a little while later my big brother and his toadying new brother-in-law went boom.”

  Julia stared at him, aghast. “What’s the matter with you? There’s nothing funny about this at all, Noel—nothing!” Her voice shook. “Kenneth wasn’t a good husband or brother, granted, and I never really warmed up to Robert either but they didn’t deserve to be killed. And in case you’ve forgotten, there were two other men on that plane—decent men with families still mourning them!”

  Sometime during her outburst she’d gotten to her feet, she realized. Her hands clenched at her sides, she confronted her brother-in-law, but for a moment he didn’t meet her eyes.

  She let out a sharp breath, and he turned to her, his shoulders slumping. “You’re right, of course,” he said in a low tone. “This isn’t a joking matter.”

  “But you weren’t joking.” Max was beside her, and a quick glance at his tense stance and grim expression told Julia he was just barely holding back his own anger. “You were trying to divert us, Tennant—divert us from stumbling onto the one thing you’re trying to keep hidden, and it’s not the fact that you had an opportunity that night to set off the bomb. You’re willing to throw that my way, as damning as it is, just to keep me from your real secret. I’m only going to ask you one more time—what is it you’re trying to—”

  “You left the door unlocked, lover. Feel like Thai for dinner tonight?”

  The man standing in the doorway looked to be a few years younger than Noel, and he was good-looking in a pleasant, unspectacular kind of way. The only reason a stranger would give him a second glance, Julia thought, was the white cane in his hand and the dark glasses that obscured his eyes. He was obviously blind.

  It didn’t seem to be an overwhelming handicap, she realized a moment later.

  “Oops, I didn’t realize we had guests.” His smile, directed in their general direction, was disarmingly friendly. He approached them without hesitation, stopping a couple of feet away and holding out his hand. “I’m Peter, Noel’s main squeeze.”

  Noel looked over at Max, his own expression drawn. “I guess you stumbled on my secret after all, Agent Ross.”

  Chapter Nine

  Peter’s smile faltered. Letting his hand drop to his side again, he turned to his partner. “I thought we’d put this kind of thing behind us, Noel,” he said quietly. His movements suddenly awkward, he started to make his way back to the open door, brushing against a side table as he did so. Julia caught the bleakness that swept across his features as he unsteadily swung his cane ahead of him.

  “No.” Noel hurried after his friend, his expression stricken. He put his hand on the other man’s arm. “No, you’re right, Peter. This kind of thing is behind us. Please stay.” His voice was gentler than Julia had ever heard it before. “I’d—I’d like to introduce you to my sister-in-law, Julia Tennant, and Max Ross, the agent assigned to investigate my brother’s murder.”

  So this was the reason Noel had cut himself off from his former life, Julia thought in amazement, extending her hand to Symington as the blind man turned back to her and Max. His clasp was firmly friendly, but as he shook Max’s hand his mouth tightened.

  “Should Noel be calling his lawyer, Mr. Ross?” he asked bluntly.

  “Maybe ten minutes ago.” Max shook his head. “But I don’t think that’s going to be necessary now.” He turned to Noel almost impatiently. “For God’s sake, man, was this what all the fancy footwork was about? I’m not here to judge anyone’s lifestyle, and if I was you’d be justified in telling me to get the hell out of your home.”

  “All those years you were living a lie, trying to conform to what your brother and your mother thought was acceptable,” Julia said impulsively. “Oh, Noel—how desperately unhappy you must have been!”

  He turned a startled glance on her, and then he smiled, a little sadly. “So were you, weren’t you, Julia? So was Babs. We were a pretty dysfunctional family all round. I used to think Kenneth was responsible for that, but he couldn’t help what he became. Olivia tried to ram each one of us into the Tennant mold as soon as we were old enough to go to boarding school.” He lifted his shoulders wearily. “Be glad Willa escaped that. I know my mother intended her to be packed off to the Tennant alma mater when she turns six.”

