Deadly Politics

by LynDee Walker

I blinked. He didn’t think I was lying to him—he thought Kyle was lying to me.

  Which made me feel smaller than the pinpoint heels on my new emerald Louboutins. Joey trusted me. Really well and truly trusted me. And I didn’t deserve it. Not right then, anyway. But keeping that to myself saved him a fight, too.

  I twisted my lips up into a smile. “I hope so. This feeling in my gut that nobody else is going to give a shit if or how Lakshmi is remembered is getting bigger every minute. Getting it first is the best way to get as many eyes on my story as possible.”

  “Which means this just became a bona fide working weekend.” He nodded. “I’m used to it. And I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.” The last words were lost in an uncharacteristic choked-up cover cough that made my heart skip.

  Jiminy Choos. Working weekend. I clapped a hand over my mouth, checking the clock. Five twenty. “I promised Les a story half an hour ago,” I said through my fingers before I reached for my laptop. “The last thing I need is for him to be up my ass more than usual until Bob gets home.”

  The doorbell rang, and Joey stood. “Dinner’s here. I’ll get it. You write fast.”

  I turned the chair, sipped my wine, and retrieved my notebook.

  Not much I could share, still. I clicked to Channel Four’s website.

  Banner headline: A Death in Jefferson’s Masterpiece. “Dramatic much, y’all?” I grimaced, scrolling through Charlie’s story. She didn’t have anything new, and if she knew who the vic was, she hadn’t published it yet. Her piece ended with a teaser for the six o’clock broadcast, though. Which gave me zero time.

  Richmond Police and state officials continued their silence Saturday about the human remains discovered in the Virginia capitol early Friday.

  “This is obviously a sensitive matter,” RPD spokesman Aaron White said Friday. “We’re going to be respectful of the state business that needs to go on, as well as the history inherent in this building, as we work through leads.”

  State police are working in concert with RPD detectives to resolve the matter as quickly as possible, White said.

  White asked that any Richmond residents who were in the vicinity of Bank Street and 9th Street between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. Friday please call Crimestoppers.

  I finished up with a couple of useless talking head quotes and read over it twice before I attached it to an email and sent it to Les.

  Closing the computer, I stood. “That’s the longest dinner delivery I’ve ever heard of,” I called, walking down the front hall. I paused in the living room doorway. “Are we having an indoor picnic tonight?” The smile the words filtered through died when I looked around. Empty.

  “Joey?” I moved quicker, back to the hallway. “Darcy?”

  No answer.

  Bathroom? Nope.

  Bedroom? Nope.

  I bypassed the guest room on my way to the front door, my heart clear up in my throat as I jerked the thing nearly off its hinges and rushed out onto the wide, covered front porch.

  No food.

  No dog.

  No Joey.

  My fingers curled into a fist I pressed to my lips, holding a scream in by sheer force.

  Deep breath. Calm. Think, Nichelle. Joey was not only a big man, he was a damned intimidating one. It would take a hell of a sneak attack or a real badass to make him do anything he didn’t want to. I hadn’t heard a peep, from right down the hall.

  It had been maybe fifteen minutes. Maybe Darcy wanted a walk.

  I padded down the steps and picked my way across the yard, still barefoot, to the driveway. His car was still there.

  Spinning around, I surveyed the street.

  A dark Crown Vic sat idle under a stunning scarlet maple three houses down.

  I started for the street just as a Jeep with a Vito’s magnet on the driver’s door turned into my driveway.

  “Delivery for a Mr. Clarke?” The stringy-haired teenage boy pulled a big insulated bag from behind the driver’s seat.

  That scream threatened to bust out any second.

  My eyes stayed on the Crown Vic, just too far away and too in the shade for me to see inside clearly. I nodded. “Can you leave it on the porch?”

  “But I need someone to sign,” he began, and I stuck out a hand as he dug for the credit card receipt. I scribbled something that probably didn’t look like anyone’s actual signature and shoved the little slip of paper back at him.

