“How about with the part where you lied to me? The first time.”
He shook his head hard enough to make his gelled hair move. “I did not. I specifically removed myself from the situation so I wouldn’t lie to you. I begged you to bow out.” He laid one hand on my shoulder. “It would’ve been easier to lie to you, but I can’t do it. I’ve never been able to tell you anything but the truth. It’s like your superpower.” His lips tipped up in a smile I couldn’t stop myself from returning. But he wasn’t off the hook.
“Even if you didn’t realize I thought you meant Lakshmi was the murder victim when you did your little Deep Throat schtick on Friday morning.” I stopped, glancing between Landers and Chaudry. Shit. I’d spent the whole weekend and hours in a gross cell to keep from spilling that, and my temper got the best of me. This was really not my finest collection of hours.
Kyle waved a hand. “We’re all on the same page.”
I looked at Chaudry. “What do you have to do with this, anyway?” Back at Kyle. “Do you know who he is?”
Kyle patted my shoulder. “Brad was on my team until about three months ago. It’s fine, I promise.”
My head whipped back. “You were ATF?”
“Secret Service agents don’t just spawn ready to take a bullet for world leaders, Miss Clarke. I was a trooper before I went to the ATF, like Kyle here was Dallas PD. Most of us work in law enforcement for years before we land these jobs.” He put his shades on the counter and grinned at Kyle. His face was handsome in a John Cena sort of way when he smiled. “I still had my suit and everything, chief.”
I blinked. “The suits are ATF?” Damn, was there anything I’d been right about here?
Back to Kyle. “It’s not like I had to reach, Kyle. Dead body plus talk of a victim usually equals an ID.”
He nodded. “But I did not lie. I let you think the wrong thing.”
My hands curled into tight fists. I swallowed a scream. “But why?” It was still many decibels too loud. Joey ran a thumb over the backs of my knuckles.
“Because I know you. I knew if you thought she had been murdered, especially for political reasons, you’d start digging. And sometimes you come up with stuff we don’t.” He waved agreement out of Landers before he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “You said it yourself, yesterday. There was a reason she was on his desk. I’m pretty sure she was supposed to die, but not a hundred percent on why. And we’re running out of time.”
Joey’s thumb moved faster as I nearly came up out of my chair.
“Kyle David Miller, if you make me ask one more time . . .”
“Damn. Middle name and everything,” Landers muttered. “You’re in trouble, man.”
Kyle squatted, resting his elbows on his thighs and lacing his fingers together between his knees.
“The president is coming here tomorrow. Brad and I have been working a weapons case for over a year, and we got a break last week that came with a credible threat to her.”
I slumped back down into the chair.
No. No way.
Joey’s pleading eyes and uncharacteristic freak-out when I said I was covering the speech. I glanced at him. He wouldn’t look at me.
I turned to Chaudry.
“Credible.” My voice sounded far away. “Threat.”
Holy fucking Manolos.
Chaudry nodded. “Someone is going to try to assassinate the president of the United States tomorrow night, Miss Clarke. And we’re hoping you know something you don’t even know will help us stop it.”
There are moments in a reporter’s life when nothing seems real. For most people, they come when they’re interviewing a childhood hero, or a Sahara-in-the-summer-hot movie star.
I was having one in my kitchen.
With cookies.
“I—” That was it. All I could manage.
Darcy pawed at my foot. Kyle laid a hand on my knee.
Everyone’s breathing was downright deafening.
I shook my head. “No. This isn’t happening.”
Joey’s fingers tightened on mine.
Kyle patted my knee. “It really is, Nicey. Now look, I’m sorry about all the shit you’ve been dragged through, but it’s serious all-hands-on-deck time here.”
I looked up at Chaudry. “Don’t let her come. Why is that hard?”
He shook his head. “In the first place, I work for her, not the other way around. We can advise about threats, but we don’t have the authority to cancel an appearance. Haven’t you ever read a book on JFK?”
