his face. “I was scheduled to meet her but things didn’t work out. Maybe you saw her.”
“Saw her?” Brooke echoed.
“Yeah,” Tuney said, his eyes shifting from hers to Victor’s. His voice trembled slightly, and he cleared his throat. “She was shot in your lobby a few hours ago.”
* * *
The walls seemed to blur before Brooke’s eyes. She staggered back and felt Victor’s arm around her waist, steadying her, before she pulled away. “The black-haired woman worked for you?”
“Yes. Off the books, of course. She’s the one who found your father’s address in Colda’s office, so she started tailing you. Followed you to San Francisco, to Gage’s office building. I went to meet her. Got there just in time to join the crowd of bystanders who collected after the shooting.” He cleared his throat again. “It was clear she wasn’t going to make it, even with Dr. Gage’s help, so I decided to come to meet with you personally.”
“Did you tell all this to the police?” Victor asked.
Tuney’s eyes narrowed. “Not yet. I figured I would fill them in right after I talked to you.”
Words failed Brooke. All she could think about was the lady lying on the lobby floor with the life ebbing out of her.
“Brooke’s going back home soon, so there’s no reason for you to continue to pursue her.”
“I want the truth. That’s what I get paid to find out, and now, since Fran’s been killed, I have even more reason to stay on this. She was a good woman and whoever is responsible needs to be punished.” Tuney moved toward Brooke but Victor stepped in between them. Tuney continued, “Get me some time with your father, Brooke. He can come clean, admit to his part in the robbery and cop to whatever he did to Colda and had done to Fran. He’s a sick man, I understand. He’ll want to do the right thing before it’s too late.”
“Stop it,” Brooke screamed, tears pooling in her eyes. “My father is okay. He’s okay.”
“Leave her alone.” Victor drew himself up to his full six feet three. Tuney did not miss the gesture and eased back.
“Or your aunt Denise could talk to me,” Tuney said thoughtfully. “She might have some info that would put the incident to rest.”
Brooke didn’t even ask how Tuney managed to know all the intimate details of her family’s life. “You’re wrong about everything.”
He shrugged. “You should make it easy on your father. Get him to talk to me.”
“What if she doesn’t?” Victor said, voice low.
“Then I stick to Ms. Ramsey like the proverbial glue.”
“You’re no better than a stalker,” Victor snapped.
“I prefer to think of it as determination rather than stalking. Funny how you didn’t mind my tactics when you wanted answers of your own.”
Victor gestured to the door. “I think you’d better leave, Mr. Tuney.”
Tuney hesitated, and Brooke hated the scornful look on his face.
“I’ll go,” he said, “but you’ll be seeing me in your rearview mirror until this thing is solved and Fran’s murderer is caught.” He stopped as he got to the door. “One thing you might consider. Could be that shooting today was random, but it could also be that someone else is interested in your situation.”
“No,” Brooke mumbled, head whirling.
“Better to get it all out in the open before somebody else winds up dead.”
“Get out,” Victor snarled.
Tuney strode out the door, leaving them in silence.
Victor gestured for her to sit on the bed and he took the chair. “We need to contact the police and fill them in on everything Tuney said.”
She tried for a steady tone. “First you need to tell me what’s going on. You know about the robbery and you hired Tuney before. I’m not moving an inch until you tell me the truth.”
“The truth?” he said quietly. “That’s all I’ve been trying to find out for four years.”
Pain surged through her. All the shame, all the humiliation. Her father had never really been able to put it behind him, and now it was all going to be raked up again. Her mind was still spinning from Tuney’s intrusion. “What is happening? It was just supposed to be a meeting. Now there’s been a shooting and this detective shows up. How well do you know him?”
“I hired him to investigate the circumstances of my wife’s death. He wasn’t able to solve the case, so we parted ways.”
Brooke felt a tremor inside, a deep foreboding slithering through her body. “When…when was your wife killed?”
His eyes bored into hers. “September fifth, four years ago.”
“September fifth?” She gaped. “That’s the day my—”
“Father’s museum was robbed, I know.”
She did not understand the expression on his face, a mixture of anguish and burning intensity. “There was an accident,” she whispered. “A few blocks from the museum. I remember reading about it in the paper.”
His voice was feverish, brow furrowed, and she could hear a deep current of emotion behind the words. “At three forty-five, September fifth, a man fleeing the scene of the robbery plowed into our car and killed my wife. The driver was never caught. I hired Tuney to find out who was involved in the robbery so I could nail the guy.”
“You hired Tuney to investigate my father?”
“And anyone else who might have been involved.”
She felt sick. “You think…you believe my father is the one? That he robbed his own museum and hired the man who killed your wife?”
“Tuney didn’t find any proof.”
“But that’s what you believe…deep down…isn’t it?”
After a moment, he reached for his phone. “I’m going to call Dean Lock and arrange a meeting for us, tomorrow, if possible.”
“Us?” She looked at him, openmouthed. “You’re taking my case?”
“No,” he said as he dialed. “But I’m going to go with you to meet the dean.”
“Why would you do that?”
He stared at her. “Do you believe in God, Brooke?”
She started at the abruptness of the question, his eyes burning into hers. “Without a doubt.”
“Well, I don’t. My wife did, but I always told her I would never let anyone or anything take charge of my destiny but me. I don’t believe there’s a God that guides us through our daily lives. I don’t believe it for one moment, but there’s something going on here that I can’t explain. The day your life fell apart, mine did, too, and now, all these years later, you walk into my office.”
“Coincidence. It’s got to be. How could the robbery be connected to what’s happening now?”
“I don’t know, but here you are claiming another painting has been stolen from your father.”
“It’s not just a claim. It’s the truth,” she snapped.
“Maybe it has nothing to do with what happened four years ago, but I’m not going to let it go until I know for sure.”
She stared at the granite expression on his face, feeling a wave of anguish wash over her. “I had no idea. I remember hearing that a woman was killed, but I was too wrapped up in what was happening to my father to pay much