Dylan sighed. “Oh, Eva. I’ve said I was sorry.”
“If you’re sorry, call back the police and cancel. Tell them they can’t see the safe-deposit box, and you’re not answering any questions.”
“God, Eva. What’s in the box?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I’m going to see it for myself. With the police.”
It might’ve been a bluff, but her rage was faster than her intellect at that moment.
“You ungrateful bastard! Do you want to go to jail as an accessory to murder?”
Dylan took a step back. “What are you talking about?”
“It was all going to come out! Madeleine was going to turn over a book full of details of every night you spent with those girls. They would know I was an escort, that we met because you hired me.”
“It was a grand jury investigation. Those are secret.”
“Oh, come on. There are always leaks. That bitch Madeleine could write some tell-all book, and we’d be chapter one! We would have been destroyed. What were you doing about it? Nothing. Well, I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
“What did you do, Eva?”
“I gave up everything for you. I put off having a baby for your career. And now I can’t. The only thing we have left is your political star. I’m not letting that burn out.”
Dylan sank down on the bed. His voice was a whisper. “What did you do?”
“I went to her house, and I made her an offer. Fifty thousand for her books. She wouldn’t take it. She was going to tell them about you. About me. About the money I offered her, about everything. You have to go through your opponents. So I shot her.” Eva smiled. “Which was a brilliant move, I have to say. I saved our money and got the books. Don’t worry, I burned the records. But the cash is in our safe-deposit box. I have to figure out how to launder it. Literally. It’s all bloody.”
“Are you crazy?” Dylan looked like he would vomit. “Have you fucking lost your mind? How could you?”
“How could I? You were going to do nothing. You weak, incompetent ass. I gave you an alibi, and I fixed the problem. You ought to be thanking me.”
Dylan stood, strode over, and slapped her flat across the cheek with more speed and power than she would’ve thought possible from her politician husband. Her head snapped back. She collapsed into a white leather chair.
When she’d learned that he was still hiring Discretion girls, she’d contemplated a divorce. But she had too much invested in his success. She was too old to start over. Now she buried her face in her knees and let one small sob escape.
“Eva.” His voice was softer. He had never hit her before. “I’m sorry. Come here.”
She looked up at his outstretched hand. She took it. He helped her to her feet. She let her husband pull her in to him. Then she went through him.
Eva pistoned her knee between his legs, her signature move. Dylan grunted and folded into himself. She grabbed his head and slammed his face down on her knee. She felt the cartilage in his nose collapse, saw the blood streak across their plush white carpeting.
“It’s too late for sorry,” she said. “Now I have to go and fix it.”
She left him bleeding on the floor.
51
As Sam pulled the Durango into the Youngbloods’ driveway, Anna could see a portion of a large white tent out back. A blue van was parked in front of them, and men in tuxedos were unloading sound equipment and brass instruments. Anna knew the fund-raiser was due to start in about an hour. But this couldn’t wait.
When they’d called him, Dylan had been so accommodating on the telephone, answering their questions so easily—he sounded like a man who had nothing to hide. He claimed that fifty churchgoers could swear to his whereabouts the night Madeleine Connor was murdered, and he seemed to know nothing about any recent activity in his bank account. It was Eva they wanted to talk to now.
They were stopping by unannounced to do the interview with no advance notice. They wanted to give Eva as little time as possible to think about what to say, to prepare any fake stories, or to consult with anyone. They had finished their phone call with Dylan less than fifteen minutes ago. This was as good as they were going to get.
Anna and Samantha walked up the stone path to the boxy white contemporary. The walls were sheer glass. It seemed rather exposed for a house on a main artery, Anna thought, but to each her own.
Samantha rang the doorbell. When no one answered, Anna peered in the floor-to-ceiling window next to the bleached white wooden door. The foyer was all white, with a brushed metal table holding a vase of big white flowers. No one was there. Sam rang the doorbell again.
