Something About You (4 page)

Four

WHEN AGENT WILKINS suggested that he and Jack drive her home from the hotel, Cameron reluctantly accepted. As much as she was eager to put some distance between herself and Jack, she didn’t want him to think that his attitude was getting to her.

Sitting in the back of Wilkins’s car—at least she assumed it was Wilkins’s car since he was the one driving and she couldn’t picture Jack owning a Lexus—she rested her head against the cool leather seat and looked out the window. She’d been stuck in that hotel room for so long that the brightness of the daylight had been jarring and surreal when she’d first stepped outside. It was nearly noon, which meant she now was going on almost thirty hours without sleep. She doubted even Starbucks had a fix for that.

Fighting the lulling motion of the car, she turned away from the window. With her head against the backseat, she observed the man sitting in front of her through half-lidded eyes.

Jack Pallas.

She might have laughed at the irony of the situation, if she wasn’t so damned tired. And also, as a general rule, she found it prudent to refrain from strangely laughing to oneself while sitting in a car with two FBI agents—one of whom already distrusted her with an intensity that was palpable.

Not that Cameron was surprised Jack still felt that way. She recalled all too well the look on his face when she’d told him they weren’t going to file charges in the Martino case.

It had been three years ago, late on a Friday afternoon. Earlier in the day, she had been called into a meeting with her boss, Silas Briggs, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. He’d told her that he wanted to talk about the Martino case, and she assumed they were going to discuss the charges she planned to pursue against the various members of Martino’s organization. What Silas told her instead came as a shock.

“I’ve decided against filing charges,” he declared. He said it as soon as she sat down, as if wanting to get through the conversation quickly.

“Against Martino’s men, or Martino himself?” Cameron asked, assuming at first that Silas meant he’d made an immunity deal with somebody—or several somebodies—in exchange for their testimony.

“Against everybody,” Silas said matter-of-factly.

Cameron sat back in her chair, needing a moment to process this. “You don’t want to file any charges?”

“I realize that you’re surprised by this.”

That was the understatement of the year. “The FBI has been working on this case for over two years. With all the information Agent Pallas gathered while undercover, we have enough evidence to put Martino away for the rest of his life. Why wouldn’t we prosecute?”

“You’re young and eager, Cameron, and I like that about you. It’s one of the reasons I snatched you away from Hatcher and Thorn,” Silas said, referring to the law firm she had worked at prior to coming to the U.S. attorney’s office.

Cameron held up her hand. True, she was new to the job, and she definitely was eager, but she’d had four years of trial experience as a civil litigator before becoming a prosecutor. Nevertheless, if Silas didn’t think she was ready, she wouldn’t let pride get in the way. “Hold on, Silas. If this is because you don’t think I have enough experience to try this case, then just give it to somebody else. Sure, I’ll be a little testy, I’ll probably mope dramatically around the office for a day or two, but I’ll get over it. Hell, I’ll even help whoever you reassign to the case get up and ru—”

Silas cut her off. “No one in this office is going to file charges. Period. I’ve been around long enough to know that a trial like this will quickly escalate into two things: a media circus, and a black fucking hole for the United States government. You think you have enough evidence now, but just wait: after we openly declare war on Martino, you’ll have witnesses flipping on you—or worse, mysteriously disappearing or dying—and before you know it, you’ll be two weeks into trial without a shred of hard evidence to back up all the promises you made to the jury in your opening statement.”

Cameron knew that she probably should’ve just backed off at that point. But she couldn’t help herself. “But Agent Pallas’s testimony alone will be enough evidence to—”

“Agent Pallas saw a lot of things, but unfortunately his cover was blown too early,” Silas interrupted her. “And while I certainly appreciate the two years he spent investigating this case, if we go forward with pressing charges and we don’t get a conviction, the fallout will be on us— not Agent Pallas or anyone else at the FBI. I’m not willing to have my office take that risk.”

Now Cameron did fall quiet. Roberto Martino and his minions were responsible for nearly one-third of all drug trafficking in the city of Chicago; they laundered their money through more than twenty sham corporations; and they extorted, bribed, and threatened anyone who got in their way. Not to mention, they killed people.

