She didn’t expect him to open the door himself—even half expected he’d still be at the university and spare her the duty. But there he was, with his cardigan buttoned wrong and his kind green eyes smiling at her.
“Isn’t this nice. Gilly just went out to spend some time with friends, and now I have company. Come in out of the cold.”
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr. Mira.”
“You aren’t. I only had morning classes today, and was letting my thoughts circle around in difficult places.”
He took her coat before she could stop him, then just stood holding it, as if he’d forgotten what he’d meant to do.
“I won’t be long. Maybe we can just put it over the chair or something.”
“Of course, like family. Now, what can I get you?”
“Nothing. Please. Mr. Mira, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to take you into those difficult places.”
“Of course,” he said easily, and nudged her gently toward a chair. “It’s better to go straight into them than to circle around. You’ve learned something.”
“You know Frederick Betz.”
“Is he dead?”
“I don’t think so, yet. They have him, I’m sure of it. And in the course of investigating we— I found some keys. Two old standard keys and two swipes. One swipe led me to a bank box. There was a great deal of money in it.”
“Yes, I can see that with Fred. He’d squirrel cash away.”
“I also found forty-nine small sealed bags.”
“Illegals.” Now those kind eyes widened. “I would never have thought so. And being a chemist, he could simply, well, mix what he wanted when he wanted it, couldn’t he?”
“Not drugs. Inside each was a lock of hair, and each bag was labeled with a different name. A woman’s first name.”
Something sagged in him—she saw it. And it broke her heart a little.
“You don’t think they’re from women who gave them willingly.”
“Mr. Mira, I believe Betz, along with Wymann, your cousin, Marshall Easterday, Ethan MacNamee, and William Stevenson formed a kind of club. What they called the Brotherhood. And I believe starting back in college they selected women, and raped them.”
“Edward,” he murmured, and stared into the fire. “I knew these men. Not well. Not very well—and I think now not at all. William Stevenson . . . Willy? Did they call him Willy?”
“Billy.”
“Yes, of course. Billy. He died, didn’t he, some time ago? I can’t quite recall.”
“Yes.”
“And Ethan—I liked him more than the others, back all those years ago. We played soccer. We played soccer for Yale, so I knew him a little better than the others. He lives in Europe, I believe.”
His gaze, full of grief, came back to hers. “You want to ask me if I knew about this?”
“No. I know you didn’t.”
“Shouldn’t I have? I knew they had secrets, and I thought . . . I honestly don’t know or remember what I thought but that I was excluded. It bruised my feelings at first when Edward would brush me off. No time for me. I rarely saw him.”
“They had a house, a private home.”
“Yes, they lived together, a kind of fraternity of their own making. Ah,” he murmured, and the sound was sorrowful. “Brotherhood.”
“Do you know where? The house, do you know where it was?”
“I’m afraid I don’t. Edward . . . He made it clear I wasn’t part of that, and while I believe they often had gatherings, parties, I wasn’t included. It was such a large campus, even then, and very strictly secured due to the Urbans, but I never visited him there.”
He looked away again, into the fire. “You believe they began this there, in that house. I see. I see why he was so cruel about it now. Why he made it clear I wasn’t part of that . . . fraternity. That brotherhood. I wish I could believe he’d been protecting me from it, but he was only protecting himself. I loved him, but I would have stopped him. I would’ve found a way.”
“He’d have known that.”
“How many did you say? How many names?”
“Forty-nine.” She hesitated. “Some are clearly a great deal older, some are . . . not.”
His gaze came back to her, horrified. “You think they were still . . . They continued, all this time?”
“Why would they stop when they got away with it?”
“Not because they were drunk or high and lost control. Not to excuse that, you see, but this is . . . calculated. What you’re telling me. Planned and done as—as a pack. Like rabid animals. No. No. No. Not like animals.”
He pressed his fingers to his eyes a moment, then dropped his hands in his lap. The devastation on his face cut Eve to the bone.
“Like men who thought they had the right. Worse, so much worse than animals.”
In the next moment, anger burned through the devastation. “Edward had a daughter. How could he do this and not think how he would feel if someone did the same to his own child? His daughter has a daughter. Merciful God. And he died for it, for his own brutality, his own arrogance.”
