Say It Again (First Wives, #5)(77)

The look on his face told her he didn’t like it.

“You could always go to the local police station and ask to talk with the detective on the case, that’s an option, too,” Cooper suggested with a laugh.

He hesitated.

“You being there can get you both killed,” Neil said. “Your sister’s office or the police station. Those are your options.”

“Amelia was hiding something, AJ. I think talking with her coworkers with that in mind might offer some kind of explanation.” Sasha wanted to give him a task.

AJ wrenched the car door open. “Fine. But I don’t like it.”

He stormed off and Sasha took the call off the speakerphone. “I have what I need. Neil, I need to talk to you privately.”

Sasha stepped out of the car, waited for Neil to indicate he was the only one on the line.

“I’m listening.”

“I sent you a package. I need DNA testing.”

“Do I need to ask who?”

Sasha looked over her shoulder, saw AJ walking toward her. “I just need to know if they match.”

“You got it.”

She hung up the phone, tucked it away. “Ready?”

AJ opened the passenger door, waved his hand for her to get in. “I’m driving.”



Walking into a police station was not an option. Not that AJ had any indication that his activities in Florida would follow him to DC, but there was no way of knowing.

A quick trip to a department store, and one thrown together suit later, AJ was exiting a taxi outside of the building where Amelia used to work. He’d called her boss, said he was only going to be in town for the day and really needed to talk.

He was a little surprised he wasn’t met with some kind of excuse.

While Sasha ditched the blonde wig and slid into Catwoman, AJ channeled his father’s diplomacy and walked into the office building and approached the security desk. After security made a phone call and handed him a temporary security badge to pin to his shirt, someone was walking him to the elevators and up to the floor where his sister spent her time when she wasn’t abroad.

He walked through the office, past divided workstations and employees of all ages and nationalities. No one paid attention to him, which was the point in wearing a suit. If he’d walked in wearing jeans and a T-shirt, chances were people would notice.

Amelia’s boss met AJ at the door. He lifted a hand. “Mr. Spedick, thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

“Absolutely. Come on in, Mr. Hofmann. I was expecting someone from the family to come by eventually.” Spedick was in his early sixties, a slight peppering of gray in his dusty blond hair. His suit was unremarkable, his smile genuine. “We are all feeling the loss of your sister. I can’t tell you how sorry we are.” He took a seat behind his desk and encouraged AJ to sit.

“The funeral was a blur, but I do remember a large presence of her coworkers.”

“Amelia was one of our more motivated younger employees. She had no problem influencing people. I don’t think I knew one person who didn’t say kind things about her.”

AJ lifted both hands in the air. “Which is one of the reasons I’m here. If my sister was so well loved, why did someone murder her?”

“I’m sure the police can answer that better than we can.”

“Except they aren’t.”

“What are you suggesting?” Spedick leaned forward on his desk.

“Nothing . . . I’m grasping at air. I need to exhaust everything I can find out on my own in order to move on, Mr. Spedick. So I’m here to see if maybe someone here says something that gives me a clue.”

“If she was my sister . . . I would do the same thing.”

“Then I can count on your help.”

“Of course,” he said, sitting back.

“I’m not entirely sure what Amelia did for your office, Mr. Spedick, or if anything was sensitive in nature.”

“Amelia wasn’t cleared for anything classified. If she had been, we would have started our own investigation.”

“Is it possible that she came across something she wasn’t supposed to see?”

“The local police asked the same thing at the time of her death. The answer is simple. There isn’t anything to see. Our IT guys did a search of her computer, more to find out where she was on her research for our current work in South Africa than anything else. If they found anything, it would have been flagged. I can assure you nothing was there that shouldn’t have been.”

AJ considered telling the man that his sister had some serious hacking skills but thought better of revealing that.

“My sister didn’t seem to have many friends outside work. It might help us find some closure if I could talk to some of them. Maybe she had a boyfriend or something that we didn’t know anything about.” AJ was stalling. He needed at least a half an hour in the building before Sasha finished at the condo and met him outside.

“She worked with Nina and Frank.” He looked at his watch. “If we go now, we might catch them before they leave for lunch.”

AJ followed Spedick down the hall and stopped at a grouping of desks. One had been stripped of any character, left only with a monitor and keyboard.

Spedick introduced AJ to the duo. “Please answer anything you can. I already told Mr. Hofmann we have no secrets in this department.”