Remember When

Diana had the oddest impression that the scientist, and not Cole, was determining the order in which the two products were developed. “He needs the battery very badly.”

  Without replying, Bretling bent over a microscope, examining something Diana couldn’t see or imagine. “Every entrepreneur has his favorite thing to want. Cushman wanted their stupid computer chip and took the people I needed to work on my projects to work on it. They put me in charge of testing. I am a creative genius, and they put me in a testing lab.”

  Diana had been around a few people with genius IQs before, and like Willard Bretling, they had seemed exceptionally sensitive to any kind of opposition. She answered with the answer she would have used to calm a frustrated child. “That must have been very embarrassing for you.”

  He changed slides without looking up. “I told them it was not reliable. So they fired me. The founder was a good man, but his sons, they are pigs. I had worked for them for forty years, and they fired me. They escorted me out of the building as if they thought I would steal something if I stayed longer.”

  Diana slid off the stool beside him and clutched his sleeve, unable to draw breath through her lungs. “You tested their chip and it’s no good?”

  “Yes.”

  It was all she could do not to scream or shout. “Did you tell my husband that?”

  “I told him it was no good, yes.”

  “But did you tell him you had tested it?”

  “Why would I boast at being reduced to a—a flunky? I told him it was no good.”

  “Mr. Bretling, don’t you read the newspapers or watch television or listen to the radio?”

  “No. I prefer classical music on disk. It is soothing to the creative spirit.” He lifted his head and glanced at her; then he looked at her again, and his mouth fell open. “Why do you have tears on your face?”

  Chapter 58

  FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS, Cole stayed home, but Diana hardly saw him when he wasn’t on the telephone or meeting with people. The visitors arrived and departed from the house under the watchful eye of a new security guard posted at the gate to keep reporters and everyone else out.

  Cole was a man with a mission now; he was mobilizing his own forces and he was awe-inspiring to see in action. She watched him sitting behind his desk in the library, his fingers steepled in front of him, as he listened to advice from his Dallas lawyers, discarded most of it, and issued orders of his own. He worked out strategies with attorneys from Washington, made plans with Murray, the chief of security, and simultaneously ran his company from his home. When she least expected it, he would suddenly materialize at her side, pull her into his arms for a long kiss, and then go back to the next meeting, the next phone call.

  Diana loved to watch him, and she hadn’t been entirely idle either. She had made some phone calls of her own, and she had finally located Barbara Hayward in Vermont and spoken to her. Diana spent the rest of her time talking to her own office and reassuring Spence and Corey, her grandparents and mother, that all was well. And then reassuring them again. She even called Willard Bretling twice on a wild hunch that he was lonely and that with a little gentle urging and sincere compliments he could be hurried up with his projects.

  Diana and Cole were to leave for Washington the following morning, and they expected to be there for two days at the most.

  Chapter 59

  WILLARD BRETLING, JOE MURRAY, TRAVIS, Cole, and Diana flew to Dulles in Cole’s private plane; he made the attorneys fly commercial. It was a funny little quirk of his, Diana had discovered. Cole didn’t like lawyers. Even his own. Also on board were four well-dressed men whose fashion accessories included concealed weapons, for which they had licenses.

  Cole told her it was just a whim of Joe’s, but Diana knew better. Joe was certain that Cushman had hired people to find Bretling, and within the next forty-eight hours, Cole was determined to give the Cushman brothers a reason to want him dead.

  The Washington law firm that specialized in SEC matters met with Cole in his hotel suite at eight the next morning, before they went to his eleven o’clock hearing. They argued with each other, and with Cole, about Cole’s nonnegotiable request for a hearing that would be open to members of Congress and the SEC.

  * * *

  Twenty miles away from the hotel, Barbara Hayward was walking into her brother’s town house in Washington, D.C. Her father opened the door. “Barbara!” he exclaimed. “Honey, what are you doing here?”

