Girl Three

by Tracy March

  The scent of her perfume swirled in the air, crisp like citrus with a shot of tea. Thinking it matched her perfectly, Michael surveyed the area. Suitcase in the corner, laptop on the desk.

  His first priority was to install spyware on her laptop. Tempted to sit and surf through her files, he reminded himself there’d be plenty of time for that when he wasn’t in the middle of a B&E.

  While the spyware installed, he turned his attention to Jessie’s suitcase. The plush rug muffled his footsteps as he crossed the room, then put the suitcase on the bed. Zipping it open, he crossed into that treacherous territory that kept him second-guessing his association with Croft. Nagging guilt had become an occupational hazard—standard issue with each of the judge’s contracts.

  Jessie had packed light. She hadn’t been expecting to stay, even though Croft had accurately guessed she would. A pair of jeans, a sweater, and some lacy, sky-blue lingerie, shimmery and sheer.

  Please be different from Sam. The thought replayed, like lyrics to a song that you just can’t get out of your head.

  He left the lingerie alone, yet couldn’t help envisioning what Jessie would look like wearing it. But he couldn’t indulge his imagination as long as he would have liked. Right now he needed to focus on finding out what was in the file folder he slid from beneath the bra and panties. He opened it and read the header and first several lines of the document inside.

  Sam’s toxicology report. Now things were getting interesting.

  Last night, he’d identified the renters of the apartment Jessie had visited in Capitol Hill—Nathan and Nina Daniels—then learned that Nina was a toxicologist at the DC Medical Examiner’s office. After more research, he’d also discovered that Nina had been Jessie’s college roommate. An unexpected coincidence, yet not game-changing at the time.

  But now…

  He scanned the report.

  Blood Alcohol Concentration 0.10.

  Rohypnol.

  Semen specimen submitted. Testing requested: Post Mortem Toxicology – Semen.

  A key scraped in the door lock and Michael went on alert. He envisioned Jessie opening the door, startled, while he stood over her open suitcase, Sam’s toxicology report white-hot in his hands.

  There was no time to hide, and he’d look guiltier if he tried. He pulled his iPhone from the clip on his belt, raised it to his ear, and spoke. “We got in late last night, around—”

  The door swung open. A middle-aged cleaning lady stopped short on the threshold, looking surprised to find him there.

  Michael smiled casually and laid the open file in the suitcase. “Hold on a second,” he said to the dead phone line. He gestured for the housekeeper to enter. “Come in.” He paced between the bed and the desk, speaking into his phone. “Sorry about that. Jessie should be there soon. She managed to get out of here earlier; I got bogged down on a web conference but I’m on my way.”

  The maid came into the room with an armload of cleaning supplies. She gave him a sidelong glance, then headed into the bathroom.

  Michael refocused on Sam’s tox report, arranging the pages side-by-side in the open file and snapping pictures with his phone. He put the file back exactly as he’d found it and replaced the clothes on top. A quick check of the suitcase’s pockets turned up an old, framed five-by-seven picture of the Croft family, taken before Sam and Jessie had lost their mother and Croft had lost his wife.

  Michael’s gut gripped when he looked at those innocent little girls and their poor mother. The Croft family story had turned out worse than a Lifetime channel chick flick. He put the picture away, zipped the suitcase, and set it back in the corner.

  He reached in the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a twenty. It was a small price to pay to get a copy of Sam’s toxicology report, and to learn that, with a little direction, Jessica Croft might lead him to the facts about Sam’s murder. Yes, murder. Sam was dead, and there was nothing natural about how it had happened—now he knew that for sure.

  He walked to the bathroom and knocked on the open door. The maid leaned over the sink, scrubbing, and caught sight of him in the mirror.

  Michael gave her a bashful grin and held up the folded twenty. “Thank you.” He slid the bill onto the vanity, tipped his chin, and left.

  Chapter Six

  Jessie climbed the front steps of the inn, intent on settling in her room and figuring out what to do next. How was she supposed to find a killer?

