Free Brazen Virtue by Nora Roberts Page A

him in the house for fifteen or twenty minutes.”
    “What was the company’s name?” Ben asked.
    “I don’t know …” She rubbed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. Details always came easily to her, but thinking now was like fighting through a fog. “Quik and Easy. No ‘c’ in quick. The guy’s name was, um, Jimbo. Yeah, Jimbo. He had it stitched over the pocket of his shirt. Sounded like Oklahoma.”
    “Your sister was a teacher?” Ben prompted.
    “That’s right.”
    “Any problems with the other staff?”
    “Most of them are nuns. You have a hard time arguing with nuns.”
    “Yeah. How about the students?”
    “She didn’t tell me anything. The fact is, she never did.” It was that thought that had her stomach churning again. “The first night I came into town, we talked, had a little too much wine. That’s when she told me about Jonathan. But since then, and for most of our lives, she closed off. I can tell you that Kathleen didn’t make enemies, and she didn’t make friends either, not close ones. For the past few years, her life has been wrapped up in her family. She hasn’t been back in D.C. long enough to make any ties, to meet anyone who would want—who could do this to her. It was Jonathan, or it was a stranger.”
    Ben said nothing for a moment. Whoever had broken in hadn’t come to rob, but to rape. There was a feel to a robbery attempt, a feel to a rape. Every room but the office was as neat as a pin. There was a smell of violation in this house.
    “Grace.” Ed had already come to the same conclusion as his partner, but had taken it one step further. Whoever had broken in had come for the woman he’d gotten, or forthe one sitting next to him. “Is there anyone who has a grudge against you?” At her blank look, he continued. “Is there anyone you’ve been involved with recently who might want to hurt you?”
    “No. I haven’t had time to get involved enough for that.” But just the question was sufficient to start the panic. Had she been the cause? Was she the reason? “I’ve just come off a tour. I don’t know anyone who would do this. Not anyone.”
    Ben picked up the next stage. “Who knew you were here?”
    “My editor, publisher, publicist. Anyone who wanted to. I’ve just done twelve cities with plenty of PR. If anyone had wanted to get to me, they could have done so a dozen times, in hotel rooms, on the subway, in my own apartment. It’s Kathleen who’s dead. I wasn’t even here.” She took a moment to calm down. “He raped her, didn’t he?” Then she shook her head before Ed could answer. “No, no, I don’t want to focus on that right now. I can’t really focus on anything.” She got up and found a small bottle of brandy in the cupboard beside the window. Taking a tumbler, she poured it half full. “Is there more?”
    Ed wanted to take her hand, to stroke her hair and tell her not to think anymore. But he was a cop with a job to do.
    “Grace, do you know why your sister had two phone lines in her office?”
    “Yes.” Grace took a quick slug of the brandy, waited for the punch, then took another. “There’s no way to keep this confidential, is there?”
    “We’ll do what we can.”
    “Kathleen would hate the publicity.” With the tumbler cupped in her hands, she sat again. “She always wanted her privacy. Look, I don’t think the extra phone line really applies to all of this.”
    “We need everything.” Ed waited until she drank again. “It’s not going to hurt her now.”
    “No.” The brandy wasn’t helping, she realized, but she couldn’t think of a medicine for her sickness, and the brandy seemed the best she could come up with. “I told you she’d hired a lawyer and so forth. She needed a good one to fight Jonathan, and good lawyers aren’t easily had on a teacher’s salary. She wouldn’t take money from me. Kathy had a lot of pride, and to be frank, she always resented—never mind.” She took a long