When the Storm Breaks (15 page)

Washington, D.C.

Late Wednesday afternoon

S
afely hidden behind the darkened glass of a café window, the man watched Marie Claire leave the building, get into a cab, and drive off. With her police escort right behind. Satisfied he knew his prey’s destination, he turned his attention to the three people who remained standing at the curb, talking.

One of them was the blonde woman he’d seen with Marie Claire at the place she was now staying. The two others he instantly pegged as cops. He didn’t know the one with lighter hair, but he assumed he was working on the case. The cop with darker hair had driven Marie Claire to the redhead’s apartment building a couple of days ago, the afternoon he’d sent his surprise.

He watched the blonde woman walk down the street, then enter a convenience store. The two men got into a tan sedan with city license plates. There would be no tracing them through the Motor Vehicle Division. He wanted a name for these cops, and for the other woman. He didn’t like not knowing who all the players were.

He also needed to figure out what they’d been doing all day at the office building. It wasn’t anything obvious. He knew the neighborhood because his father’s company had offices two doors down. He searched his memory for any unusual business in the building he’d been watching but came up blank. He’d have to keep an eye on the situation, and get even closer to Marie Claire.

He wasn’t worried about being caught. He was smarter than they were and had been proving it for years. He was setting up to prove it all over again with Marie Claire, his beautiful prey.

Washington, D.C.

Friday morning

“I
t’s about time,” Captain Michaels said when Sean and Aidan showed up at his office. “Sit down and give me an update.”

Sean reached into the folder he carried and handed over a list. “We have a file covering approximately two hundred male clients of the dating service. These names are being run through the computers right now for prior offenses, known aliases, and so forth.”

“How long will that take?” the captain asked.

“At least two weeks. We’ve monopolized the computer techs, but they still can’t run more than a dozen a day between them, if we want to be really thorough.”

“Shit, we don’t have time for this,” Michaels muttered.

Aidan nodded. “That’s why we’ve decided to go through the two hundred candidates with our witness and see if we can’t fine-tune the list. At least then we could come up with some prioritization for the background checks.”

“Does she remember any more about the night of the murder?”

“Not as far as I know,” Aidan said. “Even when I took her over the basic self-defense moves yesterday, which had to be pretty scary considering she was recently attacked, nothing came back to her. But she’s confident she’ll be able to help us narrow the field.”

Michaels said nothing as he skimmed the column of names. “Detective Richter?”

“Burke has finished a preliminary psych profile,” Sean said, using the name most of the department associated with his cousin. “It’s a good start, but we both feel there are gaps. We’ve also been putting together a plan for the dating sting, based on the possibility that the killer is actually a member. We need to proceed very cautiously if we’re going to draw this guy out of hiding with such an obvious operation. Of course, that’s assuming that we’re not wasting our time altogether with this idea.”

Captain Michaels heard the veiled criticism. “I realize you’re still not comfortable with the plan, Richter, but dragging your feet won’t help. The chief is tired of dodging media bullets about the murder.”

“He’s weathered worse storms before,” Sean said.

“Yeah, but that was before Shelly Whitcombe started doing nightly updates on the news.”

Sean’s eyes narrowed. The woman was an ambitious menace who had lied, cheated, and screwed her way to minor fame in the D.C. journalism world.

“She’s sniffing around here after every press briefing,” the captain said. “She gets someone to leak her information and we’ll all be in deep shit.”

Aidan muttered something about size six scum-sucking parasites.

Sean leaned forward in his chair. “All right, we’ll pick up the pace. But I want a full background check on anyone Claire Lambert gets into a car with.”

“Fine,” the captain said. “Even though Burke took the precaution of giving her a short course in self-defense, if anything went wrong with one of her dates, and he had a rap sheet we’d overlooked, the press would crucify us.”

“A bad date wouldn’t do much for Ms. Lambert either.”

Aidan started talking fast, before Sean got in more trouble. “It would be a big help if we could get some time with an FBI profiler. We have to plug the holes in our psych analysis of the killer. It could help Ms. Lambert and us look for behavioral traits or red flags.”

