Free Blood Bond by Sophie Littlefield Page B

concentrate on the winding streets anyway.
    Fifteen minutes and a couple of wrong turns after leaving the highway, he found the place. Three-bedroom ranch, two-car garage. Neat, fresh-painted fence, climbing roses on the gate. Seven-fifty, eight hundred thousand in this neighborhood. Joe hadn’t been able to shake the keen interest he’d developed in real estate prices since he bought his own place. He hadn’t hit the exact bottom of the market, but he’d still done well; his own condo in San Ramon, in a slightly shabbier development than the one Marva lived in, was worth quite a bit more than he paid for it.
    Sproul met him at the door—a fit man in his late forties wearing athletic shorts and a tight shirt made out of some high-tech material that made him look a little like Captain Kirk.
    His handshake was hearty. “Come on in, I’ve got tea, coffee, whatever.”
    On the way to a sunny kitchen, a pretty brunette on the phone in a home office smiled and waved. “My wife; real estate,” Sproul said by way of explanation, a note of pride in his voice.
    Once they were settled with fresh coffee, Joe got down to business. Sproul had already heard the basic details of Bergman’s death, and he shook his head slowly as they talked, his shock seeming genuine.
    â€œHow did you know him?” Joe asked.
    â€œBusiness. And . . . friendship. We went to college together.”
    Interesting, the way he hesitated, the order in which he named the connections. “Why was he calling you last night?”
    Sproul considered, crumbled half a muffin into bits with his fingers. “I’m not sure I can answer that,” he finally said.
    â€œTry.”
    â€œOkay, I think he was trying to apologize.” Sproul wiped his fingers on a paper napkin, then crumpled it into a ball. “Though it didn’t really work.”
    â€œWhat did he have to apologize for?”
    Sproul looked up, gave Joe a full-bore gaze: “He screwed me. But good.”
    â€œGo on.”
    â€œI left Accenture last year. Finally figured out I wasn’t ever going to be partner material.” Sproul made air quotes around the words, his tone more chagrined than bitter. “It was leave or be dumped. And Tom, he and I used to get together for squash; he had this idea we could put together our own strategy consulting gig. He kept his day job, though—the idea was I’d do most of the up-front work, troll for clients, get the office set up, et cetera. Took me most of the last six months.”
    â€œYou have any luck?”
    â€œYou might say that. A couple of outfits I had some contact with, that weren’t covered by a noncompete clause . . . one in particular could have floated us for a couple of years.”
    Sproul was silent for a moment, and when he looked up at Joe again he was wearing a faint grin.
    â€œI must be the dumbest fuck in town. I never got around to putting together the partnership docs. I could have. Ought to have made it the first order of business. But you figure . . . you know a guy thirty years, back to when we took Freshman Finance together . . .”
    â€œWhat did he do, Mr. Sproul?”
    â€œTold me the business couldn’t really carry the both of us. Said he thought he’d go it on his own for a while, maybe pick up an associate fresh out of business school this spring. You know, somebody cheap. Paid me a little for the six months . . . see, he was the one who put up all the money up front.”
    Joe got the picture. He took a minute to turn it over in his mind, remembering med school, the way everyone appraised each other the first day—one out of three of them wouldn’t make it, that’s what the dean said by way of welcome. Well, they were right; Joe quit, and there were probably more than a few students happy to see him go.
    â€œSounds cutthroat.”
    â€œYeah. Yeah. You know,