by Meli Raine
And his knee is inches from mine, clenched hand angrily writing on a legal pad with a ballpoint pen, his body radiating heat from a simmer that makes me glad he’s not my full-time bodyguard.
Lindsay ran off with him to Vegas six months ago in a clever maneuver to get her out from under her mom and dad’s control. They eloped. It was all over the news, the one bright spot in the media onslaught after everything went down.
Drew married her so he would become her next of kin and her parents couldn’t keep shuffling her away to a mental institution to manage their reputations.
Not the most romantic start to a marriage. Then again, they didn’t have the most conventional relationship, either. You don’t go from being wildly in love to being drugged and raped by your buddies without a few bumps in the road.
Like, mountain-sized bumps.
But I’m so happy they’re back together, even if they both hate my guts now.
I look around the room. Drew is to my right, then on his right sits Marshall, then Victoria. Between her and Silas is the screen for presentations, followed by the senator, then Marcy to my left. There are plenty of empty chairs.
Lots of time for Monica to appear.
I shiver. I pretend I’m cold and rub my forearms.
“Jane’s car was firebombed ninety minutes ago,” Marshall begins.
Ninety minutes. Less time than a major motion picture.
“And while our tech team is figuring out the specific culprits, we’re certain it’s an online hate group and not political opponents.” Marshall grabs a clicker and turns on the video presentation screen. A short film of my burning car displays instantly, the wail of emergency service sirens in the video filling the air. He hastily punches the volume button and turns it down.
“Which opponents would those be, Marshall?” Drew asks. “Corning, or someone else?”
Marshall’s eyes dart to me. “We were hoping Jane could give us some insight into that topic.”
I groan. “I’ve told you a million times before–I don’t know!”
“You know more than you’re letting on,” Drew says, turning to me with an aggression that makes me flinch. “You were Lindsay’s darknet informant for years. You fed her information. You’re more skilled than anyone in the room at hacking and accessing networks and information.”
“You’re not hearing me.”
“Oh, we’ve heard you. We’ve heard what you’ve selectively told us, the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, congressional subcommittees, intelligence community experts… we’ve heard. But we haven’t heard everything.”
I sigh. Marcy and Victoria share a quick look. The senator watches Drew but doesn’t interrupt.
To my surprise, it’s Silas who speaks next. “I thought we were here to brief the group on Jane’s car bomb incident today, Drew.”
“We are.”
“Shouldn’t we address that first?”
Silas is calm. Deferential. But something has changed in him, and I’m not the only person in the room who notices. If I didn’t know Silas can’t stand me, I’d almost think this was a very covert form of defending me.
“Jane, why don’t you tell us what happened?” the senator orders, threading his fingers before him in his folded hands, his face placid.
Drew gives him a sharp look but says nothing.
“I, uh… Silas knows more than I do,” I say, giving him a half-panicked look.
“I didn’t ask Silas,” the senator says. “I asked you.”
“Well, we–I was at a coffee shop,” I start.
“For what?” Drew interrupts.
“For coffee,” I say slowly.
Drew gives me a sour look.
“I wanted to drink coffee. You know, in public. Like a normal person. I wanted to sit with my drink at a table and stare at the ocean until some of the tension from being the worst shitstain in the history of the United States dissipated. It’s a hard job, but someone’s got to do it.”
Drew doesn’t react.
Normally, I’d never curse in front of anyone except friends, but I’m all out of those.
And patience. My patience is gone, too.
“And?” the senator asks.
“And Silas tried to tell me I had to leave.”
“You refused?”
“He didn’t tell me why.”
Drew, Marshall, and Senator Bosworth look at Silas, who glares at me.
“I was about to, but Jane was being difficult,” he explains.
My turn to stare back. “I was being human.”
“Like I said.”
“When a ‘subject’ wants to have a tiny shred of control over her day, she’s ‘difficult’? Are the men you protect ‘difficult’ when they object to being moved around like an object?”
“Don’t try to turn this into some anti-woman rant,” Marshall demands.
“I’m not trying. It’s Silas who–”
“I’d consider any subject in your position to be difficult, Jane. It’s not a gendered complaint,” Silas says in a robotic voice, the lack of emotion a tip-off.
Marcy and Victoria share a look I know all too well. It’s the look women give each other when they’re in a room filled with powerful men. I’d join in, but they don’t look at me. I’m not in the club.
“Let’s get back to the story,” Drew says drolly. “Silas didn’t tell you why you needed to leave, and...”
“And I walked to my car. He grabbed my arm and told me not to. I argued with him. He was drawing attention to us, and I didn’t like that.”
“Then why did you fight him?” Marshall asks in an accusatory voice.
Did Marcy just roll her eyes? Huh.
“Maybe because Jane is a sentient human being who has the right to preferences?” Victoria comments, scribbling on a notepad. She does not look up.
My opinion of Victoria just improved.
“Go on,” Drew says, giving me more attention suddenly.
“I was walking to my car and saw something dart out from in front of it. I thought it was a bird, or a Canadian goose, or just some little animal.”
