Page 81 of The Senator's Wife

He spun around, almost losing his balance. Athena and Emmy stood in the doorway.

“I’ve never seen you look better, Sloane,” Athena said.

Whit staggered backward and turned around to face Sloane once more. “I don’t…I…I don’t understand. We planned your funeral. How can you be…”

Sloane rose from the chair with an air of serene authority. “I’m very much alive, Whit. The only thing that’s dead is your future.”

His heart was pounding as he struggled to grasp what had happened. He turned to Athena, glaring. “What did you do? How…what…whoareyou?”

“I’m your worst nightmare, Senator Montgomery. The woman who’s going to put your ass in prison.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a badge. “FBI Special Agent Athena Pamfilis, at your service.”

- 65 -

ATHENA

It hadn’t been easy for Athena to pretend to be falling in love with a man she despised, but her training as an undercover agent had served her well. Now she relished the shocked look on Whit’s face. She had been inserted into the Whit Montgomery case by her bosses at the FBI soon after Whit began making arrangements to hire a home healthcare worker for Sloane. The investigation had started long before, but when the opportunity presented itself for Athena to get inside the house, it was too good to pass up. By that point, the FBI was also looking into the possibility that Whit was involved in the shooting death of his wife and Senator Chase. Despite the incident being ruled manslaughter and suicide, Athena’s initial task was simple: determine the extent of Whit’s scheme to defraud HUD and find out whether Sloane was Whit’s partner in the scheme. If she stumbled upon anything related to the shooting, that would be a bonus. From the start, Athena knew it would be easy to grab Whit’s attention and make him believe she was infatuated with him. Blinded by their arrogance, powerful men always underestimated her.

It had been a delicate balance, luring Whit to confide in her and at the same time making sure that Sloane wasn’t suspicious or jealous. She’d had to make Whit believe that Sloane was starting to be jealous of all the women surrounding him so he couldn’t be persuaded to let Athena go. She’d felt terrible about framing Doris, who was now back with Sloane, but Doris’s suspicion of Athena had become an obstacle to the investigation. Her cover had almost been blown when Rosemary’s friend Mac had found that Facebook page from her last assignment. Athena had been workingundercover at a pharmaceutical company and hadn’t realized a colleague had posted the picture of their softball team online. Athena’s own Facebook page with her cover name had since been deleted, but unfortunately the tag still showed the name she’d been using on that assignment. When Athena read the text from Rosemary, Clint scrubbed the page, but it had been a close call.

At its core, this case was one of simple public corruption and fraud. Conspiracy to commit murder was icing on the cake. What Athena had never expected was Whit’s scheme to kill Sloane. In the beginning, she’d suspected that Sloane and Whit could have conspired to kill their respective spouses in order to be together, but it soon became obvious that Sloane had deeply loved Robert. Athena quickly realized that Sloane had nothing to do with her husband’s death. From day one, Athena recorded all of her conversations with both Whit and Sloane.

When Athena finally gained access to Whit’s office, she discovered the Bactrim, belladonna, and strong sedatives in his bookcase. Her training as a naturopathic doctor made it easy for her to put the pieces together. She realized that it wasn’t the lupus, but Whit who had been making Sloane sick.

Once she found everything, she knew they had to get Sloane out right away. She’d called Clint.

“Things have gone sideways in a hurry.”

“Shit, what happened?” he asked.

“He’s been poisoning her. It was never the lupus. It’s been Whit all along.”

“Whoa, slow down. What are you talking about?”

She told him what she’d found in Whit’s office and what it meant.

He whistled. “Good thing you have a medical background. What the hell? So that’s why he made her sign him as a trustee on the foundation. We’ve got to stop the operation…right now. And we need to get her into a hospital ASAP and determine how bad off she is.”

“I know! I bought us a little time, though. Maybe there’s a way to still get the evidence on the VP.”

“No. There’s no time. What if he plans on finishing her off tomorrow? We can’t take that chance.”

“Well, I know he isn’t going to kill her by tomorrow.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I convinced him to leave the house for a few days.”

“How did you do that?”

“I may have told him that I would…kill her…and that maybe it would be better if he wasn’t around when I did it.”

“What? Have you lost your mind?”

“I’ll keep watch over her room tonight. He’ll be gone in the morning, then I’ll tell Sloane everything and we can plan our next move.”

The next morning, she’d gone to Sloane as soon as Whit left for Virginia.

Sloane looked terrified when Athena walked into the bedroom.

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