  She looked around him for Doug and saw him walking into the room, buttoning the cuffs of his shirt. He stopped cold, his pleasure in her visit shaking her resolve a little. “Is Mother here?” she asked, looking about the spacious town house.

  “I’m here, darling,” Jessica said as she floated downstairs in one of the silky, clingy peignoirs she always preferred. “The more important question is, why are you here?”

  Barbara had the horrible feeling that of the three other people in the room, Jessica was already arriving at the correct conclusion. Barbara was sure of it when her mother began talking to her in a way that was calculated to make her sound feebleminded, even now, when she’d finally put her life together and built a good marriage with a husband who loved her.

  “Why aren’t you at your beautiful, peaceful place in Vermont?” Jessica said, rushing over to pour her a cup of tea. “You know how the big cities always upset you. Why are you in Washington?”

  Barbara sat on the sofa and realized she’d finally arrived at the moment she had dreaded since she was fifteen years old. Her mother was going to despise her and make her sound like a maniac or a liar. Doug and her father were going to lose faith in her, no one was going to love her, she’d be abandoned—With an angry shake of her head, Barbara silenced that panicky inner voice that had chanted that same chant until she was nearly crazy with it.

  “I’m here to have some tea,” Barbara said with a calm smile as she took the cup and saucer and patted the seat on the sofa beside her. Doug sat down there. Her father and mother sat down in chairs facing them. “And I’m here to right a wrong that I helped Mother commit fifteen years ago.”

  Jessica shot to her feet. “You’re having one of your spells again. I have some tranquilizers in my purse.”

  “Take one by all means if you need it,” Barbara said, deliberately misunderstanding her. “Daddy,” she said firmly. “Cole Harrison never, ever laid a finger on me. Mother was at the stable that night, and she ran up to my room and begged me to change clothes with her.”

  “Can you believe this!” Jessica shrieked. “You’re completely insane!”

  Her father wearily rubbed his forehead. “Barbara, don’t do this to yourself. It happened, honey. That bastard got you pregnant.”

  Perhaps it was Barbara’s calm that chipped away at her father’s and brother’s disbelief. Perhaps it was her sad smile. “The father of that baby was a boy I met at a rock concert, Daddy. I never even knew his name. I just wanted to see if I could seduce him. I just”—she transferred her gaze to her mother’s white face—“wanted to be like you.”

  Chapter 60

  HOW DID IT GO?” DIANA asked when he returned alone, late in the afternoon.

  Cole pulled her into his arms. “It was a trade-off,” he said with a grin. “We gave a little and we won a little. And then we insisted the actual hearing be postponed until tomorrow morning at eleven.”

  “What did you win?”

  “We persuaded the judge that since the SEC reports to Congress, I should have the right to request that members of Congress and members of the SEC be allowed at the proceedings if they wish to attend. I will also be allowed to make a brief opening statement.”

  She reached up and straightened the knot of the tie she’d given him.

  “I just don’t understand why an open hearing like that is so important to you.”

  “It’s important because my name and my company’s name have been dragged through the dirt over the Cushman deal.” Steel threaded his voice as he added, “I don’t like t
he reasons for it. I don’t like the methods that were used. And I don’t like the participants.”

  Making an effort to soften his voice, he said, “The Cushmans are an old and powerful American family, and they’ve used enormous political pressure and social influence to make certain I take a fall on this. The IRS has already been nudged to get into the act. I’m being tried by politicians and the media, and I don’t like it. Most of all, I despise the hypocrisy behind it.”

  If there was one thing she had learned about her husband in the last few days, it was that, for a man who was supposedly ruthless and unscrupulous, Cole Harrison had some very strong personal convictions about which he was not willing to negotiate.

  “And somehow,” she speculated with a twinge of fear, “you think you can do something about all that tomorrow?”

  “I may be able to demonstrate all that.”

  Diana didn’t know how, and she was afraid to find out for fear it would worry her even more.

  Instead she said, “You told me what you won this morning; what did you give up?”

  “If I insist on making an opening statement, I have to give up my right to plead the Fifth Amendment.”

