Protecting The Colton Bride
Page 26
He ran his hand through his hair. “How much longer?”
“Detectives are on their way.”
Ten minutes later, Nick heard her before he saw her. A flurry of activity and a burst of energy preceded the detectives’ entrance into the apartment. He suppressed a groan. Wasn’t it enough that his friend and boss had been murdered? He had to face her, too? Weren’t there thousands of District cops? Was she really the only one available?
Sam came into the apartment, oozing authority and competence. In light of her recent troubles, Nick couldn’t believe she had any of either left. “Get some tape across that door,” she ordered one of the officers. “Start a log with a timeline of who got here when. No one comes in or goes out without my okay, got it?”
“Yes, ma’am. The Patrol sergeant is on his way along with Deputy Chief Conklin and Detective Captain Malone.”
“Let me know when they get here.” Without so much as a glance in his direction, Nick watched her stalk through the apartment and disappear into the bedroom. Following her, a handsome young detective with bed head nodded to Nick.
He heard the murmur of voices from the bedroom and saw a camera flash. They emerged fifteen minutes later, both noticeably paler. For some reason, Nick was gratified to know the detectives working the case weren’t so jaded as to be unaffected by what they’d just seen.
“Start a canvass of the building,” Sam ordered her partner. “Where the hell is Crime Scene?”
“Hung up at another homicide,” one of the other officers replied.
She finally turned to Nick, nothing in her pale blue eyes indicating that she recognized or remembered him. But the fact that she didn’t introduce herself or ask for his name told him she knew exactly who he was. “We’ll need your prints.”
“They’re on file,” he mumbled. “Congressional background check.”
She wrote something in the small notebook she tugged from the back pocket of gray, form-fitting pants. There were years on her gorgeous face that hadn’t been there the last time he’d had the opportunity to look closely, and he couldn’t tell if her hair was as long as it used to be since it was twisted into a clip. The curvy body and endless legs hadn’t changed at all.
“No forced entry,” she noted. “Who has a key?”
“Who doesn’t have a key?”
“I’ll need a list. You have a key, I assume.”
Nick nodded. “That’s how I got in.”
“Was he seeing anyone?”
“No one serious, but he had no trouble attracting female companionship.” Nick didn’t add that John’s casual approach to women and sex had been a source of tension between the two men, with Nick fearful that John’s social life would one day lead to political trouble. He hadn’t imagined it might also lead to murder.
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“When he left the office for a dinner meeting with the Virginia Democrats last night. Around six-thirty or so.”
“Spoke to him?”
“Around ten when he said he was on his way home.”
“Alone?”
“He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”
“Take me through what happened this morning.”
He told her about Christina trying to reach John, beginning at seven, and of coming to the apartment expecting to find the senator once again sleeping through his alarm.
“So this has happened before?”
“No, he’s never been murdered before.”
Her expression was anything but amused. “Do you think this is funny, Mr. Cappuano?”
“Hardly. My best friend is dead, Sergeant. A United States senator has been murdered. There’s nothing funny about that.”
“Which is why you need to answer the questions and save the droll humor for a more appropriate time.”
Chastened, Nick said, “He slept through his alarm and ringing telephones at least once, if not twice, a month.”
“Did he drink?”
“Socially, but I rarely saw him drunk.”
“Prescription drugs? Sleeping pills?”
Nick shook his head. “He was just a very heavy sleeper.”
“And it fell to his chief of staff to wake him up? There wasn’t anyone else you could send?”
“The senator valued his privacy. There’ve been occasions when he wasn’t alone, and neither of us felt his love life should be the business of his staff.”
“But he didn’t care if you knew who he was sleeping with?”
“He knew he could count on my discretion.” He looked up, unprepared for the punch to the gut that occurred when his eyes met hers. Her unsettled expression made him wonder if she felt it, too. “His parents need to be notified. I’d like to be the one to tell them.”
Sam studied him for a long moment. “I’ll arrange it. Where are they?”
“At their farm in Leesburg. It needs to be soon. We’re postponing a vote we worked for months to get to. It’ll be all over the news that something’s up.”
“What’s the vote for?”
He told her about the landmark immigration bill and John’s role as the co-sponsor.
With a curt nod, she walked away.
