Collusion

by De'nesha Diamond

  Abrianna cut in, “Because I dove into his car with bullets flying at my head and he’s been helping me ever since.”

  Tomi’s gaze shifted between the two of them while she weighed what to do. She also took the opportunity to note the changes in Abrianna in the past six years. She had gone from pretty to a knockout, but there was a lot of pain radiating in her eyes. Tomi recognized that pain. She saw it every morning in the mirror.

  “I brought you something.” Abrianna reached inside of her jacket and pulled out a thick legal-size manila envelope and handed it over.

  “What’s that?” Tomi asked without accepting it.

  “This is proof that I’ve been set up. I didn’t kill that congressman. I wasn’t the only woman there that night.”

  Dubious, Tomi took the eight-by-fourteen-inch envelope and turned on the small flashlight hooked on her keychain. It wasn’t much, but she could get a good look at what she had.

  Abrianna watched and waited for a reaction.

  Tomi blinked. “Wait. This is . . .” She flipped through the photographs faster. After staring at the one photograph for a full minute, she looked up at Abrianna. “Do you know who this is?”

  “I do now. She’s been all over the news.”

  Tomi looked back down at the clear images of the new chief justice of the Supreme Court and swallowed. “All right. Start talking.”

  12

  Chief Justice Katherine Sanders beamed at the president of her alma mater as she shook his hand on the stage’s podium. The applause from the black-tie crowd made goose bumps march across her body.

  “Thank you, everyone,” she said into the microphone, still smiling. This was it. Her professional dream had finally come true. She’d done everything that she could to make sure it happened. Sanders’s speech began with a joke and then breezed through the stack of index cards faster than she’d intended. She hoped the words didn’t sound as jumbled to the audience as it did inside of her head. “Again, this is an incredible honor. Thank you all so much for coming. I hope I make you proud. Thank you.”

  The audience came to their feet. Sanders’s grin expanded while she reveled in the moment. A face in the crowd made her heart skip and melted the smile off of her face. When she blinked, the face disappeared.

  The school’s president touched Sanders’s forearm. She jumped and then apologized when she saw that he was attempting to escort her off of the stage. She accepted his arm, but stole another look back into the crowd.

  Abrianna locked gazes with the judge.

  Sanders missed the first step off the stage and stumbled on the second, but recovered by the fourth. The crowd gave her an additional round of applause, which reddened her pale face.

  Abrianna smiled and drifted away.

  Paranoid, Sanders returned to her white-linen, guest-of-honor table, still craning her neck and skimming for another glimpse of her worst nightmare.

  “This is for you,” a server stated, slipping her a purple envelope with the name “Kitty” scrawled in calligraphy. Her heart skipped a beat while dessert was being placed on the table. Before she could think to ask the server who’d given him the envelope, she was gone.

  Sanders made another futile scan of the crowd.

  Kadir moved behind Abrianna and whispered, “It looks like Sanders saw a ghost.”

  “Nah. That’s the bitch’s natural coloring,” Abrianna said.

  Ignoring the chatter encircling the table, Sanders worked one of her French tips along the back of the envelope and pulled out a postcard-size photo of her being shown inside Speaker Reynolds’s hotel room.

  Abrianna grinned when Kitty gasped and shoved the photo back into the envelope.

  Tomi said, “Guess that’s my cue.” She maneuvered around Abrianna and Kadir and then through a throng of guests who were making their way toward the dance floor.

  Focused on finding the haunting face in the crowd, Sanders hadn’t noticed her date, Larry, and slammed into him.

  “Whoa. Where are you headed off to?”

  Flustered, Sanders took another look around. “No . . . I . . .”

  “Care to dance?” he asked, offering his arm.

  “No. I . . . I need to go and powder my nose,” she said, fluttering a smile and sidestepping him.

  Larry frowned. “Are you all right? You look . . . off.”

