Free Something About You by Julie James Page A

house. “Are you sure Slonsky said to check out the girl?”
    “Yep.”
    “ ’ Cuz the guy looks really familiar to me. Can’t place him, though.”
    Kamin shrugged. “Can’t help you there. Slonsky said to drive by the girl’s house, make sure everything looks secure. That’s all I know.”
    “Maybe we should sit here for a moment, just to be certain we’re all clear.”
    Not exactly in a hurry to seek out more dangerous assignments, Kamin liked the reasoning behind that. “Works for me.”
    They passed the next twenty minutes in silence, the only noise being the occasional crinkling of newspaper from Kamin. He was reading the sports section when he stopped.
    “Well, look at that.” He held the paper out so Phelps could see. “That’s the guy we just saw, isn’t it?”
    Phelps leaned over, then sat back in the driver’s seat, satisfied.
    “I told you he looked familiar.”
    ACROSS TOWN, JACK was in his office, once again listening to the muffled sounds of Davis’s yelling. At least this time, he was pretty sure the ruckus had nothing to do with him. Not directly, anyway.
    He and Wilkins were the only other two agents in the office, given that it was nearly eleven o’clock on a Saturday night. Sitting in one of the chairs in front of his desk, Wilkins gestured in the direction of their boss’s office. “Is he always like this?”
    “You get used to it,” Jack said. Actually, he didn’t mind Davis’s occasional flare-ups; back in the army he’d served under several commanders who’d had their fair share of those. Like his former commanders, Davis was pretty much a straight shooter—and loyal as hell to the agents in his office. He’d fought hard to get Jack transferred back to the Chicago office as soon as the position opened up.
    A few minutes later the commotion died down and Davis’s door flew open. He stuck his head out and looked over. “Pallas, Wilkins—you’re up.”
    They took their seats in Davis’s office, which Jack had always found odd in not being much bigger than those the rest of the Chicago agents had been assigned. He figured the Bureau could at least get the guy a view of something more interesting than the building’s parking lot for all the crap he had to deal with as special agent in charge. Then again, knowing Davis, he’d probably specifically requested that office in order to keep track of everyone else’s comings and goings. There certainly wasn’t much that slipped past him.
    “I just got off the phone with one of Senator Hodges’s attorneys,” Davis began. “He ‘requested’ that they be kept apprised of any and all updates related to our investigation.”
    “What you’d tell him?” Wilkins asked.
    “That I’m an old man. I tend to forget things. And that if anyone from Senator Hodges’s camp called me again tonight, I might just so happen to forget the promise I’d made to keep this investigation confidential. There was a good deal of swearing after that, but so far . . .” Davis gestured to the silent phone on his desk. “Now—let’s figure out how we’re gonna handle this mess.” He looked to Jack. “What’s happening with CPD’s investigation?”
    “Our contact is Detective Ted Slonsky, twenty years on the job, the last ten in homicide. According to him, the only prints they found in the hotel room belong to the victim and Senator Hodges. They found traces of semen in the bed and on top of the desk and bathroom vanity, and there were several used condoms in the bathroom garbage. All of it from the same man.”
    “At least we know Senator Hodges practices safe sex when cheating on his wife,” Davis said. “Anything else?”
    “There were bruises on both of the victim’s wrists, presumably inflicted by the killer as he pinned her hands down while suffocating her.”
    “Any blood at the scene? Hair? Clothing fibers?”
    “No traces of blood. We’re waiting to hear back from the lab on everything else,” Jack told him. “And we