Captain Michaels pulled on his lower lip as he thought about the request. “Talk to the department shrink. He’s been able to give us some insights before. If we don’t get anywhere with our own staff, then we’ll consider bringing in the FBI.”

“Sir, I think we should have a better idea of what kind of personality we’re looking for before we start letting our witness spend the evening with strange men,” Sean said, trying to be diplomatic in his response. “I’m very
uncomfortable
not taking every precaution in a case where we’re using a civilian as bait.”

“So noted. But do you have any idea what the press would do if they caught wind of the fact we were consulting with an FBI criminalist? It’s too early to bring in the Feds.” Captain Michaels stood up to indicate that the meeting was over. “Talk to the department shrink first, see what he has to say.”

Sean was halfway down the corridor before he trusted himself to say a word to his partner. “Michaels doesn’t
give a shit about her. We might as well send her out with a big red target painted on her.”

“He’s a politician. He’s looking at the big picture.”

“Fuck the big picture.”

“That’s why he’s the politician, not you. And not me,” Aidan said.

“You’re a better diplomat than I am.”

“So is a rabid grizzly.” Aidan looked at his partner’s tight face and knew trouble was coming. “Ease up. Claire has us to watch over her, and the captain knows it. We won’t let anything happen to her.”

“Yeah? Are we going to stay over at her place, follow her to the store, stand outside the bathroom while she showers?” Sean demanded, knowing how easy it would be for a determined person to get to Claire.

“If that’s what it takes.”

“If I’m living in her back pocket, how the hell am I supposed to focus on the investigation?”

“Good question,” Aidan said. “You’ve got two hours to find an answer.”

“What?”

“We’re meeting Claire and Afton at Camelot before lunch.”

Washington, D.C.

Friday morning

C
laire looked impatiently out the window of the cab. The Friday morning traffic was heavy, as people had taken cars and taxis due to the steady rain that fell. She checked her watch again—late. She should have taken the metro and walked from the Dupont Circle station to Camelot. It certainly would have been faster.

But she hadn’t been ready to face the memories of what had happened the last time she’d taken that exact same route.

Claire jolted when the cabbie turned around and asked for the fare. She realized that they’d arrived while she’d been daydreaming. She paid the driver and hurried upstairs.

Sean and Aidan were already at work with Afton when Claire rushed into the office. “Sorry I’m late. One of my accounts went nuclear and I had to stop by the office for an emergency meeting. You find anything on my first five choices?”

“Where’s Olivia? I thought for sure she’d want to be involved in the action,” Aidan said.

“She had a court appearance this morning or she’d be here. And believe me, she was pissed I wouldn’t push this meeting until later in the afternoon. She’s been a bit concerned about me recently,” Claire added, rolling her eyes at the understatement.

“Family has that prerogative,” Aidan said, eyeing his partner.

“Can we get on with it?” Sean asked, straightening the stack of papers in front of him. He didn’t look at Claire.

Afton said quickly, “Our security firm rechecked their data on the five men Claire chose. Nothing of interest showed up.”

“We’re still running the names through the law enforcement computers,” Sean said. “The first two came back clean this morning, so we can go ahead and set something up with them.”

“I’ll contact them today and see if we can arrange a dinner meeting with each of them this weekend,” Afton said. “I’m sure there won’t be any problems, especially once they see Claire’s picture,” she added, smiling across the desk.

No doubt
, Sean thought sourly.
The two losers will be slobbering at the thought of going out with someone like Claire. Then they’ll try to slobber all over her.

“We’ll arrange for her dates to do the pickup and drop-off at Camelot,” Afton continued. “They’ll take a taxi to the restaurant, which is a pretty standard security measure.”

“What about after the date?” Claire asked.

“Our couples usually come back here. The presence of
our uniformed security guard generally acts as a deterrent to, ah, questionable behavior at the end of the evening.”

“Sounds good,” said Aidan. “Once Claire gets in a taxi with the guy, either Sean or I will take up a position right behind. The other one will go ahead and be in place at the restaurant.”

