Chapter Thirteen
Not a suspect, my ass.
“Could you tell me why blah, blah, blah, blah, Miss Allen?” Harper had quit focusing on anything coming out of Agent Davis’s mouth about a half hour ago. “And when did blah, blah?” What a jerk. “What about blah? Did you blahblahblahblahblah?”
“You can ask me the same questions, a million different ways, in whatever order you want, Agent, and you’re still going to get the exact same answers I gave you a couple of weeks ago. I was in the parking garage because Senator Ellis refused to grant me an interview and so I went after one. I’d only been talking to him for about five minutes when I heard the gunshot. No, he did not give me any indicator as to who might have shot him or for what reason because as far as I know, he wasn’t a psychic and had no idea he was about to be murdered. Yes, I called for help. Did you not read the police report? And no, I didn’t get a good look at the shooter as I was hiding under a car at the time. Anything else I can answer for you,
Agent
?”
Smoke should have been billowing from Agent Davis’s ears by now. His frustration stifled the air in the tiny interview room until it sucked up all of the breathable oxygen. Beside her, Galen sat relaxed, one ankle resting on his knee, arms folded across his chest. But Harper knew it was all an act. He might have looked calm and disinterested, but his eyes were hard and focused, his jaw clenched so tight a muscle twitched at his cheek.
Apparently, he didn’t like the FBI agent any more than she did.
From her insistence on interviewing the senator, to her knowledge of his schedule, Davis laid into her, one ridiculous question after another.
Why do you think Ellis refused to meet with you?
She had no idea. That’s why she’d had to stalk him in a parking garage and corner him into an interview in the first place. Didn’t his refusal to speak to the press come off as a bit suspicious?
Had you ever met the senator before the night he was shot?
Nope.
Do you have any knowledge of the senator’s personal life?
Nothing that he hadn’t already made public, hence the interview.
Did you ever fantasize about being with the senator in a sexual way?
Ew! He was older than her dad. Big no.
What about your finances? Any reason you might have wanted to blackmail the senator? Maybe a piece of information you’d dug up on him?
What kind of a person did he think she was? As a reporter on the political beat, her responsibility was to report the facts to Ellis’s constituents and the truth was, he’d slacked off on the job in the past few months. He’d been dodging the OLCV for months, and that was out of character for him.
Any idea why that might be?
And . . . they were back at square one. No, she didn’t have any idea. That was why she’d wanted to put Ellis on the spot. On and on it went for another hour, round and round until Harper’s head began to throb and a knot the size of a goose egg welled up in her throat.
She looked to Galen, hoping that he could see she needed a lifeline. Tears stung at her eyes and her mouth was almost too dry to speak. Falling apart right now would make her look guiltier than ever in Davis’s eyes, but damn it, she was stressed out. And when she was stressed, she cried.
Galen straightened in his chair, his expression, fierce. His blue eyes seemed to darken and spoke of a brewing storm. “Sean, can I see you out in the hall for a second.”
It wasn’t a question. Not even a polite request. Galen’s tone meant business, and Agent Davis stood there, staring. Eyes wide as though he couldn’t believe Galen would actually have the balls to order him around. Rather than wait for a response, Galen opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. Davis looked from Harper to the hallway and back at Harper, his lip curling as he stormed out with Galen, slamming the door behind him. The walls practically rattled with the force, and Harper cringed, knowing all too well that Galen was about to get a major ass chewing if not worse.
A fresh round of tears threatened and Harper dug through her bag for a tissue because, damn it, she did not want either Agent Davis or Galen to see her with mascara running down her face. The large hobo bag was great for carrying all the things Harper needed, but not so great when she actually needed to find something. Most people cried when they were sad or distraught. Not Harper. She cried when she was overwhelmed or just plain pissed. Right now, she was both. She mined her way to the bottom of the bag, through notebooks, pens, her wallet, her backup digital recorder, several tubes of lip gloss and lip balm, a hair brush, sunscreen, a paperback copy of
Full Blooded
(because who doesn’t love a good werewolf book?), and a pair of ballet flats—oops, those were Addison’s, better give ’em back—until she found a wadded-up tissue.
And one more thing that didn’t belong to her.
