Close Call (7 page)

Sydney

Sydney got out of
the shower, dressed in Reese's clothes, and French-braided her wet hair. Her nerves twanged with the conviction that she had to see Montoya immediately. This evening. The urge had come to her while she was shampooing her hair, stabbing through her grief. She needed to talk to Fidel Montoya, to warn him.

The way the detectives had pooh-poohed her story about the hit man, she couldn't trust them to get in touch with Montoya. With Jason dead, her fears about publicity looked petty—unbelievably trivial—and she couldn't believe she'd let them stop her from doing the right thing. Well, she was going to do it now. She descended to the kitchen, where she found Connie at the table, unlit cigarette in one hand, the
Wall Street Journal
spread out before her. It took Sydney ten minutes to convince her to call and set up an appointment with the Congressman. Not for the first time, she thought how useful it was to have politically connected parents who donated generously to a variety of campaigns and causes.

“It's after five,” Connie protested. “He'll be gone.”

“Then get him at home.”

“You think I have the phone number of every congressman in my Rolodex?” Without waiting for an answer, she disappeared into her bedroom and made the call. Five minutes later she was back. “He's still at the office. He'll see you.” Her voice was neutral, but the stiffness of her shoulders and back shouted disapproval. Sydney was used to it.

“I'll drive you.”

They turned to see Reese standing in the archway between the kitchen and the formal dining room, clearly having overheard enough of their conversation to get the gist. Sydney thought her sister had left.

“I don't need—”

“That's a great idea,” Connie said briskly. “I'll feel better about you if you're with your sister. You don't look like you're in any shape to drive. I've always thought that people in the grip of strong emotion can be just as dangerous behind the wheel as drunks. On the way home from the hospital after your father died, I jumped a curb and ran into a fire hydrant. If there was a blow-test for measuring stress or grief, I'd have been way over the limit.”

Sydney was too weary to argue about it, and her mother had a point. She didn't feel up to driving, and the thought of being packed into a Metro car in her current condition was so unappealing that she said “Fine.”

Silence hung like a casting net over their ride into DC, full of holes that looked like escape routes but with rasping ropes that bit into them and bore them down. Their father, Howard Linn, used to cast such a net on their annual vacation to the Outer Banks. Sydney remembered standing well back and watching him when she was twelve or thirteen, marveling at the way his large hands spun the net wide, the way the rising sun made a sparkling web of it as it landed on the water's surface, and the way the fish gasped and flopped when her father pulled the net in with a crow of triumph. She'd run inside then, the sea breeze tangling her long auburn hair.

This was the first time she and Reese had been alone together in a decade and a half. It was almost like hitching a ride with a stranger, but not quite. A stranger you had history with. Dismissing that thought as a useless paradox, Sydney kept her hands in her lap, her gaze fixed straight ahead, half hoping Reese would say something and praying she wouldn't. If she'd had room for any more sad, the entangling silence might have distressed her.

Reese pulled the SUV over to the sidewalk a block away from the Rayburn House Office Building and broke the silence. “I'll drive around, maybe take a walk if I find an easy parking place. Text me when you're done.”

Sydney nodded, relieved that Reese wasn't expecting to be part of the meeting with Montoya. She got out and Reese drove off. Even coming up on six o'clock, it was still steamy and sweat immediately beaded Sydney's forehead and trickled between her breasts. She faced the building, took a deep breath, and went in search of Congressman Fidel Montoya.

His office, when she found it, had a small reception area with three doors opening off it and two L-shaped walnut-veneer desks, staffed by young-twenties professionals who had that “political aspirant” look, an amalgam of earnestness and ambition that all but made their eyes glow red. Apparently, the work day didn't end at five for Montoya's team. A nubby green carpet squished underfoot as she approached the closest desk, occupied by a young man wearing yellow suspenders and a matching bow tie. Wheat-colored hair flopped over his brow and was cut short around the ears. Sydney's ability to assess attire, which she'd gained coaching the women at Winning Ways, made her instinctively note that he'd have to ditch the suspenders and bow ties if he wanted to be taken for a power player rather than a quirky academic or research librarian.

Conscious of the borrowed suit which was too snug across her chest and rear, she said, “Sydney Ellison. I have an appointment with the Congressman.”

The receptionist clicked a few keys and smiled. “The Congressman will be with you in just one moment, Ms. Ellison. Please have a seat.”

