Michelle kept a sober expression. “I can’t exclude anybody,” she repeated.
“Don’t tell me you’re serious?”
“I just want to make the suggestion, and have you accept it, that we can’t afford to ignore any possibility.”
There. It had come out somewhat lamer than she had intended, but to someone of Eric’s perspicacity it would make the point.
And as she watched, the shutters slammed down. He shook his head curtly, managing only with an effort to stop short of overt anger. “No, that’s not possible. Please, I don’t want to discuss this. Let this one ride.”
The data didn’t fit the theory. So what was Michelle to do now? Was this really the time to go wading in with a two-by-four and tell him she had a tape; that his son had been spying on his wife, who was not only betraying his business but had a lover too—and oh yes, by the way, they were planning to murder him? If he was this blocked to the small test that she’d tried, what would pushing it further achieve, other than produce an emotional standoff that would push any chance of their resuming on a constructive note only farther into the future? Better to let it rest for now. Leave the thought to soak in; give the spinal-cord reaction time to die away. Wasn’t that, after all, as much as she’d told herself she had set out to accomplish?
She backed off with a sigh and enough of a smile to be conciliatory. “Of course, I understand how you feel,” she replied. “But you have to understand me too, Eric. I just wanted you to be aware that from where I see things, nothing is impossible.”
Eric nodded, made a face, and raised a hand to show that he concurred. There was still some visible ruffling of the feathers . . . but the situation was defused.
They had the time, Michelle reminded herself. There was no indication of anything drastic about to happen soon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Doug Corfe sat in his second-floor office in the Neurodyne building and stared at the far wall, as he seemed to have been doing for half the afternoon. And that wasn’t good enough. There was work to be done. But he couldn’t get the situation with Vanessa off his mind. Eric and Kevin were too close, too much like family for him not to feel responsible. And even if that had not been the case, it wasn’t something that a person of his makeup could sit by and let happen without at least trying to do something.
But do what? His mind seemed to oscillate between extremes like a beach ball rolling from end to end on a teeter-totter. Part of the time he felt that Michelle was being too cautious—weren’t they talking about somebody’s life being at stake here, for heaven’s sake? He would go to the police himself if she wouldn’t—and who cared whether or not there was enough evidence to make a case, who could prove what, or about all the other lawyer’s technicalities? Several times he had been on the verge of calling them right there, from his office. . . .
And then, like a view of a wire cube, his perspective would shift, and the whole line of thought would appear as no more than a sop to his own conscience—fooling himself that it would mean anything to passively pass over to others what he had already been told would do no good. At that point he wanted to throw aside all caution completely, and would find himself seriously entertaining fantasies about arranging an accident himself—and then shake himself out of it.
Maybe something not quite as drastic, then. Weren’t there supposed to be professionals who specialized in making sure that messages got received clearly—messages like, “Too bad, what happened to Martin’s nice boat; guess what might be next if anything happens to Eric.”? . . . But no, it was just another fantasy. He wouldn’t even know where to start, even if he were serious. The result of it all was that he was still sitting there more than halfway though the afternoon, with nothing done that was worth speaking of, when Kevin called.