by Tracy March
She climbed the stairs, and the gun in her pocket grazed her thigh. The idea that she—a candidate for a Presidential Commission—had held a senator at gunpoint was almost too ridiculous to comprehend. Her life had become surreal. She sat on the bed, wrung out from adrenaline and emotional extremes. A thundering headache was settling in at her temples.
Jessie thought about Michael—the intensity of being with him, their undeniable chemistry, and what he had said. She was relieved to know that someone else was suspicious about Sam’s murder. Someone like Michael with a network of resources, as he had said. She wasn’t alone.
Feeling calmer, she took the gun from her pocket and slipped it beneath her pillow, then looked in her purse for an Advil but found none. She checked the cabinets in the bathroom and came up empty.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” She might have a migraine coming on. It had been over a year since she’d had one, so she’d stopped carrying the prescription pills she took to prevent them. Maybe the stress had triggered one.
Her head throbbed as she bowed it over the sink and splashed cold water on her face. She thought about going to a twenty-four-hour drugstore for whatever she could get over the counter. Blotting her face on the hand towel, she caught her reflection in the mirror, and that only made her feel worse. Doubly so, because Sam had two mirrors—one in a large black frame that hung above the vanity, and a smaller, frameless one on the adjacent wall.
As Jessie looked away, the edges of the smaller mirror caught her eye. Almost flush with the wall, it hung like a door, not a picture. She tugged at its bottom edge, but nothing moved. With a harder pull, the mirror swung away from the wall, revealing a metal medicine cabinet with glass shelves. She scanned the prescription and over-the-counter drugs on the shelves, her gaze settling on a bottle of Excedrin.
“Yes.”
She shook two caplets from the bottle with a clatter, popped them in her mouth, and washed them down with water.
The next morning, Jessie slept later than she’d wanted to. She had to hurry to get ready to go to the Rite Aid Pharmacy several blocks up on Constitution Avenue because she was anxious to get there right when it opened. After quickly pulling her hair up, she put on her cloche hat, her scarf, and her coat, and dashed outside into the single-digit cold.
She’d hoped to beat the Saturday morning crowd in the pharmacy, but when she got there, people were already waiting. They coughed, blew their noses, and blotted their eyes. At the end of the line, a young mother held a pink-cheeked, sleeping toddler. Jessie got in line behind them.
The line moved slowly. Fifteen minutes later, the young mother in front of Jessie stepped away from the counter.
“Help you?” the petite clerk asked Jessie. Her Rite Aid smock hung off her shoulders.
“I need a copy of my prescription drug records covering the last two years,” Jessie said.
“You have a photo ID and an insurance card?”
Jessie opened her wallet and handed the woman what she’d asked for.
The clerk glanced at the bandages crisscrossing Jessie’s palm. She checked the insurance card and the driver’s license, squinting at the picture, then looking at Jessie.
“Thank you, Ms. Croft,” she said.
“Could you move it along up there?” called a man from the back of the line.
The clerk shook her head. “I’ll have to ask the manager if we can do this. It usually only takes a few minutes, but we’re already backed up this morning.” She stepped away from the counter and went behind a glass partition to talk to a man with thinning gray hair. As unlikely as it was, Jessie hoped the manager wouldn’t recognize her. That made things uncomfortable at the best of times.
The clerk pointed at Jessie, then showed the manager the license and insurance card. He put on his reading glasses and had a closer look.
Jessie swallowed hard and kept her gaze trained downward.
Accompanied by the clerk, the manager came to the counter and said to Jessie, “We’ve got a full workload trying to fill prescriptions.” He gestured toward the line of people. “But if you’ll wait a few minutes, I’ll run your report for you.” He glanced at the license, his eyes narrowing. “Ms. Croft.”
Jessie gave him a half smile. “Thank you.”
She stepped away from the counter to wait, hoping the manager wouldn’t figure out that he was running a report for a dead girl.
