by Ana Barrons
“What? How did I use you?”
“You used me to get information about Blair Morrissey, and now you want me to turn myself in to the police.”
“Suzannah!” the vice president shouted. “Whatever you told him, I want you to stop talking right now. Do you understand?”
“It’s a little late for that,” she said. “I already told him I shot your bimbo lover.”
“You what?”
“Oh, don’t act so surprised.”
“How’d you get her out to Roosevelt Island?” Joe asked. He figured it was now or never to get the rest of the story.
“Don’t answer that,” the vice president said to his wife. “And throw the gun down. I’m taking you away from here.”
“It was easy,” Suzannah said, ignoring her husband. She seemed a bit calmer now, more in control. “I told her to meet me at Thompson’s Boat House at midnight for a little woman-to-woman chat. I said it didn’t bother me a bit that she was screwing Sam but I wanted to talk about ground rules.” She shook her head, amused. “She fell for it, the twit.”
“Stop this!” Mitchell bellowed. “Don’t you say another word, Suzannah. Rossi, shut the fuck up.”
She shrugged. “I stopped following your orders a long time ago, darlin’. Now why don’t you and Dale run along.”
“What happened when you got over there?” Joe asked.
“Rossi, goddamn you,” Mitchell shouted.
Joe swallowed hard. It wasn’t easy to ignore the man, but damn it, he had to hear this.
“I explained that she’d gotten Sam to be careless and that it could cost him the election,” Suzannah said. “So they’d have to stop seeing each other. I was talking to her as calmly as I’m talking to you right now, honest to God. But she had the balls to laugh at me. Me! So I pulled out my gun.” She waved it in the air for effect. “And I told her I’d have to shoot her if she didn’t give me her word, but she didn’t believe me.”
Joe wasn’t so sure he believed this story. Blair probably would have peed her pants and agreed to anything to keep Suzannah from shooting her. “And then?”
“Well, I kept warning her and she kept insisting that I take her back to the other side, ’cause she didn’t like the woods and she was cold in her slinky, little dress. You’d have thought I was making her march through five feet of snow the way she bitched and moaned on the trail up to the monument.”
“Suzannah, I’m begging you,” the vice president said. “Stop this now.”
“I’m trying to explain why the whole thing was an accident, Sam. I don’t want him thinking I’m a common murderer.” She tilted her head at Dale. “Like your good friend, here.”
“Suzannah—”
“Why’d you shoot her, Suz?” Joe asked. Mitchell’s gaze was burning a hole through the side of his head.
“She walked away from me while I was still talking, so I fired to scare her, but the next thing I know she’s tumbling down that hill and splashing into the swamp. And that’s the God’s honest truth.”
Joe figured there was an element of truth to what she was saying, but he had no doubt that Suzannah had shot Blair Morrissey out of spite rather than by accident. He was equally certain no one would ever know for sure what really happened that night.
“Surely a jury would believe that,” he said, and hoped the sarcasm went over her head. The vice president’s eyes were still on him, and Joe knew it hadn’t escaped him.
“Mrs. Mitchell,” Dale said. “I’m telling you for the last time to put the gun down.”
“Or what? You going to shoot me?”
“If I have to.”
“Like hell,” Mitchell said. He started toward his wife. “Goddamn it, Suzannah, I’ve had enough of this.”
“Don’t come any closer, sir,” Dale said. He had been inching toward Suzannah while still keeping the vice president and Joe in sight.
“I give the orders around here, Dale.”
“Yes, sir. So I’d appreciate it if you’d order your wife to drop her gun, because I’m not willing to risk your life. Sir.”
There was no mistaking the sarcasm in the way Dale said that last “sir.” Problem was, Suzannah didn’t give a damn about what anybody else wanted, so it didn’t matter what her husband told her to do.
“Look, Suzy,” Joe said, deliberately playing on their familiarity by using the little-girl names that had always suited her so well. “Now that you’ve explained what happened, I think we should talk about things some more, but I don’t do real well with a gun pointed at my chest. I get kind of tongue-tied, you know?”
“Oh, you think you’re so damn witty,” she sneered. “I know where you stand. You looked me right in the eye and told me you didn’t love me and I should turn myself in to the police.”
Joe didn’t have to see the expression on Sam Mitchell’s face to know how he must be feeling about this conversation. “Well, can you blame me for saying that? I mean, I was kind of weirded out.”
Out of the corner of his eye he could see two other men taking up positions in the hallway. He guessed they were Suzannah’s regulars, Barry and Dennis, whom she’d always insisted would never tell the vice president what she was up to. Right.
Mitchell took another step forward. The two agents rushed in and wrestled him out of the room while he cursed and raged.
“You’re all fired!” he shouted.
“Yes, sir,” Dale said without taking his eyes off Suzannah’s pistol. “Don’t force me to shoot that gun out of your hands, Mrs. Mitchell.”
“Jesus Christ, Suzannah!” Joe shouted. “You think this guy’s kidding? Put down the damn gun and stop being such an idiot.”
