Girl Three (13 page)

The man stretched one of his burly arms in front of her, moving quickly for his size. He latched on to the door handle of the SUV, cutting off her escape route.

Jessie veered left and managed to get ahead of him. Her heart beat wildly. She was fit enough to outrun him, but she couldn’t gain traction with her heeled boots on the slick sidewalk. Even so, she kept moving.

She could hear him close behind her, but knew better than to look. That would only slow her down and she’d be more likely to fall—again. She had almost reached the corner. The entrance to Philippe’s building was supposed to be just around it, and there had to be a security guard inside. If she could just reach the door, she could get the guard’s attention.

Steps away from the corner, the man grabbed her arm with a startlingly strong grip. Jessie spun on her heel, trying to wrench away. She managed to free her arm, but he still held her firmly by a fistful of her coat sleeve.

“You Jessica Croft?” His voice sounded childlike, and he spoke with a lisp.

Her stomach lurched, and her breath rasped fast and shallow. Wide-eyed, she turned to him and got a good look at his face.

He could be thirty or fifty. It was hard to tell.

“Who wants to know?” she asked.

He released his grip on her sleeve and raised his hands, palms out. His coat opened, revealing a stained fleece pullover underneath. The air soured with the stench of sweat and ammonia. “I don’t mean you no harm.” He reached behind his back. “Man gave me a twenty to give you this.” He pulled out a soggy envelope and thrust it at her.

She took it, saw her name on the front, and exhaled. “What did the man look like?”

His gaze skittered between the envelope and her purse. “What’s it worth for you to find out?”

Jessie’s fear turned to anger. “You already got twenty dollars to scare the hell out of me and hand me an envelope.” Her voice quivered.

“You wanna know what he looked like or not?”

A description might be worthless, but she couldn’t take that risk. She reached for her wallet, praying there was cash in it.

Four dollars.

She folded the money and handed it over. He snatched the bills, flipped through them, and sneered.

“That’s all the cash I have.”

“Ain’t that a shame.” He trudged away.

“I gave you what I had!” Jessie shouted. “At least tell me something.”

He turned around in slow motion, the money balled in his fist. Sleet pelted his face. He unraveled one of the dollars. “White dude.”

A second, wrinkled bill followed. “Mustache.”

A third. “Shaved head.”

He unfurled the last dollar.

“Ugly.” He crammed the money into his coat pocket. “That’s all you gonna get for a lousy four bucks.” He turned his back and slogged down the sidewalk.

Jessie stood, trembling in the sleet, relief sputtering through her with every step he put between them. When she was satisfied that he was far enough away, she turned the corner and walked the short distance to the entrance of The Pennsylvania—Philippe’s building.

A bundled-up woman stood outside the double glass-and-brass doors facing an adjacent security panel. She slid her key fob into the reader and the lock clicked. Jessie followed her inside.

The lobby was empty except for the security guard she’d hoped would rescue her. He sat at the desk reading a newspaper. A plush seating area looked like the best place to wait for Philippe and Elizabeth. Jessie shook the moisture from her coat, then slumped into one of the upholstered chairs.

She held the moist and warped envelope the stranger had given her. And an ugly white guy with a mustache and a shaved head had given it to him. Frustrated, Jessie figured those men were just degrees of separation from the true messenger.

The envelope she held looked the same as the first two she’d gotten, but she felt differently about this one—as if she’d be better off if she tossed it in the trash, unopened.

Jessie thought about Helena. About the ruse she and Sam had used to trick her father into giving Sam a condo. The story was unsettling, but Jessie couldn’t see a connection between Sam’s two-year-old scheme and her murder.

She thought about Michael Gillette. He was intriguing, but seemingly removed from the situation. Even so, he might have some insight, considering his line of work.

She thought about Philippe, who couldn’t resist the challenge of converting her to his way of thinking. He knew she could be a useful advocate. Double that, if her appointment to the Presidential Commission was approved. That’s why he and Elizabeth were willing to give her information about Sam.

Quid pro quo
.

