Secretive Stranger Read online

  “We have no absolute evidence of blackmail-” the detective interjected, but Ferrell interrupted him again, his voice quiet and sure.

  “No one expected your brother’s death. No one knew for sure how far your brother’s…activities…had gone, or how many women were involved. But right now it’s a tangled mess. A lot of people could be hurt if this is handled the wrong way.”

  Cord wished his thermos wasn’t empty. His throat was dryer than the Sahara. They kept heaping on more bad news. “Maybe we’d better get a few things straight before you say any more,” he told both men. “I did a stint in the Air Force, donated some years to the State Department-easy enough for you to check my background, and I’m guessing you already have. But being a patriot doesn’t mean I have any use for politics and politicians. I don’t. I don’t spy and I don’t lie. So if that’s what you’re asking me-”

  “It’s not, Mr. Pruitt. But we are asking for your discretion, and your help. We absolutely want to bring whoever did this to justice. But we believe that it’s in everyone’s best interests to keep this under the media radar as much as possible-”

  Bassett was long-winded and careful. Ferrell cut to the chase. “It’s too soon to draw conclusions. We all know that. But as an initial strategy, it makes good sense to publicize your brother’s death as an accidental fall. Temporarily, not forever. There’s no question, at least in my mind, that this was a murder-”

  “Although we won’t know that until the results of an autopsy. We know very few specifics this soon.”

  Ferrell rolled his eyes. “It was murder,” he repeated to Cord. “But the reason we want the media calling it accidental is to gain an advantage. The murderer wouldn’t be on her guard.”

  “We don’t positively know that it’s a ‘her,’” the detective piped up again, but Ferrell ignored him.

  “If the murderer feels safe, she could slip, make mistakes. The women involved with your brother are going to want that blackmail evidence, Mr. Pruitt. There are pictures, notes, CDs. We know that, but we don’t know where they are. We believe the murderer-as well as the other women involved in your brother’s life-will likely take some major risks to find that evidence. To destroy it.”

  The detective took his turn. “Your brother’s next-door neighbor,” he said, “is twenty-eight…”

  “That’s the Sophie Campbell you mentioned?” Cord asked.

  “Yes. She works as a translator for Open World. She’s been with that organization since she graduated from college. She does extensive translating projects for them, often on-site. For the last nine months or so, she’s been living in Foggy Bottom, gathering stories from women survivors in World War II. She speaks Russian, German, Danish.”

  Cord’s head was swimming. “I don’t understand why you keep bringing up this woman-unless you either believe she was one of the women Jon was blackmailing, or that she’s the killer.”

  “We don’t know either of those things,” Ferrell said. “But we do believe she’s the key to your brother’s killer in some way.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re not really at liberty to say,” the detective said cautiously, but again, the private cop proved more frank.

  “We’re uncertain to what extent this young woman is involved. What we do know, however, is that she was the only consistent person in your brother’s life. She was in and out of your brother’s place quite frequently. In fact, she’s the only one who had a key, as far as we know.” The older man hunched closer. “We need your help, Mr. Pruitt. We need your help to solve this…and we need your discretion.”

  Cord frowned. “I still don’t know what you’re asking me to do. If you need my permission to go through Jon’s place, fine, you’ve got it. I assume you’d have that legal right, regardless, in a crime situation-”

  “It’s not that simple. What we also need is you, specifically because you’re his brother, a family member. Once we’ve officially-so to speak-labeled this an accidental death, we need you to go in, act like a grieving brother, look like you’re closing up Jon’s affairs.”

  “That’s hardly going to be an act,” Cord said. “It’s what I have to do. There is no one else.”

  “Exactly. The thing is, wherever your brother hid his stockpile of information, he hid it well. It’s not as if we haven’t been trying to track down evidence long before this happened. And although we don’t know precisely what role Sophie Campbell plays in this, we do know she had more access to his place, to him, than anyone else. We haven’t been able to dig up any incriminating background on her, but we all believe she knows more than she’s saying. Someone who wasn’t connected to the law might have a significantly better chance to get her talking.”

  Cord grabbed his jacket and folio of student papers and notes. Enough was enough. He’d had more than he could take. “If you’re asking me to spy, as I said before-forget it.”

  “We’re asking you to talk to her. Which should naturally happen if you’re in your brother’s apartment-she’s right there. If she happens to tell you information that you judge as valuable, we’re asking you to communicate-preferably to me, first.” This, from the detective.

  But it was Ferrell who was looking at him. Ferrell who wanted anything he dug up. First.

