“Yes, Cordelia?” He set the phone down, fixing me with a wary look, as if wondering how I was going to cause him trouble this time.
“I just wanted to…” I hesitated, then forced myself to continue. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. What I did was wrong.”
He lifted one brow skeptically. “Well, that’s very nice of you to say. But if you think it’s going to get you out of facing the consequences of your—”
“No, that’s not it at all,” I said quickly. “I’m not trying to get out of anything. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I was out of sorts that night, but it won’t happen again.”
“I hope not, Cora.” Dad’s expression was stern. “I won’t tolerate it.”
“I know.” I bit my lip, my heart beating a little faster. “Do you have the wedding plans on your computer? I’d just like to see what you have so far.”
A pleased look crossed his face at that, and he nodded, gesturing me closer as he turned toward the large computer screen that sat to one side of his desk. I moved quickly, my gaze falling to his fingers as they flew over the keys. He had typed out his password in front of me several times before, but I had never paid any attention then.
Now, though, I watched each keystroke like a hawk, repeating the sequence over and over in my head even as the computer unlocked and my father pulled up his correspondence with the wedding planner my parents had hired. If I had been any other daughter and he’d been any other father, maybe I would’ve been touched that he was so deeply involved in the wedding planning process.
But I wasn’t.
He wasn’t.
And I knew just what this was about.
He wanted control over the entire event, just like he wanted control over everything else in his life.
I feigned interest as he showed me the planned venue, even though my entire body tensed at the thought of walking down the aisle in the huge, ornate church to stand next to a boy I despised. Careful to keep my inner thoughts off my face, I turned to my Dad and dipped my head.
“Thank you. I just… I just wanted to know.”
“That’s good.” He smiled. “I knew you would come around to this. I’m happy to see you finally are.”
I’m not! I wanted to scream. I never fucking will.
But I kept my lips shut and slipped from the room.
The next day, as soon as my tutor left at three o’clock, I made a beeline toward my father’s office. He was working from his office downtown today, and Mom was out doing who knew what.
I slipped into the large, opulent room and glanced over my shoulder as I slid into the chair behind the desk. I had been repeating the password to myself all morning, focusing on that combination of letters and numbers more than any of my actual schoolwork, and I tapped it out carefully on the keyboard.
Relief and gratitude rushed through me when the computer unlocked, the screen shifting to show several icons and file folders. Not sure how much time I would have before Dad or Mom got back home, I moved quickly, opening up the web browser before double-clicking on several files. I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking for, but I hoped I would recognize it when I saw it.
I’d spent months trying to guess whether my father was really guilty of the crimes he’d been accused of or not, and although he’d been released in the end, I needed to know for myself just what exactly he had done.
He may not have done what he was arrested for, but that didn’t automatically make him a good person. He had claimed he wanted to turn over a new leaf when he got out of prison, but I no longer believed that. And I wanted to know what kinds of things he had willingly done in the pursuit of more power and prestige.
“Come on, where are you? Show me something. Anything,” I muttered, clicking open his email.
The cops had been through all of his stuff, and in the end, the only evidence of actual illegal activity turned out to have been planted. But still, I was sure my father had skirted as close to the line as he thought he could get away with, and I wanted to know the truth.
I spent close to an hour poring over his files and emails, and then my fingers hesitated over the keyboard. I held my breath, peering closer at the screen at a name I recognized.
Abraham Shaw.
That was the name I had heard Flint mention all those weeks ago. Abraham had been a colleague of my father’s, and I was pretty sure they had worked closely together for several years.
My heart beat faster as I scanned through several email exchanges between the two of them, chewing on my lower lip.
Fuck. Dad didn’t break the law. Abraham did.
It wasn’t spelled out explicitly, but as I read email after email, I became more and more certain that I was right. My father had leveraged his partnership with Abraham to make sure that every illegal action they had taken was traceable only to Mr. Shaw. That would’ve left Dad free to deny any knowledge or involvement if Abraham ever went down—except that Dad had ended up being framed instead.