Secretive Stranger

across.”

Ferrell looked as if he could finally breathe. “That’s all we’re asking.”

Cord shot him a dry look. “Right.”

When he’d finally ushered the two men out the door, he stood in the lecture hall a moment longer. Rain was still drizzling down the windows, highlighting the loneliness of yellow lamplight on scarred desks. Out of nowhere, he felt the crushing weight of grief. He and Jon had always been polar opposites, but damn…

Maybe there’d never been respect or even liking. But they had been brothers.

He’d do what he could.

He just dreaded the days ahead.

Chapter 2

“You know how much I love Caviar…” Sophie had been bubbling on for the last few minutes, but her voice faltered when she reached the apartment door. Even days later, it was hard to open that door, hard to step into the front hall without reliving the vision of Jon’s body lying there.

Thankfully, the Sunday coffee klatch group had insisted on walking her home. Now the three women all crowded into the cramped hall, no one planning on staying, just keeping her company for a few more minutes.

They weren’t just supporting her, Sophie knew. Jon’s death had the whole neighborhood in morbid thrall- especially the women. Crime wasn’t new in D.C., but this was someone they knew. Every female in a three-mile radius-except Sophie-had lusted after Jon.

Quite a few had sampled his sexual talents-or so they claimed.

“Don’t start about that Caviar business, Sophie.” Jan Howell was the tallest of the three brunettes, the trust funder who loved a party, artsy clothes and anything to do with gossip. Still, she had a good heart, and automatically started handing over the debris Sophie had dropped on the walk-her fuzzy gray scarf, her mitten, her half-eaten muffin in a bag. “You’d take in every stray critter in the city, if we let you.”

“Not every one,” Sophie said, defending herself. When the women laughed, she tried a different defense, since they obviously weren’t buying that one. “The thing is, I really do love Caviar. And right now, it’s such a relief to have him. I come home from work and it’s so silent in here. At least I can curl up on the couch with some kind of warm body…”

Again, her voice trailed off.

Damn, but she couldn’t seem to stop reliving it. That night. The cops. The detective with the cheap coat and hound-dog eyes, hunkering over her, asking her slow, patient questions. Her, blurting out that she had to find Caviar. Him, acting like she was a rich, spoiled-and suspicious-fruitcake. The flashing lights and lobby full of strangers and then that horrible silence after they all left and she was alone, with a rotten case of the jitters.

“You called your sisters, didn’t you?” Hillary Smythe looked more like a bar waitress than a doctor. Shiny dark curls stretched down her back, accenting gorgeous skin and boobs that tended to exuberantly burst out of anything she wore. For the next year, she was studying under some fancy gene research doc at GW University, just a few blocks away. Sophie had long wondered if Hillary had some troubling secret in her past, because she was always so quiet-but she never missed a Sunday-morning coffee with the rest.

“I called both sisters the day after it happened,” Sophie assured her. “I almost wish I hadn’t. They’ve been calling nonstop ever since. Sooner or later, I’ll get a tougher skin about this. It’s just…right now I still have that image of Jon every time I walk in the door.”

“Well, of course you do. It was a god-awful thing to go through!”

Penelope Martin leaned against the thin row of mailboxes. She was stare-at beautiful, Sophie’d always thought. Breathtaking eyes, fabulous figure, dark hair rich and lustrous. The others sometimes whispered that she was harder than nails-Sophie could see she was a little manipulative, but she always stuck up for her. Penelope worked as a lobbyist, after all, and you just couldn’t be cupcake-sweet and do that kind of job. More than the others, though, Penelope was enthralled with “the Jon situation,” as she called it. “I just can’t believe that the police decided it was an accidental death instead of murder. I mean, from how you described it, Sophie-”

Sophie unzipped her jacket and sank down on the third step. “Well, they seemed to decide that he was naked because he’d probably been taking a shower. And then maybe he ran downstairs for his mail, thinking no one was there. I’m the only other tenant in the building right now, and Jon knew I rarely get home before five.”

“Actually, that sounds logical to me.” Jan invariably took the authoritative voice in these conversations, because she was the only one in the group who claimed to have nailed Jon-not that Hillary and Penelope hadn’t tried.

Jon would undoubtedly have fit them all in, if he’d lived long enough. With the exception of Sophie, of course. No one believed Jon would ever have come on to Sophie. Including Sophie.

Jan was still immersed in speculations. “Heaven knows, I can picture Jon running around naked without a qualm. He didn’t have a modest bone in his body. But it was freezing and rainy that afternoon. Logically, I’d have thought he’d have pulled on a jacket or something, even if he was only running downstairs for the mail.”

“Well, maybe it wasn’t for mail. Maybe it was a delivery. UPS, or something like that.”

“But there was no package,” Hillary reminded them all-she who could always be counted on to remember details. “Besides, Sophie said he didn’t have a mailbox key on him.”

“He literally didn’t have anything on him,” Sophie affirmed.

Penelope backtracked to her primary area of interest. “So…was he as hung as all the women said? Oh, that’s right, Jan, you already knew firsthand-”

“God, what a thing to bring up.”

Penelope let out a bark of a laugh. “Up is definitely the relevant word. I heard that when a man dies, he tends to be erect. True or not, Sophie? You’re the only one who’d know.”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “You’re horrible! All of you!” But they weren’t horrible. They’d stayed long enough to make sure she was okay, even though she knew perfectly well they had stuff to do. “Thanks so much, everybody, for walking me in. I’m better, I swear. In fact, I’m going straight upstairs to curl up on the couch with my big guy.”

“That’s our Sophie. Always the wild one,” Hillary said, teasing, but then she said, more thoughtfully, “But that’s really the point about Jon. Why his accidentally dying just seems so ironic. I mean, he was wild. You’d think a number of the women he dropped would have been happy to kill him.”

“Happy to sleep with him, you mean,” Jan said dryly. “I’ll bet it was half the D.C. area. The only women wanting to kill him would be those under the insane misconception he might grow up and consider a serious commitment.”

“Well…” Penelope still wasn’t ready to let it go. “At least no one ever complained he didn’t show a woman a good time. He just couldn’t stick to one woman.”

“Except for Sophie, of course,” Hillary teased.

“Hey. No need to bring me into this discussion.”

“Well, you are the only woman who escaped being ensnared by Jon, that we all know of. Cripes, I’d have settled for being hurt. I never got a chance to make a play.” Penelope sounded increasingly mournful.

“Well, speaking for myself, I’m happier with Caviar. I’ll take my bodies rich and soft. Something to keep you warm at night and make no demands. In fact-”

Penelope suddenly let out a screech worthy of a cat in heat. “Oh! Oh my God, you scared me half to death!”

“I’m sorry.”

The front hall only had space for two bodies at the best of times, and temporarily there were three stuffed in there. Sophie was out of the way, sitting on the carpeted step, but she was just as startled by the sudden sound of a distinctly masculine voice. Sophie twisted, trying to catch a glimpse of the intruder from around Hillary’s elbow… and then froze in shock.