by Pamela Clare
“What do you feel this scandal has done to your chances for re-election?”
“Ultimately, there is no scandal, because I had nothing to do with Ms. Ryan’s murder. Right now the only thing that concerns me is seeing her killer brought to justice. I haven’t given a single thought to being re-elected.”
“Do you feel that passing the polygraph test ought to vindicate you in the court of public opinion?”
“Although we’re all innocent until proven guilty, I realize people sometimes rush to judgment based on media reports. I suspect that those who’ve already judged me and assumed that I’m guilty won’t be satisfied until I’m fully cleared.”
Down the hall behind the media throng, Miguel paced back and forth, looking agitated. Reece hadn’t yet had time to talk with him, as he’d gone straight from his confrontation with Devlin back to the Senate floor.
“Is it possible that the murder of Alexis Ryan was in some way connected with the failed attempt on reporter Kara McMillan’s life?”
Reece hesitated. “That’s a question best answered by the police. Thanks for your interest, and now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get some work done before session reconvenes.”
He pasted what he hoped was a friendly smile on his face, ignored the burst of additional questions, and made his way through the crowded hallway toward Miguel, who glared at him.
“It’s about damned time! What do I have to do—make an appointment?”
It wasn’t like Miguel to be hostile or sarcastic. Reece studied his friend’s face. “What’s going on?”
“We need to talk, and it can’t wait.”
Reece glanced over his shoulder. “Well, we can’t do it here unless you want every word we say to be in tomorrow’s paper.”
“Let’s go up to the observation gallery. It’s usually pretty private up there, and I need air.”
They stopped by Reece’s office so he could drop off his briefcase—a quick glance revealed no cell phone on his desk, either—and then took the marble stairs past the presidential portraits on the third floor of the rotunda to the uppermost level just beneath the dome. A jumble of voices echoed up from the busy ground floor of the rotunda, more than one hundred feet below. French doors opened onto a narrow balcony that wrapped itself around the building, offering spectacular views in all directions.
Reece automatically gravitated toward the west and its view of the distant snowcapped mountains. He opened the door and stepped into the late February sunshine, Miguel following after him. Two hundred feet below them, people walked their dogs in the park, stood in groups talking, or hurried to their cars.
Reece heard Miguel’s breathing behind him and felt an odd prickling down his spine. He turned to find Miguel standing there, a strange expression on his face. “What’s going on? Has something happened with Hilaria or one of the kids?”
Miguel flinched, stepped back, and looked away. “It’s my brother.”
“Luis?” The last Reece had heard, Luis, who’d been a bit on the wild side in his younger years, was newly married and awaiting the birth of his first child.
“No. Juan.” Miguel couldn’t seem to look him in the eye, and Reece realized his friend felt ashamed.
“I’m sorry.” From what Reece remembered, Juan was the fourth of Miguel’s six brothers and had spent most of his life in and out of prison. Miguel rarely mentioned him. “Is he in some kind of trouble?”
Miguel looked down at the ground below and nodded, sweat beading on his upper lip and forehead, his breathing rapid.
Reece had never seen him like this before. He reached over and placed a reassuring hand on Miguel’s shoulder. “Whatever it is, Miguel—”
“Stop it!” Miguel pushed his hand away and stepped back from him.
It took Reece a moment to realize Miguel was pointing a pistol at him and a few seconds more for the adrenaline to kick in. “What the hell?”
The gun shook in Miguel’s unsteady hands. “I told you not to get involved! I warned you to stay out of it! Why didn’t you listen?”
Reeling between disbelief and soul-deep shock, Reece looked up from the barrel of the H&K nine-millimeter semi-auto to the look of hellish anguish in his friend’s brown eyes. He wondered if this was the gun that had killed Alexis and fought back the rage that surged from his gut. If he wanted to live through this, he needed to keep his mind clear. “Tell me what’s going on, Miguel.”
