Free Wolfe Watching by Joan Hohl

he would revert to form, handle the situation in a professional, intellectual manner. But for now, for tonight, he was driven by a powerful emotional fuel, and he knew it.
    That knowledge made all the difference. If push came to shove in Tina’s case, Eric would step around emotions and do his job. He knew himself to be incapable of anything else.
    But until push came to shove, if it did, Eric was determined to follow his gut instincts...simply because that was what he wanted to do.
    But Lord, he prayed his instincts were on target, because Tina was...
    Eric’s thoughts were interrupted by the sudden ringing of the phone. He knew who was calling; only one person had the newly allotted number. He picked up the receiver on the second ring.
    “Yeah, bro?”
    His brother’s quiet laughter skimmed along the long distance line. “Hello to you, too,” Cameron drawled. “And how are you on this fine autumn Sunday?”
    “Fine, hell,” Eric retorted, grinning. “It’s raining and windy and cold as a witch’s—”
    “I get the picture,” Cameron said, interrupting him. “I also have some information for you.”
    “On that list of names I gave you yesterday?”
    “The very same,” Cameron replied.
    “Fast work.”
    “I’m nothing if not industrious.” Cameron’s lazy-sounding drawl appeared to belie his claim, but then, Eric knew that quite often appearances were deceiving.
    “I’m impressed,” he said, and in truth he was. “So, what did you come up with?”
    “Zilch. Nada. Nothing,” Cameron reported. “Every name on that list, male and female, came out squeaky-clean. There wasn’t as much as one misdemeanor charge in the bunch.” He gave a low chuckle. “Believe it or not, we couldn’t even come up with a single instance of high school detention.”
    Eric laughed. “That is about as squeaky-clean as you can get. I’m glad to hear it, though. I liked all of them.” Ted came to mind, and Eric quickly amended his statement. “Well, maybe not all, but most of them, anyway.”
    “You have trouble with one of them?” Cameron rapped out, instantly alert.
    “Nah,” Eric said dismissively. “At least not in any legal, or illegal, way.”
    “Ah, I see. A woman.”
    “My word, you are the perceptive one,” Eric said in a fabricated tone of awe.
    “You’re too overgrown and dumb to be cute, Eric,” Cameron rejoined in apparent amusement. “So, you’ve taken a fall, have you, just like Jake?”
    “Jake?” Eric frowned. “What about Jake?”
    “You don’t know?”
    “Dammit, Cameron!” Eric snapped, immediately concerned for the welfare of the youngest member of the brood. “Would I ask if I knew? What about Jake?”
    “Seems he’s in love.” Cameron’s drawling voice betrayed his delight at being one up on his younger brother. “The woman’s an associate professor at Sprucewood College.”
    “Well, damn,” Eric muttered. “So baby bro Jake’s the first of the big bad Wolfes to bite the dust, eh?”
    “It would appear so,” Cameron said, too wryly. “Jake says he’s going to marry the woman.”
    Though both alerted to and puzzled by an underlying nuance in his brother’s initial remark, and his tone of voice, Eric had no time to ponder it for his full attention was snagged by Cameron’s follow-up statement.
    “Marry her?” he repeated in stunned disbelief. “Did Jake tell you this?”
    “No, Mother told me.” Cameron’s voice sharpened. “Haven’t you talked to Mother lately?”
    “No, not since I took up residence here,” he said. “I was planning to call her this afternoon, but I kinda got caught up in something.”
    “Does the something have a name?” Cameron inquired in an amused, taunting voice.
    Eric grinned at the phone. “Mind your own business, big bro,” he taunted back. Then, not only to change the subject, he said anxiously, “Mother’s all right, isn’t she?”
    “She’s fine,” Cameron assured him. “Practically ready to run out and buy