* * *
An hour later, Nick was a passenger in an unmarked Metropolitan Police SUV, headed west to Leesburg with Sam at the wheel. She’d left her partner with a staggering list of instructions and insisted on accompanying Nick to tell John’s parents.
“Do you need something to eat?”
He shook his head. No way could he even think about eating—not with the horrific task he had ahead of him. Besides, his stomach hadn’t recovered from the earlier bout of vomiting.
“You know, we could still call the Loudoun County Police or the Virginia State Police to handle this,” she said for the second time.
“No.”
After an awkward silence, she said, “I’m sorry this happened to your friend and that you had to see him that way.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you going to answer that?” she asked of his relentless cell phone.
“No.”
“How about you turn it off then? I can’t stand listening to a ringing phone.”
Reaching for his belt, he grabbed his cell phone, his emotions still raw after watching John be taken from his apartment in a body bag. Before he shut the cell phone off, he called Christina.
“Hey,” she said, her voice heavy with relief and emotion. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Sorry.” Pulling his tie loose and releasing his top button, he cast a sideways glance at Sam, whose warm, feminine fragrance had overtaken the small space inside the car. “I was dealing with cops.”
“Where are you now?”
“On my way to Leesburg.”
“God,” Christina sighed. “I don’t envy you that. Are you okay?”
“Never better.”
“I’m sorry. Dumb question.”
“It’s okay. Who knows what we’re supposed to say or do in this situation. Did you postpone the vote?”
“Yes, but Martin and McDougal are having an apoplexy,” she said, meaning John’s co-sponsor on the bill and the Democratic majority leader. “They’re demanding to know what’s going on.”
“Hold them off. Another hour. Maybe two. Same thing with the staff. I’ll give you the green light as soon as I’ve told his parents.”
“I will. Everyone knows something’s up because the Capitol Police posted an officer outside John’s office and won’t let anyone in there.”
“It’s because the cops are waiting for a search warrant,” Nick told her.
“Why do they need a warrant to search the victim’s office?”
“Something about chain of custody w
ith evidence and pacifying the Capitol Police.”
“Oh, I see. I was thinking we should have Trevor draft a statement so we’re ready.”
“That’s why I called.”
“We’ll get on it.” She sounded relieved to have something to do.
“Are you okay with telling Trevor? Want me to do it?”
“I think I can do it, but thanks for asking.”
“How’re you holding up?” he asked.
“I’m in total shock…all that promise and potential just gone…” She began to weep again. “It’s going to hurt like hell when the shock wears off.”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “No doubt.”
“I’m here if you need anything.”
“Me, too, but I’m going to shut the phone off for a while. It’s been ringing nonstop.”
“I’ll email the statement to you when we have it done.”
“Thanks, Christina. I’ll call you later.” Nick ended the call and took a look at his recent email messages, hardly surprised by the outpouring of dismay and concern over the postponement of the vote. One was from Senator Martin himself—”What the fuck is going on, Cappuano?”
Sighing, he turned off the cell phone and dropped it into his coat pocket.
“Was that your girlfriend?” Sam asked, startling him.
“No, my deputy.”
“Oh.”
Wondering what she was getting at, he added, “We work closely together. We’re good friends.”
“Why are you being so defensive?”
“What’s your problem?” he asked.
“I don’t have a problem. You’re the one with problems.”
“So all that great press you’ve been getting lately hasn’t been a problem for you?”
“Why, Nick, I didn’t realize you cared.”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you made that very clear.”
He spun halfway around in the seat to stare at her. “Are you for real? You’re the one who didn’t return any of my calls.”
She glanced over at him, her face flat with surprise. “What calls?”
After staring at her in disbelief for a long moment, he settled back in his seat and fixed his eyes on the cars sharing the Interstate with them.
A few minutes passed in uneasy silence.
“What calls, Nick?”
“I called you,” he said softly. “For days after that night, I tried to reach you.”
“I didn’t know,” she stammered. “No one told me.”
“It doesn’t matter now. It was a long time ago.” But if his reaction to seeing her again after six years of thinking about her was any indication, it did matter. It mattered a lot.
* * * * *
Continue reading Sam and Nick’s story in FATAL AFFAIR, available in print and ebook from Carina Press.
Copyright © 2010 by Marie Sullivan Force
ISBN-13: 9781460387931
Protecting the Colton Bride
Copyright © 2015 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Elle James for her contribution to the Coltons of Oklahoma miniseries.
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