  Inside, the inn was quiet during the gap time between check-outs and check-ins. Her father had offered her a free place to stay, but she wouldn’t be leaving the inn today. She couldn’t move to Sam’s before she’d seen the townhouse and gotten a feel for it. Could she get past the idea that Sam had died there? She felt like she had to try. But she couldn’t go there for the first time alone.

  She made her way into the dining room, where an antique buffet was set for tea. As soon as she dunked a bag of Earl Grey in hot water to steep, she dialed Nina’s cell, hoping to catch her during her lunch hour.

  After too many rings, Jessie figured she’d get dumped into voice mail, but Nina finally picked up.

  “You okay?” Nina asked, her words a wisp on the line.

  Jessie heard voices in the background, sounding more businesslike than casual. “Sorry to bother you, but no, I’m not okay. Are you in a meeting?”

  “Almost.”

  “Quick question: Can you meet me after work tonight? I need you to go to Sam’s townhouse with me.”

  “For real?”

  “For real. At the funeral, my father gave me—”

  “I want to hear what happened, Jess, but the meeting’s starting. I have to go, but I’ll see you tonight. I’ll need to find somebody to watch Sophie. I don’t want to take her there.”

  “I don’t blame you. Talk to you later.”

  Jessie sweetened her tea, grabbed an orange from the fruit bowl, and headed toward the stairs.

  “Dr. Croft.”

  Jessie stopped and glanced into the living room, where the innkeeper, a pleasant lady named Laura, stood watering an arrangement of Stargazer lilies.

  “Oh, hi,” Jessie said. “Please call me Jessie.”

  Laura smiled and nodded. “An envelope came for you.” She adjusted her dark-rimmed glasses. “It has your name printed on the front, but nothing else. It was mixed in with the mail.”

  Jessie wondered who had sent her something. No one knew she was here except the innkeepers, the cab driver, and Nina.

  “Maybe it’s a sympathy card,” Laura said, kind enough not to pretend she didn’t know about Sam’s death and Jessie’s relation to her. “Wait here. I’ll get it for you.”

  Jessie scanned the room. She imagined the contemporary portrait on the wall staring at her, blinking when she looked away, like something from an old Scooby-Doo cartoon.

  But this was real.

  There was nothing cartoonish about Sam dying, and nothing amusing about the splintery pins and needles in her stomach.

  Laura returned and handed Jessie a large white envelope.

  “Thank you.” Jessie went upstairs to her room, closed the door, and quickly tore open the envelope. She slipped out a single sturdy sheet of photo paper and unfolded the page.

  It wasn’t a sympathy card. More like a photographic calling card from Sam.

  The full-page glossy picture caught the glare of the light. Five people, including Sam, Hollywooded for the camera. Jessie concentrated on her sister. She dazzled in the center of the other four, looking stunning and vibrant. She could just as easily have been staring out from a Cover Girl ad.

  Regret tightened Jessie’s chest and thickened in her throat. She shifted her gaze, focusing on other details of the picture. The digital date stamp of almost two years ago. The banner hanging in the background that read: Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Our Present to Our Future. A caption scrolled across the white space beneath the photograph—an ordered roll call of everyone pictured: Senator Elizabeth Briel, Counselor Philippe Lesort,
Samantha Croft, Dr. Ian Alden, Helena Alden.

  Jessie studied the photo, wondering what it meant and why it had been sent to her. But weightier questions worried her more.

  Who had sent her the picture, and how had they found her at the inn?

  Jessie wished Nina could’ve met her during the daytime to go to Sam’s place. Darkness made the idea much more daunting. But she’d rather have Nina’s company in the dark than come alone in the daylight. They stood on the sidewalk along 19th Street in front of the townhouse, staring up at its towering façade.

  “Nice neighborhood,” Nina said, her breath making misty plumes in the freezing night air.

  Beneath the hazy light from the streetlamps, historic townhomes bolstered one another, standing in a row four and five stories high. Massive old trees shadowed postage-stamp lawns, evergreen with ivy and boxwoods.

  “It’s this one.” Jessie pointed to a stately taupe-brick townhouse, trimmed in black, with decorative wrought-iron grates on the first-floor windows and a fairytale-size door. Uplighting from behind a row of shrubbery gave the house a subtle glow.

