“How long is this woman going to make us wait?” Caroline Diaz glanced at her watch.
Andy shrugged and yawned. “She’s probably going to look at the crime scene before she does the interview.”
They’d both watched as the woman with the black pantsuit, comfortable shoes, and thick curly hair, the color of ripe wheat, stood talking to the detective who had herded them into the small kitchen. She had a coffee cup in her hand, drinking from it as if she was dying of thirst. When she’d drained it, they walked toward the elevator and got in.
Caroline made a noise in the back of her throat. “Waste of time.” She turned to Andy. “We’re clear on what’s going to happen here?”
“Yes. Don’t worry. I know what to do.”
Caroline regarded her with cool blue eyes under dark blond hair that hung halfway down her back. Her skirt and jacket screamed money and power, as did the thick golden earrings and the matching chain around her neck. She looked magnificently put together, as always.
Caroline was a born professional. One hundred percent so. You didn’t get to be Ma Soeur’s legal counsel without the balls and fortitude to deal with the absurd and farfetched as an everyday occurrence.
It did help that Caroline’s father and mother were a Ma Soeur unit before they retired three years ago.
Caroline’s job was to hide Ma Soeur. To block and obscure and redirect.
Caroline jutted her chin out. “You left without saying good-bye.” Her firm, low-pitched voice sounded as if she was indicting Andy for murder.
Andy stared at her boots, guilt rising in her throat like bile. René, Caroline. She’d left good people behind without saying a word. “Sorry about that. Really.”
“I just woke up and you were gone. I had to go talk to Kate to figure out what had happened, just to find out that she had no idea where you were either.”
“I’m…I just couldn’t anymore. I just couldn’t breathe.”
“I never thought of you as a coward. Not for a single moment did I ever imagine that you would act that way.”
Andy hung her head in shame, only to find herself trapped looking at the trim legs that once straddled her, the Blahniks that Caroline favored, especially when being taken leaning over a kitchen counter wearing nothing else.
“We were good together,” Caroline said.
“I know. I’m really sorry. I was a coward. You’re right.”
“Victoria. You could have gone to her and fixed it.” Caroline sighed. “Returned home.”
“I am back, even if not of my own free will. No one told you?” Andy feigned a smile as she straightened her back.
Caroline hefted her briefcase onto the seat next to her. “I heard. The redhead. The little girl your mother thought she’d push into your bed.”
“She’s not in my bed.”
“Won’t be long.”
Andy breathed out slowly. She deserved Caroline’s anger. They got together just after Victoria. It was quick, but Caroline was invested. Saw a future for them. Andy was bruised and hurting, but that was no excuse for the way she’d behaved.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry for the way I treated you.”
Caroline smirked. “Save your apologies and put on your game face.” She pointed to the elevator door as it opened. “It’s time to play stupid.”
* * *
Jane looked at the tall woman in front of her, the gorgeous lawyer next to her. She tried to stem the sudden tide of attraction she felt for the blonde with the elegant bone structure. And those furious blue eyes that bored into hers.
Hell, she needed to get over herself. And Amy. Amy the cheating bitch.
“I told you Ms. Bouchard has no comment on her relationship with the victim beyond the fact that she was her bodyguard.”
“And I’m asking if there is any documentation that will prove this.” Jane’s icy tone matched that of Caroline Diaz. “You can see that I would find this rather strange—a bodyguard guarding the owner of a security firm.”
Diaz sighed irritably. “Ms. Bouchard didn’t interrogate Ms. Hampton on why she would need her services. Maybe she didn’t trust her own people. And Ms. Bouchard favors oral contracts. Her clients are high-powered individuals who do not want to leave a paper trail.”
“So, no, in other words.”
Diaz said nothing.
“And the woman who was with her when she entered the building to go check on Ms. Hampton? Is she also a bodyguard?”
“What woman? Ms. Bouchard was alone.”
“That’s not what the security guard says.” Jane’s eyes swiveled to Bouchard. Ice-cold black eyes stared at her as if she was a piece of meat. Dead meat. This woman would scare the shit out of you on a dark, stormy night.
“He must be lying,” Diaz declared. “CCTV will show that she was alone.”
Ah. There it was. “CCTV’s gone. Apparently, the entire system crashed just after your client stepped off the elevator. Everything has to be rebooted.”
Diaz shrugged underneath her expensive suit. Must be Gucci or Armani. Woman must charge a fortune. Jane didn’t know how Andy Bouchard could afford her. Bouchard’s black clothes were nondescript, not the slightest sheen of money on her.
Jane narrowed her eyes as she looked at the women in front of her. She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something between these two. Something unexpected. Something angry and sexual. She’d always been good at reading people—not a bad trait if you dealt with criminals for a living; not so good if you wanted to share your bed with someone every now and then.
Jane gathered there was not going to be any confession forthcoming about the surveillance system.
“Tell me about the Sig,” she asked instead.
“My client has a permit,” Diaz said. “Concealed carry. And your forensics team is welcome to try to match her gun to the weapon that killed Ms. Hampton. They won’t find anything. Ms. Bouchard attempted to save Ms. Hampton’s life, as she was paid to do.”