“Juan works for Northrup. He’s a shift manager. I helped him get the job when he got out of prison. I thought it would help him straighten out his life.”
“And it didn’t.”
“At first it seemed to. Then he got busted by his supervisor for dealing on-site. Mike Stanfield would have turned him over to the cops, except that he was my brother.”
“So they didn’t report him.” Reece itched to turn on the digital recorder in his pocket but didn’t dare move.
Miguel shook his head. “No. Stanfield even offered to get him treatment. Then when the health department came down on them, Stanfield told me I owed them a favor. I made a few phone calls, wrote a memo, got Owens to drop it. I didn’t like it, but it seemed only fair, especially because Juan was one of the workers they cited.”
Miguel had written the memo? This had to be a joke. It was anything but a joke. “But then Kara started digging, didn’t she?”
“I didn’t know anything about her connection to this until she stormed in and took the health department records. I told Stanfield there was nothing I could do about it.”
“Did you try to have her killed?”
“No! God, no! I had nothing to do with that!” But the look on Miguel’s face told Reece exactly who did.
“Juan set it up, didn’t he?”
Miguel swallowed, a convulsive jerk of his throat, then nodded. “The man the cops killed was a friend of his from Leavenworth.”
“And Alexis?”
“Believe me, I’d have stopped him if I’d have known. When I heard she’d been killed and you were the prime suspect, I knew. Dear God, Reece, he killed her and then he used information about you that Stanfield had gotten from me to set you up.”
The memory of Miguel staring at his gun flashed through Reece’s mind. “You told Stanfield that Alexis and I had been lovers, and you told him I was carrying a gun.”
Miguel nodded, lifted his chin, but sweat was running down his face. “Juan is my brother, Reece. I have to get him out of this.”
“And getting him out of this includes killing me?” And then he understood. “You were going to push me off, weren’t you?”
“Y-you turned around too fast. I couldn’t.” Miguel took a step toward him, gun trembling in his hands. “So now you’re going to jump.”
Reece laughed, a harsh sound. “I see. My death will look like a suicide. Everyone will think I nixed myself because of Alexis’s murder, and what I know will die with me. Is this your idea, friend?”
Miguel flinched at the word friend, his face an image of torture. “No!”
“Well, that’s some comfort. I suppose it’s Stanfield’s idea then?”
“He wanted me to push you, but I can’t. I can’t!”
“Too bad, Miguel, because I won’t jump, and I won’t let you push me off. If you want me dead, you’re going to have to shoot me. You’re going to have to pull that trigger.” Reece took a step forward.
Miguel stared up at him with astonishment. Then his jaw tightened, and for a moment Reece expected to find himself lying on his back in a pool of his own blood taking one last, rattling breath. A nine-millimeter round at close range would make a mess of his anatomy.
But then Miguel’s aim wavered. “I can’t!”
It was the break Reece had been watching for. In one move, he jammed his palm hard against the barrel of the pistol so the slide couldn’t move to fire and clicked the release for the magazine, which fell to the granite floor of the balcony with a heavy clatter.
The gun had been fully loaded.
Miguel dropped it and gaped at him through eyes that held first shock, then deepest torment. He sagged against Reece, his entire body trembling. “¡Madre de Dios, perdóneme! Forgive me!”
Fury and pity warred inside Reece. He lowered Miguel into a sitting position, reached automatically for his cell phone, and remembered he’d misplaced it.
Damn it! If he left Miguel alone, lord knows what he would do. At this point, Reece wouldn’t put it past him to jump himself. And there was the gun. There was probably still one round in the chamber, so Reece didn’t dare leave it with Miguel. Nor did he dare touch it further, or he’d risk ruining the prints. Already under suspicion, he couldn’t afford for anyone to draw the wrong conclusions about what had just happened here.
“I’m going to call for help, Miguel, but I need your cell phone.”
“They’re going to kill me! Or maybe he’ll go after Hilaria and the kids!” Miguel seemed lost in his own misery. “Oh, Christ!”