  “I should’ve become a lobbyist,” Nina quipped. “Did Sam own this place?”

  “At least part of it.” Jessie felt a flutter of nerves as she and Nina neared the door. “My father said ‘Sam’s townhouse,’ but the address is 1827A. That makes me think there must be several units. Maybe condos.”

  “That makes a little more sense.” Nina shoved her hands into her coat pockets. “She’d have had to drop a couple million to buy this place.”

  “No way.”

  “Way. Nate and I have looked. We fantasize about living in a house like this, in this part of town. Quiet streets, early nineteen-hundreds architecture. Crazy expensive.”

  “I meant, no way Sam could’ve swung that price. Even on a lobbyist’s salary.”

  On a side wall, between an imposing iron gate and the glass-paned front door, Jessie noticed three mail slots labeled A, B, and C. She pointed them out to Nina. “Divide your two million by three.”

  “That’s still a lot of jack.”

  Nina’s street slang amused Jessie and helped her forget for a moment that she’d just unlocked the door of her dead sister’s home. But as soon as she and Nina stepped into the foyer, dimly lit by a crystal chandelier, apprehension gripped her again. They approached three black-lacquered doors, a brushed-silver letter affixed to each one, and stopped in front of door A.

  Nina raised her eyebrows and met Jessie’s gaze. “You okay?”

  Jessie shook her head, tiny back-and-forth movements. “What makes my father think I could stay here?”

  Nina squeezed Jessie’s shoulder. “I can’t answer that. But let’s go inside and have a look around.” She took the keys.

  Jessie sucked in a deep breath. “There have to be some answers in there.”

  Nina unlocked the door and opened it tentatively. She turned back to Jessie and gave her a tentative fist-bump before they stepped into another foyer. To their right was a living room vaguely illuminated by vaporous light seeping in the front windows, deepening the shadows. To their left was a kitchen with French doors that led outside. A staircase rose parallel to the wall in front of them.

  Jessie reached for a light switch, but she didn’t find one next to the door. As Nina stepped into the living room, a lamp popped on. Jessie gasped.

  Nina clutched her chest. “What the—”

  “Motion sensor light,” Jessie said, her heart racing.

  “That was crazy.”

  Jessie stood silent, recovering, as Nina checked out the room, her eyes still wide. “This place is swanky.” She took it all in. The bold and soothing colors—a crisp combination of flat black, bright white, and light blue. The high ceilings with intricate fretwork and moldings. The large fireplace surrounded by gray marble.

  Nina sat on the deep, white sofa, plush with throw pillows in geometric prints. She smoothed her hand over the fabric. “This stuff is high-end.”

  Jessie skimmed her fingers across the suede upholstery of an armless chair. “Sam never lived like this, all pristine and neat. You should’ve seen her bedroom when she was a kid, with Beanie Babies and school papers everywhere. And way too many clothes for her Barbies.” With a pang of guilt, Jessie remembered teasing Sam about her “baby dolls,” feeling so grown-up at fourteen. “Her Georgetown dorm room was the same, without the Beanie Babies, and all the clothes were hers.”

  “I remember how packed her tiny closet was when we went to see her.” Nina stood and straightened the pillows on the sofa. “Why don’t we go upstairs?”

  Jessie swallowed hard. “Obviously the bedroom is up there.” Where Sam died. They stepped into the foyer and stopped at the base of the stairs. Nina looked at Jessie for her agreement before heading up. Jessie nodded and they climbed the stairs in silence. Facing the urn filled with Sam’s ashes had been painful, but Jessie braced herself against the sorrow she’d feel seeing the details of Sam’s life—a favorite pair of earrings, a half-read novel on her nightstand, an almost empty bottle of shampoo. And maybe something telling about her death?

  Nina flipped the light switch at the top of the steps, softly illuminating Sam’s bedroom. It was contemporary yet serene, decorated in ivory and blue with black furniture.

  Jessie hesitated. “This looks more like a centerfold in House Beautiful than someone’s actual bedroom.” She forced herself to walk across the room and open the closet.

