The ham on rye was going down pretty well. “There’s a lot of miles between murder and someone behaving immorally, or making a mistake.” Cord unfolded a strip of paper from his shirt pocket. “These are the initials or words that were on each CD. There were no full names and dates. But take a look.”
The two of them fell on the list faster than rabid dogs, enabling Cord to finish his lunch. Tourists ambled by in bunches, speaking every language on the planet, stopping for snacks between exhibits. Cord kept thinking that Sophie would really get off on this. The exhibits, the history. Everything about the Smithsonian. And for darn sure, all the people-watching potential.
All too soon, the men returned their attention to him. They had become subdued in those few minutes. Bassett was the first to speak. “No way to be positive of anything from this little amount. But I suspect who the MM is. The wife of a senator on the Appropriations Committee.”
Cord winced. “Not good.”
“Definitely not good to imagine that video loose in the media. Also damn easy to imagine someone motivated to do anything-maybe even murder-to get that CD.”
“That one, you can have.”
That was exactly what Cord had been hoping to hear. “This just has to be a quid-pro-quo deal. If you can just verify that you have knowledge or suspicions about anyone linked to those words, then I’ll immediately give you the applicable CDs.”
Bassett wasn’t through. “At least one other name springs out at me. Penny. That could well be a nickname for Penelope Martin. She’s a lobbyist for some kind of legal rights group. I believe she’s also a friend of your brother’s neighbor, Sophie Campbell.”
Cord felt a fast chill chase down his spine. “Sophie has nothing to do with this.”
Bassett rolled his eyes. “You know this how?”
“Because I’ve been around her now. I know her.”
“You don’t know her. You’ve been around her for a few days. Somehow, she’s miraculously been around a lot of people involved in this case. Penelope Martin is paid a damn good salary to swing senators’ votes. She’s slept her way to influence before this. Now we find out she was sleeping with your brother, too.”
“Since you’re already aware of that, I’ll be happy to turn over that CD to you. As well as the MM one.”
For the first time, Ferrell leaned forward, as if finally engaged in the conversation. “This is good evidence, Cord, but it’s not enough to convict or even arrest anyone. We still need you to watch Sophie. We still have every reason to believe she’s connected to this. Your so-innocent Sophie befriended at least one potential suspect in the case that we know of, and possibly more. Someone clearly believes she knows something important, or her place wouldn’t have been broken into. A lot of things point to her as having ink stains on her character.”
“It’s not her,” Cord repeated.
“We’re just asking you to stay alert. To keep looking, keep listening. We’re still in the middle of all this-there’s DNA coming back, prints, hopefully more evidence to uncover from the money you turned over, and we still don’t have the test results from the autopsy. She’s not the only person we’re looking at, but she’s still in the picture. Still part of the problem.”
“I’m not having this conversation again with you guys. I won’t spy.”
“We’ve been through this before,” Bassett said. “You don’t need to use that three-letter word if it puts your Jockeys in a twist. Just…be a team player. We all want the same thing. To find out who killed your brother.”
Minutes later, when Cord pushed open the door, in a hustle to get away from them and out of there, the stormy morning had intensified. Rain poured down in slashing, slapping sheets, kicking branches and leaves and debris everywhere. It was only a short hike to the metro, but long enough for him to get chilled to the bone.
Cord didn’t need a PhD to realize Bassett and Ferrell wanted something a lot bigger than his brother’s murderer. That was a given. Get near politicians and money and power in Washington, and ambition for more was always the story. He didn’t care what their problem was-and for damn sure, he didn’t care what their scandal was.
But the connection to Sophie gnawed on his nerves with sharp teeth. He’d told them flat out that he refused to spy on her. But the reality was that he did need to stay close to Sophie-for her sake. To protect her. Because for damn sure the cops wouldn’t, as long as they believed she was on the wrong side of this story.
Neither Ferrell nor Bassett, of course, would believe that any time Cord spent with Sophie was for her sake. They’d think he was playing ball.
He was playing ball.
Just not in their court.
Only every minute since his brother was killed-ever since he met Sophie-he felt more and more as if he were tiptoeing on a high wire. And his feet were a clumsy size twelve.
Chapter 7
All day, Sophie felt akin to the circus acrobat who had to balance on a high wire.
No matter what she tried to do, fate seemed to yank her off balance in an unexpected direction. Obviously, she’d had no choice to leave Cord this morning and go to work, but her interview with Inger Henriks was originally only scheduled for two hours. Instead, it had dragged on for five.
“My family,” Inger had told her, “they were always saving the American fliers. Flyboys, we called them in the war. Our house was in the harbor, Helnaes Bugt. That was the thing. You know, Denmark has a border with Germany. So the flyboys would come in the dark, run out of fuel, drop in the water like flies. We’d fish them out, feed them, hide them. Did the Swedes do this? Did the Finns? No. It was us, the Danes. Always us. I was proud of this, we all were, but still. I was just a child. We had this dangerous secret in our lives, where if anyone had overheard us whispering, we could be caught. My family were fishermen. And I was just a girl who wanted to believe in fairy tales and dreams. Instead, I was afraid every day. Secrets-this is no way to live.”
The stories had gone on and on-each of them heart-touching, compelling and powerful. If it weren’t for Cord, she’d have been thrilled to spend the extra hours. She loved her job, especially loved this project, and felt enriched by every one of the elderly women she’d had a chance to interview.
It was just…there was Cord. Also a murder and the break-in and the mess of blackmail Cord’s brother had been involved with-but that stuff was just, well, danger. Troubling and scary and all, but hardly as momentous as making love with Cord last night.
Nothing could be that momentous. Not for Sophie.
She couldn’t get home until midafternoon, and by then she was frazzled, soaked from the mean, cold rain and out of breath. Cord wouldn’t be there until later. The plan was to scour Jon’s apartment, open every ceiling tile, pat down every floorboard. But she had much to do before then-starting with changing clothes, copying her interview tapes to her home system and buckling down to some serious translating work.
Her cell phone rang before she’d even taken off her coat…and Caviar was all over her with demanding meows. The cat had something shiny in its mouth-a trophy, like a bottle cap-and clearly wanted her to value the treasure. Sophie tried yanking off her jacket, petting Cav and responding to her sister at the same time.
“I haven’t talked to you in a week, and I’ve been worried to bits about how you’re doing. I was out on the water and just couldn’t get a connection.” Cate’s voice was as forceful and vibrant as Sophie’s was soft.
Cate was thirty, and had carved out a career as an adventure chef, which meant, as far as Sophie could tell, that her sister got to travel to every exotic place on the planet. Cate had cooked her way from Madagascar to Antarctica to halfway up Everest-rough-and-tumble places that Sophie had never gone or aspired to go to. But that was Cate. “You sound different from last week,” her sister said suspiciously.