Girl Three
Page 11
He cocked his head. “They’re respectable principles, but they’re blurry in practice.”
“I understand,” Jessie said, even though she didn’t. She swallowed hard. “Tell me.”
Philippe nodded but didn’t say anything. He left the darkroom and walked over to an antique armoire in the living area. Jessie followed.
He opened the armoire to a fully stocked bar and poured himself a Crown Royal, straight up. “Change your mind about that drink?”
She shook her head and held out her hands, palms up. “I think I can handle whatever you have to tell me.”
He grasped the wrist of her bloody hand and looked worriedly at her cuts. “What happened?”
She pulled away and felt her face flush. “I fell.”
“On the ice?”
“No.”
“Come with me.” He led her halfway down a long hallway to a bathroom. “Try to clean the cuts a little better. I’ll be right back.”
She stared in the mirror as the water stung her cuts. Her face was pale, and her sunken eyes had circles under them.
You look like you’ve seen a fantôme.
No, she was the haunted-looking ghost.
Philippe returned with peroxide, Neosporin, and Band-Aids in one hand, and his drink in the other. “When did you fall?”
“Earlier tonight, in Federal Triangle, on my way to meet Helena.” She blotted her hand with tissues and poured peroxide on her cuts. She winced as white bubbles fizzed across her palm. “I thought someone was following me, so I turned to look. My boot caught on a seam in the sidewalk.”
Philippe stood next to her, his troubled expression reflected in the mirror. “Why would someone be following you?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
He took a sip of his drink, pinched his lips together, and squinted. “Any guesses?”
She considered what to tell him as she tore open a couple of bandages. He set his drink on the vanity, took her hand in his, and helped her stick them in place.
“Thank you.” She gently pulled her hand away from his and put the lids on the peroxide and Neosporin. “It’s no secret that I’m curious about what happened in Sam’s life during the last couple years while we were…out of touch. I’ve been asking questions. Hoping for answers. And I appreciate what you’ve told me so far. But I get the feeling there are answers that someone doesn’t want me to find.”
“But you’re not looking for answers about her life,” he said. “You’re looking for answers about her death.”
Jessie narrowed her eyes. “What makes you say that?”
“Helena tells Elizabeth everything, and what’s interesting—or not—makes its way to me pretty fast.”
“Obviously.”
“You’ve found the evidence I mentioned at the embassy, then?”
“Evidence?”
“Of the alternate version of the Hope Campaign,” he said. “Anyone armed with that information has reason to be paranoid.”
Jessie debated whether to bluff him, but decided she could end up with nothing if she did. “I haven’t found anything.” Whatever there might’ve been to find, her father had probably removed it from Sam’s condo long before he gave Jessie the keys. “Yet.”
“Then maybe Sam was true to her word.”
“What do you mean?”
He shook his head. “Things will make more sense if I start from the beginning. Then maybe you’ll understand why it’s best not to ask a lot of questions about Sam.”
Philippe led her back into the darkroom. He took his key ring from his pocket, opened a cabinet under the counter on the dry side of the room, and removed a safe box about the size of a briefcase. Dread surged through Jessie. Whatever he was about to show her he kept behind two locks.
He set the box on the counter, flipped through his keys and found the smallest one on the ring. The hinges of the box squealed as he opened the lid. Inside, several flash memory cards were scattered on top of a stack of pictures. He slid a full-color photo off the top of the pile and showed it to her. “Taken by Sam with a hidden camera.”
Jessie slapped her hand over her mouth.
In the picture, Sam perched on the arm of an upholstered chair in what looked like a swanky hotel suite. She posed seductively, wearing black lace lingerie worthy of a Victoria’s Secret ad, her body lean and toned. Beside her stood a mesmerized middle-aged man with a military haircut wearing a business suit. Senator Thomas Talmont. His fingers skimmed her narrow waist.
“Senator Talmont?” Jessie asked.
