The voice demanding that he flee faded to background noise. Sophie had a way of taking center stage in his awareness.
Even though she looked all soft and touchable after her shower, there was a determined cast to her features.
“Thomas, we have to talk.”
“You want me to go, don’t you?” he asked grimly. He may have just been contemplating leaving, but the idea of Sophie not wanting him there anymore felt like a kick to the gut with a steel-toed boot.
“No. That’s not it. No, of course not.” She opened her mouth, as if she wanted to say more, but she stopped herself. She walked toward him, glancing distractedly out at the lake and the heavy downpour. “Jeez, it’s getting worse, isn’t it?”
“What do you want to talk to me about?”
“Sit down,” she said, nodding at the couch in front of the picture window.
She didn’t speak once they’d sat, but just looked down at her hands folded on her thighs. A strange expression overcame her face. She shifted her right hip up and reached between the sofa cushion, extracting his BlackBerry. He barely acknowledged it when she handed it to him.
“Sophie, what’s wrong?”
“It’s not that anything is wrong, necessarily—maybe you’ll think differently—but . . . well, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, Thomas. Something about your brother.”
“What about him?”
“You know how I’m friends with Andy Lancaster? Well, sometimes Andy would consult with me about his cases. He wouldn’t give me any names,” she added quickly, her big eyes glued to his face. “But . . . well, I was there in the offices. You remember? . . . We used to see each other . . . on . . . on the nights when ...”
“When my brother Rick was there for his sessions,” Thomas finished woodenly when she faded off.
She nodded.
He studied her narrowly. “Isn’t that sort of unethical for Dr. Lancaster? To blab about his patients to someone else?”
“No . . . it’s really not, Thomas,” she exclaimed in a rush. “I used to work as a clinical social worker years ago. There’s no other psychologists in our practice, so I was the only one with any degree of expertise that Andy could talk to. It’s common for psychologists to consult—to try to get distance on their cases, to gain some objectivity. And like I said, Andy never says names. He maintains confidentiality. I just sort of . . . put two and two together on my own.”
He felt as if ice water rushed down his spine and was slowly seeping to his extremities. “You know
? You know about what Rick’s source told him? About his investigations into the mob?”
He didn’t even realize he was standing until Sophie stood, too. Gone was the vibrant, apricot tint of her skin. Her face looked washed out of color. Her throat convulsed, as though she were having trouble swallowing. His heartbeat began to pound out a warning in his ears when he read the compassion and anxiety in her dark eyes.
“Rick’s source lied, Sophie. He lied.”
“How . . . how do you know?” she asked shakily.
“Because it’s ludicrous, that’s how I know,” he bellowed. “Do you think I wouldn’t know if the man I’d lived with for eight years of my life, the man who I’ve called Father for twenty-six years, was a fucking sociopath?” He started to walk away from her, but then jerked around, making her start back. “Is that why you keep asking me about my dad? Because you suspect he’s guilty? What the hell did Rick tell Lancaster? It’s not like Rick believed the crap his source was feeding him!” He grabbed her shoulders. “Did he, Sophie? Are you trying to tell me Rick told his psychologist that he actually believed that his own father was a criminal?”
“No. Andy told me that he was confused and upset by the information his source gave him about your father’s long-term involvement in illegal activities.”
“Alleged involvement. Rick was a highly respected investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune, as you probably already know—since you probably know every other damn thing about my life,” Thomas added bitterly. “Rick used a pseudonym for his articles and books. He believed that the two-bit criminal he’d cultivated as a source—a weasel by the name of Bernard Cokey—didn’t know Rick’s real name. But the son of a bitch obviously did know he was feeding his lies to the son of Joseph Carlisle. He probably planned on extorting money from Rick for not going to some other journalist or cop with the information. He just never got the chance to do it before Rick was killed.”
He felt like throwing something when he saw the expression in her eyes.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he seethed in a low voice.
“Thomas . . . you’re sure? You’re sure that Bernard Cokey is a liar?”
His brows furrowed in puzzlement. “You said that Rick didn’t believe the crap Cokey fed him. Why are you even asking me? I’ve told you my opinion.”
She licked her lower lip nervously. “Well . . . according to Andy, Rick said that he did trust Cokey. Everything else he’d told him about Outfit operations checked out. He couldn’t understand why he’d fingered Joseph Carlisle—”
“The rat-bastard did it because he knew Rick’s real name and planned on squeezing him for money,” Thomas boomed. When he saw Sophie flinch, he released her as if her shoulders had burned him.