Girl Three (30 page)

“Sure. I understand.”

“I’ve finished going through Sam’s belongings,” Jessie said. “I’ve found something that looks like it might be yours, and something else you might like to have.”

More dead air. Jessie was waiting him out.

“Okay.”

“Would you like to come by and pick them up?”

Michael started to sweat, despite the draft in the apartment. He rolled the cold beer bottle between his palms.

“Let me check my schedule,” Talmont said. “I’ll get back to you.”

“I’m leaving in the morning, weather permitting. Could you, um, could you come over tonight?” Jessie’s invitation came out locked and loaded, and Michael’s pulse took off in a full-out sprint.

Say no, you slimy bastard. Say no.

“I don’t know, Ryan,” Talmont said, as if he were speaking to Croft.

Michael had no doubt that Jessie was quick enough to catch the clue. The woman in the background was probably Talmont’s wife.

“With the weather like this,” he said, “it would be tough.”

“It would mean a lot to Sam,” Jessie said. “And to me.”

“All right, buddy.” Talmont made it sound as if he’d given in under duress. “Give me an hour. Lorna’s not going to be happy.”

“I’ll see you then.”

They both clicked off the line.

Michael closed his eyes and dreaded what was coming.

Chapter Forty-Four

“To Sam.” Jessie steadied her hand and tipped her wine glass against Talmont’s.

He bowed his head and touched his glass to hers. “To Sam.”

They stood in the kitchen, Jessie sipping her wine, then swallowing hard. The merlot stung its way to her stomach. She took a deep breath and reminded herself to stay in the moment—no second-guessing or forward-thinking.

Talmont cocked his head, caution behind his curious eyes. “You okay?”

She glanced down at the clothes she’d chosen. Snug jeans and a filmy black wrap sweater with a side tie—usually worn with a camisole, but not tonight. Beneath it, a lacy, peach-colored bra blended with her winter-pale skin. Casual enough, but sexy, too.

“I’m just a little nervous.” She looked up at him. “And a little embarrassed about what happened when you were here before. I can’t believe I pulled a gun on you.”

He watched her with a measuring gaze and she gave him a tight-lipped half smile. “I’m not in the habit of making enemies.”

“Nor am I.” He appeared to rethink this. “At least among the Crofts.”

All she needed was a reminder of Talmont’s ties to her father. She took a sip of wine, and gestured toward the foyer and the steps. “Come on upstairs, and I’ll show you what I found.”

He raised his eyebrows, almost imperceptibly, but she didn’t wait for more of a reaction. She was sure she wouldn’t get one. There was no sign of the drunk, emotional senator she’d held at gunpoint. Tonight Talmont was in control.

Jessie grabbed the bottle of wine and led him to the stairs. With him behind her, she took each step with an intentional sway of her hips.

One of the bedside lamps lit Sam’s room with filtered light. She set the wine bottle on the bureau next to Sam’s display of framed photos. One was a five-by-seven close-up of Sam at the beach, her blond hair caught on the breeze. Jessie had initially packed away the pictures, but she’d put them back out before Talmont arrived.

He followed her to the bureau. As if on cue, he picked up the five-by-seven of Sam and studied it with grief in his eyes.

Jessie assessed him as he focused on the picture. Her first impressions held—ex-military, dark-haired, and almost handsome. A charade of confidence that might’ve made her feel sorry for him, if he hadn’t been a killer.

He was in fighting shape at forty-five. The pictures Philippe had shown her were a couple of years old, but she’d seen him naked, with Sam.

At least she knew what she was getting into.

Nausea surged in her stomach, followed by the chill of clammy sweat. She swallowed against it, deciding to forego the wine.

“I miss her.” Talmont’s voice had turned husky. “God, I miss her.” He brushed his fingertips on the glass, Sam’s face beneath them.

Jessie believed he hadn’t meant to kill Sam, that it had been a tragic accident. But then he’d murdered Ian and shifted the blame. She glanced toward the nightstand where her loaded gun was waiting in the drawer.

“I miss her, too,” Jessie whispered, even though he’d probably forgotten she was there.
And I’m doing this for her.

