Page 1 of Strider's Misstep

PROLOGUE

KATRINA

THREE YEARS AGO…

Walking into the building, I stop short when I see the main reception desk is empty, with no security guard sitting behind it. Frowning slightly, I realise that the front doors wouldn’t have opened for me had my father’s summons not been legit. Reasoning that today is a Sunday and that presumably his request for my attendance was on a whim, I ignore the feeling in my gut that something is wrong and head toward the elevators, choosing the one that has only one stop, the CEO’s suite on the top floor.

The emptiness of the building holds no concern for me. The layout is familiar and has been so since I was seven. For the first few years of my life, where my father had disappeared during his working day was a mystery, but when the aneurysm had unexpectedly struck my mother and stolen her life, the secret had been revealed, and his workplace had become my secondhome. Initially struggling to immediately find arrangements for suitable childcare, the day after my mother was buried, he’d brought me with him to the office, passing me off to a frazzled assistant, leaving them to work out what to do with a grief-stricken young girl until he managed to find a live-in nanny to take care of me.

While as a child I was blind to my father’s faults, after all, I’d nothing to compare him with. Even to my young mind it seemed like he was a difficult man to satisfy. Nannies came and went with singular regularity, and each time one walked out, my after-school hours and vacations were spent at a spare desk in his vast office building. I suppose it was lucky for him that I was an obedient, compliant child, content to sit with my books and games to amuse me. And as my father was, and still is, a workaholic, I saw him more at his workplace than at home.

For the past three years, this is the only place where I ever meet him. He doesn’t want to interfere in my new life, or maybe it’s that he doesn’t want to see it up close as he knows he won’t like what he would find. If we need to meet, I come to him.

I’m not complaining. There’s a good reason I like it this way. This building is the one place where my security detail doesn’t follow me inside. They’ve no need to. Barclay knows I’d never betray the only parent I have left in my life, and if I were stupid enough to take advantage of any freedom and use the opportunity to run, my escape would mean my father would die. It’s the threat he’s held over me since the day that I met him. Sometimes, when I don’t think I can bear the way I’m forced to live any longer, the feelings I have for the man responsible for my situation turns to hate. But when all’s said and done, my father is my flesh and blood, and I couldn’t live with myself if any future happiness came at the price of costing him his life.

The elevator has reached the top floor as the toneless announcement informs me, and the doors take that deliberateextra moment, the one in which you have time for a second’s panic as to whether you’re going to be trapped before they finally deign to open with a swish.

As is the reception area below, this level is similarly empty and silent. Again, I’m reminded it’s Sunday. A strange day for my father to summon me to visit, but I’m more intrigued than concerned. I haven’t seen him for a couple of months. It doesn’t much matter whether this is a belated catch-up or if he has something particular to tell me.

I know there are people who probably wonder how I could have ever forgiven him enough to give him the time of day. Believe me, I often ask myself that. I make the excuse for him that he had no idea what he was getting me into, his redemption that I truly don’t believe he knew the depths of depravity Barclay would go to.

His office door is in front of me, and I can hear him clearing his throat inside. Before entering, I linger, my mind slipping back in time, returning to another visit I’d made to him, blissfully ignorant of the changes to come.

I all but danced up the steps into the building, thinking of the good time I’d had last night. I’d met a man I liked and who I could see becoming a boyfriend. We’d exchanged numbers and agreed to meet up., My mind elsewhere as I wonder whether I could make the first move and call him or whether propriety means I should wait for him to make contact, I automatically nod to the security guard minding the desk, smiling when he acknowledges my nonverbal greeting with a polite tilt of his chin. Still lost in my thoughts, I go to the elevator and enter, selecting the penthouse level while crossing my fingers it doesn’t come to an abrupt halt between floors as it had once before. I’m not claustrophobic as such, but being trapped in a ten-by-ten box isn’t my idea of fun.

Luckily, there’s no such delay today, and I step out into the airy reception office, one that’s large and ostentatiously decorated as befits the CEO of an international company. Gloria, my father’s current receptionist, smiles at me as I approach.

I pause for a second, pulling back my shoulders and trying to focus on the here and now, putting last night out of my mind. “Is it okay for me to go straight in?” Dad might have summoned me, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been distracted by more pressing business in the meantime. I’m used to kicking my heels while waiting for him, and in preparation, I even brought a book to read.

But this time, it appears he’s ready for me. “Go straight in.”

I do, still with a spring in my step. That man last night was fine.

My gut clenches at the memory, at the what-might-have-beens. If only I could wave a magic wand and rewind time. I’d tell my younger self to run fast in the other direction, to never open that door.

I might only be three years older, but I feel I’ve aged a decade or more.

As I don’t get much time to myself, getting a glimpse of my father, seeing he’s bent over some paperwork on his desk, clearly engrossed, I sink down onto a seat, putting my head into my hands instead of greeting him.

How had it come to this?As I’d gotten older and seen examples of good parenting from being around my friends, I realised my father and I had never had a close relationship. Now, looking back, I can see my younger self ignoring his shortcomings. I’d lost my mom and did what I could to get the attention of my one remaining parent. Even at twenty-two years old, I was just a child yearning for familial acceptance andaffection. Ever an optimist, I was always hoping that this would be the time we’d connect on a personal level.

I’d been a straight-A student, but that was expected. I was the fruit of his loins, after all. I’d just graduated from university with a first-class honours degree in psychology. Ignoring that he’d been too busy to attend my graduation, I’d still hoped that he was proud of me. I hadn’t yet decided on my future and had no idea one was already being laid out for me.

God, what a fool I’d been. Again, I let the memories overwhelm me. Going back to that time when I’d knocked on his office door, still full of innocence, my head filled with dreams of the recently met young man. Entering when his deep voice barked out permission. Closing my eyes, I go back in time, even now wondering whether there was anything I could have said or done to change things.

Stopping on the threshold, I take a moment to examine the man who created me, noticing immediately he looks different today, more dishevelled, less the totally in control businessman I’d grown used to seeing. In my gut, I already know something is wrong.

“Dad?” I say, hesitantly.

“Katrina. Come in.” His voice sounds different—a little shaky, not quite sure of himself. And the glass of amber-coloured liquid instead of a cup of coffee seems wrong. It’s mid-morning and normally far too early for him to be hitting the hard stuff. “Sit.”

Confused and uncertain, I do as instructed, placing my butt on the visitor chair as he stands. He paces back and forth across the room a couple of times before coming to a halt in front of me. He brushes his hands back through his greying hair, then clears his throat as I wait for him to speak. His appearance and attitude are making me nervous.

He glances at me, then looks away. “Business has not been going well.”

I breathe in. It’s the first time he’s ever discussed anything about his work. I start to wonder how bad things are, whether he’s going to cut my allowance, and what I can do to help.

“I…” he coughs again. “I made some bad investments. I owe money.”

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