  “She what?” Julia’s eyes widened in outrage. “Olivia might have intended that, but I never would have gone along with it. I always thought it was barbaric, the way she raised the three of you.”

  “Kenneth didn’t. Didn’t you know he’d put Willa’s name down for Hartley House before she was born?” Noel looked slightly uncomfortable. “To tell you the truth, Julia, when you were charged with his murder I privately suspected that had been your motive for killing him—to ensure that she didn’t have the same unloving childhood the rest of us had gone through. But I realized that didn’t really hold water. Olivia would still have insisted on bringing Willa up to be a Tennant. You wouldn’t have been a match for her.”

  “That’s debatable,” Max said shortly. “But what’s not is that Barbara couldn’t take on her mother and win. Is Willa’s name still down for boarding school?”

  “I presume so. After all, she’ll be taking over Tenn-Chem when she grows up, and Olivia would want to make sure her beloved company is run by someone as tough and ruthless as herself when the time comes.” Noel’s smile was bitter. “My mother abhors weakness in any form.”

  “Willa’s birthday is in two days,” Julia said tightly. “Are you trying to tell me that Babs is going to knuckle under to Olivia and send her off to that—that prison as soon as she blows out the candles on her cake, dammit?”

  “That’s how it was for us. Since my birthday’s in July, Olivia enrolled me in an accelerated summer course so I’d have an edge over everyone else when regular classes resumed in September.” Peter moved closer and put his hand lightly on his friend’s shoulder. Noel shot him a grateful smile before continuing. “But even though I don’t see Babs that often, I’ve noticed a change in her since Willa came to live with her. I’m not so sure she does intend to knuckle under to Olivia on this.”

  Not sure wasn’t good enough, Julia thought, feeling sick. Not sure meant there was a possibility that in two days Willa’s world would be torn apart for the second time in her short life, and even if she eventually won back custody of her daughter and took Willa out of Hartley House, by then the damage might be irreparable.

  A faint echo of the same dread she’d felt just before Willa had plunged over the cliff stirred in her. Her daughter was in danger, she thought. But this time she knew what the danger was.

  They were wasting time here—time that she’d just learned they didn’t have. As if he sensed her sudden restlessness, Max nodded brusquely at Noel.

  “I appreciate the information you’ve given us, Tennant.” He started to take a step toward the door, but then checked himself. “There is one last question you can answer for me,” he said slowly. “How did your father die?”

  A corner of Noel’s mouth lifted briefly. “I was wondering when you’d get around to that. He was working late in the lab one night, experimenting with some pretty unstable compounds, and, like my brother twenty years later, he went boom.” His voice hardened. “He was never a businessman. He was just a damn good chemist, and he’d come up with a soluble base for a certain kind of medication that could have cut the price of it in half. He wanted to publish the formula in the scientific journals, just to make sure that the patent wouldn’t be bought up and suppressed by one of the big drug companies with a vested interest in keeping the price high. I wasn’t much older than four or five at the time b
ut I still remember the argument he and my mother had over that—probably because it was the only time I ever saw him stand up to her.”

  “What happened to the formula after his death?” Max’s eyes narrowed.

  Noel grinned tightly. “Good question. It never made it onto the market, but curiously enough, just a few months later Tenn-Chem went from being a struggling little company barely managing to stay afloat, to having enough cash to finance its first major takeover. Unlike her late husband, my mother proved to have an excellent head for business, Agent Ross.”

  “You realize what you’re telling me.” Max wasn’t asking a question, but Noel nodded anyway.

  “Yes, I realize what I’m telling you. I’m also well aware that we’re not just talking about my father’s death, and I still stand by what I say. Any one of us Tennants have enough technical knowledge to build a bomb, but only Olivia has the ruthlessness to carry through on a scheme like that.”

  “It’s something to look into, I agree,” Max said slowly. For a moment he seemed sunk in thought, but then he roused himself. “Again, thanks for the help. Mr. Symington—good meeting you.”

