Fatal Consequences

by Marie Force

  Christina sighed with dismay. Since they met at Sam and Nick’s New Year’s Eve promotion party, she’d never seen this closed off, unreachable side of Tommy. She’d heard rumors that he’d been quite the player in the past and couldn’t help but wonder if he was growing tired of their monogamous relationship. That thought saddened her. Here, finally, was a guy she connected with not only in bed, but everywhere else, too. She didn’t want it to be over between them. Not yet.

  She took a deep breath and swallowed all her hard-won self-esteem. “Did I do something to upset you?”

  He reached for her hand. The warmth of his skin against hers filled her with a sense of rightness she hadn’t experienced before. “It’s nothing to do with you. I promise.”

  Christina laced her fingers through his, enveloping his hand between both of hers. “Is something wrong at work?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  Even though she could see he wanted to tell her, he maintained the stony silence that had marked their day.

  Frustrated and confused, Christina turned to look out at the winter night passing by as he drove her home.

  They pulled up outside her town house in the swanky Georgetown neighborhood a short time later. Tommy killed the engine and stared at the windshield.

  Christina reluctantly released his hand. “I guess I’ll see you when I see you.” One thing she’d learned over the last six weeks was that dating a cop was nothing if not unpredictable.

  “Wait,” he said.

  Something in the way he said the single word tugged at her heart. He sounded so tormented that she wanted nothing more than to ease his pain. “What is it, Tommy? You can talk to me. Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out.”

  He released a pained chuckle. “I hope you mean that.”

  “You know I do.” She took his hand again. “Come in with me. Tell me what’s got you so upset.”

  He got out of the car and followed her into the house, keeping his hand on her elbow the whole way in case they encountered ice on the sidewalk. It was just that kind of gesture that had endeared him to her from the very beginning. Underneath his suave, sexy Cuban exterior was a true gentleman.

  They hung their coats on the brass stand inside the door. “Can I get you anything? A drink maybe?”

  “Yeah,” he said, dropping onto the sofa. “That’d be good.”

  She fixed him a glass of the scotch she now kept on hand for him and brought it to him.

  “Nothing for you?”

  Christina shook her head. She was too wound up for a drink that would no doubt go straight to her head after all the champagne she’d consumed at the wedding.

  He held out his arm to invite her to sit closer to him.

  Christina scooted over and rested her head on his chest, breathing him in as his arm tightened around her.

  His lips found her forehead, and she was filled with relief. Whatever had him so troubled seemed to have nothing to do with her.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been such a jerk all day.”

  “You weren’t a jerk. You were quiet, which isn’t like you.” She tilted her head so she could look up at him as he sipped the scotch.

  “You know me so well.”

  “Sometimes I feel like I don’t know you at all, but I want to. I want to know you.”

  He tilted her chin up and brushed his lips over hers, a teasing promise of the delights to come if he could find a way to tell her what had him so burdened.

  “You’re good for me, Christina. You make me want to be a better man than I’ve been in the past.”

  She reached up to caress the stubble on his jaw. He was so insanely sexy that sometimes she had to pinch herself to believe she was really with a guy like him. All her years of unrequited love for the late Senator John O’Connor seemed like a bad dream since she met Tommy. “Tell me.”

  He put down the glass and ran his free hand through his dark hair. “Last night, I got a text from a woman I went out with a couple of times. It was a year or so ago. I haven’t seen her since.”

  “Does she want you back?” Who could blame her?

  “Not exactly. She wanted to tell me about my son.”

  Christina’s breath caught in her lungs. She sat up so she could see him. “You have a son.”

  “That’s what she says, although I’m not sure I believe her. Who knows if he’s mine or not?”

  “You slept with her?”

  He seemed ashamed to nod in agreement. “A couple of times, but I used condoms. You know how I am about that.”

  “Condoms fail.”

  “She said the same thing. She swears to God he’s mine. All day today I’ve been trying to figure out what I should do.”

  Christina slipped into chief of staff mode. “The first thing you do is confirm he’s really yours. Demand a DNA test.”

  “What if she won’t do it?”

  “I assume she’s interested in financial support for the child.”

  “She didn’t come right out and say that, but the implication was clear.”

  “If she wants your money, you’re perfectly within your rights to require proof the child is actually yours.”

  “You’re right, and that’s what I’ll do tomorrow.” He looked down at the floor and then back at her. “What does this mean for us?”

  “What does what mean?”

  “I’d understand if this was too much for you. We haven’t been together that long—”

  Christina placed her hands on his face and kissed the words right off his lips. “We’ve been together just long enough that your problem is my problem, and we’ll figure it out together.”

  “Really?” His expression was so rife with relief that Christina would’ve laughed if the situation hadn’t been so serious. And here she had worried all day that he’d had enough of her.

  “Really.” She ran her fingers through his hair and guided his mouth back to hers. Running her tongue gently over his bottom lip, she coaxed him into participating in the kiss.

