Girl Three (27 page)

Jessie’s heart clenched, and she squeezed her eyes closed. Why hadn’t she thought through all the scenarios to their logical conclusions? There hadn’t been time to think.

“If you’d told Davenport the truth,” Michael said after she opened her eyes, “you might’ve pushed him toward the idea of murder. Then they’d investigate Sam’s death. And yes, all the dirt might come out. But the rest of the players would fall—Helena, Elizabeth, Philippe, Talmont. They’d get what they deserve, and we might find our murderer.” He rested his hands on her knees and gripped them gently. “I’m sorry, but there’s no way to take down Sam’s killer and not take her down with him.”

Jessie buried her face in her hands. She’d imagined some kind of fairy tale where she would expose Sam’s murderer and he’d go quietly and not put up a fight. And the media would paint Sam as the victim and ignore her salacious story.

“What have I done?” she asked.

“If they decide that Ian was murdered, you’ve made yourself a suspect.”

She flinched. “What? That’s crazy.”

“Why do you think Davenport asked you about meeting with Ian yesterday? He wanted to see if you knew your way around his office. And what did you talk about with him while you were there?” He winced. “Sam.”

Jessie’s pulse thudded in her ears.

“Ian’s cleaning crew and I can place you at Ian’s office after hours last night. You don’t have to worry about me, but…” He lifted his shoulders.

There’s Elizabeth, too.
Jessie had admitted to Elizabeth that she’d been in Ian’s practice last night. She’d blatantly shown her the button from her blouse to prove it.

The teapot squealed, and Jessie jumped.

Michael got up and turned off the stove. “What details did I give you about Ian’s suicide note?”

She tried to remember, but everything was becoming a blur. “He wrote that he was in love with Sam.”

“Yes.” Michael returned to his chair.

“And that he gave her Rohypnol,” she said. “And he was with her that night, and he couldn’t stand the guilt because he left her to die.”

“What you told Davenport made it look like you knew what Ian had written in his note. With a little extra drama added for effect. There’s a reason lawyers tell you to answer questions with the shortest possible answers.”

“You’re creating your own little drama right now.” She resented him making her nervous and defensive. “Mentioning things that are vaguely related to Ian’s suicide note wouldn’t make me a suspect. An authentic note would be in his handwriting and Helena could’ve verified that.”

“You’re right,” he said. “But there was one thing I forgot to tell you. Ian didn’t handwrite the note. It was typed.”

…

Michael knew what Jessie was thinking before she even said anything. The look in her eyes hardened and she pressed her lips into a tense, angry line.

“You set me up,” she said, her voice trembling.

He could see how she would think that, but was stung by her accusation anyway. “It was a detail. I didn’t leave it out on purpose. How could I have known that a detective would question you? And that you, the woman of few words, would talk yourself into a tight corner?”

“Let’s see.” She gave him a withering smile. “How would you have known that a detective would be questioning me? Who’s the one with the snitch who’s a detective with the MPD?”

She wasn’t the only one squeezed into a tight corner. He stood and paced the kitchen, away from her accusing eyes. Facing her and firing back would only escalate an already tense situation. He let her think about it for as long as he could keep it inside. But with her, that wasn’t long.

He stopped pacing and leaned against the counter. “Why would I do that to you?”

“I don’t know.” She swiped her hair away from her face. “I don’t know anyone here or why they do the things they do. I certainly don’t know your motivations.” She leveled her gaze on him. “And I don’t know you.” The pitch of her voice was low and resolved. She might as well have said
The End
.

Michael had no comeback. He couldn’t be honest without outing Croft. And even if he did admit he’d been working for her father, what would he gain? Once she found out he was Croft’s hired hand, she’d never forgive him for such a betrayal.

The truth settled in his mind like shrapnel.

…refrain from developing a relationship with my daughter…

That bastard Croft had known all along that he didn’t need a clause in the contract. The minute Michael had signed it, he’d signed away any possibility of a relationship with Jessie. That was Croft’s checkmate. He had won before the game even started.

Michael hated Croft. And he hated himself. “I think I should go.”

Jessie focused her eyes away from him and nodded.

He went into the living room, grabbed his coat, and left. Even though he wanted her to come after him, he knew she wasn’t the kind of woman who would.