  “If you’re talking with Noel’s family, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention our relationship.” The blind man sighed lightly. “I realize that sounds odd coming from me, but from what Noel’s told me about his mother I think a don’t-ask, don’t-tell policy is wiser with her. Even though they seldom see each other anymore, she would still regard his sexual preference as a slur against the family name—and she wields enough power to make his life a living hell.”

  “Been there, done that,” Noel commented ruefully. “I hope I’ve given you something to think about, Ross.”

  It was a dismissal, albeit a courteous one, and moments later Julia and Max were out on the sidewalk again. She glanced over at him as they began heading for the car.

  “Do you buy his story about Olivia?”

  “I don’t know.” He frowned thoughtfully. “I can’t shake the feeling that I was being manipulated throughout that whole conversation, and even when I realized he’d been trying to conceal the fact he was gay I still felt he was keeping something back.”

  “So did I.” She raked her hair from her forehead in a quickly nervous gesture. “But I believed what he said about Willa being signed up for boarding school, Max, and that’s got me terrified. I’ve heard Babs talk about Hartley House. It’s run along incredibly strict lines, and the children there seem to be punished for the slightest infraction. If Willa thinks I left her because I didn’t love her anymore, how will she cope with being taken away from Barbara and put into an environment like Hartley? Max—whatever it takes, I just can’t allow it.”

  Her last few words came out with edgy intensity as they reached the car. Turning to her, he took her by the shoulders.

  “Falling apart now isn’t going to help her, Jules, and you know it,” he said sharply. “And if you mean what I think you mean, forget it. I couldn’t let you snatch Willa away a few days ago, and whatever else has changed, that hasn’t. It’s called kidnapping.”

  “How can it be kidnapping when I’m her mother, dammit?” she retorted furiously.

  “Because Barbara has legal custody of her, for crying out loud!” His voice had risen too, and as two or three curious passers-by glanced at them, he bit back an oath and released her. “Let’s keep this private, Jules,” he said in a lower tone. “We can continue this discussion in the car.”

  “There’s nothing more to discuss.” Folding her arms across her chest to disguise the fact that she was trembling, Julia studied him through suddenly sheened eyes. “You know, I was so sure you weren’t telling me the truth last night when you said you’d never had a child, Max. I’d heard differently. But now I know my information had to have been wrong, because there’s no way you ever had a son or daughter of your own. There’s no way you ever felt as if your heart was about to crack in two because you loved them so much, and you were so afraid you wouldn’t be able to keep them safe. If what I’d heard was true and you’d lost a child of your own, you’d understand what I’m going through. But you don’t. You can’t.”

  “Maybe I understand more than you think I do.” His words were toneless, but there was a flicker of compassion in the green eyes meeting hers. “Not out of any personal experience, but because I care what happens to you, Jules—to you and Willa. And that’s why I say I couldn’t condone taking her from Barbara before we clear your name completely by finding out who really planted that bomb. You agreed with me a couple of days ago that you couldn’t put her through a life on the run. What’s changed?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Her fury draining away, she passed a shaky hand across her eyes, already regretting the way she’d lashed out at him. He was right. As unhappy as Willa might be at a school like Hartley House, being stolen from a playground by a woman she only dimly remembered as her mother and forced to live a fugitive existence, never staying in the same place for more than a few nights at a time, would be even more traumatic for her. She knew that. She’d known that two days ago. What had changed?

  Again the unreasoning fear rose up inside her, settling in the pit of her stomach like some noxious fog.

  “I just have this feeling,” she said inadequately. “I’m afraid something terrible is going to happen to her, Max. I know it sounds crazy, but—”

  “You don’t sound crazy. You sound like a mother.” He rubbed his jaw worriedly. “This feeling you have—do you think she’s in immediate danger?”

  “No,” she admitted slowly. “It’s not like yesterday. I’m not worried that she’s going to be in a car accident or something like that this very afternoon, I just feel as if something’s threatening her—something that’s getting closer all the time. Is there any way you can find out if her name’s still down for Hartley?”