  ‘“Plead the Fifth Amendment,’ ” Diana said with a shudder. “It makes you sound like some mobster.”

  That made him grin. “I’ve been treated like a mobster. And that,” he whispered, nipping her ear, “is what happens when nobodies from nowhere make it into the major leagues and start playing with the guys in the Brooks Brothers suits.”

  “You don’t wear Brooks Brothers suits,” she chided with a giggle as he continued to tease her ear.

  “I know,” he said with an unabashed grin. “And that’s what pisses them off. They don’t know how to deal with us. We’re unpredictable. We’re out of uniform.”

  In his place, Diana would have been frantic at the possibility of a trial and of being wrongfully convicted on some sort of circumstantial evidence and sent to prison. But Cole had such strength of purpose that it empowered him. He generated his own force and it swept people along with it.

  Diana smoothed her fingers over his hard jaw. “Do you really know what’s going to happen tomorrow?”

  “No. I only know what can happen, and what I want to happen.”

  “What do you want to happen?”

  He turned her face up for a kiss and said with a somber smile, “What I want to happen is this: I want to see your face on the pillow beside mine when I go to sleep and when I wake up. And more than anything else in the world right now, I want to give you everything you want.”

  “You?” she suggested and watched his gray eyes darken with tenderness.

  “That, too,” he whispered.

  The phone rang and Diana reluctantly pulled out of his arms and reached out to answer it. Still in a lighthearted mood, she said, “You’re the expert on human nature, tonight. Use your powers and tell me who this is.”

  Cole threw out the first name that came to mind. “Hayward,” he guessed; then he had to hide his shock when he turned out to be right.

  Diana covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “He wants to come up.”

  In answer, Cole shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded curtly.

  Chapter 61

  DIANA’S BRIEF FANTASY THAT DOUG would apologize and offer to have the hearing called off was not only beyond his ability to fulfill, it was beyond his consideration. Instead, the two men looked at each other like sworn enemies. Cole kept his hands in his pockets and merely lifted his brows in aloof inquiry.

  Doug was equally distant. “I won’t stay long,” he said. “I’ve come to apologize to both of you for everything I said and did that was the result of what I believed happened to Barbara.”

  “Does that mean you’re planning to get off my back?” Cole mocked.

  Doug not only refused to consider that, he was angered by the suggestion that he should. “Not a chance,” he said with biting scorn. “You’ve built an empire by swallowing up solid, reputable, old companies like Cushman who can’t fight you because they can’t survive your tactics.”

  “Are you really that sanctimonious, or are you just plain gullible?” Cole inquired in a deliberately insulting drawl.

  Diana saw Doug’s hands clench into fists, and so did Cole and yet Cole goaded him harder. “Isn’t it interesting that you’ve forgotten to mention the people who profit when I take over—you know, the shareholders of those ‘solid, reputable’ companies with the lousy management and antiquated facilities that don’t benefit anyone except the management at the top, who bleed off the profits before they can trickle down to the shareholders.

  “You don’t give a shit about my ethics or methods or motives. You need a high-profile conquest for your political image, and you made the mistake of selecting me. If I could prove to you that I’m guiltless on every charge you’ve gotten filed against me, you’d still press the issue tomorrow in hope the federal courts will rule against me.”

  “Does the term libel suit have any effect on you?” Doug retorted in a soft, deadly voice.

  “Yes,” Cole scoffed. “It evokes an urge to tell you to shove it up your ass.”

  “Stop it!” Diana cried, forgetting that Doug was no longer the same carefree youth who tried to teach her to drive a stick shift. “Cole is innocent of everything you believe he’s done. I’ve seen the proof, dammit.”

  “He doesn’t want proof,” Cole said, sweeping Doug with a contemptuous glance. “He wants to make a reputation for himself.”

  For some reason, this time when Diana protested Cole’s innocence, Doug faltered. “Are you saying that you can prove you did not start the rumors that drove Cushman’s stock down to half its value?” he demanded.

