Private Justice

by Marie Ferrarella

  She really wished she was. Cindy shook her head. “No, I just want to be thorough before I put another file to bed.”

  His response surprised her. And pleased her as it went straight to her heart.

  “I’d rather put you to bed,” he told her. “With me next to you.” Moving his chair back in for a moment, he turned the file she was working on toward him and thumbed through it. “Looking at that in the morning with fresh eyes might be a better idea, although I’m beginning to think that whatever we’re looking for, we’re not going to find it here. The old man’s too good at hiding things,” he said.

  She didn’t have the same opinion. Leaving the folder on top of the desk, she said, “And maybe sometimes a horse is just a horse.”

  Amusement highlighted his expression. “Is that some kind of folksy saying?”

  Her back was instantly up, but she told herself to calm down. He wasn’t being condescending, the way Dean had been every time she’d tried to make a point or have an intelligent conversation with him. She had to stop taking offense where none was intended.

  “No,” she told him, “I once heard a doctor say that. He told me that he had heard it in medical school. What it means in this case is that maybe there is no hidden meaning, no secret agenda. Maybe the senator just got one of his mistresses angry at him and she decided to get back at him by coming forward.” She straightened the papers in the folder, then left it on the side of the desk. He was right. It could wait until morning. “Then the others followed, not wanting to be left behind in case there was something to be gotten out of this scandal—notoriety, their fifteen minutes of fame, I don’t know,” she admitted honestly. “The bottom line is that they all decided to follow suit and make a public confession. So, instead of one, there’re now six mistresses.”

  “That’s all well and good,” he agreed, “as far as it goes. But what about these charges that the old man was stealing from the campaign funds in order to feather his so-called love nests? We’re talking about potentially a great deal of money here.” As of yet, a full tally hadn’t been announced.

  Cindy shook her head again, this time adamantly. “I don’t buy it.”

  “Why not?” he wanted to know, curious about why she seemed so certain.

  “No offense, but your family, thanks to your mother’s father, has more money than God.” To her, money had always meant being able to be comfortable. Sums of the kind that Dylan was probably accustomed to were something she couldn’t begin to fathom. They were on par with the money used in a game of Monopoly: unreal. “There’s certainly enough there for your father not to have to risk getting caught with his hand in the till.”

  Technically, she was right, but Dylan wasn’t so sure about the reality of it. “My father has a huge ego. One that allows him to think he’s entitled to do anything he wants to do.”

  Where could he have gotten that kind of an impression? The Senator Henry Kelley she knew was a kind man, a man of the people.

  “No, he doesn’t,” Cindy insisted. She could see that Dylan was far from won over. “Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think you do. The senator is not some egomaniac. Someone gave you the wrong information about him,” she told him.

  “Maybe,” Dylan allowed. Rising before something else came up, Dylan put his hand out to her. “Let’s call it a night and not talk about my father anymore. The man’s already taken up far more than enough of our time for one day.”

  Cindy smiled shyly as she rose, slipping her hand into his. She loved the way Dylan held her hand, as if there was a promise of more to come. Loved the way he made her feel. But at the same time, she couldn’t completely shut out the growing fear that all this was just temporary, a smoke screen to throw her off from seeing things the way they actually were.

  She was, she thought, just too happy. And happiness, she knew, had a way of abruptly disappearing without any warning.

  Guiding her toward the hallway, Dylan paused to kiss her cheek. He could almost see the thoughts as they popped up in her mind.

  “Stop waiting for me to grow fangs,” he whispered into her ear. “It’s just not going to happen.”

  She wanted to believe him. She really wanted to believe him. But she couldn’t, not completely.

  Once burnt, twice leery.

  The old saying was all but burned into her brain, suddenly glowing brightly each time she thought she’d successfully eradicated it.

  It refused to allow her to relax.

  As had become his habit, Dylan swung by the family estate to check on his father and make sure everything was all right before going on to Cindy’s apartment for the evening.

  Business before pleasure, he thought, although, with Cindy continually championing his father’s cause so passionately, Dylan had to admit he was beginning, ever so slowly, to change his perception not just of the situation but of the man as well.

  Cindy believed in his father’s innocence when it came to taking the campaign funds. She wasn’t some empty-headed little bimbo his father had hired because of her looks. She was an intelligent, dedicated young woman. Cindy had proven to be more than capable. She could not only handle the initial job she had been hired for with aplomb, in addition, she could juggle facts, figures and schedules for the senator, keeping on top of all of them, something that would have made a less capable person throw up their hands in utter despair and either quit on the spot, or weep.

  She did neither.

  And if she believed his father to be the victim of an intricate smear campaign, then maybe there was something to that. The key, as he’d already decided before, lay with the person or persons behind this onslaught of media blitz his father was caught up in.

  Approaching the compound via the back entrance, Dylan called ahead to the private detective he’d temporarily hired as his father’s bodyguard until he could get his father up to Cole and Montana. He knew better than to surprise the man and arrive unannounced. It was a good way to acquire an unwanted bullet in some part of his anatomy.