Harper rolled the silver thumb drive in her palm. Where had it come from? She was obsessive about backing up her work. She had a mental catalog of every single one of her backup drives and she was absolutely freaking positive this one wasn’t hers. She’d been to the paper a total of two times since the night Ellis had been shot, and the rest of the days had been spent in her condo, or riding around in a car chauffeured by a marshal. She doubted the flash drive belonged to Curt, or Peggy, or even Galen. Which really only left one option in her mind: the drive belonged to Senator Mark Ellis.
If Harper had actual Spidey senses, they’d be tingling like mad right about now. Would it look suspicious if she bolted? Because she wanted to go back home so badly she was practically vibrating with excitement. A mystery awaited her. The story she’d been digging for months to get, perhaps. Some answers as to why she was wrapped up in this nightmarish situation. Or possibly all the drive contained was a long lost sci-fi manuscript Ellis had been dying to publish.
Heh
. Either way, she was damned antsy to get back to her laptop and find out.
The door to the interview room swung open, and Harper buried the thumb drive in the bottom of her bag. As with the wardrobe leading to Narnia, she had to hope that the bag would still contain the flash drive when she dove back in.
“Let’s go, Harper.” Galen held open the door, his expression even darker than it had been before he’d stepped out into the hall. Ugh. The ride home should be loads of fun.
Agent Davis stood right outside the doorway, making her exit more than a little uncomfortable. She had to sidle past him to get out of the room, which had obviously been his plan. A little alpha-male chicanery to make her nervous. Well, it worked. Frankly, Davis scared the ever-loving shit out of her even when he wasn’t playing the big-bad FBI guy. And after today’s interrogation—because no way was this an interview—she had even more reason to watch out for him.
As she walked down the hallway toward the staircase, she felt Galen at her back, his footsteps nothing more than a whisper on the industrial carpeting. She picked up her pace, worried that she wasn’t moving fast enough for him, or worse, that he’d step on her heels if she didn’t get her butt in gear. But instead of backing off, he matched her pace, so close now that the heat from his body engulfed her.
Harper took a right where two hallways met, toward the stairs, but Galen stopped her. “Take the elevator.” His tone was harsh as though harnessing a barely restrained rage. Harper shuddered at his commanding words as she veered left, uncertain if fear or excitement had caused the tremor. And how sick was that?
She hit the down button on the wall of elevators and waited. She didn’t need to turn around to know that Galen stood to her right, close enough to touch. If she simply reached her hand back, she’d surely brush his arm. Why was he suddenly crowding her? Was he angry with her, too? Taking a page from Agent Davis’s intimidation tactics manual?
When the doors slid open, a jolt of anxiety seeped into her bloodstream. What would Galen do once they were locked up inside that stupid metal box? Had Davis convinced him of her guilt as well? Would he confront her? She had nothing to hide and she’d always been straight with Galen. The question was, would he believe her?
As the elevator began its descent, Harper’s stomach did the same. The silence in the car was deafening. The air, stagnant.
“Don’t push Davis’s buttons, Harper.” Galen’s voice sliced the quiet like a swath of shadow through sunlight. “He’ll go after you for no other reason than to cut you down, do you understand me?”
Harper was playing with fire and she had no idea how close to the flame she was. If the evidence against her weren’t circumstantial at best, Davis would have had Harper locked up in a super-max by now.
Davis. What a cocksucker
. Harper’s quick responses and witty, biting retorts had done nothing to cool the FBI agent’s jets. If anything, he’d be more up Harper’s ass than ever. A fact that clouded Galen’s vision with a haze of red.
“I won’t.” Harper’s voice sounded tiny in the enclosed space. “I—I think maybe I’d better get an attorney.”
Unfortunately, Galen agreed. “Do you know anyone you can trust?”
“My friend, Sophie, her dad’s a lawyer. I’ll see if he can recommend someone.”
Galen’s hands clenched into tight fists at his side, more to keep them from shaking than anything. He’d never been so close to slamming a colleague into a wall, but Davis’s head would have made a great dent. Rage still burned through Galen’s bloodstream, his inability to control the situation making his anger that much worse. No doubt he’d get a call from Monroe after what had happened in that hallway. Namely, him backing Davis against the wall as he’d warned him to stay the hell away from Harper and lay off her as a suspect.