Finally, Dylan Youngblood descended the staircase. He stopped on the landing as if uncertain whether to come to the door. Anna was stunned by the City Councilman’s appearance. He wore gray pinstriped pants and a white undershirt spattered with bright red blood. One of his eyes was swollen shut and his nose canted in a sickening C shape. He held a blood-soaked Kleenex under his nostrils. The wounds were fresh. He swayed dizzily.
Samantha pushed open the door and rushed to Dylan’s side. She flashed her badge, keeping her other hand on her gun. “Sir, I’m Samantha Randazzo, FBI. We just spoke a moment ago. What’s going on?”
“Eva! She just did this to me!”
He made a vague pointing gesture, then stumbled and grabbed the banister for support.
Anna stared at him in horror. Eva had battered her husband? The ground seemed to shift beneath her feet. Anna had worked on hundreds of domestic-violence cases and knew that violence happened between all kinds of people: rich and poor, old and young, to male and female victims. But Eva and Dylan? They were supposed to have the perfect marriage. Eva was supposed to be the perfect wife. And yet here was Dylan, clutching a Kleenex so soaked with blood that red rivulets streamed down his forearm and dripped onto the white marble floor.
Anna expected he would react to this assault like any other domestic-violence victim. He would tell them the truth now, while he was shocked and upset by what had happened. By the time of the trial, he would probably be reconciled with Eva and would refuse to testify against her. But what he said now would be admissible in court.
“What happened, sir?” Anna asked. She took a pack of tissues from her purse.
“She killed Madeleine Connor.” He sat on the stairs. “Dear God.”
Anna handed him a fresh tissue. He told them everything that had happened.
The Friendship Heights branch of Bank of America stayed open until six P.M. on Fridays. Eva could just make it under the wire. Although her instinct was to speed over there, she deliberately drove the speed limit. No time to get pulled over.
Inside the branch, the male teller gave Eva’s red cocktail dress a curious once-over. “Just remembered a brooch I want to wear at my party,” she told him. He smiled and led her to the vault. He put his key in the lock next to Eva’s, and they unlocked the little steel door together.
Eva took the metal box to the privacy cubby. There was the stack of money, now brown and wavy with dried blood. She tucked the brick of cash into her purse. Amazing how small fifty grand was in denominations of a hundred.
When she was done, Eva walked out of the bank’s glass doors and exhaled with relief. She’d take the money, tie a rock to it, and throw it into the Potomac. It was a shame to throw away the cash, but it was the only safe thing to do now. She’d been willing to spend the money for peace of mind, anyway.
Then there would be nothing tying them to the crime. She’d bought the Beretta at a Virginia gun show many years ago. The seller had taken cash and kept no record of the sale. Since her days at Discretion, Eva had never felt entirely safe. Having an untraceable weapon had helped give her a feeling of security. On Tuesday night, she’d been careful to wear gloves while loading the gun, so there would be no prints on the cartridges. She’d wiped the gun clean before putting it in the madam’s hands. She hadn’t touched anything in Madeleine’s house.
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She and Dylan would figure out how to approach things tomorrow, after they both calmed down. Eva smiled grimly as she walked down Wisconsin Avenue. With luck, by the time she got home, the caterers would’ve set up their warming dishes, the band would’ve set up their instruments, and the valet parkers would’ve set up their sign on the front lawn. She would glide through tonight’s fundraiser on autopilot. Her hostess instincts had allowed her to do that many times, when inside she felt like killing someone. She wasn’t sure Dylan had the same talent, but she expected his sense of self-preservation would kick in. He could say he got his black eye from a thrown elbow during a basketball game.
A big African-American man in an off-white suit blocked her path on the sidewalk. She smiled and tried to step around him. He moved over to block her way.
“Excuse me,” she said testily.
“No, ma’am, excuse me.” He held up a police badge. “Tavon McGee, MPD, detective first grade. Ms. Eva Youngblood, you’re under arrest.”
Two police cruisers pulled out of an alleyway and parked at the curb next to Eva.
Her heart expanded to fill her rib cage, then contracted to the size of a lima bean. The detective took the purse off her shoulder, turned her around, and handcuffed her behind her back. She could see the glass doors of the Bank of America, where the teller was standing. He held up a cell phone, taking pictures of her in her red dress and handcuffs, being led to an MPD cruiser. Eva briefly wondered how much money the teller would make for those photos.
