by Tracy March
“No way,” Nina said. “Aww, I loved Wes. What happened to him was horrible.”
“Poor guy. It’s hard to even think about. And I could tell that his friend was still devastated.”
“How sad,” Nina said. “Does his friend have a name?”
Jessie hesitated a beat. “Michael is his name. Michael Gillette.”
Chapter Nineteen
Jessie returned to Sam’s condo feeling oddly relaxed from her evening with Nina and Sophie. In Charlottesville, she spent so much time by herself, keeping everything pent up inside, that it was good to have Nina to talk to in person…even about Sam’s shocking scheme. And about Michael Gillette. Jessie had always been finicky about men, and only ever felt attracted to a few. But when she became interested, it was with focus and intent.
She’d been intrigued by Michael’s rugged yet refined good looks and kaleidoscope gray-green eyes, but she was more attracted to his mystery. She had been struck by the emotion she’d seen beneath his controlled exterior and his underlying struggle to control it. As much as she hated to admit it, she’d seen a lot of herself in him, and she immediately felt that elusive connection that she’d rarely experienced. But whether they’d be compatible—or if he was even single—was a deeper mystery still.
In the back of her mind, Jessie heard Lois telling her, time and again, that she “needed to meet a nice young man,” and she wondered what her motherly secretary would think of Michael Gillette. Jessie shook her head. There was no sense in letting her imagination get way ahead of reality. Michael was a guy she’d met for a few minutes in a bar in DC, of all places. What was she thinking?
She took a quick shower and went to bed. As exhausted as she was, though, she had trouble falling asleep. She thought about Sam and Helena and Philippe…and Michael Gillette. Hours ticked past as she drifted in and out of restless sleep.
The sound of a key scraping in a lock came through vaguely. Jessie stirred.
The click of a lock. The whisper of hinges. Footsteps.
Jessie bolted upright, instantly alert. She swiped her hand under her pillow, grabbed her revolver, and slipped out of bed.
Downstairs, floorboards creaked beneath deliberate footfalls.
Jessie’s only way out was through the bedroom window and down the fire escape, but that would make too much noise and she had too little time. She crept into Sam’s closet and closed the door to a crack. Most of the dark shadows in the bedroom were visible from her vantage point in the corner, farthest away from the entrance to the room.
She tried to calm herself with a deep breath. She could not panic. Whoever was downstairs could take what he wanted, even if it was evidence she could use. The idea that someone had risked breaking in gave her hope that there was evidence left to find.
Jessie stood in the closet, pressed against the clothes, chilled in Sam’s silk nightgown and feeling exposed. She grabbed the robe that hung on the back of the closet door and quickly tugged it on.
Listening and waiting, she noted the lighted blue digits on the bedside clock: 1:06 a.m.
She managed to draw a full breath.
Who had keys to Sam’s place? Her father might’ve assumed that Jessie had gone home, but he owned the condo. He’d have no reason to sneak in at this hour.
They might kill you to keep a secret. Nina’s words echoed in Jessie’s heartbeats.
But no one knew she was here except Nina and her father. And even he hadn’t known she’d been at the inn. Someone had found her there, anyway.
Jessie recognized the squeal of one of the stair boards. She had a slippery, two-handed grip on the revolver and worried that the cuts on her hand would keep her from taking straight aim. She squinted to bring the bedroom into focus.
A large, shadowed figure appeared in the doorway, then stopped.
A man. Too broad-shouldered to be her father. Jessie cringed.
The man walked over to the bed, just steps from the closet. She could make out his profile in the light that seeped through the blinds, but she couldn’t see well enough to recognize him.
He leaned over and grabbed a fistful of the duvet, then fell to his knees and buried his face in it.
Jessie saw no weapon, but she held hers as steadily as she could and considered her options. She had to find out who the man was. What he wanted. Why he had come here. She’d get no answers by cowering in the closet.
She nudged the door open, and its hinges were mercifully quiet. Her barefooted steps made no sound as she moved toward the bed. She stopped several feet from the man and aimed the gun.
Her stomach twisted. “Don’t move or I will put a bullet in your head.”
The man stiffened but remained facedown.
Jessie switched on the bedside lamp. The gun wavered without both her hands to steady it. She regained her grip and stood at his side. “Get up.”
He got to his feet and faced her.
Jessie’s blood turned to ice. “Senator Talmont.”
Talmont shook his head, looking stunned. “Jessica? What are you doing here?”
She kept the revolver trained on him. “What am I doing here?”
He raised his hand, palm forward. “Put the gun down.”
“Give me a reason.”
“I’m not here to hurt you.” He backed away a step, looking disheveled in a soggy trench coat and a suit that might have been fresh eighteen hours ago.
“Stop.”
He put both hands up. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“And I didn’t know you had a key.”
“Sam gave it to me.” His voice quivered.
Jessie tipped her head toward the bed. “Sit down, but keep your hands where I can see them.”
He sank onto the bed. “This is just a misunderstanding. The gun’s not necessary. I don’t have a weapon.”
Jessie stood in front of him, beyond his reach. She pointed the revolver toward the floor but kept her finger on the trigger. “Why would Sam give you a key?”
