Reluctantly, he got back into the truck and closed the door.
"Thank you," I said and stepped out.
My father's offices were plush, richly carpeted with real leather waiting room sofas, paneled walls and oil paintings. There was a large legal library and his own office was oversized with a set of back windows giving a full view of the harbor. He was standing by the window with his hands in his pockets gazing out when I entered.
"What's this all about?" he asked, obviously a little annoyed at the way I had ordered his appearance.
"It's about all this," I said, putting the metal box on his large, dark mahogany desk. He stared at it a moment and then walked over.
"What's this?" He opened the box and took out one of the documents. As he read it, his face took on more of a crimson tint. He glanced at me, put the paper down and read another. "She gave you this?"
"No. She had it hidden in the basement," I said.
He nodded, blew some air through his lips and then sat at his desk.
"Who else knows about it?"
"Just me for now," I said. "Cary is waiting outside in the truck, but I haven't told him anything yet. I want to know everything first, every dirty detail."
"I don't know every dirty detail," he replied sharply. I glared down at him and he shifted his eyes guiltily away. "I didn't want to do it, but she blackmailed me," he began and turned back to me.
I sat in front of the desk.
"Go on," I said.
"I didn't think she knew the truth about Haille and me. I'm still not positive about how she found out. I suspect Haille told her, taunted her with it maybe. I don't know."
He pulled himself up in his chair.
"She came in here that night, calling me to this office almost the same way you did," he added with a small smile, "and she told me what had happened and what she wanted and what I had to do.
"I started to resist and she told me she would not hesitate to expose me, to bring Haille back, to destroy me just when I was getting a wonderful start.
"So I did what she wanted. I took care of all the legal issues," he confessed. "I wasn't happy about it and I couldn't look Jacob and Sara in the face anymore, but in time she had me believing it was for the best."
"Oh, I'm sure you were concerned," I said disdainfully.
"Well, I ... look, it was her decision," he protested. "She wasn't the mother; she wasn't the father. It wasn't her decision. You let her play God!" I shouted. He seemed to shrivel in the chair. His eyes went down. "What happened to her?" I asked. I didn't want to say anything to Cary before I knew every possible detail and before I knew her final fate.
He looked up.
"Olivia didn't tell you anything?"
"Grandma Olivia had a stroke. I thought everyone in Provincetown knew by now. She can't talk."
"Oh." "Well?"
"I know only what I was told, Melody. Laura and Robert Royce went sailing. They got caught in a storm and Robert drowned. Olivia told me Karl Hansen picked her up in his fishing trawler and brought Laura directly to her. She was a raving lunatic, suffering from traumatic amnesia. She was naked when he found her at sea and Olivia, well, Olivia thought the worst of that, of course. Anyway, Karl had worked for Samuel and knew who Laura was. Olivia took control after that. She made sure Karl told no one and then she decided to have Laura secretly institutionalized. I think the whole affair embarrassed her. Legal guardianship was established and Laura was left there where she remains to this day, as far as I know. I never . . ."
"Never cared to find out?"
"It was out of my hands by then," he protested. "I just assumed, as the years went by, that she never . . . that it was for the best."
"Which eased your own conscience," I accused. I stood up. "I expect you will give us any help we need now," I said. He nodded.
"After I had discovered that the man I believed was my father was really my stepfather, I used to dream about the man who was my real father. I used to imagine he was a wonderful person, someone who might not even have known he had me as a daughter, but once he found out, he would come running to me, wanting to love me, to do things for me. I used to dream we would finally have a daughter-father relationship."
"Melody--"