  “Thanks,” I said, moving toward the street and then stopping.

  I couldn’t see if there was anyone in the car.

  But if anyone was in the car, they could see me.

  I put a foot out and pulled it back again half a dozen times. The kid put the food on the porch and climbed back in his Jeep, waving as he drove off. I stayed still, watching as his running lamps flashed across the windshield of the sedan.

  A man’s pale face registered behind the wheel, not enough time for me to see if he was wearing a suit. Because I was too busy staring at Joey, sitting in the passenger seat talking, gesturing with the hand that wasn’t bandaged.

  I backed slowly toward the front steps.

  Joey trusted me.

  But I seemed to be running out of people I could say the same about.

  I left the food on the table next to the porch swing, shutting the door behind me and striding back to the kitchen. The wine bottle chilled my fingers as I grabbed it off the counter and refilled my glass—to the brim this time. I chugged it like a college freshman at a frat pledge party, wiping my lips with the back of my hand as I put the glass on the yellow-tiled counter.

  Just thinking about Joey being involved in whatever the actual hell was happening had my skin crawling right up my arms. Things had been so good. Too good? Too easy, maybe? Had I fooled myself into getting too comfortable with our quiet little life?

  I couldn’t swear that guy was one of the suits from the Drake house. Couldn’t swear he wasn’t, either. A dark Crown Vic is a popular vehicle with federal law enforcement, which makes them popular with people who want to look official to avoid questions, too. I had a feeling those dudes were bad news. Not a feeling I could put a finger on, though.

  Wait.

  “Oh, holy Manolos,” The suit. The sunglasses. The silent staring.

  The guy who’d come into the library at the university the day before. That’s where the creeptastic feeling I’d had floating around these guys all day originated.

  I blinked. Poured more wine. Gave my world a second to settle.

  “Just facts. No assumptions,” I murmured.

  I picked up the glass and swallowed more Moscato. Joey was so upset when he heard about Lakshmi this morning. Maybe he knew someone who might know something. Maybe he was trying to help. Certainly, precedent said he’d want to keep anything shady he might be involved in far away from me.

  So I needed to jump back across this particular conclusion canyon.

  I spun and looked back at the door. Still silent.

  My cell phone buzzed on the counter. Thankful for any distraction from a problem I didn’t want to face, I snatched it up.

  Les.

  Pushing the limits of gratitude there, universe. I clicked the gray rectangle.

  Are you kidding? This is thinner than Andrews’s hair.

  I swallowed a snort. Les’s comb-over was the stuff of newsroom legend—he had zero room to make fun of anyone’s hair loss. But Andrews was also the only person I disliked more than Les.

  I tried to come up with a tactful response.

  Nobody is talking, I finally tapped. Close enough to true.

  The gray dot-bubble that popped up immediately told me he wasn’t done.

  This is bullshit, Clarke. I won’t run it.

  I laid the phone on the counter before I typed something that would get me in trouble, stepping back two paces. I had enough of a mounting headache without a pissing war with Les. He was just being a jerk. If he didn’t run my story, Bob would have his ass Monday morning, and he had to know
that better than I did.

  It buzzed more insistently, ringing this time. Was he kidding? I picked it up, finger on the button to dismiss the call. Not Les. Unidentified caller, Cleveland, Ohio.

  “Seriously, we don’t want any,” I muttered, going back to the text screen.

  Nobody else has more than I do, Les. We can’t just not have a story on this, the whole city is buzzing about it. Send.

  I watched the screen. I thought you were supposed to be better than everybody else.

  Apparently even my superpowers only go so far. I wasn’t letting him bait me into saying something I’d regret—on any front. Which meant I needed to be done with this conversation. Look, run it, don’t run it, that’s your call today. But I wouldn’t want to be you when Bob gets back if you don’t print it.

  I clicked the phone locked, eyeing the clock on the stove. Joey had been outside for better than twenty minutes.

  I moved toward the front door. Stopped. Took another step.

