by Gini Koch
Reader sighed. “Where were we? Or should I say, what were you lying to me about before we were interrupted?”
“Is this guy trustworthy?” Vance asked.
“Yes.”
“The rest of them?” Vance waved his arm to indicate everyone on the roof.
“As far as I know, yes.” I hoped, anyway. With Hamlin gone and Malcolm felled by some mystery ailment, Hamlin’s intel became more suspect.
“Great. Then I’m going to tell everyone my theory, Kitty. Mostly because in the time I’ve been trying to tell it to you we’ve done everything other than discuss what I think is a lot more important than why we’re on this roof, no offense to you or your friend intended,” he said to Amy.
“None taken,” Amy said in a tone indicating she was lying like a wet rug.
“Good.” Vance heaved a sigh. “I think we have a high-level government conspiracy going on.”
Everyone snorted, even Jeremy. “When don’t we?” Reader asked. “Per Reynolds, we have at least a dozen active at any time.”
“Well, there’s one more, and I don’t know that anyone else—other than Mister Joel Oliver for whom this may be old news—has put events together like I have.”
“We’re listening, Vance.” Well, I was. Couldn’t speak for the others.
“Great. I think someone is murdering members of the House of Representatives indiscriminately.”
“Eugene’s accidental murder of the wrong guy was indiscriminate but—”
“No.” Vance sounded upset. Reminded myself that he’d already told me that Gadoire thought he was an idiot for this idea of his. Also reminded myself that most of the time when I forwarded a theory I was told I was an idiot right up until the moment my theory proved to be correct. “It started earlier this year, and it’s picking up speed.”
Oliver shook his head. “This isn’t something on my radar. Sorry to disappoint.”
“It’s real,” Vance said, voice clipped. “And the longer it’s ignored, the more people are going to die.”
“Then why isn’t this on anyone’s radar?” Reader asked.
“Because every death looks natural or accidental. But they’re starting to increase in number. It began with the representative who Santiago ended up replacing.”
“Representative Bowers died in office,” Oliver said. “Literally. Had a heart attack at his desk.”
“Sure he did,” Vance replied. “An assisted heart attack. The killer waited about a month, then there were more. A couple here, one there, a few more. This month alone we’ve already lost four. All seem natural or accidental. But they aren’t.”
Reader shook his head. “If the best investigative reporter out there isn’t in on this, why should we listen to you? This just sounds like another crackpot theory.”
“My theories tend to sound like this,” I reminded him. “When I first put them out there.”
“What, you’ve jumped on board this crazy train?” Reader sounded like he was warring between surprise and frustration.
“Maybe. I mean, Vance has done research. I think we should look at it.”
“Yes, you should,” Vance said. “If this goes on, every member of the House is going to die.”
“Everyone dies,” White pointed out.
“I mean prematurely,” Vance snapped. “And you know it. You need to run the numbers like I have—once you do, you’ll see a pattern, and that pattern is intentional.”
Reader still didn’t look convinced. Not a problem. “Look, Commander, you don’t have to do the light reading.” Hey, two could play the Title Game. “We’ll have Hacker International take a look. It should be an easy project for them. Then we can decide.”
“Make them do it fast,” Vance said. “Right now, every rep is in mortal danger.” He looked at Jeff. “And that includes you.”
CHAPTER 42
I’D BEEN TIRED and upset about Reader being upset with me. Right up until the moment when Vance pointed out that my husband, the newly presidentially and gubernatorially appointed representative from New Mexico, was, if his theory was correct, in the line of fire. Now I was wide-awake and could table Reader Issues for when Jeff was somewhere safe.
“Let’s get inside,” I said, tugging on Jeff’s arm.
“No one’s going to shoot at us, baby.”
“You mean right now. Someone was shooting just a couple hours ago.”
“Good point.” Jeff made the “after you” gesture and the women proved why they were smarter—Lorraine and Claudia led the way inside, with Amy right behind. The rest of us followed, with Reader making White, Jeff, and me go in before him, Jeremy, Len, or Kyle.
