Proof of Innocence: Yesterday's Lies / Devil's Gambit. Lisa Jackson
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“So why don’t you just take yourself and that tremendous ego of yours out of here? If you need a wheelbarrow to carry it there’s one in the barn.”
He shoved his body into the doorway, wedging himself between the door and the jamb. Tory was strong, she put all of her weight against the door, but she was no match for the powerful thrust of his shoulders as he pushed his way into the darkened hallway. “You’re going to hear what I have to say whether you like it or not.”
“No!”
“You don’t have much of a choice.”
“Get out, Trask.” Her words sounded firm, but inwardly she wavered; the desperation she had noticed earlier flickered in his midnight-blue eyes. As much as she hated him, she still felt a physical attraction to him. God, she was a fool.
“In a minute.”
She stepped backward and placed her hands on her hips. Her breath was expelled in a sigh of frustration. “Since I can’t convince you otherwise, why don’t you just say what you think is so all-fired important and then leave.”
He eyed her suspiciously and walked into the den.
“Wait a minute—”
“I need your help.”
Tory’s heart nearly stopped beating. There was a thread of hopelessness in his voice that touched a precarious part of her mind and she had to remind herself that he was the enemy. He always had been. Though Trask seemed sincere she couldn’t, wouldn’t let herself believe him. “No way.”
“I think you might change your mind.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Tory whispered.
She followed him into the den, her father’s den, and swallowed back her anger and surprise. Trask had placed a hand on the lava rock fireplace and his head was lowered between his shoulders. How familiar it seemed to have him back in the warm den her father had used as an office. Knotty pine walls, worn comfortable furniture, watercolors of the Old West, Indian weavings in orange and brown, and now Trask, leaning dejectedly against the fireplace, looking for all the world as if he truly needed her help, made her throat constrict with fond memories. God, how she had loved this man. Her fist curled into balls of defeat.
“I’m not kidding, Tory.” He glanced up at her and she read the torment in his eyes.
“No way.”
“Just listen to me. That’s all I ask.”
Anger overcame awe. “I can’t help you. I won’t.”
His pleas turned to threats. “You’d better.”
“Why? What can you do to me now? Destroy my reputation? Ruin my family. Kill my father? You’ve already done all that, there’s nothing left. You can damned well threaten until you’re blue in the face and it won’t affect me...or this ranch.”
In the darkness his eyes searched her face, possessively reading the sculpted angle of her jaw, the proud lift of her chin, the tempting mystique of her intelligent gray-green eyes. “Nothing’s left?” he whispered, his voice lowering. One finger reached upward and traced the soft slope of her neck.
Tory’s heart hammered in her chest. “Nothing,” she repeated, clenching her teeth and stepping away from his warm touch and treacherous blue eyes.
He grimaced. “This has to do with your father.”
She whirled around to face him. “My father is dead.” Shaking with rage she pointed an imperious finger at his chest. “Because of you.”
His jaw tightened and he paced the length of the room in an obvious effort to control himself. “You’d like to believe that I was responsible for your father’s death, wouldn’t you?”
All of the anguish of five long years poured out of her. “You were. He could have had the proper medical treatment if he hadn’t been in prison—”
“It makes it easier to think that I was the bad guy and that your father was some kind of a saint.”
“All I know is that my father would never have been a part of anything like murder, Trask.” She was visibly shaking. All the old emotions, love, hate, fear, awe and despair, churned inside her. Tears stung her eyelids and she fought a losing battle with the urge to weep.
“Your father was a desperate man,” he said quietly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Desperate men make mistakes, do things they wouldn’t normally do.” The look on his face was pensive and worried. She noticed neither revenge nor anger in his eyes. Trask actually believed that her father had been nothing better than a common horse thief.
“You’re grasping at straws. My father was perfectly fine.”
Trask crossed the room, leaned an arm on the mantel and rubbed his chin. All the while his dusky blue eyes held hers. “The Lazy W was losing money hand over fist.” She was about to protest but he continued. “You know it as well as anyone. When you took over, you were forced to go to the bank for additional capital to keep it running.”
“Because of all the bad publicity. People were afraid to buy Quarter Horses from the Lazy W because of the scandal.”
“Right. The scandal. A simple scam to make money by claiming that the purebred Quarter Horses had died and offering as proof bodies of horses who resembled the blue bloods but weren’t worth nearly as much. No one around here questioned Judge Benton’s integrity, especially when his claims were backed up by the local veterinarian, George Henderson. It was a simple plan to dupe and defraud the insurance companies of thousands of dollars and it would never have come off if your father hadn’t provided the perfect hiding spot for the purebreds who hadn’t really met their maker. It all boiled down to one helluva scandal.”
“I can’t believe that Dad was involved in that.”
“The horses were found on his property, Tory.” Trask frowned at her stubborn pride. “You’re finding it hard to believe a lot of things these days, aren’t you?” he accused, silently damning himself for the torture he was putting her through. “Why didn’t your father defend himself when he had the chance, on the witness stand? If he was innocent pleading the fifth amendment made him look more guilty than he was.”
A solitary tear slid down her cheek. “I don’t want to hear any more of this...”
“But you’re going to, lady. You’re going to hear every piece of incriminating evidence I have.”
“Why, Trask?” she demanded. “Why now? Dad’s dead—”
“And so is Jason. My brother was murdered, Tory. Murdered!” He fell into a chair near the desk. “I have reason to believe that one of the persons involved with the horse swindle and Jason’s death was never brought to justice.”
Her eyes widened in horror. “What do you mean?”
“I think there were more than three conspirators. Four, maybe five...who knows? Half the damned county might have been involved.” Trask looked more haggard and defeated than she had ever thought possible. The U.S. senator from Sinclair, Oregon had lost his luster and become jaded in the past few years. Cynical lines bracketed his mouth and his blue eyes seemed suddenly lifeless.
Tory’s breath caught in her throat. “You’re not serious.”
“Dead serious. And I intend to find out who it was.”
“But Judge Benton, he would have taken everyone down with him—no one would have been allowed to go free.”
“Unless he struck a deal, or the other person had something over on our friend the judge. Who knows? Maybe this guy is extremely powerful...”
Tory shook her head, as if in so doing she could deny everything Trask was suggesting. “I don’t believe any of this,”