by Lee Winter
“Oh.” Bitch.
“She apologized repeatedly when I returned to DC. She explained that the day my disastrous story ran, word went out at her office that I was to be avoided by everyone. The memo had come from the director himself.”
Lauren stared at her. “Why would the FBI involve itself in some journalist who was on the way out? Unless they…had a hand in it? Do you think they might have been involved in kicking you out the door? And, come on, is it just a coincidence that Michelle worked there once, too?”
Catherine blinked. “I have no idea. At the time I didn’t care why Diane cut me off. All I remember was noticing she wouldn’t take my calls. It took me a long time to forgive her. She’s been trying so hard to make things right with me. Like this chat today. She was more forthcoming than she had to be.”
“Well, lucky us,” Lauren said, her tone cutting. “Your career and friendship sacrifices weren’t in vain.”
“She is a good person. I was too angry to remember that for a while. And she’s excellent company.”
“I noticed.”
Catherine’s lips curled. “Lauren King, are you…jealous?”
“So…where are we now?” Lauren suddenly found her notes fascinating. “We think the Mexican thing may be faked. And we know Michelle was once FBI. Of course, Diane’s suggestion that we find someone who knows her is useless.”
Catherine hesitated. “Actually, that’s not entirely true. We do know someone who knows her. The man who told us her real name.”
There was silence as it slowly dawned on Lauren who she meant. “Gabbana? But he’s shady as hell! Not to mention kind of violent.” Lauren scowled. “Also, he wouldn’t tell us who he worked for back when he was following us. Oh, and I might have given his face a scar the size of Montana.”
“Yes. You did.” Catherine smirked. “So, can you imagine if we called him?”
Lauren’s eyes went wide. “Um, can I remind you we don’t know his name? I mean, we nicknamed him for his fancy suit.”
“How many men who are now assigned to the US President’s protection do you think wear expensive Italian outfits and sport a jagged scar down their left cheek?”
“Ooh. Good point.”
Catherine nodded. “You know Charles Milton who runs White House security? He owes me a favor. He could look Gabbana up for us.”
Catherine punched in a number and put the phone to her ear. “Hello, Charlie. Catherine Ayers. Yes, a long time. I know. Oh, I’m good. And you? Excellent. I was wondering how you’d you like to square that favor you owe me?”
“Okay, Alberto Baldoni is not a very Secret Servicey name.” Lauren was chewing on a sandwich. Leftover meatloaf, slick with gravy, was wedged between the thick slices of Meemaw’s homemade bread. The combo was to die for.
“I left a message with my email, phone, and Skype details,” Catherine said. “He’ll have no excuse not to get back to us.”
“Well, if he does, I think he’ll opt for the monologuing asshole option, like the last time I saw him. He seems to like to prove we didn’t really beat him.”
“It’s still a long shot that he would ever want to cal—”
A Skype incoming call request lit up the iPad screen… An unknown user name.
“Don’t tell me,” Catherine said in disbelief as she opened it.
Sure enough, the lean, cold features of the man formerly known as Gabbana eyed them.
“I didn’t believe it,” he said. “Had to see for myself. The Catherine Ayers? Well, how the dead have risen.” His head tilted. “And her trusty sidekick, the plucky pitcher from Iowa, Lauren King.”
“Alberto,” Catherine drawled.
His gaze scoured them. “I can only imagine what you two want from me.”
“You must be dying of curiosity,” Lauren said with a cocky lift of her eyebrows. “I assume that’s why you waited all of two minutes to call. Miss us?”
“I can hang up.” He leaned forward, holding up a finger over his phone’s screen.
“Alberto? I have a question,” Catherine cut in, reaching for a pen and note pad. “Michelle Hastings. Who does she work for?”
All amusement drained from his hard, scarred features. “So, you finally want to know where your little weasel fits in?”
“How do you know her?” Catherine asked.
“We were colleagues once upon a time.”
“Before we got you fired,” Lauren suggested cheerfully.
“I wasn’t fired.” His eyes flashed. “I had two masters back then. One was the organization where Michelle Hastings worked. When SmartPay USA went under, my expertise was no longer required there, and I was redeployed by my other employer. Either way, I was not fired.”
“Who did you and Michelle work for?” Catherine asked.
“I decline to answer.”
“Why?”
“I signed a nondisclosure agreement.” He studied her for a moment, looking intrigued. “So, what are your intentions for her? You two planning on bringing her down?” He sounded gleeful.
“You hate her?” Catherine asked. “Why?”
“Oh my God, what a question.” He laughed, and it was a cruel sound that grated along Lauren’s nerves. “You’ll be sorry you asked.”
“Maybe. Tell me anyway.”
“Do I hate Michelle Hastings? Yes, yes, I do. Why? Because my now-ex-wife enjoyed fucking you far too much back then for me to like her now.”
There was a silence for a long beat.
“Oh shit.” Lauren gasped.
“Ex-wife?” Catherine ground out at the same time.
“Yes and yes.” He leaned forward. “Did you know that bitch got promoted for what she did to you? She wound up with a big fat pay raise and a corner office for a job well done when your career became an ash pile. I wound up with divorce papers. So, she fucked both of us over.” He leered at Catherine. “Just you a little more literally than me.”