And she didn’t.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The sky above the Capitol turned a lighter shade of gray as the sun rose behind the heavy clouds. Jessie maneuvered through the light traffic early Wednesday morning, thankful the snow had held off longer than the forecasters had predicted. Their next guess was that the winter storm would blow in by noon.

Jessie gripped the steering wheel and took the turn onto 4th Street, heading toward Nina’s. She had no bandages on her hand today; the cuts had started to heal. But her shoulder was a different story. She remembered her mother saying, “It’s the second day, sweetie,” when she’d asked why her skinned knee hurt more two days later than it had the day she scraped it. “The pain is always worst on the second day.” After sixteen years, she could still hear the lilt and the love in her mother’s voice. “But after that, you’ll feel better. I promise.”

Jessie no longer believed in promises—at least, not anyone else’s. And she was starting to doubt her own. Especially the one she’d made to Sam. Grief and guilt and ego had allowed her to think she could bring a murderer to justice. She hadn’t seen herself as underqualified and underprepared. But she’d proven she was both of those things and worse. Worse, because she’d lied and deceived, crossed lines and broken laws. She barely recognized the person she’d become since she came to Washington.

Still, there was her promise.

After maneuvering her car into a tight parallel spot on the street, she got out and walked a block to Nina’s, carrying two large boxes she’d brought from Sam’s place. She made her way down to the entry and rang the bell. Behind the wrought-iron gate, Nina opened the door a crack, wide-eyed beneath lowered brows. “Jess, are you okay?” She pushed the door open farther. Sophie was propped on her hip.

Jessie nodded. “I wanted to catch you before you went to work.”

“Let me unlock the gate.”

Jessie bent to Sophie’s level. “Hi, sweet girl.” The baby kicked her little legs, fuzzy pink socks on her tiny feet.

Nina grabbed the key from a hook next to the door, opened the gate, and let Jessie in. “You’re out early.”

Jessie put the boxes on the couch.

“What’s in those?” Nina asked.

“Some things of Sam’s I thought you could use.”

“Oh, thanks.” Nina smiled, then quickly looked confused. “You came over at the crack of dawn just to bring this stuff?”

Jessie shook her head. “Ian Alden is dead.”

“What?” Sophie flinched at the pitch of Nina’s voice.

“I found out last night. I started to call but it was late, and I know Sophie’s been teething and—”

“Slow down.” Nina led her back to the cramped bedroom, where a queen-size bed took up most of the space. She laid Sophie belly-down in the middle of the bed, pulled a fabric book and a rattle out of a toy basket, and put them in front of her. “Tell me about Ian. And can you make sure she stays put while I finish getting dressed?”

It had been a long time since she’d seen Nina frazzled.

“Sure.” Jessie sat on the bed, shook the rattle for Sophie, and gave Nina the quick version of the story—Michael delivering the news about Ian, her lies to the detective. She told Nina about her and Michael’s afternoon at Great Falls Park, and mentioned that they’d returned in time for her to kill Ian, if she’d wanted to. After all, she’d made herself a suspect, according to Michael. She shoved aside her conflicted feelings about him.

Nina had stopped what she was doing and listened intently, asking a question here or there without judgment.

“I couldn’t sleep after all that,” Jessie said.
And after what happened with Michael.
“I tossed between those ridiculous monogrammed sheets and went over every detail of every hour of every day, searching for something I missed. Wondering if Ian’s suicide note could be true. I started to hope it was.”

“Why?” Nina sounded shocked.

“It would make things simpler.” Jessie flipped open Sophie’s book, a red apple on one page, a blue bird on the other. “I hate to think that Sam was involved with him, but I hate to think of all the other things she did, too.”

“It doesn’t fit with everything we’ve pieced together so far.” Nina slipped a silver bangle onto her wrist.

“That’s what I thought at first. But then I realized I reacted that way because I wanted to believe our theories were right. I didn’t want to admit that I’d missed any clues that Ian had been involved with Sam.”

“I get that.” Nina made a sour face. “And you wouldn’t want to think that Sam would get within ten feet of him, especially with her clothes off.”

Jessie pinched her eyes closed. “Don’t make me think of them together like that.”

“Uck.”