“And the knives?”
Diaz didn’t bat an eyelid at the stash of throwing knives her client had carried. “Surely you can appreciate that they are necessary in her line of work.”
Jane looked at Bouchard. She hadn’t said a word since they’d started the interview. She looked happy to let the lawyer bat away every question. They were like a well-oiled team. How many times had they done this before?
Even more interesting was that the lawyer had shown up without Andrea Bouchard making a single phone call. The uniforms had emptied her pockets when she was detained. Everything was lying on the table in a clear plastic bag—everything except for one thing.
“Where are the tags you used to get into the building, Ms. Bouchard?”
“She lost them,” Diaz answered. “Must have been in the rush of being arrested by your colleagues.”
Convenient. “You know those tags are null and void now? In case your client wanted to use them again at some point. The system reboot means everything has to be reprogrammed.”
Which also meant that Jane couldn’t see who had entered the building at what time.
“Why would she want to come back?” Diaz asked, frowning slightly. “Ms. Hampton is dead.”
Jane bit back the swear word and tried a new angle. “Tell me about the bullet casings. “Your client picked them up. Messed up the crime scene. She’ll be arrested for tampering with a crime scene.”
“She only picked up hers. Old habit. And she apologizes profusely. Really. You are welcome to charge her, but you know we’ll have her out on bail tomorrow. She tried to save Ms. Hampton’s life. Your officers can attest to that fact. She was knee-deep in blood when they arrested her. In fact, Ms. Hampton might still be alive if your officers didn’t prevent her from continuing to administer CPR. We also have some questions about why you didn’t immediately pursue the two men she pointed out to you. The two men who attacked her in the hallway as she attempted to enter Ms. Hampton’s apartment.”
Yeah. Great. Jane had wondered how long it would be before Caroline Diaz raised that particular point.
It took two minutes or so to secure Bouchard and for the first uniform to attempt resuscitation. Could it have saved Hampton? Probably not. But that’s not what the media was going to claim.
Sometimes she hated her job.
“Anything else?” Diaz placed her hand on Bouchard’s knee in an intimate gesture, then realized what she’d done and moved her hand away.
Bouchard shifted uncomfortably in her seat. It was the first time she’d shown any emotion.
“Yes.” Jane moved in quickly. “We’d like Ms. Bouchard to provide a DNA sample for exclusion purposes.”
“Certainly.”
No hesitation. Jane blinked in surprise and tugged at her right earlobe. She realized she was revealing her tell, just like in those poker games she kept on losing the last few weeks. She pushed her hands back into her lap. Bouchard had been wearing latex gloves when she was administering CPR, but carrying those was apparently also part of her job.
But gloves wouldn’t necessarily stop a perp’s DNA from entering a crime scene when they killed someone violently. And Hampton was killed violently. Four shots to the back as she was running away.
“We can do it now, if you want?” Caroline smiled. It was a wonderfully fake smile, practiced and professional. “My client and I are tired and would like to get this over with.”
Jane swore. Maybe the Bouchard woman was right. Maybe they should be looking for two men in their thirties dressed in black. One big, one lean and wiry. Sounded like every second guy in the city.
“And her phone? Can she unlock that for us too?”
“Sure. We are happy to help in any way.”
Too easy. Again.
Jane fished Bouchard’s phone from the plastic bag and handed it to Diaz. Diaz showed it to Bouchard, who pressed her thumbprint on the screen.
Diaz handed it back to Jane.
Jane scrolled through it. Nothing. There were only two numbers programmed on it, one of which was Hampton’s. Nothing else, no call records, no email, nothing.
She dialed the number she didn’t know. No one answered.
“Is this really your phone, Ms. Bouchard?”
“Of course,” Diaz said. “You are welcome to check with her service provider. It has been for about six months, if I understand my client correctly.”
Fuck. They were smooth.
To her right, standing outside the glass encased kitchen, her partner, Russo, was trying to get her attention. She walked to the exit.
“Unis at the tape says we got a girl here. Says she’s your perp’s partner. As in between the sheets, not the office.”
“Bouchard’s?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Dunno. Unis says she’s insisting on seeing Bouchard. What are you going to do? Arrest Bouchard?”
Jane thought about the men in black. The casings. She could get Bouchard for the casings, but she didn’t want to. Not yet. She wanted her to think she was off the hook. She wanted to know more about her. And her lawyer.
“No. Tell her to come and collect Bouchard. In fact, give me two minutes and then tell her to come in. Bouchard isn’t giving me anything. Maybe seeing her partner will shake her up a bit.”
Jane was especially eager for the woman to show, as she had placed the lawyer in Bouchard’s bed. At this point she’d take any reading she could get from Bouchard.
“I’ll tell them to bring her through.” Russo pointed upstairs. “I’m going to wrap up the crime scene.”
Jane sighed. It was almost five already. “Thanks. Grab some sleep when you’re done and meet me at One PP at ten.”