Jessie opened the top drawer of the bureau, empty except for a small, glossy black box. She took it out and closed the drawer. Talmont set the picture on the bureau and narrowed his eyes at the box.

She opened the lid. Against black velvet lay a single platinum cufflink, shaped like a diamond, and beveled around the edges with the letter
T
in the center engraved in double-line Gothic. She handed the box to him. “You have a match for this?”

Talmont looked at the cufflink and bobbed his head in a stunned nod. He stepped over to the bed and sat on the edge. His jaw clenched and he blinked several times. “She gave these to me.” He picked up the cufflink and had a closer look. “In the beginning. As a peace offering.”

“A peace offering?” Jessie wanted to keep him talking, enticing him with emotion and memories.

“We got off to a…confrontational start. I offered her a job, she accepted, and gave her notice to Helena. But then she…she decided to go back to work at the lobbying firm.”

Jessie didn’t want him to know that she could fill in the blanks of his revisionist history. He’d left out the extortion scheme that had managed to attract him to Sam more than repulse him. But it was better for him to think she had no idea.

In his drunken rambling, he’d accused Jessie of not being there for Sam and claimed that Sam had never said anything about her. As much as his words had hurt at the time, they helped set the scene for her now.

“How is it that she ended up with one cufflink and you with the other?” Jessie walked over and sat next to him. Close enough to be accessible, yet far enough away not to be obvious. She tried to keep her hands from trembling by fussing with the sweater’s flimsy tie that knotted at her hipbone.

“I wore them all the time. They were unusual. And beautiful.” He turned the cufflink and it glinted in the light. “They reminded me of her. About six months ago, I was here one night. We’d had a couple of drinks, and I…”

Jessie gave him an encouraging look.

“I passed out.”

From a couple of drinks?
Jessie figured he’d left out the fact that he’d taken party drugs, just like he’d left out the extortion scheme in his last recollection. She smiled wanly, as if she understood.

“Sam took one of the cufflinks,” he said. “At first I thought I’d lost it, but then I asked her about it.”

Jessie crossed her legs and angled her body toward him. “What did she say?”

“She said those cufflinks were a pair, just like us. But that we weren’t together, really. She said she’d give the other one back when I left Lorna and it was just the two of us.” He shook his head slowly. “Sam was young and melodramatic. She knew I wouldn’t leave Lorna just to get back my cufflink, but the symbolism meant something to her.”

“Were you ever planning to leave Lorna?”

He traced his index finger down the faint white scar that trailed from his temple to his cheekbone. “I never would’ve won another election if I had left Lorna for Sam.”

“I could see that,” Jessie lied. Venom snaked through her veins. She wondered if Sam had given up on her symbolic game and threatened more serious ultimatums before she died. Maybe Jessie had given Talmont too much credit, thinking it had been an accident when he killed Sam.

His eyes met hers, and she held his gaze. She saw a monster, but she would never let on.

“You’re like her, in some ways,” he said.

The ends of her sweater’s tie draped on the duvet. He reached over and ran his hand along the fabric, then twisted it in his fingers.

“How so?” she asked.

He fondled the sweater tie. “You seem strong-minded but reasonable, willing to apologize for your mistakes.” He reached over and smoothed her hair. “And you’re drop-dead gorgeous.”

Jessie willed herself not to flinch. “Not insensitive and heartless, like my father said?”

“I’ll need to find out a little more about you before I come to a decision on that.” His attention was back on the sweater tie. He pulled at one end until the tie loosened and her sweater draped open. “But it looks like I can be swayed.”

Her stomach clenched as his fingers skimmed over the lacy edge of her bra. She drew a quick breath that he probably mistook for desire. She gave him a demure look. “Will you excuse me for a moment while I change clothes?”

“Of course,” he said.

She handed him his wine and headed into the bathroom, grabbing her purse from the bureau as she passed.

I can’t do this.

Jessie could only think of one other way to get what she needed to prove that Talmont had murdered Sam. She pulled out her phone and texted Michael.

Are you still tailing Talmont? If so, you know where he is. How fast can you get here? Ring the doorbell until I answer.

She put the phone on vibrate and ran water into the sink to buy time. The phone soon buzzed with a text from Michael.

I’ll be there in less than two minutes.

