She exhaled a long deep breath infected with the hitches that follow a good cry. “Yeah.” Rolling her shoulders, she sat back in the chair. “But I feel all revved up. You know what I’d really like to do?”

He raised a swarthy eyebrow. “Again?”

Laughing, she gave him a little shove. “Get your mind out of the gutter. I want to go back to Julian’s hotel room and take another look. Sometimes when I’m stuck it helps to start all over.”

“How about I go with you?”

“You don’t want to do that.”

He reached out to help her up. “There’s nothing I’d rather do, and besides, maybe I’ll be the one who figures this whole thing out.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Whatever. Stick with me, rookie. I’ll show you the ropes.”

Nuzzling her neck, he said, “Oh, ropes. That sounds promising.”

Sam punched in the police code to unlock the hotel room door. Inside, she flipped on the lights and took a long look around at the large, elegant room where everything was neat and orderly.

“Looks like he was never here,” Nick commented, “but I can smell his cologne.”

Sam turned to him. “If it’s too hard for you to be here—”

He rested an index finger on her lips. “I’m okay.”

Even though crime scene detectives had already done it once before, she went through the room again with methodic precision. She checked suit coat pockets, zippered linings in the suitcases and briefcase, and poked through the shaving kit in the bathroom but found nothing out of the ordinary.

“Are all your friends as anal retentively neat as you and Julian?” she asked.

Nick sat at the desk and flipped through Julian’s date book. “Not all of them.” He turned to the page from the day of the murder. “Lunch with Trip. That would be Ackerman, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

“We couldn’t figure out who that was.” Sam marveled at how quickly he had given her a lead to follow.

“Prep school nickname. They probably went over how the nomination hearings would go, and he answered any questions Julian had. Will you talk to Ackerman?”

“First thing in the morning.” She leaned in to kiss his cheek. “Thank you.”

“I told you I’d figure this out for you.”

She laughed. “Don’t get all full of yourself quite yet.”

“What do you suppose this refers to?” He pointed to an entry in the book that said, “P/a.d.”

“No idea. I wondered if the P referred to his brother. Preston said he’d been in touch with Julian and hoped to see him while Julian was in town.”

“What could a.d. stand for?” Nick asked.

“After Diandra goes to bed?” Sam ventured. “Austin and Devon?”

“After dinner?”

“Could be. I just wish we had tape of what happened after Graham and Laine dropped him off.”