It was, as he’d said yesterday, someone in his own house.
Which changed this entire game.
I grabbed my notebook, flipping to a fresh page.
The interview. I’d taken off to meet Aaron before I saw exactly what the governor said.
I crossed the room and planted a long kiss on Joey before I ran back to my laptop.
He took a seat on the sofa, swirling his whiskey around the glass and smiling. “That’s my girl.”
I winked at him as I opened the browser and clicked my shortcut for Channel Four, then I pulled up the video of Charlie’s live interview and replayed it five times.
“The Richmond Telegraph’s report on the death of Lakshmi Drake is untrue.” Baine’s voice was flat. Controlled. “I’m unable to discuss details of an ongoing incident investigation, but I assure you, Miss Drake did not leave the building in the coroner’s van yesterday.”
“Then where is she?” I asked. “If she’s not dead and she’s so valued, why not bring her on camera and prove me wrong?”
I clicked “Play” again. When the intro music started, Joey cleared his throat. “I could just recite it for you if you need. Are you having some sort of masochistic fit? Because I’m getting weary of listening to that guy call you a liar.”
I shook my head, shushing him, my eyes on the screen.
Every time Thomas Baine said my story wasn’t true, or he didn’t know how I had come up with that, or any variety of untruth, he cleared his throat.
Every. Single. Time.
Nobody has allergies that specific.
He was uncomfortable. A wholly different person than the man I’d spoken with. Watching the segment sans panic, that was painfully plain.
“Someone made him do this.” I was talking to myself, and Joey knew me well enough to notice and keep quiet. “But how does anyone make the governor do anything?”
I put the computer on the table and picked up the notebook, looking up at Joey.
“The big pillars of weird here are Lakshmi, this interview, and that the governor’s son is missing. So maybe someone has something political on the governor, or maybe someone has his son. But either way . . . it’s got to be someone close to him. To have pulled off all three of these things, a person would have to be on the inside.”
Which meant it wasn’t Ted Grayson. I closed my eyes and inhaled for a ten count. He was the easy villain. I wanted it to be him. But I couldn’t ignore facts that didn’t fit my preferred narrative if I really wanted the truth.
If there was a power play going on in the governor’s mansion and the other side was pulling Baine’s strings, the governor needed help.
And if I was the only person who’d put this together with nothing much left to lose, I might be his only hope.
No pressure.
21
I needed political dirt. From someone I could trust, at least relatively speaking.
Bob was still hiking, because he wasn’t blowing up my phone with expletive-laden refrains of “What have you done?”
Which put me on Trudy Montgomery’s wide, stately Monument Avenue front porch, juggling fresh lattes as I pressed the doorbell and crossed my fingers.
I heard footsteps, soft, before a gasp, not so soft, and the deadbolt squealing a protest as it slid back.
She jerked the door open and closed one hand around my wrist, yanking me into her foyer and slamming the heavy oak and leaded-glass door behind me so fast it took me a minute to adjust to my new position.
“Have you lost your mind?” Trudy raised one hand. “Don’t answer that. Of course you have. But why do you want to take me down with you? What in the name of all hell are you doing here, Nichelle? People in this town talk, and my street isn’t exactly light on the political scene.”
I held out the latte, fixing a smile in place and trying to remember that Trudy moves in a world where perception is everything and loyalty is a rare—and not highly prized—commodity.
“I come in peace. I’m telling the truth. I’d think after our last go-round with this, you’d give me the benefit of the doubt.”
She took the cup and turned, padding barefoot down the cherry-paneled center hall and waving for me to follow her.
Seated on a velvet divan in a charming navy-and-white conservatory off her living room, she pulled her thin legs up and folded them under her oversized William & Mary sweatshirt, waving me into an antique green jacquard-upholstered armchair opposite her. Fixing shrewd eyes that had seen through more than their share of bullshit on me, she twisted her mouth to one side before she sipped the coffee, tapping one scarlet talon on the side of the white paper cup.
“People are my job, Nichelle. Reading faces. Summing up personalities. It’s my gift. It’s what makes me so good at what I do.”
I smiled. “I guess we have that in common.”
She kept talking like I hadn’t spoken. “But I don’t get you. And every time I think I have you figured out, you do something crazy and throw me off. You have to know you’re going to be political poison in this town at least until this shakes out, and possibly forever,” she said. “And everyone knows Rick Andrews is gunning for you. I know how stupid Les is, but I didn’t peg you for beating him to the dunce cap. What the hell possessed you to write a piece like that with no backup?”
“I trust my sources. I know I’m right,” I said. “And everybody was so busy theorizing about politics and talking about a murder in the capitol that nobody was talking about the girl.” I felt like I’d never stop saying it: “She mattered.”
Trudy waved a hand. “I know where you knew her from, and I’m sorry that you liked her, but, honey, girls like her are a dime for two dozen in DC, and they are ultimately . . . disposable.” She shrugged. “So no, she did not matter. Certainly not enough for you to risk your career over.”
I blinked. Opened my mouth. Closed it again.
Where would arguing with her get me?
Kicked out with no information and no help.
What had she told me?
