The Assassin (Isaac Bell 8)

“At least until he’s paid the dinner check,” said Nellie. “Actually, you really do look solemn. What is it?”

“Spike Hopewell told me that your brother ran off and you never heard from him. Is that true?”

Their mood changed in an instant. Nellie looked away. Edna nodded. “Yes. Actually, he was a Yale man, like you.”

“Really? What class?”

“You were probably several years ahead of him.”

“He didn’t go back after his freshman year,” said Nellie.

“Perhaps you knew him?” said Edna.

“I don’t recall anyone named Matters.”

“His name was Billy Hock.”

“Billy Hock?” Bell looked at her curiously.

“Yes,” said Edna. “He was my older brother.”

“And my older half brother,” said Nellie.

Isaac Bell said, “I never made the connection.”

“We did,” said Edna. “Or we wondered. Do you remember now?”

Bell nodded, recalling a slender, eager-to-please youngster, more a boy than a man. “Well, yes, I knew him, slightly . . .”

Billy Hock had big, bright gray-green eyes as bright as Edna’s and Nellie’s. “He enrolled as a freshman my senior year. He was very young, youngest of the boys entering.”

“Fifteen. He was small. Undersized.”

Nellie said, “He tried out for crew. He would have made a perfect coxswain, being so light. But he was terrified of water. He always had a phobia about it.”

“The crew rowers ragged him mercilessly,” said Edna.

Bell nodded.

“Until some upperclassman stepped in and put a stop to it.”

“Yes.”

“We wondered how.”

“He could not abide bullies,” said Bell.

“One boy against a team?” asked Nellie.

“He trained at boxing.”

Edna directed her level gaze into Bell’s eyes.

“When I watched you and Archie boxing those men, I suddenly wondered was it you who stood up for our brother. Wasn’t it?”

“I hadn’t realized the connection until this very moment. The different name. We didn’t discuss our families at college—unless our people were related—you must remember when you went off to college how we were all so glad to be away from home at that age.”

Both women nodded.