LITMIR.BIZ

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that he recognized her, yet he’d seen her every day for the past month. She let out a long sigh.

      She hadn’t realized how tense she’d been about doing this until that moment, and now, surprisingly, she felt vaguely faint. The feeling fled when she turned the corner onto the side street that ran along the extensive property where the hundred-year-old house stood.

      She walked purposefully, nearing a narrow gate that fit snugly into the fence and led to an arch cut in the brick wall of the garage, a converted carriage house. She kept going but chanced a look back, noticing her boot impressions in the snow. No one was there. In one fluid motion, she reversed directions and retraced her steps to the gate. She quickly put in a security code on a pad, and the gate clicked, then slowly swung open.

      She went through and carefully closed the gate so that it wouldn’t make any noise. She heard the lock reset with a soft humming sound, and then she turned to hurry across the snow-shrouded terrace. Ignoring a set of French doors that led to the formal dining room, she approached a single oak door almost out of sight at the top of two cement steps.

      Another keypad surrendered to her code, and she stepped inside, into the almost total darkness of the utility room where deliveries were made. She didn’t need to turn on any lights because she knew the space by heart. Quietly, she moved through the kitchen to the back stairs that led to the upper floors. There was her bedroom, but she sidestepped it and went directly to her favorite room, the library.

      She loved the dark wood paneling, the bookshelves soaring to the ceiling. A huge bay window overlooked the front gardens and the gates that blocked the main entrance to the property. Just being on the inside made her feel safer. When she was a child, she would curl up in one of the rich leather chairs by her father’s massive antique desk and read while he worked.

      This was the only home she’d ever known, and her chest tightened as the thought flashed in her mind that this might be her last time here. She wished she could just sit in the chair and read or watch her father at his computer, instead of making such a huge decision about her future. She swallowed to try to ease the tightness, then glanced inside the partially opened library door.

      She saw her father sitting behind his desk, as always. He was hunched forward, white shirtsleeves rolled up, and the eerie bluish cast from one of his computer monitors bathed his features in its pale glow. The only other light came from a low desk light. Even so, she could see the way her father was working his jaw, and the intent frown that drew his dark eyebrows together. He seemed totally involved in what he was reading on the screen, and she thought he didn’t know she was there. Then he released a low hiss of air and slowly swiveled his chair toward her.

      He was absolutely still for a moment, and then he stood awkwardly as if his legs were stiff. Without a word, he crossed the room to meet her near the open door. She took a shaky breath as he came closer, inhaling the mingled scents of the fire blazing in the fireplace and the hint of pine in the air.

      A two-foot-tall live Christmas tree stood by one of the windows against burgundy velvet drapes that had never been closed until recently. The tree looked pathetic. It made her wish she hadn’t insisted on getting it. She foolishly had thought that it would help them to not totally ignore Christmas this year. But since it was the only Christmas decoration in the house, its puny presence only magnified how far they’d fallen from a normal life.

      “Faith,” her father said in a quiet voice as he caught her in a hug that was so tight she could barely take a breath. But she savored it, storing it up in her memory to grab when she would need it. He finally released her, smiling at her, but the expression didn’t reach his intent blue eyes. “I didn’t think you were going to come back here for a while.”

      At five feet ten inches, he wasn’t an unusually tall man and his frame had always been trim from playing squash or from running. But to Faith he had always seemed like a giant. After her mother had died when Faith was four, he’d been her security, a man who could fix her world with the wave of a hand; her rock, the one person she trusted completely; and most of all, her dad.

      Now that was all changing before her eyes. He was diminishing, as if the pressures of his life over the past four months were crushing him downward slowly and painfully. His once lightly graying hair was just as thick, but the color was now pure white. The lines etching his eyes and mouth had deepened considerably, and any tan he’d had, had faded away, leaving his skin almost ashen.

      Faith had never doubted that her father could conquer the world, yet here he was fighting for his life. She felt that sense of loss completely and refused to make things worse for him.

      She skimmed off her woolen cap. “Those vultures out front are not as good as they think they are,” she said, trying to lighten the mood. “And neither is that guard. I went right past all of them, even one of the protesters, and none of them even blinked.”

      Any trace of a smile on her dad’s face was gone as he uttered, “You cut your hair.” He turned away from her and went to his desk. He dropped heavily into his leather chair and swiveled back and forth until his gaze met hers. She could see pain and sadness in his expression and it was almost her undoing. “Did you get subpoenaed?” he asked flatly.

      “No, I haven’t.” She claimed a leather chair across from him. “I haven’t heard anything, but Baron is on his way over here,” she said quickly. “I would have called to let you know, but...” She shrugged nervously as she tugged off her gloves and pushed them into her jacket pockets. Baron Little, the head of her father’s legal team, had insisted on meeting with her, and she thought she knew why. What he had to say probably wasn’t good. “I was afraid someone might be listening.”

      “Everything here was swept this morning. It’s clean, at least for now.” His eyes narrowed on her hair. “You haven’t had short hair since you were a year old, and suddenly...”

      She had thought she’d never do more than trim her hair, but that had changed. “I wanted to fool all of them, and I did.” She motioned to the tall windows covered by the heavy drapes. “I wanted to be here with you when Baron told me what was happening.” She tried to keep her voice steady. “You haven’t heard from him about the subpoena, have you?”

      He sat forward so abruptly that some papers skittered off the desk and settled on the thick Turkish rug. “No, but the grand jury is being impanelled. Got word yesterday about that. They’re going to file charges. It’s a given.” He raked his thick hair with his fingers. “They have to.”

      Faith couldn’t even swallow, her throat was so tight. “Maybe they won’t,” she offered up, but knew she was being delusional.

      “They will,” he said with resignation, “but I won’t let them pull you any more deeply into this. Besides, you can’t tell them anything they don’t already know.” He spoke evenly, and she knew that he believed that. “What would they gain, really?”

      She wanted to point out that she had been and still was in the middle of things since that awful day four months ago. Federal agents had swarmed LSC Investments, where her father had worked for over twenty years and had been a full partner for all but four of those years. That day everything had changed.

      She’d been in her glass-walled office talking to a prospective client about investments when she’d heard the loud voices and confusion in the main area. Then an assistant marshal had been at her door, telling her to step away from her desk. She’d been among the group of employees to be escorted off the premises, forced to leave everything behind. Her father and the other partners hadn’t been so fortunate. She hadn’t seen her father again for almost twenty-four hours. The Feds had confiscated everything to do with the business, from client files, computers, logs, employee workups and all banking information, both domestic and foreign.

      Now, after four torturous months, there was going to be a decision about what charges would be filed against the partners, two of the company’s financial officers and seven other employees. A bad dream had irrevocably turned into a nightmare. Her world and her father’s were taken over by lawyers and bail and affidavits and depositions, and her father was central to it all.

      Accusations

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