“Did he?” Edgar asked innocently.

  Sean, now finished with his call, was curious to know the answer to this too. He knew that sibling dynamics were always complicated. But if he knew more about their relationship, it might offer him a clue as to what might happen next. “No, he did not,” Orla told the doorman. “What he did seem to favor about me...” she continued, her eyes filling with tears. She paused to banish them. “What he did favor about me,” she repeated, clearing her throat, “was that I never asked him for anything. That I always worked for a living and was determined to provide for myself when I didn’t have to, while my twin,” she ended matter-of-factly, “was forever pumping our father for money.”

  Chapter 8

  Sean debated clearing his throat so the man’s daughter would realize he was there, then decided that since this was a homicide and he had practically been the first on the scene, he was going to ask to work the case. And if that was granted, he was going to need as much information as he could gather together on the matter.

  Orla must have seen the doorman looking over her head. She turned around and frowned. “You know, a more polite man would have cleared his throat, signaling that I should stop talking,” she informed Sean.

  He inclined his head. The woman was right—sort of. “I suppose, but a polite man wouldn’t be as consumed with curiosity about you as I am,” he pointed out.

  Orla’s eyes met his.

  “Just why are you here, Detective?” she asked him. “Were you attempting to run down an empty lead, or did you just happen to get lucky?”

  “I don’t consider walking in on a homicide as ‘getting lucky.’ Stopping a homicide,” he emphasized, “that’s getting lucky. The thing I have against the nature of my job is that I’m hardly ever in time to prevent tragedies from unfolding. The few times that I am, that’s what I count as being fortunate.”

  Orla’s eyes swept over the man thoughtfully. “You know, you are a rather complicated man, Detective Sean Colton.”

  “So I’ve been told,” Sean responded.

  “I’ll bet,” she replied.

  Sean looked at her, wondering if he was reading her correctly. “Ms. Roberts, you’re not by any chance hitting on me, are you?” There was no conceit in his question. He couldn’t deny that he was attracted to her—and if he wasn’t mistaken, it went both ways.

  That could turn out to be a problem, he couldn’t help thinking.

  Her eyes widened. “Oh God, no,” Orla denied so quickly and with such vigor, Sean wound up laughing.

  “Well, there goes any ego I might have been nurturing,” he told her, tongue in cheek.

  Orla looked stunned, as if she had no idea how to respond to his comment. “I wasn’t looking at you in any sort of new way,” she finally told him.

  “All right,” he said, picking up the thread of the conversation, “Just exactly what sort of light were you looking at me in?” he asked, wanting nothing more than to untangle this word riddle he found himself in.

  “A truthful one,” she said. She did what she could to explain her way of thinking. “You don’t strike me as someone who fabricates things in order to grab center stage, or to make himself look important.”

  Sean looked at her, but she wasn’t attempting to flirt with him, he realized. Strange though it seemed, the woman was just telling him the way she perceived the situation.

  Sean couldn’t help thinking that the exceptionally attractive woman gave him the impression of being no-nonsense. She didn’t insult his intelligence by trying to flatter him or invent stories that made her appear in a complimentary light. She just told it the way it was.

  From what he had learned in passing, the woman’s twin liked to play games—and always, always win them.

  Playing that sort of game each and every time had to be utterly exhausting, Sean couldn’t help thinking. He knew it certainly would have exhausted him.

  Studying the property tycoon’s daughter, Sean came to his own conclusions. If nothing else, Orla Roberts struck him as being a very honest, sensible woman. Honesty came with a very high ranking in his book.

  “I’m guessing that you’re nothing like your sister. Are you?” he asked.

  For a moment, Orla’s eyes flashed.

  “No,” Orla bit off. “Were you told that I was?” she challenged.

  “I wasn’t told anything. I’m just going by my own compilation of facts. Going with my own gut instincts.” He had seen the news reports. “What threw me was the fact that you look just like her, so it’s rather hard to absorb the fact that you are completely different from the woman who’s walking around with your face,” he told her.

  “Is that your actual opinion,” she asked the detective, “or is that what you think I want to hear?”

  “No matter what you might think, Ms. Roberts, I don’t lie just because it might be convenient to do so. I was raised to only tell the truth, no matter what,” Sean said with unwavering conviction.

  Surprisingly, Orla smiled. “You know, you sound so sincere, I could almost believe you.”

  Sean laughed softly under his breath. “You really should,” he advised.

  The wary look in her eyes began to dissipate as she carefully considered his words. After a moment, Orla put out her hand to his.

  “Clean slate?” she asked.

  Sean’s smile mirrored hers. “Clean slate,” he echoed, nodding his head. And then he asked, “Is there anything that would have led you to believe that your twin was going to kill your father? After all, she and her collaborator just made good their escape a few hours ago. They could have gone anywhere, but you lost no time in getting here as soon as the news about their escape was made public. Were you that sure your sister would try to kill your father?” he asked.

