After a while, their collective nightmare had been replaced by the next horror story in the news. And the public had moved on. Tomi could never figure out what had hurt more—the country’s captive attention—or their collective dismissal.
After the shower, Tomi quickly got dressed. She placed some food down for Rocky, caught a few more seconds of the frantic and chaotic reporting on all the cable news, and raced out of the door. In the car, she listened to the minute-by-minute updates on the National Public Radio station.
Everyone seemed to be on the same page: the airport bombing had indeed been a terrorist attack by Muslim extremists. Numerous groups around the world had taken credit and praised the men who’d carried out the destruction.
Tomi was sickened by what this meant for the country again. More days than not, America sat on the razor’s edge of another civil war. This attack would undoubtedly make things worse.
Tomi arrived at the Washington Post without any memory of actually driving there. “Shit. I forgot my ID badge,” she swore when she got to security.
Roosevelt, the guard, rolled his eyes with a chuckle but waved her through. “I swear, if your head wasn’t attached.”
“I know. Thanks.” Tomi patted his shoulder and then hustled by.
She found Jayson at her desk, but everyone’s eyeballs were glued to CNN’s coverage of the TERROR IN WASHINGTON, as it had been dubbed, on their computer screens.
“Did I miss anything?” she asked.
“Just everything,” Jayson responded, shrugging. “The president scheduled a press conference for two o’clock. I guess that means that they’re pretty sure that a second attack isn’t imminent.”
She tapped him on the shoulder, evicting him from her chair. “Thank God for that.”
“Well, I say anything is still possible,” he said, dropping his feet from the desk and standing. “Either way, the president is screwed. This when he’s already staring down the barrel of an impeachment? Not good.” Jayson shook his head. “The Republicans are going to roast him for sure.”
Tomi snickered. “Not surprised. Republicans impeaching Democrats is a rite of passage.” She planted her face in front of her computer screen.
The chaos on the cable news station had died down, and there appeared to be more order. But Tomi remained fascinated by the heart-wrenching personal stories of the survivors. Most described a morning of tranquility or excitement for whatever trip they were about to embark on—when out of nowhere there was a loud explosion and dead bodies lying everywhere. Then there were already stories of the missing and the dead.
A pair of retirees who were leaving for their first vacation in years, planned by their adult children—gone.
The children who were leaving on their first international trip abroad away from their parents—gone.
Newlyweds heading out on their honeymoon—gone.
More than once, Tomi reached for a Kleenex from a box on her desk. Then a thought occurred to her. “Has the House speaker or the Senate majority leader announced a press conference to counter the president?” She minimized the CNN site and pulled up another window to check her email.
Jayson simply looked down at his smartphone. “I got nothing.”
“Surely there’s going to be one.” Tomi picked up her phone and dialed the speaker’s press office. “Maybe we should get down there and be on standby,” she said while waiting for the line to connect.
“I’m down if you are,” Jayson said.
Her call was finally picked up on the fourth ring, but she was both surprised and disappointed that nothing had been scheduled thus far by the president’s loyal opposition. When she pressed for information, her call was disconnected.
“Hello?” Tomi pulled the head unit away from her ear and stared at it.
“What?” Jayson asked.
Tomi hung up the phone. “How rude.”
“Hung up on you again?” He snickered. “I don’t know how much longer you’re going to make it in this business with such horrible people skills.”
Tomi popped him on the arm. “Hey! Not funny!”
“Ow!” Jayson whined, stepping back. “That hurt.”
“I barely touched you,” she said, rolling her eyes and hanging up the phone.
“I promise you that you have no idea how heavy handed you are.”
“Riiiight. It’s more likely that you don’t know how much of a big baby you are.”
Editor Martin Bailey materialized out of thin air. “So what are we working on?”
Tomi and Jayson snapped to attention.
“We just placed a called to the new House speaker’s office to see if there is a presser scheduled for this afternoon,” Tomi informed him, grateful to have something to report.
“And?”
“And—nothing so far,” she added.
Jayson jumped in to have something to contribute to the conversation. “We were thinking about just heading over there for a wait-and-see.”
“Just thinking?” Bailey shifted a toothpick to the corner of his mouth. “Are you guys waiting for me to chip in for cab fare or something?”
Tomi hopped to her feet. “We’re going. He meant that we were just going.”
“Uh-huh. How is that piece on the new speaker that you were working on?” Bailey asked.
“It’s coming along,” she hedged. “Just looking into confirming a few details.”
“Great. I look forward to reading it,” Bailey said. “Don’t forget your ID badge if you’re going to the Capitol.”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
Grunting, Bailey moved on to terrify the next journalist crunching a deadline.
“He’s in a good mood,” Jayson deadpanned while still rubbing his arm.
“Come on. I have to swing back by my place for my ID.”
“Again?” Jayson asked, stopping at the next cubicle to pick up his camera bag. “What’s with you and that damn badge?”
“Keep talking and you’ll get another punch.”
At the threat, Jayson held his arm and fell back a few steps.
