LITMIR.BIZ

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Four

      Karen Hilliard looked around her bleak surroundings. She was huddled on a narrow bed in a storage room, but it might as well be a cell.

      A guy named Phil Yarborough had already questioned her, and she’d stuck to her story about meeting John Ridgeway at a party and letting him seduce her. Yarborough hadn’t believed her. She hadn’t expected that he would. And she was braced for the interrogation to get rougher.

      When the door opened, she willed herself to steadiness. Yarborough strode back into the basement room and slammed the door behind him. Crossing to her, he grabbed her by the shoulder, pulling her to her feet.

      “What the hell is going on?” he bellowed.

      Determined not to let him scare her, she raised her chin. “I can’t answer that question until you tell me what you want to know—specifically.”

      He took a breath as he struggled for calm. “We ran your fingerprints.”

      “And?”

      “They come up as a match for John Ridgeway.” When she didn’t deny it, he gave her a shake. “How did you manage it?”

      “New technology.”

      “Which is?”

      She shrugged. “I’m not all that technical. I just follow directions.”

      “So you’re admitting that somebody sent you here—to kill John Ridgeway.”

       Okay, time for plan B.

      “I’m admitting that somebody wanted me to contact Ridgeway.” “Who?”

      “I don’t know, exactly. My guess is that they have ties to the Middle East.”

      “What makes you think so?”

      “They look Arabic.”

      “And why are you working with them? ”

      “Because I need money.”

      “You’re lying.”

      “What makes you think so?” she asked, echoing his phrasing.

      “You’re too dedicated. You have your own agenda. What do you have to gain by defending an Arab terrorist group?”

      “They said they’d kill me if I talked.”

      “Then you’re caught between a rock and a hard place because I’m going to kill you unless you come clean with me.”

      “I can’t tell you anything if I’m dead, can I?”

      He led her to the chair in the room and pushed her down, then pulled out a pair of handcuffs. As he secured her wrists to the wooden arms, a tremor went through her.

      Roughly, he turned her hand over and looked at the tips of her fingers, then ran his thumbnail over the whorls.

      “How did they do it?” he asked again. “Some kind of artificial skin?”

      When she lifted a delicate shoulder, he drew back a hand and slapped her across the face. “Stop lying to me!” She gasped, then met his eyes. “You figure it out.” “I will,” he vowed.

      BRADY DROVE BACK to La Fontana. After parking in the garage, he took Grace up to his third-floor apartment.

      When they stepped inside, he saw her inspecting the place and wondered what she would think of his decor. Although he hadn’t paid a lot of attention to fashion details, the furniture was comfortable.

      But it seemed she wasn’t interested in his decorating skills. Instead she walked to a window and looked out. “We’re too high to get out this way.”

      “We don’t have to.”

      “Are you sure?”

      “You think you’re in the middle of a conspiracy?”

      “I know I’m in the middle of a cover-up. I know Wickers thinks I’m a loose end.”

      He wanted to argue that this was America, not the Gulag Archipelago. But he remembered his own recent confrontation at gunpoint in the driveway of his brother’s estate. Something was going on, and this woman could help him get to the bottom of it. But she was also in trouble, and he was going to keep her safe. At least until he knew the real story.

      “You want some coffee?” he asked.

      She looked at her watch. “At two in the morning?”

      “Well, maybe decaf.”

      They both walked into the kitchen, where he remembered his previous encounter with his larder. “Sorry, there’s no milk.” “That’s okay.”

      “I forget to buy groceries,” he said, wondering why he felt compelled to explain.

      “That’s okay,” she answered again, and he thought from the tone of her voice that perhaps she knew he’d had a wife and daughter—until they’d been killed in a car accident.

      Determined to switch the focus back to her, he asked, “You’re a freelance researcher?”

      “My day job is at the Smithsonian.”

      “It’s a big place. Where exactly?”

      “The Air and Space Museum.”

      “You have an engineering background?”

      She laughed. “No. But I can research any subject. I was working on an exhibit that will showcase World War I-era planes. I was recommended to your brother and decided to take the assignment. The autobiography was legit and the pay was good, but I just didn’t know I’d also be covering for his … habit.”

      He ignored the observation as he filled the kettle and set it on a burner. Maybe it was true. Maybe not. He knew John Ridgeway hadn’t been a particularly nice guy. But that was no excuse for murdering him. If it had been murder.

      “Did you know Karen Hilliard?” he asked. “I mean, outside your contact at the Ridgeway Consortium.”

      “We knew each other.”

      “Were you friends?”

      “We traveled in some of the same circles,” she answered, and he thought she was skating around the truth. “Which circles?” “Young DC professionals.” “The bar scene?”

      “Sometimes. And parties. Some of them on the Hill. Some at people’s houses. Anywhere from basement apartments in Columbia Heights to Georgetown mansions.”

      “You from DC originally?” he asked her.

      She shook her head. “Chicago.”

      They were standing close together. He could reach out and hold her the way he’d done in the car. To comfort her, he asked himself, or because he wanted to feel her body against his? He wondered if that was the real reason he’d initially decided not to bring her here. Staying in a public place meant he couldn’t start anything with her.

      He stopped that line of thought. Getting intimate with this woman was the last thing that should be on his mind.

      He wondered what she saw in his face when she suddenly said, “You don’t have to be tough all the time. It’s all right for you to feel … sad about your brother.”

      “I don’t need advice, thanks,” he answered quickly, all too aware of the last time he’d let himself give in to grief. But that had been very different. Losing Carol and Lisa had been a body blow. He was still coming to terms with John’s passing, but it didn’t feel the same. He’d loved his wife and daughter. Fiercely. When he’d learned of John’s death, he’d been shocked, but not plunged immediately into a black hole of devastation. He’d miss his brother, but his death wouldn’t leave a gaping wound in his life.

      “We’re not going to talk about me,” he added, making

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