Jessie sat at a table in Starbucks with Sam’s prescription drug records spread on the table in front of her. After she’d opened the medicine cabinet last night, several prescription bottles had caught her attention. Whoever had cleared out Sam’s condo might not have realized that the mirror hid a medicine cabinet—just as she hadn’t—and had left the prescriptions behind.
The first bottle Jessie had picked up rattled with fexofenadine tablets. Allergy medication, filled two weeks ago. The second, dispensed the same day, was a pack of birth control pills with nine missing from the twenty-eight-day dosing cycle. She’d taken the last bottle from the top shelf and flattened its peeling label. Doxycycline, a broad-spectrum antibiotic.
Her curiosity had been piqued when she noticed that the date on the prescription matched the date on one of the pictures she’d received—the last photo of Sam leaving Ian’s practice.
Jessie had focused on the label. Prescribing physician: Ian Alden, MD.
Ian could have prescribed Sam the antibiotic for a variety of conditions. But the coinciding dates of the prescription and the picture had made Jessie wonder why Sam had needed the drug and why Ian had been the one who prescribed it, instead of the doctor who’d prescribed the other medicines.
As Jessie had suspected, she’d found no health insurance claims or medication records in Sam’s files, so she planned to ask Ian about Sam’s prescription and the pictures of her at his office. She wondered if she’d get a straight answer from him.
Fortunately, Jessie had found Sam’s ID and her insurance card, and those had allowed her to get the report she now studied as she drank her tea. She needed more than a theory before she could risk confronting Ian. Now she had the facts.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Michael hadn’t slept after he’d left Jessie and couldn’t have if he’d tried. He had gone over their conversation, questioning whether she’d believed what he said, and whether he’d gained any of her trust. Even before he’d gotten the signal that the door to Sam’s condo had been opened, he’d been fighting insomnia.
He wanted to stay ahead of Jessie, to find out who was sending her pictures and driving her actions. But his 24/7 surveillance of her made it difficult to chase down clues. The only free time he had was when she slept, which was when he tried to rest. But his dreams reeled with scenarios of Sam’s murder, the identity of the killer ever-changing. Then Sam morphed into Jessie. She struggled against a faceless invader as Michael watched from the sidelines, powerless.
He felt the same way every time he saw her—unable to guide her, yet responsible for her safety. As she built her roster of murder suspects, the pressure to protect her multiplied. And the closer she came to revealing the killer, the more desperate that person would become. Desperate enough to murder again to keep Jessie quiet, just as Nina had said.
Damn Croft. If it weren’t for his contract, Michael could be totally honest with Jessie. They’d find Sam’s killer together. But Croft had crafted a contract that prevented it. Michael wondered if it was by coincidence or design that the judge wanted to keep him and Jessie apart. Croft had caged Michael with his contract, but Michael was rattling the bars.
Driven by more than the job, he’d been repulsed when he heard Talmont come on to Jessie. The idea of the sleazy senator alone with her—seeing her sexy and vulnerable, as Michael had later—tied him in a furious knot. He’d been disgusted over Talmont’s relationship with Sam, but never as defensive and protective of Sam as he had become with Jessie.
Already.
And when he’d been in the foyer with her last night, he
’d sensed that she wanted him to kiss her. That idea alone made it impossible for him to emotionally distance himself from her.
He should’ve learned his lesson with his assignment to Sam, cut his losses, and given his father’s death the grief it demanded. But now there was Jessie, and she’d started to complicate things. Sam had asked for all the trouble that came her way, but Jessie had been trying to do the right thing.
Until today.
Michael had lagged behind her after she left Rite Aid. He’d been freezing, but was thankful it was winter and easier to hide beneath a hooded coat. Now that Jessie could recognize him, he had to be extra cautious.