“I knew that would shut you up.” Tomi laughed as they marched past the security desk. “Bye, Rosie.”
“Leaving so soon?” Roosevelt asked, tipping his hat.
“Well, the world is going to hell in a handbasket and somebody has to write about it,” she answered with her usual quip.
Roosevelt laughed as always.
“Since you have to run by your crib,” Jayson said, “how about I just meet you down there?” Jayson asked.
Tomi laughed. “You’re still afraid to get in the car with me?”
“Damn right,” Jayson laughed. “You’re a horrible driver. I don’t know who was crazy enough to give you a license.”
“Since that hurt my feelings, I’m going to forget you said that.” Tomi waved him off. “See you down at the Capitol.”
“You got it.”
They parted ways in the parking deck.
Tomi climbed into her vehicle, listened to a few seconds of the Terror in Washington coverage on the radio before instructing the car’s phone to call Castillo.
After a few rings, Castillo picked up. “I was just thinking about you.”
“Thinking about calling me with some news, I hope.”
“Oh. I definitely got some news, all right.”
Tomi perked up. “Sounds promising.”
“We need to meet.”
“What? Now?” Tomi started the car. “I have a busy load this morning. I have to get down to the Capitol to see if our guy gives a counter press conference on the airport bombing.”
“Our guy?” Castillo asked. “You’re not referring to Reynolds, are you?”
Tomi frowned. “Of course I am. Who else would I be talking about? He has left the hotel, hasn’t he? I can’t imagine that he’d still be there with all this madness going on.”
Silence.
“Hello? Castillo, are you still there?”
“Well . . . yes, Re
ynolds has definitely left the hotel—but he won’t be holding any press conferences.”
“What do you mean? Why not?” Tomi asked, turning out of the parking deck and onto the main road.
“What I mean is . . . he’s dead.”
37
“Is it done?” Madam Nevaeh snapped across the bedroom toward her lover.
A growling Zeke disconnected the call on his cell phone, snatched back the red silk sheets, and sat up.
Nevaeh shook her head, folded one arm across her body, and pulled a deep drag from her cigarette in a vain attempt to calm down.
“She got away,” Zeke spat, hefting himself out of the four-poster bed to strut naked to the adjoining bathroom.
Nevaeh blew out a long stream of smoke while her angry gaze blazed into the back of his head. “That’s it? She just fucking got away? How the fuck did that happen? Aren’t your guys supposed to be professionals?”
Zeke said nothing as he stormed toward the shower and turned it on. Hot water only. Full blast. Within seconds, steam filled the large bathroom.
His silence got under Nevaeh’s skin. She followed him to the bathroom in her red, furry, kitty-heeled house shoes. “This really isn’t the time to be giving me the silent treatment,” she said, her voice echoing off the bathroom’s natural acoustics.
“Calm down, Tanya. There’s no reason for you to get hysterical,” Zeke said without sparing her a glance.
“Calm down?” she repeated incredulously. “That Amazonian bitch could cost us everything if the cops get to her before we do.”
“It’s not going to happen,” he assured her casually.
Nevaeh’s blood simmered. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I have eyes and ears in every corner of this rat-hole city. She’s not going to get far.”
Nevaeh wanted to believe him, wished that she could believe him, but she’d learned life’s number-one lesson a long time ago and that was to depend only on herself in this life. She took another drag off of her cigarette while alternate plans circled in her head. “I should have never let you convince me to bring her on,” she mumbled in regret.
Zeke’s keen ears heard her from the shower’s hard spray. “It didn’t take that much convincing,” he shouted, lathering up in her favorite French soaps. “You know a million-dollar thoroughbred when you see one. You saw how all the men at the masquerade party drooled over her the minute she walked into the room. Every one of them were ready to empty their bank accounts for one night with her.
Unconvinced, Nevaeh took another drag from her cigarette. A long, curving ash dangled from the other end. She sighed and casually walked over to the toilet bowl to flick the ash into the water.
Zeke chuckled from the shower. “Those two idiots have no idea that I’m the one that snatched those bricks from the house. I got my shit, her life savings, and the hottest piece of ass in one swoop.”
“Excuse me?”
Zeke poked his head around the glass door. “The hottest ass next to yours, of course.”
“I fail to see how her murdering our client is profitable. You said that she had a temper, but you never said anything about her being homicidal.”
Zeke considered her words. “You’re right. That was a major oversight.”
Nevaeh rolled her eyes. “You think? What are we going to do when word gets out about Speaker Reynolds being offed by one of our girls? We probably should go ahead and cancel the party next week. The manager at the Hay-Adams is going ape shit with the cops and federal agents crawling all over the place.”
“It won’t get out that we had anything to do with it,” Zeke countered. “Everything will go as planned. I will make sure Ms. Parker is taken care of well before that. Believe that. My men fucked up at her apartment, but I will rectify the problem.”
His assurances were met with another eye roll.
Zeke started singing in the shower while scrubbing his genitals.
