Fatal Identity

by Marie Force

  He could’ve held the club for Hamilton while he tied his shoes, for example, Hill had written in the notes.

  “Still in denial, are you, Avery?” she muttered.

  “Not so much anymore,” Hill said from the doorway, startling her.

  “Good morning to you too.”

  “Nice to see you back where you belong.”

  “Nice to be here.”

  “Hell of a scrum outside.”

  Sam shrugged off the comment. “That’s what you get when the USA considers charges against the VP’s wife.”

  “What’s up with that anyway?”

  She told him about the grand jury decision and watched his eyes widen with realization of what the USA hoped to achieve.

  Nodding, Avery said, “The grand jury gets him off the hook, and he’s hoping they won’t indict.”

  “Something like that. I wish he’d said I’m not going to file charges and that would be the end of it, but I realize he has to pacify Ramsey and everyone else around here who thinks I get special treatment.”

  “It’s a wise move on his part.” He took a closer look at her, and Sam had to fight the urge to squirm.

  “What?”

  “You look better. You feel okay?”

  “Still tired and a bit achy, but much better than I was.” Embarrassment heated her face. “Thanks again for the assist. You went way above and beyond.”

  “It was no problem.”

  Sam stood, eager to get away from him and his golden-eyed gaze and the ever-present weird vibe he put out. “I need to update my murder board and get ready for the morning briefing.”

  “I’ll give you a hand.”

  “Great,” she said with far more enthusiasm than she felt. “What’s the word coming from the Bureau?”

  “Stunned disbelief. Troy is dead, Dustin’s a suspect, Courtney’s in custody. Everyone is trying to get their head around the fact that our revered director raised a kidnapped child as his own, and we’re holding our breath waiting for that to become public. Do you know when that’s going to happen?”

  “I expect to see Detective Watson and Mr. and Mrs. Rollings sometime today when they arrive to see Taylor. We’ll work with Watson on a joint statement once we’ve had a chance to speak with Jacoby and Mrs. Hamilton.”

  “He’s hired Tim Russo to represent him,” Avery said.

  “I like that guy. I remember when he refused to represent Elle Jestings in the Vasquez case because she owed his firm fifty grand. She was so mad.” The memory made Sam smile months later. She loved when arrogant murdering assholes got their comeuppance.

  “At least he’s a straight shooter, unlike our old friend Bill Springer.”

  “That’s true.” The name Springer alone was enough to give Sam nightmares, so she shook off the reference and focused on the updates to the murder board Malone had kept in her absence. He’d done a good job, but he was no Sam Holland. She filled in the new information that’d come in overnight and tried to ignore Avery to the best of her ability.

  “Lieutenant.”

  Sam turned to face Detective Carlucci.

  “Nice to have you back.”

  “Nice to be back.”

  “Gigi and I finished going through the phone records, and we found something interesting.” Dani laid some papers on the table and pointed to the highlighted outgoing call recorded on Jacoby’s personal cell phone on Sunday at 2:20 p.m. “That’s the landline number for Courtney Hamilton’s mother’s house.”

  “And the call came in roughly one hour before Troy Hamilton was murdered.” Sam’s body buzzed from the burst of adrenaline that came from pulling threads that led to connections. “Excellent work.” She added the information to the murder board under the photo of Courtney Hamilton and drew a red line with an arrow on it to Jacoby.

  Malone came into the room, looking sharp-eyed and well rested. “Courtney Hamilton’s attorney is here, and she’s ready to talk.”

  “Excellent,” Sam said. “I love to talk.”

  Malone rolled his eyes. “Welcome back, Lieutenant. I’d say we missed you but you didn’t give us the chance to miss you.”

  “Aww, Captain.” She dabbed at her eyes dramatically. “You’re so sweet.”

  “Let’s get the AUSA here,” Malone said, “and then see what’s on Mrs. Hamilton’s mind.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  WITH CHIEF FARNSWORTH, Avery Hill and AUSA Hope Dobson observing from the next room, Sam and Malone stepped into the interrogation room where Courtney Hamilton sat at the table with an older man with gray hair. He was the picture of a distinguished esquire, right down to the aura of self-importance he projected—and that was before he opened his mouth and confirmed he was a pompous ass.

  “Mrs. Hamilton has agreed to speak willingly, and we fully expect that her cooperation will be taken into consideration.”

  “That, of course, depends on what she wants to talk about,” Sam said with a big, friendly smile that resulted in a nasty scowl from his royal highness. “And I didn’t catch your name.”

  “It’s John Tillinghast Esquire.” He put a business card in front of her and another in front of Malone. They ignored the cards.

  “Any relation to Brad Tillinghast? Lobbyist who got into a little scrape with the law last year.”

  “He’s my nephew,” John said tightly, as if he’d tasted something rancid. “And as you well know, he was never charged with anything.”

  “Cavorting with prostitutes and ‘appetites’ his wife found offensive,” Sam said with a cluck of disapproval that made John’s face turn bright red. “That was some nasty business. Is he still married?”

