He might have found the room claustrophobic, but the fourth wall was glass and offered a view of the bull pen. Fiona’s closed door barely muffled the chatter of voices, an occasional shout or the incessant ringing of phones. As he watched, a detective escorted a handcuffed man to a chair, then sat down behind his desk and booted up his computer. The busy, bordering on chaotic, atmosphere appealed to D.C. far more than the quiet of his own office at Fort McNair.
His cell phone rang just as Fiona hung up hers. When he heard his brother’s voice, D.C. pressed the button for speaker phone. “My partner’s listening. What do you have?”
“As per your request, I’ve run background checks on Charity Watkins, Kathryn Lewen and Regina Meyers. So far, they’re all clean. But I discovered something on Watkins and Lewen you might find interesting.”
“Spill it,” D.C. said.
“They’re sisters, fraternal twins. Watkins’s maiden name is Lewen. Five years ago, while she was still in graduate school, she married an older man, Martin Watkins. He was rich, socially connected and served on the board of directors at the National Gallery at the time Charity went to work there. When he died a year later, she kept his name. She and her sister Kathryn were raised in Kansas by an aunt, one Martha Lewen. Their mother’s name was Kate Lewen. No mention of a father on the birth certificate. You can give me a round of applause now.”
Laughing, D.C. complied and Fiona joined him.
“Everything checks out so far on Regina Meyers. I’ll keep checking, but so far her life is a well-documented open book.”
“Can you check Kathryn Lewen’s book on digital security and give me a read on just how good she is?” D.C. asked.
“You want to know if she could have breached the security at the National Gallery?” Jase asked.
“Yeah. And it would be really nice if she owned a van.”
“Will do.”
As he disconnected the call, Fiona began to tap her pencil on her notebook. “So now we’ve got a link between someone who had inside knowledge of the security surrounding the diamond and access to the code on the service door and someone we can link to Billy Franks. But they all have alibis for the time of the robbery.”
“So far,” D.C. said. “Amanda may be able to help us break one of them.”
“Except she has amnesia,” Fiona said as she rose and walked around her desk to join him.
“What if she isn’t faking it?” D.C. took her hands in his.
“I didn’t say she was.”
“Okay. Let’s agree for the moment that the amnesia’s real.”
She studied him for a minute. “What are you thinking?”
“If we’re going to see her tomorrow morning, it might prove interesting if we took something along to jog her memory.”
Fiona narrowed her eyes, the way she often did when she was thinking. He waited, saying nothing, and he could tell the minute she thought of it.
“The necklace. Not the real one. But Chance must still have the copy.”
“Good idea.”
“It was your idea. You just waited for me to catch up.”
He leaned down to kiss just the tip of her nose. “I knew you would. Let’s go see if Chance can help us out.”
HE’D KISSED HER. Just on the tip of her nose, but her office was like a fishbowl, and Fiona was very aware of the interested glances from colleagues as she led the way across the bull pen to the conference room where Natalie and Chance were waiting for them. She knew D.C. well enough now that she ought to be able to anticipate his moves. And he had some fast ones. But she didn’t seem to be able to think quickly enough to block him.
Because she didn’t want to?
As she stepped into the room, Fiona saw Natalie sitting at one end of a conference table, and Chance leaning against the only wall not currently stacked with toys. There were two unopened files on the table.
Fiona studied Natalie. She looked paler and very uncomfortable. “Are you all right?”
“I’ll be better after I unload this baby. But nothing’s imminent. Unfortunately.”
Chance moved behind Natalie and placed his hands on her shoulders. “The truth is she’d like to be working on this case.”
“If I could move.” She glanced up at her husband as one of her hands closed over his.
Fiona felt a little pang at the intimacy of the gesture. She’d always dreamed of that kind of closeness. But hadn’t she given up that fantasy? She was perfectly happy with her life the way it was.
“I apologize for the fact that we’re meeting in here. But it’s Fiona’s fault.” She gestured toward the walls of toys. “My office is also being used for toy storage. This is the only room we could all fit in.”