“Thanks for your help,” Detective McGee said as he opened the police car’s back door. “We didn’t have enough evidence to get into that safe-deposit box—until you went there in response to the FBI’s phone call. Prosecutor got an anticipatory search warrant. We could search the box and arrest you or Dylan only if you went to the box.”
He put a hand on her head and lowered her into the backseat. Her first thought was that he was ruining her updo.
The detective shut the door, closing her into the smelly backseat. She watched him through the mesh wire that separated the back from the front. He put her purse on the front seat, snapped on a pair of rubber gloves, and pawed through her stuff. It took him less than five seconds to pull out the dirty brick of cash.
“Mm, mm, mm.” He smiled at Eva as he held up the money, which was covered with the dried blood of Madeleine Connor. “I hope you got a lot more of this, ’cause you’re gonna need a good lawyer.”
Sunday
52
The pedicure room at Bliss, the spa in the W Hotel, was beautiful and serene, done in shades of light blue and filled with vases of hydrangeas. New-age music played softly from hidden speakers, and the air was lightly scented with eucalyptus and rosemary. Everything was designed to soothe and relax, and that was exactly how Anna felt. She reclined in the cushy white chair and watched the man painting her toenails a cheerful pink. Just looking at the color made her happy. She glanced over at Grace’s feet. Grace had chosen a metallic white polish, which looked great on her dark brown toes.
“Nice choice,” Anna said.
“You, too.” Grace smiled and raised her mimosa. “Thanks for the pedicure.”
They clinked and sipped. Anna had planned the day out for the two of them. She owed her friend some quality time.
“I’m sorry I’ve been out of the loop lately,” she said.
“Life of the prosecutor. Happens to all of us.”
Anna nodded, although they both knew it wasn’t just the usual work demands that had stolen time from their friendship. True, she’d been caught up in a big case. But she had been absent for longer than the Capitol investigation. She had been too absorbed by her relationship with Jack. That wouldn’t happen again, Anna promised herself. In the future, she would strike a better balance.
“What’s been going on with you?” Anna asked.
“Not much.” But then Grace launched into a story about a witness who’d pulled down his pants and mooned her because he didn’t want to testify. Anna and Grace laughed so hard that the guys painting their toes had to stop and wait for them to stop shaking.
When their pedicures were done, they went up to the P.O.V. rooftop bar at the top of the hotel. It had famous views of the White House, the Mall, and the monuments. They ate brunch, gossiped, and watched hip young Washingtonians flit about. After their plates had been cleared, Grace leaned forward and whispered, “I want to hear about the Youngbloods.”
Anna glanced around them. It was after three P.M., and the place had started to clear out. They were alone in their corner. Still, she kept her voice soft as she described the scene at the Youngbloods’ house.
“It was so disturbing. I mean, we’ve seen worse injuries and more sympathetic victims. But it was like watching an idol fall off her pedestal. I thought Eva had it all figured out. But she’s even more messed up than most of us.”
“Everyone’s got something,” Grace said. “No one’s as clean as she looks from the outside.”
“You know, I grew up in this messed-up house. I wasn’t sure I knew how to make a marriage work. But now I figure, hell, I have as good a shot as anybody else. Maybe better.”
“Of course you do!” Grace met her eyes sternly. “So what are you thinking?”
“I miss Jack. And every night at eight-thirty, I’ve been wishing to be in Olivia’s bedroom, kissing her goodnight. I want to be with them. I’m ready for it.”
“Oh, girl.” Grace smiled sadly. “Just when I thought I was getting you back.”
“No, no,” Anna said. “I’m gonna do it better this time. I can be a good partner and also have a life of my own. I think Jack’s figured out how to be more flexible, too.”
“Have you talked to him about this yet?”
“No. But I’m going to.”
The waiter came over with the bill. Grace tried to pay, but Anna was too quick. “You got all the margaritas at Rosa,” Anna argued as the waiter took her credit card.
