“You look like hell.”
Ryder walked into his brother’s outstretched arms.Their embrace was brief, but it served its purpose.It was proof to Ryder that the connection he’d tried to sever with his family was still as strong as it had ever been.
“You got here fast,” he said.
Roman glanced around the room.“I figured I’d better.”
Ryder hadn’t expected to be so overwhelmed by the sight of his brother’s face.It was all he could do to speak without breaking down.“Help me, Roman.Help me find her and get her back.”
Roman’s grasp was strong on Ryder’s arm.“That’s why I came, brother.That’s why I came.”
Like the sleuth that he was, Roman began to move about the room, picking up things and laying them down again, feeling, judging, absorbing the world in which his brother had been living.A photograph sat on a nearby table.Roman picked it up.
“Is this her?”
Ryder nodded.It had been taken the night of Libertine Delacroix’s party.It hurt to look at it and remember how happy they’d been.“Yeah, minus the ears and tail,” Ryder said.
One of Roman’s rare grins slid into place.“Leave it up to you to run away from home and come out smelling like a rose.”
* * *
“Well, I do declare!”
Eudora’s ladylike gasp that accompanied her remark was in reaction to seeing the Justice brothers coming through the front door of the main house.
From the cold, handsome faces to the dark straight hair and those square, stubborn chins, they were alike as two peas in a pod.Their blue jeans were pressed and starched and their long-sleeved white shirts were a perfect contrast to the tan of their skin.The tilt of their Stetsons rode at the same cocky slant, and their steps synchronized as they stepped off space on the pale, marble floor.
“Dora, this is my brother, Roman Justice.Roman—Casey’s grandmother, Eudora Deathridge.”
Roman’s expression never changed as he tilted his hat.“Ma’am.”
A shiver moved through her as she looked into Roman’s eyes.They were dark, and the expression seemed hard and flat.And she knew if he hadn’t looked so much like Ryder, she would have been afraid of this man.
Ryder touched her arm.“We’re going to use the library for a while, okay?”
“Why, yes, dear.Whatever you need,” she said, and then made as graceful an exit as she could manage.
“There it is,” Ryder said, pointing to the computer system in the far corner of the room.
Roman headed for it with unerring intent.Within moments, he was into the system and had it on-line.
“How did you do that?”Ryder asked.“I can never make those things do what I want them to do.”
Roman looked up.“You just don’t use the right kind of persuasion,” he replied, then moved his eyes back to the screen.
Ryder found himself a chair and sat down.This morning, Roman had asked him for a list of names of people with whom Casey most closely associated.The question had surprised him.All this time he’d been thinking in terms of faceless strangers, not a betrayal from family or friend.
He’d asked why and was still shaken by his brother’s cold answer.“Because trust will betray you every time.”
It hurt him to know the depth of Roman’s bitterness toward the human race.But his own life was in such a mess, he couldn’t argue the point.All he could do was trust the fact that Roman had been in this business long enough to know what he was doing.
* * *
“Well, now, this is interesting.”
Ryder came out of his chair like a shot.They were the first words that Roman had spoken since he’d sat down at the computer over an hour ago.
“What?”Ryder asked.