Once inside, I tried to split up, but Reader wasn’t having any of it. We marched as a group back through the Embassy, across the walkway, and into the Zoo. “I want to go to the bathroom.”
“No,” Reader said flatly. “You and Jeff get to hold it until we’re done.”
We took the stairs up, mostly because Reader seemed to feel we weren’t trustworthy in an elevator, and not for the fun reasons this time.
Exited to see absolutely no one. “Wow. Glad you rushed us back for this.”
Reader pulled out his phone. “Where is everyone? Really. Huh. Okay. Okay.” He eyed me and Jeff. “Fine. Yes, get down here.” He hung up. “Apparently the Romanian ambassadress felt that everyone was tired, herself especially, and insisted that everyone be escorted safely home, to reconvene another day.”
“I love Olga. I’m just saying.”
Raj joined us. “You should. She’s very perceptive.” He looked at my feet and smiled. “You look even more in the holiday spirit now.”
“Blah, blah, blah. Look, I’m with Olga. It’s late, we’re tired. I’d like to check on Malcolm, get something over to Serene with the highest priority, get the Hackers going on Vance’s intel, and go to bed.”
“Call the hackers,” Reader said. “They’re up.”
“I could go see them.”
“No. You can call them or they can wait for their information.”
Before I could argue more, Jeff spoke up. “Jeremy, why don’t you take their instructions to them?”
“Yes, sir.”
Vance cleared his throat. “Take me, too.”
Jeff nodded. “I agree.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I want to make sure they’re looking at what I’ve looked at. And, as I told you before, Lydia’s not my type.”
“Dude. Her husband just murdered someone and was then murdered himself. You cannot think she’s going to fall into bed with Guy.”
“I don’t think, I know.” He held up his phone. “Just got the ‘come home now or don’t come home until tomorrow’ text.”
“It’s using all my self control to not make a comment on your lifestyle.”
“Yeah? Well, Guy and I don’t climb and jump around on the outside of tall buildings for fun, either, especially not in good clothes. Different strokes for different folks.”
Jeff nodded to Jeremy. “Take him with you, then make sure he has a secure room on the fourth floor here.”
“Yes, sir,” Jeremy said.
“He didn’t call you Chief,” I said quietly as Jeremy and Vance headed for the elevator. I was becoming hyper-aware of titles and their usage tonight.
“Because I’m not any more. There’s only one Chief here now, baby, and that’s you.”
“Huh.” Eyed Reader.
Who eyed me right back. “Don’t even try it. I still outrank you.”
“You don’t know me.”
Reader laughed. “The hell I don’t.” He looked at Jeff. “I know you, too. Why did you want to get Jeremy and Vance out of the room?”
“Because we need to tell you what we know, all that we know,” Jeff said. “And I don’t know the Barones well enough to know if we can trust them or not.” He held out the disc. “This is either going to be an emotional blocker or something that causes an emotional overlay. I think it’s an overlay,
because when I was around the blocker, I couldn’t feel anyone, and I’m holding this and can still feel everyone in the room.”
“It’s also likely to explode,” I added. “Since the blocker exploded already. Hopefully it’ll only explode if someone tries to open it, which is what happened to the blocker. Oh, and this needs to get to Serene yesterday, under very reliable guard.”
Claudia and Lorraine looked at each other. “We’ll take it,” Lorraine said.
Claudia nodded. “If the boys are home, then we need to go back to the Science Center anyway.” They looked at Reader, who nodded.
“First, you need to know where Caroline and I got that,” Amy said. “Or rather, from whom. And that’s not going to take five minutes.”
“There’s more,” White said. “I believe James needs all the details.”
“I agree,” Jeff said firmly. “And since the likelihood is going to be that what you take to Serene explodes anyway the moment she tries to access it, I’d like the two of you to hear what we’ve got to say.”
