"For now, I'd prefer that this be between you and I," Langston said. "I realize you will need to share this with your team, but I can speak more frankly one-on-one"

This was very unusual behavior for an FBI agent. In Angie's experience, they usually barged in and took over. She decided to play along. "Sure, let's go." She followed the agent to the stairwell and up one flight. Damien was right behind them.

Langston led her to room 507. Angie used the master key, and they entered the room. It was obvious that this room had been lived in. Angie stopped them in the entryway. "I'm going to want to get CSI up here if this was really where Berwick was staying."

"Hammond," the agent told her. "Your corpse is, was, Damien Hammond."

Damien had moved past the two women and stopped at the desk. He remembered this room, remembered sitting at this desk and using the computer. He looked on the floor to the right of the desk and saw a box with folders. He knew the information the folders contained. As he entered the bedroom, he immediately recognized his clothes.

Back in the sitting room, Damien looked at Erin Langston again. He was not sure how she fit in. She had not been with him in this room. He was sure of that. But they did have a history. He struggled to remember anything before he arrived here. It was like a heavy mist had settled on his brain. He could see vague images, shapes, and muffled conversations as the mist shifted, but nothing was in focus.

Erin turned to Angie, "We need to talk. There are things I need to tell you. I have a room just down the hall. Let's go there."

"Before we do that, do you have a picture of Damien Hammond?"

"No. Not current. And not on my phone."

Angie showed her a picture of the corpse. "Can you identify this man?" After Langston formally ID'd Damien, Angie called Sandy, told her about the room, and issued instructions. She also called Andy and got him started on the Damien Hammond research. "Ok, let's go," she told the FBI agent.

As they walked down the hall, Langston told Angie that she had just flown in this morning on the American Airlines shuttle from Reagan National airport. She planned to stay just the one night but would make herself available to the investigators. "Whatever you need," she told Angie.

Following, Damien heard running footsteps behind them. He turned and looked but there was no one there. The women seemed unaffected by the sounds. He could not shake the feeling that someone was there with them.

The hotel was laid out in an 'H' pattern, and they used the connecting hall to get to the front half of the building. The agent used her key on 502 and they entered a sunny sitting room overlooking Peachtree Street.

"I manage the kidnapping/extortion desk in the Organized Crime group, but I am not here officially," Erin repeated her earlier statement. "And I'm afraid I have some responsibility for Damien's death."

"Damien and I met in law school. We were a couple for a while; then split but remained friends. I took a job with the bureau and ended up in DC. He joined CPD in Chicago then moved over to the DA's office. He is an investigator for the Cook County District Attorney."

"He called me last Friday, said he was in DC, and needed to see me. He didn't say what it was about. I assumed it was something to do with his job, but I admit that I was a bit apprehensive about the meeting."

"Why?" Angie asked.

"Damien was always headstrong, impulsive. 'Just Do It' was a mantra he lived by. I had this feeling that he was going to ask me for a favor. Something he couldn't ask through normal channels. I'd even rehearsed a response." She shook her head. "I was going to tell him I would help where I could but it had to be official."

"I should have stuck with that. But I didn't. I went off-books to help him and now he is dead."