“Won’t you have a seat?” she said.
As Emmy turned to follow her instructions, a door behind the woman opened. Standing there was a silver-haired man wearing a charcoal gray suit, wire-rim spectacles, and a trimmed mustache and goatee. He was expecting Emmy, yet she was aware that her presence startled him. He stared at her, undone, or so it seemed, by her physical features.
“Miss Downtree, this won’t take but a moment. If you will follow me,” he said a few seconds later, with the same forced politeness as his secretary.
Emmy sensed she was to take her money and leave. Her many questions hovered in her head. Which ones would she have time to ask?
She followed the man into a narrow hallway, past two closed doors, to a third door, which was open. He stepped inside.
Mr. Bowker’s office was nicely appointed. Polished wood gleamed everywhere. Red- and brown-spined books were shelved on bookcases that spanned three of the four walls. Two leather-upholstered chairs faced his desk.
Emmy started to sit in one of them but Mr. Bowker stopped her.
“Actually, I have your check right here, Miss Downtree,” he said, emphasizing her last name in a way that befuddled her. He reached for an envelope lying near the edge of his desk.
“I have a few questions,” Emmy said, hearing a tremor in her voice and wondering whether he heard it as well.
He arched his silver-gray eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”
Emmy lowered herself into one of his chairs, feigning confidence, but actually needing to sit to keep the world from spinning.
“I—I have a few questions.”
Mr. Bowker stared at her. “I have not been instructed to answer questions, Miss Downtree.”
Instructed? Who was giving him instructions?
“I would like to know when my father died, please. I was not told,” Emmy said, attempting to sound merely like a grieving daughter.
His raised eyebrows lowered to become part of a thinly veiled scowl. “I have not been instructed to answer questions. If you feel you are entitled to more than this check—”
“Entitled?” Emmy echoed, feeling a strange indignation rising up within her. “You—you wrote to me that my father had provided for me in his will, Mr. Bowker.Youwrote to me.”
He opened his mouth to say something but the secretary poked her head in the room.
“She’s on the telephone. She wants to speak with you. Says it can’t wait,” the secretary said.
Mr. Bowker frowned. He handed the envelope to Emmy. “I believe we are finished here, Miss Downtree.”
Emmy hesitated, unwilling to leave without so much as a crumb of information. He took a step toward her, the envelope now just inches from her.
Emmy took it. What else could she do? She rose slowly from the chair, holding the slimmest of evidence that she’d had a father who had known who she was.
As the secretary ushered her back down the corridor, she heard Mr. Bowker speak into the receiver of his phone.
“That’s not what we agreed,” he said. And then, “I really don’t think that will be necessary.” And finally, just as the inner door to the corridor closed behind Emmy, “But she’s already left.”
Whoever he was speaking to was talking about her. The person on the other end of that call was surely the one who had instructed Mr. Bowker that Emmy was to be given her check and shown the door.
At that moment Emmy had the first inkling as to why Henry Thorne had waited until he was dead to provide for her the way any decent father should.
Emmy was the result of an illicit relationship that ought not to have been. She had long known that. But now she was putting the rest of the puzzle together. Wealthy Henry Thorne had not taken responsibility forher existence while he lived, but did so in death—hence the will—lest he be damned twice over.
Emmy wanted out of that office. She quickened her steps to the front door and pulled it open.
“Wait!” said a voice behind her.
She turned and Mr. Bowker stood at the connecting door.
