Chapter 8
Lake Shore Drive
“What a bitch.”
“Excuse me?” Julia took her eyes off the traffic on Lake Shore Drive long enough to glance over at her partner.
I should’ve taken State Street up to Division. There’s a boatload of traffic lights, but at least that route isn’t bumper-to-bumper this time of night, she thought as she slammed on the brakes to keep from rearending the car in front of her. It had stopped on a dime when a bolt of lightning spread its electric fingers across the sky, followed immediately by a crashing boom of thunder.
Midwesterners were supposed to be used to thunderstorms. But you couldn’t tell it from the way everyone started driving like they were eighty years old with cataracts and automatic braking.
“Bethany Chastain,” Dillan sneered. Then he added, “Excuse me. Senator Chastain.”
It was true the senator had been…less than cooperative. In fact, there’d been times she’d seemed almost hostile. But Julia gave the woman the benefit of the doubt.
“She’s been through hell tonight. And her husband just came out of surgery. I think she’s allowed to be a little contrary.”
She took one hand off the steering wheel to wave it dismissively. It was the hand Sergeant Rollins had grabbed. And maybe it was fanciful thinking, but she would swear if she concentrated really hard, she could still feel the warmth left behind by his touch.
“Contrary?” Dillan snorted. “That’s just a nice way of saying she was a bitch.”
Julia sighed. “Is it all women you dislike or just women in positions of power?”
Shit.
She’d always prided herself on how good she was at biting her tongue around Dillan. Not just good. Great! Like if Guinness was handing out awards for Woman Most Capable of Holding Back When a Man Should Be Put in His Place,she would surely take home the prize.
Intrusive thoughts of Ol’ Blue Eyes had been popping into her head since she’d left Miss Meadows in the ER. She blamed those for her outburst. Well, those and the fact that she was dog-tired.
Tired of Dillan mostly, if she was being honest. Because the more uncooperative the senator had become, the more hostile and authoritative he had become. Eventually, she’d been forced to end the interview early and drag him out of the ICU waiting room lest they completely burn bridges with the senator and turn her from a slightly contrary witness into an openly hostile one.
To her relief—since if she couldn’t keep her shit together and find a way to work with him then her boss was likely to pull her off the case—Dillan didn’t seem to take offense to her slip of the tongue. In fact, he chuckled.
“I like women just fine. Better than fine. They’re some of my favorite people. But I calls ’em as I sees ’em,” he mimicked an old-timey accent. “And I say the senator is a bitch.”
She slid him a look that was packed with disgust just as the sky opened up and traffic ground to a halt. She switched on the windshield wipers and watched as they tried—and failed—to keep up with the deluge.
“Women are some of your favorite people?” she challenged. “Name three women you actually like.”
“Easy.” He ticked off the list on his fingers. “My mom, my sister, and my other sister.”
Why am I not surprised?
“Name three women who aren’t family who you actually like.”
The grin he shot her was shit-eating. “Scarlett Johanson, Gigi Hadid, and Taylor Swift.”
She resisted the urge to reach over and punch him in the dick. “So…a beautiful actress, a beautiful model, and a beautiful singer-songwriter. Wow, Dillan. Whatever could it be about these smart, successful, talented women that you admire?”
He made it clear he didn’t give a rat’s ass what she thought of him when he shrugged carelessly. “Don’t ask the questions if you’re not going to like the answers.”
Deciding there was no winning with him, and choosing her sanity over his ruthless arrogance, she changed the subject. “What do you think she meant when she said she couldn’t trust us?”
He snorted, easily shifting gears alongside her. “Politicians are always watching out for their own asses. She probably thought we’d put something in our report that might be less than complimentary.”
“You mean something less complimentary than she refused to cooperate with our federal investigation?”
“I mean…yeah.” He nodded. “Who knows the mind of a career crook?”
That made Julia frown. “What makes you think she’s crooked?”
“They all are.”
And…there it is. The unraveling of my last thread of patience.
“Wow, Dillan. Maybe it’s time you stopped watching Newsmax and got off Truth Social.”
He snorted again. “Just because they float right-wing conspiracies doesn’t mean they’re wrong.”
“I think, by the definition of conspiracy,that’s exactly what it means. And that’s before you add in all the propaganda and fear-mongering. Those platforms prey on people. Please tell me you’re joking, and you haven’t really fallen victim to their disinformation.”
“I’m joking and I haven’t really fallen victim to their disinformation.” He parroted her word-for-word. “I mean, who has time to follow any of that anyway? I get my news from Facebook or TikTok in sixty-second clips.”
She wanted to scream. But she managed to keep her voice even when she gritted, “That’s not any better.”
“Meh. To each their own.” He turned on the radio and left her to her thoughts.
Fine by her. At least her thoughts didn’t make her feel violently homicidal.
As the lead singer of Green Day told the world he refused to be an “American Idiot” –ha! Appropriate. And the irony probably flew right over Dillan’s head—she replayed her interview questions and the senator’s answers in her head.
“Why were you at Senator McClean’s house tonight, Senator Chastain?”
“Because he invited me.”
“And why’d he invite you?”
“Because we’re colleagues who work on committees together. And because we live in the same city when we’re not in D.C.”
“Are…were…you and Senator McClean close?”
“Like I said, we were colleagues.”
And so on and so forth. The senator had answered her questions without really giving her anything helpful at all.
It wasn’t until Julia had asked Bethany Chastain if she had any idea why John McClean’s cook would’ve turned on him that things got interesting.
“John wasn’t exactly well liked by most people. Especially powerful people in Washington.”
“So you suspect someone paid the chef to kill him? But then why try to kill everyone else? Why not just kill McClean?”
That’s when Chastain had clammed up and claimed she couldn’t trust the FBI. Not that she couldn’t trust Julia and Dillan, but that she couldn’t trust the entire bureau.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Green Day came to a crashing end and a commercial for the latest Star Wars series to hit Disney Plus played on the radio. Julia was instantly reminded of her whole I’m Luke Skywalker; I’m here to rescue you gaffe back in the ER. She cringed.
He must think I am the biggest nerd to ever walk on two legs.
Then she scolded herself for caring about what some stranger she’d met only once and whom she might never meet again thought of her.
A dark, delicious, slow-talking stranger with the prettiest eyes and the most intriguing scar and?—
Gah! Really, really inconvenient!