Something About You (6 page)

Five

“I STILL CAN’T believe you didn’t call either of us from the hotel.”

Cameron could tell from the tone in Collin’s voice that he was vacillating between being concerned about her in light of the events of the night before, and pissed that this was the first he’d heard about them.

In her defense, after Jack and Wilkins had dropped her off at home, her first plan had been to call both Collin and Amy. The three of them had been friends since college, and normally she told them everything. But then she’d remembered that it was Saturday, which meant that Collin would be working and Amy would be knee-deep in wedding-related tasks, especially since her big day was only two weeks away. So instead, Cameron had shot each of them a text message asking if they wanted to meet for dinner at Frasca that night. Then she’d crawled into bed and passed out for the next six hours.

At the restaurant, as soon as the hostess had seated them, Cameron began to tell Collin and Amy about the occurrences of the night before—omitting any mention of Senator Hodges’s involvement, since the FBI was keeping that under wraps. From across the table, she’d watched as Collin grew more and more agitated as her story progressed. And a few minutes ago, he’d run his hand through his sandy brown hair and folded his arms across his chest—his usual gesture when working through something that bothered him.

To Cameron’s left was Amy, who looked as sophisticated as always in her tailored brown shirt-dress and shoulder-length blonde hair cut in an angled bob. She was more diplomatic in her response than Collin. “It sounds like you had a pretty intense night, Cameron. You shouldn’t have had to go through all that alone.”

“I would have called”—Cameron said pointedly to Collin—“if the FBI hadn’t restricted my calls.” She turned to her left. “And yes, it was an extremely intense night. Thank you for your concern, Amy.” She started to go for her wineglass, but Collin reached across the table and grabbed her hand.

“Stop—you know I’m concerned, too.”

Cameron glared at him but didn’t pull her hand away. “Then stop complaining about the fact that I didn’t call you.”

He gave her one of his trademark but-I’m-so-innocent smiles. She’d seen that smile many times over the last twelve years, and yet it still worked on her. Usually.

“I apologize,” Collin said. “I freaked out hearing your story and inappropriately expressed my emotions through anger. It’s a guy thing.” He squeezed her hand. “I don’t like that you were one room away from a murder, Cam. Strange noises, watching a mysterious, hooded man through a peephole—this whole thing is far too Hitchcockian for me.”

“And I haven’t even told you the twist,” Cameron said. “Jack Pallas is one of the agents handling the case for the FBI.”

It took Amy a moment to place the name. “Wait—Agent Hottie?”

“Agent Asshole,” Cameron corrected her. “Agent Hottie” had been her former nickname for Jack, one long since dropped. Ever since he accused her of taking bribes from Roberto Martino.

“That is a twist. How is Agent Asshole these days?” Collin asked dryly. As Cameron’s best friend, he was de facto required to exhibit animosity toward Jack Pallas as well.

“More important, how was it seeing him after all this time?” Amy asked.

“We traded sarcastic barbs and insults the whole time. It was nice, catching up like that.”

“But is he still just as hot?” Amy exchanged a look with Collin. “Well, one of us had to ask.”

“That’s kind of irrelevant, don’t you think?” Cameron managed a coolly disdainful look as she took a sip of her wine. Then she swallowed too fast, nearly choked, and coughed while gasping for air.

Amy smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Cameron dabbed her watering eyes with a napkin and turned to Collin for help.

“Don’t look at me—I’m staying out of this one,” he said.

“I would like to remind both of you that the jerk embarrassed me on national television.”

“No, the jerk embarrassed himself on national television,” Amy said.

Cameron sniffed, partially mollified by this. “And I’d also like to point out that because of him, virtually every FBI agent in the Chicago area has carried a grudge against me for the past three years. Which has made things tons of fun, considering I work with the FBI on a near-daily basis.”

“You don’t have to see him again, do you?” Collin asked.

“If there is a god, no.” Cameron thought about this more seriously. “I don’t know, maybe if there are some follow-up questions they need to ask. But I’ll tell you this: if I do see Jack Pallas again, it will be on my terms. He may have caught me off guard last night, but next time I’ll be prepared. And at least I’ll be dressed appropriately for the occasion.”

“What was wrong with the way you were dressed?” Amy asked.

“I was wearing yoga pants and gym shoes.” Cameron scoffed. “I might as well have been naked.”

“Certainly would’ve made for a more interesting interrogation.”

Collin sat back in his chair, all haughty manlike. “You and your high heels. You’re lucky you weren’t still in your underwear. Between that and being interrogated in your gym shoes, which would you prefer?”

Cameron thought about this. “Do I still get to wear high heels in the underwear scenario?”

“That was supposed to be a rhetorical question. You have a problem,” Collin said.

Cameron smiled. “So I like to vertically enhance . . . I’m a five-foot-three-inch trial lawyer. Cut me some slack.”

