Something About You

by Julie James

  “How do you know this already?”

  “We have the escort service’s records. The senator had been seeing her regularly for almost a year now.”

  Cameron got up and paced before the bed, working the scenario like a new case she’d been handed. “So what’s with the camera? Don’t tell me the senator was stupid enough to think he could keep a sex tape secret.” She stopped, thinking quickly. “No . . . of course. Blackmail. That’s why CPD called you guys.”

  “Having reviewed the tape, it’s obvious that Senator Hodges had no clue he was being filmed,” Wilkins said.

  “You’re the one who got stuck reviewing the tape? Lucky you,” Cameron said.

  “Not exactly. But Jack was busy playing bad-cop with Senator Hodges.”

  “And here I thought that was special for me.”

  Wilkins grinned. “Nah—he likes to break that out with everybody. It usually works, too, with that whole dark and glowering thing he’s got going on.”

  Cameron peeked at Jack, who was back at his post in the corner of the room. “Glowering”—she liked that description. It was certainly more insightful than the generic “asshole” she’d been going with for the past three years.

  She wondered if Jack Pallas ever smiled.

  Then she remembered that she frankly didn’t give a damn whether he did or not.

  “Given the content of the tape, Senator Hodges would normally be CPD’s primary suspect,” Jack said to her. “In fact, the police probably would’ve arrested him already, if it wasn’t for you.”

  “Is that so?”

  Jack pushed away from the wall and stormed over. He yanked the photo out of Cameron’s hands and held it in front of her face.

  “Let’s cut through the crap. The guy you saw leave the room five minutes before hotel security found the girl dead—is there any possibility it’s this man?”

  Cameron hesitated, momentarily caught off guard by the suddenness with which Jack had gone into attack mode.

  He shoved the photo even closer. “Come on, Cameron—is there any possibility it was this man?”

  Cameron felt an odd flip in her stomach, hearing Jack say her first name. They’d once, very briefly, been on a first-name basis before. She brushed this off and focused on the photo he held before her. Really, she didn’t even need to look. Senator Hodges was not only a shorter man, but if she had to guess—and apparently she did—she’d say he weighed at least two hundred and fifty pounds. She might not have gotten the best look through her peephole, but she knew enough to know one thing.

  “It’s not him,” she said.

  “You’re sure?” Jack asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  Jack stepped away from her. “Then Senator Hodges owes you one hell of a thank you. Because your word is the only thing keeping him from being arrested for murder.”

  A silence fell over the room. “Doesn’t he have some sort of alibi?” Cameron asked.

  Jack remained silent. That clearly fell into the I’m-not-answering-no-stinking-questions category.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Cameron said. “How about if instead of questions, I just see if I can fill in the blanks? So this escort who’s been sleeping with Senator Hodges, the married senior senator from Illinois—”

  “Who just happened to be appointed the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee,” Wilkins threw in. When he caught the look of death Jack shot him, he shrugged. “What? I don’t have your issues with her. Besides, I heard what Davis said—we’re supposed to share, remember?”

  Much glowering ensued.

  “So this escort decides to get the senator on tape and use it as blackmail,” Cameron continued. “He meets her tonight, they do the deed—many times—I’m still going with the Viagra theory on that, by the way—and the senator leaves. Twenty minutes later, our mystery man shows up. There’s a struggle, and he kills the woman. And since there’s no sign of forced entry, we can assume the girl knew the murderer and let him into the room. How am I doing so far?”

  Wilkins nodded, impressed. “Not bad.”

  “What I think,” Jack told her, “is that you’ve had a long night, and we don’t want to take up any more of your time. The FBI appreciates your cooperation, Ms. Lynde. We’ll be in touch if there’s anything further we need.”

  Cameron watched as he turned and headed toward the door, apparently with the mistaken impression that there was nothing left for them to discuss.

  “Actually, I do have another question, Agent Pallas,” she said.

  He looked back at her. “What might that be?”

  “Can I finally get out of this hotel room?”

  Four

  WHEN AGENT WILKINS suggested that he and Jack drive her home from the hotel, Cameron reluctantly accepted. As much as she was eager to put some distance between herself and Jack, she didn’t want him to think that his attitude was getting to her.

  Sitting in the back of Wilkins’s car—at least she assumed it was Wilkins’s car since he was the one driving and she couldn’t picture Jack owning a Lexus—she rested her head against the cool leather seat and looked out the window. She’d been stuck in that hotel room for so long that the brightness of the daylight had been jarring and surreal when she’d first stepped outside. It was nearly noon, which meant she now was going on almost thirty hours without sleep. She doubted even Starbucks had a fix for that.

  Fighting the lulling motion of the car, she turned away from the window. With her head against the backseat, she observed the man sitting in front of her through half-lidded eyes.

  Jack Pallas.

  She might have laughed at the irony of the situation, if she wasn’t so damned tired. And also, as a general rule, she found it prudent to refrain from strangely laughing to oneself while sitting in a car with two FBI agents—one of whom already distrusted her with an intensity that was palpable.

