Discretion (6 page)

“Good evening. I’m Detective Tavon McGee, with MPD’s Major Case unit. Are you Donna McBride?” The woman nodded, confirming the information he’d gotten from a police database. “May I come in?”

She stared at the hole where his two front teeth used to be. In D.C., the gummy gap added street cred. Here, it made him more of an anomaly. She hesitated, then led him into the living room, a soft plateau of beige wall-to-wall carpeting. A family picture hung on the wall above them: a younger version of the woman, with a husband at her side, each holding a towheaded child. Caroline McBride, perhaps fifteen years ago, and her younger brother. McGee wondered what had happened to the father. He took off his fedora and suggested the woman and the boy sit down. They did, in tandem, on a blue couch.

He remained standing and took a deep breath. He was about to create a moment that would forever mark their lives into two clear
sections. Before and after. There was only one way to do it: as directly as possible, without dragging out the information, and leaving no room for uncertainty.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news, ma’am. Your daughter, Caroline McBride, was killed tonight.”

The woman moaned and collapsed into her son’s shoulder. The boy put his arm around his mother and stared at the carpeting as she sobbed.

McGee had seen every different way people could respond to this, the worst of all possible news. It ranged from hysterics to absolute calm. He’d seen family members roll on the floor, scream, or punch holes through walls. He’d seen parents shake their heads and say, “I knew this day was coming.” In those cases, the victim had been lost to the streets for a long time. This wasn’t one of those families.

The mother keened, “My baby, my baby, my baby.”

It was the sound of a breaking heart.

McGee waited while the woman cried. He waited a long time, hating the next thing he’d have to tell her: that she’d have to come to the District tomorrow to identify her daughter’s remains.

7

A
nna directed the cab to the yellow Victorian on a quiet street in Takoma Park, an oak-lined neighborhood in Maryland just over the D.C. line. She didn’t usually indulge in taxi rides, but the Metro didn’t run at two-thirty
A.M
. on weeknights. Stepping from the cab felt like entering a rain forest, the air was so muggy and filled with the chirping of insects. A few lightning bugs floated up from the ground and glowed as she tiptoed through the garden of roses and wild peppermint. She walked up the steps onto the wide front porch.

The house was dark except for a light in the living room window. Anna put her key in the door quietly, trying not to wake anyone. In the foyer, she slipped off her shoes and set her bag next to a
Princess and the Frog
backpack.

She followed the light into the living room. Jack sat on the couch in his navy DOJ T-shirt and jeans. At first, she thought he was reading by the light of the Tiffany dragonfly lamp. His head was tipped down toward some documents on his lap, and his reading glasses were perched on his nose. The lamp’s stained glass threw patches of colorful light onto his brown hands. When Anna got closer, she noticed his eyes fluttering in REM sleep under his eyelids. Poor guy.

She sank down next to him. Despite her protests, he always waited up for her. His daughter, Olivia, woke up every morning around six, and he would be exhausted. But once he made up his mind to do something, Anna could rarely persuade him otherwise.

She glanced at the papers on his lap: Westlaw printouts of cases dealing with the Speech or Debate Clause. There was something touching about the fact that he’d been trying to catch up on the subject. She’d spent the last three hours researching and writing the government’s memorandum to accompany her search-warrant application. Anna expected that the rest of the case would be handled by
a more senior prosecutor, someone in the Homicide section. There was no chance the Sex Crimes section would wrestle the case away, with a dead victim and Jack’s presence at the murder scene. Arguing the issue tomorrow would be her last chance to contribute to the investigation.

Jack made a low grumbling noise and jerked his arms. Another nightmare. He would never say what they were about. She cupped his cheek and kissed his temple. He startled awake, his face morphing from ferocious to embarrassed. He focused his green eyes on her. “What time is it?” he asked. “Are you just getting home?”

“Two-thirty. Yes.”

He took off his reading glasses, set them on the side table, and put an arm around her. She molded herself into the curve of his torso. She’d wanted to do that all night, even when she stepped away from him in the stairwell. She hated to admit it—she liked to think of herself as independent and self-sufficient. But what she really craved every day was to be skin to skin with Jack.