“Did you see it, Gentian?” Drew asks, the question making it clear he was supposed to.
“No, sir. I was busy listening to the intel on the threat, then ran to protect her.”
“And how did he ‘protect’ you?” Senator Bosworth asks, frowning.
“I–he was just on me, from behind. I was flat on my stomach, grass in my face, just as the car exploded.” I reach up and touch my bangs. “The heat singed my hair.”
Silas scrubs his dark hair with an absent-minded hand.
“Good save,” Drew says to Silas, who just shrugs as if it were nothing. No big deal. All in the line of duty.
The senator takes it all in, peering at me for a long time, searching my face. Inventorying me.
And then:
“I think the safest course at this point is to hide Jane at an undisclosed location.” He looks at Marshall. “You got the PR on this?”
“We’re making sure it doesn’t affect you, sir.”
“Great. Poll numbers are stronger than ever and we want to keep them that way.”
“Actually,” Marcy said, interrupting, “we’re discovering a sympathy effect every time you’re associated with Jane, Senator.”
“A what?” Harry is perplexed.
“Women over sixty-five seem to have a small bump to your advantage whenever a news story is about Jane.”
Before I can react, Silas asks, “Where do I take her?”
“I think she should stay here,” the senator says, to my surprise. “We have a guest house by the pool. Security’s tighter here than anywhere else. Might as well have Jane spend the night at The Grove.”
“Like hell that’s going to happen,” says someone from behind me.
I don’t even need to turn around.
I know exactly who it is.
Chapter 7
“Monica,” the senator says in a judgmental tone. “I told you thi
s meeting is–”
“One I should attend,” she says smoothly. “Looks like I got here just in time.” She examines everyone but me. “You were about to make a decision you would later regret.”
“I was executing a plan designed to maximize safety.”
“Whose safety? Hers?” She flops a limp-wristed hand toward me, as if she isn’t even going to bother to use enough energy to condemn me. “I think we’ve had more than our share of Jane, anyhow. We don’t need more.”
“Her car was firebombed, Monica. Less than two hours ago.”
“Mmmm.”
“We need a safehouse for her. We’re still unwinding what happened.”
“Maybe Jane rigged her own car and set up the car bomb herself.”
Just when I think I can’t be more horrified, I am.
“What?” I squeak, wondering how she made that leap of logic.
“If it wasn’t her, it was one of the people she works with.” Her eyes narrow. “In fact, it’s a clever way to simultaneously draw attention away from what you’re really doing and get sympathy. I didn’t peg you for being that clever, Jane.” She gives a slow golf clap, two quiet claps, letting the silence scream at me along with her eyes.
How can someone use silence like a sword? Yet she does.
“I never–I didn’t–”
“We confirmed the identities of the car bombers. They were shitlords on a pro-state secession forum,” Drew tells her.
“A pro what?” Monica asks coolly, eyebrows as high as Botox allows.
“They want to create their own U.S. state and then secede.”
“Oh, good Lord,” Monica declares. “What does that have to do with Jane and her scheming?” Before Silas or Drew or anyone can answer, she turns to the senator. “Good grief, Harry, how can you let her come here? Especially when Lindsay is visiting?”
“I’m well aware that Lindsay’s here. In fact–”
The door opens smoothly and in she walks. First, her eyes seek out Drew’s. He’s tense, clearly in protective mode, but emotion fills his eyes.
I wish a guy would look at me like that.
Without thinking, I glance at Silas, who is watching Monica with a raw intensity, like he thinks she might make a violent move.
Not really, but that’s how he looks.
“Speak of the devil,” the senator says, giving me a tight smile without making eye contact. I know the smile is for me, because I hear Lindsay make a small gasp when she sees me.
“Daddy,” she says softly. “You didn’t tell me Jane would be here.”
“See, Harry? You’re upsetting her,” Monica admonishes.
Lindsay turns on her mother. “Since when have you cared about my emotional state at any given time?”
“Lindsay, sit down,” the senator and Drew say at the same time, but in completely different tones.
Lindsay remains standing.
I almost applaud.
“Actually,” she says with a sigh, turning to me, “I’m glad you’re here.”
“You are?” It’s an echo chamber in the office as every single person at the meeting says the same two words.
“I am.” She looks down, then right at me. “I’m so sorry about your mother’s death.”
“Oh, Christ,” Monica groans. “You’re offering sympathy to Jane about the woman who delivered you to those monsters? Right in front of your father, in his office? The woman betrayed him in every fundamental way!”
“That’s enough, Monica!” The senator stands up and walks around the conference room. I expect him to grab her arm but he doesn’t, standing next to her, saying a short sentence in her ear. She turns a sickly shade of pink.
Her eyes dart to look at me.
I’m trapped. Triangulated. Caught in yet another one of these crazy dynamics between real live human beings who don’t view me as fully one of them. It’s the cornerstone of the last six months:
I am an enemy.
I am a target.
I am guilty by association.
My blood is tainted by my mother.