AMY LEFT APOLOGETICALLY as soon as dinner was over, saying that she needed to get up early the following morning to meet with her florist. Cameron and Collin stayed at the restaurant for another round of drinks, then walked the five blocks to her house.

It was a crisp October evening. Cameron pulled her jacket closed, belting it at her waist. “I’m not sure Amy’s going to make it to the wedding without having a nervous breakdown. I keep telling her to let me help out more.”

“You know how she is—she’s been planning this since she was five,” Collin said. “Speaking of planning, how’s the bachelorette party coming along?”

“Her cousins think we need a stripper,” Cameron said, referring to the other two bridesmaids. “But Amy practically made me swear an oath in blood: no strippers, no tacky wedding veil, and absolutely no penis paraphernalia. So I’m doing a wine tasting and desserts at my house, and then we’ll go to a bar afterward. I hope she likes it. If she fires me as maid of honor, you have to take on the job, you know.”

Collin threw his arm around her shoulders. “Not in a million years, babe.”

Cameron smiled and leaned against him, taking comfort in the firm solidness of his chest. In turn, Collin pulled her tighter, turning serious. “You know we were just kidding around at the restaurant, don’t you?”

“I know.”

“Because we’re very both worried about you.”

“I know that, too.”

They came to a stop in front of her house. Collin faced her, and she could see the worry in his hazel eyes. “Seriously, Cam—you were an eyewitness, earwitness, whatever you want to call it, to a murder. And you saw the killer leave. I hate to go down this road but . . . is there any chance he knew you were watching?”

Cameron had asked herself this very question several times over the course of the last twelve hours. “I was behind the door the whole time. And even if he heard me or somehow otherwise suspected I was watching, there’s no way he’d know my identity. The FBI and CPD have kept my name confidential.”

“Not exactly a good night for you, was it?”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

Collin cocked his head in the direction of her house. “So, then . . . would you like some company tonight?”

Cameron thought about it. After the bizarre occurrences of the night before, the idea of spending the night alone in that big house was not particularly appealing. But she knew that if Collin stayed, there would be problems. “Thanks for offering. But Richard already thinks you spend too much time with me. I’ll be okay by myself.”

There was a flicker of emotion in Collin’s eyes. “Actually, Richard and I decided to take a break.”

Cameron was shocked. She knew they’d been having problems—personally she blamed Richard; he’d always been a little arrogant and strangely unappreciative of Collin, whom half the male population in Chicago practically worshipped—but the two of them had been together for three years and she just assumed they’d work things out.

“When did this happen?” she asked.

“Last night. He said he changed his mind about going to Amy’s wedding. He used the old ‘But-I’ll-be-uncomfortable’ excuse, but really he just didn’t want to sacrifice a whole weekend in Michigan.” Collin emphasized this last part in mock horror. “I told him that the wedding is at a nice hotel, but you know him—if it’s not a Four Seasons, he thinks he’s roughing it. Anyway, we argued about that, and then we argued about a lot of things, and now . . . well, here we are.”

“Do you think there’s any chance it’ll all blow over in a few days?” Cameron asked gently.

Collin shook his head. “If he can’t do this for me, then no. He knows what this wedding means to me, and I think that’s the problem. It’s all part of his stupid competition with you and Amy. So he’s moving his stuff out of the condo tonight. Probably right at this very moment.”

“I’m sorry, sweetie.” Cameron hugged him. “So I guess the real question is: do you want some company tonight?”

“Yes.” Collin held open the gate for her. “But you have to promise to get me very drunk.”

Cameron walked up the steps. “As long as you promise to still make breakfast in the morning.”

“Babe, I always make breakfast. You can’t even warm an Eggo.”

“That was one time.” Their senior year, and Collin had never let her live it down. “The stupid box said one to two cycles—I did two cycles. How the toaster caught on fire is just as big a mystery to me.”

SITTING IN THEIR unmarked car across the street, Officers Phelps and Kamin watched as the couple headed up the front steps of the house.

“And that will be the last anybody sees of them tonight,” Officer Kamin said, satisfied. He folded up his Sun-Times as Phelps started the car. “For a minute there, I wasn’t sure our boy was gonna get the go-ahead signal. Looks like he’s home free now.”

Phelps squinted, trying to get a better look at the pair as they stepped inside the house. “Are you sure Slonsky said to check out the girl?”

“Yep.”

“ ’ Cuz the guy looks really familiar to me. Can’t place him, though.”

Kamin shrugged. “Can’t help you there. Slonsky said to drive by the girl’s house, make sure everything looks secure. That’s all I know.”

“Maybe we should sit here for a moment, just to be certain we’re all clear.”

Not exactly in a hurry to seek out more dangerous assignments, Kamin liked the reasoning behind that. “Works for me.”

