The waiter ushered us into seats and took our drink order before departing. There was a short awkward silence before both Simone and Lucas launched in at once.
“So, how long have you-?”
“How did you-?”
They both stopped, smiled, and both tried to say, “You first,” at the same time, ending up laughing together a little too hard. Simone shot me a hard little look that clearly said, How can you have any doubts about this man when we’re so clearly in tune?
“Ladies first-I insist,” Lucas said, linking his hands together, fingers relaxed, on the tablecloth.
“I was just going to ask how you found me.”
He looked surprised. “But surely you found me” he said, frowning. “That guy you hired-Barry O’Halloran. He came to visit me about a week or so ago, telling me my daughter wanted to make contact.” He said the word “daughter” with a certain wonder, as if he thought he’d lost the knack and had suddenly discovered it again. “Well, that came as quite a shock after all this time, let me tell you, but I told him, sure, why not?”
It was my turn for surprise. “You agreed?”
“Sure,” he said again, with a shrug. “I got no reason not to. She was a terrific kid.” He smiled at Simone again, rueful. “It wasn’t her fault that things didn’t work out between her mother and me. And, well, I’ve changed a lot since those days.”
At the soft sincerity in his voice Simone went a little pink, suddenly fussing with the collar of Ella’s dress. It was left to me to ask, “So, how did you find us here?”
“Well, Barry said he was going to call Simone as soon as he got back to the office and she’d probably fly right over. Then he left and I waited to hear.”
“When was this?”
He raised his eyes, remembering. “Oh, a week or ten days ago, I guess.”
‘A week or ten days,” I repeated blandly.
“That’s not long, Charlie,” Simone said, defensive, even though she’d been the one in the all-fired hurry.
Lucas nodded and smiled at her. “Well, I’ve been kind of busy lately, I admit, but yesterday I started to wonder what had happened and I tried to call Barry, and that’s when I found out about his accident.” He broke off and shook his head. “Poor guy, ending up in a river like that, huh? The winters can be brutal out here. Not like England. You gotta be prepared for the weather.”
“How?” I said.
“Excuse me?”
Simone stabbed me with a meaningful look and I moderated my tone with a smile. “Sorry. I meant how did you find out about the accident?”
“Oh, one of the local cops happened to stop by and I guess he must have mentioned something-or I brought it up-and that’s when I thought I’d better do some checking, just in case you’d flown right over, like Barry said, and were sitting here waiting for me to call.”
Even I had to admit that he had a disarming quality about him, but, I reminded myself, all the best con men do. Besides, that didn’t explain how he’d tracked us down so quickly.
“So how,” I began, ignoring Simone’s furious glance, “did you know we were staying here — at this hotel?”
“Process of elimination,” he said, the first hairline fractures beginning to appear in his cheerful demeanor now “I couldn’t leave my little girl waiting for me, could I? I started calling the hotels.”
My eyebrows went up. “All of them?”
He nodded. “I started at the top, which was lucky, because this is one of the best in town. As soon as I found out Simone was here, I hightailed it down.”
“But-”
“That’s enough, Charlie,” Simone said, her voice quiet but no less commanding for all that. “Poor…” Her voice tailed off and I realized that despite her earlier confidence, she was struggling to find the right word to use.
Greg Lucas treated her to his brightest, warmest smile. “Just call me Greg,” he said gently. “For the moment, anyways. Let’s take this one step at a time, honey, hm? I know how hard this is for you and I know I haven’t been much of a father to you,” he went on, reaching out and covering Simone’s hand on the tabletop with his own. Ella, I noticed, couldn’t take her eyes off the gesture. “But now we have a second shot at it, and I’ll do anything I can to make it work.”
Simone nodded, her lips pressed together for a moment. Next thing, she’d jumped up out of her chair and hugged him, fiercely. I heard her muffled voice saying, “I’ve missed you, Daddy. I’ve missed you.”
After only a moment’s hesitation, Lucas’s arms went round her shoulders and his hands drew soothing circles on her back. “I know, honey,” he said softly, but his face, visible over Simone’s embrace, was curiously stiff and cold. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed you, too.”
The following day, riding north into a sky heavy with the promise of more snow, I had to admit that Greg Lucas wasn’t behaving like a man who was after Simone’s money-if he knew anything about it. The Range Rover we were riding in was the latest model and so new it hadn’t had time to lose the smell of fresh leather inside. Besides, Range Rovers were expensive enough in the UK, but over here they carried even more cachet. And despite the fact that we were staying in a fancy hotel, Simone still didn’t look or dress or talk like she had money
She’d admitted to Lucas that she was an engineer by training and told him about her split-up with Matt. She carefully blamed Matt’s wandering eye for their estrangement and made it sound like he was little more than a distant memory Ella nearly dropped her in it at that point by saying, loudly, “But Mummy, you and Daddy were arguing about the money, too, weren’t you?”
Simone had flushed pink right to the roots of her hair and come up with a hasty excuse that Matt earned less than she did and it had caused some friction.
Lucas had swung his eyes towards me and said, “Well, you must be doing pretty well for yourself if you can afford full-time help for little Ella here.” Simone heard only the paternal pride in his voice, but I heard the trace of suspicion underlying it, and I’m not sure which one of us was picking up the right vibes.
Still, I tried to keep an open mind about Simone’s father. He certainly made every effort to be amenable, taking us on his own guided tour of Boston and for an early evening meal at the Top of the Hub restaurant on the fifty-second floor of the Prudential Center, where we could enjoy a stunning view of the Boston skyline. But I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t quite trust him.
And when he invited the three of us to stay at his home in New Hampshire, Simone had accepted practically before the words were out of his mouth. Partly, I suspected, to stop me sticking my oar in. She waited until Lucas had gone to the restroom before she quietly tore into me for my intransigence.
“The whole idea of this trip was for me to find my father, and I did not go to all this time and trouble only for you to scare him off again!” she said in a savage whisper. “For God’s sake, Charlie, lighten up!”
‘All I’m trying to do is ensure your safety,” I said, trying to keep hold of my own temper.
“Well, that’s fine and dandy,” she said, glaring. “Just don’t stop me doing what I want to do or I’ll damned well go on my own.”
I’d called Neagley to see what her impression had been of Lucas, but got her answering service. I left a message asking her to call me urgently. I also rang Sean for advice, but he wasn’t helpful.