A Thin Veil Read online

  A Thin Veil

  Book 2 in the Adam Kaminski Mystery Series

  Jane Gorman

  Blue Eagle Press

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Acknowledgments

  All That Glitters

  Also by Jane Gorman

  Copyright © 2015 by Jane Gorman

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-0-9963803-3-1

  Created with Vellum

  To Chuck.

  1

  Sound exploded through the morning air. Grating and angry, it ricocheted off the walls as if trying to scrape a layer off the tawny stones. The roar of the gun hit the group gathered on the mansion’s drive and they dove for the ground at the force of it.

  Only one person hit the ground with the dull thud of death.

  Diplomatic Security Agent Sam Burke and the other agents with him were the first back on their feet. The five agents had ducked at the sound, but turned toward it rather than diving for cover. Each heard it coming from a different direction, scraping off a different wall, spinning up from the trimmed grass below or surging down from the mansion’s tiled roof.

  Agent Sam Burke pulled his weapon and scanned the drive leading back to the house, seeking movement in the shadows behind the hedge or around the corner of the residence. He stood still, focusing on the direction the sound had come from, his grip tight on his gun. With the shot still ringing in his ears, he relied on his eyes for any sign of movement. Two of his colleagues ran to assist those who had fallen while two more chased the sound into the shadows around the house.

  Ambassador Alain Saint-Amand knelt on the path, his hands clasped over his bowed head. One of the agents placed a hand on his back as he spoke, his fingers whispering against the gray silk. “Ambassador, come with me. Quickly.”

  Unfurling gracefully, Saint-Amand grabbed the agent’s arm, his grip puckering the thin polyester. “Run! Run!”

  His cry came out as a hiss, the fear it conveyed carrying almost as loudly as the shot. The two men scuttled, still bent low, toward the heavy oak door and the safety that lay behind it.

  Another agent moved to Senator Lisa Marshall. She lay curled on the ground, her arms bent underneath her, her fingers over her ears. “Senator,” he shouted, as if the silence that followed was as deafening as the shot. “Can you hear me?”

  She turned and nodded, her helmet of blond hair showing gaps in its defenses. Rolling onto her knees, she leaned into the agent as she stood. His arm hovered over her, offering what protection it could. She glanced back as they ran toward the safety that waited behind the oak door. Her eyes focused on the figure still lying on the path behind them. Her face crumpled, she blinked and shook her head, turning back toward the house.

  The agent followed her glance, saw the inert form.

  “Damn.” The swear came out between clenched teeth as he shook his head. “Sam!” he called out, then gestured with his chin toward the path. He said no more, but turned his attention back to the senator and her safety, his top priority.

  Sam scanned the area once more, then turned to focus on the man they had failed to protect. Jay Kapoor lay with one arm flung out, the other crossed in front of his chest. As if defending himself to the last. His charcoal suit was impeccable, his red tie still in a tight knot at his collar. Only the spot of blood blossoming on his white shirt revealed the futility of his optimism when he had dressed that morning.

  Sam put his fingers on the young man’s neck, his dark brown skin jumping out in contrast to Jay’s greenish-yellow hue. He found a weak and slowing pulse. Jay’s chest moved once, then was still. He interlaced his fingers and pressed his hands down over the wound, applying pressure as best he could. When another agent crouched next to him, Sam used the handkerchief he offered to stanch the blood. The spreading pool of red on Jay’s white shirt slowed. Stopped.

  Sam nodded, risking a glance over at his colleague. He could stop the bleeding out with his pressure, but the color of Jay’s skin made it clear there was more internal damage. He had seen wounds like this before. After ten years on the force in DC, Sam knew chances were slim the ambulance already on its way would make it in time.

  Agent Collins, the lead Diplomatic Security agent for this assignment, stepped out of the house. The two remaining agents had returned from their search, one holding a gun wrapped in a white handkerchief. The wail of approaching sirens grew louder as he stepped onto the path. “Sam?”

  Sam didn’t look up, just shook his head. They had failed to protect Jay. The most he could do now was keep him alive until the ambulance got to them. He coughed and found his voice. “Doing what I can, sir. And we can pray.”

  Agent Collins looked at the others. “What’d you find?”

  “Could be the weapon used, sir. Still warm.” An agent indicated the gun. “In a bush to the right of the front door. Techs can confirm, but it looked like it had been thrown there, not dropped.”

  A blue sedan swerved onto the drive from the street, its tires squealing as it turned to the right side of the U-shaped drive, leaving room for the ambulance that was only seconds behind. Diplomatic Security Agent Collins gave final instructions to his team, then moved to meet the FBI.

  The driver of the ambulance kept to the left, the back of the bus angling toward the group clustered on the path. Two medics jumped down. Within minutes, the young man had been strapped to a gurney and carted back to the ambulance. Sirens screaming, it pulled forward around the drive and back out into the street.

