“Don’t look at me like that.” She bit into the scone, knowing it was a diversionary tactic; that way, her eyes didn’t have to be on him. “I don’t know anything.”

“Don’t you?” Crockett set down his teacup and folded his gnarled hands in his lap. “What about Jeremy Carruthers?”

Lillian tried to look huffy as she swallowed a piece of scone. “I’ve never even met the man. Crockett, I didn’t come here to be grilled by you.”

He ignored her protest. “Roger told you Carruthers is out of San Diego.”

“And I’m sure he wouldn’t have if you hadn’t instructed him to tell me.”

“That’s right, Lil. His firm was founded in 1958 by Allan Carruthers—our Jeremy’s father—and a man by the name of MacGregor Stevens.”

Oh, hell, she thought miserably, shutting her eyes, not caring that she was giving herself away. She should have known Crockett, recluse that he was, could still get any information, any fact, he wanted.

“He’s from Philadelphia high society, Lil—same as you. Know him?”

“Crockett...”

The old man leaned forward in his chair. “You want to tell me what he has to do with all this, Lil?”

“I don’t know!”

“Doesn’t matter.” He rested back. “I’ll find out. You know—” He paused, sighing contentedly, and again folded his hands. “You know, when Judith died, there was some money missing out of her estate. About five, six million—no way of tracking it down, finding out where it went. I checked it out, Lil. With the right investments, continually reinvesting the principal, it could have grown to a nice little pot by 1982, when the Wakefield twins suddenly came into their anonymous Liechtenstein trust. That’s an interesting little coincidence, don’t you think?”

“So what are you going to do? Try to prove it’s Judith’s money so you can take it away? They don’t care about the money, you know.” She threw up her hands in desperation. “Damn you, Crockett. What’s the point in dragging those two through hell?”

“Answers.”

“Bullshit.”

“I have to know what happened to Judith.”

“She died, Crockett. She was trampled to death by a horse at age twenty-three. It was a horrible, tragic accident, and it happened thirty years ago.”

He wasn’t looking at Lillian; he was barely in the room with her. “Why was she there, Lil? Why was Judith on the ranch that day?”

“I don’t know.” Lillian rubbed her forehead, trying wildly to restore some measure of self-control. She couldn’t let Crockett get to her. But didn't he have a right to know? No! She'd promised Judith; she'd promised everyone. “I don’t know why Judith was on the ranch, Crockett. I hadn’t seen her in months. We were moving in separate directions. I was on my way to becoming a journalist, she was an actress.”

“She was your best friend.”

“We were drifting apart.”

“I don’t believe that, Lil. Talk to me.” His voice had become low, weak, tired, the voice of an old man who had known more pain than happiness, more loneliness than love. “Tell me about my daughter, Lil. Tell me who she was. I thought I knew her; I thought she loved me, trusted me. But she didn’t come to me when she was in trouble. She went to you. Didn’t she, Lil? When she was in trouble and there was nowhere to turn, she turned to you. Tell me, Lil. Tell me what my daughter was.”