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fluorescent light reflecting off the waxed linoleum in the basement of Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Next to her sat a female police officer. Despite the harsh reality of the stark white hallway, a part of her still clung to the faint hope that James was not dead—that it was all some horrible error, some egregious mistake to be rectified with profuse apologies. But she had been through this denial before, sitting on the same bench outside the King County medical examiner’s office, waiting to identify her father’s body.
    There was no mistake. This was real. Her brother was dead.
    “Ms. Hill?”
    She looked up. There stood a well-dressed man in a tailored blue suit, white shirt, and diamond-patterned tie. He looked like a lawyer. “I’m Detective Michael Logan,” he said.
    She didn’t bother to stand.
    “I’m very sorry for your loss. Would you like to get a cup of coffee, something to drink?”
    She estimated him to be six feet, with broad shoulders and a young face, freckles sprinkled across his nose and cheeks. His red hair had a light curl and was damp, presumably from the rain. “Do you know anything more?” she asked.
    He sat beside her on the bench. “Not for certain. We believe your brother returned home at approximately eleven o’clock last night and walked in during a burglary. He may have been on the telephone, talking to you.”
    Dana dropped her hand from her mouth. “Me?”
    “That’s the last number on his phone. He called you at eleven-ten.”
    She lowered her eyes to the floor, remembering. She had been stressed and anxious after the doctor’s appointment and Crocket’s tirade. She’d been fighting with Grant, then rolled over, exhausted. James’s call woke her. “Yes,” she said.
    “You remember the call?” Logan asked.
    She nodded. “You mean he was on the phone with me…” Tears streamed down her cheeks with the knowledge that her brother’s final act had been to call and find out if she was okay and tell her that he loved her.
    Detective Logan gave her a moment to compose herself. “Do you recall what you and your brother talked about?”
    She took a deep breath. “He had called me earlier in the day. I’d forgotten to call him back. He was just checking on me.” She remembered their conversation. “He said he had a problem.”
    “What kind of problem?”
    She shook her head. “He didn’t say.” She thought a moment. “We were going to have lunch today.”
    “Did he say anything else?”
    “No. He was just… he didn’t want to talk about it on the phone.” She looked at Logan. “He said he didn’t want to talk about it over the phone.”
    “And you have no idea what he was referring to?”
    “No. James never had problems.”
    “Never?” She heard skepticism in the detective’s voice.
    “No,” she repeated.
    “So if he called you and wanted to talk in person, it was probably something important.”
    “I don’t know,” she said, tired. “I guess so.”
    “Could it have been the kind of problem that would lead to something like this?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I’m sorry to have to ask, Ms. Hill, but was your brother into anything—drugs, gambling, anything that might have put him in a situation where someone would have wanted to kill him?”
    “You said it was a burglary—that James walked in on a burglary.”
    “I did. I’m just following up on what you’ve told me, that your brother called and said he had a problem.”
    She shook her head. “No.” She hesitated before becoming more definitive. “No. James didn’t do drugs. He was a vegetarian; he was a fanatic about what he put into his body. And I never knew him to gamble except maybe the college basketball pool at work. My brother was a good man, Detective. Everybody liked James. I never met anyone who didn’t like him.” Her voice became edgy with frustration and anger. “This just doesn’t make any sense. None of it makes any sense.”
    Logan nodded. “Senseless