  Took one back.

  “This is ridiculous,” I said to the empty house, marching to the door and yanking it open.

  “That took longer than I thought,” Joey said from the swing, Darcy lying across his feet and dinner spread picnic-style on the table in front of him. “Everything okay?”

  I blinked. “I um . . . I was arguing with Les,” I stammered, glad the wine wasn’t making the words slur or my brain too foggy to put them together at a normal pace.

  “I’m confident you won any battle of wits with that guy.” He smiled. “Dinner okay out here? It’s such a nice night.”

  I nodded, spinning back for the door. “I’ll get the wine.”

  It took the whole walk to the kitchen and back for my pulse to slow sufficiently. I’d been all ready to ask him who the hell that guy was and what was going on.

  But now? I wasn’t sure. Maybe guarded and watchful was better. It didn’t look like he had any idea that I knew he’d had company, and I could bury my whole house under the pile of mistaken assumptions I’d made about Joey. With uncertainty and mistrust around every solid corner of my professional life today, I didn’t want to rock the personal boat.

  If it was bad, he’d tell me. He trusted me. And it was past time I started having more faith in him.

  I paused in the hallway, checking my face in the mirror near the old built-in telephone niche.

  Even breathing. Bright smile.

  My stomach snarled so violently Darcy barked from the porch.

  My world might be trying to crash in from every direction today, but I had to eat something.

  Maybe stabilizing my blood sugar would help my brain shake loose a way to figure out at least part of what the hell I was diving into here.

  16

  Two pasta bowls, a Caesar salad, and a whole heap of banter about my Cowboys beating Joey’s Redskins later, I wasn’t sure of much except that I’d made the right choice keeping my mouth shut. For now, anyway.

  “Thanks, that was exactly what I needed.” I sank back into the soft mustard-colored pillows lining the back of the swing, pulling my feet up to crisscross my legs in the seat.

  He put his empty foil bowl back on the table and turned to face me, brushing a stray lock of hair off my cheek. “I like to think I’m getting pretty good at knowing what you need.” The words dropped slowly, his voice deep. Almost raw. I leaned my cheek into his hand and met his eyes, warm and open and emotional.

  “It seems that way.”

  He wasn’t lying to me. I couldn’t find even a trace of the closed-off, drive-Nichelle-batshit-crazy look I hated so much.

  I closed my eyes, and his lips covered mine in a sweet, soft, warm kiss I leaned into and lost myself in. My arms floated up around his neck, my fingers curling into his thick, dark hair.

  How many times had I guessed wrong where this man was concerned?

  More than I cared to count. And I’d regretted it and sworn I never would again every time.

  With everything in my world going sideways, I needed a place to land. To feel safe.

  And I felt safe with Joey.

  “I love you,” he whispered against my lips as he sat back, pulling me close.

  I snuggled my head into the soft spot between his shoulder and his collarbone and traced lazy circles on his bare forearm with my index finger.

  “I love you, too,” I said. Every word true.

  Joey wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. I had no proof the guy I’d seen him talking to had anything to do with my story, and I never asked him about his business “associates.”

  Best left alone, then.

  He rested his chin on top of my head. “What do you feel like doing tonight? This was the extent of my master plan.”

  I giggled. “Decent, as master plans go.”

  He waved one hand. “Easy. You never remember to stop and eat when you’re chasing a big story.”

  “You know me so well.”

  He chuckled. “And you know something? I like it that way. There’s a thought I never expected to have. I do a lot of things I never would’ve expected because of you.” His smooth tenor dipped to baritone again.

  “I don’t mean to be any trouble,” I said.

  He shook his head. “You’re not trouble, princess. Some people, yes, but never you.”

  I planted a soft kiss on the curve of his jaw, drawing a smile. “Liar.”

  “Never.”

  He put a hand on my shoulder and sat me up, angling his chin down to meet my gaze. “I mean that. I will never lie to you, Nichelle. It’s important to me that you know that.”

