Suddenly One Summer (FBI/US Attorney #6)

In his bedroom, he yanked off the tie and black suit jacket he’d worn for the funeral. Pacing in his bedroom, he thought about these past few days and felt a stab of emotion.

This was not how things between him and his father were supposed to end.

Granted, their relationship had been complicated for a long time. But he’d always held on to a small hope that something would happen to bridge the chasm between them. Rehab would work one of these times, or there would be some sort of health scare—nothing too serious—that would inspire his dad to give up drinking for good.

Obviously, that had been wishful thinking.

The last time he’d seen his father had been two weeks ago, at his cousin’s college graduation party. There’d been plenty of beer at the party, of which his father had consumed too much, and Ford had kept his distance, not wanting to deal with one of his dad’s moods on what was supposed to be a happy occasion.

He couldn’t remember what he and his dad had talked about that day. Certainly nothing of significance, none of the things Ford would’ve said if he’d known then that his mother would call ten days later, crying, to tell him that his father had dropped dead in the kitchen after suffering a massive heart attack while she was out grocery shopping. There’d been no warning. The doctors said there was nothing anyone could have done; his father’s heart muscles had been significantly weakened, likely the result of years of excessive drinking.

So many things left unsaid. And now . . . that could never change.

Fuck.

All of the emotion Ford had been holding back suddenly boiled over. Without thinking, he grabbed the glass-and-cast-iron candle holder on his dresser and whipped it at the wall opposite him.

Seeing the glass smash into pieces was oddly cathartic.

There was, however, one small problem. Apparently, the iron candle holder had been a little heavier than he’d thought. At least, judging from the eight-inch hole he’d just put in his bedroom wall.

He surveyed the damage.

Well. At least this was one problem he could actually fix.

Two

BRIGHT AND EARLY the following Thursday morning, Victoria walked into the lobby of her downtown office building. She took an elevator up to the thirty-third floor, which her firm shared with two other tenants, a small consulting group and an engineering firm.

Back when she’d been looking for a place to hang her shingle, she’d been attracted to this particular office space because of its clean, modern lines, and great use of natural light. The bright, open feel of the place was reassuring to her clients, who were going through a difficult time in their lives. You’re going to be okay after this divorce. Victoria Slade & Associates will make sure of it, said the sunlit, sophisticated décor.

After unlocking the fogged glass doors that bore her firm’s name, she turned on the lights to the reception area. She liked being in before everyone else, so she could soak in those few moments when the office was quiet and just hers.

Her office had two walls of windows that framed a picturesque view of the city and the Chicago River. She settled in behind her desk and checked her e-mail while sipping the coffee that she’d picked up on the way in. About a half hour later, she heard her four associates trickle in, followed by Will, her assistant.

She heard a knock and saw Will standing in the doorway.

“Give it to me straight. How bad are they?” he asked, touching the rim of his new wire-frame glasses. He’d turned forty years old earlier in the year and, much to his displeasure, had been told by his eye doctor that he needed reading glasses.

“Ooh . . . I like them,” Victoria said approvingly. “Very Gregory Peck.”

“Hmph” was Will’s sole response, although she noticed he seemed to have a little swagger in his step as he took a seat in front of her desk.

“Tomorrow’s the big day. Is there anything else you need me to take care of?” he asked.

She smiled, knowing this was pretty much a rhetorical question. If there was anything else that needed to be taken care of, Will already would’ve thought of it himself. The man was a god when it came to organizing these types of things. “I think we’re all set.”

Tomorrow she would move into her temporary home, a loft condo in a converted warehouse in Wicker Park. She hadn’t lived in an apartment or condo building since law school—her place before the townhome had been a duplex—and, as a relatively private person, she wasn’t overly enthused to suddenly be sharing common space with a bunch of strangers. But this was her life now, at least for the foreseeable future, so she supposed she would just have to get used to it.

Ever since the break-in, she’d hadn’t gotten more than three or four hours of sleep each night. Instead, she would lie awake in her bed, listening for any strange sounds and repeatedly getting up to check her security system—not that her security system had kept the burglars at bay before.

Scary thought.

From what she’d learned from the police—who, thankfully, had arrived quickly on the scene because of the 9-1-1 dispatcher—the masked men had staked out her place for most of the night, with the exception of a short break when the man with the gruff voice needed to use the bathroom at a convenience store a few blocks away because the White Castle sliders they’d grabbed earlier hadn’t agreed with him.

Nice.

Apparently, his partner was a former employee of a home security company, and thus knew how to bypass certain types of alarm systems—including hers. The police had caught both men, one of whom had foolishly fired his gun at the cops and thus earned an attempted murder charge, along with a charge of home invasion. During questioning, they admitted being responsible for the string of burglaries in the neighborhood, and were expected to be in prison for a good, long time.

Victoria knew she should consider herself fortunate, at least as far as scary-ass home invasions by masked men with guns went. But when the two weeks of not sleeping stretched into three, and after Will walked in on her dozing off at her desk, startling her and making her face-plant against her open laptop, she’d decided it was time to face facts.

She wasn’t comfortable living in a place that had more than one level.

She couldn’t relax in her townhome, and feared she would always be tense at night, waiting for that beep of the alarm, and listening for the sound of footsteps on her stairs.

Once she’d come to terms with that, she’d immediately put her townhome on the market and spent a weekend condo hunting with Audrey and Rachel, her two best friends. She decided on a two-bedroom place in the Trump Tower, telling herself that the burglars hadn’t really gotten the best of her if she was moving to a place with its own indoor pool and health club.