Reece took the phone from his friend’s pocket, dialed the security desk downstairs, and gave the sergeant-at-arms a quick rundown. He needed to call Chief Irving, but that could wait until Miguel was indoors again and the gun had been taken into custody.
“It’s over, Miguel. It’s going to be all right. You couldn’t kill me because you’re not a murderer. You were trying to protect your brother, and you got in too deep. But everything’s going to be okay.”
But Miguel shook his head. “No. No, it’s not. Your cell phone—I took it. I gave it to my brother to give to Stanfield.”
“You took my cell phone? But why would—?” Then it hit Reece like a fist.
If Stanfield had his cell phone, he’d have access to Kara.
He grabbed Miguel and shook him. “What are they going to do, Miguel? Goddamn it, tell me!”
KARA JABBED at the veggies in her salad, her frustration at a peak. She’d left two messages for Reece but hadn’t yet reached him. She still hadn’t gotten a hold of the governor, either. Worst of all, Owens’s response to her demand for an interview had been to resign. He’d announced his resignation in a press release Tom had forwarded to her via e-mail.
“Guess he saw the writing on the wall,” Tom had written.
Kara had known from the moment she’d read the press release how the state would play it. Owens had resigned and would take the fall for the governor. The governor would promise an investigation into allegations that Owens had caved to political pressures and gone easy on corporate polluters. But the investigation would, in fact, be a taxpayer-funded whitewash. In the end, the state’s report would conclude that regulations were unclear, records were vague, Owens was understaffed, media reports were inaccurate, memories were unreliable, and nothing illegal had occurred. Then Owens, having been more or less cleared, would resurface in some other government post a few years from now, maybe even run for governor himself.
This was not how it was supposed to work. The innocent were supposed to go free. The guilty were supposed to be held accountable. And above all, the public was supposed to have unhindered access to the truth.
Galen would have made fun of her for her idealism. But not Reece. Not only did he seem to respect her for it, but he was even more idealistic than she was. She supposed it was one of the things that drew her to him. How many politicians ran for office because their students wanted them to?
She jabbed a slice of cucumber. How would Owens react if she showed up at his front door? He’d probably call the cops and accuse her of stalking or trespassing or some damned thing. Still, it was tempting. She could leave the hotel using the stairs, just as Reece had done, and she could prop the stairwell door open so she could get back inside. No one need know she’d gone out.
Even as she worked out the details in her mind, she rejected the plan. She’d promised Chief Irving she’d stay put. She couldn’t lie to him.
She glanced at her watch, pushed her half-eaten salad aside, and reached for the phone. Surely the Senate had recessed for lunch by now. She dialed Reece’s number, hoping this time to catch him this time and not his voicemail.
“Hello?” The man’s voice was unfamiliar.
“I’m sorry. I must have dialed the wrong—”
“Ms. McMillan?”
“Yes.”
“This is Mike Stanfield. I’ve been waiting for your call.”
CHAPTER 28
* * *
FOR A moment Kara was speechless with confusion. What number had she dialed? She glanced at the LCD display on her phone, felt a rush of dread. Her finger flew to the record button. “What are you doing with Reece’s cell?”
His voice was cold, full of anger—like hate on ice. “You’re a smart girl. Figure it out.”
The realization hit her with the force of a body blow, drove the air from her lungs. They’d taken him! Dear God, they had him!
If she hadn’t already been sitting, she would have sunk to the floor. She fought to regain her breath, to steady her voice, to clear the panicked chaos from her mind. “S-so you’re a kidnapper now in addition to being a murderer?”
“I’m a businessman. And you, Ms. McMillan, are standing between my company and millions of dollars.”
Panic sparked into fury. “Isn’t that just a damned shame?”
“For the two of you it is. My men are waiting in the stairwell for you to come and open the door. If you don’t, pretty boy senator here dies.”