She’d crossed Connecticut Avenue and gone into Starbucks with Sam’s drug records in her purse. He had figured out Jessie’s ruse when he’d heard the pharmacy clerk call her by Sam’s name when she’d given Jessie the report. Now Michael couldn’t shake the feeling that he might have misjudged Jessie. He hadn’t expected her to brazenly break the law, even to find Sam’s killer. Maybe she was like Sam, and a little like her father. Maybe deceit pulsed through the Croft bloodline.
But he hadn’t seen it in Jessie’s eyes. Maybe he wasn’t the most objective judge, but he hadn’t lost all of his critical instincts.
She had to know she would never get appointed to a Presidential Commission with a rap sheet. He considered the risk she’d taken with her future, and how much it must mean to her to avenge Sam’s death. He had to give her credit for that.
Michael had followed Jessie’s path, avoiding icy patches on the sidewalk, and crossed Connecticut Avenue. Her voice had come through his Bluetooth clearly as she ordered a venti lowfat chai something. Black coffee suited him, so he’d never learned the lingo. He watched from outside as she sat at a table next to the window and focused on Sam’s report. She had to believe she was on to something with Sam’s prescription history, or she wouldn’t have taken such a chance to get it.
Michael was curious, too.
He glanced at his watch: 8:52 a.m. He owed Croft a call before nine. He ducked into the lobby of the office building across R Street, where he could thaw out, make his call, and still watch Jessie.
Croft answered after the first ring. “Croft.”
“Reporting in,” Michael said.
“Make it quick.”
Gladly. “Senator Talmont paid Jessica a visit around one o’clock this morning,” Michael said. “Used his key to get in. He scared the hell out of her.”
“What did he want?”
“Apparently the same thing he used to get from Sam.”
“Watch yourself, Michael.”
Michael continued to be amazed at Croft’s audacity. His so-called friend had carried on a long-term extramarital affair with his twenty-six-year-old daughter. Sam’s ashes hadn’t settled in the urn before the guy had come on to Jessie. And Croft wanted Michael to watch himself?
“Tell me what happened,” Croft said.
“Evidently the senator had a few drinks and started pining for Sam. He let himself into her place, found Jessica there, and came on to her. I guess he decided a romp with her would help him forget all about Sam.”
“And?”
“What do you mean, and? Do you really think Jessie would do something like that?”
“What did you call her?” Croft asked, his words stretched out.
Heat rose in Michael’s face. “Sir?”
“You called her Jessie, not Jessica. Reread your contract. You’re sounding too familiar with her.”
“She introduces herself that way.”
“Well, she hasn’t introduced herself to you, unless there’s something you haven’t told me, so stick with her given name. And I’d prefer the facts instead of your altruistic commentary. I’m the judge, not you.”
Michael’s blood simmered. “Jessica pulled a gun on Talmont, took his key, and kicked him out.”
“She has a gun?”
“Yes.”
“Does she carry it?”
“Yes,” Michael said.
Croft cleared his throat. “What happened after Tom left?”
Talmont had regularly screwed Sam, tried to bed Jessie, and Croft still called him Tom.
Michael hesitated. He’d never withheld information about his interactions with Sam. That had been easy, because they’d been casual, few, and mostly meaningless. His feelings for her had been protective, not intimate.
After I left her… “She went back to bed,” Michael said, “and went quiet until this morning.” He waited, hoping Croft hadn’t detected his lie of omission. The guy sifted through lies in his courtroom all day long. No doubt his radar was sensitive.
“What’s keeping her busy today?” Croft asked.
Impersonating Sam. Illegally obtaining her medical records.
“She’s going through Sam’s files.”
“What else have you got?”
“That’s it for now.”
Croft was silent for so long that Michael wondered if the call had dropped. “Are you still there?”
“Keep your distance, Michael,” Croft said, then clicked off the line.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Over the weekend, Jessie packed Sam’s belongings and sorted through her files, looking for anything significant. She couldn’t get Michael Gillette off her mind, and she wanted to see him again. Besides, she figured it would be a good idea for him to do another security sweep of the condo. If Sam had been paranoid enough to have him go over the place twice, she should take the same precaution.