“She loved me.” His voice was a bristly whisper. He smoothed his hand over the duvet.
Jessie’s memory flashed with the images of him and Sam having sex. “You were involved with Sam—in a relationship?” Even though she seduced you in an extortion scheme?
“Yes.”
Jessie shook her head, trying to process the idea that Sam was involved with Talmont beyond their initial encounter. She recalled the incident at Sam’s memorial with her father, Talmont, and his possessive wife. The woman’s paranoia now made more sense. “You’re married.” She knew she sounded naïve.
“That’s just for looks and reelection campaigns.”
“How romantic.”
Talmont looked away and kneaded the duvet.
Jessie smelled liquor and hoped it would keep him talking. “How did you and Sam meet?”
“I offered her a job a couple of years ago.” He smiled ruefully. “She turned me down.”
“Sam turned down a legitimate job and became your mistress instead?” Jessie asked. “She was smarter than that.”
His eyes narrowed. “How would you know? You weren’t around. She never said a word about you.”
Jessie gripped the gun tighter. “Your evasion tactics won’t work.”
“Can’t play on your emotions?” He lifted his shoulders and dropped them quickly. “Your father said you were insensitive and heartless. Looks like he was right.”
She swallowed hard. “Does he know about you and Sam?”
Talmont nodded, looking pleased with himself.
Jessie’s stomach got queasy. “How did you get involved with her?” she asked, even though she already knew. His version might be interesting.
“She was a lobbyist; I’m a senator.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively. “Your sister had incredible powers of persuasion.”
“So I’ve seen.”
Suspicion flared in his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“It appears you were swayed to her side of the embryonic stem c
ell research argument.”
“She made me see its merits.”
Jessie winced. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here, Senator? Or would you rather I call 911 and you can read about yourself in the papers tomorrow? Drunk Senator Pines for Dead Mistress.”
He shook his head, took a deep breath, and exhaled. “I’m here because I miss her,” he said. “Her laugh, her eyes, the smell of her perfume.”
Jessie was disgusted but relieved. He hadn’t come to plant or remove evidence. He hadn’t come to kill her. Unless he really had her fooled.
“Were you with her the night she died?” Jessie asked.
“I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”
Jessie hoped her quest would end here. Hoped Talmont would confess that he and Sam had used party drugs, had sex, and that her death had been a tragic accident.
“Both of us were at the fundraiser that night,” he said, slurring his words. “We planned to meet here afterward.” He looked as if he tasted something bitter. “Then Lorna called with some fake emergency and demanded that I come home.”
Jessie’s hopes deteriorated.
“I was in bed with my wife when Sam died.” He squeezed his eyes closed.
“Can she confirm that?”
He opened his eyes and gave Jessie a cutting look. “Why would she have to? Sam died of heart failure. Alone.” He smoothed his hand over the duvet. “In this bed, without me.”
How did he know Sam had died in her bed?
“If I’d been here, I could’ve saved her. CPR or something.” He brushed his hand over his prickly hair, then traced his fingers down the scar on his temple. “She seemed so healthy.”
Jessie couldn’t decide if Talmont was a brokenhearted boyfriend or a cold-blooded liar.
“You remind me of her.” His gaze wandered over Jessie, then focused on her breasts. “Beautiful, but in a different way.”
“I think you should leave.”
“Not yet,” he said, then patted the bed. “Come over here and lie down. Show me that your father was wrong when he called you insensitive and heartless.”
Jessie had never been more repulsed. She aimed the gun at him. “Give me your key and get the hell out.”
Chapter Twenty
Michael climbed down the fire escape outside Sam’s bedroom window, satisfied that he hadn’t had to break in and intervene. Fortunately, it had stopped sleeting, but the temperature now dipped into the teens. His hands and feet had gone to pins and needles. He trusted muscle memory to keep his numb grip on the slippery iron rungs as he descended.
He’d rushed over to Sam’s as soon as he’d gotten the signal that the door to her condo had opened. Either Jessie had been leaving, she’d let someone in, or someone uninvited had come to visit. He’d jumped out of bed, thrown on his clothes, and made it to the fire-escape landing within two minutes. Not a two-minute drill he wanted to repeat anytime soon.
He’d known that Jessie had her gun. It was a comfort and a worry to him as he’d stood outside the window listening to her and Talmont’s conversation through his Bluetooth. Her phone must have been next to the bed.
Michael dropped from the fire-escape ladder and onto frozen pavement. He jogged down the alley and out to Swann Street, up and around the corner to 19th. Talmont was leaving, and Michael wanted to make sure he left for good. The senator’s black Lexus was parked on the street. Stationing himself beyond the car, Michael moved into the shadows, to a position where he could see the giant paned-glass front door of Sam’s townhouse.
Within moments, Talmont came into view in the foyer, looking haggard beneath the light and glimmering crystals of the chandelier. Jessie followed him. He opened the door, then the wrought-iron gate, and gingerly took the two steps. He made his way carefully down the icy brick walk, took a right, and headed for his car.
