He was holding out his creds. “I’m Agent Dillon Savich, FBI, and this is Agent Sherlock. But you already recognized her.”
Sherlock nodded to her, said nothing. So this was the person who’d struck her. Palumbo was tall and fit, dressed all in black. A requirement for a security engineer?
Jasmine, flustered, stepped back. She accepted Savich’s creds, gave them a cursory look, handed them back. She waved away Sherlock’s creds, splayed her hands in front of her. “I already knew who you were, Agent Sherlock. Again, I am so sorry.”
Sherlock said quietly, “But you do have an excuse, Ms. Palumbo. You were watching for Justice Cummings. You saw him running out of the alley and he distracted you. Maybe you thought you could bring him down?”
Jasmine froze, but only for an instant. She had to keep her head. How did they know? It had to be a guess, nothing but a guess. She shook her head, looked bewildered. “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember anyone running out of an alley. No, I lost concentration thinking about a security project I’m leading—for a meeting here in Washington, and I—I really don’t know who this person is you mentioned. Justice, you called him?”
Savich said, “We’d like to talk to you about him, Ms. Palumbo. And the accident.”
Jasmine wished she were anywhere but here, facing these two FBI agents. She’d even jump at a meeting with Nathan Bexholt and Nikki sniping at each other. She turned, walked back to her desk, and slowly sat down. She waved them to the two chairs in front of her. She knew, of course, they’d recognize a delaying tactic when they saw it, but it didn’t matter. She needed time to get herself together. She had a superior brain, she could do this.
She should have known the FBI would come to talk to her, but she hadn’t expected them to know about Justice Cummings and she hadn’t expected Agent Sherlock. Of course she knew what Sherlock looked like from pictures and from countless videos, but in the flesh, she looked as stylish and kick-ass in her black blazer and low-heeled black boots as the male agent. She’d heard Sherlock had left the hospital, but she was back at work already?
Jasmine said matter-of-factly, “Look, I know you’d like to speak to me about the accident. I mean, I did hit an FBI agent. Again, I’m so sorry for my inattention. But I’m afraid I don’t know who Justice Cummings is. Is he the man you crashed into?” Her voice came out nice and smooth, utterly sincere, even though she was still shocked at hearing they’d even considered a connection. Athena—Nikki—had been so sure they wouldn’t—it was the first time she could remember her being so wrong.
Savich could see no obvious sign she was lying. She was good, steady and sincere. He settled back and said easily, “Before we discuss Justice Cummings and the accident further, tell us, Ms. Palumbo, what is it you do here at the Bexholt Group?”
Familiar ground. Jasmine felt her confidence returning. She said, “As I’m sure you know, the Bexholt Group is known for our expertise in electronic security and vulnerability assessment for our clients’ communications. We do some manufacturing of firewalls, too, and some of our own R&D. I’m a security engineer here, among many others. I work in security monitoring, primarily.”
“Were you at work for Bexholt at the time of the accident?”
“No, it was late in the day and I was off.”
Savich said without pause, “Did you know Eleanor Corbitt was murdered last night in her apartment?”
Jasmine heard his words, but they didn’t immediately make any sense. Then she gasped, shock freezing her. No, there had to be a mistake. Ellie had called her last night, frightened, and Jasmine had told her not to worry, she’d take care of it. So how could Ellie be dead? Murdered? She wanted to scream, to weep. What was going on here? She knew she had to keep it together. She looked Agent Savich in the eye. “This is horrible, unbelievable. Why would anyone kill Eleanor Corbitt? She was an accountant in our accounting division. Do you know who’s responsible?”
Savich saw the shock, knew it was real. “Not yet. Tell us about Ms. Corbitt.”
Jasmine shook her head back and forth. She still couldn’t take it in, couldn’t deal with the reality of it—Ellie dead, not just dead, but murdered. Get it together. “I’m very sorry to hear this, though I didn’t know her well. She was more an acquaintance, you could say. This is nuts, it makes no sense. As I said, she was an accountant, for heaven’s sake.”
Sherlock said, “The killer waited until she was asleep and shot her in the head.”
Jasmine shuddered, couldn’t help it. She picked up a pen and began weaving it between her long fingers. “Do you know if it was a boyfriend?”
Stupid, stupid, the agents would know Ellie was divorced from an abusive crap-head. Ellie was leery of men at best. Jasmine’s brain cleared and she said aloud, “Stupid question. Her husband abused her. She finally divorced him. Everyone in the office knew about the situation. I can’t imagine she’d have a boyfriend so soon after the divorce. I heard her ex now lives somewhere in Virginia.”
Sherlock said, “It was a very nasty divorce, we understand.”
“From what I heard around the office, yes. Then you suspect him? I believe his name is Brook Hughes.”
Savich said, “Brook Hughes is currently in the South of France, near Cannes. Crimes of passion usually aren’t like that—a bullet to the brain of a sleeping woman—more often they’re loud and bloody if two people really hate each other. It looked like a robbery on the face of it, but it’s more than a small coincidence given both you and Ms. Corbitt work at the same company.”
Sherlock picked it up. “That and the fact Ms. Corbitt was caught on video standing at the street corner at the scene of my accident on Tuesday, staring straight at you. It seems logical to assume she was somehow involved. And did her involvement make her a loose end? Was someone afraid she might have helped us understand what all this is about?”
Jasmine splayed her hands in front of her. “What you’re implying is horrible and insulting. I can’t help you, Agents. I have no idea why she was there. I’m very sorry she’s dead, she was nice, a good worker, but I don’t know what she did after work, how she spent her evenings and with whom.”
Savich said, “If you were only acquaintances, how do you know her ex-husband’s name? Ms. Palumbo, where were you between midnight and four a.m. last night?”
Jasmine rose straight up, cleansing waves of anger pumping off her. “You dare ask me that? What is this? We both worked at the same company, nothing more, nothing less.” Keep it together, calm down. She looked at Sherlock. “Is this out of spite because I hit you? You know I didn’t mean to, it was an accident. Look, I was hurt, too—” She waved her sling at them. “Listen, I told you, I knew Ellie Corbitt as an employee here, that’s all.”
Sherlock’s voice stayed calm. “Come, Ms. Palumbo, we need to know your whereabouts.”
“Very well. I assume you’re asking everyone? But why are you involved at all? Ellie was in Washington. Isn’t that a police matter?”
Sherlock merely waited, not taking her eyes off Palumbo’s face.
Jasmine shrugged. “Very well. I was home in bed, alone. No alibi.” She stared at Sherlock, caught a glimpse of the Band-Aid beneath all that curly hair. “I’m very sorry about Eleanor Corbitt. I’m also very pleased you’re going to be all right. You are, aren’t you?”
Sherlock cocked her head. “So they tell me.”