Philippe nodded curtly and pulled out the next picture.
The senator had stripped down to his boxers and was shown kissing Sam on her neck and pressing her tightly against him. His fingers tugged at her lacy thong.
Jessie’s insides knotted. She hoped there weren’t more pictures.
But there were.
In freeze-frame the scene progressed—Sam and Talmont nude, then in bed, having sex. Subsequent shots captured the rest of the sordid action.
“These pictures are stills from the videos on those SD cards.” Philippe gestured toward the tiny black-plastic squares in the box.
Jessie noticed the digital date stamp on each picture—almost two years ago.
The last photo showed Sam alone in the bathroom, putting a used, sealed condom in a small Ziploc bag.
Disgusted by what she’d seen, Jessie shoved the pictures at Philippe and left the darkroom, desperate for fresher air.
He followed. “That’s Sam’s self-proclaimed version of the Hope Campaign.”
She remembered what Helena had told her about Sam refusing Senator Talmont’s job offer, and how he’d been so charmed by her that he’d changed his vote on the embryonic stem cell legislation.
“He’s married,” Jessie said. “Sam extorted his vote by seducing him and saving his semen?”
Philippe didn’t flinch. “Plus recording it on video, and storing his semen in case the first strategy failed.”
“Storing it?”
“She gave the samples to Ian. He keeps them in a freezer in his lab.”
“Samples? You mean this happened more than once?”
He nodded. “Several times. All with senators.”
His tone made her wonder if several was an understatement. “Are you going to name names?”
“Ketter, Olney, and Talmont.”
“And you have videos and pictures of Sam with all of them?”
“Yes.”
Jessie was too stunned to speak. “Elizabeth approved of this kind of lobbying?” she asked after a long silence.
He didn’t respond.
“Did she?”
“She doesn’t know,” he murmured.
Jessie wondered what other secrets he kept from his wife.
“How is it that you ended up with this box of…” She didn’t even know what to call it.
“Sam never expected anything to happen to her.” Philippe pressed his lips together tightly. “None of us did. But she made contingency plans just in case. She had a safe deposit box where she kept these things,” he said. “She had a key, and I had a key. And we had a confidential agreement. If something unfortunate occurred, I would assume ownership of the contents and use them, with discretion, if they were needed to further the cause.”
Jessie shuddered. “Why did she choose you? Why not Ian, since he has the semen to match the home movies?”
The corners of Philippe’s mouth tensed. “Because she didn’t want Helena and Ian to have all the power.”
Jessie crossed her arms and gripped her elbows to keep from trembling. “How could Sam have done this?” She glared at Philippe. “How could you have let her?”
“I told you at the embassy, she put herself out there for the cause. She was single-minded about it.”
Helena had said the same thing.
“What do you plan to do with the SD cards and pictures?”
“Keep them as insurance,” he said. “There’ll be more c
ontentious legislation.”
She backed away from him, toward the door. “You people are sick. There’s a right and wrong way to do things, and this goes way beyond all the boundaries.”
He stepped toward her and grasped her shoulders. She stiffened at his touch.
“Jessie, chérie, you don’t understand.” He took her face in his hands and focused his intense gaze on hers. “All of this was Sam’s idea.”
Chapter Eighteen
Michael had known about Sam and the senators, and her sordid extortion scheme.
That’s where she’d gotten her brazen confidence in the votes of Talmont, Olney, and Ketter whenever stem cell legislation came to a vote in the senate. And how she’d gotten romantically involved with Thomas Talmont. Only in Washington could extortion spark a shameless ongoing affair.
Jessie seemed to be reeling now. But what would happen when she found out that Sam had been Talmont’s mistress until the day she died?
Michael gave Jessie credit for pushing her questions hard enough to get answers from Helena and Philippe. He doubted she’d been prepared to learn the truth about Sam, or to see the pictures that Michael could only imagine but didn’t want to. He almost agreed with Philippe’s argument that it would’ve been best to let Sam’s private life stay private.
