after hours?”
She shrugged. “I suppose a few of the staff members. We’ve been so busy preparing the museum gala. I’d fallen behind on some of the details. I usually take my work home with me but with the rain and all, I decided to stay.”
“Then it’s feasible that someone took advantage of your decision to stay after hours and used the excuse of a theft to attack you.”
A visible tremor worked through her. “None of them would have any reason to hurt me.”
She may want him to believe her answer but the uncertainty wavering in her voice said otherwise. There had to be a connection they weren’t seeing. He made a mental note to check into the background of all the museum’s employees. “Even if that is true, someone knew you’d be there. One of the staff members could have inadvertently let it slip you were working late.”
She blew out a breath. “I suppose.”
“Did you know less than twenty-four hours after your sister’s death Congressman Jeffries’s son was murdered? And the congressman was shot, as well?” Adam watched the woman lying in the bed, searching her face for...he wasn’t sure what. Guilt?
Dark circles rimmed her worried eyes. Her long dark hair spilled over the white pillowcase, the stark contrast unsettling. The white bandage on her head was a reminder of the assault she’d suffered. The sudden urge to hurt whoever had injured her gripped him by the throat.
The strong reaction was so uncharacteristic of him that he took a step back as if somehow distancing himself from Lana would temper his response to her situation. Ace rose, sensing his tension.
She chewed on her bottom lip. “I’d heard that on the news, too. Did you find his killer?”
Interesting that she’d ask about Jeffries’s killer, but not her sister’s.
Did she know something? Had she been involved in her sister’s murder? She’d had an alibi for the time of death, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have arranged the whole thing.
However, he had looked into her finances at the time and there had been no large sums of money leaving her accounts or anything to suggest she’d paid out for a hit on her sister.
Yet, he couldn’t shake the nagging suspicion there was something going on with her, something she didn’t want him to know.
“Did you know Michael Jeffries?” Her sister had worked for the congressman’s family for nearly three years. Adam didn’t buy that Lana hadn’t known where her sister worked.
She moved her head to give a negative shake but then stopped, winced and said, “No.”
At least she was consistent. “You’ve never met Congressman Jeffries or his son?”
Anger flashed in her dark eyes. “Not Michael. I met the congressman when I came to the hospital to talk to Miss Danvers about Juan. Until then I’d never spoken to Congressman Jeffries before. I didn’t know Rosa worked for him until after her death. Why won’t you believe me?”
“I find it hard to imagine two sisters not talking to each for such a long period of time.”
He couldn’t go more than a day or two without talking to his older brother. Sure, there’d been years growing up where they’d fought like two caged animals.
But, family was family. Joe and his wife, Ruth, and their two girls lived on the other side of the Potomac. Close enough to visit often.
Adam enjoyed living near to them and would miss the Sunday night dinners and babysitting the girls so Joe and Ruth could have a date night if—when—his transfer to the Colorado Springs K-9 unit went through as Adam had requested. It would be hard leaving the elite K-9 team. They worked well together and he respected every member of the unit. And leaving Ace behind would tear his heart apart but his parents were getting on in years now and Adam felt the need to return home. To put down roots of his own.
“It’s not that strange. Families become estranged from one another all the time. Just because we shared the same blood didn’t make us friends.”
“True enough.” Though, personally, he wouldn’t let anything come between him and his brother. But it wasn’t his place to judge. “Do you know Erin Eagleton?”
“We’ve spoken on the phone regarding the Eagleton Foundation. They give generous donations to the museum. And we talked about the Golden Arrow. She was as excited by the artifact as I was, but I’ve never met her in person.” Her eyebrows dipped together. “Has she been found? I’d heard she was missing.”
He shook his head. Erin Eagleton was a senator’s daughter and the girlfriend of the victim. “She disappeared the night Michael was murdered.”
And a necklace with a starfish charm engraved on the back with the initials EE, along with a child’s blue mitten, had been found at the crime scene. They hadn’t released that tidbit of information yet. Did the presence of the necklace—determined to be Erin Eagleton’s—at Michael’s murder scene make Erin the murderer or another victim? At least they knew the child who’d dropped the mitten—even if they still didn’t know which child—was at a safe house with the rest of the foster kids from the All Our Kids home. None of the children would admit to having been near the congressman’s home—out of fear. But one of them likely had seen who had killed Michael Jeffries and shot his father, Congressman Harland Jeffries. Had Erin Eagleton been a witness? The perpetrator? A victim? Where was she?
Those questions plagued the Capitol K-9 Unit as they searched for Erin, grasping at any and all clues that might lead them to her and to Michael Jeffries’s murderer.
“When was the last time you spoke with Erin?” he asked, hoping this woman would have some useable clue to Erin’s whereabouts.
Lana frowned and appeared to be searching her memory. “Over a month ago.”
“What did you talk to Erin about?”
“Art. She and her family are patrons of the arts.” Lana’s voice took on an impatient edge. “The Eagletons have donated large sums of money to the museum. Erin Eagleton was the contact person for the Eagleton Foundation.”
“Do you always talk to donors?”
Her chin lifted. “Personal contact is important.”
“Were you aware that Erin Eagleton was Michael Jeffries’s girlfriend?”
“I’d heard that.” Puzzlement clouded her eyes. “What does any of this have to do with me? Or the attack at the museum?”
“Do you know where Erin is now?”
Lana let out an exasperated sigh. “We weren’t friends, Officer Donovan.” Her hand went to her throat. “You don’t think I had anything to do with her disappearance, do you?”
Adam didn’t like all the unknown variables. First Rosa Gomez’s suspicious death, then Congressman Jeffries’s son murdered by an unknown assassin and the congressman shot and left for dead. Michael’s girlfriend, Erin Eagleton, now missing. Lana and Rosa were sisters. Lana and Erin knew each other.
Now Lana had been attacked?
Another