Before she could settle into the leather club chair he indicated, the inner office door swung open and Montoya stepped out, talking to a reserved-looking man in a sharp gray suit. Shorter, older, more compact than the congressman—Sydney pegged him as Montoya's chief of staff or campaign manager. Some high-up political player.

“The poll numbers look good, John. That last television ad you put together did the trick.”

Or maybe he was the communications guru.

“Let's hope.” The man's smile was mostly a faint crinkling of the skin around his eyes. His gaze slid to Sydney and she got the feeling he knew her history. He coughed. “Want me to sit in?” he asked Montoya.

The Congressman gave his easy smile. “Not necessary. You take off. Tell my future daughter-in-law I said hi.”

“Will do.” John gave a quick nod and crossed the reception area to talk with a striking woman who had emerged from one of the other offices.

Turning to Sydney, Montoya held out his hand, his famous smile breaking the angular planes of his handsome face. “Sydney Linn Ellison,” he said, retaining her hand when she would have pulled it back. “You've changed.”

She didn't have to ask from when. The whole country—at least people of a certain age—remembered her as the bleached-blond college coed with the cleavage who'd appeared in steamy television footage with the Speaker of the House. “The Manley Trap,” they'd called her. Late-night hosts told almost as many jokes about her as they had about Monica Lewinsky. It was the primary reason she'd kept Dirk's name—Ellison—after they divorced.

“Most people change as they age,” she said, withdrawing her hand from his warm, firm grasp. “I daresay your hairline has slipped back a bit from where it was in college.”

“Touché!” His grin moved to his brown eyes. He gestured for her to precede him into his office. “Hold my calls.”

He did have charisma, she had to give him that. More in person, even, than on television. In his early fifties, six foot two with black hair only slightly receding from a broad forehead, he exuded sex appeal. He had a lanky body and dressed well, in athletic-cut suits that showed off the results of his fitness program. A sense of humor and quick mind only added to his appeal … both to voters and to women, if the rumors were true.

Sydney took in the office with a glance. A conversation area made up of a leather loveseat and two wing chairs sat kitty-corner to a desk big enough to double as an aircraft carrier. Framed pictures of the congressman, with everyone from Bill and Hillary to Barbra Streisand, filled an entire wall, from six inches below the ceiling to a foot above the floor. Photos and paintings of Maryland—Chesapeake Bay, the pony round-up at Assateague, Baltimore's Inner Harbor; all of them places she'd been—hung on the opposite wall.

When Montoya gestured for her to sit, she sank onto the squishy leather loveseat and tugged at her skirt hem. Reese wore her skirts shorter than Sydney was comfortable with, and she caught Montoya sliding a glance at the expanse of thigh exposed by the skirt. For a moment she worried that by choosing the loveseat, she'd put the wrong idea in his head, but he sat across from her on a blue velvet-upholstered wing chair.

“I was sorry to hear of your father's passing,” Montoya said. “Water?” He gestured toward a bottle of Perrier on a tray. “Or I can have Carter find a soda, if you prefer.”

“Water, thank you.” Sydney suddenly realized she was thirsty; she'd cried out all her moisture. She pushed away thoughts of Jason and accepted the glass Montoya poured.

“How's Connie doing?”

“You know my mom.” Sydney dredged up a smile. Everyone knew Connie Linn. “She's coping. She's playing tennis at the club and took up line dancing with a friend. After fifteen years of caring for my father, she's ready to start a new life, and who can blame her?” She set the glass down on a coaster after taking a long swallow. She wasn't here to talk about her parents.

“Look, Congressman Montoya, I appreciate your—”

“Call me Fidel.” He flashed that killer smile.

Sydney fought the urge to tell him not to bother. She wasn't interested, and even if she'd felt a spark, she'd more than learned her lesson. “I think someone might be trying to kill you.”

That erased the smile. “Explain.”

Sydney told him about the phone switch at the deli, the phone call, and Jason's death, all the while struggling to see only words in her mind and not Jason on the gurney. Trying to gauge Montoya's expression as she talked, she could read nothing in his watchful eyes, the suddenly stern mouth.

Silence fell when she finished. He poured more water from the sweating Perrier bottle into his glass, took a sip. “Just what are you after, Miss Ellison?” he asked finally.

“After? Nothing,” Sydney said, confused.

“You don't ask me to believe this fairy tale, do you?”