That she was way more callous than I’d have thought ten minutes ago—and that she didn’t know I’d been fired. Yet.
And if Trudy didn’t know, neither did anyone else. She was our resident gossip queen, and in a newsroom, that’s a tall mountain to climb. Eunice liked to say you couldn’t shit at the Telegraph without Trudy knowing what color it was. And she was right. Gross, but right.
“Agent Chaudry says he’s having hell getting ahold of you, so I’m not even sure I can get you into the speeches you were supposed to cover now.” Trudy narrowed her eyes. “And if Bob tries to send Shelby Taylor, I might as well abdicate and let Richmond get all its political news from the Post.”
Good Lord. She should sell tickets for drama like that.
I could wonder what Bob would do about the speeches later. Damned if I would’ve ever thought covering a presidential speech would drop on my priority list, but here I was.
“How well do you know Baine’s inner circle?” I asked, shifting gears with a smile so bright I was betting she’d think I’d been properly chastised and move on. Trudy liked to flaunt her insider knowledge of every facet of politics, sprinkling important names into everyday conversation such that I didn’t even acknowledge it anymore.
She took the bait. “Tommy?” she tossed her hair, wavy and uncoiffed and falling around her cheekbones. “He’s an absolute doll, if a bit of a do-gooder. Which is funny, because he doesn’t seem to like you much, and yesterday I’d have said you two were peas in a tiny little pod. He’s plainspoken, direct, and determined. Surrounds himself with smart people, even when they disagree with him.” She paused. “Maybe especially when they disagree with him. Why do you want to know?”
I pounced on that last part. “Who’s close to him that didn’t like him before he won the election?”
She sipped her coffee, watching me. I tried to sit still. Didn’t manage it, fidgeting with a puffed button on the arm of the chair.
“W
hy?”
I tapped one toe. “I think someone is setting him up. If I’m right, figuring out who is the only way to fix this.”
Her eyes popped wide, but she still didn’t speak. Toying with the paper cup, she nodded. “It’s not impossible. And like I said before, I doubted you once and regretted it. I don’t like feeling stupid.” She reached into the pocket on the front of her sweatshirt and pulled out her phone, tapping at the screen with one thumb a few times before she flipped it around.
“See the guy in the back? The tall one, in the blue suit?”
I squinted at the screen, reaching for the phone.
Oh hell.
Wyatt Bledsoe, Hamilton Baine’s buddy I hadn’t ever gotten around to tracking down.
“You know him?” Trudy’s eyebrows lifted as she studied my face.
“I’ve seen his picture before.” I handed her phone back without elaborating.
I blinked. Smiled. Tried to look normal. I needed her to say why she’d shown me the kid’s photo, and then I needed to find him.
Like yesterday.
Literally.
“I’ve always respected Tom’s insistence on surrounding himself with dissenting voices,” Trudy said. “He’s been that way since he was on the city council here, going to Junior League teas and sitting with old-money attorneys at our most exclusive golf clubs regardless of the eyebrows it raised.”
She paused.
My knee jiggled, my ability to sit still crumbling even as I tried to hang on to it.
“Well, there’s too far, even for a guy like Thomas,” Trudy said with a sigh. “He’s always looking for the best in people. But sometimes, people are just going to hate your guts no matter how hard you try.” She nodded to me. “As you well know.”
I did indeed. I also thought I knew what she was going to say next.
My eyes stuck to her lips, watching the words come out so I could be sure I wasn’t imagining it.
“Wyatt was out of a job when Thomas was elected because he worked for Senator Grayson. And Ted Grayson hates Thomas Baine and everything he stands for with a burning passion most people reserve for the bedroom. He lost a school board seat to him, once upon a time.”
Jiminy freaking Choos. I blinked. Don’t let her see.
But it all made sense: this Bledsoe guy was a Grayson mole in the Baine administration, with bonus dude bro access to Hamilton.
What if Baine’s son really had been kidnapped? Or worse?
I jumped to my feet so fast my coffee sloshed out and dribbled over my knuckles. “Thanks, Trudy. I have to run.”
“I better be the first to know what you find,” she called after me. “And please, for the love of God, don’t leave me stuck with Shelby tomorrow.”
I waved over my shoulder, my heart taking off like a jackhammer.
If Grayson was pulling strings on a man inside the governor’s mansion, Baine was in way more danger than I’d imagined.
And in the world according to Ted Grayson, it was my fault he’d spent the past fifteen months in a cell. Which meant he might be gunning for me, too—in more ways than one.
I drove three blocks with my hoodie up and my sunglasses on before I stopped in the lot at Cary Court and picked up my phone. Not that I knew who to call.
I didn’t have time to freak out. I didn’t have time to be scared.
What I did have was a thickness in my middle growing heavier every second with the certainty that none of the things spinning around me were unrelated, but the threads of the web were too gossamer-fine for me to make out.
I let my head fall back against the seat, closing my eyes.
Grayson was at the center of this shitstorm. I knew it in my bones. But I needed proof. Locked down, nailed in, airtight, hurricane-ready proof, especially after this morning. Which meant I had to find him. It was the only way.