  “I was 99.9 percent sure,” Orla informed him. And then she let out a long, shaky breath. When she spoke, her voice quivered and almost broke. “And, heaven help me, I was right. With all my heart, I really wish I wasn’t, but I was.” Tears rose in her eyes again. “Heaven help me, but I was,” she repeated under her breath.

  Touched by what he saw, Sean didn’t say a single word. Instead, he just drew Roberts’s daughter into his arms, holding her and silently comforting her as best he could.

  * * *

  At first, determined to be strong, Orla attempted to push Sean away but she just couldn’t seem to create any distance between them.

  She didn’t want him to think she was some sort of a wilting flower.

  “I don’t want you getting the wrong idea. I’m not the type of person who just completely falls apart at the first sign of any kind of adversity.”

  “You just found your father dead on the floor of his apartment. You would have had to have been a robot not to be affected,” he insisted. “And no matter how hard you try to project that image, you are not a robot.” Taking her face in his hands, he looked down into her eyes. “There is no way that you’re going to convince me that you are.”

  Another very shaky breath escaped her. “Just what I need,” she told him, a sad smile lifting her lips. “A bossy male.”

  He drew back to look at her for a long moment. “Right now, maybe yes,” he acknowledged with a nod.

  Because he was treating her with kindness, Orla found that his words just had her falling apart more quickly. Giving in to the tears that were building within her, she put her head against his shoulder and let herself cry for a couple of moments, sobbing her pain.

  A few moments later, Orla did her best to regulate her breathing and not break down again.

  “I’m all right now,” she said rather stiffly.

  “Give yourself a few more moments. There are no extra points for catching your breath faster than you think you’re supposed to,” Sean told her.

  “Do the people who work for you accuse you of being bossy?” she asked him. There was a hint of an amused smile in her voice.

  “All the time,” he admitted. “And so do my siblings.”

  “Siblings,” she repeated. She hadn’t thought of having something in common with the detective, but obviously, she did. “How many do you have?”

  “Three. It’s been them and me for the last eighteen years. I’m the oldest, in case you’re wondering.”

  “Eighteen years. That would have made you a kid at the time.”

  “Depends on your definition of a kid,” he said. “But if it helps clarify things for you, I was eighteen at the time.” He paused for a moment, then continued. “We have something else in common, except that in my case, it’s slightly removed.”

  She looked at him as if he had lapsed into another language. “English, Detective, English.”

  “There are twins in my immediate family as well,” he said.

  She looked at him in surprise. “You have a twin brother?”

  “No,” he answered.

  “Then why...”

  “But the twin in the family has a twin brother,” he went on to tell her. “It’s a smaller world than you might think.”

  “And are those twin brothers of yours the kind that you just turn your back on?” she asked.

  “Actually, no. We depend on each other. We have ever since my father died of cancer.”

  “What about your mother?” she asked.

  “She passed away a few years before then,” he told her.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that,” she said. He had suddenly become a person to her, not just a police detective.

  “When my father died,” Sean continued, “we became orphans. Except for Humphrey Kelly. He was the reason my siblings and I weren’t shipped to a group home or separated and sent off to foster homes. We owe him. So when he disappeared a couple of days ago and his wife called me, I felt that we owed the man more than we could ever repay. As I mentioned earlier, Humphrey once told me that if anything ever happened to him, I should go and try to locate your father and talk to him.”

  “My father?” she murmured, confused. “Why?”

  Sean shrugged. “I don’t know. That part was left up in the air,” he admitted to her. “Do you have any thoughts on the matter?”

  Orla shook her head. “I’m coming up empty,” she said. “The only thing I know about your benefactor is what everyone knows. He’s a famous psychiatrist who gets called into court to act as an expert witness at least several times a year. I heard that he was supposed to be in court a couple of days ago, but as to how that went, I have no idea.”

  “It didn’t,” Sean said. “That’s why I came here, looking for your father. Because while Humphrey was caught on camera showing up at the courthouse itself, there is no record of him either testifying in any of the courts that were in session that day or even talking to anyone official inside the courthouse.”

  “Well, he couldn’t have just disappeared into thin air,” Orla protested.

  “No, he couldn’t have,” the detective agreed. “The dilemma is where do we start to look. And,” he quietly reminded her, “this is my problem, not yours, Ms. Roberts.”

  She shifted, giving him a warning look. “Don’t you start putting up barriers between us now,” Orla told him. “It would just wind up being a huge waste of time on your part.”

  Chapter 9

  That was the moment that Julio Flores, one of the CSI team, chose to stick his head into the room. “Detective Colton, I need to have a word with you if you don’t mind,” the man requested.

  Immediately alert, Sean turned to face the man. “Is there something wrong?” he wanted to know.

  “You mean other than having one of the richest men in the state murdered in his own home?” Flores asked with a touch of sarcasm. “No, I just wanted to check a point of procedure with you.”

  Sean’s eyes shifted toward Orla. She looked so vulnerable to him, he didn’t want to just walk out on her. “Do you mind?” he asked her. “I’ll be right back.”