Almost.
Jessie had taken a cab from Philippe’s place and gone to Nina’s. Despite the sleet and the cold and the hour creeping later, Michael sat in his Acura MDX, parked outside Nina’s apartment, listening to their conversation through his Bluetooth. As long as Jessie kept her cell phone with her and powered on, it worked as well as any high-end listening device.
He’d had no problem hearing her conversations with Croft, Helena, and Philippe. And for the last hour, he’d suffered through tedious talk about babies teething and this season of The Bachelor before Jessie finally told Nina what she’d learned from Philippe. Michael had thought Jessie would blurt out the intel first thing, but she’d played with Sophie first and listened to Nina’s worries about Nate. It wasn’t until Nina had sensed something was wrong that Jessie relayed the story.
“I can’t believe Sam seduced those senators,” Jessie said. “And got it on video.”
“I can’t believe she saved their sperm.” Nina sounded disgusted.
Michael scrunched his nose.
“The pictures prove she had sex with all three of them,” Jessie said, “but I’m not convinced that she masterminded the entire scheme.”
When it happened, Michael hadn’t been convinced either. He hated what Sam had done but hoped she’d been acting as an operative—influenced by Helena and Ian, or maybe even Philippe.
“It’s easy for Philippe to say that the scheme was Sam’s idea,” Nina said. “She’s dead and can’t argue.”
“That’s true,” Jessie said. “But I either trust Philippe’s word or I don’t. And it really doesn’t matter who came up with the plan. Sam followed through with it. The pictures prove that much.”
Papers shuffled in the background.
“But these pictures that someone has sent me don’t prove anything,” Jessie said. “Look at Sam smiling in this one from the Geneticell opening. She doesn’t seem capable of something like…I saw in those pictures Philippe showed me.”
“I don’t remember her being the promiscuous type,” Nina said.
“She always liked attention, but I never imagined that she’d be willing to…prostitute herself. Even for a cause she believed in.” Jessie sounded tired. “I never knew her to be cunning or underhanded, but I guess she could’ve changed.”
“Maybe she wanted to impress Helena. I can’t believe that woman suggested you could pick up where Sam left off with the Hope Campaign.”
The idea sent chills through Michael.
“Maybe she meant the mainstream version,” Jessie said.
“You think?”
“No.”
“What a bitch.”
“You’d be surprised how she can transform herself,” Jessie said. “You should’ve seen her at the bar with those congressmen.”
“Strikes me as the same thing Sam was doing—transforming herself. Mirroring her mentor but taking it a giant step further.”
“Imagine how proud Helena must have been when Sam came up with the X-rated idea to extort votes from horny senators who were on the wrong side of their issue.”
Michael shivered. He started the engine and cranked the heat.
“Cornering Senator Talmont had to be Sam’s biggest conquest,” Jessie said.
And a source of disgust and disdain for Michael for the last two years. Every time he had seen the two of them together, he’d wanted to strangle Talmont.
“He’s my father’s friend,” Jessie said. “They were together at Sam’s memorial. I had the displeasure of meeting him and his wife.”
Michael’s temper had flared as he’d watched the exchange between Talmont and Jessie. He’d wanted to punch Talmont when he touched Jessie with his I-could-have-you air of entitlement—and right in front of his wife, too. Michael had fought the impulse to step right into the middle of their perverted pow-wow. Meanwhile, Croft hadn’t blinked. Why would he? The judge had condoned Talmont’s affair with Sam, then raised his glass to the bastard after he’d laid his filthy paws on Jessie. Michael clenched his teeth.
“I’d say Talmont is the most power-hungry of the three senators Sam, um, extorted,” Nina said. “But all of them had a lot to lose if her scheme was exposed.”
“So did the Aldens and Philippe,” Jessie said. “Elizabeth, too. The aftershock of a story like that could shut down Helena’s firm and Ian’s practice—and maybe cost Philippe his diplomatic appointment.”
