by Brenda Novak
She couldn’t tell Jim she was reporting information about her partner to the FBI. Before she approached Matt Elliott six months ago, she’d asked Jim for advice about what to do about Tommy’s gambling. Jim had told her to ignore it, but she admitted she’d seen him take money from a bust. She was feeling Jim out—if Jim suggested she go to their boss, or IA, she would have done it. Jim had been in the department five years longer than she; everyone liked him. They listened to him, and if he had her back on this, she might have made a different choice.
Jim said Tommy’s skimming wasn’t a big deal, that while he’d never do it, a lot of guys did. “You’ll only be ostracized by turning in your partner, Alex,” Jim said. “You know how it is. This is one of those crap things we just have to deal with. You can always talk to me, you know. To get it off your chest. I’m here for you, Baby.”
He was right, she knew, but it didn’t make his opinion—his morals—any easier to live with and their relationship deteriorated until she couldn’t live with him any more.
It didn’t help that he accused her of cheating on him.
“You’re distant and moody. You come home late and can’t look me in the eye and tell me where you’ve been. Who is it, Alex? You and Tommy? You’ve been spending a lot of time with your partner lately. You screwing him behind my back?”
She and Jim argued a lot, but always made up ... except this time there would be no making up. This time, it had almost come to blows. She wouldn’t be returning, and she didn’t know where to go.
She’d ended up on Matt Elliott’s front porch. She’d never forget that warm, late June night.
Alex loved Matt’s house. It was in South Land Park, near the zoo. An older, pre-war craftsman that had been fully restored. Neither big nor small, it was just right.
She hadn’t realized how late it was when she rang his bell. It was clear she’d woken him up—he wore boxers and nothing else. She barely noticed that he’d come to the door with a gun in hand.
Concern lit his face. “Alex. What’s wrong?”
Matt let her in and she realized that it wasn’t just Jim’s cavalier attitude about police corruption that had been bothering her for the last six months. It was the fact that she was half in love with Matt Elliott. Here was a man who was trying to fix the problems in the system, a man who believed in the system the way it was supposed to be. For six months, she’d gone down the very dangerous path of comparing her boyfriend to another man. And her boyfriend was coming up short in far too many ways.
“Jim and I split up. And—I didn’t want to face my dad tonight. Aiden’s out of town and AJ’s at the station—”
Matt closed the door behind her. “Does he know?”
She shook her head. “He thinks I’m cheating on him.”
“I’m sorry, Alex.”
She shrugged. “It’s just the excuse. Nothing has been right between us since Jim told me to look the other way. I see him differently than I used to. He’s a good cop, really—he just doesn’t want to make waves in the department.”
“There are too many cops like that. Even good cops don’t want to rock the boat.”
Matt seemed to notice he was only in boxers. “Why don’t you sit down? I’m going to grab some clothes.”
Matt went down the hall and Alex looked around his living room. It was small and functional. She’d been here a few times; this was where she’d first met FBI Agent Dean Hooper when Matt brought them together to discuss Tommy Cordell and his potential connection to Russian organized crime. Hooper had given her a crash course on how the Russian mob worked and the major crimes they were involved in, and why it was so hard to make a case. They’d sat here, in this room, for hours.
She walked through the dining room which Matt used more as an office. Files and papers were spread on the square table. She didn’t want to pry, so went through to the kitchen. It was small, but completely updated.
There was a cozy family room off the kitchen, with a breakfast nook, fireplace, and large screen television. It was clear that Matt preferred this room to the rest of the house, as it was a bit more cluttered and lived in. Built in bookshelves were crammed with equal parts history tomes and crime fiction which leaned heavily toward historical mysteries. Pictures of his family—mostly his sister and half-sister—decorated the few empty spaces. She didn’t know much about his relationship with his parents, but his father had died a few years back, and he’d never talked about his mother. There were no pictures of his parents.
She didn’t really know Matt Elliott, she realized, yet she felt like she did. Why was that? Why was she so drawn to him when she only knew about his career and not his personal life?
He walked into the kitchen and she turned guiltily. “I guess I’m being nosy,” she said. He’d put on sweat pants and a faded blue U.S. Navy T-shirt. She might have preferred him half-naked.
Or completely naked.
What the hell was she thinking? She hadn’t come here for sex.
He smiled, sending the thought of sex back to the forefront of her brain.
“Sit down. Relax.” He uncorked a bottle of wine and poured two glasses. He walked over to where she’d sat on the couch. “Here.”
“I shouldn’t have come here.” But she took the wine and sipped.
“Of course you should have. We’re friends, Alex.”
“Friends? Is that it?”
She stared at him, surprised and pleased as his green eyes darkened. Maybe she hadn’t consciously come here to sleep with Matt, but her physical reaction to him told her that maybe Jim hadn’t been that wrong about her having an affair. It had all been in her head. It wasn’t fair to Jim, and it wasn’t fair to Matt, but she’d realized over the last six months that she wanted a man—like Matt Elliott—who believed that the system worked. Who wanted the system to work. Who didn’t turn his back on crime or corruption just because it was the easier thing to do. His values had attracted her just as much as his good looks. Maybe more so.