  Sam heard Agent Collins conferring with the FBI agents who had arrived, saw his colleagues escorting the drivers into the house with the others, knew he had to move, too. But his eyes felt glued to the patch of dark brown pavement at the curve of the drive.

  Without moving his gaze away, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

  Detective Adam Kaminski jumped for the phone to stop the rattle of its vibration against the nightstand. Next to him in their bed, Sylvia yawned and settled further under the covers, her back towards him.

  He’d been lying awake for half an hour, watching her sleep. Thinking. She’d had her back to him since he woke
up. He assumed she always slept like that, curled away from him as far as the bed would let her. When he put a hand out to touch her shoulder, she pulled the blankets up even higher without opening her eyes.

  His expression hardened as he put thoughts of Sylvia out of his mind and glanced at the phone. Surprised by the caller, he slid out of bed and walked into the living room. He had been expecting Sam’s call, but not this early. The delegation wasn’t due in Philly until ten.

  “Sam, what’s up?”

  “It’s not good news, Adam.” Sam’s voice was grim. “The visit’s off, at least for now.”

  Adam caught the tension in Sam’s voice and stopped moving. “What happened?”

  “A shooting. Senator Marshall and Ambassador Saint-Amand are fine. The senator’s aide… he wasn’t so lucky.”

  Adam nodded as he listened. He could hear noises in the background. The all too familiar sounds of a crime scene investigation. “Did you catch the guy?”

  “Not yet,” Sam answered. “We have the weapon.” There was a pause and a muffled sound, as if Sam had put his hand over the phone. “Listen, Adam, I gotta go,” Sam’s voice came back on the line. “I’ll call you later when I know more.”

  The line went dead.

  Adam looked at the phone for a second, then tossed it onto the coffee table and sat back into the futon that served as their living room sofa, running both hands through his thick chestnut hair.

  This had been just another routine dignitary visit for him. He’d been preparing for a few days, sure, but five months into a six-month detail on the Philadelphia Police Department’s Dignitary Protection squad, he knew none of these visits were going to offer the challenges he’d wanted.

  Or the opportunities for advancement Sylvia had hoped for.

  He let his head fall back against the futon, the feel of the bar through the thin mattress reminding him that their so-called temporary furniture was still cluttering their living room while he and Sylvia waited impatiently for the permanence they both wanted. Waited for the opportunity to invest in their future. And in real furniture.

  Closing his eyes, Adam brought his mind back to the victims in DC. The senator, working hard to leave a positive legacy in her last few months in the job. The French ambassador, striving to preserve relations with a government that too often disagreed with his own. And the staff who, like the dead aide, were caught in the middle.

  2

  The white tips of Senator Lisa Marshall’s French manicure tapped against the glass as rivulets of condensation dripped toward a pool gathering on the coaster. She tightened her grip on the glass as if to take another sip, but instead she tipped the glass and turned it rapidly in her fingers a few times before resting it once again on the polished end table that matched the others dotting Ambassador Saint-Amand’s morning room.

  Sam watched her as she shifted in her seat, the light from the residence’s ornate windows catching and highlighting a ladder that ran along her nylons, starting mid-calf and disappearing under the knee of her red suit. She crossed her legs, hiding the run, then patted her hair back into place one more time.

  The tall man fidgeting next to her put his hand out, as if to touch her knee, but she pushed him away. A sad smile crossed his lips, then vanished. Mr. Marshall returned his hands to his lap.

  Ambassador Saint-Amand, on the other hand, seemed perfectly at ease. He flipped through the pages of a leather-bound folio, glancing up occasionally to look across the room toward the open doorway. With his back to the door, Sam couldn’t see what the ambassador was looking at, but he wasn’t willing to turn his attention from the room to find out.

  Sam could hear the men outside, searching the grounds more thoroughly than before. FBI technicians draped in white scoured the path where Jay Kapoor had fallen. One or more of the searchers passed before the tall front windows every now and then, casting shadows into the otherwise bright room. With his height advantage, Sam could see the technicians at work, like ghosts crawling over ground tainted by death.

  Diplomatic Security Agent Frist stood on the far side of the room in the same pose as Sam, hands crossed in front of him, feet parted. He didn’t move, but the stillness of his expression told Sam that Frist was as alert as he was, paying close attention to the activity outside the house as well as the people in the room.

  A small door at the back of the room opened to admit a painfully thin woman in a demure black dress. She used both hands to hold a silver tray loaded with a crystal decanter, several glasses, and a pitcher of water and she winced as the door slammed shut behind her. Her narrow lips shifted into a frown, then she looked up and around the room, identifying her targets in order of importance.

