Girl Three (21 page)

“You guys ready to order?” the waiter asked.

Jessie looked at Michael and shook her head. “Nothing for me.”

“We’re good.” Michael handed their menus to the waiter who nodded and left them alone.

Michael didn’t bother to sweeten his coffee or let it cool before he took a swallow and winced. “My dad died three days before Sam did,” he said quietly, then bowed his head and turned away for a moment.

Jessie’s heart clenched. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugged but she could tell he was shaken. “When I came back to town after his funeral, I heard what had happened to Sam. Something about her death just didn’t sit right with me, considering things I’ve seen. Then I learned about the possible rape and overdose of Rohypnol. I can’t do anything but grieve my father, but I can do something about Sam’s case.”

Jessie understood. She remembered how it had felt when she lost her mother. How she had never been able to shake her grief. How she hoped she never would. She instinctively twisted her mother’s silver ring that she always wore. “Tell me about your dad.” She reached out and clutched his hand again.

“We were pretty close.” Michael smiled a little and she liked the way it brightened his eyes. “We used to go to baseball games together, until he got too sick. He loved the Nationals.”

“Aww, I love the Nats, too.”

“Really?”

Jessie almost laughed at the surprise in his voice. “Baseball’s my favorite sport, and…” She took out her phone and showed him its case—bright red with a curly
W
in the middle. “The Nats are my team.”

His eyes widened, and her heart sank.

“Please don’t tell me you’re a Phillies fan,” she said.

His eyes glimmered playfully. “Nope.”

“Braves? That’s almost as bad.”

He shook his head, grinning.

“Do not say the Yankees.”

Michael stood, turned his back to her, and pulled his fleece over his head. Beneath it he wore a white T-shirt with a big red curly
W
on the back, as well as a handgun with an extra clip tucked into a leather shoulder holster.

“Yay,” she said, distracted for a moment by the gun.

He tugged the fleece back on, then sat down with a satisfied smile. “My dad and I both got a shirt like this when they gave them away at the ballpark before a game.” He nodded. “You’ll be glad to know we beat the Phillies that day, and all three games in the series.”

“Sweet.” Jessie toasted him, clinking her hot cocoa cup with his coffee mug.

He drank, then got a faraway look in his eyes. “Just last week, I went home to my dad’s funeral—and to be with my mom.”

“Where’s home?”

“Gordonsville. My folks run an apple orchard there.”

Jessie noticed that he still spoke of his dad in present tense. She’d struggled the same way when talking about Sam. “So you’re a small-town guy?”

“Was.” He shrugged. “Might be again someday.”

“How’s your mom handling everything?”

He shook his head, and sadness crept into his eyes. “She’s heartbroken. She and my dad were married for forty-one years.” He brushed the top of Jessie’s hand with his fingertips. “And still in love.”

Jessie gave him a small smile. “It’s nice to know that’s possible.”

The moment settled around them and they sipped their drinks in silence.

“I can relate to your loss,” Jessie said finally. “Sam and I lost our mom sixteen years ago. And now I’ve lost Sam. Even worse is that we’d drifted apart over the last couple of years. She disappeared from my life, and I let her. Like I said before, I owe it to her to find her murderer.” She stared into her hot chocolate, a swirl of whipped cream melting on top. “I hope I’m making the right decision here.” She blew out a long breath. “I need your help.”

He looked her in the eyes and nodded, and for some crazy reason, she thought she could trust him. At least she was willing to risk it.

“I suppose the first thing I should do is thank you for throwing a rock through Ian’s window,” she said. “You have no idea how good your timing was.”

“What were you thinking, breaking into his practice like that?” Michael asked.

Jessie tensed. “Why did you follow me there?”

He leaned back in his chair and thought before he spoke. His restraint attracted her, and made her curious to know what he considered saying, but didn’t.

“I followed you because of what happened with you and Senator Talmont last night. After he sobered up, he might’ve decided he’d said too much. I was worried he might try to correct his mistake.”

Jessie winced. “Correct his mistake?”