The girls looked to Reader again, who nodded again.
“Nice to see that our various chains of command are all functioning at least semi-nicely. Can we sit? I may be in my Converse now, but my feet still hurt.”
Reader looked around, heaved a sigh, and shook his head. “Were you this much trouble when Jeff was the Head of Field?”
“More,” Jeff said with a grin. “Let’s go to the Embassy. We have a nice living room with lots of things to sit on over there.”
CHAPTER 43
READER WAS SOMEWHAT understanding about why we’d withheld information. Sadly, he wasn’t any less angry with us for anything we’d done, particularly with anything I’d done. Though he kept the lectures to a minimum, he made it clear I was in the Centaurion Division Doghouse.
Lorraine and Claudia were a lot more relaxed about things, even about our withholding, potentially because they knew we’d cleared them immediately. And they weren’t actually upset with me for anything else, either, so that likely helped as well.
Everyone agreed with Raj’s assessment—that we could still trust those who’d been trusted team members prior to Washington. Len and Kyle were given their special dispensation based on there being no way in the world anyone could have planned out how they’d met me, which they were obviously pleased about.
Raj was given special dispensation because he knew everything that was going on anyway. He clearly found this amusing.
No one was happy that I’d been hanging out with the Dingo and not sharing, but Amy confirmed that the Dingo and Surly Vic had stressed that they were here to protect and serve, at least to protect and serve me, and that anyone who caused them to be distracted the next time they were trying to stop me from being assassinated would be killed with great malice aforethought.
Everyone also agreed that telling Chuckie or my mom what was going on was both necessary and to be handled delicately. For some reason, I wasn’t the Designated Delicate Delivery Person. Tried not to be offended. Failed.
No one was happy about Possibly Clarence running around, and everyone was less happy about Possibly Colonel Hamlin running around, either. Especially since I’d given the Dingo what he’d said was a bioweapon. Extra especially since Buchanan was still unresponsive.
Christopher joined us midway through our confessional meeting to share that Buchanan was still alive, Tito and the rest of the medical team still had no idea what was wrong with him, and that he hadn’t had any kind of disc or other odd foreign object on him that anyone had found.
Thusly all caught up, Lorraine and Claudia headed back to the Science Center, disc in hand. Serene verified receipt and that she was in contact with Ravi. She also verified that all Dulce-based children who’d been at the Pontifex’s Residence were back at home with their parents. Gladys was also back at Dulce, but was scanning our D.C. buildings every fifteen minutes.
Gower was back at his local residence along with the four Embassy kids, but he wasn’t alone with just Denise and the children. His sisters and Chuckie were all there, too, as was Kevin, per my mother’s orders. Reader felt that the kids, Jamie especially, were having a great time. Poofs and Peregrines were confirmed on site and on the case, so I managed to stop worrying about Jamie. A little.
I was able to give the lion’s share of worry to Jeff. Because if Vance was right, then Jeff was in danger. Of course, it seemed like we were always in danger, but Vance’s theory didn’t appear to have anything to do with the A-Cs, meaning it was more random than we were used to.
The rain started right after Reader sent everyone else back to bed. “He was right,” I said as I went to the kitchen window so I could check to be sure what I was hearing was indeed rain.
“Who was?” Jeff asked.
“My ‘uncle’. He told me to get inside because it was going to rain soon.”
“So he has a good weather app on his phone,” Reader said. “You need to stop thinking of these men as anything other than dangerous assassins.”
He was probably right. Only, Reader hadn’t been the one talking to the Dingo and Surly Vic. “I’m more worried about Raul than the Dingo.”
“Get away from the window,” Jeff said. “Because you’re an easy target right now.”
“Not if the building’s shield is still up.”
Jeff grumbled but didn’t argue.
Our penthouse took up half of the top floor, meaning that we had a lot of windows in the various rooms. Our half had a view of the Circle from most of the windows, though we could also see our street, the Zoo, and the heavy foliage behind us that wasn’t actually part of our property.