Philippe had done the foreshadowing, and Jessie sensed a bad thing coming. She felt certain that someone had followed her to the Market Inn. Then the four-dollar man had accosted her on the sidewalk. The real or imagined danger would only escalate if she kept asking questions about Sam’s death.

Her father had warned her and told her to go home. As much as Jessie hated to agree with him, it was beginning to seem like a good idea. She could be back in Charlottesville by midnight, in her own bed, with all of these people and questions left behind.

But she’d never sleep.

She peeled away the flap of the envelope and pulled out the familiar single sheet of photo paper. This time, eight small pictures trailed across the page. Eight different images of Sam entering or leaving Ian Alden’s fertility practice. Each shot was dated, and together they spanned a six-week period, the last three taken on consecutive days. No caption.

Were the pictures meant to associate Ian with Sam’s death? He would’ve known about the physiological effects of alcohol combined with Rohypnol—plummeting blood pressure, bradycardia, the heart starving for blood—symptoms that someone with a strong heart might survive. But how would he have known about Sam’s heart defect?

Jessie wasn’t even sure that Sam had known about it herself. After their mother had died, they’d both been examined and told they weren’t at risk. At least, that’s what their father had said.

“What’s that?”

Jessie flinched. Philippe had snuck up next to her without a sound. She shoved the photo sheet into her purse as she stood. “You scared me.”

“You look like you’ve seen a
fantôme
.”

In a way, she had. Sam had become undead through multiple cryptic photographs. Jessie gave Philippe a wan smile that took too much energy. “I’m okay.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “So you say.” He gestured toward the elevators. “Let’s go upstairs.”

They took the elevator to the eleventh floor and stepped out into a carpeted, furnished foyer. Tasteful, textured wallpaper lined the corridors. Art Deco sconces diffused the light. Oversized raised-panel doors led to high-end, high-dollar real estate.

Philippe walked her down to a three-door cul-de-sac, slid his key into the lock of the one on the right, and motioned her into a dim entryway. Beyond, the condo was dark except for the rippled light seeping through the windows.

“Where’s Elizabeth?” Jessie asked.

“She couldn’t make it. The weather’s too nasty.” He flipped on the lights. “She’s at our house in Virginia with Liam and the nanny.”

“Oh,” Jessie said, suddenly feeling awkward. “I thought you all lived here.”

“We do. Sometimes Elizabeth will stay if she has a late session, but she prefers the suburbs.”

The condo suited a man and Jessie wondered if Philippe had owned it before he’d married Elizabeth. It had a sprawling living area, with heavy furniture of mahogany and black leather. Antique brass accents and maple floors, with a wall of windows as a backdrop.

Jessie walked over to check out the view. She gazed into the misty darkness and her breath caught. The lighted dome of the Capitol loomed in the near distance, as if it hung in mid-air and she could reach out and touch it. “Amazing.”

“The Canadian embassy?” Philippe teased.

Jessie noticed red-and-white maple-leaf flags posted along the third-floor balcony of a building in the foreground. It was the back side of the Canadian embassy. “I meant the Capitol.”

Philippe joined her at the window. “You should see the sunrises.” He gave her a sidelong look and held her gaze until she glanced away.

“Take your coat?” he asked.

Feeling unusually self-conscious, she took it off.

As Philippe hung it in a closet along with his, she studied the collection of framed photographs hanging over his couch. Black-and-whites, all of the same infant.

“Your son?”

“Little Liam,” he said proudly. “Do you have children?”

Jessie smiled. “No. I’d like to have a child someday, but I’m not married. Not that you have to be, but I think that’s the way I’d like to go about it.”

Every picture within view was of Liam. Just one, in a small frame on a bookshelf, included Elizabeth.

Jessie took a closer look at the mother-son photo. “He has Elizabeth’s eyes.”

“That may be.” Philippe flattened his palm against his chest. “But he has my heart.” His expression turned serious. “And I’d protect him with my life.”

“Of course you would,” she said, not knowing what else to say. “He’s your son.”

“There’s more.” He led her to a closed door at one end of the living area—what Jessie thought was a closet. He opened the door and switched on the light. “My darkroom.” He motioned for her to step inside.