Michael nodded, looking serious. “I see Talmont as a prime suspect in Sam’s murder. I don’t buy his alibi. And who knows what kind of sex games he and Sam played, considering their relationship started with an extortion scheme.” He took a swallow of his coffee. “He’s sly and well-connected. After his drunken blunder of showing up at Sam’s place last night, he might think you’ll become too curious. One of his sources might’ve already told him that you’re nosing around and asking too many questions.” His eyes took on a calculating, worried look as he rubbed the two-day stubble on his cheek. “I assure you, he’d rather risk getting rid of you than lose his political career.”

Fear and regret knotted in Jessie’s chest. “Talmont came on to me last night.” She glanced away from him. “Let’s just say I wasn’t interested.”

He pressed his lips together tightly. “From what you said afterward, there was a little more to it than that.”

She nervously picked at one of the bandages on her hand. “I thought he was an intruder—which he was. I held my gun on him. After I figured out what he was doing there, I dropped my defenses a little. But when he came on to me, I…”

Michael’s expression encouraged her to continue.

“I took dead aim at him. Told him to give me his key and get the hell out.” She scrunched her nose. “Smart moves, huh?”

Michael shook his head, a not-the-best-idea look on his face.

“What was I supposed to do?”

“You really didn’t have a choice.”

“Could he actually have thought that I would have sex with him?”

“You’d be surprised what some women will do.”

Women like Sam.

“But Talmont has a reputation for retaliation when he doesn’t get his way,” Michael said. “If he thinks you see him as a suspect, he won’t give you enough time to make the case.”

Jessie couldn’t believe she’d wasted the day chasing false leads when she should’ve been focusing on Talmont and her own safety.

“I think you’re in real danger,” Michael said, “so I decided to put my rusty skills to use watching out for you.”

“Or trying to pin another crime on Talmont?”

“Or both,” he said. “And that brings us back to the question of why you broke into Ian’s practice.”

“I didn’t
break in
.”

“That’s a technicality,” he said calmly. “Justify it if you want, but you entered illegally. I saw you. Call me crazy for asking, but isn’t it kind of counterintuitive to commit crimes to solve one? And in your line of work, I’d think a rap sheet would be a real career killer.”

She wanted to argue, but he was right. If she’d gotten caught impersonating Sam or stealing files from Ian’s practice, she’d have no chance of getting on the Presidential Commission. “Finding Sam’s killer is more important than my career.”

“I respect that. But I don’t think the two have to be mutually exclusive.”

Jessie considered this. “I hope not.” She reached into her purse, took out the pictures she’d received and the copy of Sam’s letter from Geneticell, and fanned them across the table in front of him. “Here’s why I
illegally entered
Ian’s practice. Since I’ve been in DC, someone has anonymously sent me these.”

He surveyed each picture and read the letter.

“I figure someone knows something about Sam’s death but they’re afraid to come forward,” she said. “So they’re sending me clues and pointing me toward the killer.”

Michael didn’t look up. “Or away from him.”

“I’ve thought of that, but I can’t ignore this evidence. I think your assessment of Talmont as a suspect is right on. Because of these pictures, I learned about Sam’s involvement with the Hope Campaign and the twisted beginning of her relationship with him. I already suspected him before he showed up last night, before I even learned about their affair and his lame alibi.”

She picked up the group glamour shot taken at the Geneticell gala. “But I can also pin a motive on every one of these people—the men more than the women, considering the crime, but things aren’t always as they appear. Tonight, my best guess, after Talmont, is a tandem effort involving Ian and Helena, with Philippe as an accessory. I’m still debating about Elizabeth.”

“Are we getting to the reason you illegally entered Ian’s practice?” He toyed with his coffee spoon and it clinked on the saucer.

“Almost,” she said. “Philippe, Ian, and Helena claim it was Sam’s clever idea to have sex with the senators and extort their votes.”

“She’s dead,” Michael said. “It’s easy to blame her, and she can’t argue.”

Jessie felt a disturbing sense of déjà vu. “Right. But Philippe now has the X-rated photos and videos, and Ian keeps the frozen sperm. Helena gets high-powered, high-paying clients, and Elizabeth gets her legislation passed—mostly thanks to Sam. They were all accessories to her scheme, beneficiaries at the least.”

