I left my office shortly after darkness fell, my mind still returning to Nina Davis.
She was one of the most devastatingly beautiful women I’d ever met. She seemed to ooze sensuality from her pores and suggested forbidden adventure with every gesture. And she had predatory instincts. She stalked her sexual prey.
What was that about? She intimated she’d stalked Dr. Winters before, and successfully. But what else did she say? That there were rumors that he was into pain? Wouldn’t she have known that for certain?
As I climbed the stairs, smelling the aromas of Nana Mama’s latest triumph wafting through the door, I could not avoid the growing trepidation I felt. Nina Davis was making me nervous. I was the therapist. I was supposed to keep the inner lives of my clients at arm’s length, where they could be dispassionately observed.
But since Nina had left, close to four hours before, I’d been thinking about her, imagining her stalking me, imagining her bringing me right to the edge of a decision.
The guy has to make the final move in her little game. Isn’t that what she said?
I felt guilty for even considering that possibility. Not only was I a happily married guy, but my job demanded I keep my feelings out of her game.
But I was also a man, an alpha male if ever there was one, and Nina was so…how did she describe it? Free in her—
On the other side of the door, the sound of a cooking spoon banging against a pot startled me back to reality. I opened the kitchen door and sighed with relief at the familiar sight of Nana Mama at the stove, her back to me.
“That smells excellent,” I said.
“A lamb stew I whipped up,” she said.
“How long until dinner?”
She glanced at the clock. “Forty minutes?”
“I’m going to take a walk,” I said. “Clear my head.”
“Don’t get hit by a bus.”
I laughed and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll try not to.”
I grabbed a jacket, cap, and gloves. I was putting them on when Bree came through the door looking like she’d taken a pummeling.
“Are you going for a walk?” she said. “I need one.”
After putting my arms around her and kissing her on the lips, I said, “I would love to go for a walk with you.”
That pleased Bree. She snuggled into my chest for a long hug before we went outside into the chill air and headed north toward Pennsylvania Avenue. As we walked, she told me about her frustration at her inability to make headway in the Betsy Walker murder case and about how Chief Michaels was calling her twice a day for updates.
“I don’t know what’s behind this pressure he’s putting on me.”
“Sounds like he’s up for a big job or he’s going to run for elected office.”
Bree thought about that. “So he needs a coup, and I’m the one who’s supposed to manufacture that?”
“I’m not saying I’m right. Just conjecture.”
She rubbed her temple, then stopped and fell into my arms.
“Hey,” I said, patting her back.
“I just need a hug, that’s all.”
“I love you,” I said. “And you can have as many hugs as you need.”
“Thank you, baby,” Bree whispered. “I love you too.”
Someone called out from behind us, “C’mon, get a room, why don’t you?”
We broke our embrace to see John Sampson hustling toward us. It had been a while since I’d seen my oldest friend and former partner at DC Metro.
“When’d you get back?” I asked, shaking his hand.
“Four hours ago,” he said.
“Good trip?” Bree asked.
“The best,” Sampson said. “I was ready to go back to work tomorrow completely refreshed, but I guess I had to start early.”
We both looked at him with puzzled expressions.
“I just got a call from a friend with the Virginia State Police,” Sampson said. “A mutual acquaintance of ours, Sergeant Nick Moon—”
“I know Moon,” Bree said.
“I do too,” I said. “He’s a guest instructor in mixed martial arts and submission techniques at Quantico.”
“That’s him,” Sampson said. “Good guy. And he’s dead.”
“What?” Bree said. “How? Line of duty?”
“He was in uniform,” Sampson said. “A couple of teenagers found him lying dead beside his cruiser, which was still running.”
“Shot?”
Sampson shook his head. “Looks like he’d been in a fight. Three of his right fingers were broken. His larynx was crushed. The knuckles of his left hand were split and bloody. The top of his skull was fractured from kicks, and his neck was broken.”
“Jesus,” I said. “His service weapon?”
“Snapped in his holster.”
“So he was surprised,” Bree said. “Hit without warning.”
“Still,” I said. “The Sergeant Moon I remember was a fighting machine. You’d have to be one hell of a warrior to kill him.”
“That’s exactly what my friend said: a professional killed Moon.”
Thinking about the sniper who’d killed Senator Walker and then about Kristina Varjan, the Hungarian killer for hire spotted at Dulles Airport, I said, “As in an assassin?”
“He said Special Forces kind of badass, but sure, assassin would fit.”
Bree said, “No one saw the fight?”
“Happened way out in the middle of nowhere,” Sampson said. “But the state police may have gotten lucky.”
“How’s that?” I asked.
“Moon’s left hand, the one with the split knuckles. It had to have connected with one hell of a punch. There was blood evidence at the scene that wasn’t Moon’s.”
Bree said, “And there’s probably DNA on his knuckles. That helps.”
That did help, but in my gut, something churned, a sensation that grew the more I thought about the shooting expertise of Senator Walker’s killer, the CIA’s concerns about Kristina Varjan, and how one of law enforcement’s best self-defense men had turned up beaten and dead by his cruiser in a way that suggested a pro.
“Alex?” Bree said. “What is it? What are you thinking?”
I licked my lips before gazing at Sampson and Bree in turn.
“I’m thinking it’s odd that we’ve had two, maybe three professional killers around suddenly, and I’m feeling like they’re all here for some reason beyond Senator Walker and Sergeant Moon.”