Loveknot

“I’m studying at the feet of the master,” Devon said with another smile. “No one can sell an idea like you do.”

“I learned everything I know from your grandfather Addison,” Edward said, paying homage in his turn.

“You’ve surpassed your teacher.”

“Flattery will get you another drink.”

“Great.” Devon held out his glass. “Is Phil joining us for dinner?”

“I don’t know. Hasn’t he come out of his bedroom yet?”

“He must know Wellman has the night off. He can’t be using Mom’s ‘snooty English butler’ as an excuse to stay in his room tonight.”

Edward crossed the room to knock lightly on the old man’s door. “Dad? Are you okay? Dinner will be served in fifteen minutes. Aren’t you feeling well?”

“I’m fine.” Phil’s voice was muffled by the heavy wooden door. “I’m not hungry.”

“Are you sick?”

“No.” This time Phil’s voice was stronger. “Let me be.”

Devon was standing at the bar, refilling his glass. He gave his stepfather a quizzical look. Edward shrugged, then asked, “Did he tell you what’s bothering him?”

“He hasn’t been out of his room since I got back from Chicago. Wellman said he was expecting a visit from a lady this afternoon and sent him packing. That’s all I know.”

“Alyssa,” Edward said, more to himself than to Devon. “Dad, let me in.”

“The door isn’t locked.”

Phil’s room was in darkness. Only the light from the sitting room pooling inside the doorway allowed Edward to pick out his father’s seated form.

“Why are you sitting in the dark?”

“It suits my mood.”

“What’s wrong, Pop?” He didn’t often revert to the childhood form of address, but tonight it seemed appropriate. His father had aged a great deal in the past year. First there had been his broken hip. Then the enforced stay at Worthington House, the pressures of the investigation, his grand jury testimony and the murder trial, the memories of the role he’d played in covering up Margaret’s death. And lastly there’d been another move, this time to the lodge instead of back to his room at the Kelseys, where he’d made his home for many years. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

“I’m fine,” Phil answered sharply. “It’s only my heart that aches.”

“You spoke to Alyssa today, didn’t you,” Edward said, as Devon came quietly into the room, carrying a weak whiskey and water, Phil’s usual.

“She is worried about her father.” Phil accepted the drink from Devon’s hand and took a long swallow. He nodded his appreciation as the younger man turned to leave the room. “Don’t go, Devon,” he said. “You are family. You might as well hear this, too.”

As Devon leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb, Edward sat on the edge of the bed. His father’s face was in shadow, and the only clue Edward had to the state of his emotions was the tone of his voice.

“Judson was acquitted of Margaret’s murder,” Edward prompted gently.

“For a man with the pride of Judson Ingalls, that is as bad, worse maybe, then being found guilty.”

Edward nodded his understanding. “I thought Judson looked like hell at the trial.”

“He has let the whole thing affect his mind. I wish to God that I had taken the secret of Margaret’s death to the grave with me.”

“What’s done is done.” Sometimes Edward wondered if his father realized just how close he had come to being implicated in Margaret’s death himself. The old man shifted position and Edward caught a glimpse of the tight set of his jaw. Phil did know. And never had given in to Ethan Trask’s pressure, just as he’d said he would not. Even now, Edward suspected his father hadn’t yet told the whole truth. He took another swallow of his drink.

“Alyssa is starting to remember.”

Edward felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. “Remember what?”

“All these years I’ve been silent for her sake. If Judson was the man I saw leaving Margaret’s room—if they had put him in prison—then Alyssa would have been left alone. So I said nothing.”

“We understand why you did that, Pop.”

“And if I had told the truth, what good would it have done? Should I have said I didn’t recognize the man I saw running from the room, but it didn’t matter? Because what I did see was Alyssa holding the gun…the gun that surely killed her mother?”

Across the room Devon sucked in his breath, but he didn’t say a word.

“I did not tell them then. I will not tell now. But Alyssa is determined to find an answer to her nightmares.” Phil fell silent.

“You saw Margaret’s body,” Devon said in a quiet but ordinary voice. “Do you think she died of a gunshot wound? It seems to me from what Dad said that Amanda Baron did a pretty good job at the trial of disproving Ethan Trask’s theory on that point.”

“I don’t know.” Phil’s voice wavered and faded away as his thoughts turned inward, to the past. “I…I thought so then. Now? Perhaps she died another way. It was a long time ago. I’ve tried very hard to forget everything that happened that night. The only person who knows is the man who was with her—Judson Ingalls or someone else.”

“The police, the D.A.’s office, Ethan Trask’s men, Amanda Baron’s private investigator—they’ve all been trying for months to find out the truth about Margaret’s death,” Edward felt compelled to point out. “No one has come up with one scrap of evidence on who that man might be.”

“We have to try harder. For Alyssa’s sake.” Phil clasped his empty glass tightly between gnarled hands. “Help me. I’m too old to do this alone. Help me because you love her, as I do.”

Edward didn’t say anything. He had no answer to his father’s request. He was determined not to argue with the old man and distress him even further, so he made no reply to his assertion that he himself still loved Alyssa Baron. Phil wouldn’t believe him anyway if he denied the claim.

“I think we need to try and find the man you saw leaving Margaret’s room,” Devon said unexpectedly. “That is, if he’s still alive after all these years.”

“He should be alive,” Phil said with conviction. “Margaret liked her lovers young and strong-winded.”

“What makes you think you can find him when no one else can?” Edward asked, turning in Devon’s direction as he sensed the excitement underlying his stepson’s nonchalant pose.

“I didn’t say I could,” Devon pointed out, with a grin that reminded Edward of his grandfather Addison. “But I’d like to try. Since the plans we’ve discussed for Ingalls F and M are already in motion, and since I’m going to be hanging around here for the next few weeks while they take shape, I’d like to take a shot at it.”

Edward glanced sharply at his father to gauge his reaction to Devon’s last remark. Phil merely nodded his agreement, still lost in his own thoughts. The mention of Edward’s plans for Judson’s foundering company seemed to have gone over his head. Good. Edward didn’t want anyone, even Phil, to know what he had in store for the Ingalls’s plant.

“How do you intend to start?”

“My best bet is probably the old guest registers,” Devon said thoughtfully. “Mother never had a party that she didn’t have her guests sign a book, remember? And I’ll bet Margaret Ingalls was the same. Nothing like that turned up at the trial, right? So maybe they’re still here.”

“Most of Margaret’s friends were from Chicago. Ethan Trask tracked down a couple of them, but it wasn’t easy. Amanda Baron’s man didn’t have much better luck. It sounds to me like you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

“Yeah,” Devon said with another grin, “it does.”

“Do your best,” Phil said, leaning heavily on his cane as he rose from his chair. “We have to find the man I saw, for Alyssa’s sake.”