“Thank you, Lindsay,” I say, the only words I can summon through the buzz of all the nonverbal activity flying through the room. “I really appreciate it.”
Empathy, compassion, plain old niceness comes through the look she gives me–for less than a second.
Then the frozen mask comes back.
“Why are you here?” She doesn’t make eye contact.
“Because your father called a meeting.”
“I heard about the car bomb.”
“You mean the one Jane set up?” Monica snaps.
Lindsay’s eyebrows drop in confusion. Drew’s jaw tightens, his sigh obvious. Monica is all hard edges, her words a whirl of sharp knives, but Drew has bested her.
“Jane what?” Lindsay asks her mother.
“Oh, please, Lindsay. If you want to gain sympathy for yourself, what do you do? Create a diversion.”
“You think Jane rigged her own car and set it on fire at a shopping center in Santa Barbara to gain sympathy, Mom?”
“It’s not out of the realm of possibility.”
“Just like I cut my own brake lines last year?”
Monica goes pale under her makeup.
“I never said you did.”
“You didn’t have to. My fingerprints were all over the brake lines, right? You and Daddy assumed. It was all part of Nolan Corning and his plan. Set me up to look like the unstable one. Set me… up,” she says haltingly, looking at me.
Silas watches her with a dawning expression, one that shows layers of rapid thought. He blinks furiously, then looks at me, swallowing hard, intelligent eyes reflective and alert.
“When bad people are after what they want, they’ll do whatever it takes to make innocent people look bad,” I say quietly.
“That’s exactly what manipulators say to throw people off their tracks,” Monica huffs. “Just because you weren’t convicted doesn’t mean you didn’t do it, dear.”
That dear might as well be a curse word.
“Monica,” the senator says in warning.
“You make it sound like I have so much power that I can somehow hide true evidence that implicates me. As if I have some insider protecting me. If I had that kind of power, I wouldn’t be in this crazy position in the first place!”
Monica’s eyes go even colder as she looks at Harry, then me. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?” she says to him with a glare that feels deadlier than it should.
Now she’s talking about my mother.
“I’ve told you everything I know about what happened with John, Blaine, and Stellan. And yes, I was Lindsay’s informant when she was on the Island, but I was only feeding her information that someone else gave me. I don’t have the technical skills to go into the darknet and do what he did.”
“Who is he?” Monica demands. “You refuse to tell everyone.”
“I don’t know.” It’s true. I don’t know. I have my suspicions, but I don’t have evidence.
“You know damn well how this looks to everyone in this room. Just as Lindsay’s mess–”
“Quit calling it that, Mom! It’s not my mess.” Lindsay reaches for Drew’s shoulder. His hand comes up, clasping hers. “It’s Nolan Corning’s mess.”
Monica starts to speak but bites her lower lip, eyes narrowing as she looks at her daughter. “Semantics don’t matter.”
“They do when you’re naming the scandal after the victim,” Drew interjects, his voice full of venom.
“Fine. We’ll just call it Anya’s mess, then. Or Jane’s mess. Let’s call it what it is–you two colluded with someone to bring down Harry and his entire political career.”
“I told you, I–”
“Shut up.”
I do.
“And now you’re here because your car got bombed? Do you have any idea how much PR work it’s going to take to distance this from Harry’s campaign?” Her tongue moves between her upper teeth
and skin, flaring her full red lip.
“That’s why we’re here,” Marshall says, the undertones of his words not subtle at all. “This is a briefing meeting for how to accomplish that.”
“Do a better job this time than you have for the last six months,” she says softly.
“We’re done,” the senator announces, using his body to herd Monica out of the room.
Everyone starts to stand except for Drew, who watches the scene calmly, eyes calculating. Lindsay shakes her head, her mouth tight.
“Stay,” Drew says to Silas, who starts to stand. “The meeting’s not over.”
“But–”
“You can’t just usher me out and–” Monica’s objections to the senator are cut off as he closes the door behind them. Low growls of anger come through the door as vibration, the two arguing. In less than ten seconds he returns, resolute.
Without his wife.
“Do you really think I rigged my car with a firebomb?” I ask the senator.
He freezes, halfway to sitting, but doesn’t look away. “No.”
“Because you think I’m telling the truth?”
“Because Silas was with you the entire time and there was no room for error.”
No room for error. Everything I do, then, has a potential for error.
I am an error.
But at least they don’t seriously believe I bombed my own car.
“It would be easier, frankly, if you had,” Marshall comments matter-of-factly.
“Excuse me?” His words aren’t getting through. I start to shake, unable to control it.
“Your reputation is already shredded. People will believe anything negative about you. If you’d really planted the explosives yourself, you’d be portrayed as even more mentally unstable.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” I say sadly.
Lindsay gives me a sharp look. Drew rolls his eyes.
“Enough speculation. We need to act.”
I can’t stop shivering. I don’t even try to pretend I’m cold. When was the last time I ate? Had water? My only private moment was a washcloth scream a few minutes ago.
I need a remote log cabin, no internet, and a month to do nothing but sleep.