Wilkins smiled. “I pushed it with that one, didn’t I?”
“Common rookie mistake. The one question too many.”
“I’ll work on that.”
“See that you do.” Jack turned back and looked out the window, enjoying the familiar view of all the sights he hadn’t seen since leaving Chicago three years ago. After a few moments, he broke the silence. “And another thing: you’re not supposed to actually tell witnesses about the glowering thing. It ruins the effect.”
“So you do that intentionally?”
“Oh, I’ve been working on my glowering skills for years.”
Wilkins looked away from the road in surprise. “Was that actually a joke there?”
“No. And keep your eyes on the road, rookie. Because I’ll be really pissed if you crash this car before I get my coffee.”
Five
“I STILL CAN’T believe you didn’t call either of us from the hotel.”
Cameron could tell from the tone in Collin’s voice that he was vacillating between being concerned about her in light of the events of the night before, and pissed that this was the first he’d heard about them.
In her defense, after Jack and Wilkins had dropped her off at home, her first plan had been to call both Collin and Amy. The three of them had been friends since college, and normally she told them everything. But then she’d remembered that it was Saturday, which meant that Collin would be working and Amy would be knee-deep in wedding-related tasks, especially since her big day was only two weeks away. So instead, Cameron had shot each of them a text message asking if they wanted to meet for dinner at Frasca that night. Then she’d crawled into bed and passed out for the next six hours.
At the restaurant, as soon as the hostess had seated them, Cameron began to tell Collin and Amy about the occurrences of the night before—omitting any mention of Senator Hodges’s involvement, since the FBI was keeping that under wraps. From across the table, she’d watched as Collin grew more and more agitated as her story progressed. And a few minutes ago, he’d run his hand through his sandy brown hair and folded his arms across his chest—his usual gesture when working through something that bothered him.
To Cameron’s left was Amy, who looked as sophisticated as always in her tailored brown shirt-dress and shoulder-length blonde hair cut in an angled bob. She was more diplomatic in her response than Collin. “It sounds like you had a pretty intense night, Cameron. You shouldn’t have had to go through all that alone.”
“I would have called”—Cameron said pointedly to Collin—“if the FBI hadn’t restricted my calls.” She turned to her left. “And yes, it was an extremely intense night. Thank you for your concern, Amy.” She started to go for her wineglass, but Collin reached across the table and grabbed her hand.
“Stop—you know I’m concerned, too.”
Cameron glared at him but didn’t pull her hand away. “Then stop complaining about the fact that I didn’t call you.”
He gave her one of his trademark but-I’m-so-innocent smiles. She’d seen that smile many times over the last twelve years, and yet it still worked on her. Usually.
“I apologize,” Collin said. “I freaked out hearing your story and inappropriately expressed my emotions through anger. It’s a guy thing.” He squeezed her hand. “I don’t like that you were one room away from a murder, Cam. Strange noises, watching a mysterious, hooded man through a peephole—this whole thing is far too Hitchcockian for me.”
“And I haven’t even told you the twist,” Cameron said. “Jack Pallas is one of the agents handling the case for the FBI.”
It took Amy a moment to place the name. “Wait—Agent Hottie?”
“Agent Asshole,” Cameron corrected her. “Agent Hottie” had been her former nickname for Jack, one long since dropped. Ever since he accused her of taking bribes from Roberto Martino.
“That is a twist. How is Agent Asshole these days?” Collin asked dryly. As Cameron’s best friend, he was de facto required to exhibit animosity toward Jack Pallas as well.
“More important, how was it seeing him after all this time?” Amy asked.
“We traded sarcastic barbs and insults the whole time. It was nice, catching up like that.”
“But is he still just as hot?” Amy exchanged a look with Collin. “Well, one of us had to ask.”
“That’s kind of irrelevant, don’t you think?” Cameron managed a coolly disdainful look as she took a sip of her wine. Then she swallowed too fast, nearly choked, and coughed while gasping for air.
Amy smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Cameron dabbed her watering eyes with a napkin and turned to Collin for help.
“Don’t look at me—I’m staying out of this one,” he said.
“I would like to remind both of you that the jerk embarrassed me on national television.”
“No, the jerk embarrassed himself on national television,” Amy said.
Cameron sniffed, partially mollified by this. “And I’d also like to point out that because of him, virtually every FBI agent in the Chicago area has carried a grudge against me for the past three years. Which has made things tons of fun, considering I work with the FBI on a near-daily basis.”
“You don’t have to see him again, do you?” Collin asked.
“If there is a god, no.” Cameron thought about this more seriously. “I don’t know, maybe if there are some follow-up questions they need to ask. But I’ll tell you this: if I do see Jack Pallas again, it will be on my terms. He may have caught me off guard last night, but next time I’ll be prepared. And at least I’ll be dressed appropriately for the occasion.”
“What was wrong with the way you were dressed?” Amy asked.
“I was wearing yoga pants and gym shoes.” Cameron scoffed. “I might as well have been naked.”
“Certainly would’ve made for a more interesting interrogation.”
Collin sat back in his chair, all haughty manlike. “You and your high heels. You’re lucky you weren’t still in your underwear. Between that and being interrogated in your gym shoes, which would you prefer?”
Cameron thought about this. “Do I still get to wear high heels in the underwear scenario?”
“That was supposed to be a rhetorical question. You have a problem,” Collin said.
Cameron smiled. “So I like to vertically enhance . . . I’m a five-foot-three-inch trial lawyer. Cut me some slack.”
AMY LEFT APOLOGETICALLY as soon as dinner was over, saying that she needed to get up early the following morning to meet with her florist. Cameron and Collin stayed at the restaurant for another round of drinks, then walked the five blocks to her house.
It was a crisp October evening. Cameron pulled her jacket closed, belting it at her waist. “I’m not sure Amy’s going to make it to the wedding without having a nervous breakdown. I keep telling her to let me help out more.”
“You know how she is—she’s been planning this since she was five,” Collin said. “Speaking of planning, how’s the bachelorette party coming along?”
“Her cousins think we need a stripper,” Cameron said, referring to the other two bridesmaids. “But Amy practically made me swear an oath in blood: no strippers, no tacky wedding veil, and absolutely no penis paraphernalia. So I’m doing a wine tasting and desserts at my house, and then we’ll go to a bar afterward. I hope she likes it. If she fires me as maid of honor, you have to take on the job, you know.”
Collin threw his arm around her shoulders. “Not in a million years, babe.”
Cameron smiled and leaned against him, taking comfort in the firm solidness of his chest. In turn, Collin pulled her tighter, turning serious. “You know we were just kidding around at the restaurant, don’t you?”