  “I . . . I’ll be right back,” she said and raced off. Bursting through the door of the ladies’ room, Sanders headed straight toward the four-sink vanity and urged her reflection, “Pull it together, girl. You’re seeing things.” She drew several deep breaths before her heartbeat returned to normal. There was no way that prostitute was there. But what about the picture?

  The bathroom door opened, and a woman stepped inside. “Hello, Kitty. Congratulations,” the woman said, beaming as she joined Sanders at the sink. “For your confirmation and your award.”

  Sanders’s gaze raked Tomi up and down before she remembered to smile. “Thank you.”

  “I have to admit that I was surprised to see the president push for your confirmation right on the heels of a terrorist attack and the cold-blooded murder of Speaker Reynolds. Makes one wonder whether the president has his priorities in order.”

  Sanders’s smile thinned.

  “Then again, Speaker Reynolds stood in the way of your confirmation—despite you two being lovers.” Tomi shook her head. “Ouch. That had to hurt.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Sanders growled.

  Tomi’s smile brightened as she offered her hand. “Oh. I’m sorry. Where are manners? Hi. I’m Tomi Lehane. I’m a reporter with the Washington Post.”

  Sanders ignored her offered hand.

  “I’m running a story in tomorrow’s paper about your personal relationship with the deceased speaker and revealing the fact that you were with him at the Hay-Adams the weekend he was killed.”

  Sanders’s eyes narrowed as she held up the purple envelope. “So I take it that I have you to thank for this?”

  “Actually that was a gift from Abrianna Parker, an old acquaintance of mine, who came to me with the most astonishing story about what happened that night at the hotel.”

  Sanders blanched.

  Tomi continued, “It’s a hell of a story. Care to hear it?”

  Swallowing, Sanders squared her shoulders. “That hooker is a wanted murderer. If you’re harboring her—”

  “I assure you that Ms. Parker is prepared to come forward and turn herself in after the article hits the front page.” Tomi smiled. “Now do you care to comment?”

  “I don’t know what the hell that woman told you, but she’s a liar! And she’s a wanted criminal.”

  “Yeah. Criminals tend to have the best stories—and this one is backed up with pictures and video.”

  Sanders’s jaw hardened.

  “I figure that it’s only fair that I get your side on why you never came forward about your being with the speaker that weekend. And how you came to have all that blood splattered over your coat when you left.”

  “Lies.” Sanders slapped the countertop before she jabbed a finger in Tomi’s face. “You do not want to fuck with me, little girl.”

  Tomi raised a brow. “Is that on the record?”

  “Fuck your record—and if you dare print a single word of that nonsense, I will sue you and your liberal-ass paper for every goddamn thing you got.”

  “Now that’s a better quote. Mind if I use that one?”

  “Go to hell!”

  Sanders marched out of the bathroom and through the ballroom to where Larry held court, laughing with other diners assigned to their table.

  “Ah. Here’s the lady of the evening.”

  “We’re leaving,” Sanders snapped and glanced over her shoulder to make sure neither Tomi nor Abrianna was fast on her heels.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  “Grab your things and come on!” She swiped the back of her hand under her nose and spun away from the table.

&n
bsp; Larry scrambled to catch up.

  Judge Sanders ignored Larry’s battery of questions as she stormed out to the valet.

  “So are you not going to tell me why you raced out of a dinner where you’re the guest of honor?”

  “The ticket,” she insisted, stomping her foot impatiently with her hand out.

  Larry retrieved the valet ticket from his breast pocket and held it up.

  Sanders snatched it from his fingers and gave it to the young man at the valet booth.

  “Thank you. It will be just a few minutes,” the kid said before taking off. Once the car was brought to the curb, she and Larry climbed inside and headed home—in silence.

  Judge Sanders’s mind remained in a whirl during the ride, so much so that she hadn’t realized they’d arrived at her place until Larry had climbed out of the car and rushed around to open her door. It was only when the night’s cold air whipped in and frosted her face did she pull herself out of a cloud of worry.

  “How about a nightcap?” Larry asked.