  A groan rumbled through him as his arms tightened around her. “I thought you’d be so pissed. I was afraid to tell you.”

  “It happened a year ago. It’s got nothing to do with me or us.”

  “And if I do have a son?”

  “Then I guess we’ll have to get a couple of cribs—one for your place and one for mine.”

  He shifted her under him on the sofa and looked down at her, his eyes hot with desire and relief. Even though he was so much bigger than her, he never handled her with anything other than total gentleness.

  “I hate that you tortured yourself this way all day.” She massaged the tension from his neck and shoulders. “Next time something is bothering you, will you just tell me so we can figure it out rather than stewing in silence?”

  “I’m not used to having someone to work things out with.”

  “Well now you do, so you’d better get used to it.”

  He flashed the sexy, dimpled smile that got him anything he wanted from her. “I love it when you get all bossy with me.”

  “Is that so?” she asked with the coy grin that usually had the same effect on him.

  “You know it is.”

  Bringing his head down close to her lips, she whispered a two-word order in his ear.

  His eyes widened with shock and then heated with passion. His lips came down hard on hers, and as she wrapped her arms around him, Christina wanted to weep with relief and joy that he had confided in her. Then his lips found her neck at the same instant his fingers closed around her nipple, and she ceased to think at all.

  Lindsey McNamara joined Sam outside the interrogation room.

  “What’ve you got?” Sam asked the pretty, redheaded medical examiner.

  “Nothing new quite yet. As soon as we’re done here, I’ll get started on the autopsy.”

  “I’m going to talk him into giving up a DNA sample. You’ve got the kit with you?”

  Lindsey held up the long swab used to collec
t a buccal sample. “Ready.”

  Sam glanced at her watch. Ten-thirty. Nick was watching from observation, and she still hoped they could salvage a bit of their romantic evening. “Let’s get this done.”

  Inside the room, Senator Lightfeather startled out of his daze when the two women entered. “Senator, this is Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Lindsey McNamara. May I have your permission to record this interview?”

  He nodded and waved his hand in agreement.

  “Before we begin, I need to advise you of your rights in this matter.” Sam ran through the Miranda warning. “Do you understand your rights as I have explained them?”

  “Yes,” he said, sounding broken and despondent.

  “I want to be clear. We can charge you at any time with failing to immediately report Regina’s murder to proper authorities. Calling your colleague whose fiancée happens to be a cop smacks of you trying to cover your own ass. However, if you cooperate with our investigation, I’ll speak to the assistant U.S. attorney about waiving those charges. Do you understand?”

  Lightfeather granted her a small nod. “I get it.”

  Sam pushed a piece of paper she’d prepared earlier across the table. “We’d like your consent to obtain a sample of your DNA.”

  He looked up at her, shocked by the request. “For what purpose?”

  “To determine what, if any, contact you had with the victim.”

  “Can’t I just tell you what contact I had with her?”

  “We’d like you to do both.”

  Glancing from Sam to Lindsey and then back to Sam, he reached for the pen in his shirt pocket and scrawled his signature on the form before pushing it back across the table to Sam.

  She nodded to Lindsey who explained the procedure before she swabbed the inside of the senator’s cheek.

  “Thanks, Dr. McNamara,” Sam said. “Please ask Detective McBride to step in.” They’d decided before that three officers entering the room together would’ve been one too many. The last thing Sam wanted was for the senator to shut down and lawyer up before she could figure out what he knew about their victim and what had happened to her.

  Detective Jeannie McBride entered the room, and Sam introduced her to the senator. “If you could, Senator, can you tell us how you know Regina Argueta de Castro?”

  “As Senator Cappuano mentioned earlier, she works for the company that cleans the Hart Senate Office Building.”

  Sam noticed that he still spoke of Regina in the present tense, as if he had yet to accept her death. “And you met her how long ago?”

  “Two years. Maybe a little more.” He took a moment to gather his thoughts. “I work late a lot of nights, and she’d come in to clean. We’d get talking, and over time I guess you could say we became friends.”

  “What did a United States senator have in common with a cleaning lady?” Sam asked.

  His lips curved into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “More than you’d think. We were both living away from our families, missing our kids, working hard to provide a better life for them. We understood each other.”

  “Where are her children?”

  “Guatemala. They live there with her mother. Roberto is seven and Isabella is five. She was hoping to bring them here someday. She talked all the time about how happy she’d be once they were together again.” A tear traveled unchecked down his cheek. “I’d like to be the one to tell them she’s gone.”

  “I’ll see what I can arrange in the morning.”

  “I have the number in my office.”

  “I can’t help but wonder why you’d have the number to the Guatemalan cleaning lady’s family.”

  The senator’s face hardened into a difficult-to-read expression. “She gave it to me. In case something ever happened to her.”

  “Was she concerned about her safety?

  “Not that she ever said, but something was troubling her. The last few weeks, she’d been different, as if the weight of the world rested on her fragile shoulders. Even more so than usual.”