  Orla nodded. “Take your time. I need to catch my breath and clear my head, anyway.”

  Sean really didn’t feel right about leaving the woman alone at a time like this. But he knew he really couldn’t say anything like that because it might sound as if he was insulting her.

  This was a very delicate position she found herself in. All he could do was place one foot in front of the other and proceed with caution. “I won’t be gone long,” he promised.

  She waved away his statement. “Don’t worry about it,” she told him. “I’ll be fine. You’re not responsible for me.”

  He had a different opinion about that. In a way, he felt responsible for everyone he came in contact with. He knew saying so out loud would just drag them into an argument, so for now, he counteracted her assumption with a suggestion. “Why don’t you go down to talk to the doorman and ask if he saw anyone else stopping by to talk to your father, or if he directed someone toward your father’s private elevator?”

  * * *

  He was creating “busywork” for her, Orla couldn’t help thinking, but there was also a possibility that it might even help. At any rate, she decided, it wouldn’t hurt.

  “Sure,” she agreed. “I can do that.”

  “I’ll come looking for you as soon as this is taken care of,” he promised.

  She nodded. Rather than take the elevator—they always made her feel trapped when she took them by herself—she opted to take the stairs back to the ground floor. Besides, taking the stairs on her own always made her feel more in control of the situation.

  But the doorman, Edgar, was nowhere to be seen. “Okay, Edgar, where are you?” she murmured, looking around the foyer. She hadn’t interacted with the man a great deal, but he’d never struck her as the type who took advantage of any sort of commotion to slack off or sneak away.

  When she did finally locate him, Edgar was talking to several of the tenants, undoubtedly answering questions about why there was a CSI vehicle parked near the entrance.

  This, she thought, was undoubtedly going to take some time. She’d go crazy just loitering in the lobby waiting for the detective to return. She felt as if the walls were closing in on her.

  She decided to go back to her original plan and get a little air. She pushed the revolving door, exiting the building. The cold air hit her immediately, assaulting her cheeks. Despite the fact that it was the middle of the day, it was cold.

  She definitely shivered. She pulled up her collar and wrapped her coat around her more securely as she walked out onto the street. It was packed.

  Had this been any other time, she would have enjoyed walking around, clearing her head and just enjoying the hustle and bustle of humanity that milled around her.

  But not today. Despite the fact that, at bottom, she was a New Yorker, it felt as if there was a very heavy weight on her chest.

  Part of her hadn’t come to terms with what had just happened, that for no reason other than her twin’s baseless, mindless jealousy, her father was permanently gone out of her life.

  Orla could feel fresh tears filling her eyes and sliding down her cheeks. She didn’t need any clues to convince her that this was Aimee’s doing.

  She knew.

  “She’s not going to get away with this, Dad,” she whispered into the shadows, then swore, “I won’t let her.”

  Orla and her father had never really been all that close. Maybe that was even partially her fault, Orla thought, because she had drawn into herself—although Rockwell was an unethical liar. Maybe the fact that she’d been so independent had created some of that distance. And now she would never have the chance to change things.

  Orla could feel her jaw tightening, as she clenched her fists at her side.

  “You’re going to be sorry for this, Aimee, sorry you killed our father. Sorry that you were ever born,” she quietly promised with feeling.

  A movement caught her eye.

  Actually two movements caught her eye simultaneously. Sean had just pushed through the building’s revolving door. Spotting her, the police detective waved at Orla, indicating that she should make her way back across the street and into the building.

  At the very same time that Orla saw Sean, she heard the distant screech of tires.

  The tires sounded as if they were drawing closer.

  The driver was approaching in a brand-new large black vehicle. Caught by surprise, Orla let loose with a bloodcurdling scream. Before she could react, Sean sprinted and threw himself at her, managing to pull her out of the way by a hair’s breadth. The car only narrowly missed them.

  Orla hit the sidewalk, the cry throbbing in her throat as the detective cradled her in his arms.

  The screeching sound filled the very air and for a second, she didn’t even realize that the noise was coming from her.

  Orla was clutching at Sean’s shoulders as she made her way up to her feet. For his part, Sean pulled her to him and away from the scene just in case the vehicle’s driver changed his or her mind and returned to make good on the near collision.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, doing a quick inventory of every inch of her.

  Her legs were shaking as she tried to stand. “I am, thanks to you,” Orla said as the significance of the whole situation finally began to sink in.

  Several people who’d seen this almost fatal meeting of flesh and metal came out to gather around the woman who had come very close to being a fatality and the man who had saved her from that fate.

  Questions were being fired at both of them from several directions as onlookers took out their cell phones, filming like crazy in hopes of capturing a decent video of the event that had just happened.

  “C’mon, let’s get you inside,” Sean urged. He raised his hand, placing it between Orla and the people engaged in snapping what transpired.

  “Step aside, people,” he ordered. “Give her some space. The woman needs space.”