Read Online Delaney's Shadow by Ingrid Weaver - Free Book Online Page B

loyalty. She took the chair beside Leo’s and waited until he’d seated himself again. “I heard about the welcome my grandmother gave you. I hope you didn’t take it personally.”
    “I thought for a minute she might frisk me.”
    “She’s not usually suspicious of people, but the way that process server got into the house yesterday upset her.”
    “I take it there was some drama?”
    “I can’t blame the messenger. He was only doing his job.”
    Leo took off his glasses, polished them with the end of his tie, then set them back in place, his way of signaling the conversation was turning to business. “I want to assure you, Delaney, Elizabeth has no case.”
    “As far as we know.”
    “There is no evidence of any wrongdoing or negligence. I’ve studied the police reports as well as the transcripts of the official inquiry and found nothing that could support her claim of wrongful death.”
    “There’s nothing that contradicts it, either.”
    “That reasoning will get her nowhere.”
    “The ‘innocent until proven guilty’ principle doesn’t apply to civil cases, does it?”
    “Correct, it’s decided by a preponderance of evidence, but the result should be the same. You weren’t responsible for Stanford’s death. It had been snowing, the road was slick, the bend was sharp, and there were no guardrails. It was only a tragic accident.”
    “Then why weren’t we going home when it happened, Leo?”
    “Don’t dwell on it, Delaney.”
    “I can’t help it. We left the restaurant in Bedford at nine. It’s a seven-minute drive from there to the estate. The police called in the crash at one a.m., and we were almost to the Hudson.”
    “There could be dozens of innocent explanations for the detour.”
    “Okay, name one.”
    “You could have decided to drop in on friends.”
    “Stanford wasn’t impulsive. He ran his life like he ran his business, always on a schedule. And if we had visited someone, why haven’t they come forward?”
    “Perhaps it was a business acquaintance.”
    “That’s stretching things, Leo. Where were we for four hours?”
    “Getting coffee. Enjoying the scenery.”
    “It was cold and dark.”
    “There were plenty of holiday lights to admire.”
    She looked at her hands as she asked the question that haunted her the most. “Why was I driving?”
    “Stanford could have been sleepy,” Leo replied. “Or maybe he felt he’d had too much wine at dinner.”
    “He loved that Jag. He didn’t want anyone else to drive it, even me.”
    “There’s really no point speculating about this.”
    “You can be sure that Elizabeth has. She might know something I don’t. It’s frustrating.”
    “Many trauma victims never regain their memories of an accident. You could be better off not remembering.”
    She dropped the back of her head against the chair. “The doctors said the same thing, but I don’t agree. Now it’s more important than ever that I do remember. You have to admit all the unanswered questions make the accident seem suspicious. If I knew why I was behind the wheel and why we were on that road, at least we’d have a chance of gathering some corroborating evidence to prove my innocence. That would take the steam out of Elizabeth’s lawsuit.”
    Leo touched her knee. “Delaney, I don’t believe she expects to win. That’s not her primary motivation for taking you to court.”
    “Then what is?”
    “She wants a forum to air her grievances. She’ll use rumor and innuendo to humiliate you publicly and destroy your reputation.”
    Leo’s bluntness was one of the things she liked about him. But he wasn’t saying anything she hadn’t already thought of herself. “She wants to punish me for Stanford’s death any way she can.”
    “Yes. She also wants to punish you for stealing her father and for beguiling him into making you his sole heir.”
    Beguiling. It was an old-fashioned word, yet Stanford had used it himself. He’d maintained that he’d fallen under