custody,” Wilkins said.
So it wouldn’t be Jack guarding her. “Oh. Good.” The idea of being in continual contact with him unnerved her. Not because she couldn’t handle him, but because she didn’t need him glaring at her all day long. Those dark, watchful eyes were enough to put anyone on edge.
“How will this protective surveillance work?” As a prosecutor she’d had cases where she’d placed a witness in protective custody—usually, as Jack had said, merely as a precautionary gesture—but she’d never been on this end of things.
“There’ll be a car posted in front of your house whenever you’re here, and the officers will follow you to and from work. When you get to your office, you’ll be protected there by building security,” Jack said.
Cameron nodded. The U.S. attorney’s offices were located in the Dirksen Federal Building, along with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Everyone entering the building had to pass through metal detectors, and anyone wanting to access her floor needed proper identification. “What about when I go places other than work or home?”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know, all the places people usually go. To the grocery store. To the gym. Or to meet my friends for lunch.” She deliberately didn’t mention that she also had a date on Wednesday evening, thinking that particular information was nobody’s business but her own. Well, Collin and Amy knew, but they didn’t count. They knew everything.
“I guess you’ll just have to get used to having a police car outside the grocery store, the gym, and wherever it is you go for lunch with your friends,” Jack lectured. “And this goes without saying: you need to be careful. The police surveillance is a precautionary measure, but they can’t be everywhere. You should stick to familiar surroundings, and be vigilant and alert at all times.”
“I got it. No walking through dark alleys while talking on my cell phone, no running at night with my iPod, no checking out suspicious noises in the basement.”
“I seriously hope you’re not doing any of those things anyway.”
“Of course not.”
Jack pinned her with his gaze.
She shifted against the counter. “Okay, maybe, sometimes, I’ve been known to listen to a Black Eyed Peas song or two while running at night. They get me moving after a long day at work.”
Jack seemed wholly unimpressed with this excuse. “Well, you and the Peas better get used to running indoors on a treadmill.”
Conscious of Wilkins’s presence, and the fact that he was watching her and Jack with what appeared to be amusement, Cameron bit back her retort.
Thirty thousand hotel rooms in the city of Chicago and she picked the one that would lead her back to him.
Eight
“AREN’T YOU THE least bit curious to know what the hell the FBI’s doing?”
Despite the fact that the light was dim—they had deliberately chosen a table in a dark corner of the bar—Grant Lombard could tell that Alex Driscoll, Senator Hodges’s chief of staff, was one very nervous man. From both the edge in Driscoll’s voice and the way his eyes kept darting around the bar, Grant knew he was looking at a man who was struggling to keep his shit together.
“Of course I’m curious,” Grant told him. “But pushing the FBI isn’t going to get us any answers. And it might land Hodges in jail.”
Driscoll leaned in, lowering his voice to a hiss. “I don’t like it—they’re hiding something. I want to know why he hasn’t been arrested.”
“What do the lawyers say? For the money you guys are paying them, somebody should be able to tell you something.”
“The little pricks are telling us to lay low.”
“Then maybe that’s what you should do.” Grant took a sip of his beer—not normally his drink of choice, but anything stronger could impair his perception and ability to read Driscoll.
“I would think, as the senator’s personal security guard, that you might want to muster up some interest in this,” Driscoll spat out. He grabbed one of the cocktail napkins the waitress had brought with their drinks and dabbed his forehead with it.
The gesture did not go unnoticed by Grant. Frankly, he was surprised Driscoll had survived without having some sort of fit or breakdown when the FBI questioned all of them.
“All I’m saying is that we need to be very cautious in how we handle this. Did Hodges ask you to come talk to me?” Grant asked, even though he already knew the answer to that. Hodges didn’t do anything