As they walked back to the car, Sam said, “I’m beginning to see a story emerge that makes sense, at least on Cattafi’s side.”

“Yes. Genius doctor does freaky stuff to bodies, news at eleven. So now we just need to figure out what he was doing with Amanda Souleyret and a fridge full of pathogens. You said you needed to stop by your place, look at your files. Let’s head to your house next, then.”

She shook her head. “No, that’s all right. It was my imagination. Guess I won’t make much of a profiler, after all. Cattafi was the target, I’m sure. With all the stuff in his fridge, his connections to Bromley, his bizarre actions—someone wanted something he had. Either Souleyret was in the wrong place at the wrong time...”

“Or she brought him the pathogens and was going to take whatever he stole from the bodies in the lab.”

“Or that. We do need to find out where his lab was, visit this Bromley fellow at GW. And Souleyret...I don’t know, Fletch. Let’s get to the briefing, see if we can’t flesh her out a bit. Victimology always helps. We just need more information.”

A lot more.

“Your wish is my command.”

She smiled. “Careful. I might start wishing all sorts of unsavory things, and then you’ll be in trouble. Tell me, the girls who found him. What’s their story? Do you think they’re telling the truth? What were they really doing there in the middle of the night?”

“The kid claimed it was a booty call,” Fletcher said.

“And you believe her?”

“I do. She was drunk enough last night that her belligerence rang true.”

“So he’s a popular guy with the ladies.”

“No kidding.”

“Is Lonnie the lead on this?”

“Hart? Hell, yes. He’ll keep me informed as things change. You know how this goes—he’s in the information-gathering stage. We’ll have a better idea of who this cat was, and what the woman was doing there, and why Cattafi had a fed die in his apartment when we get out of this meeting with State, I’m sure.”

Sam stared out the window, unseeing. Nothing made sense right now. She forced away the small thrill of excitement that went through her, recognizing an adrenaline burst at the idea of a case.

You’re hopeless, Owens. You’re turning into a regular Miss Marple.

She realized suddenly that she was incandescently happy at the thought.

Chapter 17

McLean, Virginia

ROBIN DRESSED CAREFULLY, very proper D.C. in a black skirt, white silk top, cropped black jacket, pumps. She twisted her blond hair into a knot at the base of her neck, put a Glock .27 in a shoulder harness, nestled under her arm. Felt like she was dressing for a funeral, which, in a way, she was.

The drive into the city would only take fifteen minutes; she was just over the Potomac on Chain Bridge Road. The Gold Coast, they called it, for good reason. The real estate along the Potomac had always been pricey; in the past fifteen years, it had ballooned comically. A buyer would be hard-pressed to find anything without six zeroes on the end of the list price on her street.

She, lucky girl, had not the money for the area, but rented a cottage on the grounds of a larger home. Something simple, easily managed. She wasn’t one for big responsibilities. Though she always felt an odd qualm as she drove off the grounds, as if she was driving past a country club she wasn’t allowed to join. Her landlords were friends, a French couple she’d met in Algiers who’d been stationed in D.C. during the nineties. When he retired, they kept the house, all eight bedrooms and twelve bathrooms of decorated-to-the-hilt glory. As was common with their kind of people, wanderlust kept them on the road continuously, and the D.C. house remained largely unoccupied, which Robin thought was a shame. It should be filled with kids screaming and their friends hanging out and secrets, a miasma of colors forming a life, a home.

François and Jacqueline had invited her in with open arms, and she appreciated knowing she could have a safe, secure place in their forested backyard, her own aerie overlooking the churning brown waters of the Potomac.

Being back in D.C. was in and of itself a good thing, though she missed her old life, missed waking to strange, spicy smells, the sharp metal of guns and shimmers of cobalt and roan in the air. She liked not knowing what the sunrise would throw her way. Liked being off balance. That’s where she operated best, on the screaming, bleeding edge.

She’d lost a step after the bombing.

She hadn’t wanted to admit it. But when she’d recovered and the wounds knitted, she’d gone out on her first mission, something easy—a quick assassination, intelligence already gathered, a target needing to get dead right away. It was designed to get her back in the saddle, and instead she’d frozen halfway through when an unexpected surface-to-air missile roared overhead, left herself exposed, lying stock-still in the sand like a wounded deer—Red! Red! Red!—unable to pull the trigger. Through the scope, she watched her target get into his truck and drive away, whistling. The moment was lost, the mission parameters unmet, the intelligence, hours and hours of work, squandered.

She’d requested leave. It had been granted. And she red-assed it back to D.C. to her little cottage on the river and didn’t come out for months.

Until Riley Dixon had come banging on her door, sick of hearing her excuses, and started the colors again.

She smiled a little thinking of the row they’d had that night, which had ended horizontally. Then she remembered Mandy, stopped smiling. Got behind the wheel of her black Lexus—a hybrid, not out of any love for the environment, but so she could drive the D.C. area HOV lanes unencumbered by extra passengers—and set off into the city.

Logic dictated she go to the cops immediately, identify herself as the victim’s grieving sister. Find out the details, the smallness of her sister’s last moments, her last breaths. Start putting answers to why into the ether.

She’d go to Amanda’s place first, then go see the cops.

Because she was a coward now.

* * *

Capitol Hill was already teeming with life, gazellelike interns in stilettos running the last two blocks from the Metro to their offices under the appreciative glances of the black-clad police, armed with M4s, standing sentry on every corner; men in blue suits and bow ties and horn-rimmed Wayfarers walking with purpose; taxis speeding by; tourists and locals all mixing it up on the sidewalks. She cast a longing glance at the Hawk and Dove bar as she drove by, ever a favorite of her people.

A few more turns and she was away from the commotion and into the more residential area off Constitution Avenue.

Amanda’s town house was a three-story shotgun on Lexington Place, with a small plot in front that served as a landscaped garden. The house boasted a tiny porch, and a one-car garage in the back. Robin took a lap around the block to see if anything felt off, then went down the alley and parked in the driveway. The place was quiet; the young men who rented from Mandy were surely already off to work. She didn’t see anything unusual, other than an overlay of dew on the small back deck, like the neighbor’s sprinklers had run. It was threatening rain but it hadn’t started yet.

Which was odd. It was late September. What little grass the neighbors had wouldn’t be around much longer. Why waste money trying to keep it alive for another few weeks?

She stepped closer to the fence to glance over, was met with the sudden barking of a dog, deep and throaty. Ah. That’s why. Someplace for Rover to squat.

Reading something into the dewdrops, Robbie. That’s why you’re out of the field.

She edged up onto the back deck and inserted her key in the lock. Waited a moment, then slipped inside and closed the door behind her.