“When I gave the idea some more thought, I remembered what Philippe said when we were at that cupcake place. I told him that Ian seemed surprised when I asked him about Sam’s affair with Talmont. Philippe said the idea was ridiculous.”

“I agree with that. Did Philippe say anything else?”

“That Ian didn’t want to admit that Sam would choose a fortysomething man who wasn’t him. Then he told me that Ian was possessive of her and too much into her business. And that Ian wanted to get into more.”

“He really said that?” Nina pulled on a pair of boots.

“Yes.” Jessie patted Sophie’s back. “Then I remembered Ian’s reaction when I accused him of looking at Sam’s sex pictures. His face got flaming red, more than usual, right up into his receding hairline.”

“Maybe he was just embarrassed because you called him out. Pervert.”

“Stay with me,” Jessie said. “I’ve got more. That same day, I showed him the photo spread of Sam outside of his practice, coming and going. He claimed the pictures didn’t prove that she was his patient, but it turned out she was.”

“That doesn’t mean she had an affair with him.”

“Well, then I thought about the similar pictures of Elizabeth. Maybe I was meant to figure out what happened with Sam’s eggs, and how they were diverted to Elizabeth without Sam’s knowledge. But maybe there was another meaning.” Jessie pointed her index finger and started counting. “I was sent similar pictures of Sam and Elizabeth.” She pressed down another finger. “Both of them had been Ian’s patients and they were connected by Sam’s donated eggs. And both of them were having an affair with Ian.”

Nina rocked on her feet, thinking. “He wouldn’t be the first man to have more than one mistress.”

Sophie rolled onto her back, rattle in hand. Jessie helped her shake it. “I think Sam was playing the same kind of game. She kept her affair with Talmont a secret so Ian would think he was the only man in her bed.”

“And Talmont told you that he was with his wife the night Sam died.”

“See what I mean? It all started to make sense to me, too.” Jessie became energized now that Nina was buying into her theory. “And Ian used his sperm to fertilize Sam’s donated eggs.”

“Kind of like marking his territory.”

“He did the same thing with Elizabeth when he implanted those embryos he had fertilized.”

“What a piece of work.” Nina glanced at her watch and frowned. “Speaking of work, Sophie and I have to get going.”

Jessie picked up Sophie, and they headed into the living room. The baby smelled so sweet and felt so soft. Jessie hugged her closely while Nina packed a diaper bag.

“The irony,” Jessie said, “is that Ian mocked the senators Sam seduced for the Hope Campaign. He said, ‘We all have our weaknesses.’ Maybe it turned out that Sam was his.”

“She just might’ve been.”

Jessie took a deep breath and looked at Nina apprehensively.

“What?” Nina’s expression had turned cautious.

“I need you to find out if what Ian claimed in his note is true,” Jessie said. “You’ll see his labs, maybe run some of them yourself.”

Nina sighed. “We’ll probably get him today, if he’s not there already.”

“You told me that the man Sam was with the night she died was a Type B secretor,” Jessie said. “All I want to know is Ian’s blood type.”

Chapter Forty

Jessie went back to Sam’s place to finish going through her files and packing her belongings. She’d taken care of most of the immediate, personal business that needed to be done after Sam’s death. Closing one last credit card account was all she had left to do.

She could’ve gotten everything done sooner, and her father was probably wondering what was taking her so long. But Lois was keeping things managed at The Oliver Institute and Franz had told Jessie to take the time she needed. She’d had no idea how long it would take her to find Sam’s killer. Now it was possible that Ian had closed Sam’s case for her, and the more time that went by, the more she hoped he had.

As unfortunate as it was, Ian’s death could liberate her. If his suicide note were true, it wouldn’t be a pretty resolution, but it answered enough questions to satisfy the promise she’d made to Sam. Her murderer had met justice; he was dead. If Jessie held any responsibility for spurring him toward suicide, she regretted that. But she didn’t regret risking her reputation and her safety to find the truth.

She was ready to go home and get back to her life. Maybe there was still a chance she’d be appointed to the Presidential Commission and she could move ahead with her career. So she prepared to leave. Prepared for the news that Ian truly had committed suicide and was culpable in Sam’s death. She couldn’t wait to put some distance between her and the people here—especially Michael.