Just Take My Heart - Mary Higgins Clark [13]
Knowing Gregg, he was sure that on the surface he would be composed no matter what accusations the prosecutor threw at him. But Gregg's emotions ran deep. At the memorial service he had been composed. Later that evening in his apartment, with only Nat?alie's mother and Katie and Mike present, he had suddenly started sobbing inconsolably, then, embarrassed, had rushed from the room.
There was no question he had been crazy about Natalie. But had that outburst been pure grief, or had it been remorse? Or was it terror at the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison? Mike wasn't sure anymore. For some reason the image of Scott Peterson tacking up posters with pictures of his missing wife when he had in fact murdered her and tossed her body in the Pacific Ocean surfaced whenever he thought of the evening that Gregg had broken down.
“Mike.”
His secretary was on the intercom. Startled out of his reverie, Michael said, “Oh, uh, yes, Liz.”
“Katie Aldrich is here. She'd like to see you.” “Katie! Of course. Send her in.”
Mike rushed to get up and around his desk. As the door opened, he greeted the slender, golden-haired fourteen-year-old with open arms. “Katie, I've missed you.” He could feel her trembling as he embraced her.
“Mike, I'm so scared. Tell me there's no way they'll find Daddy guilty.”
“Katie, your dad has a good lawyer, the best. Everything rests on the testimony of a convicted crook.”
“Why haven't we seen you in six months?” She searched his face carefully.
Mike led her over to the comfortable chairs in front of the windows that overlooked the Rockefeller Center skating rink. After they were both seated, he reached over and took her hand. “Katie, that was your dad's idea, not mine.”
“No, Mike. When he called you with that suggestion, it was his way of testing you. He said that if you were convinced he was innocent, you wouldn't have taken him up on that offer.”
Mike realized he was ashamed to see the anger and hurt now in her eyes. Was she right? “Katie, I'm a journalist. I should not be privy to your dad's defense and if I were in and out of your apartment, it might be inevitable that I hear things that I shouldn't know. As it is, I will have to tell my audience repeatedly that I am and have been a close friend of your dad, but will not speak to him until the proceedings are over.”
“Can you help influence public opinion so that if he is acquitted” —Katie hesitated — “when he is acquitted, people will un?derstand he is an innocent man who was unfairly accused?”
“Katie, the public will have to make that decision for them?selves.”
Katie Aldrich pulled her hands from his and stood up. “I'm supposed to go back to Choate for the fall semester, but I'm not going. I'll get a tutor to keep up with the schoolwork. I'm going to be at that trial every day. Dad needs someone rock solid in his corner. I'd hoped you'd be there, too. Dad always said that you were an awesome defense attorney.”
Without waiting for his answer she hurried to the door. As she put her hand on the knob she turned back to him. “Hope you have a big audience, Mike,” she said. “If you do, I'm sure they'll give you a big bonus.”
Just Take My Heart
10
By the end of the week before the trial was to begin, Emily was cautiously optimistic that the case preparation had gone well. The summer had disappeared in a blur. In July, she had managed to take a week's vacation to visit her father and his wife, Joan, in Florida and then had spent five days in August with her brother Jack and his fam?ily in California.
It had been wonderful to see all of them, but always in the back of her mind her thoughts had been pulling her back to the case. During July and August she had meticulously interviewed the eigh?teen witnesses she