“Elizabeth would definitely suffer political damage, even if she could separate herself from the scandal.” Nina made the possibility sound like a big if.
“They all had motives to kill her,” Jessie said softly. “But some had more incentive than others.”
“Yep.” Michael joined the conversation, unheard.
“They must have been nervous until Sam’s death was ruled natural,” Jessie said.
“And now that you’re asking questions, they’re nervous again.” Nina’s tone was dead serious. “I’m worried about what they might do to keep you quiet.”
Michael turned off the heat. He had started to sweat.
“Do you think I can corner Sam’s murderer before he—”
“Or she,” Nina said. “Sam had sex the night she died, but it wasn’t necessarily with her killer. Anyone could’ve given her the Rohypnol. I’d suspect the men before the women, but I wouldn’t give any of them a free pass.”
“Or a couple of them could’ve made a plan to kill her. There are so many possibilities, it’s kind of overwhelming. And I have no good choices,” Jessie said. “Stay here and keep digging. Hope I get more pictures and more leads. Or give up like a coward, go home, and let someone literally get away with murder. Is that really even a choice?”
“You won’t be a coward if you go home. You have a lot at risk, too. Your appointment to the Commission. Your career. Your life.”
Silence.
“Someone killed Sam,” Nina said. “They might kill you to keep that secret.”
And Michael had to make sure that didn’t happen.
“I’m sorry,” Nina said. “I didn’t think everything through before I told you about Sam’s tox report. I wish I’d never said anything.”
Jessie sighed. “Someone else is trying to tell me something with these pictures, so don’t put the blame on yourself. You did the right thing.”
“It doesn’t seem like it now.”
“Well, it will when I find Sam’s murderer,” Jessie said. “I’m staying.”
Michael hung his head and exhaled. He heard rustling, then the sound of a drawer sliding open, a little clatter, another swish, and a clunk. Drawer closed. More rustling.
“I want you to take this,” Nina said. “On loan. Just in case.”
“Nate bought it for me and taught me to shoot. It’s illegal to have it in DC, but he was worried about us being here alone.”
Michael heard more rustling—this time registering closer to Jessie’s cell phone speaker—then a zipper.
“Keep your gun here, for you and Sophie,” Jessie said. “I brought mine.”
Just what Michael needed, a vigilante woman with a gun. He shook his head, then pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes.
“I didn’t know if you were still carrying it,” Nina said. “And with everything that’s going on with Sam’s death, I didn’t want to bring up—”
“The stalker?” Jessie asked.
Stalker?
“Take my advice,” Jessie said. “Never do television interviews.”
Nina chuckled. “That should be easy enough for me.”
“He seems to have backed off lately. He hasn’t contacted me in a couple of months.”
“Creep.”
“But I still go to the shooting range,” Jessie said. “When I imagine he’s the target, I never miss.”
Good to know, Michael thought.
“Franz wants me to do more television appearances. I keep having to remind him that my interview on Meet the Press already attracted one lunatic. I don’t want to taunt him by going on TV again, and I don’t want to encourage any others, either.”
“I think that’s smart.”
“Franz isn’t happy.”
“Too bad for Franz.”
“If I get the appointment to the Commission, I really won’t have a choice. I understand that, but for now, I’m lying low.”
Michael felt doubly protective of Jessie now, if that were possible.
The women were silent long enough to make him wonder if he was still receiving a signal.
“I met this guy at the Market Inn bar,” Jessie said finally. “Not randomly. I saw him at Sam’s memorial last night, and then I noticed him at the bar.”
Michael pressed his Bluetooth to his ear, not wanting to miss a syllable.
“And?” Nina sounded cautious, as if a one-word question might scare away the subject.
“Obviously he knew Sam. And he used to be in the Secret Service. He was Wes Kelley’s best friend before— ”