Lust and Lies 04 - Pretty Maids in a Row

permitted to have visitors, so Holly was undoubtedly asleep and alone in a motel room at the time of the murder. She'd have no alibi. It couldn't have worked out better if Rachel had planned it in advance.
    She considered blaming Holly for all three, but if the reporter regained consciousness, he could swear to Holly's whereabouts during the O'Day murder. It was safer this way.
    When she was finished with that chore, she went to her bathroom closet and removed several containers of the antidepressants April had prescribed for her. She had been saving them up for this moment—an event she had thought about often over the last twenty years. A moment that her job and her passion for Erica had managed to postpone.
    As previously planned and mentally rehearsed so many times, she prepared the stage. Her alarm clock, set to go off in four hours, was placed on the coffee table in the living room next to her final report. The front door of her apartment was left unlocked.
    When the alarm continued to sound without being turned off, some neighbor would come to complain and, finding the door unlatched, should investigate further. Otherwise, it could be days before anyone might come to check on her and she wanted to make sure her last words were found quickly.
    She sat down on the couch, dumped all ten containers of pills on the table, then one handful at a time, washed them down with the rest of the bourbon. At one time she had thought about eating her gun, in the more traditional law enforcement manner, but that was such an unattractive way to go.
    Settling back to wait for it to take effect, however, she thought of something that had never been in the plan before. She stumbled into her bedroom, pulled off the tailored, mannish clothes she was wearing, then slipped into the black lacy nightgown she had bought yesterday as a gift for Erica.
    At least she would die feeling pretty.
    * * *
    "Holly Kaufman?"
    She looked up at the man who had stepped in her path just as she was entering the lobby of her apartment building. As soon as she acknowledged her name, he flashed his badge and photo identification.
    "Agent Thackery, FBI. Would you come with me, please?"
    Holly's brows rose in surprise. "I beg your pardon?"
    "I'd suggest you come along peaceably." His face was expressionless.
    "May I see your identification again, please?" Holly asked just as politely. He held on to his badge case as she compared the picture with the man. "All right, but where is it you want to take me and why?"
    He put his case away and said, "FBI headquarters. Senior Agent Quick from Miami asked me to bring you in for questioning immediately."
    "Agent Quick is here? In Washington?"
    Agent Thackery nodded curtly. "He arrived a short while ago."
    Holly thought he didn't sound too pleased about it. She couldn't imagine what other questions she could possibly answer, but she didn't seem to have any choice. She left her overnight bag with Pete, then left with Agent Thackery.
    Upon arrival at the FBI building, she was taken to a room furnished with a rectangular table and eight chairs. Recording equipment was set up at one end of the table. On impulse, she tested the doorknob after she was left alone.
    Locked! Instantly, panic set in. What was this all about? Was she under arrest? Had Rachel already found out that she had talked and made good on her threat? Why was Agent Quick in D.C.?
    As if on cue, Quick entered the room with Agent Thackery and a woman who was just as physically generic as her male counterparts.
    Quick greeted her with a smile. "Miss Kaufman, this is Agent Varden and you met Agent Thackery. Thank you for coming in. Please have a seat." Once she sat where he directed, the others took chairs around her. "I just need to ask you a few more questions," Quick said, still maintaining his friendly demeanor. "Perhaps the best place to start is for you to tell us everything you've done from the time you left Wells's hospital room at eleven-fifty last evening."
    She reminded herself that this man was not her friend, despite his smile or tone of voice. He was an FBI agent, just like Rachel, and he would be more apt to believe his colleague than a stranger. She straightened in the chair with her hands folded on her lap and tried to remember every detail of the time that had passed.
    "I took a cab—a Yellow one—to the Miami International Airport. The next flight back here was on Delta at six-thirty this morning, so I took a room in the airport hotel. The