“About a thousand of them.” And he was right. The Secret Service tried to talk Kennedy out of going to Dallas. He wouldn’t even put a bubble over the damned car. “But I’m sure she has, too. Why would she still want to come here?”
“Because she’s a stubborn lady who sees the best in people.”
“You wouldn’t know anything about that,” Kyle said.
“I don’t intentionally . . .” The rest of the words stuck in my throat when Kyle and Landers and Joey all coughed over laughs.
“Fine. I get her. So, move the speech?”
“Not possible. The venue has to be secured and checked, the staff vetted. There’s no time to get another place checked out. She cut it close this time as it was.”
I closed my eyes. Cleansing breath. Calm thoughts. What did I know that they might not?
Angela.
I opened my eyes and met Kyle’s. “Angela Baker didn’t answer my emails this weekend because she’s dead, according to the jailhouse grapevine. The only person I know who had an interest in shutting Angela and Lakshmi both up is Ted Grayson. Who, as a bonus, has a former employee working for Thomas Baine, and a burning hatred for our governor. It seems he got out of prison a few weeks ago and has kept quite a low profile.”
Chaudry waved a hand. “He was released on good behavior to a suite at the Jefferson—sort of a posh version of a halfway house. I checked his every biorhythm on that bracelet readout. Grayson’s a black-hearted, selfish bastard, but he hasn’t so much as breathed in the direction of the street in front of the hotel.”
That’s why I couldn’t find him. Hotel guest registries aren’t public record.
“Phone calls?”
He shook his head. “Clean. Some of the rest of us are decent detectives, too, Miss Clarke.”
“I wasn’t suggesting otherwise.”
Dammit. All roads led to brick walls. Except, of course, the one Kyle apparently thought was about to lead to a dead president.
I got up and went to the living room in search of a notebook. “I really wish I had my stuff,” I said over my shoulder.
Landers disappeared as I walked back into the kitchen. He returned with my purse, laptop bag, and the sketch pad I’d been making charts on in the wee hours of . . . damn, was that just today?
I took it. “Um. Thanks.”
I resumed my seat, focusing again on Kyle. “This whole damned thing started with you telling me Lakshmi was the victim. She was. But it was a sexual assault, not murder, wasn’t it?”
I thought I had it pretty well figured out, finally: those horrifying videos were spin control, a whole new high-definition level of “What was she wearing?”
Except if Lakshmi wasn’t dead, there was a twist in this particular story. I kept my eyes on Kyle. “That means your actual murder vic was her attacker. So who did she kill? And where did you put her?”
“She didn’t kill anyone.” Kyle nodded as he spoke. And the last piece of this puzzle corner clicked into place.
“Hamilton.” I felt my eyes widen. “He walked in on someone attacking her, and he killed them.”
“No.” That wasn’t Kyle.
Every part of me, from my hair to my toenails, went cold and numb.
No.
Oh God, please, no.
I turned my head.
Joey didn’t look at me, talking to his hands, one folded over its bandaged mate on the tabletop.
“I did.”
28
No.
Just . . . no.
I couldn’t think anything else, couldn’t see, damned sure couldn’t speak.
My boyfriend was sitting in my kitchen confessing to murdering . . . somebody pretty fucking important, judging by the lengths that had been stretched to keep it quiet.
And not even just confessing to me.
Confessing to a cop and two federal agents.
I closed two fingers and a thumb around the skin of my forearm and squeezed with everything I had. Watched a blood bruise rise and redden under my skin.
It wasn’t a nightmare.
Except it had to be. This could not really be happening. Not in the actual world.
I scanned the room. Chaudry remained leaning against the counter, examining his neatly clipped fingernails. Kyle had shifted to a one-knee crouch next to me, his hand on my arm, head bending to catch my eye.
Landers was chewing an Oreo.
Not a damn one of them looked concerned about what they’d just heard.
Because they already knew.
My ass sprang out of the chair with enough force to knock Kyle back onto his.