Going after criminals like Roberto Martino was the reason she had joined the U.S. attorney’s office in the first place. In the dark time surrounding her father’s murder, that decision had been the one thing—in addition to Collin and Amy’s support—that had kept her driven and focused.

Generally, she had liked working at her old firm. With her father having been a police officer, and her mother having worked as a court reporter until she divorced Cameron’s father and married a pilot she’d met during a deposition she was transcribing (in his divorce case, no less), her family had gotten by reasonably well. But they certainly hadn’t been wealthy. Because of that, Cameron had appreciated the independence and security that had come with the $250,000 salary she’d been earning by her fourth year in private practice.

Her father had been proud of her success. As Cameron had learned again and again from the police officers who offered their condolences at her father’s wake and funeral, he’d apparently bragged incessantly to his partner and other cop friends about her achievements.

She’d remained close to her father and his side of the family after her parents’ divorce—particularly after her mother moved to Florida with her new husband, who retired from the airline shortly after Cameron entered law school.

His death had hit her hard.

One late afternoon during Cameron’s fourth year at the firm, the captain in charge of her father’s shift called her at work with the grave words anyone with a family member in law enforcement dreads hearing: that she needed to come to the hospital right away. By the time she’d burst frantically through the doors of the emergency room, it had been too late. She’d stood numbly in a private room as the captain told her that her father had been shot to death by a drug dealer while responding to what they had believed to be merely a routine domestic disturbance call.

Those first couple of weeks after her father’s murder, she’d felt . . . gray was the word she’d used to describe it when Collin had asked how she was holding up. But then she’d pulled herself together and went back to the firm. In many senses, knowing how proud her father had been of her hard work had made it easier to do that—she knew he would want her to carry on, to keep going with her career as far as she could. But something had been missing.

Four weeks after the funeral, she was in court when she figured out what that something was. She’d been waiting to argue an evidentiary motion that once would’ve seemed particularly important, but after her father’s death had felt dismayingly insignificant. Then the court reporter called the case before hers.

United States versus Markovitz. A simple felon-in-possession of a firearm case. It had been a straightforward court appearance, nothing flashy, a motion to suppress evidence filed by the defendant. Procedurally the motion was very similar to the one Cameron herself was scheduled to argue that day, so she’d paid attention, wanting to gauge the judge’s mood. After a brief oral argument, the judge ruled in favor of the government, and Cameron saw the look of satisfaction in the assistant U.S. attorney’s eyes.

Since her father had been killed, she hadn’t once felt that same kind of satisfaction.

But that morning, as she watched the defendant being escorted out of the courtroom wearing his handcuffs and orange jumpsuit, she felt as though something had been accomplished, no matter how small the degree. Justice had been served. The man who had shot and killed her father had been a felon, too. Maybe if more had been done, maybe if that gun hadn’t been on the streets, maybe if he hadn’t been on the streets . . .

She could do something about that, she’d realized.

That very week, she applied for an assistant U.S. attorney position.

One aspect of being a prosecutor Cameron hadn’t anticipated, however, was the politics that often came into play with government jobs. While sitting across from Silas that day, discussing his reasons for pulling out of the Martino case, she realized that the U.S. attorney’s office was no exception. She could guess Silas’s real problem: simply put, he didn’t want to stick his neck out and potentially lose a trial that would be covered by every national newspaper, television, and radio station.

She was surprised by his decision. And frustrated. And disgusted by the thought that someone like Roberto Martino would be allowed to go on, unchecked, with business as usual. But unfortunately, unless she planned to hand over her assistant U.S. attorney badge right then and there, her hands were tied. She’d been with the office for only a year—openly challenging her boss on such an issue would not be the smartest move if she wanted to remain an employed crime-fighter. So she kept her thoughts to herself.

“Okay. No charges.” She got a pit in her stomach, saying the words out loud.

“I’m glad you understand,” Silas said with a nod of approval. “And there’s one last thing: I haven’t had the chance to speak to anyone at the Bureau about this. Somebody needs to tell Agent Pallas and the others that we’re pulling out of the Martino case. I thought, since you seem to have a good rapport with him, that it should be you.”

Now that was a conversation Cameron wanted no part of. “I think it might be more appropriate if Agent Pallas heard this directly from you, Silas. Especially given everything he went through in this investigation.”

