David Baldacci - Split Second

The top floor of the building was now occupied by a firm known simply as the Agency, a name it had actually trademarked for commercial use, probably much to the chagrin of the CIA. The Agency was one of the premier investigative and security firms in the country. King rode up in the private elevator, waving to a surveillance camera that was eyeballing him, and was met in a small waiting room off the main lobby by someone who looked armed and ready to use his weapon. King was searched and had to step through a metal detector before he was allowed to proceed to the lobby. It was tastefully appointed and had no one in it other than a watchful woman at the front desk who took his name and dialed her phone.

He was escorted back by a stylishly dressed young man with broad shoulders and curly dark hair, wearing a headset and displaying an arrogant manner. He opened the door and motioned King through and then left, closing the door behind him. King looked around the office. It was a four-window corner unit, the glass all heavily tinted and reflecting from the outside, though on the top floor the only things capable of peeping in would be birds, or folks in dangerously low-flying planes. The whole feel of the place was quiet, understated yet undeniably prosperous.

When a side door opened and she walked in, King didn't know whether to say hello or knock the woman over her desk and strangle her.

"I'm very touched that you'd brave the traffic to come and see me," said Joan. She was dressed in a dark pantsuit that was flattering to her figure, not that many clothing choices wouldn't be. Yet the sleek cut of the suit and her three-inch spikes gave her the impression of height she really didn't have.

"Thanks for seeing me."

"Only fair considering how much of me you've seen recently. But I really was very surprised to hear from you."

"Well, now we're even. Because I can't tell you what a shock it was to find out you weren't with the Service anymore."

"I didn't tell you that when I came to your house?"

"No, Joan, that one you somehow forgot to mention."

She sat down on a small leather sofa set against one wall and motioned for him to join her. On the table in front of her was a coffee service. While King sat, she poured.

"You can hold the eggs, toasted bagel. And lace panties," he added. He was very surprised when the woman reddened at his remark.

"I'm really trying very hard to block that out of my mind," she said quietly.

He took a sip of coffee and looked around. "Wow, look at this place. At the Service did we even have desks?"

"No, because we didn't need them. We were either driving really fast in cars…"

"Or pushing till our feet gave out," he finished for her. "Pushing" was Secret Service shorthand for being on duty, usually standing at a post to secure it.

She sat back and looked around her office. "It is nice, but I'm not really here that much. I'm usually on a plane somewhere."

"At least you get to fly commercial or private. Military transport is hard on the back, butt and stomach. We flew enough of those."

"You remember going on Air Force One ?" she asked.

"Anyone who has never forgets."

"I miss that part."

"But you make a lot more money."

"I guess you do too."

He shifted his weight and balanced his cup in the palm of his hand. "I know you're busy, so I'll get down to it. A U.S. deputy marshal named Jefferson Parks came to see me. He's heading up the investigation on Howard Jennings, the murdered WITSEC. He was the one who came for my gun while you were there."

Joan looked interested. "Jefferson Parks?"

"You know him?"

"Name sounds very familiar. So they took your gun. And ballistics cleared you?"

"Actually no. It was a match. My gun killed Howard Jennings."

King had thought over this phrasing very carefully on the drive up, because he wanted to test the woman's response to it. She almost spilled her coffee. Either she had really boned up on her acting skills or it was a sincere reaction.

"That can't be right," she said.

"That's what I said. But fortunately the marshal and I saw eye-to-eye on the method that someone could have used to make my gun the murder weapon while I thought I had it on me."

"How?"

King briefly explained his substitution theory. He'd thought about withholding it from her but decided it didn't really matter, and he wanted her reaction to this as well, mostly for the follow-up statement he was going to make.

Joan thought about this, longer than King felt was really necessary.

"That would take a lot of planning and skill," she finally said.

"And access to my house. They would have had to get the gun back in my box before the posse showed up to take it, you know, the morning that you were there."

He finished his coffee and poured himself another cup while she stewed on this. He offered to freshen hers but she declined.

"So you came here to tell me that, what, you think I framed you?" said Joan stiffly.

"I'm just telling you that someone did, and I just told you how I think they did it."

"You could have told me that over the phone."

"Yes, I could, but you paid me a visit, and I wanted to return the honor. At least I called first."

"I didn't set you up, Sean."

"Then all my troubles are over. I'll call Parks and tell him the good news."

"You know, you can be a real smart-ass."

He put down his coffee cup and drew very close to her. "Let me just lay it out for you. I've got a dead man in my office, and my gun killed him. I've got no alibi and a pretty damn sharp marshal who, while maybe he buys my theory on a frame, is by no means convinced of my innocence. And this man would shed no tears if I'm locked up for the rest of my life or given some toxic bug juice to transport me to the hereafter. And then you come to visit me out of the blue and somehow forget to tell me that you're no longer with the Secret Service. You make a big deal of apologizing, acting all nice, with the result that I let you stay overnight. You try your bestto seduce me on my kitchen table for a reason I still can't fathom, but I can't believe only has to do with you wanting to scratch an eight-year-old itch. You're alone in my house while I'm out on the lake, and my gun mysteriously turns out to be the murder weapon after it's picked up on that very same morning. Now, Joan, maybe I am more suspicious than my neighbor, but I'd have to be on life support and breathing through a frigging tube not to be a little paranoid about that sequence of events."

She eyed him with maddening calm. "I didn't take your gun. I know nothing about anyone who might have. I have no proof of that. You just have my word."

"Again, that's such a relief."

"I never told you that I was still with the Service. You just assumed."

"You never said you weren't!" he snapped.

"You never asked!" She added, "And that wasn't my best."

King looked confused. "What?"

"You said I did my best to seduce you. Just for the record, that wasn't my best."

Both sat back now, seemingly out of words or breath or both.

"Okay," he said, "whatever game you're playing with me, you just go ahead and play it. I'm not going down for Jennings's murder, because I didn't do it."

"Neither did I, and I'm not trying to frame you. What motive would I have?"

King said, "Well, if I knew that, I wouldn't be here, would I?" He rose. "Thanks for the coffee. Next time hold the cyanide, it gives me gas."

"As I told you before, I came to see you for a very particular purpose." He stared at her. "But I didn't get around to it. I guess seeing you after all those years made more of an impact than I thought it would."

"So what was the purpose?"

"To make you a proposition." She quickly added, "A business proposition."