Something About You (FBI/US Attorney #1)(8)

Thankfully, the long chestnut hair currently was pulled back into a ponytail, and the blue-green eyes had dulled a little given her lack of sleep. The yoga pants and Michigan T-shirt she wore were actually kind of cute, but because of the aforementioned bitch factor, he ignored this.

“So when they woke me up the second time,” Cameron was saying, “that’s when I decided to call Guest Services.”

“I want to step back for a moment.” Jack’s interruption from the corner of the room startled Cameron; it was the first time he’d spoken since she’d begun giving her statement.

“Tell me what you heard right before you fell asleep. Before the noises next door started up again,” he said.

Cameron hesitated. He knew she didn’t want to answer his questions—she probably didn’t want to say anything to him at all, in fact—but now that she’d started cooperating, she didn’t have much choice.

“I heard the door shut, as if someone was leaving the room,” she said.

“Are you sure it was the exterior door you heard?” Jack asked.

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t check to see if anyone left at that time?”

Cameron shook her head. “No. Then the room went quiet for a while. For about a half hour or so.”

“Tell me about the noises that woke you up.”

Cameron turned to face him now that he had taken over the questioning. “What would you like to know, Agent Pallas?” she asked mock-politely.

“I just told you. I’d like to know what you heard.”

“Pretty much the same things I heard coming from the room the first time,” she said with an air of defiance.

Jack cocked his head. “Really? You said the first time around you heard the people next door having sex.”

“Yes, I think the ass slapping and the screams of ‘I’m coming’ gave that away.”

Jack stepped out from the corner to approach her. “So when you woke up the second time, did you hear any asses being slapped?”

“No.”

From her expression, he could tell she didn’t enjoy being on the receiving end of a cross-examination. “How about the ‘I’m coming’ screams? Any more of those?”

“I heard squealing.”

“But no proclamations of impending orgasms?”

She glared. “You made your point, Agent Pallas.”

He drew closer and stared down at her. “My point, Ms. Lynde, is that I know you’re tired, but that’s no excuse for getting sloppy.”

Cameron’s eyes filled with anger. But then she paused for a moment, and nodded. “Fair enough.”

She looked over at the wall she shared with room 1308. “When I woke up the second time, I heard the bed banging against the wall, louder than before. But only a couple of times. Then like I said, I heard squealing.”

“A man or a woman’s voice?” Jack asked.

“A woman. The sound was muffled, as if her face was covered by a blanket or pillow.” Cameron turned back to him with a look of sudden realization. “She was suffocated, wasn’t she?” she asked softly.

Jack debated whether to answer this but knew he eventually would have to fill her in anyway. “Yes.”

Cameron bit her lip. “I just thought they were trying to be quieter about it. I didn’t realize . . .” She took a deep, steadying breath.

“You couldn’t have known,” Wilkins assured her.

Jack threw him a look—enough with the good-cop already. She was a big girl, she could handle it. “You told Detective Slonsky that you called security and the room went quiet again?”

“And then I heard the door open, so I ran and looked out the peephole,” Cameron said.

“Just being nosy?”

The sarcasm seemed to reinvigorate her. “And thank goodness for that,” she said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have whatever information I know that I don’t yet realize I know.” She smiled ever so sweetly. “Besides, if I hadn’t been so nosy, Agent Pallas, you and I never would’ve had this lovely chance to reconnect.”

Wilkins coughed while taking a sip of his coffee. It sounded suspiciously like a chuckle.

Jack found her sarcasm laughable. Back when he was in Special Forces, before he’d joined the FBI, he’d interrogated foreign operatives, suspected terrorists, and members of various guerilla militias. He could certainly handle one cheeky assistant U.S. attorney. “I’m glad to see the coffee’s put a little fire back in you,” he said dryly. “Now why don’t you tell me what you saw when you were doing your civic duty and spying though the peephole?”

Wilkins held up his hand. “Um, I’m thinking maybe I should pick back up with this.”

Cameron and Jack answered simultaneously. “We’re fine.”

“I saw a man leave the room, which I’m sure you know,” she told Jack.

“Describe him.”

“I already described him to Slonsky.”

“Do it again.”

Jack saw her eyes flash. She didn’t like being told what to do. Too bad.

“Five foot eleven, maybe six feet tall,” she said. “Medium build. He wore jeans, a black blazer, and a gray hooded T-shirt pulled over his head. He had his back to me the entire time, so I never saw his face.”