  “How about a rain check?” she suggested instead.

  Larry’s face collapsed in disappointment. “Look. I don’t know what happened tonight, but—”

  “We’ll talk later,” she said, cutting him off and delivering a peck to his cheek. “Good night.”

  He sighed. “Good night.”

  At the door, she rummaged through her clutch in search of her door key and swore when she had to do it a few times before finding it. After jamming it into the lock, she waved goodbye to Larry as he pulled off. Kitty entered the house and punched in her security code on the beeping keypad by the door. Quickly, she peeled out of her coat and headed upstairs to her private office, where she beelined to the phone and dialed a private line at the White House.

  13

  The White House

  “You have ten minutes,” Donald Davidson said, taking the unwanted phone call. “What’s the emergency?”

  Sanders seethed, “The emergency is that the five-foot-ten, black prostitute that the most powerful government in the world seems to be incapable of finding, let alone killing, is now talking to the fucking press.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” Sanders snapped. “And the bitch has pictures.”

  Davidson’s face hardened. “Explain.”

  “A fucking reporter with the Washington Post crashed my award ceremony tonight and asked me for a comment on a story she’s writing for tomorrow’s paper.”

  Davidson’s face blanched. “How in the fuck? What reporter?”

  “Some bitch named Tomi Lehane. She must be some rookie. I’ve never heard of her before.”

  Silence.

  Sanders snapped, “Well? Aren’t you going to say something? Do something?”

  “And what exactly do you think I should do?” Davidson barked.

  “I don’t know, get someone on the phone at the paper. Stop the story!”

  Davidson’s laugh sounded like it burst from a broken tailpipe.

  Sanders’s anger grew. “What the fuck is so funny?”

  “You’ve been in this cesspool of a city long enough to know that that’s not how shit works. The minute anyone picks up the phone, that confirms whatever story they’re writing, and it will drag the administration into the middle of it.”

  “The administration is in the fucking middle,” she clapped back.

  He glanced around himself to make sure that he wasn’t being overheard, too. “Are you making a threat?”

  “I’m at home, trying not to have a heart attack. Something has to be done. This story can’t hit the papers. I will not be hung out to dry on this one, I know that much. If I go down . . .”

  “Watch your mouth. Making threats is not smart.”

  “Neither is fucking me over. Now you fix this shit!”

  * * *

  In a nondescript van with the headlights off, Abrianna, Kadir, and Ghost watched Judge Sanders as she entered her house and then breathed a sigh of relief when her companion drove off. That was one less person they’d have to deal with tonight.

  An upstairs light turned on.

  “How long should we wait?”

  “I don’t know. We’re going to have to play it by ear. We need to know if there is anybody else inside the house first. The last thing we want is more surprises.”

  In the back of the van, Ghost hunched over a weird looking laptop. After tapping a few keys, he said, “She’s on the phone.”

  “How do you know that?” Abrianna asked, angling to see over his shoulder.

  “Because I’m watching her,” he answered.

  “How?”

  Ghost sighed, but Kadir explained, “He hacked into her computer’s webcam.”

  “You can do that?”

  Ghost and Kadir chuckled.

  Kadir added, “We can do anything that the government can. We can take over your computer, phone, smart TV, game console, baby monitor, home security . . . the list is long.”

  “All right. Dumb question. How are you doing it?”

  “If a device is connected to the Internet or radio frequency, it can be hacked.”

  Abrianna shifted uncomfortably. “Now I see why you hate cell phones.”

  Ghost stopped typing and looked up. “Heeey. Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”

  “There’s a home security sign.” Kadir gestured toward the blue octagon placard planted in the front yard.

  “You guys can disable it, right?” she asked.

  “Looks like an ADT sign,” Ghost said, rustling around in the back. “Easy peasy.”

  Abrianna arched a brow. “Love the confidence.”

  “Most home security networks still rely on old wireless communications from the nineties. Each company’s systems may be different, but the hardware is all the same,” Ghost said, fingers flying across the keyboard.