  “Can you think of anyone who might’ve wanted to harm her?”

  “She was briefly married when she first came to this country, but she never told me his name or anything about him. I got the sense their breakup was acrimonious.”

  “Did she mention feeling threatened by him or anything like that?”

  “Not that she ever said to me.”

  Sam made a note to check into Regina’s brief marriage. “Were you romantically involved with her, Senator?”

  New tears tumbled down his face. He brushed them away with the back of his trembling hand. “I never meant for it to happen. I swear to you. I love my wife and my children, but sometimes it just gets so lonely being away from them for weeks on end. Regina understood what that was like. We were friends for a long time before anything ever happened.”

  “What exactly happened?”

  His shoulders hunched with defeat, as if it was registering all at once that his entire life was about to unravel. “It was her daughter’s birthday. She was sad to be missing it. I gave her my international cell phone so she could call home, and she was so happy and thankful after speaking with her kids. We had a glass of wine and sat together on the sofa. We were talking about Isabella, about all the little moments we were both missing with our children—moments that could never be recaptured. It was all very innocent. Until I kissed her.” He broke down into wretched sobs that shook his entire body. “I never meant…”

  Sam gave him a few minutes to compose himself.

  “It was just supposed to be comfort between friends,” he said.

  “But it was more than that?”

  He nodded. “We made love right there in my office where anyone could’ve discovered us. I never even stopped to lock the door. Afterward, I couldn’t believe I’d let that happen. The chances I had taken with my family, my office, with Regina, my dearest friend. I’ve never before been unfaithful to my wife. I was literally sick with guilt.”

  “So it didn’t happen again?”

  The senator released a long rattling breath. “We were both so shocked by how carried away we’d been that we steered clear of each other. Another woman cleaned my office, and I didn’t see Regina for many weeks.”

  “And how long ago was this?”

  “Three months.”

  “Did you eventually see her again?”

  “Her immigration status was in question. She had applied for a green card when she was married, but apparently the marriage was deemed suspect and the application was denied. Her work visa was running out, and she came to me to ask if there was anything I could do to help her. She’d applied for permanent residency on her own, but her application had been denied. The only way she could properly support her family was to stay in the United States, and it was important to her that she be here legally. She was getting quite desperate as the expiration date approached.”

  “Were you able to help her?”

  “I made a few phone calls, but I had to be careful since she wasn’t one of my constituents. We were able to get her a three-month extension, and I put in a good word for her with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. I asked them to reconsider her application. That was all I could do without arousing suspicion.”

  “And did she appreciate your help?”

  “Very much so.”

  “Did you rekindle your romantic relationship?”

  A look of sheer torture came over his face. “You have to understand…my family is everything to me, but when I was with Regina, it was like I became someone else. I couldn’t resist her.”

  “How many times were you intimate with her?”

  “Too many.”

  “Ten? Twenty? Thirty? More?”

  “Thirty or more, I guess. We were together just about every day for the last month.”

  “Where did these liaisons occur?”

  “Most of the time at her apartment, but a few more times in my office—with the door locked.”

  �
�Why not your apartment?”

  “With a wife and five kids in Sedona, I can’t exactly afford a place here too,” he said, seeming embarrassed. “I sleep on the sofa in my office.”

  Nick’s hunch had been spot-on. “Was she involved with anyone else?”

  Lightfeather’s eyes widened. “Of course not. She wasn’t promiscuous.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Yes, I’m sure!”

  “When was the last time you were intimate with Regina?”

  “Earlier today. I was over there for lunch and we made love afterward. I was there for a couple of hours before I left to do some work in my office. I tried to call her a little while later on the cell phone I’d given her. When she didn’t answer, I became concerned and went back to her apartment. There was so much blood. At first I couldn’t figure out what was wrong, and then, when I saw her on the floor…I started screaming for help but no one came. That’s when I called Nick. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “You could’ve called 911.”

  He looked right at her. “I’m a married United States senator who just found his mistress murdered in her apartment. If you were me, would you call 911 or would you call your friend whose fiancée is a homicide detective?”

  “So you weren’t so upset about your dead lover that you didn’t take a moment to think about your family and your career before calling for help for her?”

  He slapped a hand on the table, startling her. “I was horrified that someone had harmed this beautiful, sweet woman, and I wanted the best cop in this city to find out who did this to her. She was, and is, my first thought.”

  Something about the way he said that triggered a new realization for Sam. “You were in love with her.”

  “Yes,” he said, breaking down again. “God help me, but I was in love with her, and I have no idea how I’ll ever live without her.”

  Chapter 4

  “Get over to the Capitol and get me a security guard, a junior staffer, anyone who can put Senator Lightfeather in that building late this afternoon,” Sam said to Detective McBride. “That place is crawling with cameras, so get me video on his movements all day yesterday and fill in the timeline on the murder board. I also want Regina’s cell phone dumped and while you’re at it, dump Lightfeather’s too.”