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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
This was some bullshit. Jay tapped his fingers nervously on the metal table. But it was all in the name of Ella’s safety. He glanced around the FBI waiting room. When he’d agreed to chat with Special Agent Byrd, he thought it would be a conversation. Jay had envisioned coffee and a meeting of the minds, where they sat around a conference table, working out all of the possible threats against Ella, all of the headaches and concerns she’d received over the years, starting when they took on their first corporate challenge and reaching its zenith when she was the star of reality prime-time TV.
His eyes tracked to the two-way mirror and dropped to the scarred table. This wasn’t the right setup, and he wasn’t thrilled to be waiting to help. Jay pushed back the heavy metal chair, not comfortable in any position, and drummed his nails on the table again.
Tap, tap.
Tap, tap, tap.
“Anyone around?” How long had he been in there? He didn’t have his cell phone on him—security had forced him to leave it at the building check-in—and Jay could feel eyes on him through the mirror. Was this what Ella felt like? Eyes boring into her.
Was this not a friendly visit? Were they smart enough to study him closer? He’d hunted Ella, and now maybe they considered hunting him?
No. Not possible. His planning had been too clean. His alibi was airtight, his schedule flawless. Even with the questionable one-time use of Tara in his well-orchestrated plans, it didn’t matter. They could have at him for hours… days. He would play.
“Hello? I don’t have all day.” Confidence was a declaration of innocence, a simple challenge.
The door handle jiggled before it opened, and in walked a dowdy lady.
“Mr. Graff.” She wore a pantsuit and blocky black boots.
That was Ella’s agent? Not even a smear of makeup, but she was unlike the all-natural, Eco-Ella crowd. This woman seemed as if she didn’t care.
“Good morning,” Jay said.
“Thanks for coming in.” Her chair scratched across the tile floor, and she did nothing to stop the jarring scrape until she took a seat and made official introductions.
Jay gave the smile that worked on most women. “Nice to meet you.”
The agent opened a portfolio, turning over a scribble-covered page that had lines and circles, arrows and asterisks. She rolled a cheap pen between two fingers, dropped it to the page to test for ink, then put it down before glancing up as though she didn’t give a hoot that he’d put on his most charming smile. “I had a few questions to clarify.”
Bitch. “Anything to help Ella.”
She didn’t smile. No twitch of her lips, no dip of her head. Nothing. The woman gave up zip and probably killed at poker. Though not chess, where a person had to think.
The agent remained silent, but the pen began to write. What could she possibly have picked up and thought important enough to jot down in the last two seconds?
“You’ve had a working and personal relationship with Ella for several years? Would you say you’re close?”
Irritation sharpened its claws against his chest, and Jay ran his tongue along the inside of his lower lip. “No one knows Ella better than me.”
“No one else?”
Certainly not Bishop.“No.”
“Not her family?” the agent asked.
“Outside of family,” Jay conceded. “She’s close with her parents. But friends and lovers are the family you pick.”
Would she understand that? Some people couldn’t comprehend friends and lovers. And howspecialcould this special agent be? She had no reaction when Jay basically offered her the encyclopedia of intelligence.
The agent flipped to a new page and wrote feverishly. She tore it free and pushed the straggle-sided note to him.
“What’s this?” he asked.
Her blank face remained even. “You tell me.”
His eyes dropped to a list of dates that he had memorized and planned around. He was visibly, physically nowhere near Ella at those times. More often than not, Tara was with him, and she was exceedingly visible, which made the best alibi. Jay read the list of days Ella had beenstalked. “What is this? Dates of when things happened to Ella?”