"It was one of the more embarrassing moments of my life." Elena propped her heels on the ottoman, sank deeper into the brown leather sofa, and sipped on her beer. "The jerk embarrassed me on national television."

"No, the jerk embarrassed himself on national television," Caroline said as she ensconced in the big recliner on the other side of the coffee table, curled one leg under herself. She wrapped her hands around her bottle of beer and smiled wryly. "But is he still just as hot?" Caroline exchanged a look with Matt as he groaned. "Well, one of us had to ask."

"That is kind of irrelevant, don't you think?" Elena managed a coolly disdainful look as she took a sip of her beer. Then she swallowed too fast, nearly choked, and coughed while gasping for air.

Caroline smiled. "I will take that as a yes."

After Damon and Alaric had dropped her off at home, her first plan had been to call both Matt and Caroline. The three of them had been friends since college, and normally she told them everything. But then she was too exhausted and she desperately needed a shower. So instead, Elena had shot each of them a text message asking if they wanted to meet for dinner at her house that night. Then she had crawled into bed after shower and passed out for the next six hours.

They had pizza and beer at her place. Once they had finished eating and were having the last of the beer, Elena began to tell Matt and Caroline about the occurrences of the night before—omitting any mention of Senator Whitmore's involvement, since the FBI was keeping that under wraps. From across the table, she had watched as Matt grew more and more agitated as her story progressed. And a few minutes ago, he had run his hand through his blond hair and folded his arms across his chest—his usual gesture when working through something that bothered him.

"I still can't believe you didn't call either of us from the hotel." Matt sounded pissed. "We are friends, best friends."

Caroline finished her beer. "Matt is right. It sounds like you had a pretty intense night, Elena. You shouldn't have had to go through all that alone."

"I would have called"—Elena said pointedly to Matt—"if the FBI hadn't restricted my calls." She turned to Caroline. "And yes, it was an extremely intense night. Thank you for your concern, Caroline."

"So, how was it seeing Agent Hottie after all this time?" Caroline asked.

"I'm glad you find it so amusing," Elena muttered into her beer. "By the way, he is Agent Asshole," she corrected Caroline. "Agent Hottie" had been her former nickname for Damon, one long since dropped what happened in her office three years ago. "We traded sarcastic barbs and insults the whole time. It was nice, catching up like that."

"Of course you did."

"You are not taking this seriously, are you?"

Caroline raised one brow in a very knowing fashion. "I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, as it were."

Elena frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You are involved in a crime scene," Caroline said. "And Agent Hottie is in charge of the case. Talk about fate."

Elena groaned.

"You don't have to see him again, do you?" Matt asked.

"If there is a god, no." Elena thought about this more seriously. "I don't know, maybe if there are some follow-up questions they need to ask. But I will tell you this: if I do see Damon Salvatore again, it will be on my terms. He may have caught me off guard last night, but next time I will be prepared. And at least I will be dressed appropriately for the occasion."

"What was wrong with the way you were dressed?" Caroline asked.

"I was wearing yoga pants and gym shoes." Elena scoffed. "I might as well have been naked."

Caroline chuckled. "Certainly would have made for a more interesting interrogation."

"What?" Elena demanded.

"I will say one thing about you and Agent Hottie," Caroline murmured. "You two don't get together often, but when you do, it is never dull."

Elena rolled her eyes. "Can we stop talking about Agent Asshole?" She decided it was time to change the subject. "How's the wedding preparation?"

Caroline sighed. "I have to meet with the florist first thing in the morning. I'm going to crash on your sofa tonight, if you don't mind. The florist is just close to your house. I'm not keen to drive all the way from my place to the florist and then back to work again."

Elena shrugged one shoulder casually. "I don't mind. You need to let me help out more, Caroline. I'm worried you will end up having a nervous breakdown before you make it to the wedding."

Caroline exhaled deeply. "I'm trying to tell myself that everything is going fine but it is hard, you know."

"You know how she is—she has been planning this since she was five," Matt said. "Speaking of planning, how is the bachelorette party coming along?"

"Rebekah thinks we need a stripper and she is a hundred per cent sure that her brother Klaus won't mind," Elena said before turning her attention to Caroline. "So, we will go to a club where the stripper will be there. I hope you like it. If you fire me as maid of honour, Matt has to take on the job, you know."

Matt grinned. "Not in a million years, babe."

"Are you alright with seeing Elijah at the wedding?" Caroline asked Elena. She looked serious.

Elijah was the oldest Mikaelson and Elena dated him for a while before she ended their relationship.

She shrugged. "I'm fine. He has moved on. So am I. I heard from Rebekah that he is seeing a girl named Hayley for the past few months."

"Speaking of moving on," Caroline said, "Are you bringing Liam to the wedding? Because I'm kind of supposed to give the caterer a count by Friday."

"Can I get back to you on that, Caroline?" Elena asked. "I'm meeting him on Wednesday."