They passed the next twenty minutes in silence, the only noise being the occasional crinkling of newspaper from Kamin. He was reading the sports section when he stopped.

“Well, look at that.” He held the paper out so Phelps could see. “That’s the guy we just saw, isn’t it?”

Phelps leaned over, then sat back in the driver’s seat, satisfied.

“I told you he looked familiar.”

ACROSS TOWN, JACK was in his office, once again listening to the muffled sounds of Davis’s yelling. At least this time, he was pretty sure the ruckus had nothing to do with him. Not directly, anyway.

He and Wilkins were the only other two agents in the office, given that it was nearly eleven o’clock on a Saturday night. Sitting in one of the chairs in front of his desk, Wilkins gestured in the direction of their boss’s office. “Is he always like this?”

“You get used to it,” Jack said. Actually, he didn’t mind Davis’s occasional flare-ups; back in the army he’d served under several commanders who’d had their fair share of those. Like his former commanders, Davis was pretty much a straight shooter—and loyal as hell to the agents in his office. He’d fought hard to get Jack transferred back to the Chicago office as soon as the position opened up.

A few minutes later the commotion died down and Davis’s door flew open. He stuck his head out and looked over. “Pallas, Wilkins—you’re up.”

They took their seats in Davis’s office, which Jack had always found odd in not being much bigger than those the rest of the Chicago agents had been assigned. He figured the Bureau could at least get the guy a view of something more interesting than the building’s parking lot for all the crap he had to deal with as special agent in charge. Then again, knowing Davis, he’d probably specifically requested that office in order to keep track of everyone else’s comings and goings. There certainly wasn’t much that slipped past him.

“I just got off the phone with one of Senator Hodges’s attorneys,” Davis began. “He ‘requested’ that they be kept apprised of any and all updates related to our investigation.”

“What you’d tell him?” Wilkins asked.

“That I’m an old man. I tend to forget things. And that if anyone from Senator Hodges’s camp called me again tonight, I might just so happen to forget the promise I’d made to keep this investigation confidential. There was a good deal of swearing after that, but so far . . .” Davis gestured to the silent phone on his desk. “Now—let’s figure out how we’re gonna handle this mess.” He looked to Jack. “What’s happening with CPD’s investigation?”

“Our contact is Detective Ted Slonsky, twenty years on the job, the last ten in homicide. According to him, the only prints they found in the hotel room belong to the victim and Senator Hodges. They found traces of semen in the bed and on top of the desk and bathroom vanity, and there were several used condoms in the bathroom garbage. All of it from the same man.”

“At least we know Senator Hodges practices safe sex when cheating on his wife,” Davis said. “Anything else?”

“There were bruises on both of the victim’s wrists, presumably inflicted by the killer as he pinned her hands down while suffocating her.”

“Any blood at the scene? Hair? Clothing fibers?”

“No traces of blood. We’re waiting to hear back from the lab on everything else,” Jack told him. “And we didn’t get much luckier with hotel security. They don’t have cameras in the floor hallways or the stairwells—and although they do have them in the lobby, the garage, and other public areas of the hotel, there’s no sign of our guy in any of the footage. Which means that so far, Ms. Lynde’s statement is our only evidence that this mysterious second man exists.”

Jack saw Davis raise an eyebrow at the mention of Cameron’s name, but his boss refrained from commenting. At least for the time being.

“All right, here’s where we stand,” Davis said. “Officially, the Bureau only has jurisdiction over the suspected blackmail aspects of this investigation. Unofficially, however, we’ve got a U.S. senator having sex on tape with a call girl who, just moments later, gets smothered to death in that very hotel room—there’s no way we’re sitting on the sidelines. Do you think this Detective Slonsky is going to be a problem?”

“Not likely. He seemed relieved to have our assistance in light of the senator’s involvement,” Jack said.

Davis nodded. “Good. Theories?”

Jack paused, letting Wilkins take the lead.

Wilkins sat up in his chair. “We’re currently working on two theories, both based on the assumption that the victim, Mandy Robards, was involved in a plan to blackmail the senator.”

“Do we have a basis for that assumption?” Davis asked.

“The videotape was found in her purse. On the tape, she’s the one who shut off the camera after the senator left. So unless she was making the tape for him as an early Christmas present, I think it’s safe to say she had nefarious motives.”

Davis looked over at Jack with a bemused grin. “Nefarious. This is what we get when we hire a Yale boy.”

“You missed sacrosanct earlier. And taciturn and glowering,” Jack said.

“What’s glowering?”

“Me, apparently.”

Wilkins pointed. “Now that has to be a joke.” He turned to Davis. “You heard that, right?”