Michael looked more closely at the picture from the Geneticell gala. “They’re a strange, tight-knit group. I’d say tighter now that Sam’s dead, now that they have to protect themselves. But where’s the motive?”

“They hadn’t banked on Sam getting involved with Talmont. He’s on the polar opposite side of the embryonic stem cell research issue, and the aisle. She went from valuable to volatile. Her loyalty was split. Do you think any of them wanted to risk her going rogue and taking the entire scheme public?”

He didn’t look convinced.

“A scandal like that would debilitate Helena’s firm and raise enough suspicion about Ian to damage his practice or maybe even shut it down for good.”

“What about Philippe?”

“Well, his diplomatic career is on the upswing, especially since he negotiated the Geneticell deal. And his photography is getting a lot of attention. He has an exhibit showing at the Canadian embassy. There’s even a portrait of Sam wearing the Hope Diamond.”

Michael nodded. “I saw the full-page article in the Arts section of the
Washington Post
when it opened.”

“See? Philippe can’t afford to be exposed as an accessory to an extortion scheme. It would mean the end of his climb up the diplomatic ranks. He says he just recently got the pictures and videos of Sam and the senators from her safe deposit box, but he still has them. He was still involved.” She was glad she’d thought through all of this, and it was good to run her theories by Michael, since he knew all of her suspects.

“So why do you think Philippe showed you the pictures?”

“A couple of reasons. When we were at the embassy, he told me I might find evidence of Sam’s Hope Campaign.” Jessie shrugged. “Maybe she kept copies of everything, with a backup in the safe deposit box. There was a strong possibility I’d come across her key, go to the bank, and see that he was listed as a key holder, too. I guess he thought it was best to run interference.”

“What was the other reason?”

She furrowed her brow. “He said that the pictures might help me understand why it wasn’t a good idea to ask too many questions about Sam’s death.”

Michael cocked his head.

“As it turned out,” Jessie said, “my father had purged Sam’s files, except for the basics, before I ever had a chance to go through them.” She debated, but then asked, “Are you familiar with my father?”

Michael tapped his long fingers on the tabletop. “Sure. Federal Judge Croft. Probable Supreme Court nominee after Judge Yaley retires.”

Jessie caught an unusual hitch between his words.

“Sam hated him,” Jessie said. “She would’ve been happy if his appointment was derailed by a scandal just months before his nomination. His critics would’ve come at him from every direction, labeled him an unfit father. They would’ve claimed he knew about her behavior and condoned it—which is true, at least where her affair with Talmont is concerned. With the sensitive political climate, the family association alone might have driven the president to tap another candidate.”

Michael’s eyes turned dark. “Sam hated him that much?”

Jessie considered the feelings she and Sam had for their father and how differently they’d handled them. “I think most of the things she did in her adult life were in retaliation against him.”

Michael looked at her as if he expected her to keep talking. but there wasn’t anything else to say. “Must be quite a story,” he said.

“More like a tragedy.”

He started to speak, then hesitated.

“What?”

He raked his hand through his hair and it fell loosely back into his disheveled, sexy style. “Do you think your father might have covered up Sam’s murder?”

Jessie hung her head, debating her answer. “I hate to say it, but yes. Even if Talmont committed the crime. People wouldn’t have been sympathetic to a senator accused of murder, and Talmont would’ve been forced to resign. My father couldn’t afford to let that happen. He needs Talmont’s vote to get confirmed.”

Michael lowered his eyebrows. “You’d think justice would be more important to a judge.” He shrugged. “And to a father.” His voice was thick with emotion.

“You’d think,” she said. “And if you were me, you’d hope.”

They sat quietly as she gathered the pictures. When she reached for the letter, she said, “There’s something else. Sam donated ten eggs to Geneticell. Ian fertilized them in vitro to create embryos…with his sperm.”

Michael grimaced. “What? That’s way beyond inappropriate.”

“I told him it was obscene, especially since he claims to have been Sam’s father figure.”

“This keeps getting worse.”

“For sure. Geneticell got ten embryos courtesy of Sam. But Ian admitted to aspirating nineteen eggs from her.”

“What happened to the rest?”