“I don't give a damn what you believe,” she said, anger flashing through her. The hell with him. She stood.

“The election's in less than a week. You expect me to believe this isn't some attempt to drag my name through the mud, ridicule me, lose me voters? I suppose I can expect to find Channel 5's reporter waiting in the lobby.” His eyes had hardened and seemed almost black in the dim light of the office.

“Congressman Montoya, I only came to you because I thought you deserve a warning, and I'm not sure the police are taking me seriously despite my fiancé's death. Apparently, you aren't either. You don't mind if I say ‘I told you so' at your funeral, do you? And, for the record, I wouldn't voluntarily talk to a journalist if she offered me a winning Powerball ticket.”

Fury warmed her cheeks and made her neck prickle. This had been a total waste of time. She should've known. She was madder at herself than at him, because she'd known how it would play out and had come anyway. She turned and made for the door.

Her anger seemed almost to ameliorate his. His voice was placating when he said, “Calm down, Sydney. I appreciate your coming in, really I do.”

“You're welcome,” she bit out, reaching for the door.

“And I'm sorry about your fiancé. Really. His death has clearly hit you hard.” He joined her at the door, close enough that his cologne enveloped her with hints of teak and ocean spray. Like he had spent the afternoon sailing on Chesapeake Bay, Sydney thought sourly.

His practiced charm wasn't going to work this time. “I'll tell my mom you said hello.” Ignoring his outstretched hand, she yanked open the door and stalked into the reception area, blowing past a startled Carter and causing two constituents to look up from the magazines they were reading. She felt Montoya's eyes on her as she strode toward the door but refused to give him the satisfaction of turning around.

In the hall, she worked to slow her breaths. Angry tears blurred her vision and she swiped at them with an impatient hand, ducking into a restroom. The mirror showed a flushed face and angry eyes with mascara smeared beneath them, making her look like a pissed-off raccoon. Jerking a paper towel from the dispenser, she doused it with cold water and held it to her heated face for a moment, then gently scrubbed at the makeup smears.

These tears were for Jason, not Montoya. Fidel Montoya was not worth a single tear. Not one. She'd cried an ocean over George, whom she'd loved, and cried again when her marriage to Dirk ended in a blaze of publicity, lawsuits, and acrimony. Montoya was nothing. It was just that his ridicule brought the humiliation back. She sniffled, blew her nose, and glared at her reflection. She hoped the contract killer got him. Right away, she retracted that thought. She didn't really hope it; she couldn't wish anyone dead.

Stepping out of the bathroom, Sydney nodded at a young woman in a power suit race-walking down the hall and picked up her own pace. She needed to get out, away from this building brimming with the toxic cocktail of politician sweat and dandruff, ruthlessness, corruption, and self-interest. If she stayed any longer, she'd need another shower.

Paul

Paul's eyes darted from
the muzzle of the silenced .22 in his pop's hand to the jacket draped over the chair back. How could he have been so criminally careless as to forget about the gun?

“Pop—” He raised his arms placatingly.

“Harmon Nowicki, I know why you're here, you bastard,” the old man said, his voice surprisingly strong.

Paul groaned inwardly. “Pop, I'm not Nowicki. He moved to Minneapolis years ago.”

It was as if he hadn't spoken. “My Elspeth doesn't want you, Nowicki, so stop sniffing around.” The old man took a stuttering step forward.

Paul held out a hand and said in an authoritative voice, “Give me the gun.”

“If I ever catch you so much as looking at Elspeth again, I'll kill you, Nowicki, so help me God I will!” His voice trailed off to a whisper as his foot caught the edge of a rag rug. He tripped and the gun went off. The report crashed around the walls in the confined space.

Paul staggered back as the bullet smacked into his shoulder. Damn, it hurt. Visions of doctors removing the bullet and telling the cops, questions about the unregistered gun, his father being carted off to a home, the bullet being matched with the one in DC … all flashed through Paul's mind as he thudded against the bedroom wall and slid to his haunches, his left hand going automatically to the wound in his right shoulder. Blood leaked through his fingers.

“Oh my God.” Moira stood on the threshold, her hand at her chest, taking in the scene. Her nurse's training kicked in and she started for Paul.

“It's not as bad as it looks,” he said, pushing to his feet with effort. He winced at the pain. Taking two steps, he plucked the gun from the floor where his father had dropped it. “Look after Pop.”

