you since you were a child and always considered my decision to hire you one of my best judgment calls. I know your family."
He paused, waiting for her to rebound, to express her fury at being used. To demand to assist the firm in finding the answers. When she did nothing but stare blindly, he had no choice.
"However," he said slowly, "this matter can't be ignored. We'll continue to investigate, internally for now. It may become necessary to go outside the firm with this."
"To the police." The thought of it dissolved her legs so that she had to brace herself with a hand on the table. Her vision grayed and wavered. "You're going to the police."
"If it becomes necessary," Bittle told her. "We hope to resolve the matter quietly. Bittle and Associates is responsible, at this point, for adjusting the escrow accounts." Bittle studied the woman standing at the end of the table, shook his head. "The partners have agreed that it is in the firm's best interest for you to take a leave of absence until this is cleared up."
"You're suspending me because you think I'm a thief."
"Kate, we need to look into this carefully. And we have to do whatever is in the best interest of our clients."
"A suspected embezzler can't handle accounts." The tears were going to come, but not yet. She could hold them back just a little longer. "You're firing me."
"A leave of absence," Bittle repeated.
"It's the same thing." Accusations, disgrace. "You don't believe me. You think I've stolen from my own clients and you want me out of the office."
He saw no other choice. "At this time, yes. Any personal items in your office will be sent to you. I'm sorry, Kate. Marty will escort you out of the building."
She let out a shuddering breath. "I haven't done anything but my best." Picking up her briefcase, she turned stiffly and walked to the door.
"I'm sorry. Christ, Kate." With his lumbering stride, Marty caught up with her. "What a mess, what a disaster." He started huffing when she took the stairs down to the main level. "I couldn't turn them around."
She stopped, ignoring the pain in her stomach, the throbbing in her head. "Do you believe me? Marty, do you believe me?"
She saw the flicker of doubt in his earnest, myopic eyes before he answered. "I know there's an explanation." He touched her gently on the shoulder.
"It's all right." She made herself push through the glass doors on the lobby level, walk outside.
"Kate, if there's anything I can do for you, any way I can help..." He trailed off lamely, standing by the door as she all but ran to her car.
"Nothing," she said to herself. "There's just nothing."
* * * * *
At the last minute she stopped herself from running to Templeton House. To Laura, to Annie, to anyone who would fold her in comforting arms and take her side. She swung her car to the side of the road rather than up the steep, winding drive. She got out and walked to the cliffs.
She could stand alone, she promised herself. She had had shocks, survived tragedies before. She'd lost her parents, and there was nothing more devastating than that.
There had been boys she'd dreamed over in high school who had never dreamed back. She'd gotten over it. Her first lover, in college, had grown bored with her, broken her heart and moved on. She hadn't crumbled.
Once, years before, she had fantasized about finding Seraphina's dowry all alone, of bearing it proudly home to her aunt and uncle. She had learned to live without that triumph.
She was afraid. She was so afraid.
Like father, like daughter. Oh, dear God, would it come out now? Would it all come out? And how much more damning then? What would this do to the people who loved her, who had had such hopes for her?
What was it people said? Blood will tell. Had she done something, made some ridiculous mistake? Christ, how could she think clearly now when her life had been turned upside down and shattered at her feet?
She had to wrap her arms tight around her body against the spring breeze, which now seemed frigid.
She'd committed no crime, she reminded herself. She'd done nothing wrong. All she'd done was lose a job. Just a job.
It had nothing to do with the past, nothing to do with blood, nothing to do with where she had come from.
With a whimper, she eased down onto a rock. Who was