Secretive Stranger

not on the radar.”

Ferrell spoke up for the first time since Bassett arrived. “She could have been a partner in your brother’s blackmailing…enterprise. The actor in those movies was your brother. He sure as hell was too busy to be holding the camera.”

“Anyone can set up a camera. There didn’t have to be a live person involved. You’re totally barking up the wrong tree.”

Bassett took a pull on his coffee, left a latte mustache on his upper lip. “She’s got a handful of women friends she sees. Right and left, we ruled out a bunch of women we were looking at, all had tight alibis. But two names keep coming up with question marks. Penelope Martin’s one.”

“I know.” Ferrell had already brought up that name.

“The clue was the ‘Penny’ on the list you gave us. Pretty obvious that could have been a nickname for Penelope. Couldn’t identify her for sure from the video-she’s brunette, of a size, of a body, lots of body, but her face is too hidden for us to identify her. Anyhoo. She’s a lobbyist, into trouble every way you look-a suggestion of bribes, of favors. Some men would call her a ballbuster. Point being, she seems like a real weird friend for the mousy-looking Ms. Campbell to have.”

“Mousy-looking?” Any other time, Cord would have laughed. He’d forgotten how he had the same impression the first time he met Sophie. She did have a gift for being invisible. It protected her, he realized, but now that same insight made him uneasy. Her skill at coming across as invisible could seem a suspicious issue, from the cop’s point of view. “You said there was a second woman close to Sophie who you’re looking at.”

He glanced at Ferrell, who’d never mentioned that second woman. But Bassett had clearly come to horse trade, just as Ferrell had. “Yeah. There’s this Jan Howell.” A spray of bagel crumbs drifted down Bassett’s tie. He flicked them off. At least most of them. “Something’s off about her.”

“What?”

“I don’t know, but I’m telling you, something is. Everyone we’ve been checking out has a past full of indiscretions. Motive. Ambition. Secrets. Most to do with Washington. God, I hate this job and this city.”

Cord blinked. “Then why are you here?”

“Because I love this job and this city,” Bassett answered, as if this were obvious. “Back to this Jan Howell. She’s not kosher, I’m telling you. You can’t trust a trust-funder, always has money to blow, no way to track it. She’s a party girl. Dabbles in art, in politics, in do-gooder crap.”

“Well hell, why not just hang her right now? Talk about a suspicious character,” Cord said, deadpan.

“Make fun all you want. She’s not what she seems. And she hung at parties where Jon was. People saw them. They knew each other. And Sophie was the link between the two of them.”

Cord said slowly, “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You think this Jan Howell must be a murderer because her parents have money and she doesn’t have a real job?”

“Okay, okay, you think I’m shooting blanks. But I’m telling you. You gotta get more information out of this Sophie Campbell. Before it’s too late.”

Cord heard the ominous note in Bassett’s voice, stood up. Before leaving, he passed on the account numbers from the Cayman Islands. Bassett and Ferrell both pressed for the rest of the CDs, but Cord wasn’t up for any more discussion. He had work issues he had to deal with; he needed to see his father; and damn it, he wanted to get back to Sophie as soon as he could.

The meeting stuck in his mind like porcupine quills all day, though. Bassett and Ferrell were still scrapping for information. They had plenty. They kept getting more. But the bottom line was that they still hadn’t pinned down the killer. It seemed to Cord that one obvious reason was how everyone was worried about everyone else’s business…only, no one was worried about Sophie.

Except him.

And by late that afternoon, he discovered exactly how scared he should have been for her.

Sophie exited the metro with a spring in her step. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gotten home this early in the afternoon. She wasn’t totally done for the day. She really wanted to dig into some solid translating work, but she could still do it at home. And whenever Cord could pull free from his day’s commitments, she’d be there.

They had a lot of conversations to finish.

A lot of serious, troubling problems framing their time together. But they did seem to be together. A wonder to her. The hem around her heart was still stitched with worries, concerns, fears-reality. But she’d never felt like this before, for any man, and she was going to let her heart soar on Cord, with Cord, for as long as it could.

A healing, blinding sun brushed her shoulders as she charged up the steps, unlocked the apartment door. Inside, she grabbed her mail, then vaulted upstairs. Talk about a silly mood. She all but danced inside, kicked off her shoes, started to hum-some silly, corny love song-and aimed for the kitchen.

God knew, she had to do a solid chunk of work. Yet she was still humming as she put on a full kettle to boil, set out a mug and tea, turned on her computer. “Caviar?

“Come on, Cav, I know I’m home early, but you could at least wake up from napping, you ungrateful hair bucket…” Waiting for the water to boil, she went in search of the scrawny reprobate. For a feline who’d prowled the streets for years, Caviar had certainly turned into a spoiled, stay-at-home slug-although he always, always came out to greet her, if only to whine and meow about her leaving him all day.

She glanced in the bathroom, where he sometimes hung out on top of the towels…then by the laundry, where he loved nestling in on top of dirty clothes…

“Cav?” Amazing that he wasn’t snuggled on her bed-another of his favorite spots.

He wasn’t there, either, but one glance at the rumpled bed made her think she had time to change sheets-the pink ones were the softest, but maybe too girly? So maybe the dark purple ones. And in the meantime, since she was already in the bedroom, she aimed for the closet, thinking she’d put on her lavender sweater, as well. She was pretty sure she’d folded it on the top shelf, where…

The blow hit the middle of her back from behind. The shock of it stunned her more than the pain. Knocked forward, she stumbled, her face pushed into the nest of clothes on hangers. Another blow followed the first-a blow that pushed her farther into the closet. That fast, the closet door slammed shut.

She heard the click of the lock-at the same time she heard a plaintive meow from the far depth of the closet. For a moment she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t imagine what was happening. All too fast, though, her brain started processing the crisis.

Someone had already been inside the apartment when she got home. That someone had hit her with a hard, thin object-like a fireplace poker?-and locked her in the closet.

That someone was still in the apartment.

Okay, okay. The thing to do was not panic. Figure this out. What to do, what to do…

She sank down. The closet floor was a mess of shoes and purses. Something sharp poked her thigh. A hanger. Her back still stung, the banging pain refusing to ease, making it hard to concentrate. A cold draft seeped from the cracks; clothes brushed her face and neck, and before she could find a way to settle, Caviar leaped for her, not purring, just seeking her warm body to protect him.

She stroked the cat, knowing now why Caviar had been hiding. Minutes passed. Then more minutes.

She heard nothing from the other side of the door, but whether her assailant had left or was still there, she couldn’t know, couldn’t guess. She was afraid to make a sound, afraid not to.

It was a woman, she thought. There was a second there, where she’d felt hands, thin hands, nails. Woman’s nails. And there was a scent. Not perfume, but a familiar, woman scent, a shampoo or makeup product. Not hers. But the scent was familiar. Someone she knew used it.

Instead of reassuring her, the knowledge that the assailant could be a friend, someone she knew, seemed even more terrorizing.

Somehow, some way, the person had to be connected to Jon-why else would she be in her place, now or before? And what the assailant wanted was just as obvious. Whatever Jon had been blackmailing her for. Or whatever linked her to Jon’s murder.