Catherine’s fingers curled into a white-knuckled grip around her pen.
“So, yes, I hope you bring her down,” he said. “Do it nice and thorough, the way you cleaned house at SmartPay. A nice, flashy national scandal with her name attached to the stink. I think I’d enjoy that a whole lot.”
“How can we do that?” Lauren flicked a concerned glance at Catherine, who was staring at the screen, face rigid. “If you want your ex-wife crushed, you have to give us something we can use to find her and her employer.”
“Would love to help, but nondisclosure, remember? I will say this: where she works, they love political climate change.” His expression became gloating as he regarded Catherine’s shell-shocked face. “Well, this has been entertaining, it really has. But don’t call again. I’ll be deleting this account.”
The screen shut down.
Catherine was chalk white. “They were married?”
“Catherine, we don’t know. Maybe he was playing with you? He does enjoy twisting the knife and causing a shitstorm.”
“That level of bitterness you only find in exes. He believed what he was saying. That hatred? That was real. And she got promoted for screwing with me…in every sense.”
Lauren pushed her sandwich away, feeling sick. “I’m so sorry.”
“She went home to him. Crawled into bed with him every night she wasn’t with me. He’s a cold piece of sadism if ever I saw it.”
“I know.”
“She could never have actually liked me. It’s not possible if he was her type.” Her face was ashen. “I’m sorry we ever contacted him.” She slammed her iPad to the desk. “This was pointless.”
“Actually, it wasn’t pointless. He did give us a few clues.”
“I fail to see what.”
“Well, we know she works for a private company—a consultancy firm. And he mentioned political climate change. Is it their motto,
maybe? That’s something we can look up.”
After exhaling slowly, Catherine said, “I suppose it’s a start.”
“Also, we know they worked together. So, it would be a company that employs a number of women, women at a senior level, since Michelle got some big corner-office promotion. This would rule out any male-dominant organizations, several military think tanks, and so on.”
“Yes.”
“And lastly, we now know Michelle really enjoyed being with you.”
Catherine’s eyes flashed to Lauren’s with a look that was pure outrage. “Why would you go near that?”
“To stop you beating yourself up. Look, she didn’t just endure her time with you. She liked being with you to the point it might have destroyed her marriage.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“It means you shouldn’t feel foolish for not knowing she was pulling a con. Because it wasn’t all fake. Her ex-husband hated her for liking you. So, what you felt from her was at least in part genuine.”
“Maybe. Or maybe Alberto’s just the jealous type.” Sighing, Catherine ran her hands over her face, rubbing her eyes. “In what universe is it a job to go to work and pretend to be someone’s girlfriend? With everything that entails?”
“CIA?”
“Maybe, but that’s not a consultancy company.”
“No. Hell, I don’t know.” Lauren reached for the iPad. “But let’s find out. Okay?” She entered “political climate change” into the search engine.
Over one hundred thousand results stared back at her. Oh boy. She glanced up at Catherine. “This is going to take a while.”
“I see that. I’ll go get us a coffee. If we’re going to be up all night, I refuse to do so uncaffeinated.”
Three hours later, Lauren had plowed through hundreds of search pages. She nudged Catherine in the foot. Her fiancée had curled up on the bed to “take stock” and appeared to have dozed off an hour ago.
“Hey.”
Catherine’s eyes flickered open. “Find something?” she asked, her voice thick with sleep.
“Sherlock Holmes comes to mind.”
“Oh?”
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” Lauren pointed at a page with a blank screen except for a tiny symbol at the top left and an input box with a blinking cursor. “All the other pages went somewhere, had links, or related to something specific with my search terms. This? This relates to nothing. And somehow it comes up in our search results even though I don’t see political climate change anywhere.”
Catherine leaned forward and read aloud: “Welcome, associates. Please enter password.”
“So, any ideas?”
“Did you look up the logo?” She indicated the shape near the top of the page. It was like a black five-leaf clover, without the stem, sitting in a bronze circle.
“It doesn’t seem to mean anything,” Lauren said. “Although it does look vaguely familiar, but I can’t think why.”
“We could be fixating on a completely unrelated page.”
“So then why’s it in the search results?”
Catherine shrugged. Her gaze shifted back to the password box. “Try and enter Michelle’s name?”
Lauren typed it in the box.
Access Denied.
“Baldoni’s?”
Access Denied. You have been permanently locked out.
“That is some serious security.” Lauren squinted at the screen. “That’s okay.” She flipped to the email program and wrote a quick note. “I’m asking Josh to show it to Snakepit and Duppy. Maybe his hacker bros can find a way in.”
“Good idea. Ask about the logo while you’re at it.”
Lauren nodded and added a question. She glanced at Catherine. Well, at least her expression had lost its pinched look. She still looked washed out, though. “Hey, you doing okay?”
“She had a husband. The whole time. For all I know she’s straight!”
“And maybe she’s bi and thought you were the hottest lover she’d ever had. Who knows? It’s confusing for me, too. I hate she had that time with you.” Lauren stopped. “Sorry. This should be about you. Just ignore me.”