  “Yeah.” Kadir intercepted the conversation. “We simply jam the wireless radio system, which will suppress the alarms to both the residence and the monitoring company.”

  “I hear you talking, but it sounds like gibberish.”

  Ghost grinned. “All you need to know is that we can get you in and out without alerting the authorities.”

  Abrianna smiled. “Perfect.” Adrenaline pumping, she reached for the door.

  Kadir restrained her by the shoulder. “Let’s double-check the wire.”

  Abrianna twisted back around and lowered her head to speak into the microphone. “Testing one, two. Testing.”

  Ghost gave a thumbs-up. “Ready to rock and roll, boys and girls.”

  “Good.” Abrianna went for the door again. “The sooner we get this bitch on tape, the sooner I can go back to my shitty life.”

  14

  The Truman Balcony

  “We have a problem.” Davidson handed the president his bourbon. “A major fucking problem.”

  “What is it now?”

  “Judge Sanders.”

  President Walker frowned. “Apparently this means I’m going to need a double.”

  “I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.”

  Walker cast his gaze over the railing of the balcony and into the night. “Spit it out.”

  Davidson lowered into the chair next to the president. “A Washington Post reporter has gotten hold of some damaging surveillance footage that I’d been assured had been taken care of from Hay-Adams. Shit is about to hit the fan—or rather the front page in a few hours, complete with pictures.”

  “What the fuck are you taking about?” Walker asked.

  Davidson took a deep breath and shared the bad news. When he was through, the president was enraged. “Goddamn it!” He threw his drink. As it exploded like a bomb on the balcony, he sprung up from his chair and paced. “Fuuuck!”

  “I know that I should have brought this to you sooner. But I figured the less you knew, the better . . . unless the situation got out of hand.”

  “Kitty?” the president said, incredulous.

  Da
vidson nodded.

  “Who is the reporter?” Walker asked.

  Davidson reached into his pocket and scooped out the note he’d written down. “Tomi Lehane.”

  “Never heard of her,” the president said.

  Davidson’s face morphed into white marble.

  The president arched a brow. “Tell me there’s a story that comes with that poker face.”

  “I’ve heard of her. You have, too.”

  “I have?”

  “Yeah. She is a rookie reporter on the Hill, but she’s famous for being a survivor of a serial killer some years back.”

  Something tickled at the back of Walker’s mind, but he couldn’t pull up the details. “Refresh my memory.”

  “The entire story about Dr. Avery is above my pay grade, but suffice to say that he used to be an employee over at T4S.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit. The thing is . . . Abrianna Parker, the prostitute we’ve been looking for in connection to Reynolds’s murder, was also a Dr. Avery survivor.”

  “Muthafuck me.” Walker wished he hadn’t thrown his drink. “So these chicks have a history?”

  “Quite a history,” Davidson said.

  Walker shook his head. “The minute I call the Post to stop the story, it’ll drag me in into the mess. It’s bad enough I put her on the court.” He thought about it some more. “Hell. They’re going to drag me into it regardless. This bitch can drag me down the drain with her. The Congress will impeach both of us.” He sighed as his pacing picked up speed. “Nobody will believe I had nothing to do with this madness. Not on top of everything else. My recent bump in the polls for handling the airport bombing will disappear like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Can the reporter or this Parker chick tie me to Reynolds’s death?”

  Walker considered the question. “The actual murder? No. But if Kitty . . .”

  “Starts lying through her teeth,” Walker finished.

  Davidson fell silent for a second. “What do you want to do?” Davidson asked.

  “I have options?”

  “There are always options.”

  * * *

  Zeke ordered Spider and Defoe to remain in the car before he strolled into Hadley Memorial Hospital solo. This wasn’t the place to draw attention to himself. An earlier call to the hospital got him the room and floor number for Shawn White. He stepped into the elevator along with a cluster of people who wore various degrees of sadness on their faces. No one liked visiting the hospital.