  Not that Cameron was surprised Jack still felt that way. She recalled all too well the look on his face when she’d told him they weren’t going to file charges in the Martino case.

  It had been three years ago, late on a Friday afternoon. Earlier in the day, she had been called into a meeting with her boss, Silas Briggs, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. He’d told her that he wanted to talk about the Martino case, and she assumed they were going to discuss the charges she planned to pursue against the various members of Martino’s organization. What Silas told her instead came as a shock.

  “I’ve decided against filing charges,” he declared. He said it as soon as she sat down, as if wanting to get through the conversation quickly.

  “Against Martino’s men, or Martino himself?” Cameron asked, assuming at first that Silas meant he’d made an immunity deal with somebody—or several somebodies—in exchange for their testimony.

  “Against everybody,” Silas said matter-of-factly.

  Cameron sat back in her chair, needing a moment to process this. “You don’t want to file any charges?”

  “I realize that you’re surprised by this.”

  That was the understatement of the year. “The FBI has been working on this case for over two years. With all the information Agent Pallas gathered while undercover, we have enough evidence to put Martino away for the rest of his life. Why wouldn’t we prosecute?”

  “You’re young and eager, Cameron, and I like that about you. It’s one of the reasons I snatched you away from Hatcher and Thorn,” Silas said, referring to the law firm she had worked at prior to coming to the U.S. attorney’s office.

  Cameron held up her hand. True, she was new to the job, and she definitely was eager, but she’d had four years of trial experience as a civil litigator before becoming a prosecutor. Nevertheless, if Silas didn’t think she was ready, she wouldn’t let pride get in the way. “Hold on, Silas. If this is because you don’t think I have enough experience to try this case, then just give it to somebody else. Sure, I’ll be a little testy, I’ll probably mope dramatically around the office
for a day or two, but I’ll get over it. Hell, I’ll even help whoever you reassign to the case get up and ru—”

  Silas cut her off. “No one in this office is going to file charges. Period. I’ve been around long enough to know that a trial like this will quickly escalate into two things: a media circus, and a black fucking hole for the United States government. You think you have enough evidence now, but just wait: after we openly declare war on Martino, you’ll have witnesses flipping on you—or worse, mysteriously disappearing or dying—and before you know it, you’ll be two weeks into trial without a shred of hard evidence to back up all the promises you made to the jury in your opening statement.”

  Cameron knew that she probably should’ve just backed off at that point. But she couldn’t help herself. “But Agent Pallas’s testimony alone will be enough evidence to—”

  “Agent Pallas saw a lot of things, but unfortunately his cover was blown too early,” Silas interrupted her. “And while I certainly appreciate the two years he spent investigating this case, if we go forward with pressing charges and we don’t get a conviction, the fallout will be on us— not Agent Pallas or anyone else at the FBI. I’m not willing to have my office take that risk.”

  Now Cameron did fall quiet. Roberto Martino and his minions were responsible for nearly one-third of all drug trafficking in the city of Chicago; they laundered their money through more than twenty sham corporations; and they extorted, bribed, and threatened anyone who got in their way. Not to mention, they killed people.

  Going after criminals like Roberto Martino was the reason she had joined the U.S. attorney’s office in the first place. In the dark time surrounding her father’s murder, that decision had been the one thing—in addition to Collin and Amy’s support—that had kept her driven and focused.

  Generally, she had liked working at her old firm. With her father having been a police officer, and her mother having worked as a court reporter until she divorced Cameron’s father and married a pilot she’d met during a deposition she was transcribing (in his divorce case, no less), her family had gotten by reasonably well. But they certainly hadn’t been wealthy. Because of that, Cameron had appreciated the independence and security that had come with the $250,000 salary she’d been earning by her fourth year in private practice.

  Her father had been proud of her success. As Cameron had learned again and again from the police officers who offered their condolences at her father’s wake and funeral, he’d apparently bragged incessantly to his partner and other cop friends about her achievements.

  She’d remained close to her father and his side of the family after her parents’ divorce—particularly after her mother moved to Florida with her new husband, who retired from the airline shortly after Cameron entered law school.

  His death had hit her hard.

  One late afternoon during Cameron’s fourth year at the firm, the captain in charge of her father’s shift called her at work with the grave words anyone with a family member in law enforcement dreads hearing: that she needed to come to the hospital right away. By the time she’d burst frantically through the doors of the emergency room, it had been too late. She’d stood numbly in a private room as the captain told her that her father had been shot to death by a drug dealer while responding to what they had believed to be merely a routine domestic disturbance call.

  Those first couple of weeks after her father’s murder, she’d felt . . . gray was the word she’d used to describe it when Collin had asked how she was holding up. But then she’d pulled herself together and went back to the firm. In many senses, knowing how proud her father had been of her hard work had made it easier to do that—she knew he would want her to carry on, to keep going with her career as far as she could. But something had been missing.

  Four weeks after the funeral, she was in court when she figured out what that something was. She’d been waiting to argue an evidentiary motion that once would’ve seemed particularly important, but after her father’s death had felt dismayingly insignificant. Then the court reporter called the case before hers.

