Rachael said, “Yes. I’ve found I prefer it.”
Quincy and Stefanos joined them, probably, Savich thought, because they believed Laurel needed reinforcements. Laurel made begrudging introductions.
Sherlock shook the men’s hands. Stefanos held her hand a bit longer than he should have. She cocked her head at him. “You have such lovely hair, Agent Sherlock,” he said, that accent meant to warm and seduce. “There is no red hair like yours in my country. It is glorious.”
Boy, you lay it on with a trowel, don’t you? She smiled at him.
Quincy Abbott looked like he wanted to bolt, but inbred civility won out and he shook Savich’s hand. He gave only a mildly displeased nod to Jack, who was standing at Rachael’s shoulder. When he took Sherlock’s hand, his eyes went hot. Now that was interesting. It wasn’t lust, not at all like the message Stefanos had broadcast to her. What was it? Was it anger? Did his look mean he hated female cops? She’d heard Rachael say he was a misogynist. She looked at Dillon. He was stone-faced.
Stefanos said, “You look magnificent, like a cabaret singer from the thirties, Agent Sherlock.”
“Thank you,” Sherlock said.
Savich agreed with Stefanos. Sherlock was wearing a long black skirt, a black top that bared her shoulders, and her hair was loose, a sunset of curls around her head, pulled back from her face with two black clips. She looked good, that was Savich’s remark when he saw her, and she’d known he wanted to haul her back upstairs. Even Sean, standing at his father’s side, had stared at her. “I wouldn’t know it was you if it wasn’t for your hair, Mama.”
She’d laughed and kissed him soundly. But Savich bet she had no plans to kiss Stefanos Kostas.
Stefanos said, “You’re really an FBI agent? You?”
“You were thinking I was perhaps a runway model?”
“Maybe that’s not too much of a stretch.”
Rachael said, “Agent Savich and Agent Sherlock are married. They have a little boy.”
“What?” Stefanos asked. “You’re actually married to him? But, I—”
Laurel rolled over her husband. “Married? I’ve never heard of FBI agents being married to each other before, but I suppose our government allows just about anything.”
“Not really,” Sherlock said.
“I have two boys,” Laurel continued. “The elder is nearly grown up now. He met a girl in New York City and is convinced he’s going to marry her.”
“How old is he?” Jack asked, though he knew very well.
“Damian is sixteen.”
Quincy said, “Stefanos isn’t happy about this, even though it’s only a young boy’s crush, isn’t that right?”
Stefanos shrugged. “He can have his fun. I only hope he doesn’t contract some disease from her.”
Quincy said, “You’re an expatriate xenophobe, Stefanos—you want both your sons to marry into old Creek families.”
Stefanos smiled at his brother-in-law, sipped at his whiskey like an elegant sloth.
Jack asked Laurel, “What did you think of the FBI press conference?”
Her heavy face froze. “I already told Agent Savich it was ridiculous. To me it smacked of conspiracy theories, which are generally nonsense. It is like saying the Warren Commission lied. How can you disprove a negative? I suppose the FBI will continue prodding and poking about, annoying us until we have our lawyers manage to cut you off at the knees.”
Savich said pleasantly, “I certainly agree with you about conspiracy theories. However, do you really believe, Mrs. Kostas, that your brother took up drinking again, that he got into a car after not driving for eighteen months?”
“Perhaps the senator considered cutting back on his drinking, even spent some time not driving, but in the end, he seems to have been doing both. There seems no doubt about that. Stefanos, Quincy, do you agree?”
Stefanos looked bored. Quincy, in a very discreet one-finger move, adjusted his toupee.
Laurel said, “No matter what the senator said, he would not have called a press conference and made a grand announcement of his guilt. He knew if he spoke up, he would lose everything—the prestige and power of being a senator, all the privileges of being wealthy and sought after, of being endlessly feted and admired.”
Jack said, “And last but not least, he would probably have gone to jail for vehicular homicide.”
“That is not possible. The senator had excellent lawyers,” Stefanos said. “He would never have spent a day in jail.”
That might be the truth, Sherlock thought.
“No matter,” Laurel said. “The senator lived for those things. He did not like to lose. What happened the night he died was an accident. All these theories—and that’s all they are—they sound like those ridiculous conspiracy theory blogs.”
“Jimmy told me he was going to do it,” Rachael said. “There was no reason for him to tell you if he hadn’t made up his mind.” Was that the truth? To say it, flat-out, it sounded so simple and straightforward. She said, “Besides the three of you, he also told Greg Nichols. Yet you still doubt it, even after Jimmy told you the misery he’d been living with for eighteen months?”
Quincy said, his voice dismissive, “I will say this one more time: it was a phase, nothing more. The senator was self-indulgent. He liked to analyze things to death—business, politics, a specific piece of legislation, how he was going to get back at another senator or congressman or staffer who got on the wrong side of him.
“Look, I’m sure he felt very sorry about what happened to the little girl, he had a conscience, after all.”
There was a malignant look on Laurel’s face, a look filled with cold rage, and it was aimed at Rachael. “If you have convinced these three FBI agents that we murdered our own brother, you have done the senator and our entire family, Jacqueline and her daughters included—not to mention the entire country—a grave disservice. You are contemptible, Miss Janes. And no, I will not call you an Abbott; you will never be an Abbott to us.”
Laurel turned on her low-heeled pumps and walked away, Quincy and Stefanos, after one last caressing look at Sherlock, following in her wake.
“I hadn’t expected them to speak so freely,” Savich said thoughtfully, watching them begin to work the room, the tall well-built man whose ego was bigger than his brain, and the dowdy woman covered in diamonds, with her powerful, vicious eyes. And Quincy, looking like a beautifully dressed royal adjunct.
Sherlock said, “Do you know, the three of them have one thing in common. They all radiate clout. Look, there’s the senator from New Hampshire going over to them.”
“They’re a big deal,” Rachael said. “They’re American royalty, rich—oozing confidence, used to getting what they want.”
Savich said to his wife as he touched his fingertips to her ear, “I really like the jet-black earrings.”
“You should, you bought them for me.”
He could feel the tightly coiled energy rolling off her. “Yes,” he said slowly, “I did.”
Sherlock said to Rachael, “You look perfect. You’ve struck the right note—classic outfit with a hint of pizzazz.”
She did indeed, Jack thought. Rachael was wearing a long black gown, as were many woman in the room. Unlike them, Rachael wasn’t showing very much skin, but what showed was potent. She looked beautiful and pale and dignified. Jack imagined she was wound tighter than his grandfather’s watch, a ritual Jack had watched countless times when he was a little kid.
Champagne flowed along with the stronger stuff. He saw Laurel and Stefanos speaking with the vice president. As each of them spoke, the vice president nodded solemnly. Several times, he leaned in to say something.
Savich spotted Greg Nichols entering the room, three women and two men with him, former Abbott staffers all. He was wearing a tux, and should have looked buff and competent, but he didn’t. Something was wrong, something was off with him. He was moving slowly and awkwardly. Nichols looked up and met Savich’s eyes across the room. He caught Jack’s eye and nodded slowly. Then, strangely, he rubbed his stomach. What was going on?