“Both is possible. We could both hate her.”
“True.” Lauren grinned. “So, what’s next? While we wait for our hackers?”
“I think it’s time we ran Hickory’s background and donors through the wringer and see what we can squeeze out.”
“And we also have to figure out how our two stories are linked, right? Michelle said they were.”
“Michelle said a lot of things,” Catherine’s eyes turned hard. “And not once did she mention a husband. She could even have two kids and a pet beagle. You know what? I’m done talking about her for the day.”
“No problem. So, what shall we do instead?” Lauren’s expression turned thoughtful. “Talk about which of the bakers we saw should do our wedding cake?”
“Well, that’s one option. Although I’ll be honest and admit I hated them all. Buttercream on everything? Must we?”
“It’s popular out here.”
“I gathered.” Catherine sighed. “I was wondering how you felt about a bit of stargazing tonight. Under your dreaming tree. Because you’re right about what you said the day we arrived: the skies are stunning out here.”
“Catherine, how can we stargaze under that tree? It’s too dense to see through.”
“Foiled,” Catherine whispered. “Perhaps we could do something else out there instead?”
There was a look in her eye, beyond the suggestiveness, that Lauren had rarely seen in her fiancée. Vulnerability. A need for reassurance.
It figured, after a day like today. Lauren understood. “I’ll get the blankets.”
Catherine kissed her, below her bottom lip. Then slid to her neck. Her kisses were hot and filled with need.
Lauren sighed. “And I’ll get the p-pillows.”
“You do that.” Catherine’s reply was husky. “I think we could use some attention tonight.”
What she didn’t say hung between them. With someone I trust.
Lauren met her eye. “We could.” She trailed her fingers down her cheek. “Let me show you.”
How much I love you. That didn’t need saying, either.
Catherine’s gaze darkened. “Yes” was all she said.
Chapter 16 –
Down the Rabbit Hole
The next day, Duppy checked in with Lauren. “That logo?” he said down the phone. “It’s a pentalobe. It’s the shape of a weird screw hole. Apple uses it on its devices. ’Cause of course they can’t just use a regular star-tip shape or somethin’. That’d be too easy. I guess they don’t want amateurs trying to take apart their gear.”
“A pentalobe?” Lauren glanced at Catherine, who was bent over her suitcase looking for a lost shirt. Her jeans were in the God-help-me form-fitting category. Which reminded her of Catherine’s shapely ass. Which reminded her of last night. Which had been heavenly and needy and all kinds of hot, as Lauren had showed Catherine how much she was desired and loved. Catherine had returned fire with a fierce, intense devotion to every part of Lauren’s body. She had never felt so consumed.
Lauren forced herself to focus on Duppy’s words. “Does a pentalobe have any hidden meaning?”
“Not really. Well, I guess you could infer ultrasecurity and protection, maybe? Or someone thinking outside the box? Shit, I don’t know.”
“Right. So, what about the password?”
“That’s a bit harder. It’s not often I’m beaten on crap like this. The encryption on that site is overkill. But I have some bros who can get us some brute power on a botnet that’s for rent. Won’t even charge me the going bitcoin rate, either. They’re laying low after some big DDoS s
tunt they pulled last week, so they’re happy to take on a small job like this today.”
Lauren frowned. “Was any of that in English? Can you spell it out for me?”
“I don’t have time to make the words small enough.” He snickered. “Just trust me… Bot networks can do superfast, password-cracking shit in a few hours that’d normally take days or weeks to do with one computer.”
“Okay then.” She forced out a “Thanks, Duppy,” despite his attitude. Of course, she had another longstanding reason to dislike him.
“You’ll tell Catherine I did this?” His voice rose from its usual wheedling to hopeful. “’Cause it takes mad connections to do this. And hey, tell her if she ever wants to jump teams, I’m available. Anytime, day or night.” His juvenile laugh set her nerves on edge.
“No,” Lauren said through gritted teeth. “I absolutely won’t be telling her that. Bye, Duppy.”
He laughed at her outrage. “Later. Will text you the password when it lands.” The phone went dead.
“Ugh, gross.” Lauren’s gaze returned to Catherine. She’d now pulled on a long-sleeved button-up with a starched, white high collar. Popped-collar porn. Lauren groaned internally. Catherine was killing her.
“I won’t ask what Duppy’s doing to wind you up this time,” Catherine said, sounding amused. “But if it’s about me, definitely don’t share.”
“His usual. And I won’t. He says he’s hiring some big guns to crack the password. Oh, and the logo is a pentalobe. Some screwdriver thing that’s unique and helps secure Apple gadgets.”
“Unique and secure,” Catherine said. “Interesting.”
“I guess?”
“So, what does ‘political climate change’ mean?” Catherine leaned against the sill, her legs crossed at the ankle.
With the light streaming in behind her and her auburn hair lit up, she looked stunning. Which reminded Lauren again of last night, under the tree, hands sliding against hot skin, strained gasps in her ear, and the heady rush she always felt whenever Catherine trembled against her.
It bothered her again how Lionel had gotten into her head so easily the day before. How had he ever made her question what Catherine saw in her? What the hell was wrong with her, doubting Catherine?