On Sunday, she found his number on the business card he’d given her, and she called him.
“Hello.” His voice sent a flutter of excitement through her.
“Hi, Michael. It’s Jessica Croft.”
“This must be my lucky day,” he said.
Jessie smiled. “Mine, too. I remember you telling me that Sam hired you to check out her condo for surveillance equipment. I’m thinking it’d be a good idea for you to do the same for me, if you’d be willing.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment and Jessie began to regret she’d called.
“Sure,” he said finally. “When did you have in mind?”
Relieved, she said, “How about tomorrow night? Eight o’clock?”
“I’ll see you then.”
She wanted to talk longer, but he seemed preoccupied, so she told him good-bye.
Satisfied that she would see him tomorrow night, she settled on the couch and again studied Sam’s prescription drug report and the photos she’d received. She tried to ignore her gnawing guilt over breaking the law to get Sam’s records, but there’d been no other way to get the information she needed.
She had a good idea why Sam had frequented Ian’s practice during the timeframe the pictures were taken. But she needed confirmation, which she intended to get from Ian himself, first thing in the morning. Confirmation, and answers. She remembered Helena’s reaction when she’d threatened to go to Ian and ask him about the first two pictures she’d received.
No, don’t do that.
Maybe Ian would lead her to Sam’s killer. Or, maybe it was him.
After a light breakfast on Monday morning, Jessie walked up R Street until she reached 21st, then down to Massachusetts Avenue to Ian’s practice in the refined Embassy Row neighborhood. The wind pushed an endless cover of low clouds across the sky and whipped her coat around her legs.
Ian had set up his practice in an historic red-brick and stone building, complete with a Rapunzel turret and a Juliet balcony. An immense, bare-branched tree stood out front, giving the place a feeling of fortitude.
Jessie climbed the slick brick steps to the entrance, the cuts on her hand stinging with each grip of the wrought-iron handrail. Apprehension tightened her chest, even though she was confident about her theory.
The lobby was an open space with sisal rugs covering hardwood floors, and a hint of lemongrass in the air. Patients waited, alone and in couples, seated on ivory-colored couches surrounding a stacke
d-rock fountain.
Jessie walked past the waiting area to the check-in window. The receptionist, a pleasant-looking, nicely dressed older woman, slid the privacy glass aside. “May I help you?”
“I’m Jessica Croft, here to see Dr. Alden, please.”
She smiled softly. “You’re Sam’s sister.”
Jessie nodded.
“I was shocked when I heard the news. It’s horrible. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you,” Jessie said, feeling a pang of guilt. She wasn’t sure she deserved anyone’s sympathy for her loss. She had let Sam go long before she died.
The woman was awkwardly silent for a moment. Squinting at her computer screen, she reached for the glasses that hung from a gold chain around her neck and put them on. “Has he blocked out some time for—”
Ian appeared in the doorway next to the receptionist. “Barbara, please schedule a follow-up appointment for Mr. and Mrs.—” He caught sight of Jessie and missed a beat. “Kendall.”
“Yes, sir. Will do. But Jessica Croft is here. Sam’s sister.”
Ian gave her a tolerant smile. “Hello, Dr. Croft. What can I do for you?”
“I have some questions about Sam,” Jessie said.
“I’d be happy to answer them, but I’ve got a full patient load, and I’m running behind.” He hefted the thick chart in his hand. “Sorry I can’t help you today.” He looked at the receptionist. “Barbara, please see if you can work Dr. Croft into my schedule tomorrow.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Jessie said, “if I can just talk to your nurse, or someone who worked with Sam when she was under your care.”
His eyes flashed with a glint of defensiveness. He handed the chart to the receptionist and glanced at her computer screen. “I think I can spare a couple of minutes, Barbara. Let me speak with Dr. Croft.” He leveled his gaze on Jessie and gestured toward the door that separated the lobby from the rest of the office. “Come on back.”