Brotherhood in Death (In Death 42)

“Billy.”

“Yes, of course. Billy. He died, didn’t he, some time ago? I can’t quite recall.”

“Yes.”

“And Ethan—I liked him more than the others, back all those years ago. We played soccer. We played soccer for Yale, so I knew him a little better than the others. He lives in Europe, I believe.”

His gaze, full of grief, came back to hers. “You want to ask me if I knew about this?”

“No. I know you didn’t.”

“Shouldn’t I have? I knew they had secrets, and I thought . . . I honestly don’t know or remember what I thought but that I was excluded. It bruised my feelings at first when Edward would brush me off. No time for me. I rarely saw him.”

“They had a house, a private home.”

“Yes, they lived together, a kind of fraternity of their own making. Ah,” he murmured, and the sound was sorrowful. “Brotherhood.”

“Do you know where? The house, do you know where it was?”

“I’m afraid I don’t. Edward . . . He made it clear I wasn’t part of that, and while I believe they often had gatherings, parties, I wasn’t included. It was such a large campus, even then, and very strictly secured due to the Urbans, but I never visited him there.”

He looked away again, into the fire. “You believe they began this there, in that house. I see. I see why he was so cruel about it now. Why he made it clear I wasn’t part of that . . . fraternity. That brotherhood. I wish I could believe he’d been protecting me from it, but he was only protecting himself. I loved him, but I would have stopped him. I would’ve found a way.”

“He’d have known that.”

“How many did you say? How many names?”

“Forty-nine.” She hesitated. “Some are clearly a great deal older, some are . . . not.”

His gaze came back to her, horrified. “You think they were still . . . They continued, all this time?”

“Why would they stop when they got away with it?”

“Not because they were drunk or high and lost control. Not to excuse that, you see, but this is . . . calculated. What you’re telling me. Planned and done as—as a pack. Like rabid animals. No. No. No. Not like animals.”

He pressed his fingers to his eyes a moment, then dropped his hands in his lap. The devastation on his face cut Eve to the bone.

“Like men who thought they had the right. Worse, so much worse than animals.”

In the next moment, anger burned through the devastation. “Edward had a daughter. How could he do this and not think how he would feel if someone did the same to his own child? His daughter has a daughter. Merciful God. And he died for it, for his own brutality, his own arrogance.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not going to be able to save Betz, Mr. Mira. I swear to you, I’ve tried, but I don’t think we’ll find him in time. Easterday’s in the wind. I’m going to do everything I can to find him, not just to see he pays for his part of this, but if they find him first, he’s dead. Killing them isn’t justice. What was done to your cousin wasn’t just. I get you might think because of what happened to me I might see it that way, but—”

She saw his eyes change from sad and angry to shocked, then sorrowful, then so desperately sympathetic her insides trembled.

“I—I figured Dr. Mira would have told you.”

“No. Oh, no, Charlotte would never betray a confidence. My sweet girl,” he comforted. “I’m so sorry. What you do, every day, is so courageous, and so dangerous.”

“It didn’t happen on the job.” She wanted to push to her feet, get out, get away from that quiet sympathy. But her legs had gone to water. “I was a kid,” she heard herself say. “It was my father.”

It was he who moved. He rose, came to her, took her cold hands in his. Without a word, he simply drew her to her feet and into his arms where he held her so gently she felt she would break.

“I’m okay. I’m all right,” she managed even as she began to shake.

“There now. There. You’re safe here. You’re safe now.”

“It was a long time ago. I—”