space, but she was given no time to dwell on it.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Ms. Corbett?” With the door shut behind her, the warmth had vanished from his voice, to be replaced by polite interest. It didn’t escape her notice that he didn’t invite her to sit.
Reaching into her purse, she extracted an envelope. “I came to return something of yours.” When he made no move toward her, she approached him, took his hand and pressed it into his palm. Her gaze fixed on his, she curled his fingers around the packet, and tried to ignore the warmth that transferred at the touch. “I don’t keep money I haven’t earned.”
He glanced down, his expression blank for a moment. “Ah. I’d forgotten.” He tucked the envelope in the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
“I can’t remember ever being so careless with five hundred dollars, but I guess you had a lot on your mind.”
“I did, yes,” he replied.
Sensing that now-or-never time had arrived, Tori drew in a deep breath and barreled on. “Your visit got me a little curious.” Okay, it had gotten her a lot curious, but it seemed wise to gloss over that fact. “I couldn’t help wondering what could have been so important about a twenty-year-old case that would have had you looking up my dad again.”
He lifted an elegantly clad shoulder, the casual gesture at odds with his aristocratic bearing. “Nothing to wonder about, really. Just tying up some loose ends.”
He was, she decided studying him, lying through his perfectly even teeth. Running the tip of her tongue over the incisor she’d chipped slightly on Ralphie Lowell’s head in sixth grade, she considered how to proceed. Although she was something of an expert in the art of bluff and parry, he didn’t seem to be the type of man to appreciate such tactics. In the end she thought a straight forward approach would serve best.
“A man like you doesn’t check on ‘loose ends’ himself unless it’s a matter of some importance.” She found it a bit disconcerting to meet his expressionless regard but kept her own gaze steady. “You could have called, or had any number of your employees dispatched to make the inquiry. That you came in person tells me the nature of your visit was personal. Two decades ago you would have been what? Eighteen?” Her words brought a frost to his eyes that dispelled any pretense of civility. He wouldn’t appreciate that she’d researched him before coming here, although certainly he should have expected it.
She moved away from him, trailing her fingers over the back of a chair covered in midnight-blue leather with the texture of melted butter. “I’ve drawn some conclusions about what my dad might have been working on for your father. You never really said that day in the office.”
“I didn’t, did I? Most would consider that to mean I wasn’t interested in discussing it with you.”
His expression, she noted with a detached sort of amusement, had gone from frosty to glacial. She was certain she was supposed to be cowering before it. But she’d always had more courage than sense. “It occurred to me that you didn’t get what you’d come for on your visit.”
A sudden stillness came over him. “You mean you found the files after all?”
With no little regret, she shook her head. “The fire that destroyed Dad’s office wiped out an entire city block. No, I mean you came for answers but you didn’t find them.” Circling the chair, she dropped into it, tilted her chin toward him. “I’m offering to help you get them.”
His smile was somehow more insulting than his earlier dismissiveness. “An intriguing proposition from an equally fascinating woman. However, I’m not in need of the services you’re offering.”
“I think you are.” She doubted he was used to being disputed. A man didn’t rise to the level he had in the corporate world without encountering his share of yes-men. “Whatever brought you to my office was something you want to keep private, or you wouldn’t have come yourself. I can’t get you the files you’re seeking, but I think I could reconstruct the information that was in them.”
Reaching down for her battered briefcase, she placed it on her lap and snapped the locks open. “You said your father had hired mine. Given the time period you mentioned, I figured this might have been what Dad was investigating.” She handed him the stack of newspaper clippings, the headline of the one on top proclaiming, Tremaine Tot Returned Safely. The others in the pile were no less attention grabbing. Kidnapping Plot Foiled. Teenage Boy Local Hero. It wouldn’t do for Tori to admit to the curiosity that had kicked in as she’d started researching the Tremaine family. Growing up in Louisiana there was no way she could have avoided hearing the occasional talk about the tragedies that had dogged the prominent family all those years ago.
But immersing herself in the stories, she’d soon grown fascinated by the details. The passage of time didn’t lessen the horror felt at the thought of a three-year-old child being snatched out of her bed in the middle of the night; hadn’t dimmed the tragedy of the girl’s parents being killed in a car accident less than six months after her safe return.
Tremaine made no move to take the stack of articles, and his voice when it came was more than a little disparaging. “If you were half as careful with your research as you’d like me to believe, you’d have discovered that I’m no fan of tabloidism.”
Tori dropped the clippings back in the open briefcase. “And your family’s no stranger to it. I got that. But a good investigator uses every tool at her disposal, and newspapers are a great place to start.” Looking up again, she caught his gaze on her. “Do you have the name of the person who hired my Dad after your parents’ accident?”
He didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. She saw the answer on his face, in the deliberately blank mask that he’d drawn over his features. She sat back, a bit stunned. “It was you, wasn’t it? But you were barely more than a kid yourself at the time.”
“I’ve always felt that need dictates maturity more reliably than does age.”
She could wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. Even at twenty-eight her husband wouldn’t have approached anyone’s definition of mature. Which was only one of the many reasons he’d become her ex.
Thoughts of Kevin Stephen Corbett III were delegated to a particularly shadowy corner of her mind, where she preferred to keep them. “So you hired my dad to investigate your parents’ accident?” She didn’t need his answer to be certain she was on the right track. Which was fortunate, because he didn’t appear disposed to give her one.
“Ms. Corbett…” It was clear Tremaine had reached the end of his patience.
“Earlier you called me Tori,” she reminded him.
He drew in a breath, expelled it slowly. “Tori.” She decided her name had sounded better on his lips when it wasn’t uttered from a tightly clenched jaw. “The only help I was interested in you cannot provide. You can’t produce the files and, unfortunately for us both, your father can’t answer my questions.” He headed for the door, a not-so-subtle indication that the meeting was over. “Thank you for returning the money. I hadn’t expected it.”
“Then you must be used to dealing with a different caliber of people.”
He turned, his lips curving just slightly. “I think we can both be assured of that.”
“So if you’re the one who hired my dad after your parents’ accident, you’d
