Free When Harriet Came Home by Coleen Kwan

his lovers and with that sleazy developer.”
    For ages he’d burned with questions, things he wanted—needed—to say to Harriet. This confrontation had been a long time coming, and finally it was here.
    He strode up to her, hands on hips, belligerent. “Tell me how it all happened, Harriet. Tell me why you decided to tail my father, why you took those pictures, and why you ran to the newspaper. Tell me how you—” he jabbed an accusing finger at her, “—of all people got involved.”
    He towered over her, animosity radiating off him in waves, aware of how intimidating he must seem. She didn’t falter backward, though he could see she was agitated. She swallowed hard and rubbed a hand across her face.
    “Why do you want to rake up the past? It won’t solve anything, and you’ll only get angrier.”
    It wasn’t possible to be any angrier than he already was. He glowered at her. “Dammit, Harriet. After everything you’ve done, I have a right to know.”
    “Fine.” She rubbed her upper arms. “But you’re not going to like what I say.”
    “Since when has that ever stopped you?”
    “You—” she began hotly before she stopped and gulped down her words. She started again. “You know Patterson Park down by the river. It’s a dump, but I used to hang out there on my own. I started seeing your dad’s car there a lot, and—and one day I had my camera with me. I saw him with that developer, acting suspiciously, accepting an envelope and actually counting the money. I couldn’t believe it.”
    “So you just had to take a few photos.”
    She reddened. “After the developer left, one of your father’s, um, lady friends showed up.”
    “And you took some more shots and ran off to the Tribune.”
    “No I did not run to the paper!” Her chest rose and fell. “It was the editor…”
    The muscles in Adam’s arms bunched. “What about him?”
    Harriet sighed. “I was at The Tuckerbox looking at the pictures when the editor saw them and insisted they be published. It was all in the public interest, he said.”
    “And of course you believed him. You never stopped to think that maybe he was just interested in selling a lot of newspapers with the grubbiest headlines he could think of.”
    The story had run for weeks, and had been picked up by national newspapers and TV stations. He and his father had had a media scrum camped outside Blackstone Hall for days.
    “I didn’t think it would explode the way it did.” Harriet chewed the edge of her thumb, downcast.
    “So you’re telling me that, as far as you’re concerned, it was all just a string of random events?” He shook his head. He wasn’t sure if she could be believed or not. “It was just pure coincidence that you happened to be there at that park?”
    She frowned at her gnawed thumb. “Yes.”
    Something cold slithered through his gut. Instinct warned him that she wasn’t telling him the entire truth. But why would she lie after all these years? The squalid truth had come out, and his father was long dead.
    “You didn’t do it out of revenge? Because of something stupid I said? Like—like calling you chunky?”
    Her head jerked up as if she’d been stung. “Of course not! Do you think I’m that sort of person?” She gulped. “Adam—” his name came out almost as a sob, “—I wish I’d never done it. If I’d known what would happen…”
    His anger toward her fizzled, then curdled and soured in his gut. “Even without you, it would still have happened.” He exhaled and moved away from her. “You were just the catalyst. My father still had those massive debts he couldn’t repay. The bank would still have repossessed this place. We would still have been left with nothing.”
    But was that the truth? The public scandal had broken his father’s spirit. After that, Warwick Blackstone had holed up in this house, too ashamed to face the world or fight for his rights. He hadn’t bothered trying to renegotiate his loans, had simply