“Hey, guys—mama’s home!”
The noise the door made as it slammed seemed to jolt her out of stasis. Realizing she couldn’t go back, she gave a strangled cry and tried to bolt for the kitchen instead.
I grabbed her arms as she scrambled to get past me. She couldn’t break my grip but she fought anyway, panic lending her strength. It was a short-term loan and the payments were steep. She struggled on for a few moments, exhausting herself in the process, then went limp. I relaxed my hold on her just a little, enough so we could talk to her.
“That’s better,” Sean said soothingly. The Glock was out of sight. “We’re not here to hurt you, Terry. We just want to—”
“The hell you’re not!” Terry said fiercely, surging forwards to lash out with her right foot, aiming for his groin.
Sean had the fastest reactions of anyone I’ve ever known. He managed to twist slightly and took the bulk of the blow on his hip, but it was still enough to make him stagger back, doubled over.
I yanked Terry round and shoved her up against the wall by the garage door, and I admit I wasn’t too gentle about it. She cursed the pair of us with colorful defiance.
“Sean!” I said, over my shoulder. “Are you all right?”
For a moment there was no reply. Then he said in a thickened voice, “Yeah, give me a minute. Christ Jesus, she’s got a kick like a bloody mule.”
Terry gave a slightly hysterical laugh and I shook her roughly.
“For God’s sake, Terry, we didn’t come for this!” I snapped. “Don’t make me finish what
There must have been something in my voice that got through, because she stopped struggling and went quiet under my hands apart from a slight tremble, almost a vibration. It could have been anger, or fear, or a mix of the two.
I realized I’d been holding on to her hard enough for the pain to stop her breath, and I relaxed my grip on her arms a little. The release made her gulp in air like a surfacing swimmer.
“I’m going to let go of you now and step back,” I said. “But you make any sudden moves, Terry, and I swear I’ll put you on the deck and you’ll stay there. Do you understand me?”
She swallowed and nodded, as much as she was able to with her face against the wall.
I let go and moved back quickly enough to put me out of range, skimming a quick glance across at Sean as I did so. He was propped against the door frame to the kitchen, bent forwards with one hand braced on his thigh.
Terry straightened and turned carefully, a little jerky, like she wasn’t sure she wanted to get a good look at us, although I certainly wanted to get a good look at her. She stood taut as wire, still with that slight quiver, as though her brain was trying to override her body’s natural instinct to run and was having to fight to do so. There were two of us, we’d invaded her home and, in her eyes at least, had attacked her, but she was holding. I felt a sneaking admiration for her guts, if nothing else.
“What do you want?” she asked in a small voice.
“We’re here because of Miranda Lee,” I said. “You sent her an e-mail a couple of days ago, warning her to be careful, but you were too late. She’s dead.”
“I know. I just heard today,” Terry said, and there was no disguising the wobble in her voice. “What do you want with me?”
“It wasn’t suicide,” I said bluntly. “We think she was killed and we think you might know why.”
She stiffened. “Killed? But—” She broke off, bit her lip. “That makes no sense. She OD’ed.”
“But you must have thought Miranda was in danger, or why send her a warning?” I said.
She swallowed, took a moment to smooth down the jacket of her suit. I was no expert, but it looked like a very expensive suit. Dark cloth that draped well and hadn’t creased even after a long day at the office and a minor fracas with intruders. Good cut and it … suited her.
“How—” she began, and stopped. Started again, her eyebrow coolly raised this time. “How do you know I sent her anything?”
“Because she told me—a few hours before she was killed,” I said. “Were you just trying to scare her? Because, if so, it worked.”
Terry flushed. “Of course I wasn’t.” She flicked her gaze towards Sean, who was watching her with a brooding stare. Her head came up and she met my eyes steadily. “I’d heard she was relying on a guy—some Brit doctor she’d called in—to be an expert witness. But reports were coming in that he was unreliable. It was my opinion that using him would ruin the chances of her lawsuit being successful … .”
Her voice trailed away and her gaze sharpened on me. “You’re his daughter, aren’t you?’ she said, almost accusing, like I’d tried to trick her. “I read about you. They said you’d—”
“Stick to the point, Terry,” I cut in.
She swallowed. “I didn’t know Mrs. Lee—at all, really. We never met. Never even spoke on the phone. Just e-mails. But I … liked her. I felt sorry for her.”
“You’re a lawyer,” Sean said flatly.
Sensing insult, a hint of color lit her cheeks. “So?”
“I thought corporate lawyers had their emotions surgically removed during training.”
She pulled a face that contained a rueful anger. “Not all of us,” she said. Now it wasn’t under strain, her voice had a gentle Texas drawl with a wisp of smoke going on underneath it. If she’d been less smart she would have been called pretty, but there was an intense intelligence clear behind her eyes that dared you to demean what she’d made of herself by reducing her worth to such terms.
Into this silent standoff, the white cat that had confronted us in the kitchen appeared, twining through her legs and looking up at her face imploringly. When she glanced down, the cat made an openmouthed mute plea, whiskers quivering with the effort it put into making no noise whatsoever.
Terry stared down at it for a moment, unseeingly. Then she bent and swept the animal up into her arms, heedless of stray hairs. The cat squirmed until it had both front paws draped over her shoulder and began to purr loudly. She kissed the top of its head, which made it drop a gear and purr even harder.
“I need to feed my guys,” she said roughly, hefting the cat. “You going to stop me from doing that?”
Sean merely straightened and invited her towards the kitchen with the inclined head and regal bow of a maitre d’. Terry, aware of being mocked, glared at him and marched past with her head high and her spine very straight. I saw her glance at the back door, just once, as we passed, but she didn’t try to run. I think she probably realized that she’d taken Sean by surprise once and that wasn’t going to happen again.
As soon as she switched on the kitchen lights and dropped the white cat onto the floor, another three of its furry friends appeared, muttering at Terry and bickering among themselves.
“So,” Sean prompted, “you felt sorry for Miranda and you decided to help her. Why?”
“Her husband was dying,” Terry said, but she was hedging. “Isn’t that reason enough?”
“You work for a drug company,” Sean said. “The chances are that, even with the best will in the world, lots of your customers are either dying themselves, or they have friends or relatives who are. What was special about her?”
Terry was spooning some foul-smelling, gelatinous, vaguely meaty product out of a can into two double bowls.
“Because it shouldn’t have happened,” she said at last, banging the last of the cat food off the spoon more fiercely than she needed to. “He should never have died.”
“So why did he?”
She lifted the bowls off the counter and turned to face us, pausing a moment. The feline tangle around her ankles became a frantic melee at the delay. The fourth cat, a black-and-white, stood up on its hind feet and dug its claws into Terry’s leg at the knee by way of retribution, pulling a thread in her trousers. She shook the cat loose
