Shadow game Page 0,43

could one man have done so much damage to so many people's lives? And how could she not have ever suspected?

"Lily?" Arly caught her arm and guided her to a chair. "You've gone pale. You're not going to faint on me or anything stupidly female like that, are you?"

Lily laughed softly, the sound bitter and distant. "Stupidly female, Arly? Where did Dad ever find a woman basher like you?"

"I don't bash women, I just don't understand them," he countered, hunkering down beside her chair, his fingers loosely circling her wrist, taking her pulse. "I'm brilliant and handsome and can talk circles around most guys and women shudder when they see me coming. Why is that?"

"Could be the way you curl your lip every time you say the word 'woman.' " Lily pulled her wrist away from him. "You've worked with Dad for years. I grew up with you, following you around..."

"Asking questions. Nobody asked as many questions as you." He grinned suddenly. She caught a brief glimpse of pride in his eyes. "I never had to tell you the same thing twice."

"Did you ever help with his experiments?"

At once Arly's face closed down, the smile fading. "You know I don't discuss any of your father's business, Lily."

"He's dead, Arly." She kept her gaze fixed steadily on his, watching for a reaction. "He's dead and you can't protect the things he's done."

"He's missing, Lily."

"You know he's dead and I think one of his projects got him killed." She leaned toward him. "You think it too."

Arly drew back. "Maybe, Lily, but what difference does it make? Your father knew people most of us hope we never meet in a lifetime. His mind was always working on ways to make the world a better place and in thinking that way, he managed to find the dregs of society. He thought it would help him understand how people worked."

"Did you like my father?" She asked it directly.

Arly sighed. "Lily, I've known your father for forty years."

"I know you have. Did you like him? As a person? As a man? Was he your friend?"

"I respected Peter. I respected him a great deal and I admired his mind. He had a great mind. He was a true genius. But no one was his friend, expect perhaps you. He didn't talk to people, he used them for sounding boards, but he couldn't be bothered knowing anyone. He used people to further his own interests-oh, not for monetary gain, he didn't need that, he already had enough money for a small country, but for his endless ideas. In all the years I knew him, I doubt he ever once asked me a personal question."

She lifted her chin. "Did you know he adopted me?"

Arly shrugged his thin shoulders. "Since I never saw him with a woman, I figured he had to have adopted you, but we never discussed it. If you weren't his biologically, he would have made damn sure you were his legally. The only thing he loved in his life was you, Lily."

"Did you know he had other children here?"

Arly looked uncomfortable. "That was years ago, Lily."

"And the men?" She took a stab in the dark, watched his reactions closely.

Arly held up his hand. "Anything to do with the military I don't see or hear. That's just the way it is, Lily."

"This is important, Arly, or I wouldn't ask. I think whatever this project he was working on at Donovans, something for the military, got out of hand and someone killed him for information he wouldn't turn over. I'm being asked to take over that project and find the missing information. I need to have all the pieces of the puzzle. Were there men here recently? Men he may have been working with?"

Arly stood up, paced across the room. "I've kept this job and my home here for over thirty years because I knew how to keep my mouth shut."

"Arly," Lily said softly, "my father's dead. Either your loyalty swings to me and you're working for me and you're a part of my family and my household or you're not. This is information I need in order to stay alive. You'll have to make up your mind which it's going to be."

"My loyalty swung to you the moment I laid eyes on you." He said it stiffly.

"Help me then. I intend to find out what's going on and who murdered my father."

"Let the police handle it, Lily. They'll find a lead eventually."

"Did he bring men to this