Big Easy Temptation (The Perfect Gentlemen #3)(11)

“All I want is a shot at convincing you.”

“Like I said, I’ll read your file. I really was sorry about your dad. I’m also sorry I didn’t reach out to you. I should have. We were friends once.”

“Why didn’t you? You’ve stayed in touch with Gus and Mom.”

She sighed. “I got buried in work. They were here and you weren’t. It seemed easier to let it go. And you were so angry. I’ll be honest, I was afraid you would tear me up. Sometimes people lash out when they’re in as much pain as you were. Your world had crumbled under your feet. I didn’t want to be collateral damage.”

“You were right to stay away. I was so angry I couldn’t think straight. When the allegations came to light, I learned some things about my father I didn’t want to know.”

“But you don’t believe he raped a fifteen-year-old girl.” It sounded like a statement of fact rather than a question.

Dax nodded. “I think my father was set up. There are too many coincidences, and I question how so many people with critical information about the case suddenly disappeared when they were no longer needed.”

“Be careful, Captain. You’re starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist. Why would anyone want to ruin your father? No one came after his money from what I can tell.”

No, they’d come after his reputation. “I don’t know why someone would do this.” Dax sucked in a deep breath. Now he had to drop the hammer. Holland wasn’t going to like this part, but he couldn’t hold off any longer. Either she would help him . . . or kick him out. “I also don’t understand why, after all of that, they felt the need to murder him.”

She closed her eyes briefly but seemed calm when she opened them again. “I was wondering if we would get there. Your father was found with a single gunshot wound to the head from a pistol registered to him. His fingerprints were the only set we found on the weapon.”

“But you know that sometimes evidence lies.”

“Very rarely.”

“But it can, and sometimes you have to rely on instinct, even when the evidence points to something else. You handled a case a few years back concerning the murder of an ensign. Your partner wanted to close it because all the evidence suggested his girlfriend attacked him in a fit of rage. She’d been drunk and blacked out.”

“Again, I probably don’t want to know how you learned about that. And yes, I should have closed the file. It seemed open and shut, but there was something about the girl. At the end of the day, I didn’t believe she was truly capable of violence, even when she was drunk. I dug further and found out the ensign had been brutally hazed by a superior and he intended to go to command the day after his murder. His CO was brought up on charges and is serving a life sentence.”

“You listened to your gut and you were right. I know my father was incapable of committing suicide.” Now Dax had proof. “Before he died, Dad left me a letter—not a suicide note.”

She frowned. “I didn’t see anything about that in the file.”

“Because I didn’t find it until right before I had to rejoin my ship. My dad didn’t like e-mail. He felt it was impersonal. He wrote a note asking me not to make any judgments until we talked. He told me he had something important he wanted to tell me and asked me to please come home so we could talk. After I really thought about it, I realized my father wouldn’t have been contemplating suicide if he’d written that note.”

He’d found the letter while cleaning out his father’s desk. His mother couldn’t stand to go into the room, so it sat untouched, right down to the glass half full of Scotch his father had been drinking. Another clue. That ridiculously expensive Scotch had been a gift from a friend. If his father had been planning on killing himself, he would have at least finished his damn drink. But he didn’t use that logic on Holland. He hoped the letter would be enough.

She shrugged. “Dax, he didn’t mail it.”

At least she wasn’t calling him by his rank or last name. He would take every little victory he could. “It was stamped and ready to go. My father didn’t make decisions on a whim. He wouldn’t have written asking me to come home and later that night blow his brains out. My father was a fighter.”

“The vile crime he was accused of could make anyone want to die.”

He leaned forward, looking her right in the eyes. “Holland, I want you to take everything you know about my father and listen to your instincts. Think about who he was when you read that file. If you can still tell me you believe one hundred percent that he was guilty and that he killed himself, I won’t bother you again.”

Dax would find another way to clear his father’s name. He wouldn’t stop, but he prayed she was still the same woman he’d known before, the woman Gus and his mother believed in.

“All right. I’ll look through it. Then we can talk. Eat your gumbo. I made a chess pie for dessert. So tell me how the boys are doing. I haven’t talked to Zack in a while.”

It was his cue to back off. She was going to read his file and make a judgment call.

He found it very interesting that she’d just happened to bake his favorite pie. Maybe she hadn’t forgotten him, either. “He’s drowning himself in work, but Roman is watching out for him. Now, if we want to change the subject to something more pleasant, I could tell you about how Mad got his ass kicked by a Parisian prostitute last month.”