The room smelled like chemicals and vinegar. There was a dry and a wet side, stocked with the usual equipment—an enlarger, easel, developing trays. And a wire strung with photos hung with wooden clothespins.

Pictures of Liam. And pictures of a high-end yacht.

Jessie leaned in closer to one of the yacht photos. “Do you own her?”

He beamed. “Yes, the
J’aime L’eau
. I stay aboard sometimes, down at the Capital Yacht Club.”

“
J’aime L’eau
,” she said. “Don’t tell me.” She thought about the translation. “I love the water?”

“Me, too,” he quipped. “It’s a beautiful name for a beautiful yacht. But Elizabeth teases me. She calls the yacht
Jamie Lou
.”

Jessie smiled.

He unclipped one of the pictures of the
J’aime L’eau
from the wire and gazed at it.

Jessie checked out the pictures of Liam, pictures of the yacht, and pictures of Liam aboard the yacht. It was easy to tell what was important to Philippe.

“Photography is more than a hobby for me,” he said.

“I see that.”

“But you came to talk about Sam.”

Jessie nodded. “You said you’d tell me about the other version of the Hope Campaign.”

Philippe’s mouth twitched at one corner, and he took too long to reply. “I did, but I need a drink. You might want to have one, too.”

“No, thanks,” Jessie said, wary, and still a little fuzzy-minded from the martini she’d had with Helena.

“Okay, then. Where to begin?” He reached out, smoothed his hand from Jessie’s shoulder down her arm, and cupped her elbow in his palm. “What has Helena told you?”

“She told me I could take up where Sam left off with the Hope Campaign.”

He grimaced. “I can’t imagine you doing that.”

“Why not?”

He tightened his grip on her elbow and met her gaze. “Because I get the feeling that right and wrong really matter to you.”

Chapter Seventeen

Jessie stared at Philippe. The space in the darkroom tightened. Right and wrong
did
matter to her.

“Don’t they matter to you?” she asked.

He cocked his head. “They’re respectable principles, but they’re blurry in practice.”

“I understand,” Jessie said, even though she didn’t. She swallowed hard. “Tell me.”

Philippe nodded but didn’t say anything. He left the darkroom and walked over to an antique armoire in the living area. Jessie followed.

He opened the armoire to a fully stocked bar and poured himself a Crown Royal, straight up. “Change your mind about that drink?”

She shook her head and held out her hands, palms up. “I think I can handle whatever you have to tell me.”

He grasped the wrist of her bloody hand and looked worriedly at her cuts. “What happened?”

She pulled away and felt her face flush. “I fell.”

“On the ice?”

“No.”

“Come with me.” He led her halfway down a long hallway to a bathroom. “Try to clean the cuts a little better. I’ll be right back.”

She stared in the mirror as the water stung her cuts. Her face was pale, and her sunken eyes had circles under them.

You look like you’ve seen a
fantôme.

No,
she
was the haunted-looking ghost.

Philippe returned with peroxide, Neosporin, and Band-Aids in one hand, and his drink in the other. “When did you fall?”

“Earlier tonight, in Federal Triangle, on my way to meet Helena.” She blotted her hand with tissues and poured peroxide on her cuts. She winced as white bubbles fizzed across her palm. “I thought someone was following me, so I turned to look. My boot caught on a seam in the sidewalk.”

Philippe stood next to her, his troubled expression reflected in the mirror. “Why would someone be following you?”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

He took a sip of his drink, pinched his lips together, and squinted. “Any guesses?”

She considered what to tell him as she tore open a couple of bandages. He set his drink on the vanity, took her hand in his, and helped her stick them in place.

“Thank you.” She gently pulled her hand away from his and put the lids on the peroxide and Neosporin. “It’s no secret that I’m curious about what happened in Sam’s life during the last couple years while we were…out of touch. I’ve been asking questions. Hoping for answers. And I appreciate what you’ve told me so far. But I get the feeling there are answers that someone doesn’t want me to find.”

“But you’re not looking for answers about her life,” he said. “You’re looking for answers about her death.”

Jessie narrowed her eyes. “What makes you say that?”

“Helena tells Elizabeth everything, and what’s interesting—or not—makes its way to me pretty fast.”