“What do you care if I get shot? You don’t love me.”
“Yes, I do love you,” he said, forcing himself to sound sincere. “I didn’t want to say it in front of Sam, but you know I do. I’ve always loved you. Now put down the goddamn gun so I don’t have to watch you bleed to death when he misses your hands and shoots you in the heart.”
A tremulous little smile formed on her lips. “Do you mean that?”
“Of course I mean that.” He wondered if that was the biggest lie he’d ever told. He nodded toward Dale French—who had the coldest eyes he’d ever seen. “You think I’d say it in front of an audience if I didn’t?”
Her smile broadened and she began to lower the pistol. “So you don’t love Catherine?”
“I barely know her, Suzy. I love you.”
“Liar,” she said, and jerked the pistol up.
Then there was a whoosh and a pop and she stumbled backward.
Chapter Forty-Five
Hall held a cell phone to his ear while Ned Campbell’s body was loaded into the back of the ambulance. The one carrying Catherine Morrissey had left only minutes ago, racing to Georgetown Hospital in the aftermath of a bullet wound to her left shoulder, in addition to broken ribs, a concussion and myriad other insults to her body they didn’t know about yet. He was trying to reach Joe Rossi, but he wasn’t picking up the phone at his house. Neither was Dan Rankin responding. Hall glanced at his watch. The car he’d sent over there hadn’t reported in yet, damn it.
He was going to have somebody’s ass before the night was over.
There were officers scouring the yards up and down the street, but he had a feeling the shooter was long gone. He had a name: Perelli. But no description. With any luck, Catherine had seen the scumbag and would be alert enough—alive enough—to talk to a police sketch artist within the next few hours, before the trail grew cold.
One thing was for sure—whoever had taken out Campbell and attempted to kill Catherine Morrissey had done it to keep them quiet. Which meant Ned hadn’t been acting alone.
So who had enough to lose to want these people dead before they could tell the world what he—or she—had done?
* * *
Dale French grabbed Joe by the arm and pulled him out of the bedroom and down the hall. Joe was so shocked by the scene in the bedroom that he didn’t resist. Sam Mitchell had rushed to his wife’s side the moment the shot was fired, and both agents were fussing over her like grandmothers.
“Are her hands going to be all right?” Joe asked.
“The bullet never touched her hands,” French said. “The police are going to be at your door any minute, so listen carefully. Mrs. Mitchell and the vice president are going to hide in your bathroom with the shower running. The two agents will be in there as well. Pull your shirt off and mess up your hair.”
Joe had the sense not to question French’s orders, especially considering the man was holding him at gunpoint. “Why are the police coming here?”
“There’s a cop lying on his face in the alley, not dead but very pissed off, and his partner will be sending a car to check on him. You will act totally surprised and say you’re busy with a woman upstairs. They’ll ask who the woman is and you’ll say she wouldn’t want anyone to know.” He paused to give Joe a hard look. “Which will be the truth.”
“They’d need a warrant to come inside.”
“Which is what they’ll tell you, but you’ll cooperate by letting them go through the house if they ask. When they go upstairs you’ll knock on the bathroom door to warn your girlfriend not to come out naked, and she’ll ask who the hell’s here. After that the cops will be satisfied and leave.”
“And you’ll be holding that gun on me the whole time?”
French smiled slowly. It didn’t reach his cold grey eyes. “I won’t have to.”
Joe didn’t like the sound of that. “Why’s that?”
“Just like I won’t have to worry about seeing any of what you heard in there in the Washington Herald. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”
Joe fought the urge to grab French by the throat and bang his head against the wall. “You want to tell me why you’re so sure about that?”
“Mike left his stuffed tiger in his room when they left this morning,” French said, almost conversationally.
Joe’s whole body tensed. “How the fuck do you know that?”
“It fell off the bed during the night and he must have kicked it under. On the right side, closest to the window.”
Joe pushed past him and stalked into Mike’s room. He was at his bed in two steps, got down on his knees and pulled up the quilt. His hand landed on the tiger immediately. He was squeezing it when he stood and faced French.
“If something’s happened to my brother,” he said slowly. “I swear to God, French, I will fucking kill you.”
“No, you’ve got it backward, Joe. If I ever see your byline in the Washington Herald, disclosing a single word of what Mrs. Mitchell told you, I will see to it that your little brother, the other orphan, Tiffany, your father and his lover die horrible, lingering deaths and that the photos are sent to you. Then you can send them to the Pulitzer committee along with your—”
Joe lunged for him. French shoved him hard against the closet and stuck the gun under his chin. “Don’t tempt me, Rossi,” he growled. “I’d like nothing better than to pull the trigger right now.”
Joe was breathing heavily. “So why’d you save my life? Why didn’t you let Suzannah shoot me?”
“My boss wouldn’t like that.”
Joe snorted. “Oh, no? I can’t imagine why Sam Mitchell would be upset if I dropped off the face of the earth.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” French said, contempt in his tone. “If the vice president wanted you dead, you would have been dead a long time ago. It would be easy to make it look like an accident. But he’s afraid to let anything happen to you.”