  Sam’s clothes hung neatly or lay folded on shelves amid the faint scent of floral perfume. Shoes were paired in compartments, belts dangled from hooks, and the clothes hamper was empty. In the bathroom, the shower gleamed. Fluffy towels hung on the racks. The vanity cabinets contained nothing but basic toiletries.

  Nina shadowed Jessie as she moved around the rooms, her nerves wrenching tighter with each step. Stopping beside the bed, she dropped her purse on the floor and flung the pretty pillows aside. Frustration building, she grabbed a fistful of the duvet and yanked it into a pile. She shoved back the top sheet and ripped the fitted sheet away from the corner of the mattress.

  Nina rushed to her side. “Jessie, stop!”

  Jessie faced her, her pulse swishing in her ears. “It’s new. Look at it. The mattress, the sheets, all of it’s new. Sterilized.” She sank onto the bed amid the crumpled mess. “This is where Sam died. It’s beyond disturbing. But I need answers and there aren’t any here—I can feel it. All of this is staged.”

  Nina gave her a pained look. “Did you really think your father would leave it like it was and expect you to stay here?”

  Jessie realized how unrealistic her expectations had been. “No. I’m not thinking straight.”

  After a quiet moment, she stood and began making the bed while Nina skirted around to the opposite side. They tightened the sheets, tugging and smoothing until they were wrinkle-free. Fluffing a pillow, Jessie’s fingers skimmed a raised area on the hem of the pillowcase—a cursive, sky-blue monogram. JCR. Her stomach knotted.

  “These are my initials,” she said, just above a whisper, and backed away from the bed.

  Nina had a closer look and winced. “That’s a little unnerving.”

  “It’s sick, is what it is.” Jessie dragged her hands down her face, then drew them together in front of her mouth. “Why would my father do this?”

  Nina didn’t answer quickly—one of many reasons why Jessie valued her judgment.

  “There’s no arguing that he’s been an insensitive narcissist, but maybe he wants to make up for it. Maybe he’s trying to change,” Nina said sincerely. “Having you settle Sam’s estate may be an excuse to get you to stay.” She scrunched her shoulders, her turtleneck sweater bunching beneath her chin. “He’s lost the rest of his family. You’re all he has left.”

  A little hope filled the hollow in Jessie’s heart, but she’d learned it was better to expect nothing from her father, because that was usually what she got.

  “He could be as clueless as
you were that foul play caused Sam’s death.” Nina put the last pillow on the bed.

  “I’d like to think that,” Jessie said, “but doesn’t it seem like he had the most to lose if there’d been an investigation? No journalist worth his or her byline would’ve ignored Sam’s suspicious death. Justice Yaley is retiring in the spring. My father wants his seat on the bench. He couldn’t afford a scandal right now.”

  Nina tugged at one of her dark curls, thinking.

  “Think about his broken-family saga,” Jessie said. “Two estranged daughters, a long-dead wife, and a wake of glamorous girlfriends. Still, he’s one of Washington’s most eligible bachelors. Who could resist digging into a past like that?”

  “Won’t the stories come anyway, when he’s officially nominated?”

  “Sure they will. But he couldn’t survive two rounds in the ring with the media.” Jessie sank onto the bed. “Maybe someone owed him a favor and helped him manage a cover-up.” For once, she wished she knew more about Washington’s power brokers.

  Nina gave her a long, skeptical look that said she wanted to agree but couldn’t. “That’s a decent theory, but where’s your scientist’s objectivity? People can be ruthless in this town, especially when it comes to politics. Someone else could be responsible for the cover-up.”

  Jessie shook her head, feeling a little dizzy from lack of food and sleep. “It’s overwhelming to think about. I’m used to fighting my father, but I’m not sure how to take on anyone else.” She held Nina’s gaze for a charged moment. “And keep you out of it.”

  Nina looked away. “But you can. And I’m not out of it. I’m behind-the-scenes all the way in. I just can’t afford for anyone to find out that I tipped you off.”

  “I understand.” Jessie nodded. “And I’m glad I’m not alone.”

  “You’re not,” Nina said. “I have a stake in this, too.”

  “Of course you do. Sophie, Nate, your own safety, your job…”

  “All those, sure. But also you. I worry because I know how hell-bent you can be when you’re emotional and determined.”