Fletcher shook his head. “Oh, no, this isn’t about me. Emma said Cattafi was involved in cancer research. He’s doing some sort of specialized microbiology internship that has been making waves. Cellular differentiation or something like that. Stem cells, cancer vaccines, all sort of really cutting-edge stuff.”

“What’s a fourth year doing in research? That’s usually postdoctoral work.”

“Kid’s a prodigy, from what I’ve heard. Juggling internships. Someone said he was in the M.D./Ph.D. program. So he’s at GW in a coma. There was a woman with him—her name was Amanda Souleyret. She didn’t make it.”

He was messing with his spoon, putting it in his cup, taking it out. The fidgeting was uncharacteristic. Clearly, something had him rattled.

“And?”

“And...” The spoon went back in the coffee cup with a clatter. “On the surface, it looks like a domestic. He stabbed her, stabbed himself. He had the knife in his hand. The spatter patterns are consistent with an attack. It’s cut-and-dried. Only thing that saved his life is his ex-girlfriend getting drunk and deciding she wanted a reconciliatory booty call and stumbling right into the scene. If she hadn’t shown up when she did... It was a near thing. EMTs managed to get a heartbeat. He’s not doing well. His family is flying in. Probably brain-dead—they may be looking at organ donation.”

Sam had a vivid flash from the night before, the EMT working frantically, giving CPR. “That’s terrible. But...?”

He looked at her finally, really looked, met her eyes and smiled. “You know me too well, don’t you?”

The food came, and they waited for the waiter to clear off before they continued the conversation. Sam ripped off a chunk of croissant, lavishly buttered it. “I know when you’re building up to something. So spit it out.”

“The ID on the woman had a red flag. This is between us, right?”

She crossed her heart, waved the flaky pastry at him. “You, me and my croissant.”

“She’s blacked out in the system.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I can’t do my job, because someone doesn’t want me to know who she really is, and what she really does.”

“Oh. That is rather odd. What do you think, she’s some sort of agent? A spy? We are in D.C., after all.”

He looked serious all of a sudden, put a hand on the back of his neck and squeezed. “That would be my guess. I don’t know what agency she’s from, whose side she’s on. What I do know is ten minutes after I got to work this morning, I was told that there’d been a meeting scheduled at State, and my presence was requested. Either I’m about to be relieved of this case, or they’re going to send me on a wild-goose chase.”

“Fun times, my friend. You always catch the coolest cases.”

“Which is why I was thinking, maybe if you have a look-see, I’ll have a better sense of what’s happening. I don’t know what a spy would be doing having a fight with a kid in med school. It’s probably just domestic, like I said, but...”

“No worries, Fletch. I’m happy to help, as always.”

Her cell phone rang. She apologized, pulled it out of her pocket. Glanced at the screen, saw the call was coming from Quantico. John Baldwin. In a way, he was her new boss.

“Fletch, forgive me, I have to answer this.”

He held up a hand. “No worries. Go ahead.”

She stood and walked outside, determined not to disturb everyone around her with the call.

“Baldwin?”

His deep voice sounded stressed. “Sam, good morning. I hope you’re doing well.”

“I am. Out of the house and everything, having breakfast with Fletcher. What’s up?”

“Ah, that’s good. I’m glad you’re already with him. Has he told you about the murder near your house last night?”

She grew wary. “He has. Plus I saw parts of it—the sirens woke me. Why?”

“The female victim, Amanda Souleyret? She was one of ours.”

“She was FBI?”

“Yes. A longtime undercover agent, working...well, what she specialized in is most likely irrelevant, considering. I was told this looks like a domestic situation.”

“That’s what Fletcher said.”

“Such a shame. No one even knew Amanda was in the US much less that she was dating someone here. I don’t know how she found the time. She works primarily overseas, as an investigator for a French company called Helix International. Have you ever heard of it?”

Now Sam really was on alert. “As it happens, I have. They’re in the same business as Xander, albeit on a much larger scale. They do everything from close protection to industrial investigations.”

“That’s right. Amanda is—she was—a very talented agent, capable of handling most anything thrown her way. She’s been on an undercover op that’s stretched for over a year. Anyway, there’s a briefing scheduled at ten at the State Department. Fletcher’s already on the guest list. They wanted me there, but I’m flying out to Denver in an hour. Just between you and me, we might have another Hometown murder.”

“You’re kidding. That’s two this month alone. He’s accelerating.”

“Yes, he is. I have to get out to Denver and see what’s happening. Can you go to State in my stead? See what they have to say, take notes. Call me after, fill me in?”

“Of course,” she said coolly, but her mind was going a thousand miles an hour. Why her? Why not pull someone from the Hoover Building to go, someone on Baldwin’s direct staff? What did she have to offer this investigation? Especially if it had been bumped to this level, which felt awfully strange for a domestic case. Why would the State Department want to stick their oar into a lovers’ spat gone horribly wrong?

She kept her mouth shut, though. When she’d agreed to come on board Baldwin’s team, he’d been very clear that sometimes she’d be getting her hands dirty in all facets of his investigative life. It’s why he wanted her in particular, someone he could trust, someone who understood the way things worked, but was an outsider.

“Great,” Baldwin said. “I’ve already called in your DOB and social, just be sure you have your driver’s license on you. They’re on alert today, as you can imagine. I’ll call you when I land in Denver and you can brief me.”

“Sounds good. Talk to you then.”

She hung up, hugged her arms around her body. A kid on a skateboard zoomed past her, calling out to a friend behind him, the small transparent wheels clattering on the sidewalk, the answering shouts. Cars whizzed by, people walked the streets with smiles on their faces.

Carefree. Careless. Too young to realize how precarious life truly is, too involved in their own moment to imagine what could happen.

She went back inside. Fletcher had finished his sandwich, and her croissant, too.

“Sorry, I was starving,” he said. “I already ordered you a new one.”

“We better get it to go.”

A shadow crossed his face. “Gotta go to work?”

“Actually, we have to go to work. I just got called in on your murder. You better take me to that crime scene pronto.”

Chapter 8

Teterboro Airport

New Jersey

XANDER WHITFIELD SLOUCHED in the chair at the gate, shades firmly in place. While he looked like a sleeping tourist trying to catch an uncomfortable nap before his flight, he was on high alert.

He watched his partner, Chalk, move through the room near the principal, waiting for the nod telling him it was time to move. They had a loose box around their principal—a wealthy British industrialist named James Denon, who didn’t want it known he had a protection detail on him while he visited his interests in the States—and his people. Their job had been to blend into the crowd everywhere the team went.

So far, they’d done well. Not great—they’d had one small mishap when Chalk turned the wrong way for a moment and the principal had gotten too far ahead of them—but good. Xander wasn’t entirely thrilled with this lurking-from-afar crap, but sometimes the principal got to make the call. Once the doors to the plane closed, he and Chalk would be done and on their way, thousands of dollars richer and with a glowing recommendation to boot. Just what they needed to get their new company off the ground.