  “How is that relevant to the business before us?”

  “Oh,” Sam said, full of innocence, “I thought we were still in the get-to-know you stage of the interview. My apologies. Please proceed.”

  “I see your reputation is well earned,” he said in a low growl.

  “That’s so nice of you to say.”

  Malone coughed to cover a laugh, and Sam decided this was going to be a very good day.

  “My client would like to cooperate in your investigation.”

  Sam leaned in, elbows on the table, rapt attention. “In what way?”

  “She has information about Dustin Jacoby that she believes will be relevant and helpful.”

  “We’re listening.”

  “First, we’d like to know what accommodations will be made to protect her.”

  “From what?” Sam asked, genuinely baffled.

  “Prosecution, for one thing.”

  “Has she committed any crimes?”

  “Her actions would probably put her firmly in the area of accessory.”

  “To murder? To kidnapping? Or the always-popular option C, all of the above?”

  “Both,” he said, scowling again. “But without her, you’ll never get Jacoby on either of those things.”

  “Like I said, we’re listening.”

  “Like I said, what’re you offering?”

  “Depends on what she has to say.”

  “I don’t operate that way. I want guarantees.”

  “You said my reputation precedes me, but apparently you haven’t heard that I don’t give guarantees. Now, either your client has something useful to tell us for which we may or may not recommend leniency when it comes to charges, or you’re wasting our time. And if you’re wasting our time, that’s not going to help anything because we’ve got a lot to do today.”

  The lawyer seemed frozen with indecision.

  Sam stood, prepared to walk away if he couldn’t move his fat ass and get this show on the road.

  “Wait,” Courtney said. The single word sounded torn from her soul. “I’ll tell you what you wan
t to know. I’ll tell you everything.”

  “Courtney—”

  “Shut up, John. I’m all done keeping secrets. It’s gone on long enough.”

  Here we go, Sam thought as she returned to her seat. It was all she could do not to rub her hands together with glee. She pressed the record button on the device on the table. “This interview is being recorded as part of the Hamilton investigation.” She listed the time and date and who was present in the room. “Mrs. Hamilton?”

  “Troy met Dustin in law school at Northwestern in Chicago,” she began in a soft tone, her gaze fixed on the observation window behind Sam. “They were closer than brothers. The night I met Troy, I also met Dustin. We were at a summer home on Long Island that belonged to the parents of one of their law school friends. I’d been invited by friends of mine from home who were renting a house in the Hamptons for the summer. Troy and I hit it off immediately that night. We had a lot in common. We both came from high-profile families and were often burdened by the weight of their expectations. Dustin, he was a different story. He’d been raised by a single mother in the projects in Chicago and had gone to Northwestern, undergrad and law, on scholarships.” She took a sip from her glass of water. “I’m not sure how long Troy and I dated before I realized if I got one, I also got the other.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I rarely had dinner alone with him, for example. Dustin was always there.”

  “Did they live together?”

  She nodded. “But it was more than that.”

  “Were they lovers?”

  She hesitated before she nodded again. “But I didn’t know that until after Troy and I were married.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Sam said, legitimately baffled.

  “I didn’t either,” Courtney said.

  John handed her his monogrammed handkerchief, and Courtney accepted it with a grateful grimace that might’ve been a smile under other circumstances. She dabbed at her eyes. “I caught them. In our bed.”

  Sam tried to imagine... No. Just no. “How long had you been married?”

  “About two months.”

  “Troy was mortified, but Dustin... He said it was better to get the truth out in the open now rather than drag it out indefinitely.”

  “And what was the truth?”

  She swallowed and gripped the handkerchief in her closed fist. “They were in love and they wanted to spend their lives together.”

  “So why did he marry you?”

  “Because they couldn’t spend their lives together and have the careers they wanted too. Not back then. No, they decided because Troy was the better connected of the two that he needed a wife and a family. The deal was that Troy would bring Dustin along with him.”

  “You were duped.”

  “Yes, but the kicker was, Troy said he loved me too, that everything he’d ever said to me was true.”

  “He loved you both.”

  “Yes, but that wasn’t all.”

  Sam was literally on the edge of her seat waiting to hear the rest.

  “They...they wanted our relationship to include all of us.”

  “You wanna run that by me one more time?”

  “Our marriage was, for many years, a ménage.”

  Sam had heard a lot of crazy shit on this job, but this was by far the craziest thing she’d ever heard. The FBI director—and his deputy—had been part of a ménage à trois marriage? Judging by John’s expression, this was shocking news to him, as well. “Did that mean you were...intimate...with both of them?”

  “Yes,” she said, her face flushing with what might’ve been embarrassment or maybe it was shame. Sam couldn’t tell. “And they were with each other too.”

  “Your children?”

  “Were Troy’s. They look just like him. There was never any doubt about who their father was.”

  “But it was possible it could’ve been either of them?”

  “Yes,” she said softly.

  “How did you get away with this among your family and friends?” Sam asked, fascinated more than anything.

