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  “I’m sorry, but Richard can’t be bothered right now. He’s going to be speaking in just a few minutes.”

  “What I have to say to him won’t take but a few minutes,” Annie said.

  When Annie tried to move past Webber, he reached out to stop her, but before his hand touched her arm, Dane grabbed Webber’s wrist and twisted it behind his back. Murdock moved between Dane and the crowd in front of the podium.

  “Don’t ever try to touch her again,” Dane warned Webber.

  Taking advantage of the moment, Annie ran for the podium steps. But after she’d taken only one step up, Dickie Hughes loomed in front of her.

  “Father can’t speak to you right now, Annie,” Dickie told her.

  “Look, it’s like this,” Annie said. “Either your father speaks to me alone now or I’ll ask my questions in front of this crowd when Richard finishes his little campaign spiel.”

  “Wait here.”

  Annie nodded and waited while Dickie scurried up the steps and across the podium to whisper into his father’s ear. Richard looked down at Annie, his gaze deadly cold, then he said something to Gloria, got up and came across the podium alone.

  “What’s this all about, Annie?” Richard asked as he joined her at the foot of the steps.

  Dane stood guard at Annie’s side. She glanced back and saw that Murdock’s big body blocked Jason Webber from approaching.

  “Why haven’t you taken our calls for the past two days?” Dane asked. “We’ve uncovered some more information that leads us to believe that Martin Edwards’s secretary used some type of evidence that the man was murdered to blackmail someone in authority at Hughes Chemicals and Plastics.”

  A pulsing vein in Richard’s neck bulged. Although he controlled his facial muscles so that his expression didn’t change, he could not disguise the darkening of his eyes or the slight flush that colored his neck.

  “This isn’t the time or place to discuss such a delicate matter.” Richard looked past Annie, straight into Dane’s face. “Son, I know nothing about any evidence or any blackmail. Martin Edwards’s secretary left our employ right after his death. If Alice Renegar has told you anything—”

  “Ms. Renegar died last month.” Annie thought Richard Hughes had to be an excellent actor to put on such a good performance.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Richard said. “But the fact remains that I am in no way involved in a murder or a coverup and I know nothing about either.”

  “Then why did Hughes Chemicals and Plastics pay Alice Renegar ten thousand dollars a month for nearly twenty years?” Dane asked.

  Richard’s face crumbled. His jaw sagged. His mouth drooped. His eyes shut as if he were uttering a silent prayer. And then, as suddenly as he’d lost control, he regained it and said, “If this is true, then I’ll get to the bottom of these accusations. If someone in my company has committed a criminal act, I’ll find him and—”

  “Even if it’s your own son?” Annie asked.

  “Yes.” Richard squared his shoulders. “Even if it’s Dickie.”

  “You have forty-eight hours,” Dane told his former father-in-law, and at that precise moment, he felt sorry for the man. “After that, we’ll go to the police with everything we know.”

  “Then you have the evidence?” Richard asked.

  “We have a great deal of information,” Dane said. “And we have every reason to believe that the evidence Halley Robinson sent Annie will be in our possession before the week’s out.” Dane was bluffing, of course, but Richard had no way of knowing that.

  Dickie called down from the top edge of the steps. “Father, they’re going to announce you in a couple of minutes.”

  “I have to go,” Richard said. “Give me that forty-eight hours.”

  When Annie and Dane walked past Jason Webber, he all but hissed at them. His dark gaze bored a hole into Annie.

  “You have no right to cause trouble for Richard,” Webber said to Dane. “He thought he could trust you.”

  “And I thought I could trust him,” Dane said. “Seems we were both wrong.”

  “This isn’t over, Ms. Harden.” Webber snarled at Annie.

  Dane got up in Webber’s face and said, “That sounded like a threat. For your sake, I hope it wasn’t.”

  As Annie walked away, Dane and Murdock flanking her, she sighed. “Well, they’ve got to make a move now,” she said. “We’ve thrown down the gauntlet.”

  “You just have to be right in the middle of it, don’t you?” Grasping Annie’s arm, Dane halted her before she reached her mother’s picnic table. “You couldn’t let me take care of it. Why not, honey? Do you still think I’d let Richard off the hook if he is guilty.”

  “If he’s guilty! Glaring at him, Annie planted her hands on her hips. “If? Do you honestly still have any doubts? He’s guilty of something, even if it’s just protecting his son.”

  “Or protecting your uncle,” Dane said.

  Annie nodded, knowing that Uncle Royce was possibly involved. He’d been a major stockholder in the local Hughes business for years and had even served on the board of directors for as long as Annie could remember.

  “Let’s go on over and say hello to your mama.” Murdock lifted Annie’s arm out of Dane’s grasp and laced it through his. “There’s no reason why we can’t join your family for lunch and enjoy this beautiful day. I don’t think anybody’s going to be taking any pot shots at you, not with this crowd around.”

  Turning her back on Dane, Annie allowed Murdock to escort her to her mother’s table. Dane joined them a few minutes later, but remained silent and brooding, even when Jennifer used all her Southern belle charm in an effort to bring him into the conversation.

  When Royce Layman tried to question Dane about their little confrontation with Richard Hughes, Murdock stepped in and answered with an out-and-out lie.

  “Oh, they were just wishing Mr. Hughes good luck with his speech today.”

  Annie noticed the concerned look on her uncle’s face and once again wondered just how much he knew. She was having as difficult a time accepting the possibility that her uncle might be involved in a crime as Dane was accepting that Richard Hughes could be.

  Annie paced the floor. She couldn’t sleep. She and Dane hadn’t said a word to each other since she’d demanded to know if he still had doubts that Richard Hughes was up to his eyeballs in the coverup of Martin Edwards’s murder. In retrospect, she admitted to herself that she’d been wrong to practically accuse him of stupidity, of his being unwilling to accept the possibility that Richard was involved. She knew better. She knew that despite how painful it had been for him, Dane had accepted the undeniable truth. But she had lashed out at him, and even when she’d seen the hurt look in his eyes, she hadn’t taken back her accusation.

  A part of her was afraid to totally trust Dane, to believe he truly was different from her ex-husband. That he’d never betray her, not even to protect his beloved Lorna’s father.

  Annie gasped when her bedroom door opened. Dane hadn’t knocked before he entered her room and invaded her privacy. He paused, looked directly at her and then closed and locked the door. Annie trembled.

  “We’re going to settle this once and for all,” he said. “No matter how your father or your ex-husband treated you, no matter how they hurt you, you’ve got to know that I’m nothing like them.” He came toward her, his steps slow, steady and deliberate. “Regardless of what it costs me and no matter what I have to give up, I’m on the side of truth. I’m on your side, Annie, one hundred percent.”

  “I know.” The words rushed out of her on a whispery breath.

  “I’m going to see this thing through to the end, regardless of how it turns out,” he said as he moved closer and closer to her. “You, and only you, are what’s important to me. You’re what matters. Not Richard Hughes. Not generations of tradition. Not my pride. Not…” He stood directly in front of Annie, but didn’t touch her. “Not even Lorna.”

  Annie swayed tow