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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