  “Most of the time we were together, we lived away from our closest friends and family.”

  “What happened in Knoxville?”

  Courtney continued to knead the poor handkerchief, making a mess of the fine linen. “Dustin and I... We became exceptionally close during those years. Troy was on the rise and was often called to Washington, sometimes for as long as a month at a time. Dustin... He was there for me, you know?”

  Sam didn’t get it. She didn’t get how any woman handled two men, when she more than had her hands full with one.

  “We... Troy, he came home early from a trip, and he... He caught us together.”

  “That wasn’t allowed?”

  She shook her head. “The agreement we had was that I was only supposed to be with Dustin when Troy was there too. He was so angry and so hurt. He felt like we’d betrayed him. He ended it with both of us and sent me and the children home to Virginia.”

  “Did he know you were pregnant?”

  She shook her head. “Not at first. But a month or so after we left, he came to see the kids, and I couldn’t hide it anymore.”

  “And the baby was Dustin’s?”

  Courtney dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. “Things between Troy and I had been tense for a while. I had only been with Dustin. The baby was his.”

  “Did Dustin know?”

  “Yes,” she said with a small smile. “He was so excited to have a child of his own.”

  “What happened?”

  “I... I miscarried at six months, which was utterly devastating.”

  Sam ached at the thought of going so far in a pregnancy only to end up empty-handed at the end. Except that’s not what happened to Courtney.

  “Dustin was beside himself. He came unglued. I’d never seen him like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Out of his mind with grief and rage at the hand he’d been dealt. He was in love with me and with Troy, and because he was acting so unstable, Troy wanted him out of our lives, going so far as to try to have him fired from the Bureau. It was a nightmare.” She dropped her head into her hands. “We were wrong to ever think an arrangement like what we had with him could work long-term, but we’d never had any reason to believe he was mentally unstable until he turned up at my mother’s house with a baby he said he’d adopted to replace the one we’d lost.”

  “Holy...” Sam realized she’d said the word out loud.

  “He told me the baby had been born to their receptionist in Knoxville, and when she couldn’t afford to keep it, he’d offered to take the baby.” She wiped her eyes and dabbed at her nose. “He said it would be like our baby had never died.”

  “Did you tell Troy?”

  “I did, and he realized right away that the baby had been taken from a family in Tennessee.”

  “And he told you that?”

  Nodding, she said, “We were horrified. We had no idea that Dustin was capable of such a thing, but losing the baby had done something to him. He’d snapped. He told us he’d ruin us if we ever said a word about where that baby came from. He would tell the world how we’d lived, and Troy’s career would be ruined, our family would be homeless when Troy went to jail for kidnapping. Dustin had been clever. He’d set up the whole thing to look like Troy had done it. He said we were going to continue on like nothing had happened, or he’d ruin us both and our children would end up in foster homes.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Sam said, her mind whirling. “He basically blackmailed a fellow FBI agent and his wife into raising a kidnapped child—a child you both knew had been kidnapped—as your own. Is that right?”

  “Yes,” she said, “and you have to bel
ieve me. Troy and I were horrified. He’d worked the Rollings case and had been heartbroken for them.”

  “So why didn’t he return their child when he realized what Dustin had done?”

  “Because he’d lose everything he’d worked so hard for if he did, and we’d both go to jail. We had three children to consider, and we chose to stay quiet even if it slowly killed us.”

  “Did you know Troy knocked your son around every chance he got?”

  “That’s not true! Who told you that?”

  “Your son did.”

  “Troy loved him! Keeping this secret nearly killed us. Troy developed ulcers that plagued him for the rest of his life. I had migraines, and when that picture came out and it looked just like Josh, Troy said he was going to come clean and tell the truth. Dustin said we couldn’t let that happen. That’s why he killed Troy. To keep the secret long enough to get out of town. Except I couldn’t leave my mother and my children...”

  Sam slapped her hand on the table, making Courtney and John startle. “Screw you and your ulcers and your migraines! You took their child. Do you have any idea what you put those poor people through for thirty years while you were enjoying a life of prosperity and success?”

  “Technically, my client didn’t take their child.”

  Sam lacerated him with a look. “Screw you too. No deal.” Speaking directly to Courtney, she said, “You’ll be charged with accessory to kidnapping after the fact, and I hope you serve one day for every day that child spent in your family when he should’ve been with theirs.”

  “I was honest with you!” Courtney cried. “You’d never have gotten all this from Dustin. I gave you the truth!”

  “Too bad it was thirty years too late for the Rollings family—and for Taylor.” She walked out of the room and went straight to her office, slamming the door behind her. As she released the clip that held her hair up, she realized her hands were shaking. And the stomach she’d thought cured was looking to unload its meager contents.

  Placing her hand over her mouth, she breathed through her nose until the nausea subsided, leaving her with a sick feeling that went bone deep. The men Avery had so revered were monsters, and Courtney was every bit as bad for keeping their secrets for so long.