Lethal Attraction: Against the Rules\Fatal Affair Read online

  “Police,” Sam clarified. “They’ll be as respectful as possible.”

  “That’s fine,” Graham said with a pointed look at his wife. “If it’ll help the investigation, do it.”

  “Can you tell me, Senator, who might still have keys to the apartment at the Watergate from when you lived there?”

  Graham pondered that for a moment. “Only my family.”

  “No staffers or aides?”

  “My chief of staff had one, but I distinctly recall him giving it back to me when we left office.”

  “Any chance he might’ve had others made, given them to other people?”

  “No. He was a guard dog about my privacy. He didn’t even like having the key himself.”

  “Are you aware, either of you, that John spoke with Patricia Donaldson in Chicago several times a week for an hour or more each time?”

  Again the O’Connors exchanged glances.

  “No, but I’m not surprised,” Graham said. “They were close friends as children.”

  “Just friends?”

  “Yes,” Laine said pointedly, so pointedly in fact that it raised Sam’s hackles and her radar. There was more to this story. Of that she had no doubt. She’d be speaking to Patricia Donaldson as soon as she could arrange a trip to Chicago.

  “John is still due to be moved today to Richmond?” Laine asked Nick.

  He nodded. “The motorcade is leaving Washington at noon.”

  “We’ll be going down to Richmond this afternoon,” Graham said. “The state police are escorting us and clearing the way for us to get in and out before they open it to the public.”

  “The staff will have a private viewing in the morning,” Nick said.

  “You got the clothes they needed?” Laine asked.

  “Yes. I’m heading to the funeral home from here. Um, about the funeral…Have you decided who you want to have speak on behalf of the family?”

  “You do it,” Laine said with a weary sigh.

  “Are you sure? You wouldn’t rather have a family member?”

  “You are family to us, Nick,” Graham said. “You’ll do him proud. We know that.”

  “I’ll do my best,” he said softly. “We should let you get back to your breakfast.”

  “We’ll see you Monday, if not before,” Laine said.

  Nick leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I’ll be in touch.”

  She squeezed the hand he rested on her shoulder. “Thank you for all you’re doing. I know it can’t be easy for you.”

  “It’s an honor and a privilege.”

  Patting his hand once more, she released him.

  Nick hugged Graham and kissed Carrie on his way out of the kitchen. With his hand on the small of her back, he steered Sam to the front door. Once they were outside, he took a deep, rattling breath of cold air.

  Since there was little else she could do to comfort him, she held his hand between both of hers all the way back to Washington.

  *

  After fighting their way through rush-hour traffic, Nick pulled up to the Watergate with fifteen minutes to spare before Sam’s appointment with Senator Stenhouse.

  “So much for going home to change first,” she grumbled. “Freddie will have a field day with this.”

  “Tell him you worked all night. Won’t be a total lie.”

  “It’ll be a good excuse to remind him that I outrank him and can order him to shut up. He likes that.”

  Nick smiled and reached for the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He withdrew a small leather case and handed her his business card. “Call me? My cell number is on there.”

  She took the card, stuffed it in her pocket and reached for the door.

  He stopped her before she could get out. “Talk to me before Monday so we can arrange to go to the funeral together if you still want me to help you ID people.”

  “I do. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Remember to eat and sleep, will you?”

  “Yeah, right,” she said on her way out the door.

  Nick waited, probably to make sure her car started because he was polite that way, and then pulled into traffic just ahead of her.

  On the way to Capitol Hill, Sam called Gonzo and asked him to oversee the sift through John O’Connor’s cabin.

  “It’s not a crime scene, so I’m not interested in fingerprints or DNA. I’m just looking for anything we don’t already know about him.”

  “Gotcha. So we got confirmation that the blood in Christina Billings’s car was her own.”

  “Well, I guess that closes that loop,” Sam said. “There’s no way she made it across town, killed him, showered, cleaned up the bathroom and got back with Chinese food in twenty-eight minutes. Not in this town with this traffic, even at midnight.”

  “No way is right,” Gonzo agreed. “I’ll get a team together and get out to Leesburg this morning.”

  “You’d better notify Loudoun County, too, so we don’t have jurisdictional trouble.” She paused before she added, “Full disclosure—I crashed in the guestroom there last night. I needed to see his parents in the morning, and it saved me some time. Cappuano slept in the senator’s room.”

  “Okay.”

  “If you could keep that tidbit to yourself, I’d owe you one.”

  He laughed. “I like having you indebted to me. Just let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

  “There is one thing,” she said, playing the hunch. “Do a run on Graham O’Connor’s brother, Robert. I need the deal on his family, offspring in particular. If you can get photos, even better.”

  “Will do,” Gonzo said. “I’ll call you with what I find out. So, um, you saw the papers this morning I assume…”

  Sam’s stomach took a queasy dip that reminded her she hadn’t eaten or had either of the two diet colas she usually relied upon to jumpstart her day. “No, why?”

  “Destiny Johnson is calling you a baby killer.”

  “Is that so?” Sam growled, the dip in her stomach descending into the ache that dogged her in times of stress. Two doctors had been unable to determine the cause. One had suggested she give up soda, which simply wasn’t an option, so she lived with her stomach’s annoying ability to predict her stress level.

  “Don’t take it to heart, Sam. Everyone knows that if she’d been any kind of mother, her kid wouldn’t have been hanging out in a crack house in the first place.”

  “But she has the nerve to call me the baby killer.” Of all the things she could’ve said, that hurt more than anything.

  “I know. She made some pretty serious threats about what she’d do if you testify against her deadbeat husband next week. I’m sure you’ll be hearing from the brass about it.”

  “That’s great.” She rubbed her belly in an effort to find some relief. “Just what I need right now.”

  “Sorry. You know we’re all standing behind you. It was a clean shoot.”

  “Thanks, Gonzo.” Her throat tightened with emotion she couldn’t afford to let in just then. Clearing it away, she said, “Call me if you find anything useful at the cabin. I did a surface run last night, but I was operating on fumes. I could’ve missed something.”

  “Leave it to me. I’ll let you know when we finish.”

  She gave him the O’Connors’s phone number so he could get a key to the cabin from them and signed off. Weaving her way through traffic, she made it to Capitol Hill with minutes to spare and took off running for the Hart Senate Office Building.

  Freddie was pacing in the hallway outside Senator Stenhouse’s office suite. “There you are! I was just about to call you.” His astute eyes took in her day-old suit and landed on her face.

  “I worked all night, I haven’t been home to change yet, and yes, I’ve heard about Destiny Johnson,” she snapped. “So whatever you’re going to say, don’t bother.”

  “As usual, a night without sleep has done wonders for your disposition.”

  “Buzz off, Freddie. I’m truly not in the mood to go ten round