“National emergency. Personal crisis. Anything else you guys want to dump on me? Just go ahead and say it while I’m still in shock from the other two.”
“Princess.” Joey half rose from his chair before I put one hand up.
“Don’t you ‘princess’ me.” I shook my head. “How did you even get in the middle of this? And why the hell didn’t you tell me? You.” I took a step back. “You were so believable, when I told you Lakshmi was dead. You told me that whole story, and I bought it.”
I could feel my stomach again, just in time for it to twist and send a jolt of nausea through me. “What else are you lying about?”
Kyle stood, brushing the seat of his light pants off, and stepped forward. “I think everyone needs to cool off and refocus.”
Joey shook his head. “I don’t lie to you. I don’t tell you things I think you wouldn’t want or don’t need to know, but I don’t lie. I told you I hurt my hand punching a guy with a foul mouth. And I didn’t know if she was dead or not after I left the building.”
I whirled on Kyle. “How long have you known about this?” Landers. “Or you?”
Landers raised both hands. “I just found out this morning. I thought I was looking for Baine’s kid, until Miller here called and asked me to coffee.”
Chaudry cleared his throat. “No offense, but the big picture here is the thing that’s the most important. The governor can wait for his apology. Everyone and everything is on the back burner as of right now. Miss Clarke, your, uh, friend here is in a difficult situation. Someone with his background involved in a situation like this one would usually already be on deck for a long stay at Cold Springs. He was protecting Miss Drake, which her statement on the scene and the surveillance video corroborate. Except. His history and her history combine to create a possible political tsunami. A”—his eyes slid to Joey—“career criminal, let’s say, murdering a United States congressman in defense of a former paid sex professional.” He raised his thin eyebrows. “The optics are abominable.”
I didn’t need him to tell me that. But since nobody had Joey in handcuffs, I figured it best to keep a lid on my temper.
“A congressman?”
My mental political rolodex flipped. Virginia had seven men in its congressional delegation. Three of them were of an age that would probably require pharmaceutical assistance for any sort of sexual activity, and might well put them at risk for a stroke.
Chaudry shook his head. “That’s not important right now, either. The president, her safety, is what I need all your focus on. Help us with this.” He spread his hands. “And other things can be made to disappear.” He nodded to Joey. A dangled carrot cloaked in a coded Stop asking or else.
Fine.
I turned to Kyle, who nodded agreement. “We’ve kept it quiet this long.”
“Someone is going to start missing a sitting congressman, Kyle.”
“It’s being handled.” That was Chaudry again. “Now please. What have you found out about Miss Drake? Her research, her connections, her family? Anything could be helpful, so I need you to really focus.”
“What the hell does Lakshmi have to do with the president being shot? I thought you said weapons? Why aren’t you checking recent rifle purchases?” I asked.
“Because whoever is after President Denham isn’t coming armed with a rifle. We know how to stop a gun,” Chaudry said, his voice strained.
Kyle stepped forward, his hands out. “Nicey, we’re looking for some sort of experimental weapon, and we think someone was using Lakshmi to get access to her dad’s research and what Joey walked in on was a plan to get her out of the way. What we don’t know is who. Or how.”
Ted Grayson, that’s who. I eyed Chaudry, who had dismissed that suggestion once already, as I reached for my laptop and my sketch pad. My gaze flicked to Joey, smaller and quieter than I’d ever seen him. He hadn’t been himself all weekend, and I’d blown it off as him not knowing how to deal when I was buried in a big story, one more for my list of reasons why living together was a lousy idea. Wrong again.
I couldn’t let that tug at my heart right now, though.
Saving him meant saving everything else, too. I glanced around the room. These guys were smart. And they were most of the way there. They were taking one hell of a chance, bringing a reporter into the middle of a case like this one, but they were in a corner, and they had Joey to hold over my head.
I swept an arm over my counter, knocking the dish drainer and the flour canister into the sink and spreading my charts out as I clicked my screen to life.
