CHAPTER 35

brEE AND SAMPSON BOARDED a United flight to Denver; there, they would pick up a jet to Reno.

They sat next to each other on an exit row the flight attendant gave to Sampson because of his height. Bree tried to call Alex, but it went straight to voice mail and he wasn’t answering texts.

“He and Ned must be onto something,” Bree said, putting her phone in airplane mode.

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Sampson said. “Those two are like hounds when they’re together.” He said it with a little wistfulness.

“You miss working with him full-time. With Alex, I mean,” she said.

Sampson shrugged. “We’ll work together again soon. I’m sure of it.”

“I am too. And I’m glad you’re coming with me.”

“I thought you were coming with me .”

Once the plane was airborne, Bree noticed how pensive Sampson was. “M?” she said.

John nodded, a cruel expression appearing on his face. “When he taunted me about Billie’s death, said he’d killed her so I had to go through the nightmare of having her exhumed, I swore that I would not stop until I had this guy in my sights.”

“I remember,” she said. “And I feel the same way. One hundred percent. If there’s something there in Nevada, we’ll find it.”

He nodded without looking at her. “I need to find it.”

Bree felt the urge to change the subject. “How’s Rebecca these days?”

His tight jaw loosened, and a smile came to his lips. “She’s busy but good. We talk almost every night and try to see each other on the weekends when she can spend time with Willow.”

“And Willow likes her?”

“Adores her,” Sampson said. “Says I should keep dating her.”

Bree laughed. “You should keep dating her.”

“No argument there.”

“No, I mean, don’t make it entirely about the three of you—you, Willow, and Rebecca—even though that is very, very important.”

Sampson’s jaw tightened again. “Okay?”

“I’m saying keep the romance going,” she said. “You’re at the very beginning of a relationship, John. You have to feed the romance, and to do that you have to find time to be alone, and you have to be, well, creative.”

“Creative?”

“Surprise her with something thoughtful or playful. It doesn’t have to be much. Just enough to say, ‘I see you. I hear you. I was thinking about you.’”

“I say that?”

“No, your gesture does. But that’s your intent.”

“Oh,” Sampson said, clearly puzzled. “I’m going to have to think on that.”

He was quiet for much of the rest of the flight. Bree tried to work on the corporate-fraud case but fell asleep. When she woke up, he was busy writing in a notebook. He finished up and put the notebook away.

“Took your advice,” he said.

“How’s that?”

“You know, being creative with Rebecca. I wrote her a little love letter. I’ll get an envelope and a stamp and mail it in the morning.”

“Good for you,” Bree said and giggled. “A love letter? From John Sampson? My, how times have changed.”

He laughed. “Happens to the best of us. Especially when we get good advice.”

It was snowing in Denver when they landed. Their flight to Reno was delayed by five hours.

She finally got Alex on the phone around eleven o’clock his time. “You picked up!” she said.

“Crazy day,” Alex said, shouting to be heard over the sound of a jet engine. “I’m sorry. We just landed in Athens, Georgia.”

“Athens?”

He told her about the recently murdered Professor Nathan Carver being on a list of possible Supreme Court nominees along with Judge Franklin and Judge Pak.

“Guess who’s a part of the panel that came up with the list?” he said.

“You got me.”

“Theresa May Alcott.”

Bree shook her head. “Really? Is that a coincidence?”

“Ned seems to think so,” Alex said. “He said it would be stranger if someone with that kind of financial and political clout weren’t on the panel.”

“I’m not buying that.”

“Neither am I. It feels off. Like we’re working two sides of the same story.”

“No proof of that yet, even if Alcott’s on that panel,” Bree said. “Have they alerted the other people on the list that they might be in danger?”

“Mahoney made it his first priority,” Alex said, his cell phone crackling. “Before we caught our flight south, he assigned agents to protect everyone on the list and investigators to look at everyone who had access to it.”

Sampson was gesturing to her. “We’re finally boarding for Reno,” she said.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

“In the evening,” she said. “Love you.”

“Love you too. Tell John good hunting.”