They went downstairs and emerged onto 15th Street. The humidity had finally let up, and it was a clear, beautiful summer day. They walked past the White House, around a group of kids playing roller hockey in the paved park that used to be Pennsylvania Avenue. They strolled through Lafayette Park and then headed up Connecticut Avenue.
“So I was hoping you could help me,” Anna said.
“How so?”
“I want to show Jack how much he means to me. How ready I am to be with him and Olivia.”
“Are you?” Grace asked. “Ready?”
“I am.”
Anna said it with confidence, knowing neither of them was perfect, but also knowing they belonged together. He had some secrets, she realized that. Something with his wife, something with Carla, maybe more. Whatever they were, she would deal with them. They had problems to overcome, but she was ready to take them on. He was a good man, and she loved him, and the more she saw of the world, the more she understood what precious things those were. She wanted him back. If she could convince him to take her.
They reached the red awnings of the Tiny Jewel Box. Grace kept walking, but Anna put a hand on her friend’s arm. “Actually, I was hoping you could help me pick out a watch for Jack.”
“Wow, from the Tiny Jewel Box? Fancy.”
“Yeah. I’m not sure how this is done, reverse-gender-wise. But I think I need a token to show Jack how serious I am.” Anna smiled and breathed in the clean summer air. “I’m going to ask him to marry me.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’m thankful to all the police officers, agents, and victims’ advocates with whom I’ve worked on cases similar to those in this novel; their dedication has improved the lives of countless girls and women in D.C.
In researching Discretion, I relied on many professionals who took time from busy lives to speak with me about their work. I’m very grateful for this generosity, from which I gleaned fascinating true stories and details for this book. Any errors are my own. Thanks to: Kate Connelly, for her thoughtful insig
hts into prosecuting escort cases; Mike Ferrara, for his expertise on the Speech or Debate Clause; Zulima Espinel, Missy Rohrbach, Moira McConaghy, and Dayle Cristinzio, for guiding me through the procedural machinations and actual hallways of Congress; Kelly Higashi, for her encyclopedic knowledge and all her support and friendship over the years; Glenn Kirschner, who is both an incredible crime fighter and an incredible resource for a crime novelist; Michelle Zamarin, Tejpal Chawla, Eric Gallun, Lou Ramos, and Ed, for their knowledge of specialized areas of law enforcement; Kristen Brewer, for her expertise on human trafficking; Detectives Bill Xanten and Carter Adams, for their insights into the lives of MPD homicide detectives; Detective John Marsh, for his knowledge of computer forensics; Detective Steve Schwalm, for his expertise on matters ranging from gorilla pimps to john jams; Matthew Rosenheim, who taught me about diamond identification; Dr. Mauricio Cortina, who helped me explore psychological angles for some of my characters; the instructors of IMPACT-DC, for their excellent self-defense course; and FBI Special Agent Steve Quisenberry (after whom Samantha’s fictional partner is named), for his incredible eye for detail and for helping me keep Samantha in line.
I’m indebted to many people who shared their stories and insights but did not wish to be publicly acknowledged. Thank you for your time, honesty, and trust.
In some ways, a great literary agent is like a great lawyer, equal parts professional ally, personal confidante, tireless advocate, marketing guru, critic, psychologist, and magician. My deepest gratitude goes to my incredible agent, Amy Berkower, who is all of that and more.
I am thrilled to continue working with my editor, Lauren Spiegel. Sharp, ever cheerful, and shockingly wise beneath her beautiful exterior, Lauren amazes me with her ability to make a story better, and to make that wrenching process feel like a fun gossipfest about the characters.
Thanks to the wonderful team at Simon & Schuster, especially Stacy Creamer, Marcia Burch, David Falk, Shida Carr, Sally Kim, Marie Florio, Abby Zidle, Emily Remes, Josh Karpf, Ashley Hewlett, Meredith Vilarello, Cherlynne Li, MacKenzie Fraser-Bub, Parisa Zolfaghari, and Beth Thomas. I truly appreciate all the opportunities you’ve created for me.
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