Way to keep it classy, man
. No doubt that move would advance his career.
Yeah, right. Desk duty, here I come
.
“Harper, can I ask you a question?” Not that it mattered. He didn’t believe for a second she had anything to do with Ellis’s death.
She answered slowly, “Sure.”
“Why were you so obsessed with Ellis?”
“I wasn’t
obsessed
,” she said with disdain. Great, he’d pissed her off and managed to put her on the defensive. “I was curious.”
Cryptic. Looked like he’d have to coax it out of her. “Curious about what?”
The doors slid open and Harper made her way to the reception desk to turn in her guest badge. She waited by the door as Galen did the same, her expression thoughtful. His firearm was returned to him and he slipped it in the shoulder holster before heading for the exit. Harper stayed a few steps ahead of him all the way to the car, and even after he unlocked the doors, she stood there, staring at him over the hood.
“Have you ever had an itch you couldn’t scratch?” she asked. “You know, one that’s just under the skin and no matter how you try, you can’t make it go away?”
Galen nodded. He opened his door, but Harper stayed where she was.
“Ellis was that itch. I mean, he copped to
everything
. Shamelessly. Most politicians try to hide their misdeeds or hang their heads and grovel when they’ve been caught. They cast blame. They lie, try to cover up the truth, or follow the old
deny, deny, deny
tactic. He ran this huge campaign based on honesty. He stood in front of the cameras and laid his life bare for the people, admitting to everything and denying nothing. He was apologetic, but so human in his admissions. ‘I’m not perfect. I make mistakes. So does everyone.’ Of course he’d win the election. People are tired of being lied to by their lawmakers. They wanted to believe that even though Ellis had a laundry list of faults, there was at least one honest man in Washington. In the course of the election, he’d duped everyone into believing that he had nothing more to hide.”
“But you didn’t believe it?” Galen ventured.
Harper leveled her gaze. “Not for a second. I think he used his honest proclamations as a distraction. He was meeting with someone at the state fire marshal’s office almost every week for the past couple of months. Yet, the Oregon League of Conservation Voters can’t get him to meet even once. Ellis was a staunch Democrat and preached a green lifestyle. He made everyone on his staff convert to hybrid cars, for Christ’s sake. Why would he dodge a group like the OLCV? The fire service has nothing on the books right now. No legislation pending and I recently did a story on collective bargaining. The state’s firefighters were in no danger of losing their bargaining rights anytime soon.”
Galen marveled at Harper’s emphatic tone. Her eyes lit with excitement, and when she got worked up, she talked so fast he had a hard time keeping up. His smile grew as she went on and on, point after point, the consummate journalist hot on the trail of a story.
I’m particularly fond of journalism majors.
He’d been teasing when he’d said it to her that night, but he’d be damned if it wasn’t true. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but did you ever mention any of this to Davis?”
Harper cocked a brow. “I tried,” she said with disdain. “But you saw how he treated me today. He doesn’t care what I have to say.”
True. Davis had settled on Harper as a suspect from day one for some crazy damned reason. And until Galen could find a way to go over Davis’s head on this one, Harper would remain in his sights. “Fair enough. But promise me, Harper, that when your friend’s dad gets you hooked up with an attorney, you tell him
everything
. Okay?”
She sighed as though the weight of her ordeal had settled heavily upon her. “I will.”
“Good. Now, get in the car. Davis is probably watching us with binoculars from the fifth-floor window.”
She smiled and opened the car door. Galen responded in kind, his earlier annoyance over Michelle’s overzealous behavior and Davis’s utter dickishness melting under the warmth of Harper’s brilliant expression.
Galen spent the drive back to her condo doing his best to keep her mind off her predicament. He fired off questions in rapid succession, giving her no choice but to come up with quick responses. It was a win-win for him. Each answer told him more about her, and it managed to lighten the mood. Mac and cheese was her go-to comfort food. She’d do just about anything for a donut (good to know), she refused to drink soda without ice, and she wanted the
New York Times
or
Washington Post
to offer her a job just so she could turn them down, though she wouldn’t be opposed to a freelance gig. She loved the Pacific Northwest, and though she was ambitious and wanted to advance her career, she didn’t think she’d ever move east of the Rockies.