“He was doing his job as an FBI agent. That’s how these things turn out sometimes.”

Sensing from his tone that the matter was no longer open for discussion, Cameron nodded. She wasn’t sure she trusted herself to speak at that moment, anyway.

Silas held her eyes. “And just so we’re on the same page, the only thing the FBI needs to know is that there aren’t going to be any charges brought against Martino and his men. This office has a strict policy that we do not comment on our internal decision-making process.”

When Cameron still said nothing, Silas cocked his head. “I need you to be a team-player on this, Cameron. Is that understood?”

Oh, she understood all right. Silas was selling her out—letting her take the fall for his decision to back off of Martino. But that was how the game was played. He was her boss, not to mention an extremely important and well-connected member of the Chicago legal community. Which meant there was only one thing she could say.

“Consider it done.”

JACK WATCHED AS Wilkins checked his rearview mirror. The passenger in the backseat had been silent for a while.

“Is she asleep?” he asked.

Wilkins nodded. “Been a long night.”

“True. Let’s pick up another round of coffee before heading back. The stuff they have in the office tastes like shit.”

“I meant that it’s been a long night for her.”

Jack knew exactly what Wilkins had meant. But he was trying to avoid thinking about her as much as possible.

“Kind of strange, the two of you meeting again under these circumstances.”

Wilkins apparently had not received his let’s-just-drop-the-issue memo.

Jack glanced in his mirror to double-check that Cameron was sleeping. “It would’ve been strange no matter what circumstances we’d met under,” he said, keeping his voice low.

Wilkins looked away from the road. “You have any regrets?”

“About what I said?”

“Yeah.”

“Only that they had a camera there.”

Wilkins shook his head. “Remind me to never get on your bad side.”

“Don’t ever get on my bad side.”

“Thanks.”

Jack liked working with Wilkins. He’d hesitated at first when his boss had decided to partner him with a guy who’d just graduated from the Academy. He’d hesitated even more when he’d gotten a look at the expensive suit Wilkins had been wearing the first day they met. But underneath the grins and jokes, Wilkins was a lot savvier than Jack had first given him credit for, and he respected that—even if the two of them couldn’t have been more different in their approach to most things. Besides that, Jack welcomed having a partner who actually talked for a change, considering his last partner in Nebraska had spoken an average of about six-point-three words a day and had the personality of a doorknob. Stakeouts with the guy had been a real hoot. Not that stakeouts in Nebraska were all that interesting to start with. He’d been bored out of his mind the last three years—which, of course, had been the whole point of the disciplinary action the Department of Justice had taken against him.

Jack glanced again in his mirror to check out Cameron sleeping in the backseat.

He wasn’t being entirely truthful, telling Wilkins that he had no regrets about what had happened three years ago. Of course he did—what he said had been uncalled for. He knew that all of about two seconds after the words had flown out of his mouth.

When he’d found out that he was being transferred back to Chicago, he’d vowed to put everything behind him. Unfortunately, he hadn’t counted on running into Cameron Lynde within his first week of being back. Being around her brought back a lot of old memories.

For starters, he still couldn’t forget the way she had refused to look at him the day she told him about the Martino case.

Late that Friday afternoon, three years ago, Cameron had called to say she was coming to his office to speak with him and his partner at the time, Joe Dobbs. When he had heard the knock and seen her standing in his doorway, he’d smiled. Jack distinctly remembered that, probably because of how rare it was that he smiled back in those days—there hadn’t been a lot to be chipper about during the two years he’d worked for Martino. He was still, to put it bluntly, pretty fucked-up from being undercover for so long and having trouble getting back into the routine of normal life. He also wasn’t sleeping at night, and that certainly didn’t help matters.

But as much as he had been finding it difficult to transition back to an office job, there was one part of it he didn’t mind: working with Cameron Lynde. He’d begun to worry, in fact, that he was starting to not mind it a little too much. They’d only ever talked business—the Martino case—yet the couple of times they’d been alone together, he felt some sort of undercurrent between them. He didn’t know how to describe it, except to say that whatever the undercurrent was, it was enough to make him wish he wasn’t still so screwed up.

“Come on in,” Jack had told her.