“I don’t like you working this late,” he said. His lips brushed her temple as he spoke.

“I know.”

“You’ll have to do a better job of listening to me if we’re going to work together on this case.”

“Hm?”

“I spoke to Carla. She’s happy to lend you to this investigation. I’d love to have you around.”

She sat back and looked at him in surprise. He would normally fight to keep a Sex Crimes prosecutor
off
his investigation.

“I don’t want to get this case just because we’re dating,” she said.

“You have sex-offense expertise. I could use that on this case.”

One part of Anna wanted to jump at the chance to stay on the case. She’d had a rocky start at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, when she’d dated a public defender who had ended up on the opposite side of a homicide case. After the ensuing scandal, she felt a deep need to show that she could run a major investigation smoothly and professionally. A case of this significance was exactly the type of challenge she’d been hoping for. It was a chance to earn the respect of her colleagues.

But there were dangers to working that closely with Jack. Although he was in the office leadership and had ten years more experience than Anna, he normally didn’t supervise her; she reported to Carla. Jack was on a different floor, working on different cases. But if they worked the case together, he would clearly be the boss. It would be difficult to be equals in their personal relationship while she was his subordinate at the office.

For an instant, she wondered if he was deliberately trying to create that power dynamic.
You’ll have to do a better job of listening to me,
he’d said.

Jack must have sensed her hesitation. “I’m asking you to work on this case because I need you.”

Anna studied his face. His eyes were sincere. She felt small for harboring unkind thoughts. She took his hand, held it palm up, and traced its lines. After a long streak of bad-boy boyfriends, Jack was the first really good man she’d ever fallen for. They’d been dating for five months and were at the end of the euphoric stage and the beginning of the how-is-this-really-going-to-work-on-an-everyday-basis stage. Unlike her usual dating MO, her attraction to Jack had deepened gradually, as she got to know him. He was kind, generous, and strong, a great father, an incredible lawyer. She didn’t want to mess this up. She knew that refusing the case would hurt his feelings.

There was also the issue of keeping their relationship a secret. The flip side of Anna’s need to prove herself in the office by doing good work was her need
not
to be the center of another gossip frenzy about her personal life.

“People will see us together,” she said. “They’ll talk.”

“Let them. That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. Let’s stop hiding. It’s time.” He gently squeezed her hand and nodded to the coffee table, where a small blue vase held a bunch of lavender sprigs from his garden. “I’d like to be able to send flowers to where you spend your days.”

When they’d first started dating, he’d sent a dozen roses to her office: eleven pink and one red. His note read, “In every bunch, one stands out. You’re the one.” Anna hid the flowers under her desk so no one would ask who sent them. When she brought them home
that night, she thanked Jack, then asked him not to send her flowers at the office. Now he made bouquets from the flowers in his garden and gave them to her at his house.

“I love the flowers you give me here,” she said. “And I’m not ready to go public.”

“I don’t mean take out an ad in the
Post
. Just tell a few close friends. Let it be known that we’re dating. Stop the ridiculous cloak-and-dagger stuff. I’ve been saying this for a while now.”

Anna shook her head. Jack didn’t understand. If a police officer saw him kissing her in a stairwell, that would just add to his status. She, on the other hand, would permanently shift from being a prosecutor to a pinup. It was hard enough, as a young woman, to be taken seriously. Anna was still stinging from the scandal last year. She couldn’t be ground zero of another gossip explosion.

“I can’t, Jack. I need to prove myself as a prosecutor.”

“Does that mean you can’t date? You’re a lawyer, not a nun.”

“If people knew we were dating, they’d see me as the little hussy sleeping with the boss.”

“No, Anna. This is the real thing, not some cheap affair. We shouldn’t sneak around like it’s something to be ashamed of. People will be happy for us.”

“They won’t. You’ll be a stud. I’ll be ‘sleeping her way to the top.’ I’ll be completely trivialized.”

