He stood unmoving, a muscle leaping in his clenched jaw, refusing to reach for the keys, and Meredith felt as if she were dying inside. She dropped them on the table and fled. Downstairs she hailed a cab.

Sales at the Dallas, New Orleans, and Chicago stores picked up surprisingly well the next morning; Meredith felt relief but no particular joy as she watched the figures change on the computer screen in her office. The way she'd felt eleven years ago when she'd lost Matt could not compare to the anguish she felt now—because eleven years ago, she'd been helpless to change the outcome of events. This time, the choice had been entirely hers, and she could not shake the agonizing uncertainty that she might have made a hideous mistake, not even when Sam Green brought her an updated report that indicated Matt had bought even more shares of Bancroft stock than they'd originally realized.

Twice during the day, she made Mark Braden phone the Bomb and Arson squads in Dallas, New Orleans, and Chicago, hoping against hope that one of them might have turned up a lead and failed to notify her. She was looking for something, anything, that would justify her changing her mind and calling Matt, but there were no leads in the bombings.

After that, she moved listlessly through the rest of her day, her head aching from a sleepless night. The afternoon paper was lying outside her door when she got home that night and, without bothering to take off her coat, Meredith scanned it anxiously, looking for some news that the police had a suspect in Spyzhalski's murder, but there was none. She turned on the television set to catch the 6 o'clock news for the same reason—and with the same result.

In a futile effort to stop herself from wallowing in her misery, she decided to put her Christmas tree up. She'd finished decorating it and was arranging the little nativity scene beneath the tree at 10 o'clock, when the late television news came on. Her heart pounding with hope, she sat on the floor beside the tree, her arms wrapped around her knees, her attention riveted on the screen.

But although the Spyzhalski murder was mentioned, as were Bancroft's bomb scares, there was nothing said that might exonerate Matt.

Despondent, Meredith turned off the television, but remained where she was, staring at the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree. Matt's deep voice spoke in her mind, tormentingly familiar, quietly profound: Sooner or later, you're going to have to take a risk and trust me completely, Meredith. You can't outwit fate by trying to stand on the sidelines and place little side bets about the outcome of life. Either you wade in and risk everything to play the game, or you don't play at all. And if you don't play, you can't win. When the time had actually come for her to make the choice, she hadn't been able to take the risk.

She thought of other things he'd said to her too, beautiful things spoken with tender solemnity. If you'll move in with me, I'll give you paradise on a gold platter. Anything you want—everything you want. I come with it, of course. It's a package deal...

The poignancy of his words made her chest ache. She wondered what Matt was doing now and if he was waiting, hoping she would call. The answer to that question was in his parting words last night. Now, for the very first time, the import of his words, the finality of them, actually hit her, and she realized he wouldn't be waiting for her to call now or ever. The choice he'd forced her to make last night had been irrevocable in his opinion: Either give me your hand, or end it now, and put us both out of our misery.

When she left him standing there last night, she hadn't completely understood that her decision had to be permanent, that he had absolutely no intention of giving her another chance to go back to him if—when—he was proven innocent of the things she believed he'd done. She understood that now. She should have realized it then. And even if she had, she still wouldn't have been able to trust him and give him her hand. The evidence was against him, all of it.

Permanent...

The figures in the little nativity scene wavered as scalding tears filled her eyes, and she put her head in her arms. "Oh, please," Meredith wept brokenly, "don't let this happen to me. Please, don't."

Chapter 55

At five o'clock the following afternoon, Meredith was summoned to the boardroom where an emergency board of directors meeting had been under way for several hours. When she walked into the room, she was surprised to see that the head of the table had evidently been reserved for her. Trying not to feel overly alarmed by the cold, grim faces that watched her as she sat down, she looked around at everyone, including her father. "Good afternoon, gentlemen." In the chorus of "good afternoons" that answered, the only really friendly voice belonged to old Cyrus Fortell. "Afternoon, Meredith," the old man replied, "and may I say you're looking lovelier than ever."

Meredith looked terrible and she knew it, but she flashed him a grateful smile when normally his patently transparent references to her sex during meetings like this had annoyed her. She'd assumed that part of the reason for this emergency meeting had to do with Matt and that they were going to insist on explanations from her, but she'd also assumed they were going to ask for updates on other matters. So she was completely taken aback when the board's chairman, who was seated on her right, nodded to the folder on the table in front of her and said in an icy voice, "We've had those documents prepared for your signature, Meredith. At the conclusion of this meeting, we'll file them with the appropriate authorities. Take a moment to look them over. Since most of us participated in drafting them, there's no need for us to do likewise."

"I haven't seen them," Cyrus protested, opening his folder at the same time she did.

For a second Meredith couldn't believe what she was seeing, and when she did accept it, bile rose up in her throat, strangling and sickening her. The first document was an official complaint to the Securities and Exchange Commission, stating that she had personal knowledge that Matthew Farrell was deliberately manipulating Bancroft's stock, that he was using the insider information that he'd gleaned from her to make his transactions, and demanding that he be halted and investigated. The second complaint was to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and to the chiefs of police in Dallas, New Orleans, and Chicago, stating that she believed, and had reason to believe, that Matthew Farrell was responsible for the bomb scares in Bancroft & Company's stores in those cities. The third complaint was also directed to the police department; it stated that she had overheard Matthew Farrell threaten the life of Stanislaus Spyzhalski during a phone call with his attorney, and that she was waiving her right to silence as Matthew Farrell's wife, and herewith issuing a public statement that she believed he was responsible for Spyzhalski's murder.