When Cameron stepped into his office that Friday afternoon, for once she didn’t return his smile.

“Will Agent Dobbs be joining us?” she asked.

“He’s on his way. Why don’t you have a seat while you wait?” Jack gestured to the chairs in front of his desk.

Cameron shook her head. “I’m fine, thanks.”

Over the course of the last month, Jack had gotten to know her well enough to know that she was not fine right then. Something was wrong—she had skipped over the tough-as-nails-but-not-really sarcastic/semi-flirtatious pleasantries he had come to expect and enjoy as part of their usual discourse. Not to mention, she seemed skittish.

He had a bad feeling about this.

“You said you wanted to talk about Martino—is there a problem with the case?” He watched as she hesitated.

Bingo.

Cameron’s eyes shifted to the door. “I think we should wait until Agent Dobbs gets here.” She bit her bottom lip worriedly, and Jack couldn’t decide what was more troubling—her sudden display of vulnerability or the fact that he now couldn’t take his eyes off her lips.

He got up from his desk, walked over, and shut his office door. He stood before her. “Something’s got you upset.”

“Agent Pallas, I think—”

He cut her off. “It’s Jack, okay? I think it’s probably time for us to be on a first-name basis.” When her gaze darted again to his office door, he did something that surprised them both—he reached out and touched her chin gently.

He turned her face to his. “Talk to me, Cameron. Tell me what’s wrong.”

When her incredible aquamarine eyes met his, he felt it—something akin to the jolts of electricity Martino’s men had hit him with during his two days of captivity. Only infinitely more enjoyable.

“Jack,” she whispered. “I’m so sor—”

A knock at the door interrupted them.

Jack and Cameron sprang away from each other as the door to his office opened. Joe walked in, surprised to find them both standing there.

“Oh, hey—sorry I’m late.” He took a seat in one of the chairs in front of Jack’s desk—they had been partners for four years and were comfortable in each other’s offices. He crossed his leg and looked up at Cameron. “Jack said you wanted to talk to us about Martino?”

“I do,” Cameron said. She sounded stiff and nervous again, and oddly focused her attention on Joe. “I wanted to let you know that we’ve made a decision. We won’t be filing charges against Roberto Martino. Or anyone else in his organization, for that matter.”

There was a silence in the room.

Jack broke it. “You can’t be serious.”

Cameron still didn’t look at him. “I realize this isn’t the result either of you expected.”

“What do you mean, you’re not going to file any charges?” Joe asked. He had been the liaison between Jack and the Bureau during the two years Jack had been undercover and knew all the dirt they’d dug up on Martino.

“Our office has decided there isn’t enough evidence to take the case to trial,” Cameron said.

Jack was struggling—hard—to keep his anger in check. “Bullshit. Who made this decision? Was it Briggs?”

Joe stood up from his chair and paced. “That fucking guy. All he cares about is his own reputation,” he said disgustedly.

“I want to talk to him,” Jack demanded.

Cameron finally turned to face him. “There’s no need for that. This . . . is my case. It was my call.”

“Screw that—I don’t believe you.”

Joe glanced over, a cautionary note in his voice. “Jack.”

Cameron remained cool. “I realize how frustrating this—”

Jack took a step toward her. “Frustrating? Frustration doesn’t begin to cover what I’m feeling right now. You’ve read the files—at least I assumed you had until about a minute ago—now I’m not so sure what you or anyone else in the U.S. attorney’s office has been doing. You know who Martino is and the things he’s done. What the hell are you guys thinking?”

“I’m sorry,” she said woodenly. “I know how much you put into this investigation. Unfortunately, there’s nothing more I can tell you.”

“Sure there is. You can tell me who the hell Martino paid off in the U.S. attorney’s office to make this miracle happen. If Briggs didn’t make this decision, then . . .” Jack paused to give Cameron a scrutinizing once-over. “What do you think, Joe, should we do a little digging into Ms. Lynde’s accounts? See if she’s had any unusually large deposits lately?”

Cameron walked over and stared him dead in the eyes. “You are way out of line with that, Agent Pallas.”

Joe moved between them. “Okay, I think we all need to take a step back for a moment and cool down.”

Jack ignored him. “I want an explanation,” he said again to Cameron.