Jessie closed the gate and stood in the open doorway while Talmont started the car and drove away. Her lavender nightgown revealed long, shapely legs—right up to the tops of her thighs. A darker purple robe hung open, drooping from her shoulders, her hands in its pockets. The ends of its untied sash dangled at her sides. No wonder Talmont had come on to her. She looked captivating in clothes, as Ian had said, but in a nightgown…
Michael wanted to get closer to her, and he wanted her to know she was safe. Thoughts of Croft and his contract weren’t enough to discourage him right now. He emerged from the shadows and moved to the end of the brick walk.
Jessie cocked her head.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Michael?”
He walked slowly toward her with his hands in sight. She had the gun and, by now, was probably good and ready to use it. He stopped before the two steps that led up to the door, leaving the scrolls and bars of the wrought-iron gate between them.
“No one warned me that Sam had visiting hours,” she said. “Do you have a key, too?”
Yes.
He did his best to look confused. “What do you mean?”
“I’m sleeping and…someone lets himself in, then you show up. It’s the middle of the night.” She combed her hand through her hair. Layers wisped around her face and fell across her shoulders.
Warmth surged through Michael’s body despite the cold. He stepped up to the gate. “Someone let himself in?”
She jutted her chin toward the space where Talmont’s car had been parked. “Yes,” she said with an edge in her voice. “The man who just left.”
“Who was he?”
She pressed her eyes closed and tipped her head back, her shadowed face catching the light from the chandelier above. After a moment, she leveled her gaze on him. “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t know who he was.”
Michael shook his head. “I can’t see your eyes. And it’s freezing out here. Can I come in, at least into the foyer, and we can close the door?”
She bit her bottom lip and narrowed her eyes, then backed away from the gate. “All right.”
Michael stepped inside the foyer and closed the door. Jessie backed toward Sam’s condo looking cornered and suspicious.
“I saw Senator Talmont leave.” Michael pulled off his gloves and stuffed them in his coat pockets.
“And what are you doing here?”
“I’m working on something that involves him. Now it looks like it might involve you, too.”
She considered this, then slipped her hands out of her pockets and crossed her arms. Satiny fabric pressed against her breasts.
Michael risked a glance. “Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”
She almost smiled. “You think I would have let you in here without some kind of protection?”
“You know how to shoot?”
“Aim and pull the trigger.”
Michael gave her a pained look. “Comforting.”
“So what are you working on that involves Talmont?”
“Did he hurt you?”
She looked away. Michael wondered if she was thinking of Talmont’s claim that Croft had called her insensitive and heartless.
“I ask,” he said, “because I’m suspicious about Sam’s death and Talmont’s potential involvement.”
Jessie narrowed her eyes, but he saw something in them that looked like hope. “Meaning?”
“I think there was foul play and a tidy cover-up—and I have a feeling that you do, too.”
Her face went white. “How would you know that?”
“In my line of work I see a lot of things that other people might not notice. And I have a network of resources.”
Jessie suddenly seemed to become self-conscious. She tugged her robe tightly around her and tied the sash. The gun hung heavily in her pocket. “Who are you working for? The guy who’s opposing Talmont in the next election?”
If you only knew.
Michael clenched his teeth, forcing himself to think before he spoke. He needed her to trust him, so, ironically, telling her the truth was not an option. “I want
to find out what happened to Sam,” he said, “and here’s what I know. I know about her extortion scheme and the senators. That’s plenty of motive for each of them. But the alibis of Senators Olney and Ketter check out. Olney was in Texas for a photo op with an oil rig. Ketter was at Georgetown Medical Center passing a kidney stone.”
“Talmont was with his wife.”
“You asked him?” Michael had to ask, even though he already knew the answer.
Jessie nodded. “Do you know about his affair with Sam?”
“Way more than I want to know.”
She lowered her eyebrows and her gaze fixed on him as if she’d locked on a target. He felt more scrutinized than he had when he’d been vetted for the Secret Service. Sweat prickled beneath the layers of his T-shirt, fleece, and coat.
“There’s one thing I need to know,” she said finally.
Michael feared she was going to ask him again whom he was working for. “Just one?” He smiled.
Her mouth turned up at the corners and her eyes brightened, but she looked no less determined. She stayed silent as her expression became serious again.
“Did you have a…relationship with Sam?” she asked, with heart-wrenching vulnerability in her eyes.
Michael stepped toward her, deliberately but cautiously, and she held his gaze. “No.” He slowly raised his hand to her face, smoothed his fingers down her flawless cheek, then swept them beneath her chin. “I was never involved with Sam. I’m much more intrigued by her sister.”
Jessie’s lips parted slightly.
Michael channeled all the discipline he’d ever practiced to keep himself from kissing her.
“I’ve got two things on my mind right now,” he said. “Justice, and you. And not necessarily in that order.”
Before he pushed things too far, Michael turned away from her and left.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jessie’s hands trembled as she closed the wrought-iron gate and watched Michael walk away. When he had gone far enough that she could no longer see him, she turned the lock on the foyer door, went back into Sam’s condo, and flipped another lock. The exercise was futile if any more strangers had keys, but it made her feel safer right now. As an extra precaution, she took one of the chairs from the kitchen and wedged it beneath the knob of the condo’s door.