I knew how Grayson and Lakshmi were connected in more detail than I cared to consider. I’d bet my brand-new boots if I found Grayson, I’d find out what happened to Hamilton Baine. Wyatt Bledsoe connected Grayson to the governor—and Hamilton—and Angela had given me the reason for Grayson’s grudge against Lakshmi’s father.
Angela.
You know where to get me if you need me, she’d said. But then she never replied to my email.
I raised the phone and clicked the little blue envelope on the screen, checking the junk mail folder for good measure. Nothing.
But I hadn’t deleted her original message yet, either. I tapped the reply arrow again.
No salutation, no formality. Short and to the point: I need to know where Ted Grayson would go to hide. Country house, family estate, anything you can think of. Please answer me ASAP—the governor’s son may be running out of time. Send.
Good. What next?
I still wanted to know more about Dr. Drake’s research. I reached into my bag and came up with Stacy Adams’s card. Flipped it over. Traced the cell number written on the back. Crossed my fingers. Dialed.
“Adams.” His voice was smooth. Soft. Relaxed.
I pasted my brightest smile in place. It’s an old trick that helps me sound happy and professional even when I’m fighting back nausea making a phone call. Mostly, it comes in handy when I have to bug a victim’s family. Here’s hoping it would work when I was afraid for my life, too. I started talking before I lost my nerve or my window.
“Hi, Mr. Adams, this is Leigh Mays with the Virginia Environmental Digest. I’m so sorry to bother you on a Sunday, but my editor got your contact information from someone in Governor Baine’s office and just passed it on to me, and my deadline is pretty tight.” My voice didn’t even shake, the lies rolling out smooth and easy. I was too scared to be bothered by that. “Is it at all possible that we could sit down this afternoon and chat about what you’re doing to protect Virginians and their land and water?”
I stopped talking and closed my eyes, concentrating on breathing normally.
It was a long shot.
But the promise of good publicity from an environmental magazine was pretty good bait.
“Of course, of course,” he said. “Thank you so much for calling, Leigh.”
Pretty good bait indeed.
“Great!” That came out maybe a little too loud, but I hustled past it. “Can I meet you at your office? What time is good for you?”
I wanted inside that building. So I preempted an offer of lunch or coffee while I had the chance.
“Will an hour from now work?” he asked. “Do you know where we’re located?”
“Perfect.” I let out a long breath. “I sure do.”
“I’ll meet you at the front doors and walk you up,” he said. “Security is tight, it’ll be easier that way.”
Easier, I would take. Especially today.
“See you soon.” I clicked off the call before he could change his mind and opened a text to Joey.
You don’t need your car back, right? Send.
The dot bubble came right up. He was worried.
Take as long as you like. You need anything? You okay?
I smiled. Fine. Have a lead. And an interview. Send.
I couldn’t tell him about Grayson until I knew more.
Buzz. Be careful.
Always. I added a heart and hit “Send.”
I was trying, anyway.
I ticked through corners of my puzzle, looking for holes and realizing I didn’t know anything about how the president fit into this. But suspicion gnawed at my insides with the whisper that it wasn’t a coincidence, all this craziness preceding her visit so closely.
Clicking my mobile browser, I searched her name. Found the biggest virtual haystack I’d ever seen.
I had forty minutes to sift through needles. I didn’t peg her as the type to be in with Grayson, but there had been enough surprises with this story, and ignoring my gut had been nothing but trouble so far.
I clicked to the news articles first and started reading.
She won West Virginia by promising t
he mining companies more lax EPA restrictions. “Coal is king, and we will make it profitable again,” she said at a campaign rally steps from a mine shaft during one of twenty-nine visits to the Appalachians in seventeen months.
So she and Grayson had something in common. Not that it meant anything, really.
After the twentieth article, I put the phone down and started the car, letting my thoughts wander as I navigated the familiar streets to the industrial triangle between Church Hill and Scott’s Addition.
Commonwealth Energy Alliance was a research outfit with fingers in everything from home automation, to windmills, to carbon recapture, but it was the other cutting-edge technologies line on CEA’s website that had me curious. In the corporate world, backhanded bragging on something you won’t identify usually means the PR department doesn’t want it getting out. Which means it’s not a thing you ought to be bragging on in the first place.
Parking twenty feet from the door, I scanned the lot.
Four cars.
I looked up the front of the building. Counted nine floors. And at least twenty windows just on this side of each one.
Going to see strangers alone had gone badly for me on enough occasions to give me pause.
But this Adams guy was kind of skinny and his voice hadn’t sounded capable of threatening a mouse.
Time for Leigh to get him talking. The trick was to make him feel comfortable.
A feature. Practically a publicity piece. Adams had no reason to be on guard.
Journalism Even before the Age of the Internet 102: People who are flattered by interview requests often develop loose lips.
I kicked the car door open and turned my flattery gauge to overdrive, striding to the front doors. Adams opened them with a wide smile, extending his hand. I put mine out before my eyes went past him.
To the taller guy in the navy suit behind him.
Good news: I’d found Hamilton’s friend Wyatt.
Bad news: Hamilton’s friend Wyatt had found me.
22
Deadly Politics Page 19