She stood her ground, holding his gaze angrily. “Fine. You blew your cover too early. I hope that explanation satisfies you, because it’s the only one I can give you.”

A wave of fury washed over him. And guilt. Her words struck a nerve—although he’d had no choice, he still blamed himself every day for the fact that his cover had been blown.

Jack’s voice was ice-cold. “Get out of my office.”

“I was just leaving,” Cameron said. “But one last thing—if you ever have any concerns about where my loyalties lie, or regarding my dedication to my job, you can just ask me yourself, Agent Pallas. But if you poke around in my bank accounts, you better have either a court order or one hell of a defense attorney.” She nodded at Joe in good-bye. “Agent Dobbs.” Then she turned and left without further word.

Joe watched her go. “I know you’re angry, Jack, and I’m mad as hell, too, but be careful. Cameron Lynde might be new to the office, but she’s still an assistant U.S. attorney. Probably not such a good idea to accuse her of corruption.”

Barely listening, Jack said nothing. All he could think about was one thing.

Two years of his life down the fucking drain.

Joe sprang into action. “All right—I’m going to talk to Davis,” he said, referring to their boss, the special agent in charge. “I’ll see if I can find out what’s really going on.” He walked over and put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “In the meantime, you need to calm the hell down. Go home, go get drunk, whatever—just get out of this office before you say anything else you’ll regret.”

Jack nodded.

Two years.

In the elevator on his way out, he stared numbly at the doors, wondering if Cameron Lynde had any clue what he’d gone through to get all that evidence that she had just rendered meaningless. Yes, his cover had been blown, but only because—in a move that was two parts plain stupid and one part a piss-fight over jurisdiction—the DEA had sent in their own undercover agent to make contact with Martino. Jack had figured out who the guy was in all of about five seconds. It took Martino ten.

He’d ordered Jack to kill him.

Now Jack had done a lot of not-so-nice things in order to maintain his cover while working for Martino, but up to that point he’d always managed to avoid actually killing anyone. But this time Martino wanted the agent’s body brought back to him—he planned to send a message to the DEA—and no amount of craftiness could get Jack out of having to produce an actual corpse. So he stalled. He was on his way to meet the DEA agent, warn him, and get them both the hell out of Dodge, when Martino’s men grabbed them.

They killed the DEA agent immediately. Martino stuck to his plan and had his men dump the body on the Chicago DEA office’s doorstep that night.

With Jack, he was less forgiving.

Enough said.

On the second day of Jack’s captivity, however, Martino’s men made a fatal mistake.

Actually, it was one man in particular who made the mistake: Vincent, one of Martino’s interrogators, wanted to take his questioning up a notch and decided to untie Jack’s hands. Sure, he immediately re-disabled one of those hands by ramming a nine-inch carving knife all the way through Jack’s forearm, pinning it to the chair. But he momentarily left his other hand free.

For such stupidity, Martino surely would’ve killed Vincent himself. That is, if Jack hadn’t choked the guy with his free hand, slid the knife back out of his forearm, and beaten him to it.

Luckily for Jack, Vincent had been carrying a gun along with his knife. Also lucky for Jack was the fact that he had been trained in Special Forces to skillfully handle a gun with either hand.

These things, however, were not as fortuitous for Martino’s men. True, one of them was lucky enough to shoot Jack in the middle of the gunfight that ensued, but he certainly didn’t live long enough to brag about it.

But unlike his men, Martino himself seemed to have all the luck in the world. Not only was he not among the eight dead bodies FBI backup collected when they finally showed up at the warehouse, but apparently, Lady Luck was smiling down on him a second time when she steered his case into the inexperienced hands of Assistant U.S. Attorney Cameron Lynde.

Two years of his life down the drain.

Jack didn’t want to believe it. But she said that the decision not to prosecute was hers. And if that was true, then . . . the hell with her.

The elevator hit the ground floor and the doors sprang open. Jack stepped out and was immediately accosted by a throng of reporters. Unfortunately, this was not an unusual occurrence; he unwittingly had become the focus of media attention after the shoot-out at the warehouse—eight dead gangsters tended to pique people’s interests—and ever since, reporters had come calling whenever Martino’s name popped up in the news.