night that woman was murdered. Can you really imagine me butchering someone in that manner?” Smith demanded.
Stacey quickly assured him. “Oh, no, sir! We were just hoping you could point us in a direction that you might know of someone who might know something. We have a witness who saw you at the house.”
She was sure that his face paled, but he gave nothing away in his expression.
The man was the ultimate politician.
“I don’t know what your witness thought she saw. But I’ve tried to help you. Now I’m done with this. If you want to speak with me anymore, I want my attorney present. And I suggest that you be very careful with your accusations.”
He shook his head stubbornly.
Keenan rose, saying “As you wish,” and thanking him for his time. Stacey rose along with him.
They left through the reception area; his secretary pretended to be working as they came out of the office, but she had been watching the door. She gave her attention to her work, as if she wasn’t watching them leave and it didn’t matter in the least to her whether they stayed or left.
When they were out into the hallway of the building, Keenan noted the other doors that were part of the congressman’s DC suite of offices.
“He’s lying,” Stacey murmured. “I’d hoped to get something more.”
“You did great in there,” he told her.
She looked up at him, as if surprised by the compliment.
“We probably went through a lot of the same training—Adam is big on his agents taking classes in every possible aspect of law enforcement. If you go in somewhere expecting a confession, you’re going to be disappointed nine times out of ten. If you go in looking for grains of truth, you’ve gotten something. We got some bits of truth.”
“And the truth?”
“Is that he’s a liar, and he knows more than he’s telling us.” He hesitated, looking at the various doors in the hallway.
“You want to speak to the blonde woman, right?” Stacey asked.
“I do,” he told her.
“We can open doors as if by mistake?”
“We can,” he said, smiling. “First or second?”
She was already heading for the first door. Before she could touch it, the door opened.
The blonde woman was standing there. She froze, staring at Stacey in pure panic.
“It’s all right,” Stacey whispered.
The woman shook her head, then nervously licked her dry lips.
“You’re afraid he’ll find you talking to us,” Stacey said. “That’s okay. We’ll go. You come on down. We’ll wait for you at the coffee shop on the corner.”
The woman nodded. She looked anxiously around the hall.
But Colin Smith wasn’t coming out. He was probably busy making sure that his secretary warned him should the FBI be in his office again.
And his secretary was just busy being thankful they were gone.
“We’ll be there,” Keenan said. Not thinking, just in a hurry, he reached for Stacey’s hand, drawing her quickly to the stairway.
She didn’t protest; they hurried down the stairs together.
They didn’t speak again until they were headed down the street. He awkwardly released her hand, apologizing quickly.
“Not to worry,” she told him.
They walked on quickly to Cathy’s Coffee, a gourmet pastry shop on the corner.
“Let’s get some food while we’re here,” he said, surprised to realize that they hadn’t eaten and that she was probably as hungry as he was.
“Anything with meat and cheese and bread,” she told him. “There’s a table in the back, kind of concealed by a post. I’m going to grab it. Coffee—no, ice tea, please—and anything that looks good and not too weird.”
She headed to the table in back; he ordered.
As he waited, Keenan’s phone rang. It was Fred Crandall.
“I’ve been going over the video from that pawnshop,” Fred told him. “You can see the street, a car—and a man. I’m going to meet you at the station. Jackson Crow called me in to your offices along with Jean. Both departments are good with us teaming up for this—it is a task force, after all. He doesn’t want the info on the kidney Stacey received getting out—even among anyone who is immediately involved. We’re not giving this Jack the attention he craved from that. If it was attention he was after. It won’t make it to the media. I’m heading to your offices; we’ll get your tech to see what they can do with the footage from the pawnshop.” He took a breath and hurried on. “Your technical unit is better funded than ours, even if we are one of the most...well, prominent police