Madam Nevaeh hadn’t intended to watch a peep show, but her anger ebbed as she became fascinated and then completely turned on while he stroked himself. It got to him, too, judging by the soft groans emanating from the stall.
“So what’s up?” Zeke asked. “Are you going to stand out there and watch or are you going to get your fine ass in here?”
Madam Nevaeh suppressed her desires and quipped back lazily, “I’m still trying to make up my mind.”
“You better hurry up!”
“How about you hurry up and tell me what our next move is with Abrianna Parker? I’ve worked too hard and too long on my back to let some stripper with homicidal tendencies flush it all down the toilet.” Nevaeh flicked the rest of her cigarette into the toilet bowl and flushed.
Immediately, the hot water pelting from the shower turned icy cold.
“Goddamn it!” Zeke thundered, jumping back and then nearly losing his balance.
Nevaeh’s lips twitched. “Sorry about that.”
“You need to get that damn water heater fixed. Don’t make any damn sense for this shit.” Zeke muttered a few more curses. “Now get your ass in here,” he ordered.
Rolling her eyes, Madam Nevaeh slid off her nightgown, stepped out of her kitten heels, and strolled to the shower’s glass door. She stepped inside just as heat returned to the water.
Zeke’s thick lips sloped into a smirk as his gaze slid over her Coke-bottle figure. Sure, a lot of it had been maintained through a few nips and tucks over the years, but her fifty-eight-year-old body could still give a lot of twenty-somethings a run for their money.
“You promise that you’re going to take care of this?” she asked, gliding her arms around Zeke’s muscular neck.
“My word is bond.”
She smiled, not because of the promise, but because of his hardening cock rising up between her inner thighs. “Good. Now fuck me.”
38
Special Agent Bell nearly fell out of his seat when airport security’s surveillance photos splashed across his computer screen. “Hey! I know that guy!”
His partner, Roland, stood from his chair in the next cubicle and crooked his neck toward Bell’s screen. “Yeah?”
“Don’t you recognize him?” Bell asked, reaching for his phone to call his supervisor. “I swear. I take my eyes off this man for less than twenty-four hours and look what happened.”
“Kahlifa?” Roland waltzed around the cubicle and into his partner’s private space to take a better look. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
Roland shrugged as if he didn’t quite see it.
“Really, man? You really need to get your eyes examined.” Bell’s call went straight to his supervisor’s voice mail so he hung up and took a screenshot.
“There’s nothing wrong with my eyes,” Roland shot back defensively. “It’s just . . .” He shrugged again.
“It’s just what?”
“It’s just that all those Middle Eastern dudes look the same to me, you know?”
Bell sent the pictures to the printer and then cut Roland a look.
“What?”
“You do know how racist that sounds right now?” Bell asked, chuckling. “What if I said that about all black dudes?”
“It wouldn’t bother me—after I punched your teeth in,” Roland said with another roll of his shoulders.
Agent Bell rolled his eyes. “Sometime today, you really need to look up the word hypocrite.”
Roland beamed as Bell walked past him to head to the printer. “C’mon. We need to see the director about this.”
Sighing, Roland fell in line behind his partner. “Are you sure that you aren’t willing yourself to see a resemblance, Javert?”
“Don’t start that shit,” Bell warned. “Besides, I don’t remember you being so in love with him when he said that you looked like crude oil.”
Roland went silent for a few seconds. “Yeah. The dude was an asshole for that.”
“Right.” Bell reached the director’s office but was told
that he and the deputy director were currently briefing the president at the White House. However, Bell was able to talk to Associate Deputy Director Jim Webb, and informed him that he was positive that the man on the surveillance cameras was Kadir Kahlifa. Within a half an hour, Kahlifa’s file was pulled and distributed to a team of agents and to a second team with Homeland Security.
It wasn’t twenty minutes later that they all descended on the Park Flats apartment building in the Seventh District.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Chief Holder said, startling Castillo in her car.
After her initial jump, Castillo smiled back. “You know me. I try to go where all the action is.”
“Yeah. That does seem vaguely familiar,” he said, grinning.
“You look good.”
“So do you, Chief Holder. Congratulations.”
“Thanks. I, uh, wished that you could have come to the swearing-in ceremony.”
She nodded and grappled for an excuse, but came up empty. “You’re right. I should have gone. It’s just . . . hard. You know?”
“Yeah. I get it. Well . . . I miss you,” he confessed.
Castillo closed her eyes. “Don’t.”
Holder backed off. “So I can’t even tell you that I miss you?”
“No,” she said bluntly. “I told you before, I just want a clean break.”
He nodded.
“I—I just think that’s what is best for all involved.”
“All?” he questioned. “It’s just the two of us. Or does what I want even get calculated in this equation?”
“Dennis, why are you doing this?”
“Really? You still don’t fucking know?” he asked, hurt.
At her silence, he nodded. “All right. I’ll drop the personal shit. What are you really doing here? Are you working a case?”
“I am,” she said, sounding relieved at the change of subject.
“For Tomi Lehane?”
She smiled. “I don’t like discussing possible clients.”
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