  “Merci, Elise.” Saint-Amand accepted a snifter of brandy from her, swirling it gently in his hand as he returned his attention to the papers in front of him. The senator waved Elise away with a jerk of her hands and Mr. Marshall simply shook his head.

  Elise then moved to the other people sitting in the room, carefully ignoring the agents. A fair man in a navy suit accepted a snifter of brandy, watching Senator Marshall over his glass as he took a tentative sip. He kept a tight grip on the glass as he lowered it, his eyes darting back and forth between the senator and the agents guarding the doors.

  When Elise made it around to the two drivers sitting on smaller chairs near the back of the room, she left the brandy on her tray, topping up their glasses of water instead.

  “How long must we wait here? What’s going on?” Senator Marshall stood as she spoke, but did not step forward.

  “Be patient, my dear, it’s okay.” Her husband stood as well, putting his arm around her shoulders and keeping it there despite her effort to shrug it off. “They’re doing everything they can, you know that. Let them do their work.”

  “Your husband is right, Senator Marshall,” Frist said. “Our agents are checking the scene one more time, making sure we’re safe. Agent Collins will be here soon to fill you in.”

  Mr. Marshall patted his wife’s arm with his left hand, then seemed to almost push her back onto the yellow silk sofa. She sat stiffly, her back hard against the elegant curves of the sofa, chewing on her lower lip.

  “Madame Senator,” the ambassador said without rising, “if there is anything else I can offer you to make you more comfortable while you wait, please do not hesitate to ask.” When Lisa Marshall did not respond, he continued, “Some coffee, perhaps, or some food. Or you might prefer to wait in one of the rooms upstairs, to be more comfortable?”

  She looked up hopefully at that, but Sam intervened. “I’m sorry, I can’t allow that. You’re going to have to wait down here until Agent Collins has had a chance to speak to us all. I’m sure it won’t be long now.”

  Collins proved Sam’s point by choosing that moment to walk into the room. A second man followed close on his heels, a man Sam recognized immediately as the FBI Assistant Director responsible for the Bureau’s Washington field office. Assistant Director Burnett had an easy two inches on Collins and walked like a man on a mission, hindered only by the smaller fellow blocking his way. Collins ignored him, just as he ignored the three men in suits who trailed behind them both. More FBI, Sam assumed, men Sam didn’t recognize. One of them, a burly man with a round face and curly red hair, looked vaguely familiar but the other two looked fresh out of college. No older than Jay Kapoor had been.

  “Senator Marshall, Mr. Marshall.” Collins crossed the room and looked down at the seated couple. “I am very sorry to have to tell you that your aide, Jay Kapoor, is dead. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital, death due to a gunshot wound.”

  Collins paused, then squatted down in front of Lisa Marshall. She closed her eyes and rested her head against her husband’s shoulder. Tears shone against her cheeks.

  “He would have died quickly, Senator,” he continued in a softer tone. “He wouldn’t have felt any pain.”

  Senator Marshall inhaled deeply as she raised her head, wiping the tears away with
her hand. With her other hand she reached for her husband, who put both his hands over hers and squeezed.

  “He was a good assistant. A good man. Why would anyone kill him?” she asked softly.

  Saint-Amand coughed gently, and Assistant Director Burnett stepped forward to answer before Collins could respond. “It seems most likely, ma’am, that the killer was aiming for either you or the ambassador. We do have to treat this as an intended assassination gone wrong.”

  “But —” Sam started to speak, then cut himself off, his frown deepening into his forehead.

  Collins lowered his eyebrows a fraction as he threw a glance in Sam’s direction, then turned back to the senator. Sam stood still and stayed silent, turning his palms up as he looked down at them. He still had blood on his hands.

  Collins stood. “The Capitol Police will increase your protection detail, Senator. We’re going to keep a close eye on both of you.” He turned to face the ambassador. “And you, Ambassador Saint-Amand. We’ll be doubling the detail assigned to you.”

  The ambassador nodded silently, placing the folio carefully to his side.

  “I know you’d all like to get home — or to be alone.” Assistant Director Burnett spoke again, nodding to Saint-Amand. “My men need to ask you each a few quick questions, then I can let you go.”

  Getting no response, Burnett turned to Collins, who asked, “Ambassador Saint-Amand, will you have any objection if Special Agent in Charge Hennessy talks with the senator first?” Collins indicated the burly man beside him as he spoke.

  “Of course, of course.” Saint-Amand rose, gesturing to the hallway and a smaller room visible there. “Please, use my assistant’s office. You will have privacy there. Take as long as you need, I will wait here.”

  “Thank you. Mr. Marshall, we’ll get your statement next. Mr. McFellan?” Burnett had resumed control and with his last question he turned to the fair man seated against the wall.