.

her, murmuring low, reassuring words, he was having trouble fitting her into the murder scenario he’d constructed on the way to her apartment. The picture he’d seen made her look like the soul of innocence. The woman clinging to him gave the same impression. Yet he’d also seen her dispatch a couple of tough guys in the alley. Let’s not forget about that.

      “I’m scared.”

      “Yeah. I understand.”

      He’d taken her in his arms for purely mercenary reasons, yet he couldn’t keep himself from reacting to the softness of her skin, her light flower scent, the clean feel of her hair.

       Careful, Brady, he warned himself. This is no time to be taken in by a woman who could work her way into a weekly liaison with the head of the Ridgeway Consortium.

      Yet she didn’t seem like one of John’s honeys. He went for women who were flashier, blonder. Women who knew that John Ridgeway might be able to help them along in the world.

      She was more like Brady’s own type. A lot more. Or was it that he had stayed away from any romantic relationships for too long? And the first young, pretty woman who came along was tugging at his emotions in unexpected ways.

      He should distance himself from her, but he stayed where he was, captured not only by the physical attributes of the woman but also by a sense of connection.

      Her voice woke him up to reality.

      “It wasn’t a coincidence that you showed up in the alley in back of my apartment.”

      “Yeah.”

      “How did you find me?” she asked.

      “I stopped by my brother’s house. He had your address and your photo in a personnel file.”

      “Okay.”

      He reminded himself that he should be the one getting information, and he didn’t want to be staring over Grace Cunningham’s shoulder when he questioned her. He wanted to be looking into her eyes. Would they shift to the side or stay steady?

      Easing away, he asked, “Are you feeling better?” “Some.”

      “Who was after you?”

      Her gaze turned inward as she considered the question. “I’m not sure. Could be security guards from the Ridgeway Consortium,” she said in a flat voice.

      “The news said my brother was alone when he died.”

      She moistened her lips. “That’s a lie.”

      “Oh yeah? How do you know? Were you with him?”

      “No.”

      “But you were having an affair with him,” Brady said because he wasn’t going to get sucked into feeling sorry for this woman. Or feeling anything. He’d said he was her bodyguard. But that was for his convenience, not hers.

      Her eyes shot up to him and her voice turned hard as she said, “I was not having an affair with him. He didn’t appeal to me that way.”

      “You just said you were with him when he died.”

      She gave him a glacial look. “That’s not what I said at all. I said he wasn’t alone. I wasn’t with him. There’s a difference.”

      He kept the questions coming. “You were supposed to be working on a research project with him, but you were really having a liaison.”

      “No,” she said again. “He was using me for something else.”

      CHARLES HANCOCK WAS a man used to making life and death decisions—and collecting the huge fees his clients were willing to pay.

      Tonight he sat on the leather sofa in the den of his McLean mansion. The floor-to-ceiling drapes were open, and he could look out over his property.

      The television played softly across the room. One of those programs he liked on Animal Planet where a macho guy ran around jumping into alligator pools or sticking his hand into scorpion holes. Charles was always hoping one of the fools would get chomped to death. Or stung by a stingray, like that Australian guy.

      The show was good background for cleaning his Glock model 17L, a sweet little handgun if he’d ever seen one.

      He glanced at the clock. It was ten and time for Anderson Cooper. The boy came across as steady and reliable. Charles had made that a rule of his own life.

      He had no illusions of his own power. Or his own tragedies. After his wife and son had died in a terrorist attack in Egypt, he’d vowed to devote himself to the greater good of humanity. As he saw it. His goal was a stable society—with power in the hands of the people who knew how to wield it.

      He stayed in the background, quietly giving substantial amounts of money to causes he thought would make a difference. Like his college scholarship fund for disadvantaged kids. A lot of people had written them off, but he understood that the better chances those kids had in life, the more likely they were to stay out of trouble.

      Charles switched channels then sat up straighter when he saw the concerned expression on Cooper’s lean face.

      “White House advisor John Ridgeway suffered a fatal heart attack this evening while catching up on some work in his office.” The anchor’s words hit him like rocks slamming against a cement wall.

      Carefully Charles set the handgun on the table in front of him.

      Ridgeway was dead. Supposedly he’d died alone in his office.

      Charles’s mind flashed back to November six months ago, when an intruder had blown himself up—along with Dr. Richard Cortez—at the Bio Gens Laboratories in Bethesda, Maryland.

      Cortez had been a close friend and colleague. When he’d heard the news, Charles went back and looked at the deaths of some of his clients. Pat Richmond in Massachusetts. Joe Barlow in California. Ted Pierson in New Jersey.

      Richmond had died in a hit-and-run accident. Barlow had been at home when a burglar broke into his Beverly Hills mansion. Pierson had drowned in a boating accident.

      He’d wanted to dismiss those deaths—and half a dozen others—as unrelated. That was before the pipe bomb at Bio Gens Labs. Two people had died. Cortez and someone else—presumably the bomber.

      Charles had obtained a sample of the DNA from what was left of the bodies. And what he discovered had brought cold sweat to his skin.

      The police had never solved that mystery. Now what about Ridgeway? Were the authorities going to get a crack at the case—or was a grand cover-up in motion?

      “MAYBE YOU’D BETTER explain what you mean about his using you for something else,” Brady said.

      He watched Grace drag in a breath and let it out.

      “I was in the office complex, but your brother was with another woman when he died. They went into another office together. They made love. Then he gasped, and I assume he had a heart attack. There must have been security guards right around the corner. As soon as it happened, a couple of them rushed in—followed by Ian Wickers who runs security at the Ridgeway Consortium.”

      “I know who Wickers is!” He glared at her. “You expect me to believe someone else was with my brother?”

      “Earlier, I was working with him on notes for his autobiography. We had a standing appointment every Tuesday night.”

      Just what Lydia had told him.

      “Did you know he was working on an autobiography?” Grace Cunningham asked.

      “He hadn’t shared that with me.”

      “Probably he didn’t want to tell you anything until he had a publisher lined up.”

      That sounded pretty cynical. Yet the observation fit. John wouldn’t want to make a big announcement until he’d signed a multi-million-dollar book contract.

      She