Match Made in Court

The police officer gave her a small nod of approval.

Hanna’s small suitcase, thank goodness, was on the top shelf in her closet. Linnea packed enough clothes for three or four days, while her niece gathered favorite toys and games. Then while Linnea collected her toothbrush from the bathroom, Hanna put on her shoes.

“I’m ready,” she said stoutly, looking very slight and terribly young. Her twin ponytails sagged, one lower than the other, strands of blond hair escaping to cling to her damp cheeks.

Ignoring the wrench at her heart, Linnea smiled at her. “Good. We’ll have fun.”

Officer Babayan followed them downstairs. Linnea steered Hanna straight for the front door, pausing only long enough to collect her pink coat from the closet in the entry. She noticed that the female police officer had very casually moved to block any view that Hanna might have of the great room where the Sorensens mainly lived.

Where Tess must have died.

Hanna almost gulped. Maybe she had hit her head on that sharp-edged hearth.

On the front porch, Hanna stopped in her tracks. “Why are there so many police cars here?”

“When they get a call saying someone is hurt, any officers who are near come rushing to find out if there’s anything they can do. I guess there must have been a bunch of them this time.”

Holding Hanna’s hand, carrying a duffel bag of toys while Hanna pulled the pink wheeled suitcase, Linnea hurried her down the rainy walk and past several of those squad cars to her small compact. She put everything in the trunk, helped her niece buckle in and started the engine. She didn’t like the fixed way Hanna stared toward those flashing lights and the open front door of her house with people going in and out.

As she backed out and drove up the block, Hanna’s head swiveled so she could keep looking back. Linnea hated that she saw the neighbors clustered, staring.

Then the same officer pulled a sawhorse away to let Linnea’s car through, and she was able to accelerate up the street until the flashing lights vanished from her rearview mirror.

MATTHEW LAUGHLIN HAD barely risen from bed and was padding barefoot and shirtless to the small kitchen in his rented Kuwait City house when his phone rang.

Damn it, there had to be a problem on the job site; the offices weren’t open yet, and it was currently late evening in the U.S.

He picked up the phone. “Laughlin.”

The hollow quality of the long silence told him this call was originating in the United States after all. He relaxed; Tess did sometimes call at this god-awful hour. She was a night owl, and knew when to catch him at home.

But it was a man’s voice he heard. “Mr. Laughlin? My name is Neal Delaney. I’m a detective with the Seattle Police Department.”

Matt groped behind him for a stool and sank onto it. His hand tightened on the phone until the plastic creaked. “Tess? Tell me my sister is all right. And Hanna.” God, Hanna. Had they been in a car accident?

Waiting out the silence stripped his nerves raw.

“I’m afraid I have bad news. Your sister is dead.”

“How?” he asked in a hard voice. “What about Hanna?”

“Hanna is fine. She’s with her aunt, uh, Linnea Sorensen.” This time the pause seemed not to be a consequence of international telecommunications, but rather a hesitation. Perhaps reluctance to tell him the bad news.

“Your sister died of a blow to her head. We have arrested your brother-in-law for her murder.”

Son of a bitch. Rage pummeled him, as dangerous as the Kuwaiti cloudbursts.

He had disliked Finn Sorensen from the first time Tess introduced them. Tried to talk his sister out of marrying Finn, hidden his unhappiness when he failed. God knew she’d always stood up for herself, or so Matt had tried to believe. Later he’d worried most about Hanna, a quiet, sensitive child who regularly saw her father throw things when he lost his temper. But murder … That was something else again. It ran deeper, hotter, than Finn Sorensen’s childish inability to withstand frustration.

Matt heard the detective talking, caught only the end.

“.other family?”

“No,” Matt said. “Our parents are dead. I’m Tess’s only family.” His decision was already made. “I’ll catch the first flight I can get on. Today, I hope. I’ll be in Seattle …” Hell. The complexity of time changes defeated him for the moment. “Give me your number. I’ll phone when I get into Sea-Tac.”

He wrote down Detective Delaney’s number, gave his blessing—if you could call it that—for the autopsy, then ended the call. Even as he left a message for George Hanson, the project supervisor for the port facility they were building at Shuwaikh, Matt was already going online to check for flights.