From the kitchen I could see the street and the Circle pretty easily, as well as the embassies across from us. The rain was falling steadily now—not too hard, but you’d want to have a head covering of some kind if you were outside.
Couldn’t see anyone outside lurking, on either rooftops or in shadows. Hard to tell at the park in the Circle, but no dangerous lurker stood out to me over there, either.
Memory nudged. “James, I forgot, Santiago had a message for you.” Wanted to continue to call him Commander but just didn’t have the energy for it. If he wanted to be mad at me, so be it. I was done with whatever fight we were actually having.
“He did?”
I swallowed. “Yeah. It . . . it was the last thing he ever said.” Blinked tears away. I could cry now, but tears weren’t going to bring Reyes back, nor were they going to figure out what was going on. Supposedly we’d caught his killer, but if there was someone behind Eugene’s dementia, I wanted to ensure they paid for what they’d done, and soon.
“Ah.” Reader’s tone was very gentle. “What was it?”
“He said to tell you that he hoped you were right and ready.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Do you know what he meant?” Jeff asked.
“No,” Reader said slowly. “I’ll run over the last few conversations he and I had. Hopefully I’ll figure out what he wanted me to know.”
“Santiago also asked me, specifically me, to clean out his desk. Me, not anyone else. But that was before he gave me the message for you.”
“Well, that’ll be easier than you might think. Jeff’s going to be moving into Santiago’s old office.”
“Oh. Good.” Didn’t relish this idea, but there was undoubtedly nothing that could be done about it.
“James, don’t you need to go home and get some sleep?” Jeff asked. Pointedly, if my ears were any judge.
“I’m staying here tonight.”
“We love you, James, but you’re not staying in the room with us,” Jeff said.
Reader chuckled. “No, I’m actually taking a guest room. But I have Walter on notice to wake me up if either one of you tries to get out of your rooms tonight.”
“We’re not going anywhere tonight,” Jeff said firmly.
Heard movement, then someone put their hand on my shoulder. “
Kitty,” Reader said quietly, “stop looking for the bad guys.”
“Why? They’re out there.”
“Yeah, they are.” He turned me away from the window gently. “None of what’s happened today is your fault.” It was nice to hear, but I had a feeling Jeff had indicated that Reader needed to play nice with me.
“I didn’t catch Clarence and none of you believe I saw him.”
“True, you didn’t catch whoever you saw. But I know Jeff and I both believe you saw someone. And if it wasn’t Clarence, it had to be an A-C because no one else could outrun you. And that means it’s likely someone spying for our enemies, because Alpha Team doesn’t have someone spying on our Embassy.”
“I gave a dangerous package to the world’s best assassin.”
“You did. If they were going to use it, they wouldn’t have protected you.”
“You really think so?”
“I really do.”
“Santiago died at my dinner party, and Eugene took the bullet intended for me.”
“You caught Santiago’s murderer and you were with him so he didn’t die alone. And thank God Eugene took that bullet instead of you. He was a cold-blooded murderer. You’re not.” Reader hugged me. “You’re a protector. We all are. That does make it harder to deal when we feel like we’ve failed to actually protect.”
“Like I have tonight.”
“Like we all have tonight. But you haven’t failed.”
“Feels like it. Feels like I have no idea of what’s going on anywhere, either. You all have private jokes—” Stopped myself before I sounded like a jealous, whiney baby.
Reader hugged me again. “I know you feel left out. But your job is to ensure the Diplomatic Corps functions as it’s supposed to. Keeping our Diplomatic Corps protected is part of my job now.”
“What about keeping Jeff safe? If Vance is right, he’s now a target.”
“If Vance is right. Look, I’m willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt based on you telling me he’s been hiding that he has a functioning brain, but right now, it’s just another crackpot theory tossed out. But regardless, of course we’re going to be protecting Jeff.”