I Married a Billionaire: Lost and Found(49)

He sighed. "All right, all right. What?"

"He went to Dartwood. Did you know that?"

Daniel rested his elbows on the island, turning to look at me with an expression of measured patience. "Lots of people go to Dartwood, Maddy."

"Yeah, well, not that many. He’s active in the alumni association. It’s not outside of the realm of possibility that he might have met those guys who tried to sue you, about the prototype."

We hadn’t discussed this yet, in so many words. It had come up at the police station, and his face now looked the same as it had then, and on our honeymoon when Brewer had brought it up. Something closed off in his eyes. He wasn’t going to discuss it. The matter simply wasn’t on the table.

"I’m just saying," I went on. "We don’t have to talk about that situation at all if you don’t want to, but I think we probably shouldn’t just…dismiss this whole thing. The way he acted with you…I just don’t think it was a coincidence, is all."

He was playing with an empty wrapper from something. I had no idea where he’d gotten it from. "Why don’t you consult with your detective?" he asked. "You never needed my permission before."

I looked at him carefully, but I couldn’t quite detect the bitterness that I expected.

"Maybe I will."

We sat there for a moment, in silence. He hadn’t yet asked me how I managed to pay Kelly. Maybe he didn’t care. Or maybe he already knew.





***

Just a few hours after I’d put her on the case, Kelly called me back about the judge.

"The bad news is, I couldn’t find anything personally. Yet." I heard the unmistakable sound of liquid being poured into a glass. "The good news is, there is an avenue that you can pursue. But Daniel would probably have to approach it himself. Maybe with law enforcement involved - or maybe not. Depends on what he thinks. I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s what I’m trying to say - if any of the plaintiffs had any communication with the judge through their Dartwood email accounts, the college should still have it on file somewhere. Everything is always archived at those schools. You never know when there’s going to be some kind of academic dispute and they need to pull up emails from ten years ago. The trick will be convincing them to look it up for you. That’s where I think Daniel’s alumni connection might help out."

"He doesn’t really…I mean, I don’t think she’s set foot on campus or even talked to anyone there since he graduated."

"Well, considering what happened there, I can’t really blame him," said Kelly, sensibly. "But that might not matter. Especially if he walks in with his checkbook open."

I hesitated for a moment. "Thanks for not thinking I’m crazy," I said, at last.

"Hey, no problem," Kelly replied. "You’re keeping me in good scotch. I’d go to the ends of the earth for you."

I hung up laughing.

As it turned out, Daniel wasn’t quite as resistant as I feared he might be. He even made the phone call to one of his contacts at Dartwood in front of me, rather than sequestering himself behind closed doors. Once he’d promised to sponsor a fundraising dinner, it was amazing how quickly they acquiesced. He was promised a call back with information within a few hours, and it came in thirty minutes.

As he scribbled furiously on a piece of paper, I idly wondered if any Dartwood students actually read the agreements carefully enough to realize that they had absolutely no privacy in their email accounts whatsoever. I highly doubted it.

"Well," said Daniel, once he’d hung up. The expression on his face spoke volumes.

"What? What is it?" I jumped up and ran over to look at what he’d written.

"Nothing too damning," he said. "But enough to prove they had contact. The judge and…one of them." He was chewing on the edge of his fingernail.

"You don’t know which one?" I frowned over his shoulder at the notes, but I couldn’t really make any sense of them.

"Well, of course. But the name wouldn’t mean anything to you." His face was getting that expression again - I was running up against another wall. I decided not to push it.

"Well, great," I said. "I hope you’re going to take that right down to the court when you file a request for a new judge."

"Of course," he said, with a faint smile. "What else would I do?"





***

I found out the answer to that question the next morning.

When I woke up, Daniel was already gone. That wasn’t terribly unusual, but it was pretty early for him to be meeting with someone. And after last night, I still felt vaguely unsettled. I wasn’t sure why, but I suddenly needed to know where he was.

The first thing I did was call John.

His phone rang and rang and rang, but then he finally picked up.

"…Hello?"

"John, it’s Maddy. Are you with Daniel?"

He cleared his throat. "I’m…I drove him, yes, if that’s what you’re asking."

"Drove him where?"

He sucked in a breath through his teeth. "I’m not supposed to say."

"Come on. Seriously?"