  Cord motioned them all to the door. This party was over. He wished he could hurl something. Even though he was two years younger than Jon, he couldn’t remember a time he wasn’t cleaning up Jon’s messes…but this was by far the most disturbing and ugliest.

  As far as this Sophie character, though, Cord already had her pictured, because he knew the kind of woman his brother went for.

  Jon liked sluts. Lookers with long legs and spongy morals. Often enough, Jon pursued women who were married or already committed, because he found it more fun to seduce a woman who was supposed to be faithful. His favorite types had money, or looked as if they did. He preferred long-haired brunettes who had that look at a party-like they were prowling the gathering for men, like a cat hunted for meat.

  Not that Cord minded wildcats.

  He’d even tamed a few in the past. But at the moment, he was off women altogether-the hurt from Zoe still stuck like a blade-and beyond that, any woman who appealed to his brother never could, never would, ring his chimes.

  “You’ll help us?” Bassett pressed again.

  “Maybe.” Cord couldn’t think anymore. Not right now. “I need to get my brother buried. I need to deal with my father. I need to find out what I’m supposed to do as executor, and all that nonsense. I assume you don’t want me near the place until you’ve done whatever investigating you plan to do. So give me the word when I’ve got the freedom to go in, handle the place and my brother’s things. I’ll be happy to give you anything relevant I run 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.

  For an instant, she thought the man in the doorway was Jon.

  Sophie had long accepted that she was doomed to have more bonkers moments than most, but believing in ghosts was still a stretch.

  Yet even after a second glance, she still thought he was Jon.

  She yanked off her glasses and squinted seriously now. Jon had unquestionably been a prize-winning scoundrel, but there’d never been any surprise how he attracted women. First off, he stretched to a good six two or three. Add in shoulders made for a tux, posture with a little arrogance and the most compelling blue eyes ever made. Then stir in the tasty stuff.

  Jon’s face would have been Adonis-perfect, if not for the French nose, but his skin was Irish-clear, the hair a Nordic dark blond. His eyebrows had a hint of an Italian slant, the chin and bones a Germanic tough cut. And no, Jon couldn’t possibly have all those heritages, but that was the point. He was a universal hunk. Take all the parts, and the whole appealed to any and every woman’s fantasy…except for hers, of course. Sophie figured she was the only woman who ever felt completely safe around him, because there wasn’t a prayer in the universe he’d notice her. Not that way.

  Now, though, her heart finally stopped hammering. The longer she scrutinized the intruder in the doorway, the more she realized this was no ghost.

  He did look like
Jon-amazingly like Jon-but there were interesting differences. This guy’s hair was blond, but darker than Jon’s, more whiskey-gold, all wind-riled-up, and longish. His legs were encased in cords-Jon never wore that nature of casual pants-and these were well-worn cords besides. The chin was scruffy, where Jon never left the house without fresh-shaved cheeks and an expensive aftershave.

  And Jon had never once made her pulse bounce like a hormonal puppy…yet this man did. Sophie ignored the tickle of awareness, because she was obviously having a highly emotional week, and her judgment couldn’t be trusted.

  While Sophie was giving herself a mental slap upside the head, though, the other women were sizing him up as if they’d just discovered a sale at Bloomingdale’s.

  The man was looking over the women just as sharply and intensely. His gaze roamed from one to the other like a bee checking out pollen-except for her. He spotted her sitting on the steps. His attention just immediately passed by her. No surprise there.

  All three brunettes were gorgeous, but even besides that, Sophie knew men never noticed her. It was the same reason she’d been safe as a church with Jon. A woman didn’t wear oversize coats and big bags and gloppy hats for nothing. Sophie knew perfectly well she was ignorable.

  Her neighbors, however, didn’t have the same life goal of being safe.

  “You don’t live here.” Penelope surged past Hillary’s purse and Jan’s boots to extend a hand. “Not that you aren’t welcome.” She gave him a head-to-toe, at the same time he took in her red wool jacket, matching red lip gloss and flip-back brunette hair.

  He accepted the handshake. “I’m Cord Pruitt. Jon Pruitt’s brother.”

  “Oh. Oh.” Sophie almost laughed as Penelope’s expression changed channels from woman on the hunt to sweetie pie. Suddenly, her eyes were brimming with sympathy. “We were just talking about how much we all loved your brother and missed him. It’s been such a shock-”

  Sophie relaxed another notch, now that his identity had been established. For some strange reason, though, he seemed to instantly lose interest in Penelope’s considerable charms-and moved on to Hillary.