  James McNeil met him at the back door. Just prior to opening the door, the private investigator disengaged the brand-new, complex security system that Dylan had insisted on having put in place by a firm he knew—and a man he trusted. The previous one that had been in place since his father had first become a senator presented absolutely no challenge to anyone the slightest bit seasoned in the “art” of breaking and entering.

  While the new system was going in, he’d left a message for his mother on her cell phone, informing her of the change, although he sincerely doubted that she intended to visit the estate any time soon. At least, not as long as his father was here. But it was better to cover all the bases than to leave something to chance. He was nothing if not thorough.

  “How’s it going?” Dylan asked as the private investigator, a deceptively mild-looking man—until one caught a glimpse of the weapon at his waist—stepped back to allow him access to the rear hallway.

  “Nothing to report,” James replied. He closed the door again and reengaged the security system in a matter of seconds. McNeil had brought in two of his agency’s associates so that there would be someone wide-awake and alert at the estate at all times. “Other than your father going a little stir-crazy,” he remarked.

  His father was accustomed to coming and going when he pleased and being surrounded by fawning constituents and lobbyists. This had to be one hell of an adjustment for him, Dylan mused.

  “Better that than being shot at,” Dylan commented to the P.I.

  McNeil looked at him dubiously. “You really think it was going to come to that?”

  “I don’t know,” Dylan replied truthfully. “But I know that the old man did.”

  McNeil considered the answer, then shrugged. “Could just be a matter of paranoia.”

  “Could be,” Dylan agreed. “But I figure it’s better to be safe than sorry. If the old man’s wrong and nobody’s got him in their sights—” Dylan shrugged “—hell, he’s just out some money. But if
he’s right and precautions weren’t taken, well, being right then would be a pretty hollow victory.”

  Footsteps echoing on the gleaming travertine-tiled floor had McNeil raising a cautionary hand. The next moment, the tension abated as Hank joined them, his ever-present companion in his hand—a glass half-filled with something alcoholic in nature. In his utter boredom he was systematically going through his liquor cabinet one bottle at a time.

  For a moment, he looked genuinely happy to see his son. Happy to see another face other than the ones that surrounded him on a continuing, rotating basis.

  “I thought I heard your voice,” Hank said just before he toasted his discovery and took another sip from his constantly refilled glass.

  The estate was far too large for his father to have heard him from any of its wings. The only logical assumption for Dylan to make was that the senator had been shadowing McNeil.

  “How are you doing?” Dylan asked his father, trying his best to sound as if the answer truly mattered to him.

  Hank looked at him over the rim of his glass. “Is that a concern?”

  He wasn’t going to lie. He was far more his mother’s son than his father’s. “That’s a question,” Dylan replied.

  Hank laughed shortly. “How am I doing?” he echoed. “Never thought something so big could feel like the walls are closing in on me,” the senator confessed. “Hell, I’m getting cabin fever,” Hank complained.

  “Well, it won’t be for much longer,” Dylan assured him.

  Hank looked startled at the casual remark. “Why?” he demanded, leery and alert at the same time. “Are you calling off the dogs? No offense, McNeil,” he tagged on, glancing at the P.I. on his right.

  “None taken.”

  Dylan wasn’t sure if his father was hoping for a positive answer—or fearful of one. “As soon as those bodyguards I hired arrive, you’re being transferred.”

  Gage, it turned out, needed a couple more days to wrap up his present assignment. The fact that the bodyguard didn’t just take off at the lure of a sizably larger paycheck spoke well of the man, even if it did heighten the anxiety factor, Dylan thought. He’d be greatly relieved once his father was safely hidden away in Montana. He knew that Cindy felt the same way.

  “Transferred,” Hank echoed. There was more than a little disdain in his voice as he said the single words. “From one prison to another, is that it?”

  “Montana is far too wide open to be considered a prison, Dad,” Dylan tactfully pointed out. “You need anything?”

  Hank laughed shortly, his piercing gaze sweeping over both of the younger men. “Yeah, I need to get my old life back.”

  That wasn’t his fault, Dylan thought, annoyed. Hell, he had better things to do than get bogged down, defending and protecting a father who, at best, could not have been referred to without the word absentee being involved.

  “You should have thought about that before you started burning the candle at both ends,” Dylan told his father. To his credit, McNeil acted as if he hadn’t heard the exchange. Dylan knew that nothing got past the P.I., though.

  He expected his father to argue with him. When he didn’t, when he sighed and murmured, “I guess you’re right,” Dylan caught himself actually feeling sorry for the man.

  More of Cindy’s influence, Dylan realized.

  He needed to get back to her. Needed to get back to the life-affirming aura she managed to generate without even thinking about it.

  Discovering Cindy, he knew, was the best thing that had come out of this impossible little mini-drama he’d gotten pulled into.

  “Hang in there, Dad. We’ll get to the bottom of all this and things’ll get better.”

  For a moment, heartened by the remark, the old Hank looked as if he was returning. “You said we,” he pointed out.

  He was about to say it was just a figure of speech, a slip of the tongue, but his father looked so happy Dylan couldn’t bring himself to shoot the senator down.