Jessie closed her eyes, relieved. After a moment, she came out of the bathroom.

“You still have your clothes on,” Talmont said.

She stood in front of him, looking coy. “I thought it might be nice if you undressed me yourself.”

He slugged down the rest of his wine, set his glass on the bedside table, and reached for the button of her jeans.

As if on cue, the doorbell rang.

Chapter Forty-Five

Jessie lied and told Talmont that her friend had been involved in a car accident in the snow. “I’m so sorry, but I have to go,” she said to him after she returned from downstairs, where Michael had stood at the gate, stone-faced. “They’ve taken her to GW Medical Center. Evidently the accident was pretty bad.” She paused, shook her head, and gave him a pained look. “I hope she’ll be okay. Her brother’s waiting outside to take me there.” Jessie rushed around Sam’s bedroom, putting on a fleece pullover and gathering her hair into a messy ponytail. “They tried to call me, but I’d turned off my phone so we could have some privacy.” She quickly took off her fashionable shoes and put on snow boots.

Talmont watched, looking less than pleased about the turn of events.

Jessie grabbed her coat. “Come downstairs with me. You can wait in the foyer until we leave.”

Talmont put the cufflink box in his pocket, followed her downstairs, and put on his coat. She led him out into the foyer and locked the door. “Thank you for coming, really. I’m glad you have your cufflink back.” She dashed out the door, leaving Talmont behind.

Jessie rushed through the snow to the street where Michael sat waiting, double-parked, in his Acura—lights on and running. She got into the SUV too fast, grabbed her shoulder, and winced. “Go. Let’s circle around and make sure he leaves.”

Michael did as she asked, looking tense and closed-off. “Did he hurt you?”

“No. The shoulder thing is from last night.”

“But he came back?” Michael asked.

“Yes…I invited him.” Jessie zipped up her fleece pullover and buttoned her coat. She got chills just thinking about what she’d almost done.

“You what?”

“I know. I shouldn’t have. But I found something in Sam’s stuff that belonged to him. I thought she’d want him to have it back.” Jessie broke out in a nervous sweat despite the cold. She stared at the snowflakes glistening as they fell past the streetlights.

They drove around the block and Michael pulled into the parking spot where Talmont’s car had been parked.

“Thank you for coming,” she said.

Michael gazed at her flatly.

She knew she had lost him just as surely as he’d lost her. Even so, they both wanted to expose Sam’s killer. At least they still had that in common.

When she couldn’t stand the quiet any longer, she said, “I, um…I have confidential information about the blood type of Sam’s murderer.”

He lowered his eyebrows. “Go on.”

“Ian was not a match,” she said quietly.

Michael nodded slowly.

“So that leaves Talmont.” She turned in her seat and faced him. “I have a plan that will prove he murdered Sam.”

“It would’ve been nice if you’d thought of that a while ago.”

Jessie hated his cutting tone and the distance that had grown between them so quickly. “I need to find out Talmont’s blood type.”

“What about DNA? All you had to do was offer him a drink or something and you’d have what you need.”

“I got that. But I don’t have time to wait for a DNA test. No one but me, and possibly you, sees this case as anything but closed.”

He sat silently, tapping his fingers on the top of the console.

“I remembered something you told me when we met.” She glanced at him from beneath lowered lids, remembering the heady feeling of instant connection between them. He looked wistful for a moment, as if he might be recalling the same thing.

“You mentioned you did security work for Ian,” she said. “What kind of work, exactly?”

Michael shrugged. “IT security at his practice, alarm systems, that kind of thing. It was a while back. He mentioned recently that he might need an upgrade.”

Jessie rubbed her forehead. The little bit of wine she’d drunk had given her a headache.

She inhaled deeply and caught the fiery scent of his cologne. “I need you to help me break into Ian’s lab.” Her words were little more than a whisper. “Blood type can be determined from semen. I want to test the sample that Sam got from Talmont and gave to Ian to store.”

Michael shook his head.

Jessie held up her hand, palm out. “Before you say anything, remember that you suspect Talmont, too. I don’t know the particulars of what you’re working on, but if someone’s trying to build a case against him, I’d imagine they’d be good with a murder rap.”