Sean flipped to the next page of his notes. “We’ve arranged to use Très Chic on M Street as our location. The management has agreed to reserve certain tables so we can keep an eye on Claire, and we’ve set up some of our surveillance equipment there. The facility has a restaurant, bar, and small dance floor, so there really shouldn’t be a need to go anywhere else in a first date situation.” Sean pinned Claire with a look. “If he does suggest another place, you’re going to develop a sudden headache and give us the signal to end the evening.”

“Unless, of course, I want to go with him.” She gave Sean a brittle smile.

“Not on the department’s nickel. You want to get cozy with someone, you’ll have to wait until the investigation is over,” Sean said, hoping his voice was calm and professional. “Otherwise, the only male you’re alone with had better be wearing a badge.”

Aidan gave his cousin a sideways glance.

Claire didn’t push it. She didn’t see much possibility of wanting to be alone with any of the dates she had selected for their potential to be a serial killer. She’d just wanted to yank Sean’s chain. Something about his cool, professional attitude brought out the devil in her.

“Let’s review the five candidates Claire picked out of the catalogue,” Aidan said. He stood up and spread the photos and brief descriptions across the desk where
everyone could see them. “Okay, we’ve got Taylor North, stockbroker, and Luis Cardinale, technical support supervisor. These two have been fully screened,” he said, tapping one picture and then the other.

“What about the other three?” Claire asked.

“We’re still waiting to hear back on Billy Green, congressional staffer. Also on Dr. Leonard Petrov, podiatrist, and Randy Klein, ad sales executive,” Sean said. “Any particular reason why you picked out these five?”

Claire shook her head. “I was flipping through the pictures and paused on these ones. I just blew by the others.”

“Maybe we have something here,” Aidan said thoughtfully.

Sean stared at his partner. “We have nothing!”

“Look at their physical descriptions,” Aidan said. “All of them are at least six feet tall. They have dark hair, medium complexion, and all but one have light-colored eyes.”

“You think it’s a hint about the killer’s physical characteristics? Maybe a subconscious reaction?” Claire asked hopefully.

“Either that or you just happen to like tall guys with dark hair and light eyes,” Sean said absently, studying the photos again. Then he realized what he’d said and made a big deal out of writing something in his notebook.

Sure her cheeks were flaming, Claire looked at the pictures. Thankfully, none of the bachelors she’d chosen had more than a superficial resemblance to Sean.

“When will you finish the background checks on the other three?” she asked.

“Sometime tomorrow,” Sean said, grateful for the change in subject.

“Well, you’d better get moving. I’m going on a dating marathon. Five dates in five nights. I tried to think of a way to do more than one a night, but I was afraid it would end like a French farce with men hiding in the closet and under the bed.”

Aidan laughed, but not Sean.

“I think of it as the New and Improved Dating Game.” She smiled with true humor for the first time that day. “It’s so nice of the taxpayers to foot the bill.”

“I don’t want to rain on your parade, but this is serious business,” Aidan said.

“What my partner means is that your life could be at risk on any one of these dates,” Sean cut in.

“Welcome to dating in the modern world.”

“I’m serious.”

She widened her eyes and drawled to both men, “Y’all sure about the danger? It never occurred to silly ol’ me.”

“This may be a joke to you,” Sean began.

Aidan kicked him under the table. “You’re going to be wearing a microphone so we can track your conversation,” Aidan said quickly. “You’ll be in visual contact with at least one of us at all times in the restaurant. Even when you’re in the car with your date we’ll be no more than fifty feet behind.”

Claire winced.
This is supposed to make me feel better? Christ, Sean and his bad attitude are going to be following me like my own private thundercloud.

“Wonderful,” Claire grumbled. “You guys going to hand me toilet paper under the stall as well?”

“It won’t be quite that bad,” Aidan said. “But if you sneeze, several cops will be saying ‘
Gesundheit
.’”

She laughed ruefully. “Well, I wanted to be involved in
the investigation, so I’ll try not to complain about the downstream effects.”

Such as having to live within reach of the one man she was determined not to reach for.