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“You could…” He hesitated.

“I could what?”

“You could use a camera,” he said slowly.

“Like a nanny-cam?” Sophie asked, and his lips quirked up.

“In this case a granny-cam,” he said and she laughed, feeling a little better.

“Do you know anything about cameras like that?”

He winced. “Yeah, I do. My brother-in-law Aidan knows more. I’ll ask him.”

“Thanks. If I can get an affordable camera, I’d put it in her room in a heartbeat, just to give me and Harry peace of mind.” She smiled at him. “And thank you for that, in there. You made Gran so happy. I wish I’d thought of it before, bringing in people who would talk to her about her music. Now I have to go home. When will I see you again?”

Vito blinked at her, incredulous. “Like, every time you look in your rearview mirror. I’m not leaving you tonight, Sophie. Didn’t you hear us? Munch or Bosch or whatever the hell his name is may be watching you.”

“I heard you. And I listened. But I don’t expect a twenty-four-hour bodyguard, Vito. That’s just not practical.”

Vito’s eyes flashed and she thought he’d argue. Then his eyes went as sly as her Gran’s had. “You owe me a double bonus prize for this morning.”

“Yeah, but you owe me for translating.”

He grinned. “I think this is what they call compound interest.”

She swallowed, her body already tingling in anticipation. “See you at the house.”

Wednesday, January 17, 9:25

P.M.

She had an escort, which was most unfortunate. He frowned as he watched Sophie Johannsen drive away in her grandmother’s car, followed closely by the truck driven by the man who’d walked her out. He’d have to wait until she was alone.

He’d known she’d show up here. Long ago he’d checked her financials and found the checks she’d written to the nursing home. She paid them a lot of money. He’d heard health care costs were on the rise, but even he’d been surprised. He’d never pay so much for his parents. But then, he no longer had parents, so the point was moot.

He wished he’d been able to hear what they’d been saying. Next time he’d be better prepared. He’d wanted to snip all his loose ends in one fell swoop, but that wasn’t going to happen tonight. No matter. He had other diversions. He put his van in gear, then glanced over his shoulder to where Derek Harrington lay, bound and gagged.

“You wanted to know how I got my inspiration,” he said. “You’re about to find out.”

He’d return for Sophie Johannsen tomorrow.

Thursday, January 18, 4:10

A.M.

Vito woke slowly. He’d slept well, exhausted by four long days of work and two short nights of teaching Sophie the fine art of making love. She was a fast learner, capable of assimilating all he’d shown her into moves that left him utterly spent. But now he’d recharged and he wanted her again. He reached… and patted an empty bed.

Vito’s eyes snapped open. She was gone. He jumped from her bed, his heart knocking in his chest. He stopped in the bedroom doorway and listened, relieved at the low murmur of the TV downstairs. He pulled on his pants and forced himself to take the stairs two at a time instead of in one big leap.

She was curled on the sofa, cradling a mug in her hands. Sleeping at her feet were the dogs, looking for all the world like rainbow-head wigs. Her head jerked around when she heard him. She’d been jumpy, too. “I woke up and you weren’t there,” he said.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

He stopped at the coffee table on which he’d left his folder and Bev’s art book. The book was open to The Scream, and Sophie was watching him.

“I didn’t mean to pry. I didn’t know it was a book for your case. I was trying to take my mind off… Anyway, the page was marked. It goes with the screams, doesn’t it?”

Guilt speared him. He’d been sleeping like a baby while the sound of those horrific screams kept her awake. “We think so. I’m sorry, Sophie. I never would have wanted you to hear what you’ve heard or see what you’ve seen.”

“But I have heard and I have seen,” she said quietly. “And I’ll deal with it.”

He sat next to her, stretching his arm across her shoulders, gratified when she snuggled against him. They sat in silence, watching the movie on the TV. It was in French and she was watching without the English subtitles, so after a minute he lost interest in the flick and sniffed at the mug in her hands. “Hot chocolate?”

“Good German cocoa,” she confirmed. “Shubert family recipe. Want some?”

“Maybe later. Is this one of your father’s movies?”

En Garde. It’s not nearly as good as Soft Rain, the one you saw.” Her mouth lifted sadly. “Alex wasn’t a great actor, but he got a lot of screen time in this movie. It’s a swashbuckler flick, and he fenced competitively when he was in school. There he is.”

Alexandre Arnaud walked across the screen, sword in hand. He was a tall man with golden hair and Vito immediately saw the family resemblance. “You needed to see him.”

“I told you I’m not that difficult to figure out. I don’t like to be alone in this house. If you hadn’t been here, I’d be at Uncle Harry’s watching Bette Davis movies with him.”

In this house. She sounded morose when she said it, but every time she’d spoken about her uncle it was with affection, so he thought Harry was a good place to begin. He made his voice casual. “Did you live here or at your uncle’s when you were a kid?”

Her wry look said that she’d seen right through his ploy. “Mostly here with Gran. I started out with Harry and Freya, but they had four kids, and here I got my own room.”

“But you said you didn’t like to be alone.”

She pulled back and leveled him a long look. “Are you interrogating me, Vito?”

“No. Yes. Kind of. I’d prefer you keep thinking of me as nosy. It sounds less harsh.”

“So it does. I lived with my mother until I was four, but she got tired of me and dumped me on Uncle Harry. Harry gave me the first real home I ever knew.”

“An even better reason to hate your mother than her affair with your father.”

Her voice cooled. “Oh, no. I have much better reasons to hate my mother, Vito.” She turned her eyes to the TV, but she wasn’t watching it. “Anna was still touring that first year, but when she was home I stayed with her in Pittsburgh. When she was gone I stayed with Harry. When I started kindergarten, Gran sold her place in Pittsburgh and moved here so I wasn’t shuttled back and forth.”

The picture of a little Sophie being passed around with no roots squeezed at his heart. “Did Freya not want you?” he asked and her eyes widened.

“Nothing gets past you. Freya hated Lena so much. Having me around was hard.”

How selfish, Vito thought, but kept it to himself. “So what about your father? Alex.”

“Alex didn’t know about me for a long time.”

“Anna didn’t tell him.”

“She’d broken up with him less than a year before I was born and she still hurt, according to Maurice. According to Harry, she was terrified my father would take me away.”

“So how did you eventually meet him?”

“I always asked about my father, but nobody ever talked about him, so one day I took a bus to the courthouse, went up to the counter and asked for my birth certificate.”

“Industrious. Did they give it to you?”

“Considering I was only seven, no.”

Vito stared at her. “Seven? You were riding around on a city bus alone at seven?”

“I was trading empty beer bottles to the nearest corner store for Ho Hos and beef jerky when I was four,” she said flatly. “Anyway, the lady at the courthouse asked for my next of kin. The next thing I knew Uncle Harry was there, so upset. He told Gran I had a right to know my father. Gran said over her dead body, and Harry stopped arguing. I thought that was that. I was plotting a new plan to get my birth certificate when one day Harry shows up at my school with passports and two tickets to Paris.”