Davis didn’t answer him, having spun his chair around to type something at his computer. “Let’s see what Google says . . . Ah—here it is. ‘Glowering: dark; showing a brooding ill humor.’ ”

Davis spun back around, with a nod at Wilkins. “You know, I think Merriam-Webster here is right, Jack—you do have a glowering way about you.” Then he turned to Wilkins. “And yes, that was a joke. It normally takes about a year to accurately detect Agent Pallas’s small forays into humor, but you’ll get there.”

About this time, Jack was trying to remember why the hell he’d been so eager to get back to Chicago. At least in Nebraska a man could brood in peace. “Perhaps we should get back to our theories,” he grumbled.

“Right. So our first theory is that the girl set up the blackmail scheme—maybe working with someone else, maybe not—and someone connected to the senator found out and killed her to keep the affair from becoming public,” Wilkins said.

“But they left the videotape behind,” Davis noted.

“Maybe they didn’t know the tape was actually in the room. Or maybe they panicked after killing the girl, or maybe something scared them off, like hearing Ms. Lynde calling security in the next room.”

David toyed with his pen, considering this. “And the second theory?”

“Our second theory is that the whole thing was a set up and someone killed the girl to frame the senator for murder. What they didn’t count on was Ms. Lynde seeing the real killer leaving the hotel room.”

“Going with those two theories for the moment, who does that put on our list of suspects?” Davis asked.

“Pretty much anyone who either likes or hates Senator Hodges,” Wilkins said.

“Glad to hear we’re narrowing it down.” Davis leaned back in his chair, musing aloud. “What do we make of the fact that Hodges was recently named chairman of the Banking Committee?”

“It’s an angle we’re looking into,” Jack said. “What bothers me are the contradictions: the crime scene is clean—no physical evidence was left behind. That would suggest a professional, somebody who knew what they were doing or at least thought about it in advance. But the murder itself feels amateurish. Angry. Suffocation is a lot more personal than a bullet to the head. Something doesn’t add up. I think our first step is to talk to Hodges’s people and find out who knew he was having an affair.”

“I’m not sure Senator Hodges is going to like that idea. Or his attorneys,” Davis said.

“Perhaps when we make it clear that the senator’s continued cooperation is the only thing keeping him from being arrested for murdering a call girl, he’ll warm up to it,” Jack said.

“All right—let me know if you need me to run interference with Hodges’s lawyers. Last thing—what’s happening with our witness? Sounds like the senator caught a break having Ms. Lynde in the room next to him.”

“For starters, very few people outside this room know there is a witness,” Wilkins said. “We’re keeping that quiet for now. As a courtesy, Detective Slonsky sent a squad to drive by her house tonight, although the officers haven’t been given any specifics about the case. They called in just a few minutes ago and reported that Ms. Lynde returned to the house with a male companion and that everything looked secure.”

“Do we have a reason to believe Ms. Lynde is in danger?” Davis asked.

“Not as long as her identity is kept confidential,” Wilkins said.

Davis saw Jack hesitate. “You have a different opinion, Jack?”

“I don’t like the idea of our key witness’s security being dependent on our belief that everyone will keep her identity confidential. Seems like an unnecessary risk.”

Davis nodded. “I agree. And given Ms. Lynde’s position, I’d like to err on the side of caution here. Politically, it would be a nightmare if something happened to an assistant U.S. attorney as part of an FBI investigation.”

“We’ll set up a protective surveillance,” Jack said. “We can coordinate with CPD on that.”

“Good.” Davis pointed. “I also want twice-daily reports from you two. And I have a call scheduled for Monday morning to update the director on the investigation—I expect you both to be present for that. Now, Wilkins, if you don’t mind, I’d like to speak to Agent Pallas alone.”

Jack was not surprised by this. He’d had a funny feeling there was a lecture looming on the horizon ever since Cameron’s name had come up.

Davis waited until Wilkins shut the door behind him. “Should I be worried, Jack?”

“No.”

Davis watched Jack with sharp gray eyes. “My understanding is that Ms. Lynde has been very cooperative in this investigation.”

“She has.”

“I expect us to reciprocate.”

“Of course.”

There was a moment of silence, and Jack knew Davis was taking in the taut set of his jaw and the tension that rolled off his body in waves.

“I’m not trying to be a hard-ass here,” Davis said, not unkindly. “If it’s going to be a problem for you to work with her—”

“There won’t be any problem.” Jack stared his boss straight in the eyes. Cameron Lynde may have been a problem for him once, but that was not a mistake he’d repeat. “This is just another case, and I’ll handle it like any other.”

“Ms. Lynde should be made aware of the protective surveillance. I’d like her to feel comfortable with this. It’s going to be somewhat of an intrusion.”

“Not a problem. I’ll talk to her about it first thing tomorrow.”

After studying Jack for a moment, Davis appeared satisfied. “Good. Done.” He pointed in the direction of Wilkins’s office.

“Now—tell me how the kid is doing.”