“Alex,” he said, his voice rough.
She put the wine glass down and kissed him.
He grabbed her arms and started to push her away, but before she broke off the kiss, suddenly he was kissing her back, pulling her on top of him as he leaned back into the deep sofa. Her hands couldn’t stop moving. She couldn’t stop touching him. She’d wanted Matt Elliott for months, and the guilt of that desire had fueled her anger toward Jim. It certainly hadn’t been fair to Jim. Wasn’t it better to know now that she didn’t love Jim, that she couldn’t love Jim? That there was someone who’d slipped into her heart when she wasn’t looking. Someone she’d been craving for weeks. Months. Maybe longer.
“Matt,” she whispered between kisses. “I’ve been thinking about you. Too much.”
“Alex—”
“Shh.” She didn’t want him to stop her. She needed this. Keeping secrets from everyone she worked with, even her friends; investigating Tommy, reporting weekly to the FBI, letting Tommy get away with a bunch of small shit in order to get him to trust her enough with the big things ... it was eating her up inside. But this ... Matt ... was the one sane thing in her life. He understood. He knew what she was doing and why. He supported her. He believed in her. She needed that faith, maybe because she was beginning to doubt herself.
All she wanted, needed, was a little affection. She wasn’t asking for a ring, just a night.
Just one night.
She slipped her hands up his T-shirt and he grunted when she rolled her thumbs over his nipples. He clutched her tighter, his hands up her shirt, pushing up her sports bra. She didn’t have big boobs, but they were sensitive and she gasped when his hands cupped them. Squeezed. Rubbed.
Their kiss started hot and passionate and only got hotter. She held his face, put her hands behind his head, devoured him like she’d been wanting to for months. She didn’t want to wait ... hadn’t she waited long enough? By his response, he wanted her just as badly. She was reaching into his sweatpants when he grabbed her w
rist and pulled it out.
“Stop,” he said, catching his breath.
“I don’t want to go slow the first time. Maybe the second time.” She smiled and kissed him again.
He moaned. “No.”
She leaned up. He was holding her wrist so tight it hurt.
“Matt—”
“Not like this.”
“Matt, I’m okay. Jim and I were over the minute he told me it was okay to skim money from drug busts. I just didn’t know it until tonight.”
“Not on the rebound. You’ll regret it.”
“Don’t tell me how I’ll feel.”
Rebound? She wasn’t on the rebound. She wasn’t a love struck teenager. She didn’t regret her decisions. She certainly wasn’t going to regret having sex with Matt Elliott. Why did he think he could read her mind? If he could, he’d know that she’d wanted to get her hands on him for quite some time.
Yet, he’d effectively killed the mood.
She climbed off of him and walked away.
“Don’t go. Please, Alex—talk to me.”
“I have nothing to say.” She picked up the paced. She didn’t want to look at him.
He followed her. “Alex, I like you so much—”
“Yeah. We’re friends. I get it.”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Stop, Matt. You’re right. I’m an emotional wreck.” Except at that moment she felt only numb. She finally reached the front door. Not even a minute had passed, but it felt like eternity.
“Don’t leave.”
But she’d already slammed the door.
Chapter Seven
Alex walked through the security at the Capitol building. Good news: they had her check her weapon with the CHP office. Bad news: she saw half a dozen ways to breech the security system.
She was looking for flaws, but so were the bad guys. She remembered, several years ago, when a woman came in with a gun strapped to the underside of a baby stroller. Now, strollers had to be rolled through a separate security unit, but the system wasn’t perfect. She saw a wheelchair given only a cursory inspection. Bad guys knew how to take weapons apart and camouflage the pieces. But truth be told, it was certainly easier to take a shot at someone at a public hotel than to try to enter the capitol with a knife or gun.
If it was her, she’d wait in the park until Hart came by. After all, yesterday he’d walked to the hotel.
She took a few moments to walk around the ground floor of the Capitol with the staff and tourists. She checked out the historic building, then went upstairs where tourists weren’t ostensibly allowed. No one stopped or questioned her. Not that it would matter to the LG who had a first floor office, but it still highlighted potential problems. There were security cameras in corners and outside elevators and staircases, but here were ways to get around them.
Her stitches itched until she could no longer ignore the discomfort. She found a bathroom, took off her blazer and scratched frantically around the edges of the bandage. The pain wasn’t bad, more like a dull ache. She’d taken a couple of non-prescription Tylenol when she first got up, and took two more now.
When Alex finally fell to sleep last night—after three in the morning—she slept like a rock before her alarm woke her at 6:30. She showered, fueled up on caffeine and her grandmother’s homemade blueberry muffins, and intended to call Matt Elliott to say no, she wasn’t going to be a spy. She didn’t even really know what he wanted her to do – befriend Travis Hart? Ask him on a date? Ask to be his personal bodyguard?
Her father hadn’t given her any direction, either—which was also troublesome. For all her complaints about her dad, his advice was usually right on the money. When she talked to him this morning before he left for court, he’d simply said, “Alexandra, you’ll do the right thing.”
Thanks, dad. Appreciate it. Whenever I don’t want advice, you’re more than ready to give it to me; the one time I ask for it and you’re silent?
