Obviously, she’d never forgotten the fire. The grief and trauma still flavored every nightmare and always would. No one could just forget anything that devastating. But that old loss and grief and terror weren’t the problem right now.
She struggled to. Obviously, this wasn’t about her, but about Jon. This was no time to be thinking about herself. She swallowed the swell of nausea and whipped around for her purse. Naturally, it was chock-full of everything she’d need to survive living in Europe for six months. She rummaged, rummaged, until she finally located her cell phone. It took three tries for her fumbling fingers to accurately dial 911.
Then she just huddled against the far corner wall and shook, waiting for the police.
Cord Pruitt saw the lecture doors open, but initially paid no attention. It wouldn’t be the first time a student popped in late. His Thursday-night class on International Studies was invariably stuffed to the gills-which always tickled his sense of irony.
Ten years ago, he’d have sworn he would rather be a snake handler than teach. He’d meant it. But when family problems forced him back to Washington a few years ago, Georgetown had taken one look at his background in languages and Foreign Service and offered him a job. In spite of all odds, the university monsters had grown on him. The kids were all motivated, bright, the type who gave a serious damn. Hell, they even stayed awake during his lectures.
Temporarily, the decibel level rivaled a rowdy bar. The topic of debate was the relationship between religion and poverty in various cultures, and whether religion or poverty was the strongest political influence. The subject definitely wouldn’t turn on everyone, but his kids were raucously enthused.
Maybe a little too raucously.
“Okay, okay, settle down for two shakes,” he interjected. “I’m hearing too many opinions, and not enough facts to back them up. Give me stats, people. I want numbers. I want proof. You’re starting to sound like the media, instead of people with a brain.”
That brought a laugh…but they readily knuckled down to a good verbal fight again.
The next time Cord glanced up, he noted the lecture doors were still gaping open, with two men-two grown men, definitely not students-standing in the doorway. They didn’t interrupt, didn’t speak, didn’t intrude. They were just lodged in the entranceway like a pair of rocks.
Cord’s pulse bucked uneasily. Years of Foreign Service had honed his ability to size up both people and problems. One of the men was gray haired, sharp faced and sharp eyed, with a wiry, lean build. Cord figured him for a private cop. The other guy looked younger, more like forty, with paunchy eyes and the habitual tired expression of a detective.
This close to D.C., private and public cops were as common as ants. Still, Cord couldn’t imagine why one would be here, in his classroom-much less why the ferret and hound would be paired together.
“All right. Let’s wrap this up,” Cord said, but he didn’t really want to wrap up the class at all. It was twenty minutes to ten. Outside, it was a bone-chilling, rainy night, but inside, Cord had been perfectly happy, his boots up on the desk, his arms cocked behind his neck, occasionally stirring himself to referee the debate…but the two strangers made it impossible to concentrate.
He couldn’t imagine what they wanted…but it couldn’t be good. Cord was fatalistic about bad luck. It never showed up when you were in the mood, because you were never in the mood.
“Okay, I know you think you escaped a bullet by getting out early, but don’t start thinking I’m going easy on you. Next Tuesday night, I just might keep you until after eleven.”
This threat was greeted with mixed laughter and groans. Students rustled into their jackets, stood up, dropped books, made all the usual noise it took to scoot them out of the place. Even on a medieval dark night like this one, they were more revved than tired, and damn it, when Cord finally got them charged up about ideas and thinking and bigger worlds, he hated to let them go.
The place had completely cleared out before the two strangers headed down the aisle. Cord had stood up by then, was pushing papers and books into his folio, reaching for his old alpaca jacket…but he watched them.
“Cord Pruitt?”
Cord nodded. Both men showed their IDs. As expected, the jowly, tired-looking guy was a detective, George Bassett. The other man-the more interesting character with the long, sharp features-was private security. Ian Ferrell had a tag from the Senate Office Building, so, pretty obviously, he was on some senator’s staff. Cord was even more mystified why they’d be paired together.
“I’m afraid we’re here about your brother, sir.” Bassett’s tone was respectful.
“Jon?” Okay, dumb question. It wasn’t as if he had any other brother. But his muscles were freezing up now, anticipating a blow.
“Yes, sir. I’m afraid we have bad news. Perhaps you might want to sit down.”
Cord pushed off his jacket, but there was no way he was sitting down. “You can skip the tact and cushioning with me. Just tell me what kind of trouble he’s in now.”
The men exchanged glances, but the detective picked up the ball. “We received a 911 call late this afternoon. When officers responded to the scene, we found a man lying at the bottom of the stairs. He was deceased. I’m sorry for your loss, sir-”
That had been tacked on as if the detective had suddenly forgotten his usual lines in a play.
Cord sagged against the desk. There was no love lost between him and Jon. Years ago he’d stopped believing his brother would find an ethic or principle in his character.
But five tons of flash-flood memories suddenly seared through his mind. Cord had been roaming the world for God knew how many years now. He’d still likely be hightailing it from Everest to the Amazon, from Delphi to Paris to Rio…if their mother hadn’t come down with cancer. By the time he’d severed his work ties and got back to Washington, it was too late. Mom was gone. Dad had crashed and had to be put in what they discreetly called a rehab center. Over the last years, Jon had turned into someone Cord couldn’t even recognize, much less reach. And Zoe had left him, because coming home to clean up family messes wasn’t exactly her specialty.
More fool Cord. He’d actually thought she was the kind of woman who’d stand by him.
His brother, on the other hand, had always been trouble. Cord could readily believe Jon had promoted himself to even bigger trouble-but still, nothing like this. Not dead. Not murdered.
Cord swiped a hand over his face, tried to surface from the weight of shock. And guilt.
“Where’s my brother now?” Cord asked hoarsely. “Who did this? What-?”
The detective quietly interrupted. “It took us a few hours to track you down. Initially, we assumed your father was the primary family connection, but then we realized…”
“That he’s in a rest home.”
“Yes. So from there, we tried to ascertain if your brother had any other direct relatives-which is how we came across your name. Obviously, you weren’t at your home address, so we tracked you down through the university, and then where you’d be lecturing at this hour-all of which is to say, this all took time. It has been a few hours since the event. Initially we weren’t certain if your brother fell down the stairs or if there could have been foul play-”
Impatiently, Cord pushed away from the desk. Bassett was talking a lot, but saying very little, arousing Cord’s worry buttons even more. Obviously, his brother hadn’t had an accidental fall. And obviously, even a murder must have had unusually complicated implications, or these two men would never have shown up together.
“What do you need from me?” he asked curtly, addressing the private cop rather than the detective. The man had been silent all this time, but Cord sensed he was the higher authority of the two.
“Mr. Pruitt…the situation is complex.”
Cord had already guessed that. Situations involving Jon were always complicated. He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to fathom how his dad was going to survive this.
“Are you familiar with a young woman named Sophie Campbell?”
“No,” Cord said.
“She’s the tenant who lived next door to your brother-from the time she moved here, somewhere around nine months ago. She’s the person who found him. She apparently knew your brother quite well.”
Cord sighed. “So did a lot of women.”
Bullets kept shooting through his mind. Funeral arrangements had to be made. Someone had to deal with his brother’s business, from bills to belongings. Their father was hooked up to oxygen full-time, wouldn’t be able to