“I think it’s a mistake.” Jack sighed. “But I know how important it is to you. We’ll keep it under wraps. Will you work the case with me?”

The fact was, Anna really wanted the case. The stakes were high. If the case went well, it could make her career; but if it went badly, it would be a public humiliation. But there was a larger reason she wanted the case. She couldn’t get the image of Caroline McBride out of her head. She felt a visceral need to find out who had killed the young woman and bring that person to justice. Despite all her reservations, she couldn’t turn it down.

She smiled at him. “I’m in.”

“Great.” The smile he returned was steady and warm. “We make a good team.”

Anna was relieved that the negotiation was over. Debates were an inescapable part of a two-lawyer relationship. Often, she and Jack enjoyed them. But she didn’t want to debate whether to keep their relationship secret. It was too important; she couldn’t appreciate the verbal tug-of-war. And tonight, more than usual, she needed the comfort of his body, not the challenge of his intellect. She took his hand and led him up the stairs.

They passed Olivia’s room, dark and quiet. Her door was cracked, and Anna could see the little girl was asleep, her thumb resting on the pillow near her open mouth. An orange tabby named Raffles was curled at Olivia’s feet. The cat was Anna’s—she’d adopted the stray a couple of years ago. Now that Anna was spending so much time at Jack’s house, he’d invited the cat to move in. Olivia had been pleased about this development, if nothing else. Raffles raised his head and meowed to Anna, then let his orange eyes slide shut again.

Anna’s gaze lingered, as it always did, on a framed picture hanging in the hallway by Olivia’s room. A studio portrait of Jack and his late wife, Nina Flores, holding the infant Olivia between them. They were a beautiful family. Jack’s wife had been a police officer, killed in the line of duty four years ago. He rarely spoke about it. But Nina’s presence was everywhere in the house.

Unlike Jack’s spartan office, his bedroom was decorated with cheer and warmth. The walls were cherry red, the bed was covered in a colorful quilt, and the golden oak floors were softened with a sisal rug. Anna guessed his wife had been responsible for the decor. In this room, though, there were no pictures of her.

Anna locked the door and turned to Jack with a smile. She pulled his T-shirt over his head, appreciating the sight of his bare chest in the moonlight. Wearing just jeans, he reminded Anna of the guy from the Old Spice commercial. She pushed him back onto the bed. He let her, cooperating with a widening grin. He watched as she pulled off her suit and shirt and threw them on a chair.

She pushed him back onto the pillows, straddled his waist, and savored the sight of him beneath her, all sinewy muscles and dark copper skin. He seemed to appreciate his view, too, skimming his hands over her thighs as their eyes met. She lowered her face until it was an
inch from his. His breath was tinged with the peppermint that grew outside the house.

His lips were soft, his hands confident as they traveled the length of her back. Her whole body warmed and melted. She felt his breathing quicken and his heartbeat accelerate with hers. The rest of their clothes were quickly shucked aside. She stretched herself out on top of him, ran her hands down his body, and guided him inside her. There was no place in the world she’d rather be.

Her mind had been racing all day, processing tragedy and law and strategy and politics. All of that was eclipsed by the sensation of his long body beneath her. She let the analytical side of her brain give way to blissful emotion, the sweet release of feeling without thought.

Monday

8

M
ornings were trickier than nights at Jack’s house. At night, Anna and Jack were just a couple, the simplest group in human relations. In the morning, Olivia woke up. Then it was clear that Anna was an addendum to a pre-made family, an addition whose status was uncertain and not necessarily welcome.

Jack’s kitchen was cheerful and sunny, with a colorful tiled back-splash, large windows overlooking a big backyard, and a fridge covered in first-grade artwork. It was a pleasant place to make breakfast, but recently, it had become a battleground of sorts as Anna tried to win the heart and mind of the local population: Jack’s six-year-old daughter.

Anna was standing over a pan of scrambled eggs when Olivia came downstairs. The little girl looked adorable, dressed in a purple T-shirt and khaki shorts embroidered with flowers. She had caramel skin and her father’s green eyes. Her wavy black hair was pulled back into two neat pigtails.