Liam Davis was an investment banker and also a friend of Klaus. Despite the fact that they had been on a few dates, she hadn't even made a decision on whether she wanted to ask Liam to go with her to the wedding. If it had been in Chicago it would be a no-brainer. But she was on the fence about whether she wanted to spend the entire weekend with him in Michigan, sharing a hotel room. Sure, he would look oh-so-fine on her arm at the wedding—a factor not to be entirely discounted—but personality-wise, he was turning out to be not what she had expected from their initial meeting.

At first, she had thought Liam had gotten her phone number so quickly because he was confident. Now she realized he moved that fast because he had wanted to get her into bed as soon as possible. But Elena had said no. He had apologized, but still, it was a warning sign. A warning sign that the man she was dating was only interested in sex.

"How is Nadia?" Elena looked at Matt. "I haven't seen her for a long time. It would be good to catch up with her at the wedding."

There was a flicker of emotion in Matt's eyes. "Actually, Nadia and I decided to take a break."

Caroline gasped. Elena was shocked. "When did this happen?" she asked.

"Last night. I don't think our relationship works. Anyway, we have been arguing a lot and now…well, here we are."

"Do you think there is any chance it will all blow over in a few days?" Elena asked gently.

Matt shook his head. "I don't think so. I think a major problem is her stupid competition with you and Caroline. She doesn't understand both of you are like my sisters, like my family. If she can't understand it, then I can't do anything about it. So, she is moving her stuff out of the condo tonight. Probably right at this very moment."

"I'm sorry, Matt." Caroline leaped off the recliner and threw her arms around Matt. "One day you will meet someone who appreciates who you are and what you stand for."

"Thank you," Matt said softly before he met Elena's eyes. "I'm glad our friendship I'm glad our friendship is still strong despite our history."

Matt Donovan was the nicest guy she had ever met. And she had come to feel a strong affection for Matt. They had dated for a while when they were in college but Elena had decided to end their relationship after a few months later. She liked Matt more than any other boy she had known but it was the affection of a brother. She cared about him but there was no spark between them. To her relief, Matt totally understood what she meant and they had remained best friends since.

Elena smiled at him. "So, I guess the real question is: do you want crash here tonight?"

"Yes." Matt grinned. "But you have to promise to get me very drunk."

Elena laughed. "As long as you promise to still make breakfast in the morning."

"Babe, I always make breakfast. You can't even warm an Eggo."

"That was one time." Their senior year, and Matt had never let her live it down. "The stupid box said one to two cycles—I did two cycles. How the toaster caught on fire is just as big a mystery to me."

x x x

Across town, Wes Maxfield's door flew open. He stuck his head out and looked over. "Salvatore, Alaric—come inside."

Damon and Alaric took their seats in Maxfield's office, which Damon had always found odd in not being much bigger than those the rest of the Chicago agents had been assigned. He figured the Bureau could at least get the guy a view of something more interesting than the building's parking lot for all the crap he had to deal with as special agent in charge. Then again, knowing Wes, he had probably specifically requested that office in order to keep track of everyone else's comings and goings. There certainly wasn't much that slipped past him.

"I just got off the phone with one of Senator Whitmore's attorneys," Wes began. "He 'requested' that they be kept apprised of any and all updates related to our investigation."

"What did you tell him?" Alaric asked.

"I told him we are working on the case. Now—let's figure out how we are going to handle this mess." He looked to Damon. "What is happening with CPD's investigation?"

"Our contact is Detective Ted Slonsky, twenty years on the job, the last ten in homicide. According to him, the only prints they found in the hotel room belong to the victim and Senator Whitmore. They found traces of semen in the bed and on top of the desk and bathroom vanity, and there were several used condoms in the bathroom garbage. All of it from the same man."

"At least we know Senator Whitmore practices safe sex when cheating on his wife," Wes said. "Anything else?"

"There were bruises on both of the victim's wrists, presumably inflicted by the killer as he pinned his hands down while suffocating him."

"Mandy Robert, aka Mason Robert was only five feet three," Alaric explained. "That would explain why he could disguise himself as a female escort. He is pretty slim too."

"The man from Elena Gilbert's description is almost the same build as Alaric," Damon said. "Mandy Robert wouldn't able to fight a man of that size."

"Any blood at the scene? Hair? Clothing fibres?"

"No traces of blood. We are waiting to hear back from the lab on everything else," Damon told him. "And we didn't get much luckier with hotel security. They don't have cameras in the floor hallways or the stairwells—and although they do have them in the lobby, the garage, and other public areas of the hotel, there is no sign of our guy in any of the footage. Which means that so far, Miss Gilbert's statement is our only evidence that this mysterious second man exists."

Damon saw Wes raise an eyebrow at the mention of Elena's name, but his boss refrained from commenting. At least for the time being.

"All right, here's where we stand," Wes said. "Officially, the Bureau only has jurisdiction over the suspected blackmail aspects of this investigation. Unofficially, however, we have got a U.S. senator having sex on tape with an escort who happened to be a man disguising himself as a woman, who, just moments later, gets smothered to death in that very hotel room—there is no way we are sitting on the sidelines. Do you think this Detective Slonsky is going to be a problem?"

"Not likely. He seemed relieved to have our assistance in light of the senator's involvement," Damon said.

