The whiskey bottle strikes against the edge of the shot glass as the liquid fills the small space. The resulting ringing sound is cheerful, striking a direct counterpoint to my dark mood.

How dare she accuse me of being unfeeling, of not caring what happens to Sheila? She knows about everything I do, how hard I work, how much I want to make the world a better place, but there’s only so much I can do, and I’m sick and tired of always having to clean up after my brother. And Sheila’s an adult; she went into marriage with my brother knowing exactly what his history was. If she’s paying for it now, then it’s her own fault.

Even as the thought crosses my mind, I realize that Caitlin is right.

I’m a bastard.

I cover the bottle and return it to the mini bar behind my desk, leaving the untouched shot of whiskey sitting on the surface as I stride out of the room.

I dig my car keys and cell phone out of my pocket and look at Janet. “Track down the address for Sheila Murdoch. I don’t know her age, but she has a kid who goes to the Hunt school of something or other and she’s married to my brother. That should give you enough information to get her location. Once you have it, text it to me.”

“Okay.” Janet turns back to her computer. “Are you going out?”

“Yeah.”

“And when are you coming back?”

“I don’t know how long this is going to take,” I tell her and start walking toward the elevator.

“But what about that tele-conference call you’re scheduled to have with Senator Harris? And this afternoon’s meeting with that group who have come here from Spain?”

“Cancel them. Cancel everything I have on the calendar for today. This is more important than all of that.”

By the time the elevator reaches the parking garage and the doors open, Ben has brought one of the company cars around and is waiting for me.

“Hey, boss,” he greets me as I settle into the passenger seat. “What’s going on?”

My phone buzzes. It’s a text from Janet. Sheila’s address. I punch it into the car’s GPS system as Ben pulls out of the parking garage.

He glances at the screen and makes the first indicated turn. “So, where are we going?”

“Sheila Murdoch’s place.” I tug the seat belt across my chest and wonder exactly what I’m supposed to do about this particular situation. It’s not like I can force her to leave Evan, but at least I can let her know that if she wants help, wants a safe place, I can provide her with both.

“Evan’s wife? I wondered how long before something needed to be done about that.” He makes another turn. “By the way, Evan isn’t at the office right now.”

A sense of foreboding prickles the back of my neck. “What do you mean? I saw him this morning.”

“He started out there,” Ben confirms, “but he left about ten-ish. Just a few minutes after Caitlin paid you a visit, now that I think about it. One of my guys tried to follow him when he left, but he gave them the slip about three blocks from the office.”

Ben shakes his head. “I’ll say this about your brother: when he wants to give someone the slip, he does a good job of it. It’s a skill more special ops soldiers would love to have.”

“Evan would never have made it through the psych eval.”

“True.”

We pass the rest of the drive in silence, both of us lost in our own thoughts.

“Hey.” Ben breaks the quiet as he turns onto a residential street. “Isn’t that Caitlin’s car?”

I sit up and stare. He’s right. There’s a bright green VW with the name of Caitlin’s floral shop painted across the side parked beside a maroon mini-van. The sense of foreboding morphs into full-on dread. When she raced out of the office I figured she’d go to talk to her friend, Evelyn, or start researching battered women’s shelters. It never even crossed my mind that she’d come here.

“What the hell is she thinking?” I swear to myself as Ben and I exit the car.

Before we take two steps, a scream splits the air.

Without so much as looking at one another, we break into a sprint. Ben levels a kick at the front door – barely breaking stride – shattering the wood and bending the hinges.

The sight that greets us is like one straight out of a horror movie.

My brother is sprawled across the floor, his neck twisted in an impossible angle. Blood and gray matter ooze from a huge gash in the back of his skull, gathering on the floor in a spreading pool. A heavy, non-stick frying pan lays on the floor a few feet from him.

Sheila and Caitlin are huddled against the far wall. Tiny drops of dark liquid cover Sheila. Blood seeps angrily from a cut near Caitlin’s left temple. Ignoring my fallen brother, I charge across the kitchen and fall to my knees beside my wife.

“Are you okay?” I press the heel of my hand against her cut temple, trying to staunch the blood while I run the other hand over her slender body, searching for other injuries.

Caitlin stares at me with glassy eyes. “He knocked me down. Sheila hit him with a pan, and then …” Unable to bring herself to say the words, she points at my brother. “That happened.”

Grimacing, Ben crouches beside Evan and presses two fingers to the side of his neck. “Dead,” he says and unhooks his cell phone from his belt.

Sheila, her entire body shaking, starts to wail about how she didn’t mean to kill him, that she just wanted him to stop.

I gather both women close, holding on to them as if my life depended on it, whispering a thankful prayer that it’s not Caitlin’s body lying in a pool of blood while Ben talks to the 911 operator.