If he could pack and be out of here in half an hour or less, he could catch a direct flight to Washington, D.C., then, after a two-hour layover, another leg to Seattle. With a flick of his finger, he confirmed that he wanted to buy the ticket.

He didn’t have that much to pack, really just his clothes and toiletries, plus a few gifts he’d picked up for Tess and Hanna. Those gave him pause. His jaw muscles tightened, but he couldn’t let himself think. Not yet. He dropped the presents he’d planned to take home to Seattle for Christmas into his suitcase, then zipped it closed. Laptop in its case, passport and wallet in his back pocket, he walked out of the house where he’d lived for nearly a year now, knowing he wouldn’t be back.

Hanna needed him.

The airport was only fifteen kilometers south of the city. He left behind the wide boulevards, parks and towering skyscrapers of a city that had looked futuristic to him when he first arrived. He turned in his rental car at Avis, checked his bags at the airline counter and boarded the plane with minutes to spare.

Not until the plane had taxied down the runway and taken off, banking to allow him one last glimpse of the aqua-blue gulf, the surreal silhouette of the Kuwait Towers and the dry tan landscape of the Middle East, did he close his eyes and allow himself to feel the first stunning wave of grief for his little sister.

His face contorted and he turned his head toward the window so that no one could see.

Tess. God, no. Not Tess.

THE PROBLEM OF WHERE he would stay didn’t hit Matt until he was tossing his suitcases into the trunk of the car he had rented at Sea-Tac Airport. He slammed the trunk closed, then stood there feeling stupid.

He guessed he must have dozed in the past twenty hours, off and on. But he hadn’t been able to get a first-class seat on either leg of the flight, and he was too big a man to ever feel comfortable in coach. He’d reached a point where his mind seemed to be slogging through heavy mud. It didn’t want to be diverted, didn’t want to think about anything new. Trudge, trudge. See Hanna, go home, drop onto a bed until he felt human again.

As human as he could feel, considering the man his sister had loved had murdered her.

God. He rubbed his face hard, scrubbing away the snarl that had drawn his lips back from his teeth.

The trouble was, home had been Tess’s house these past few years. Whenever he was in the States long enough, he’d stayed there. Had his own bedroom. It gave him a chance to spend time with her and stay close to Hanna.

Home was currently a crime scene.

Okay. Check in to a hotel, see Hanna. Tomorrow he’d look into renting a place, somewhere she would feel at home. He knew for the moment she was safe enough with Finn’s mousy sister, but by God Tess’s daughter wasn’t staying long term with anyone related to her killer.

He got in the car and took out his cell phone and the slip of paper where he’d written the cop’s phone number. He reached Delaney, who agreed to meet with him the next morning. Then he drove to Seattle, trying to recall any particular hotel from memory. He didn’t want to be downtown. Where did Finn’s sister live? Matt couldn’t remember and didn’t really care; she was a nonplayer as far as he was concerned. Oh, Hanna was fond of her; she often mentioned her aunt Linnie when they spoke on the phone and recently when she’d learned to write well enough to e-mail. The sister was probably the best of a bad lot. Matt didn’t like Finn’s mother, either. The father was too quiet to have made much impression on Matt.

He finally settled on the Silver Cloud Inn on Lake Union. Once in a room, he called directory assistance for Linnea Sorensen’s phone number. There were three L. Sorensens, he discovered. He took down all three numbers, then dialed until he recognized her voice on the message.

“You’ve reached Linnea and Safe at Home Petsitting. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

“Matthew Laughlin. I’m in Seattle. I’d like to see Hanna.” He gave his cell-phone number, then sat down heavily and stared blankly at the wall.

He finally stripped to his boxers, set his cell phone on the bedside table and crawled under the covers.

NOT SURE IF SHE WAS DOING the right thing, Linnea had decided to keep Hanna out of school the rest of the week. Fortunately, she had the two days after Tess’s death off from work, so she and Hanna went to the library, to the beach and playground at Lincoln Park and to the several petsitting jobs she currently had.

The Miller dogs had a little girl of their own, so they were thrilled to see Hanna. When their long pink tongues slopped over her face, Hanna actually giggled, the first sound of genuine happiness Linnea had heard from her since that awful night.