Wes nodded. "Good. Theories?"

Damon paused, letting Alaric take the lead.

Alaric sat up in his chair. "We are currently working on two theories, both based on the assumption that the victim, Mandy Robert, was involved in a plan to blackmail the senator."

"Do we have a basis for that assumption?" Wes asked.

"The videotape was found in her, I should say, his purse. It looks as if the recorder was set up in a way that it started recorded automatically when Whitmore entered the room and it was ended just before he left. So, unless Mandy was making the tape for him as an early Christmas present, I think it is safe to say there were nefarious motives."

Wes looked over at Damon with a bemused grin. "Nefarious. I didn't know your new partner has such a good vocabulary."

"You missed sacrosanct earlier. And taciturn and glowering," Damon said.

"What is glowering?"

"Me, apparently."

Wes didn't answer him, having spun his chair around to type something at his computer. "Let's see what Google says…Ah—here it is. 'Glowering: dark; showing a brooding ill humour.' "

Wes spun back around, with a nod at Alaric. "You know, I think Alaric is right, Damon—you do have a glowering way about you."

Damon cleared his throat. "Perhaps we should get back to our theories," he grumbled.

"Right. So, our first theory is that the escort set up the blackmail scheme—maybe working with someone else, maybe not—and someone connected to the senator found out and killed the escort to keep the affair from becoming public," Alaric said.

"But they left the videotape behind," Wes noted.

"Maybe they didn't know the tape was actually in the room. Or maybe they panicked after killing the escort, or maybe something scared them off, like hearing Miss Gilbert calling security in the next room."

Wes toyed with his pen, considering this. "And the second theory?"

"Our second theory is that the whole thing was a set up and someone killed Mandy Robert to frame the senator for murder. What they didn't count on was Miss Gilbert seeing the real killer leaving the hotel room."

"Going with those two theories for the moment, who does that put on our list of suspects?" Wes asked.

"Pretty much anyone who either likes or hates Senator Whitmore," Alaric said.

"Glad to hear we are narrowing it down." Wes leaned back in his chair, musing aloud. "What do we make of the fact that Whitmore was recently named chairman of the Banking Committee?"

"It is an angle we are looking into," Damon said. "What bothers me are the contradictions: the crime scene is clean—no physical evidence was left behind. That would suggest a professional, somebody who knew what they were doing or at least thought about it in advance. But the murder itself feels amateurish. Angry. Suffocation is a lot more personal than a bullet to the head. Something doesn't add up. I think our first step is to talk to Whitmore's people and find out who knew he was having an affair."

"I'm not sure Senator Whitmore is going to like that idea. Or his attorneys," Wes said.

"Perhaps when we make it clear that the senator's continued cooperation is the only thing keeping him from being arrested for murdering an escort who happened to be a man disguising as a woman, he will warm up to it," Damon said.

"All right—let me know if you need me to run interference with Whitmore's lawyers. Last thing—what is happening with our witness? Sounds like the senator caught a break having Miss Gilbert in the room next to him."

"For starters, very few people outside this room know there is a witness," Alaric said. "We are keeping that quiet for now. As a courtesy, Detective Slonsky sent a squad to drive by her house tonight, although the officers haven't been given any specifics about the case. They called in just a few minutes ago and reported that Miss Gilbert returned to the house with a male companion and that everything looked secure."

"Do we have a reason to believe Miss Gilbert is in danger?" Wes asked.

"Not as long as her identity is kept confidential," Alaric said.

Wes saw Damon hesitate. "You have a different opinion, Damon?"

"I don't like the idea of our key witness's security being dependent on our belief that everyone will keep her identity confidential. Seems like an unnecessary risk."

Wes nodded. "I agree. And given Miss Gilbert's position, I would like to err on the side of caution here. Politically, it would be a nightmare if something happened to an assistant U.S. attorney as part of an FBI investigation."

"We will set up a protective surveillance," Damon said. "We can coordinate with CPD on that."

"Good." Wes pointed. "I also want twice-daily reports from you two. And I have a call scheduled for Monday morning to update the director on the investigation—I expect you both to be present for that." Then he turned to look at Damon. "Should I be worried, Damon?"

Damon's jaw tightened. "About what?"

Wes watched Damon with sharp green eyes. "My understanding is that Miss Gilbert has been very cooperative in this investigation."

"She has."

"I expect us to reciprocate."

"Of course."

There was a moment of silence, and Damon knew Wes was taking in the taut set of his jaw and the tension that rolled off his body in waves.

"I'm not trying to be a hard-ass here," Wes said, not unkindly. "If it is going to be a problem for you to work with her—"

"There won't be any problem." Damon stared his boss straight in the eyes. Elena Gilbert may have been a problem for him once, but that was not a mistake he would repeat. "This is just another case, and I will handle it like any other."

"Damon is professional, I trust he can do the job," Alaric added.

"Miss Gilbert should be made aware of the protective surveillance. I would like her to feel comfortable with this. It is going to be somewhat of an intrusion."

"Not a problem. I will talk to her about it first thing tomorrow," Damon said.