The Villa

you let her know it steams you. Work around him."
    "If I work around him, it makes him look like a… damn it. He is a fool. I'm so angry with him for putting me into this spot. If I don't clean it up by end of day—"
    "You'll clean it up by end of day."
    "Yeah." She let out a breath, stepped off the elevator on her floor. Turned to study him. "Why are you being nice to me?"
    "It throws you off. Plus, Twiner is a big stake. I don't spend all my time in the fields," he said when she lifted her eyebrows at him. "If you'd told me you were trying to track down your father, I'd have given you a hand with it. You haven't gone to Cutter."
    She pressed her lips together. "No. But I figure he knows something's up. He'll pinpoint the target soon enough."
    "Then we'll just have to be faster. Teamwork, remember?"
    "That's only because you dislike him more than you dislike me."
    "And your point is?"
    It made her laugh as she put the key in the lock. "As good a reason as any. I just need to grab a few things, including some old files I want my mother to study. And I think I might have some notes on Twiner that'll partially plug this hole. I'll have you back home by dinner."
    She stopped, turned. "Unless," she said, adding a slow smile, "you'd like to order in and try out a different kind of teamwork."
    "Cut it out."
    "You liked kissing me."
    "When I was a kid I liked green apples. I found out they're hell on the system."
    "I'm ripe."
    He reached past her to turn the knob. "You're telling me."
    She gave his arm a friendly squeeze as she turned. "I'm starting to like you, MacMillan. What the hell will we do about that?" She pushed open the door, took one step inside, froze.
    "Dad?"
    She had a brief impression, no more than a blur, before Ty was shoving her out the door again. But that blurred image stayed in her mind, was all she could see.
    Her father, slumped in her chair, the side of his face, the glinting silver at his temples, the front of his shirt all crusted and dark. And his eyes, his handsome, clever eyes, filmed over and staring.
    "Dad. He's… I have to… My father."
    She was pale as a sheet and already beginning to shudder when Ty pushed her against the wall outside her apartment. "Listen to me, Sophia. Listen. Use your cell phone. Call nine-one-one. Do it now."
    "An ambulance." She fought her way through the fog that wanted to slither over her brain, and began to fight Tyler. "He needs an ambulance. I have to go to him."
    "No." He gripped her arms, gave her one brisk shake. "You can't help him." He tabled the idea of going back in to check on Tony himself. Sophia couldn't be left alone. And he'd already seen enough to be certain there was nothing to be done.
    He pulled Sophia to the floor, opened her briefcase himself and dug out her cell phone. "I need the police," he said.
    Sophia lowered her head to her knees as Tyler gave the emergency operator the necessary information. She couldn't think. Wouldn't think yet. Somehow she had to steady herself and get through.
    "I'm all right." Her voice was quiet, almost calm, even if her hands couldn't be. "I know he's dead. I have to go in to him."
    "No." He settled down on the floor beside her and draped an arm over her shoulders as much in restraint as comfort. "You don't. You're not. I'm sorry, Sophia. There's nothing you can do."
    "There's always something." She lifted her head. Her eyes were dry. Burning dry. "Someone killed my father, and there has to be something I can do. I know what he was." Her voice broke there, and the tears that were scalding her throat poured up and out. "He's still my father."
    "I know it." He tightened his grip until she laid her head on his shoulder. There was something to do, he thought as she wept. Even if it was only to wait.
     
    He didn't leave her. Sophia told herself to remember that whatever happened between them—or didn't—when things had been at their very worst, Tyler had stayed with her.
    She sat on the sofa in the apartment across the hall from her own. She'd been to a couple of parties there, she recalled. The gay couple who lived there threw delightful parties. And Frankie, a graphic artist who often worked at home, had opened the apartment to her, and the police. And bless him, had discreetly closed himself in the bedroom to give them privacy.
    No doubt the story would make its way like an electric fire through the building. But for now, he was being a pal. She'd remember that, too.
    "I don't know what he was doing in my