  “Yeah, I did. Well, if there’s nothing else, I’ve got to get going.” He looked at McNeil. “Call me if something comes up.” Then, glancing over his shoulder, he said, “You, too,” to his father.

  He turned around and left, thus missing seeing the grateful smile pass over his father’s lips.

  Maybe in some wild, off-kilter way, this would all eventually work out, Hank thought as he watched his son leave. Moreover, in some perverted sort of fashion, this terrible situation had managed to bring him closer to his family again, a position he should have never vacated.

  Hank stood regarding the dwindling contents of his glass. He knew that, for the most part, this was the alcohol talking. But he clung to it anyway.

  He had to believe that by his pulling out, he had caused the Society’s planned assassination attempt against the president to be aborted.

  It was all that stood between him and a soul-annihilating guilt.

  Chapter 14

  Senator Henry William Kelley’s conscience, something that the women he charmed, the colleagues he conned and the associates he used to his advantage more times than they realized all said he didn’t possess, was indeed alive and well.

  Presently, it was chafing Hank because he hadn’t done anything about the information he knew, in his heart, to be true. There was, in his opinion, a very good reason for his inertia: passing this information on to the proper authorities could very well get him killed.

  And who was to say he would even be believed if he did step forward? Hank thought, pacing about the study like the caged lion he felt he had become. If that did turn out to be the case, if his report to the authorities was completely discounted, he would be surrendering what was left of his tattered reputation, not to mention very possibly his life, for absolutely no reason at all.

  On the other hand, if he said nothing, there was the possibility that he would remain safe, being let off by the powers that be within the Society with no more than a few scares and threatening warnings that he was to continue keeping his mouth shut.

  But if he said nothing, there was also the very real possibility that the country would be rocked by an unexpected, devastating tragedy.

  The sudden, violent death of a world leader was not something that faded quickly from the public’s mind like yesterday’s headline. Its effects lingered at times for years, leaving an indelible mark on the country.

  Hank knew that no one could actually accuse him of ever being a patriot, but he wasn’t a traitor, either. That was why he’d backed out so quickly from the Society that had invited him in, flattering his ego, playing up his desirable connections. The moment the glad-handing had settled down and the far more serious underlying intent became evident, he had realized that he was in way over his head.

  The Raven’s Head Society wasn’t some exclusive good ol’ boys’ club where members threw back large glasses of expensive liquor and stood around swapping stories of acquisitions and sexual conquests, each tale more fantastic than the last. It wasn’t even an organization designed to bring about the propagation of money and power for the purpose of placing it in the hands of a chosen few—at least, it wasn’t organized exclusively for just that purpose.

  He shivered involuntarily as he thought of that room he had been brought into. The men who had gathered there had a crystal-clear vision of how they meant to arrive at their goal.

  Hank stopped pacing and leaned against a bookshelf. He realized that his hand was shaking.

  Goddamn it!

  Hank put his other hand on top of the first, trying to still the tremor born of fear and indecision. His moral fiber might be flexible, but it didn’t include permanently eliminating someone by design. He’d said as much. But the moment he’d protested, he’d immediately realized his mistake.

  What he should have done was maintain his silence and then find a reason to disassociate himself from these people.

  But the sheer horror of what he heard being proposed had words springing to his lips before he could think to swallow
them.

  And now he was on the record as something less than a sympathetic friend to the powers seated within that dark, forbidding room.

  He was fairly certain that the man at the center of the group had been the one to orchestrate this media circus that had suddenly sprung up around him. And he—or one of his minions—had to have engineered the baseless scandal surrounding the campaign funds.

  While he was forced to own up to the mistresses—even though he would have hardly referred to the lot of them as that—he flatly and categorically denied taking so much as a single penny of the campaign funds for his own personal use. He didn’t need to dip into the money that had been earmarked for his next run for the Senate. He had more than enough of his own.

  A moot point now, Hank thought bitterly. There was no way he was going to be able to clear his name sufficiently to get back into the political arena. He knew defeat when it stared him in the face.

  The question still remained. What did he do? Go with his conscience or with his survival instincts? Which was the right move?

  Right now, he was inclined to keep his mouth shut and pray that the plans he fervently wished he had not had the misfortune of hearing would be scrapped, if for no other reason than the fact that he was now in the wind.

  Hank continued pacing about the room, wearing a path in the rug as well as in his soul.

  “A picnic?” Dylan repeated, not quite sure he’d heard Cindy correctly.

  It was the last day in September and he’d declared it an unofficial holiday, feeling that they both needed a little time off, especially since things were about to gear up as far as matters surrounding his father were concerned. He’d wanted to catch a little free time with Cindy before the pace picked up and became close to frantic.

  They were in her apartment right now. He had come by to ask her what she wanted to do for the next few hours that didn’t include being stuck at the senator’s office, going through files until they were both ready to hurl computers across the room.

  He looked at her now, his father’s “Chief Staff Assistant,” the woman he had come to care for so much in such an incredibly short amount of time. In a shade less than two weeks, he’d gone from a fairly contented, dedicated bachelor to a man who found himself entertaining definite thoughts of domesticity—and longing for it. Right down to caring for the baby Cindy was carrying.