Annie's Rainbow - Fern Michaels [124]
“I’ve been ready for weeks now. I love autumn, with the changing of the leaves and the smell of burning leaves. I like the football games and all the holidays. It’s so different. I know you. said you hated all that. I guess I don’t understand why.”
“It was another time. I’m an island boy. I guess I’ll always be an island boy. I thought you were going to spend the summer here. Instead you blow in and blow out like the summer winds. When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow. I just came to say good-bye.”
“Your mother insisted, is that it?” Parker grinned.
“Something like that. I would have done it over the phone. Lately it doesn’t seem like I have enough hours in the day. This case kicked my butt. It kicked all our butts. We have to wrap it up by next week. All we have is speculation, and each one of us has a different idea. How do you defend something that can’t be proven?”
“The law is not my forte, Ben.” He was a handsome young man, Parker thought. Bright, intelligent, dedicated to learning the law and motivated beyond belief. He wondered where he’d come by all those traits. “Do you want to run it by me for my opinion?”
“Yes and no. I have to get back home to pack up. If I miss my flight, I’m up a tree as the saying goes.”
“I have an idea. Why don’t I fly you to school. I can take a few days off here. We can talk through the flight.”
“I’m meeting up with my partner in LA. We planned to fly back together. Will it be a problem?”
“Not at all. So, you didn’t solve the case, eh?”
“We did and we didn’t. As I said, we each have a different opinion. I think mine is right on the money, but then Andreas thinks his is, too. I’m the prosecution, Andreas is the defense. I think I can make a good case. The real reason I came here, Uncle Parker, is to warn you. I talked about it to Mom, and she said she didn’t think you knew about it. She said she thought you needed to know.”
“Maybe you better explain what you’re talking about,” Parker said.
“It’s about Miss Clark and her friends. The lady who owns all those Daisy Shops. The same Miss Clark you were going to marry.”
Parker’s face set into hard lines. “Let me make sure I understand this. The case your professor assigned you, a criminal case of some sort, has to do with Annie Clark? I think you need to explain that to me, Ben.”
“I didn’t know she was the lady you were engaged to until after the fact. When I finally realized it, I tried to switch up with some of the other guys, but they were already into their cases and didn’t want to trade. I didn’t say anything because everything I knew at that point was circumstantial, and I didn’t want to open cans of worms for the family. Things like this tend to backfire and cause all kinds of problems. Like I said, it was all circumstantial.”
“Just spit it out, Ben, and let me be the judge. What is it you think she did?”
The words ricocheted out of the young man’s mouth like bullets from a machine gun. Parker listened, his eyes popping and his jaw dropping. His brain whirled. Now he had the answer as to why Annie had broken off their relationship. For two months he’d played and replayed their two-hour conversation over and over in his mind. Now it all made sense.
“Annie Clark is an honorable person, Ben. She didn’t rob any bank. I’d stake my life on that.”
“You weren’t listening, Uncle Parker. I never said Miss Clark robbed the bank. I came to the same conclusion the insurance investigator came to, and I can’t prove it any more than he could prove it. The case is closed. Miss Clark committed the perfect crime in my opinion. And she got away with it. Where the law is concerned, opinions and theories don’t work. Only hard, provable facts count. I’m going to zero out because I can’t prove anything.”
Parker felt his stomach start to churn. “Is that how she started her business, with the bank’s money?”
“No. I have every profile ever written about her. She’s just who she says she is. She started the business on the proverbial shoestring. There is no money trail. There’s nothing. The same thing goes