  I nodded, the downright earnest look in his eyes making my stomach twist. I kissed the tip of his straight nose and smiled as I stood. “Back at you. And how about a movie and a long, hot bath?”

  He flashed a smile, something else skating across his face so quickly I couldn’t match the flicker with an emotion.

  “I can’t think of a better way to spend Saturday night.”

  I couldn’t, either. As we gathered empty food containers and wineglasses, I squashed uncomfortable thoughts of all the questions I regretted not asking. In almost a decade in the news business, the list wasn’t short.

  But this also wasn’t the same as a one-shot sit-down with a serial killer or a cagey cop.

  I could always ask Joey later.

  For tonight, hoping I wouldn’t need to would do.

  My bedroom ceiling fan blades spin forty-seven times a minute on low.

  By 11:26, I’d counted it enough times to verify data that would stand up in any courtroom.

  And I was no closer to figuring out where Hamilton Baine was or how Lakshmi ended up dead in his father’s office than I’d been when I walked out of the police station.

  After easing my shoulders out from under the safe, comforting weight of Joey’s arm, I turned my pillow and pushed it between his bicep and the cool sheets before I tiptoed out of the room with a quick “shhh” at Darcy when she popped her head out of her bed.

  I flipped on the kitchen light and then the coffee maker, and stuck a cup under the spout with one eye on the flashing light that told me the water was heating. It flickered off, and I pressed the “Brew” button and turned to grab my laptop and notebook. The kitchen filled with the smell of Colombian breakfast roast tinged with pumpkin and cinnamon. I added a generous splash of milk and carried the steaming mug to the table.

  I had figured out one thing in going on two hours of watching the fan spin: there were too many trails to chase any of them properly.

  I was frustrated and confused and felt like I was failing, because so much random shit kept happening, I couldn’t tell what was and wasn’t connected to Lakshmi’s murder.

  Flipping through my notes, I found a dozen things that would make a solid headline and earn a thorough story on a normal day.

  My problem was, today wasn’t normal. And it was a good bet tomorrow wouldn’t be, either. I didn’t have time to finish looking into one weird thing before another happened. />
  Journalism Even before the Age of the Internet 101: when a story gets complicated, a reporter needs to get organized.

  I put the notebook down and stood, slipping back down the hallway and around to the guest bedroom, where I fished one of my friend Jenna’s sketchbooks out of the back of the closet. She’d left it behind ages ago and told me repeatedly to keep it, and I kept forgetting to give it back. Score one for absentmindedness.

  I folded the cover back to a clean page, snagged a Telegraph mug full of different-colored pens off the dresser, and returned to my chair in the kitchen.

  Uncapping a blue pen, I wrote Lakshmi’s name on one side of the top of the page.

  With red, I wrote Hamilton’s in the opposite corner.

  I knew how the two of them were connected, at least lately. I drew a line from her name to Hamilton’s with a heart above it.

  How deep were they in with each other? How long had they been together? Either or both answers might help me find a way to why she was dead and he was missing.

  I figured that partly because Lakshmi’s online life disappeared. Someone didn’t want people knowing she’d been seeing Hamilton. I put another star under her name and jotted that next to it.

  Back on the other side, I changed to red again and noted Hamilton’s disappearance. Another star next to his text about Lakshmi to Mrs. Powers—he’d still had his phone just before dawn Friday, but sometime in the next twenty-four hours, he disappeared and nobody knew how or why. If Aaron and Chris could’ve tracked his phone, they would’ve.

  Working through my notes page by page, I listed every little odd thing I’d seen or heard in the past thirty-six hours, finishing with the quasi-gestapo unit that seemed to be nosing around under everyone’s radar.

  I pushed the cap back onto the end of the red pen, staring at the neat lines of facts on the wide, thick ecru paper.

  Loads of crazy.

  No links.

  I was still missing something.

  I clicked to Google. Typed Lakshmi’s name.

  And got a pop-up warning about explicit content from the Telegraph’s remote server.