He patted her hand. “No, I asked the nurse to bring me out for some sun.” He pointed at a woman who stood several feet away, and a scowl filled his face. “She watches me like I’m a child or something.”
Lindsey almost laughed. Here was the Edward Paxton she knew. His bad temperament made her tension ease a bit. “She is just doing her job, Daddy.”
He flicked a sneer at the woman and then lifted his gaze to Lindsey. “I know honey. I just wish she wasn’t so damn irritating as she did it.” He paused a minute. “Anyway, it’s so good to have you back home again.”
Lindsey opened her mouth to speak and then clamped it shut again. This wasn’t the time to tell him this wasn’t her home anymore. “How are the treatments going?”
His response was cranky. “My stomach feels like I swallowed rocks, my head is almost bald, and I am stuck in this damn place. How do you think they are going?” Then he started coughing to the point that he hunched over and seemed to gag.
Lindsey looked towards the nurse in nervous desperation. She hurried towards them. Her father got a glimpse of her movement and pointed at her. “No, I am fine.” He coughed again, and scowled at her. The nurse looked at him with a keen eye, and then stepped back to her original spot. Lindsey suspected she had backed off only because his coughing had subsided.
He settled back in his chair. “How are things at the firm, Lindsey?”
“Oh fine, I guess,” she said, not up to the conflict of saying otherwise. Not after his little attack. “Ms. Moore hasn’t changed a bit. I love her as much as ever.”
He smiled softly at the mention of his long-term assistant, surprising Lindsey once again with the play of emotions in his usually cold eyes. “Yes, she loves you too. She’s always asking about you. How’s everyone else at the office?”
Lindsey leaned her bottom against the tree trunk. “Fine,” she said with a shrug. “As far as I can tell. You know I really haven’t had time to figure out much of anything.”
He nodded and coughed again. “Yes, I suppose that’s true.”
She cleared her throat. “Daddy, I do have a few questions.”
His eyes narrowed. “Ask away.” His tone was cautious, contradicting the lightness of his words.
“Tell me why you think Williams is innocent.”
He seemed to relax, his shoulders dropping a bit as if he had been holding himself stiff, waiting on her first question. “For one thing, the evidence is circumstantial. In my opinion, our wonderful police force had a lot of public pressure and needed someone to call guilty. He is as much a victim as the murdered girls.” He looked at Lindsey’s darkened expression and added, “Well, not as much of a victim, of course, considering he’s alive and they aren’t.”
Lindsey nodded and pushed away from the tree, dropping to the grass Indian style, glad she had on slacks. Her expression was thoughtful as she pushed her fingers into the grass beneath her. “But there hasn’t been another victim since he was arrested, correct?”
He grimaced. “Oh, come now, Lindsey, surely you don’t think that means anything? Any smart person would take the arrest as a sure-fire way to get the heat off. I suspect the real killer moved along to another state or is simply sitting back laughing.”
“He? Are you sure it’s a he?”
“The police profile says yes.” Ticking off items with his fingers, he went on, “White male, mid-twenties, likely to have a middle class background, white collar. Autopsy reports support the profile.”
Lindsey took in the information, feeling an odd familiarity to the Hudson case. She sucked in a deep breath and then exhaled before continuing. If her father noticed, he didn’t show it. “That said, have you gotten any certain evidence of his innocence?”
“Very little so far, I’m sorry to say. I fell ill just after taking the case.” He started to cough again.
Lindsey hated the gruff-sounding cough. Leaning forward on her knees, she patted his back. “Daddy, are you okay?”
“Yes, yes fine. Stop acting like a worrywart. Now, back to Williams. I wouldn’t have taken it if I didn’t feel he was innocent. Have you reviewed the file?”
Lindsey moved to a squat position, feeling a nervous need to reposition herself, and then leaned back on the heels of her feet. “Not in detail,” she said, and quickly thought up an excuse so he wouldn’t guess she had been avoiding the case. “I haven’t had time. Just wondered what your thoughts were, is all.”
He frowned and succinctly reprimanded her. “Don’t you think you need to get the man’s defense going?”
Lindsey clamped her jaws together. He had a lot of nerve acting as if she was slouching on a job she didn’t even want. Irritated, she blurted out her next question. Speaking without thought wasn’t her style. But then she wasn’t quite herself, and she knew it. “Why did you part ways with Mark Reeves?”
His eyes darkened. “I don’t want to talk about that man. Not now. Not ever.”
So much for tact, thought Lindsey. Now he was defensive. “Wouldn’t he be far more qualified than me to fill in for you? I haven’t practiced law in years.”
He shot her a look that would have most people squirming. For Lindsey it was just another one of his ways of intimidation that no longer affected her. “I refuse to have this conversation. Mark Reeves is out of the picture. Next question.”
Her response was quick. She wasn’t his little yes-girl any longer. “I want to finish with this subject first. Why not ask Mark Reeves to return?”
“Is this why you came here, to stir up a subject better left closed?” he demanded.
“You have a lot of time invested in Mark Reeves,” she said, ignoring his question.
He snorted. “Wasted time.”
Lindsey eyed him intently. “He’s a good man. I need to understand what happened.”
He waved a dismissive hand. “How would you know? You don’t even know the man.”
She sighed. This wasn’t going to be pretty, but she might as well get all the ugly out in the open and done with at once. “I’ve met him Daddy, and I know people. He is a good guy. Besides, just his reputation alone says he is an honest, hardworking man.”
His eyes widened. “What do you mean you have met him?”
She shut her eyes a minute, grasping for patience before continuing, “It really isn’t relevant how I met him.” She gave him a hard stare. “Make me understand why I am here doing what he should be doing.”
His face was pale, and his breathing rapid. “Lindsey, enough. We concluded our relationship on a sour note—the end. If you’re such a damn good judge of character, stop blaming yourself for Hudson, and do what you’re supposed to do. Run the damn firm.”
Lindsey flinched. That was a low blow even for him. Anything to get his way. “I’m not taking over the firm, so I suggest you reconsider your position on Mark.”
He crossed his arms in front of his body. “You belong here. Your home is in Manhattan.”
She shook her head and pushed to her feet. “My home is in Washington.”
He pointed at her, anger making his ears redden. His pale face seemed more chalk-like against their brightness. “You have responsibilities here, and you need to live up to them.”
The nurse appeared at his side. Lindsey hadn’t even noticed her approach. “Mr. Paxton, it’s not good for you to get so upset. I’m afraid we need to break this up. You need your rest.”
Not wanting to listen to her father chastise the nurse, she spoke before he could. “Fine, I’ll leave.” Lindsey touched his shoulder, guilt over upsetting him twisting in her stomach. “Get some rest. I’ll check on you tomorrow.”
By phone, she thought, and turned and walked away before he could say another word. She couldn’t count on her control any longer. Distance. She needed distance from the suffocating pressure she was feeling.
Chapter Three
Her elbow hit the coffee mug, and it plunged into her lap.