Brazen Virtue

badly enough, she’d get it. There’d been no starving in a garret or creative suffering. There’d been no angst or agony of the artist. She’d taken her savings and had moved to New York. A part-time job had paid the rent while she drove through her first novel in a wild and breathless ninety days.
    When she’d decided to fall in love, she’d done so with the same sort of verve and energy. There’d been no regrets, no hesitation. She’d fed on the emotion as long as it had lasted, and when it was over, she’d moved on without tears or recriminations.

    She was nearly thirty and had never had her heart broken or her dreams smashed. Shaken a time or two, perhaps, but she’d always managed to right herself and forge ahead. Now, for the first time in the whirlwind of her life, she’d hit a wall that couldn’t be climbed over or breached. Her sister’s death wasn’t something she could change by shifting into neutral. Her sister’s murder wasn’t something she could accept as one of life’s little twists.
    She found she wanted to scream, to throw something, to rage. Her hands shook as she lifted the cups from the table. If she’d been alone, she’d have given in to it. More, she’d have wallowed in the release of it. Instead she steadied herself. Her parents needed her. For the first time, they needed her. And she wouldn’t let them down.
    She put the cups down at the sound of the doorbell and went to answer it. If Father Donaldson had come early she’d go over the funeral arrangements with him. But when she opened the door, it wasn’t to a priest but to Jonathan Breezewood the third.
    “Grace.” He nodded at her but didn’t offer his hand. “May I come in?”
    She had to struggle against the urge to slam the door in his face. He hadn’t cared about Kathleen when she was alive, why should he care about her dead? Saying nothing, she stepped back.
    “I came the moment I was informed.”
    “There’s coffee in the kitchen.” She turned her back on him and started down the hall. Because he put his hand on her shoulder, more, because she didn’t want to show him a weakness, she stopped in front of Kathleen’s office.
    “Here?”
    “Yes.” She looked at him long enough to see something move across his face. Grief, disgust, regret. She was too tired to care. “You didn’t bring Kevin.”
    “No.” He continued to stare at the door. “No, I thought it best that he stay with my parents.”

    Because she was forced to agree, she said nothing. He was a child, too young to face funerals or the sounds of mourning.
    “My parents are upstairs resting.”
    “Are they all right?”
    “No.” She moved again, compelled to distance herself from the locked door. “I wasn’t sure you’d come, Jonathan.”
    “Kathleen was my wife, the mother of my son.”
    “Yes. But apparently that wasn’t enough to insure your fidelity.”
    He studied her with calm eyes. He was undoubtedly a beautiful man, clear-cut features, thick, California-blond hair, a hard, well-kept body. But it was the eyes Grace had always found so unattractive. Calm, always calm, just edging toward cold.
    “No, it wasn’t. I’m sure Kathleen told you her version of our marriage. It hardly seems appropriate now for me to tell you mine. I came here to ask you to tell me what happened.”
    “Kathleen was murdered.” Holding herself together, Grace poured coffee. She’d lived on nothing else all day. “Raped and strangled in her office last night.”
    Jonathan accepted the cup, then slowly lowered into a kitchen chair. “Were you here when—when it happened?”
    “No, I was out. I came back a little after eleven and found her.”
    “I see.” Whatever he felt, if anything, wasn’t apparent in the two brief words. “The police, do they have any idea who did this?”
    “Not at the moment. You’re free to talk to them, I’m sure. Detectives Jackson and Paris are handling it.”
    He nodded again. With his connections, he could have copies of the police reports in an hour without having to deal directly with detectives. “Have you set a time for the funeral?”

    “The day after tomorrow. Eleven o’clock. There will be a Mass at St. Michael’s, the church we used to belong to. There’ll be a viewing tomorrow night because it’s important to my parents. At Pumphrey’s. The address is in the book.”
    “I’d be glad to help with any of the details, or expenses.”
    “No.”
    “All right then.” He rose without