Then in the background she heard him. “Leave her alone, Stanfield!”
Reece! Anguish like pain sliced through her belly. They truly had him!
But at least he is still alive.
Stanfield’s voice growled in her ear. “And don’t think of trying to hang up on me and calling the police. If any of my men so much as smell a cop, I’ll make certain your lover regrets the day he met you. Of course, he probably already does.”
She barely recognized the menacing voice that came from her throat. “Don’t you dare touch him!”
“I’m giving you thirty seconds to open that door. Twenty-nine . . .”
“You won’t get away with this!”
“I suggest you put down the phone and open the door, or you’ll find out just what I can get away with. Twenty-four, twenty-three.”
Kara dropped the phone, her mind racing, her stomach twisting with fear. She couldn’t secretly dial 911 because Stanfield was on the line. She didn’t have time to send an e-mail. Besides, he would hear her typing. And if she didn’t open the door for his men within the next twenty seconds, Reece would suffer, perhaps die. She couldn’t let them hurt him.
Mentally ticking off the seconds, she ran to the door of her suite, threw it open, and dashed down the hallway. Three men in white work coveralls stood on the other side. One of them she recognized by his resemblance to his brother—Juan de la Peña. She could tell from the look on his face that he considered her a dead woman.
He held up his gloved hands, fingers splayed, then folded his thumb, counting. Nine. Eight. Seven.
Her mouth went dry. Would they shoot her on the spot?
Five. Four. Three.
What if they killed Reece anyway?
Two.
Heart slamming against her chest, Kara opened the door.
REECE PUSHED Miguel’s car up to ninety and flew up the left lane of I-25 toward the exit that would take him to the Northrup plant.
What if he was already too late?
He’d called Chief Irving the moment Miguel had finished outlining what he knew of Stanfield’s plan and related what Miguel had told him. Irving had ordered him to stay at the Capitol and sent two units to see if Kara was still where she was supposed to be and to protect her if she was, promising to call him on Miguel’s cell phone with the news.
But Reece wasn’t about to wait around to find out what his gut already knew. Stanfield had her, and if he wasn’t stopped, he was going to kill her.
Because the cops still had his Jeep for forensic testing, he’d taken Miguel’s keys and burned rubb
er out of the parking lot. Now he wished he’d taken Miguel’s gun, too, though he doubted the sergeant-at-arms would have let him go charging out of the building with a loaded weapon. He could only hope there was a tire iron in the back. Otherwise he’d be facing Stanfield and his crew of hired thugs empty-handed.
This was his fault. It couldn’t be a coincidence that this was happening the day after he’d been with her. Somehow, he’d given her location away. Goddamn it! If anything happened to her, he’d have the rest of his life to regret it and to hate himself.
Miguel’s cell phone rang. “Sheridan.”
“She’s gone.” It was Chief Irving.
“Goddamn it!” Reece pushed the gas pedal to the floor and kicked the speed back up to ninety, the car’s max.
“There’s no sign of struggle anywhere, no blood, nothing. Everything related to her investigation has disappeared with her—her files, her computer, even the phone.”
“It was equipped to record. Stanfield must have suspected that.”
“I don’t want to know how you know that, because if I find out you compromised her safety in any way, you’re going to find my boot up your senatorial ass.”
And Reece knew he deserved it. “Understood.”
“The last time she made a call was about thirty minutes ago when she dialed your cell number.”
Thirty minutes ago.
Reece had been on the highway for about fifteen minutes, which meant they were about fifteen minutes ahead of him. More than enough time to pull a trigger. “Son of a bitch!”
He spotted the exit just ahead. He threw on the right turn signal, crossed lanes, took the exit doing sixty, then slammed on the brakes and cranked the car, tires shrieking, onto the two-lane county road.
“Please tell me you stayed at the Capitol like I told you to. Those weren’t your tires squealing, were they?”
“Technically, no. I requisitioned the car from Miguel.”