“This same dirtbag had just offered you a better position and more money, right?”

“Yes, but what’s that got to do with anything?”

“Just confirming details.”

Hunter’s guarded attitude surprised her. “I told you everything about that night. I had to pressure Stuart or I wouldn’t have gotten to talk to Gwen.”

“You threatened to tell his girlfriend he’d been involved with you?”

“No, I threatened to tell Brittany he made a pass at me if he didn’t help. He’s a slimeball I wouldn’t let touch my dead philodendron.”

The oddest moment of relief filtered through the suspicion holding his gaze hostage and gave her hope until Hunter asked, “How’d your father die?”

She flinched at the unexpected change of topic. “He drowned. Suicide.”

“But he was an excellent swimmer, right?”

“Yes.” What had Hunter found out about her father’s death?

“Doesn’t that sound suspicious?”

Yes. She’d spent many sleepless nights wondering if she was at fault for Raymond’s death. She had no idea why Hunter was acting as though they were on opposite sides of a wall all of a sudden. “I questioned everything about his death from the beginning, but everyone said I was looking for a way to justify an accident. I harangued the police for over a year, but they all blew me off, accusing me of being in denial. That’s the reason I got into investigative reporting, but nothing ever came of all my efforts to prove he hadn’t killed himself. His life insurance company had no investment in helping. No one did. The only reason I finally left it alone was because his death had devastated my family and I kept reopening the wound.”

Hunter stopped there, staring at her as if he tried to decide if he knew her. That hurt much more than she could have imagined. She asked, “What’s going on with you?”

“How did the guy in your apartment know your name?”

“I told you, I don’t know. Before you got there he said I did a good job. I don’t know what he was talking about. Do you?”

“I can’t say.”

“You mean you won’t say. I’ve told you everything-”

“Except for the final key to accessing the Kore database.”

“So now you’re going to strongarm me into this by acting suspicious of… what exactly are you suspicious about?”

This time Hunter was the one who looked away while he thought on something. When he lifted his head his eyes were filled with an emotion she couldn’t pinpoint. “You have to understand, Abbie. A lot of lives depend on how well I do my job. I can’t let anything but facts influence my decisions.”

“What do you think I’m guilty of?”

“I’m not accusing you-”

“Just tell me what’s going on, dammit.” She was reaching the end of her frayed emotional rope.

“I can’t. Not yet.”

There it was. She ran headfirst against that steel-wall gaze born of a distrust that had started in childhood. She understood why, really, she did, but that didn’t change how much it cut for him to draw an invisible line between them. He probably didn’t like standing all alone on the other side of that line, but that might be the only safe haven he’d come to trust.

She wanted him to know he could depend on her.

Screaming in frustration probably wouldn’t get that message across, but her insides were on a rampage.

Abbie drew up her knees and leaned forward, propping her head on her crossed arms. “You’re making it sound like forcing my slimy boss to help me get into the Wentworths’ was a felony, that I had something to do with my father’s death, and that I know the crazy guy in my apartment.”

He seemed content to hear her out, so she continued. “Here’s the truth. If my mother hadn’t been ill I wouldn’t have risked my career by threatening my boss for an invitation to the event or badgering a Wentworth on her own property. If you hadn’t been there snooping around, you wouldn’t have gotten involved in Gwen’s shooting. If you hadn’t driven me home and broken into my apartment you wouldn’t have known about the intruder, but I will be eternally grateful that you did come back. I don’t know what’s going on or why people are chasing us or why that guy knew my name. All I know is that my mother is dying and I need your help. I’m going to give you all the access information for the database. Not because I feel threatened, but because I believe in you. I trust you. What are you going to do?”

Hunter’s stone face had given nothing away while she spoke. She knew he was inside that protective shell and that this might be her only chance to reach him.

He scratched his nose, a ploy to allow him another minute to think. “I’m offering the Kore center a substantial donation based on a tour I’ll take at four today. If I get into the files, I’ll download everything on your mother. And arrange for a medical team to treat her, too.”

She wished that was all it would take to make everything in her world right, but Hunter had been talking to someone about her and she was pretty sure it had to do with the police. “And you’ll let me go to my mother once you have the files, right?”

His elbows were propped on his knees. He dropped his chin down on his clasped hands and wouldn’t look at her. “I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Lot of questions need answering first.”

“I see.” Not really, but if she said more right now her voice might break. He was going to hand her off to strangers after all.

“We’re running out of time. Tell me what I need for the code. I’ll put you somewhere safe while I’m inside.”

He isn’t going to like this. “To access a family file the patient must be hooked to a unit that takes an immediate fingerprint and pricks the skin for a blood sample within one minute of entering the patient and a staff code to access the database. You can’t get into anything without me.”

Hunter waited inside the sedan, watching Abbie walk into the front doors of the Kore Women’s Center in southwest Chicago. Once she convinced him there was no way to breach the computer system without her, he’d called Kore an hour ago and let Abbie speak to the staff to arrange for her admission.

Simpler than ordering a hamburger at McDonald’s for a woman with a rare blood type who was already in Kore’s files and willing to donate blood.

“Park across the street at that pharmacy and angle the car so I can watch the entrance to Kore,” Hunter told the driver, a longtime Thornton-Payne employee who chauffeured for Hunter’s father and Todd. One of the two drivers who could be trusted not to speak of anything that went on during a drive.

Hunter kept an eye on the entrance, fighting to stay in the car and not rush inside to keep Abbie in sight.

He thought he might never get over the look of shock on her face when he questioned her. She couldn’t have been more hurt if he’d backhanded her.

Her answers could be construed as suspicious if he wanted to lump Abbie in with all the women he’d known.

She was in a category all her own. His gut told him so.

What was he going to do with her after he got the files out of Kore?

Gotthard’s warnings pounded in the silence, but Hunter couldn’t make himself believe she was involved with the killer. He should have told her so before she stepped out of the car, should have kissed her to let her know the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.

Instead, he’d sat unmovable as a rock, unable to give her words of comfort. Gotthard’s intel had clouded his ability to see beyond the mission.

Abbie had pulled back after the questions, unwilling to let him touch her in any way, not even to help her from the ambulance to the sedan when they reached the parking lot. He’d refused to consider her suggestion that she pretend to be ill so he could stay once she was admitted. He’d been too angry at the idea of having to let her enter unprotected to realize he was slamming door after door between them.