Page 96 of The List

“I know that. It wouldn’t be your nature to do otherwise.”

“But I couldn’t deny to her that I cared for Ashley.”

“Does Ashley love you?”

He nodded.

“She’s a fine woman. A little flirty, but the last time I looked that wasn’t a crime.”

He smiled. “No, thank God for that.”

“Everyone in this town would tell you she’s an excellent mother. She works hard, pays her bills. I’ve never heard anyone speak ill of her.”

“I made a mistake years ago. I should have never let things go as far as they did. Paula and I dated two years before we married. But I didn’t think a life with Ashley was possible. She was hard to pin down. So I settled for the next best thing. That was wrong.”

“But Paula made her own choice when she got into that car. You had no idea what she was going to do.”

No, he hadn’t. “She’d been depressed for a while, but that was nothing unusual for her. She had her moods. I guess she thought dying was better than divorcing. Who knows?”

“You have to let the past go. You can’t feel guilty all your life.”

“I keep thinking about that day and how upset she must have been when she died. I’ve tried to convince myself that she wouldn’t have been single long. A lot of men would want a woman like her.”

Similar, he thought, to the preference between solid wood furniture and wood veneer.

“You told Paula that day that you thought you loved Ashley. What about now, all these years later?”

He did not hesitate. “I still love her.”

“Then, son, it’s about time the both of you do something about it.”

6:05P.M.

LEE GLANCED UP ASHUGHES BURST INTO THE OFFICE AND CLOSEDthe door. “Darrin Edwards is an oncologist. Chris’s been a patientfor some time. He’s dying, Hamilton. Prostate cancer. It’s spread all over. There’s nothing they can do.”

“I knew it,” he said. “I’ve had that feeling all day. It’s starting to finally make sense. That old man is up to something.”

“But why? He’d only implicate himself.”

“He figures he’ll be dead by the time that happens.”

“Even so, his estate would be at risk.”

Lee rose and walked to the outer glass wall, downtown Atlanta framed before him. “Chris has no immediate family, and he doesn’t give a damn about money anymore. What he wants is our asses. He knows we’ve long shut him out of any real say in the company. He’s always on my butt about not working. You heard him at the board meeting. He doesn’t think I do a damn thing.”

He turned and marched for the office door.

“Where are you going?”

“To find out what that bastard’s up to.”

It was nearly an hour past quitting time and the twenty-ninth floor loomed quiet. Just the soft rush of the air-conditioning and the occasional pop of the outer walls as the tinted glass expanded and contracted from the late-afternoon sun. They entered Bozin’s space through tall glass doors. A stained mahogany door led from the secretarial station into the private office.

The knob was unlocked.

“Seems Chris is expecting us,” Lee said, as they walked inside.

“I’ve never known him to leave it unlocked,” Hughes said. “Maybe Nancy just forgot.”