  Cole folded his arms over his chest and regarded him with more disgust than anger. “You’re an attorney. You prove to me you did not tell any woman at any time in the last three months that she was pretty. Show me how you’d prove it.”

  Having made his point, Cole said, “The people who belong in front of a judge tomorrow are the Cushman brothers and all their cronies.” Cole had meant to end the discussion there, but as he regarded Hayward, he realized there was something about the young senator’s attitude that was—almost—genuine.

  “Just out of curiosity,” he added in a milder voice when Hayward turned and started to leave, “what would you do if I could prove to you that the Cushmans are as guilty as sin?”

  Doug was completely convinced he was being manipulated by a master, but he was curious enough to stop and answer the question. “I would get the judge out of bed tonight to have him sign a subpoena,” Doug stated clearly and concisely. “And then I would make it my personal quest to see that they went to jail, among other things, for misusing the U.S. government.”

  Cole was so amused by that choirboy speech that he decided to call his bluff, if for no other reason than to get a little petty revenge for the misery Hayward had caused Diana in the last two weeks. “You’re completely sure that’s what you’d do?”

  “That is only the beginning of what I’d do,” Doug bit out.

  “In that case, follow me.”

  Cole took him to a room down the hotel corridor, where two well-dressed men appeared to be waiting for a friend who was inside. They stepped aside when Cole nodded at them. “I’m going to introduce you to Mr. Bretling,” Cole said. “And Mr. Bretling is going to tell you all about your allies, the Cushmans, and their alleged wonder chip. After you talk to Mr. Bretling, I’m going to give you a look at Mr. Bretling’s companion who’s traveling with us. She’s on the table over there, inside that jumbo-size, deep-dish pizza box.”

  * * *

  At seven-thirty that evening, while Diana was changing clothes for dinner, she heard her husband and her childhood friend return to the suite. Unable to stand the suspense, she opened the door and peeked into the living room.

  Doug looked extremely angry. He yanked the telephone receiver off its cradle, jerked the knot in his tie loo
se, and started making phone calls. Diana sagged with relief. The thought of using the fact of Doug’s car accident against him had broken her heart. Besides being a truly dedicated and ethical politician, his problem with alcohol had been a rare metabolic allergy and not alcoholism.

  Cole walked into the bedroom and slipped his arms around her, linking his hands at the small of her back while a lazy grin worked its way across his rugged features. In answer to her unspoken question, he said, “The senator would like to join us for dinner.”

  “What did you say?” Diana asked warily.

  “I felt bound by courtesy to consent,” he piously replied.

  “Of course,” Diana said with sham solemnity.

  “But not until he volunteered to pay for it.”

  Chapter 62

  AT TEN-THIRTY THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Kendall and Prentice Cushman and three other sponsors of the class-action suit being prepared against Cole Harrison and Unified Industries shoved their way through the curious crowd into the large room where the hearing was to take place.

  Their friends and allies, Senators Longtree and Kazinski from the state of New York, had saved seats for them in the first row.

  At ten-forty, an assistant to Senator Hayward walked up to the front row and politely handed the two senators and the five members of the Cushman entourage an envelope. In each envelope was a subpoena requiring their presence throughout the hearing today.

  “What the hell is this for?” Senator Longtree said to Prentice Cushman.

  Prentice Cushman didn’t answer because he was watching a familiar elderly man with stooped shoulders walk up the aisle and sit down at Harrison’s table.

  Diana observed the unfolding drama from the back of the room, where she stood beside Senator Byers, who’d convinced the SEC security guard that she was a member of his staff and must be allowed to observe. Periodically he reached over and gave her arm a reassuring squeeze.

  At first everything seemed to move with agonizing slowness. Cole’s attorneys announced that if the judge would permit a degree of flexibility in the presentation of the case, the whole matter could be easily resolved. The judge kept looking at the crowd of two hundred in the room and seemed extremely willing to do anything that would bring the matter to its earliest conclusion. He was already convinced Cole was guilty, anyway, Diana knew.