“Why? He’d sure as hell be justified.”
“That’s for damn sure. But he seems to think his wife would take it badly. Maybe so badly she’d harm herself.”
Joe stared at him. Suzannah wouldn’t kill herself over him, she liked her life too much. But he didn’t think it would be good for his health to mention that to French, so he kept his mouth shut.
“Oh, and before I forget,” French said. “Your family’s staying at Melissa Stark’s house, you know, Pam’s sister. The street address is 2835—”
“You keep your hands off my family,” Joe said, his voice raspy with fear and anger. “I don’t give a shit about the story. Just leave them alone.”
“And then, of course, there’s lovely Catherine.”
Catherine. “Is she with them?”
“She stayed behind. Seems she had other ideas.”
The banging started downstairs. The police had arrived.
“What ideas?” The expression on French’s face scared the shit out of him. He couldn’t lose Catherine, not now. He loved her too much. “Where is she?”
“Get downstairs, Joe,” French said, tucking his gun into his pants.
“Tell me—”
French shoved him out the bedroom door. “Get down there. Now!”
Joe tossed his shirt on the floor, unzipped his jeans and ran his hands through his hair, then headed down the stairs, panic churning in his gut. He wanted French in the worst way, and it was killing him to follow his orders like a goddamn soldier. But his time would come. Right now he was on stage. He opened the door to an angry, rumpled detective and two unsmiling uniformed cops.
“What the hell’s this?” he said, finding it extremely easy to feign outrage, particularly as he was facing the detective who had been in the interrogation room with Hall, the one who wanted to nail him. “I just got released.”
“And I just got mugged in your alley,” the detective said, holding up his badge. “Detective Daniel Rankin, Metro—”
“Yeah, I know who you are. And if I were going to mug someone, it wouldn’t be a friggin’ cop. Particularly under the circumstances.”
Rankin gave him a frosty smile. “You’re not a suspect on this one, Rossi. But I’d like it very much if we could have a look around.”
“I’m not harboring any muggers. And I’m, uh, a little busy at the moment.” He glanced up the steps behind him. Rankin followed his lead and glanced up as well.
“Who is she?”
“You want her name? Get a warrant.”
Rankin held up a palm. “Fine. And I could get a warrant, but it would take some time and then we’d have to come back and disturb you all over again. Your girlfriend might not appreciate that.”
Joe ran a hand through his hair. “Christ,” he muttered. “I’ll give you two minutes to search for whatever and then you’re out of here. Got it? Two minutes.”
“We’ll be out of here in two minutes.” Rankin assigned the officers to different parts of the house and headed up the steps himself.
“Wait,” Joe said. “I need to warn her.”
He pushed past Rankin and into his bedroom. The shower was running in the connecting bathroom, and the bed was torn apart. French and the agents had done a good job of creating the scene. He went straight to the bathroom door and knocked.
“What?” It didn’t sound a bit like Suzannah, thank God.
“Sweetheart?” Joe shouted. “Hey, there are a couple of cops here going through the house, so don’t come out naked, okay?”
“Fine,” she said, more bored than alarmed, and Joe suspected she wasn’t feeling particul
arly cooperative.
“I’ll let you know when they’re gone.”
She didn’t answer.
“We’ll get out of your hair,” Rankin said, apparently convinced. He gave Joe a disgusted look and left the bedroom. Joe followed him downstairs. When they reached the front door the detective stopped. “And by the way, my partner’s been trying to reach you.”
“What does he want?” Joe had heard the phone ring, but hadn’t been in any position to answer it.
Rankin glanced up the steps. “I think he wanted to let you know about Catherine Morrissey. But you’re obviously too busy to—”
Joe grabbed him by the lapels. “What about Catherine? Is she all right?”
Rankin grabbed Joe’s wrists and pushed him away. “Don’t ever do that again, Rossi, you hear me?”
Joe held up both palms and stepped back. “I’m sorry. What about Catherine?”
Rankin smoothed his jacket. “Apparently she went to visit a mutual friend of yours tonight. Ned Campbell. Looking for something she thought might save your ass.” He glanced up the steps yet again and then stared at Joe as though he were some kind of slimy creature.
Sparks of light shot through Joe’s vision. “What’s happened, goddamn it?”
“Someone, probably the guy who shot Campbell, beat her up pretty bad and then shot her.”
Joe was stunned. “What?” Catherine beaten and shot? He started to push past the detective to get out the door. “Where is she? I have to go to her. Get out of my way.”
Rankin grabbed his upper arms to stop him. “While you were here banging some other chickie upstairs, Catherine was being beaten and probably raped.”
Joe stopped moving. “No,” he groaned. “Oh, Jesus, no.”
“Hall found her lying naked on the floor, bleeding, with broken glass all around her. Her hands and feet were bound. He figures she’s got some broken ribs and a major concussion at the very least. Then, while they were loading her into the ambulance, somebody shot and killed Campbell and tried to kill her too. He got her in the shoulder. She’s in surgery now.”
