Cate took a step toward him, her eyes narrowed as if she were just warming up to a good, long, down-and-dirty argument-when both of them heard the bedroom door open. Sophie padded in barefoot, carrying the tray. Her eyes lit up when she spotted the two of them together.
“Oh, good,” she said. “I was hoping you two would have a chance to get to know each other.”
“Don’t you worry,” Cate said.
“Yeah, we’re getting along like a house afire,” Cord assured her.
Sophie thankfully believed them. Her sister being there was better than a shot of joy juice, as far as Cord could tell. The two chattered nonstop, talking at the same time, arguing at the same time, sat on his deck draped in blankets, sat hip-to-hip for a three-hanky romance movie that night.
Cord talked to Bassett. To Ferrell. To a security company. Hunkered in front of a laptop with one of his brother’s portable hard drives, then on the Net, searching for anything on the names they already had, trying to find more evidence, more information, anything new linking someone to his brother’s death or Sophie’s break-ins.
Through those quiet calls and work, he watched her with her sister nonstop. How she moved. When she winced. When she smiled. How she was doing, really doing. The caretakers-that’d be him and Cate-completely fell down on the job by nine that night, both crashing in the living room before some stupid chick flick was even halfway over. Cate, of course, hadn’t slept the night before.
Cord almost forgot. He hadn’t slept, either. And he only caught a couple hours that night, because he was up and at it after a few-hours crash.
He met Cate, bleary-eyed, at dawn the next morning. It was a meeting of the minds by the coffee machine. “She’s insisting I go home,” Cate told him.
“I think you’ve been exactly what the doctor ordered. She needed you.”
“Of course she did. Sometimes a woman needs another woman-especially a sister. But I see her laughing and all. I see she’s okay. Not-” there was Cate’s royal finger wagging at him again, even though it was a wobbly waggle before she’d had her first dose of caffeine “-that I’m any less worried.”
“I’m worried, too. Hell. I wish I were being targeted instead of her.”
“I don’t get it all. But someone sure as hell thinks she knows something important about your brother-that you don’t know. That no one else apparently knows. This has to get solved, Cord.”
“I know.”
“I’m thinking-I’ll get a flight out Saturday morning. I don’t mind leaving. As long as I can trust you.” Cate handed him his mug, took hers. “Which I do. Sort of. To a point.”
Cord wanted to laugh. Cate trusted him to the exact point he trusted himself. Sophie needed no more dangerous events. Ever. For the rest of her life.
Particularly since she hadn’t done a single thing wrong-except for being a damn fine woman with a little too much nonjudgmental kindness and compassion for others.
Like toward him, for instance.
They took Cate to the airport on Saturday morning, hit a store for food, headed back to his place. If he hadn’t already trekked into town both days to make sure the damn cat was fed and watered, Sophie would undoubtedly have pushed to return to the brownstone…but Cord knew she was not ready for that yet. Plus, he needed to fill her in on a number of things.
First, though, while he carried the two grocery sacks from the car, she volunteered to make dinner-but beforehand she wanted to take a long shower, if he didn’t mind.
He thought the idea was perfect. A shower would refresh her; then they’d have a quiet dinner…and the atmosphere would make serious talk much easier.
For the first time in days, he found himself whistling. Stupid. Nothing was solved. Everything was still wrong. But as he scooped stuff out of the grocery bag, seeing peppermint ice cream and fresh basil and the whole assortment of foods he’d never have thought to buy…it just felt good. Being alone in a house with her. His house. Just her.
That rare high mood lasted all of three or four minutes.
She’d been in the bathroom long enough, so he figured he’d bring her a mug of something. Mulled cider. It was one of the things in the bag-a half gallon of cider, and then this container of what she called mulling herbs. He got it. It was a drink she liked, hot, on a chipper fall afternoon. So he heated it all, stuck a cinnamon stick in the mug, then carted it to the closed bathroom door.
He could hear the water running full-on. His intention was to open the door, leave the mug on the counter, leave before he let in any chilled air.
The first part worked out as planned. He barely cracked open the door before fragrant steam billowed out. He reached in and silently set the mug on the counter. Unfortunately, he glanced up. Even through the thick steam, even through the distorted glass of the shower doors, he could see her.
Instead of standing up, she seemed to be sitting on the shower floor with her knees drawn up.
Smells scented the air. Something like oranges and vanilla-definitely not scents he used for soaps or shampoo. He thought…well, maybe she was sitting because she was plain old tired. God knew, she’d been through enough in the last two weeks.
But the water was beating down on her head like rain. The steam kept getting thicker, harder to see, more pervasive. If he hadn’t been spying, hadn’t been right there at that moment, he’d never have heard the choked cry escape from her throat. She so obviously didn’t want to cry.
Didn’t want him to know she was crying, either.
She didn’t hear him, didn’t see him, when he pushed off his shoes, closed the door. If he’d had a brain, he’d have peeled off his clothes. But right then, he didn’t have a brain. He felt like two hundred pounds of dumb male instinct.
Her head jerked up when the shower door opened.
“I’m okay,” she said immediately. Sophie’s favorite mantra.
He wasn’t about to argue with her. He wasn’t about to talk at all. He bent down, sat down, pulled her onto him.
“Cord…” Her voice was strangled, trying to laugh. “You’re getting soaked.”
He kissed her. Hard. Just the top of her head. Then wrapped her up so tight that it hurt his ribs. Damn shower blinded him. He didn’t care. And she tried to say something else, something funny, but then out it came. Tears like a river. Fears like a storm.
“I just keep trying to understand. I never did anything to anyone. At least nothing I know of-”
“You never did anything. Stop thinking that, right now.”
“But I keep trying to figure this out. Why anyone would hate me. Why anyone would think I’d do something to hurt them, or was a risk to them-”
“No one hates you. No one could possibly hate you. And no one’s going to hurt you again.”
“But what did I do?”
“Nothing, baby.” Hell. He’d have given anything to erase that exhausted, haunted look in her eyes. Roses. Rubies. Rivers. Anything she asked for. All that laughter and chatter with her sister had fooled him completely. He had no idea what it had cost her to bury what was really going on in her heart.
“I keep thinking about the day Jon was murdered.” When she lifted tear-soaked eyes, he brushed the wet hair from her brow. “Something must have happened, Cord. I mean, something that specific day. There had to be a catalyst, some event, something that provoked the person to kill your brother. If we knew what that was, maybe we could figure out the rest. Look. How about if we find all those people on the CDs, those women, and just give them back the darn things? We could have kind of a mass mailing. From Blackmails ’R Us. Or Ex-Blackmailers Anonymous. Or-”
Okay. He couldn’t take any more. She was trying to laugh at the same time her eyes were running with tears. She was scared when she should have been angry. Trying to make sense of something that made no sense. And all Cord could think was that she’d been through it before-her life turned upside down by circumstances she had absolutely no power or control over-so the whole mess was extra traumatic for Sophie.