Cole would have been willing to stand there for hours sheltering her in the safety of his arms, but from the kitchen he heard a dull thudding, like someone pounding on a door. A muffled voice called out for help. Riley’s body jerked away from him, ready to run.

He held her at arm’s length and moved his head back and forth as her eyes darted around the room. He tried to get her to focus on him. “It’s okay,” he said, keeping his voice soft. “She can’t get out. That’s the woman who came downstairs when I let myself in earlier. She tried to stop me, and we had a little disagreement,” he said.

He didn’t tell her there was a moment when he thought the old Amazon was going to get the better of him. She was a fighter, and she had both a height and reach advantage on him. But his high school wrestling career had come back to him, and he’d managed to force a biceps slicer onto her arm and got her elbow into a compression lock. The old gal did as she was told after that. “She’s in the pantry which, for some reason, has a bolt and hasp and a padlock on it. If you tell me to let her out, I’ll go do it, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“We have to go,” Riley said.

He noticed she would not look at the unconscious figure on the floor. “What about your father?” he asked.

She jerked out of his arms and turned away to face the front door. “We have to go,” she repeated.

Cole decided not to ask again.

He rummaged in a coat closet in the entry and found a man’s heavy coat and a hand-knit scarf.  At his bidding, she threaded her arms through the sleeves. She was barely tolerating his ministrations, he thought as he wrapped the scarf round her neck, covering the purpling bruises. She was desperate to get out of that house.

Grabbing his duffel, he led her to the front door. He glanced back once at the still form on the floor. The man was still breathing. Cole considered tying him up, but he was afraid the man would regain consciousness at any minute. He wanted the two of them to be gone, their trail cold.

Cole hustled her down the sidewalk toward the major thoroughfare at the end of the block. At the intersection, he hailed a cab. When they’d both slid into the back seat and closed the door, the driver turned around and asked, “Where to?”

Cole was starting to consider the possibilities when Riley surprised him by speaking in a clear voice, “3410 Prospect St., Georgetown.”

The cab driver nodded and pulled away from the curb.

Cole turned to Riley and raised his eyebrows.

“It’s my sister’s place,” she said, and angling her body toward the window, she rested her cheek against the glass and closed her eyes.

Cole opened his mouth, then closed it. Sister?

When the cab pulled to the curb after what seemed like an interminable, silent ride through the city’s traffic, Cole peered out the window at their destination.

“Dang!” he said, staring up at the immense, five-story, brick Georgian mansion. The front of the home was festooned with white windows in different shapes from round ports to the large multi-paned sash windows on the lower floors. Next to the front door, he saw a bronze plaque with the date 1787.

Riley sat up straight, tucked her hair behind her ear and said, “Let’s go.”

She opened her door and climbed out, so Cole paid the driver and followed. Riley was already at the front door ringing the bell.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on? I didn’t know you had a sister.”

Before she could answer him, the door was opened by a young, slender African-American woman with close-cropped hair. She wore a black turtle neck sweater with black pants and black-framed glasses with narrow, rectangular lenses. When she smiled, her teeth were so white, they seemed almost to light up the gray day. Her smile faded when she got a closer look at Riley’s face.

“Miss Riley,” she said. “My gosh, are you all right?  Please, come in out of the cold. Oh-my-god, she’ll be so happy to see you!”

“Thanks, Kayla,” Riley said. “So she is here? I need to talk to her right away.”

“Of course. I’ll clear her calendar for the rest of the day. Just let me take your coats.”

From upstairs, a voice called out, “Kayla?”

The young woman rolled her eyes. “Hang on,” she said to Riley. “I’ll go tell her you’re here.” She hurried down the hall and disappeared around a corner.

“What is this place?” Cole asked as he hung his oilskin jacket in the entryway closet.

“I told you. My sister lives here.”

Riley had no sooner finished speaking than Cole heard shrieks from somewhere inside the house. When he turned to look, a tall, light-skinned African-American woman wearing a bright pink blouse and flowered pants came running down the hall, her sandals clacking on the polished wood floors.

“That’s Hazel,” Riley said.

“Mmm. I can see the family resemblance.”

The woman scooped Riley up in her arms and shrieked, “Girlfriend!” Cole could not help but notice the woman’s voluptuous, hourglass figure and the low-cut blouse that revealed her ample cleavage. With black hair that fell in soft waves around her shoulders, he thought she looked like a human defibrillator – she could jumpstart the heart of a dead man. After she’d spun Riley around once, she set her back on the floor, held her at arm’s length and looked down at her.

“What happened to you?” Hazel’s voice had changed to a very businesslike tone. “Kayla, back bedroom bath. Get the kit.”

She glared at Cole. “Did you have anything to do with this?”

Riley patted Hazel’s shoulder. “No, no. He’s a friend. I don’t think I’d be here if it weren’t for him.”

Hazel nodded, then put her arm around Riley’s shoulders and began ushering her down the hall. Kayla took up position on the other side. Glancing back over the top of Riley’s head, Hazel said, “Come on. You, too.”

Cole followed the women down the hall, through a larger entry, and past a huge grand staircase with gilt banisters. They continued down another hallway to a small bedroom that overlooked an empty swimming pool. Hazel directed Riley to sit on the bed, while Kayla slipped into the bathroom. She returned seconds later with a large plastic case.

Cole sat on the edge of a plumped arm chair by the window leaning forward, his hands clasped between his knees. He felt awkward and helpless as he watched Hazel rip open packets and swab at Riley’s facial wounds.

After examining the lower lip, the lump on her temple, and the bruises on her neck, Hazel said, “Looks like you were lucky, sister. The last woman I saw with marks like these on her neck was dead. Do you want to talk about it?”

Riley sighed. She wet her lips with her tongue. “Not really.”

“If you want me to keep on helping out here, you need to tell me what happened. I’ve got Kayla’s safety and mine to consider, too.”

Riley’s shoulders sagged even lower. “You remember Diggory Priest? He’s the guy —”

“I know who he is. The asshole from Lima.”

Riley nodded. “He claimed my father had had a stroke, but it was all a lie.”

Cole cursed under his breath.

 “Dig wanted to lure me back up here from the islands,” Riley continued, her voice even, almost a monotone. “This morning, Dad was saying a lot of crazy stuff.” She paused and closed her eyes, licked her lips. “Then Dig showed up. He said he’d known my dad for years, that they were both in Skull and Bones at Yale. He said –” She covered her mouth with her hand.

At the words Skull and Bones, Cole sat up straighter.

She lowered her hand to her lap and looked at Hazel. “My dad a Bonesman? I would have known. And he said –”

It can’t be that bad, Riley, he thought. Say it. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her he would never let anything hurt her again. If she’d let him. But he was the outsider here, and for the moment, as far as the women were concerned, he might just as well be invisible.