Part 5 (1/2)
Charles didn't answer that. At one time, he could make that a.s.sertion. But now ...
Up until now, he'd had a threat. He'd had a control that he had used mercilessly, partly because his wife had never loved him. He had loved 'her', enough in fact to sacrifice all his ambitions. But she had spent years telling him in so many ways that she was with him out of necessity rather than love. Perhaps she'd even stayed to punish him.
And she had. Nearly every day of their lives.
Never once had she told him she loved him. He couldn't bear to see her now, a shadow of the vibrant girl she'd once been. He knew he had been responsible for the fading of colors. And now she was dying, withering away as a malignant disease rampaged through her body, and still the rejection was in her eyes.
”She's dying, for G.o.d's sake.”
”Fix the problem,” came the voice with the chilling threat.
The phone went dead.
Charles replaced the receiver in the cradle and sat still for a moment. What if he had told Marguerite years ago where her daughter was? He knew the answer only too well. She never would have stopped trying to get her back.
He'd sold his soul to the devil a long time ago, and it was far too late to repent.
Now he had placed his own daughter in jeopardy. Unless he could stop her from continuing this d.a.m.ned quest.
A knock on the door.
”Come in.”
His young a.s.sociate entered. ”It's time, sir.”
Charles looked at his watch. He pasted on his confident smile for the benefit of young Hart. The case had not been going well. He knew it. His firm was defending a chemical company that had taken shortcuts in a small community east of New Orleans and dumped dangerous chemicals near a stream. People had sickened. One child had died.
He could read juries. It had always been his strength. He saw the verdict already in their faces--the way their expressions tightened when they looked at him and softened as they looked at the defendants.
The defense was that rogue employees had done the illegal dumping on their own. Two men even admitted it and had been arrested. The question was the company's culpability.
The company was his law firm's largest client. He'd been steadily losing clients, and the loss of this one would mean he would have to dismiss several a.s.sociates.
He wasn't going to let Braden Hart know that. The young man was the brightest of his a.s.sociates. Charles had even once hoped that Meredith might become interested in him.
But neither Meredith nor Hart had seemed interested in each other.
Dammit, but Meredith had become one h.e.l.l of a stubborn woman, totally unlike the girl who had craved his approval as a child. He had wanted a son, but a complication with Meredith's birth had prevented Marguerite from having another child even if she had been willing. He'd then tried to make Meredith into his son. She had been compliant until a few years ago.
He still didn't know why she'd turned away from his tutelage.
In recent years, she had discarded all his plans for her. She'd quit her position with the DA's office. The DA's office was the fastest way to be noticed in legal circles. But just as she'd acquired a reputation as a real corner, she'd quit. Her clients now included the down and out, the dregs of society.
He suspected she did it to spite him. He had pushed too hard.
He'd lost her.
”Let's go,” he said to Hart, turning his thoughts to the next few hours. He would be cross-examining one of the men who said he had, on his own, dumped the chemicals. That he had been told to take them to a regulated site.
If the man was to be believed, it would put the onus on him. He would be liable, and he had nothing.
'If' was a big word.
As he strode from his office, he tried to concentrate and not think of Marguerite. There was nothing he could do for her. The doctors said she would probably not come out of the coma.
Even so, he hesitated to visit. He was, he knew, the last person she'd want to see.
Why had she opened Pandora's box now?
Revenge? Had what happened so many years ago festered inside even more than he'd ever wanted to believe?
He only knew he had to do something to stop his daughter before she destroyed them all.
*Chapter Four*
'NEW ORLEANS'.
Sarah, Meredith's paralegal, was in her own cubicle when Meredith arrived at her office.
Sarah's face creased with concern when she saw her. ”You look beat.”
”I slept on a cot in my mother's room last night and stopped to have breakfast with my father this morning.”
Surprise widened Sarah's eyes, but thankfully she made no comment about the breakfast. ”How 'is' your mother?”
”She slipped into a coma yesterday. The doctor doesn't seem to think she'll come out of it.”
”What can I do to help?”
”A personal favor?”
”Anything. You know that, boss.”
”What about robbing a bank?”
”Un-huh. Miss Law and Order asking that? I don't think so. So what call I do?” A widow and the sole support of two children, Sarah had previously worked in the district attorney's office. Meredith had stolen her when she left.
An attorney on her or his own needed a great paralegal, and Sarah had been the best one in the DA's office. She'd given up a safe job with health benefits to go with Meredith. In turn, Meredith had given Sarah the flexibility to be with her children when necessary.
Sarah would sometimes work at home, and that was fine with Meredith. The electronic age made it possible.
The kicker in wooing Sarah away had been Meredith's promise to make law school possible for Sarah through flexible hours, salary advances and recommendations. She intended to see that promise kept.
The only other permanent member of her staff was Becky Thomas, who served as bookkeeper and general secretary.
”Where's Becky?”