She never took her eyes from his. He could almost feel her trying to get into his thoughts, but when she spoke, her voice was very cool. “Why are you telling me this now?”
Frazzled, he dragged a hand through his hair. “I didn’t remember it all until now, until you told me about the emeralds.”
“That’s odd, isn’t it?”
He watched the shutter come down over her eyes and nodded. “I don’t expect you to believe me, but I didn’t remember. And when I took the job, I didn’t know.”
She continued to watch him carefully, measuring every word, every gesture, every expression. “You know, it seemed strange to me that you hadn’t heard about the necklace, or the robbery. It’s been in the press for weeks. You’d have to be living in a cave not to have heard.”
“Or a classroom,” he murmured. Caufield’s mocking words about having more intelligence than wit came back to him and made him wince. “Look, I’ll tell you whatever I can before I leave.”
“Leave?”
“I can’t imagine any of you will want me to stay after this.”
She considered him, instinct warring against common sense. With a long sigh, she lifted a hand. “I think you’d better tell the whole story to the whole family, all at once. Then we’ll decide what to do about it.”
It was Max’s first family meeting. He hadn’t grown up in a democracy, but under his father’s uncompromising dictatorship. The Calhouns did things differently. They gathered around the big mahogany dining room table, so completely united that Max felt like an intruder for the first time since he’d awakened upstairs. They listened, occasionally asking questions as he repeated what he had told Lilah in the tower.
“You didn’t check his references?” Trent asked. “You just contracted to do a job with a man you’d never met, and knew nothing about?”
“There didn’t seem to be any reason to. I’m not a businessman,” he said wearily. “I’m a teacher.”
“Then you won’t object if we check yours.” This from Sloan.
Max met the suspicious eyes levelly. “No.”
“I already have,” Amanda put in. Her fingers were tapping against the wood of the table as all eyes turned to her. “It seemed the logical step, so I made a couple of calls.”
“Leave it to Mandy,” Lilah muttered. “I guess it never occurred to you to discuss it with the rest of us.”
“No.”
“Girls,” Coco said from the head of the table. “Don’t start.”
“I think Amanda should have talked about this.” The Calhoun temper edged Lilah’s voice. “It concerns all of us. Besides, what business does she have poking into Max’s life?”
They began to argue heatedly, all four sisters tossing in opinions and objections. Sloan kicked back to let it run its course. Trent closed his eyes. Max merely stared. They were discussing him. Didn’t they realize they were arguing about him, tossing him back and forth across the table like a Ping-Pong ball?
“Excuse me,” he began, and was totally ignored. He tried again and earned his first smile from Sloan. “Damn it, knock it off!” It was his annoyed professor’s voice and did the trick. All of the women stopped to turn on him with irritated eyes.
“Look, buster,” C.C. began, but he cut her off.
“You look. In the first place, why would I be telling you everything if I had some ulterior motive? And since you want to corroborate who I am and what I do, why don’t you stop pecking at each other long enough to find out?”
“Because we like to peck at each other,” Lilah told him grandly. “And we don’t like anyone getting in the way while we’re at it.”
“That’ll do.” Coco took advantage of the lull. “Since Amanda’s already checked on Max—though it was a bit impolite—”
“Sensible,” Amanda objected.
“Rude,” Lilah corrected.
They might have been off and running again, but Suzanna held up a hand. “Whatever it was, it’s done. I think we should hear what Amanda found out.”
“As I was saying.” Amanda flicked a glance over at Lilah. “I made a couple of calls. The dean of Cornell speaks very highly of Max. As I recall the terms were ‘brilliant’ and ‘dedicated.’ He’s considered one of the foremost experts on American history in the country. He graduated magna cum laude at twenty, and had his doctorate by twenty-five.”
“Egghead,” Lilah said with a comforting smile when Max shifted in his seat.