I needed to get these guys to Grayson on their own, not because I said so. I could start by answering Chaudry’s question.
“Lakshmi Drake likes to talk about being the next Nate Silver. And leaving her program at RAU didn’t mean she gave up on that.” I pulled up the images of her recent studies. “She was researching the impact social media can have on influencing people’s political preferences, and then she started working for Baine’s campaign.”
“And dating his kid,” Kyle said, stepping up to peer over my shoulder.
“No, the governor said Hamilton took her to dinner during the campaign. She knew him first. So her connections with the campaign and the family got her into the office, I assume.”
“But why she was in there without her boyfriend or her boss, we still don’t know?” Chaudry tapped a thick fingertip on the countertop.
I shook my head.
“Maybe he just found her in there,” Landers said. “If she was waiting for someone else. The video footage shows her hopping up on the desk and hiking up her skirt.”
I tapped my space bar. Why would she do that?
“Y’all are sure she wasn’t waiting for Hamilton? Was he in the building at the time?”
Landers shook his head. “The last place his Visa card was used was at a bar across town that he couldn’t have gotten back from.”
And I knew from what they’d already told me that Grayson hadn’t left his hotel room. Maybe she really was sleeping with Baine. Or something. But if it was a weapon of some sort they needed, Lakshmi wasn’t the trail we should follow. I didn’t think.
“Kyle, you said ‘experimental weapon.’ Can you elaborate? Like a fancy plastic rifle that will get past security?” I asked.
Or. No.
The letters on the screen blurred in front of my eyes. “Dr. Drake’s research, that Grayson went to prison to try to get close to.” I leaned on the counter. “What if Lakshmi’s father wasn’t researching nuclear alternatives to coal at all, but some sort of nuclear weapon?”
Kyle offered a slow nod. “He used to work for the DOE. Had a security clearance that’s above my pay grade—I couldn’t find much on his work. But his political donation and primary voting records tell me he’s not plotting to kill President Denham, so I dropped it. If Baine were the target, i
t might be a different story.”
“I think someone might be trying to set Baine up,” I said. “Not sure what Drake’s motivation would be for that, but it’s the lead I’ve been chasing all day.”
“Having a direction to point the finger when the president dies is pretty damned powerful motivation.” Chaudry’s lips disappeared into a thin line. “Let’s say your science guy is in this, and he hates Baine because Baine really is screwing his daughter. Can’t hurt to ask the man a few questions, right?”
Kyle shrugged, jerking his head at Landers. “They live over in Church Hill, by the park.”
Landers started for the door. “I’ll call you when I’ve got him.”
I bit my lip, staring first at Chaudry, then Kyle. Neither looked inclined to dismiss the possibility that we were looking for a rogue nuclear fucking weapon.
That was crazy. It was the plot of a dozen movies where Liam Neeson or George Clooney spends two hours getting shot at while he tries to save the East Coast from a nuclear explosion/winter. High testosterone, low suspension of disbelief.
I put one hand on Kyle’s arm. “We’re not seriously talking about this?”
He smiled and patted my shoulder. “Just running down a lead. Nothing more until we know it’s more. We need to work fast, but we can’t ignore anything. That’s all.”
Nothing about any of this had been straightforward. But I flashed a tight, toothless smile and nodded anyway. Flipping to another page in my notes, I glanced at the clock. The president’s speech would start in twenty-three hours.
Tick.
Tock.
At nineteen hours and counting, Landers was trying to hunt up Dr. Drake’s lab because the house was dark and quiet, and the rest of us knew way more than we ever wanted to know about everything and everyone connected to Thomas Baine or Lakshmi Drake.
We’d searched from atomic physics to zoning records, and the issue wasn’t too little information—it was too damned much.
I shook my head at my screen. We’d wrestled a spreadsheet for the past hour, trying to sort data that was too tangled to be sorted. It blurred into a useless blob of letters and numbers. “This is a level of crazy I don’t think I’ve seen before, and I thought I’d seen them all.”
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