“Could I see you alone for a minute, Peter?”
The grave expression on the man’s round, ordinarily amiable face was not reassuring. A chill passed over Peter’s shoulder blades and he couldn’t help wondering if this had anything to do with the threat he’d so recently been made aware of, the one posed by NHC. Fred had been his father’s lawyer for as long as he could remember, but he wasn’t the legal counsel that the hospital board turned to. Still, Fred might have been privy to some sort of inside information. Lawyers talked among themselves like everyone else, didn’t they?
Bracing himself, Peter nodded. “Sure.” He indicated the doorway leading to other parts of the house. “We can go to my study. It’s just down the hall.”
Crossing the living-room threshold, Peter led the way out.
“I’ve never been to your house before,” Fred commented, looking around.
“It’s not much of a treat,” Peter confessed. “I’m afraid I’ve let things get away from me. You know how it is.”
“Actually, no,” Fred replied. “Selma handles all that. You need a wife, Peter.”
“I’ll put it on my list of things to do,” Peter promised.
The house was older than Peter and in need of attention and a fair amount of updating. Other than hiring an occasional cleaning crew to do battle with the cobwebs and the dust, nothing had been changed since he’d moved in shortly after graduating from medical school. He honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d had the house painted, but then, he rarely spent much time here.
He was always at the hospital, either in the O.R., the emergency room or in his fourth-floor office. His house was just the place where he received his mail, did his laundry and slept. Beyond that, it really didn’t serve much of a function.
Like the rest of the doors in the house, the door to his study was wide-open. He didn’t like closed doors. Closed doors meant secrets. It was a holdover from his childhood. On the rare occasions when his parents would have words, the doors were always closed. When they were opened again, his parents would emerge, each with sadness in their eyes.
As he walked in, Peter flipped a switch on his desk lamp, which cast a dim light.
He switched the three-way bulb on high, then turned around to face the man he had ushered in.
“What’s wrong, Fred?”
Fred looked somewhat uneasy. Peter couldn’t remember ever seeing the lawyer look anything but comfortably confident. Fred reached inside the breast pocket of his jacket and took out a bulky-looking white envelope. Watching Peter’s face, Fred held it out to him.
Across the front of the envelope, in his father’s very distinct handwriting, was his name.
“Your father wanted me to give this to you. It was only to be opened in the event of his death,” Fred explained and then sighed with genuine sorrow. It was no secret that he’d known James Wilder for over sixty years. They’d gone to school together. “Which is now. I am going to really miss that man. Did I ever tell you that he saved my life?”
Peter stared at the envelope before taking it. What could his father have written that he couldn’t have said to him in person?
“Twice.” A heaviness hovered over Peter as he took the envelope Fred was holding out. He had an uneasy feeling he didn’t want to know what was inside. “When did he give this to you?”
“Five years ago. Shortly after your mother died.” The man’s small mouth curved beneath the shaggy mustache. “I think her death brought mortality into his life in big, bright letters. It hit him then that no one was going to go on forever, not even him, and he had some things he wanted to get off his chest, I suppose.” Fred pressed his lips together. “Damn, I thought if anyone would have been able to cheat death, it would have been him.”
“Yeah, me, too.” His father was the most decent, honorable man he had ever known, as well as the most dedicated. There were no skeletons in his closet, no real deep, dark secrets. His father’s life had been an open book. “What makes you think my father had something he wanted to get off his chest?”
“Because, for one thing, there are no letters for David or Ella or Anna. I guess as the family’s new patriarch, he was turning to you.” Fred’s bushy eyebrows rose in surprise as he watched Peter tuck the letter into his own breast pocket without opening it. “Aren’t you going to read it?”
Peter shook his head. “Not right now. I need to get through this ordeal first before I’m up to tackling another problem.”
Fred nodded, but it was obvious he was curious about the envelope’s contents. However, it wasn’t his place to prod.
“Makes sense,” Fred allowed. His mission accomplished, he took a step toward the doorway, then stopped. “By the way, is tomorrow evening still convenient for the reading of the will?”
Convenient. What a strange word to use under the circumstances. Peter took a breath, doing his best to block the barrage of sadness that threatened to overwhelm him again.
“Tomorrow evening will be fine, Fred,” he replied quietly.
Fred continued to pause as another thought occurred to him. “What about Anna and David? I don’t see either one of them at the reception.”
“That’s because they’re not here,” Peter replied simply. He could see the answer didn’t please the man. Crossing back to the doorway, he turned off the light. “If there’s anything out of the ordinary in the will—” which he was confident there wouldn’t be “—I can always call and tell them.”
Fred nodded as they walked out of the room together. “Rumor has it that NHC is about to come knocking on the hospital’s door.” He stopped short of the living room. “What are you planning to do about it?”
“Not answer,” Peter replied with a finality that left no room for argument.
Fred grinned broadly and clapped him on the shoulder. He had to reach a little in order to do it. “Good man. You’d make your father proud.” He lowered his voice again, assuming a conspiratorial tone. “He’s watching over you now, you know that, don’t you?”
Peter merely offered a perfunctory smile. He wasn’t exactly sure how he stood on things like that. What he did know was he would have preferred to have his father at his side. Or better yet, leading this charge against the anticipated assault. James Wilder was far better suited to staving off the barbarians at the gate than he was.
But he was going to have to learn. And fast.
The first person Peter noticed when he walked into the boardroom the next morning was Bethany Holloway. Out of respect for the late chief of staff, she was wearing a black sheath. It made her hair seem more vividly red, her complexion ever more porcelainlike.
Black became her, Peter thought absently. On her, the color didn’t look quite as somber.
The eight other board members in the room were also wearing black or navy, undoubtedly prompted by the same desire to show respect, Peter mused. His father would have been surprised at how many people mourned his passing. But then, the man had always been so unassuming, never thinking of himself, only others.
His thoughts momentarily brought him back to the envelope Fred had given him last night. He’d left it, unopened, on the mantel in the living room, unable to deal with its contents. He knew that was making assumptions, giving it an importance it might not actually have, but he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that whatever was inside the envelope was going to change life for him as he knew it.
So for the time being, it was going to remain unopened. At the moment, he had enough windmills to tilt at. Especially if this threat posed by NHC actually was genuine.
The January sun had decided to make an appearance, pushing