The Other Side - J. D. Robb [93]
“Spare us your self-serving blather,” Lucien butted in. “Is your name Henry Cleland? Is it? If not, are you or are you not a liar?”
Henry kept looking at Angie, no one else. “My name is Henry Wilde. Cleland’s my middle name. But I never plagiarized anything. That was a put-up job, I swear.”
“That’s it?” Lucien asked, as if amazed. “That’s your defense? You admit all the rest? You’re a drunk, a philanderer, you seduced another man’s fiancée?”
“Yes. I mean, no. I didn’t ‘seduce’ her.”
Angie stared at her hands in her lap.
“I got fired because this guy, this injured party, filed a story under my name that he swiped from another paper. For revenge. A frame, he even planted fake notes in my desk. But believe me, Angie, Walker—I swear, I never plagiarized. I could never.”
Walker said nothing, and his face was unreadable. Angie remembered the articles and essays she’d seen scattered about Henry’s room, all written by people with other names. Stolen? She would never tell—they could torture her before she would tell anyone about those papers—but the evidence seemed damning. And he looked so ashamed. He looked destroyed. She wasn’t sure whose disappointment in him hurt him more, hers or Walker’s.
“I’ve heard enough. Come, Chester,” Mrs. Grimmett ordered, and her husband dutifully rose from the sofa.
Mrs. Mortimer got up uncertainly. She’d fallen under Henry’s spell, too; “Such a charmer,” she would say whenever she saw him. She looked as if a beloved pet had snapped at her.
“Shame on you,” Chester Grimmett said in a low voice to Henry—but Angie heard it because every one of her senses was focused on him. “You’ve insulted my wife. If I can think of a law you’ve broken, I’ll prosecute you for it.” And he followed Mrs. Grimmett out of the room.
Lucien and Edwardia left next.
When Angie stood up, Henry came toward her quickly, one hand up as if to stop her from leaving. She hadn’t been going to. She didn’t think. She really had no idea what she was going to do.
“We’ll be out in the hall,” Norah told her in a low, urgent tone. “Are you all right?”
Angie nodded.
Norah took her husband’s arm. Walker’s face was still a blank, but Norah’s said if looks could kill, Henry would be stretched out on the floor, stone dead.
When they were gone, a new awful silence filled the room, and she wondered who would have the courage to speak first. Henry looked . . . so very guilty. At length, with a ghastly attempt at a smile, he said, “Where’s a secret sliding panel when you need one?”
Another exquisitely painful pause. She couldn’t help contrasting it with all the easy times, the banter and laughter, everything so natural between them. Good-bye to all that. “You don’t owe me any explanations,” she said eventually. “We both knew how this would end.”
“What do you mean? I didn’t. Angie, I’m sorry, I honestly thought I could save the house for you. That we could.”
She hadn’t meant that ending, but she was relieved that he’d misunderstood—now they wouldn’t have to speak of it at all. “It doesn’t matter. Apparently I’m not meant to live here, that’s all. It’s not a tragedy.”
He made a move toward her; she retreated.
He yanked on his tie, a habit when he was frustrated. “Christ, I’ve ruined everything.”
“It really doesn’t matter.”
“Stop saying that. I know you’re angry.”
“Why would I be?” Although now that he’d said the word, she could feel the emotion. As if he’d opened a gate and gestured her through it. “I hired you because I thought you were a crook. Nothing’s new, except now there’s proof. Don’t, Henry,” she said when he reached out again. “I mean Harry. Mr. Wilde.” She shut her eyes for a second. “Is anything you said to me true? Any of it?”
“No.”
She turned to leave.
“But that’s because I ran out of time! I was going to tell you my real name, my past, how I got into this stupid business—”
“I don