  “Yeah, I can do that. And tomorrow I’ll start checking into Olivia’s story of what she was doing the night of the bombing.” As if he had come to some final decision, he took a deep breath and leveled a somber gaze at her. “But from now on you’re out of this, Jules. I never should have brought you into this in the first place, especially knowing what you’ve been through these last two years. This is tearing you apart—and your involvement in it stops here.”

  IT WAS THE FIRST TIME she’d been alone in his house, but she didn’t feel as if she was intruding on his private space. Julia opened the refrigerator door and glanced inside. A few feet away from her, on the oval braided rug that seemed to be his favorite resting place, Boomer sighed gustily, as if he knew as well as she did how unlikely it was that the appliance held anything interesting.

  She didn’t feel as if she was intruding because there was nothing personal to intrude upon, she thought, letting the door swing shut. The contents, or lack of them, of Max’s refrigerator were a perfect example—some eggs, lined up as they should be in the built-in egg compartment, a quart of milk and a pristine jar of mustard that looked as if it hadn’t been opened.

  She’d already checked out the freezer compartment. It was crammed full of He-Man dinners—chicken, beef or Salisbury steak. She had a three-in-one chance of guessing what Max Ross was going to be having for supper eight Wednesdays from now and getting it right, Julia thought, frowning.

  The man was an enigma.

  But his personality quirks weren’t her problem, unless and until they got in the way of her own agenda, she told herself firmly, walking over to the kitchen window and propping her elbows on the sink. This afternoon they had, and it had taken all of her persuasive powers to convince him not to cut her out of the loop where the investigation was concerned. Actually, persuasion had failed, she admitted with reluctant honesty. The argument had continued on the drive home, and it had taken blackmail to finally change his mind.

  “Fine,” she’d snapped as they’d pulled up in front of the house. “I’ll just call on Olivia myself tomorrow and demand some answers from her. If that doesn’t work I’ll tr
ack down Babs and insist on talking with her. If that doesn’t work I’ll—”

  “I can fill in the blanks, Julia.” His tone had been as clipped as hers. “You’ll just keep muddying the waters until it’s impossible to see anything. Don’t you get it— I’m trying to keep you out of this for your own good, dammit.”

  His choice of phrase had touched a fuse. “My own good? My own good?”

  About to get out of the car, she’d turned back to him, her temper boiling over. “I’ve had two freakin’ years of other people making decisions for my own good, Max, and I’m not about to let anyone do that again! Two years of lights out at eight sharp for our own good, two years of wearing scuffs instead of shoes with laces for our own good, two years of being told what to do every minute of every hour until one day you’re standing in line in the cafeteria at dinnertime and you start to shake because you know you’re going to have to decide whether you want peas or beans with the damned meat loaf, and you realize you’re no longer capable of making a choice for yourself anymore!”

  By then she’d been only inches away from him, and her voice had risen to a shout. “She’s my daughter! This is something no one decides for me—not even you!”

  She seemed to have lost the knack of discussing things logically with another person, Julia thought wearily, her hand moving to the cold-water tap to tighten it. Or maybe it was just this particular man who managed to derail her, seemingly with no effort on his part at all.

  But at least he’d dropped the idea of her sitting on the sidelines while he continued with the investigation. He hadn’t been happy about it—the tense set of his mouth as he’d grudgingly given in had been proof of how he really felt—but he’d agreed to take her with him when he interviewed Olivia the next day.

  “I’m going to the office to pull her original statement.” As Julia had gotten out of the car, almost faint with relief and more than a little astonished that she’d gone up against him and won, he’d taken his keys out of the ignition and snapped one off the ring, handing it to her. “And believe me, Jules, you won’t be allowed to accompany me there. Even if you were, if anyone recognized you with me I’d be pulled up on the carpet and asked to explain myself tomorrow morning.” He’d paused, and the grimness of his expression had eased slightly. “Can you feed Boomer for me and let him out in the backyard for a while? I’ll probably be most of the evening at this, and I don’t want to make the old boy wait for his meal until I come home.”