  United States versus Markovitz. A simple felon-in-possession of a firearm case. It had been a straightforward court appearance, nothing flashy, a motion to suppress evidence filed by the defendant. Procedurally the motion was very similar to the one Cameron herself was scheduled to argue that day, so she’d paid attention, wanting to gauge the judge’s mood. After a brief oral argument, the judge ruled in favor of the government, and Cameron saw the look of satisfaction in the assistant U.S. attorney’s eyes.

  Since her father had been killed, she hadn’t once felt that same kind of satisfaction.

  But that morning, as she watched the defendant being escorted out of the courtroom wearing his handcuffs and orange jumpsuit, she felt as though something had been accomplished, no matter how small the degree. Justice had been served. The man who had shot and killed her father had been a felon, too. Maybe if more had been done, maybe if that gun hadn’t been on the streets, maybe if he hadn’t been on the streets . . .

  She could do something about that, she’d realized.

  That very week, she applied for an assistant U.S. attorney position.

  One aspect of being a prosecutor Cameron hadn’t anticipated, however, was the politics that often came into play with government jobs. While sitting across from Silas that day, discussing his reasons for pulling out of the Martino case, she realized that the U.S. attorney’s office was no exception. She could guess Silas’s real problem: simply put, he didn’t want to stick his neck out and potentially lose a trial that would be covered by every national newspaper, television, and radio station.

  She was surprised by his decision. And frustrated. And disgusted by the thought that someone like Roberto Martino would be allowed to go on, unchecked, with business as usual. But unfortunately, unless she planned to hand over her assistant U.S. attorney badge right then and there, her hands were tied. She’d been with the office for only a year—openly challenging her boss on such an issue would not be the smartest move if she wanted to remain an employed crime-fighter. So she kept her thoughts to herself.

  “Okay. No charges.” She got a pit in her stomach, saying the words out loud.

  “I’m glad you understand,” Silas said with a nod of approval. “And there’s one last thing: I haven’t had the chance to speak to anyone at the Bureau about this. Somebody needs to tell Agent Pallas and the others that we’re pulling out of the Martino case. I thought, since you seem to have a good rapport with him, that it should be you.”

  Now that was a conversation Cameron wanted no part of. “I think it might be more appropriate if Agent Pallas heard this directly from you, Silas. Especially given everything he went through in this investigation.”

  “He was doing his job as an FBI agent. That’s how these things turn out sometimes.”

  Sensing from his tone that the matter was no longer open for discussion, Cameron nodded. She wasn’t sure she trusted herself to speak at that moment, anyway.

  Silas held her eyes. “And just so we’re on the same page, the only thing the FBI needs to know is that there aren’t going to be any charges brought against Martino and his men. This office has a strict policy that we do not comment on our internal decision-making process.”

  When Cameron still said nothing, Silas cocked his head. “I need you to be a team-player on this, Cameron. Is that understood?”

  Oh, she understood all right. Silas was selling her out—letting her take the fall for his decision to back off of Martino. But that was how the game was played. He was her boss, not to mention an extremely important and well-connected member of the Chicago legal community. Which meant there was only one thing she could say.

  “Consider it done.”

  JACK WATCHED AS Wilkins checked his rearview mirror. The passenger in the backseat had been silent for a while.

  “Is she asleep?” he asked.

  Wilkins nodded. “Been a long night.”

  “True. Le
t’s pick up another round of coffee before heading back. The stuff they have in the office tastes like shit.”

  “I meant that it’s been a long night for her.”

  Jack knew exactly what Wilkins had meant. But he was trying to avoid thinking about her as much as possible.

  “Kind of strange, the two of you meeting again under these circumstances.”

  Wilkins apparently had not received his let’s-just-drop-the-issue memo.

  Jack glanced in his mirror to double-check that Cameron was sleeping. “It would’ve been strange no matter what circumstances we’d met under,” he said, keeping his voice low.

  Wilkins looked away from the road. “You have any regrets?”

  “About what I said?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Only that they had a camera there.”

  Wilkins shook his head. “Remind me to never get on your bad side.”

  “Don’t ever get on my bad side.”

  “Thanks.”

  Jack liked working with Wilkins. He’d hesitated at first when his boss had decided to partner him with a guy who’d just graduated from the Academy. He’d hesitated even more when he’d gotten a look at the expensive suit Wilkins had been wearing the first day they met. But underneath the grins and jokes, Wilkins was a lot savvier than Jack had first given him credit for, and he respected that—even if the two of them couldn’t have been more different in their approach to most things. Besides that, Jack welcomed having a partner who actually talked for a change, considering his last partner in Nebraska had spoken an average of about six-point-three words a day and had the personality of a doorknob. Stakeouts with the guy had been a real hoot. Not that stakeouts in Nebraska were all that interesting to start with. He’d been bored out of his mind the last three years—which, of course, had been the whole point of the disciplinary action the Department of Justice had taken against him.

  Jack glanced again in his mirror to check out Cameron sleeping in the backseat.