She decided that she’d simply go to the Capitol and ask to talk to Hart. See if the police had any leads. That felt right to her, something she might have done even if Matt hadn’t asked her to get close to Hart. She’d listen, ask questions, see what was going on. Her father reminded her to invite Hart over for drinks that evening—every Tuesday night, he and a few judges socialized after work, usually at her dad’s house. If the invitation came from the Judge himself, it might seem too formal, and because Andrew Morgan didn’t generally get involved in politics, it might seem suspicious. But if it came from Alex, it would be casual, something her father said in passing, that he was having a few judges over who were considering getting involved in the gubernatorial campaign, and hoped to talk to Hart about his ideas for criminal justice reform, the court system, and prison overcrowding.
Alex wrinkled her nose. She was completely disinterested in politics. But she could make the situation work—the one thing she was good at was reading people. Well, strangers. She wasn’t good at reading the people closest to her. She’d completely missed Jim’s jealousy; she didn’t know what her father thought she should do about Matt Elliott’s offer; and then there was Matt Elliott himself.
Yet ... she’d known that there was something off about her partner, Tommy Cordell, almost from when she’d first been assigned to him.
She shook her head and left the ladies room. Time to do this.
Her cell phone rang before she stepped into Hart’s office. She stepped into a corner and answered the call.
“Alex? It’s Steve Jefferson.”
“Hey. What’s up? Any news?”
“I stopped by your apartment, but you’re not here.”
“Why?”
“I have your statement from yesterday. I need to have you sign it, make sure we didn’t forget anything.”
Odd that Jim would have Steve do it. Or, maybe not so odd considering how awkward it was between them yesterday.
“I can meet you in an hour or so.”
“Can you come down to the station?”
She hesitated. “I’d rather not.”
“Oh. Yeah, sorry.”
She’d prefer neutral ground. “I’m meeting my dad at the courthouse for lunch today,” she said. When had she learned to lie so easily?
Working undercover for the feds.
She continued. “Can you meet at the fountain outside the main entrance at quarter to twelve?”
“I’ll be there.”
She hung up and sent her dad a quick text message. Might as well have lunch with him, since she’d be over there. Maybe if she trapped him for thirty minutes he’d give her some actual advice, rather than philosophical non-answers.
It was nearly ten by the time she walked into Hart’s office. His entry was big enough to comfortably fit a couch and several chairs. A receptionist or secretary sat in an alcove off the waiting area with a clear line of sight to the door. She enjoyed a narrow window that looked out at Capitol Park.
She said, “May I help you?”
“Is Mr. Hart here?”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No. I wanted to see how he was after yesterday.”
“We’ve issued a statement to the press.”
“I’m not with the press. I’m Alexandra Morgan.”
The receptionist recognized the name. She straightened in her seat and said in a much more hospitable voice, “Mr. Hart is in a meeting right now, but I’m sure he’ll want to see you. I’ll let him know that you’re here.” She motioned for Alex to sit. “May I get you some coffee or water?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
She didn’t sit, but instead looked at the myriad of pictures on the walls. Travis Hart with the governor, with other elected officials, with three presidents in both political parties, with actors and singers and even a major league baseball pitcher. She was jealous of that photo op. The pictures covered the walls. A quick glance around the corner to view the rest of the office revealed more photos of Travis Hart and celebrities. Staff sat in c
ubicles, and four offices lined the far wall.
“Alex.”
She turned around at the familiar voice, startled to see Jim Perry. He had come out of Hart’s double doors with Travis Hart right behind him. Jim looked both baffled and angry that she was here. Hart had a smile on his face. He walked over and shook her hand. “I’m so glad you stopped by, Ms. Morgan.”
“Thank you for the flowers,” she said, feeling awkward and uncomfortable. “Completely unnecessary, but they’re beautiful.” She’d learned that she was a good actress while working undercover—she called upon those skills to keep her focused on her goal.
Only, she wasn’t positive she understood the goal.
“Any news?” she asked, looking at Jim.
He hesitated just a fraction. Then said, “I can’t discuss the case with you, Alex.”
“Really,” she said flatly. That was a standard line for the public and press—not for friends or fellow cops. Except, she was neither. Not anymore.
“Have you talked to Steve this morning?”
“I’m meeting him later.”
Jim nodded, then said to Hart, “Thank you for your time. I’ll be in touch if we have any new information.”
“I appreciate that, Detective.”
Jim shot Alex a parting glare, one that seemed to be wanting to say something that she didn’t quite get, then he walked out.
“Please come to my office,” Hart said.
His large office was on the other side of the receptionist and he had three windows looking out at the park. The main office had been done in functional sterile bureaucrat, but Hart’s office oozed statesmanship. Wood paneled walls, built-in bookshelves, a large desk, couch, and meeting table that could comfortably sit eight.
She surveyed his personal effects, which were few but prominently placed. Political and historical books filled the bookshelves; his diplomas, a resolution from the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors, and a Statement of Election were tastefully framed and grouped on one wall. On the credenza behind his desk stood several pictures, mostly of a pretty honey-blonde teenager. Nothing in Hart’s bio had said he’d been married.
