Split Second (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 1)

King almost dropped the phone. “Joan is no longer with the Secret Service?”

“She left about a year ago. Went into private security consulting. And she’s making a boatload of cash, from what I’ve heard. And probably needs every penny. You know Joan likes to live well.”

“You got a number for her up there?” King wrote the information down.

His friend continued, “I guess you’ve heard about our troubles. It’s really too bad. Maxwell was good, a real supercharged model.”

“I saw her on TV. I’m reading scapegoat, am I right? I’m sort of an expert.”

“Comparing what she did to your situation is apples and oranges. Maxwell made a huge error in judgment. She was detail leader, you were just one of the grunts.”

“Come on, how many bedrooms have we stood outside of while the guy was in there having serious carnal knowledge with a woman who wasn’t his wife? And it’s not like we ever searched those ladies for weapons. And I don’t remember us going to the mat to stand next to the damn bed.”

“But nothing bad happened.”

“No thanks to us.”

“Okay, I’m not going to get into it any further, because I have to watch my blood pressure. So you gonna hook up with Joan?”

“Oh, I have a feeling I’m going to see her real soon.”

CHAPTER

18

MICHELLE SLIPPED BACK inside the Fairmount and went directly to the hotel office again. King had occupied room 304. Loretta Baldwin had hinted that she should not look too far from there, so she checked the occupant for room 302. Michelle remembered there was a connecting door.

“Damn,” she said when she saw the name on the registration card. J. Dillinger had been in room 302. Could that be Joan Dillinger? She’d met Dillinger briefly a couple of times. The woman had moved higher in the agency than almost any of her gender had previously and then abruptly quit. Michelle remembered being intimidated by the lady, something she was definitely not used to. Joan Dillinger had a reputation for being more cool under pressure, more tenacious, more ballsy than anyone else, man or woman. Ambitious as hell, she’d left the Service to grab the brass ring of private-sector consulting. But while she was at the Service she was someone Michelle had looked up to.

And yet was Joan Dillinger the other half of the wild animal act Loretta Baldwin had described? Was the iron lady whom Michelle admired

the same woman whose black lace panties ended up on the overhead light? Was King’s mental lapse in guarding Clyde Ritter due to sheer physical exhaustion from a night of sex with Joan that was so explosive it had sent her flimsy underwear skyward? She felt certain it was Joan because on the index card used for registration, her address, like King’s, was the Secret Service headquarters in Washington.

Michelle put both index cards in her bag and went to the Stonewall Jackson Room. There she looked at the doorway from where Loretta Baldwin witnessed the first assassination of a politician campaigning for the U.S. presidency in almost thirty years. She stood where Loretta had and closed the door. It was again so quiet in here that she could hear her own pounding heartbeat.

As soon as she left the room and went back into the lobby, this sensation stopped. Normal sounds returned, and she could no longer hear the jarring thumps of her heart. She was beginning to wonder if the Stonewall Jackson Room was haunted, perhaps by a very upset Clyde Ritter. She went down the hallway and found the supply closet where Loretta said she’d hidden. It was fairly large and had shelves lining three of the walls.

Michelle went up the stairs to the third floor, shining her light around in wide arcs. She reached room 302 and went in. She tried to envision Joan Dillinger knocking softly on the door to King’s room and being admitted. Maybe after a few drinks and some Secret Service gossip, Joan’s panties had hit the overhead light, and they’d created their own personal highlight reel.

She went out into the hall and walked back toward the stairwell. She stopped and looked at the large garbage chute that was set up at one window. Obviously somebody had started doing some work here and then just as obviously stopped. She leaned out the window, her eyes adjusting to the daylight. Down below, the chute ended in a Dumpster. It was filled with debris, mostly old mattresses, curtains and carpeting, all of which looked thoroughly rotted.

She walked back to the lobby level and then paused. The stairs kept going down to the basement level. There couldn’t be anything down there of interest, and as those low-budget horror films teach, you never, ever venture into the basement. Well, unless you were an armed Secret Service agent. She took out her pistol and made her way down. Here the hallway carpet was torn up and the air filled with mildew and rot. She passed a spot and came back. She pushed open the small door and shone her light in. It was a dumbwaiter, a large one. She couldn’t tell if it connected to all eight floors or not. The Fairmount, she’d learned, was a very old hotel, and this might have been the way laundry or other bulky items were moved up and down. There were buttons on the wall next to the dumbwaiter to turn it on and off, so it had been powered by electricity, and a rope on pulleys inside the shaft was doubtless used as a backup in case the power supply was interrupted.

She kept going down the hall until it stopped at a wall of debris that had collapsed from the floor above. The place was literally falling apart. They better hurry up with the wrecking ball, or else they wouldn’t need it.

Michelle needed fresh air and sunlight. She jogged up the stairs. The light hit her right in the eyes. The voice barked in her ear.

“Freeze. Hotel security. I’m armed and prepared to use my weapon.”

Michelle held up her gun and flashlight. “I’m a Secret Service agent.” She said this so automatically that she forgot she didn’t have the badge or creds anymore.

“Secret Service? Right, and I’m Marshal Matt Dillon.”

“Can you take the flashlight out of my eyes?” she asked.

“Put your gun on the floor,” said the voice. “Nice and easy.”

“I’m doing it,” said Michelle. “Just don’t accidentally pull the trigger and shoot me in the process.”