Ghostwalker 01- Shadow Game

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 place? Military men? And did they stay here for any length of time?" Lily's gaze was steady on her security man's face, not allowing him to look away from her.

Arly took a deep breath. "I was certain he brought three gentlemen in and I know they didn't leave that same day. I never saw them again, and I never saw them leave. He didn't take them to his office, but up to the second-story rooms in the west wing."
    "Are you in my employ or that of the United States government?"
    "Damn it, Lily, how can you ask me that?"
    "I am asking you, Arly." Deliberately Lily reached out to take his hand, settling her fingers around his wrist. Lightly. Yet her fingers found his lifeline, searched for his emotions. Searched for the truth in him.
    Arly instinctively attempted to pull away from her but she tightened her fingers.
    She reached for Ryland. Can you read him ?
    No. I have no ability to do that, not even with you enhancing his emotions for me. He would have to be in the room, touching me, or me touching something of his to tune him in so clearly. Be careful, Lily, he's going to know you're acting out of character.
    "I don't work for the government." There was heat in Arly's voice.
    "Do you work for the Donovans Corporation?" Lily pursued.
    Arly did jerk his arm away and stumbled backward, nearly tipping over. "What the hell's wrong with you? Do you blame me for this? Maybe it is my fault, maybe your father's disappearance is my fault too. I let him drive that old beat-up car he loved so much when I knew he could be a target of any number of whackos."
    Lily dropped her head in her hands. "I'm sorry, Arly, I really am. Everything in my life is off-kilter right now. I don't blame you for Dad. No one