Page 33 of A Step You Shouldn't Take

The photo underneath showed a sixty-year-old man with a forty-year-old wife and two children who must have been in high school. A polished-looking girl who took after her mother, and a younger boy with braces on his teeth.Robert Turner and family at last year’s garden party.

Robert Turner. Simeon Dobkins. Two names. Nineteen left to find, assuming Robert didn’t decide to lend the car to one of his buddies in economics or political affairs. That was a possibility, of course, but I had to start somewhere. Kimberly Jennings was paying me to keep digging, and quite handsomely since I was working on the case full-time. I glanced at myself in the rear-view mirror. Perhaps I should invest in a haircut now.

After all, a haircut might help with the next part of my plan. I needed to get up close and personal with the embassy staff, and if there was one thing diplomats enjoyed more than collecting traffic citations, it was partying. Now I just had to find out where they drank.

I went to the Georgetown library to warm up and borrow their internet connection for an hour, and then I headed back to the embassy. Suspect number three tossed his hat into the ring just after lunch. Another white, dark-haired guy behind the wheel of diplomatic vehicle number one-nine-six. I’d only just left my own car, so I turned back to follow him.

This must have been the chauffeur, because five miles outside of DC, he turned into the forecourt of a luxury car wash and handed the keys to a teenager in coveralls. From the expression on the kid’s face, which matched the girl at the deli’s exactly, one of the modules in the UK’s diplomatic training manual covered how to be a dick. The staff who worked with Robert Turner had all passed with flying colours.

Suspect three didn’t stick around, though, just sauntered off along the road, whistling, as I parked and stared after him.

“He’s going to the strip club along the road,” the kid supplied. “Does it every time.”

“That’s one way to spend the wait.”

“Can’t go in the evenings or his wife would get pissed.”

“He’s married?”

“Yup. I’ve heard him on the phone to her. She keeps him on a short leash.”

So possibly she’d have noticed if he spent the night with Kimberly Jennings.

I stuck out a hand. “Reed. Any chance you could wash my SUV?”

The guy gave me a fist bump. “I’m Tyrone. Sure, I’ll do yours first. That guy won’t be back for hours, and he always complains no matter how much time I spend cleaning his damn Benz.”

“Really proud of it, huh?”

“It’s not even his. He’s just the chauffeur. Comes in every week, regular as clockwork.”

Well, that answered one question. I nodded at the diplomatic plates. “Reckon I should get me one of those cushy government jobs.”

“You and me both, brother. You and me both.” He waved at my car. “Want me to do the inside too?”

“Nah, it’s full of my girlfriend’s shit. Just the outside.”

While Tyrone got his hands dirty, I waited in the rusty cabin that served as an office, messy as hell and heated by a single-bar electric fire. Regular as clockwork, he said? I found the invoice file and flipped back a week. Last Thursday, Paul Lincoln had brought the Mercedes in for detailing, and a scrawled note at the bottom of the receipt said he’d complained the wheels weren’t clean enough.

One more name to add to the collection.

After the visit to the car wash, I turned my gleaming SUV back towards the embassy at the end of the day to pick out a likely candidate for after-work drinks. A youngish guy in a BMW left at five on the dot, and I figured he may be the type to hang out in the bar, but he drove over the Fourteenth Street Bridge and headed for Virginia. Unlucky. I headed back for a second try, another guy in his twenties, but after I trailed him into a bar downtown, he kissed his girlfriend on the cheek and ordered them both glasses of wine.

Another strike. Well, I did warn Kimberly this would be a long process.

After an hour in the gym, I decided to grab a chicken burger from the Sunrise Diner. I’d been eating there since I was a kid, and Becky who owned the place knew how to cook good food without adding a vat-load of grease. Except when I drove past Just Imagine’s office, the light was still on, glowing from behind the filmy drapes someone had pulled across the windows of the reception area. A shadow passed in front. Was that Kimberly? What was she doing there so late?

Before I had time to think about it, I’d pulled over and parked at the kerb. It was almost nine o’clock. She should be at home with candles and bubble bath or whatever slightly icy women with a penchant for shiny things did in the evenings.

I knocked softly on the door, only to stiffen when the sound of breaking glass echoed from inside.

“Kimberly? Are you okay?”

“Who’s there?”

“Reed Cullen. Are you okay?”

The door flew open. “What are you doing here? You scared me half to death!”

---