His father was standing in the middle of the room, uncomprehending, looking from one of them to the other. “Paul?” He blinked his eyes slowly.

“Yeah, Pop, everything's okay.”

As Moira helped the old man back into bed, distracting him with a list of the things they'd do the next day—visit the grocery store, stop off to chat with Mrs. Kimmett from church—Paul ducked into the bathroom and grabbed a hand towel to staunch the bleeding. Drops of blood spattered on the one-inch square aqua tiles, staining grout that had once been white but was now the color of dirt. Shit. He didn't fucking need this right now. What shitty luck. Never took a round or even a scrap of shrapnel in 'Nam, never got more than some bruises and a couple of knife cuts in his current profession, and now this: shot by his pop in his own goddamn house. He lifted the edge of the cloth and saw the bleeding had slowed to a sluggish trickle. Good. But the slug was still in there and he couldn't risk going to the ER in town. He knew a guy, but he was three hours away, close to Baltimore.

Moira's face appeared in the mirror. “Let me see. Keep the pressure on.”

Without waiting for an answer, she urged him toward the toilet and began snipping away his shirt as he seated himself. When she'd cut away his sleeve with the sewing scissors, she gently lifted the pad to inspect the wound. “You need a doctor,” she pronounced.

Her face was not five inches away from his, her breath warm on the bare skin of his chest. The citrus scent of her shampoo was bright and he sniffed deeply. Suddenly, he was embarrassed by his pasty skin, the wiry gray and white hairs on his chest. He was damned near sixty-five years old, for God's sake. When was the last time a woman saw him naked? Hookers didn't count.

“I'll get the keys.”

He caught her arm as she turned to go. As her biceps flexed under his hand, he realized it was the first time he'd ever touched her. “I can't. My pop.”

“We'll take him with us.”

He was shaking his head as he finished. “No. I mean, what will they do to him if … ”

Understanding flickered in her eyes. “But you need medical care. There's a bullet in your shoulder!”

“I know a guy who can help. Just pack it tight so it doesn't start bleeding again.”

“What set him off?” she asked, pulling pads and bandages from the medicine cabinet.

“He thought I was a jerk my mom had an affair with years ago. I'd forgotten all about it until he pointed the gun at me and called me Harmon.” He recalled the shouting, the tears, the slap of an open hand meeting skin. His parents hadn't spoken to each other for weeks after his pop found out. Paul had been thirteen or fourteen, old enough to understand what his mom had done. She'd done
it
with Mr. Nowicki, the beefy guy who ran the hardware store in town, who always wore overalls and smelled like licorice. He'd tried to block the images from his mind and spent a lot of time at his friend Tim's house.

Moira's forehead wrinkled but she didn't say anything as she washed the wound out, swabbed it with alcohol—“This will sting”—and packed it with sterilized gauze before wrapping a bandage over it, across his shoulder and back several times, and securing it.

“That should hold for a while,” she said, taking a step back.

“Thank you. Do we have any painkillers?”

She handed him a bottle of 800mg ibuprofen without comment. He shook two into his hand and swallowed them dry.

“Where'd he get the gun?”

The question came softly. For a moment, he couldn't make out what she'd said. Her face was averted as she scrubbed at a splotch of blood on the tub. He bought himself time by pretending to choke on the pill, using his cupped hands to drink from the faucet. “It's mine,” he said finally. “Traveling as much as I do, I got it for protection.”

She stood, and her hazel eyes searched his face. He wondered what she saw there. Did she suspect? If he had to kill her, what would happen to his pop? He could snap her neck in an instant, but then there was the body to dispose of … He liked Moira. He'd only once killed someone he knew. His first contract. His muscles tensed.

“Well, don't leave it where your dad can get it again,” she said, stooping to pick up the blood-stained towels. “Keep it in the car, maybe.”

He hadn't realized he was holding his breath. It came whooshing out as she left the bathroom. Sinking to the toilet seat again, he rubbed his hands up and down his face. The slosh of the washing machine filling came to his ears as he organized his thoughts. The hole in his shoulder was inconvenient but not a show-stopper. Already the Motrin was taking the edge off the pain. He needed to hit the road, visit the doc outside Baltimore, check into a different motel in DC, and take care of the Montoya assignment first thing in the morning. Then he could tie up the loose ends, namely one Sydney Ellison.