Eli shared a moment of total communion with the other three men right there in the Sheriff’s office. It was a moment he was certain he would look back on fondly, in years to come, as the moment when he and Jeremiah were accepted by the two lawmen.
“No one can do drama quite like a Texan woman,” Adam told him. Eli heard pride in the man’s voice. Then he sent Nancy a pointed look. “Okay, Hurricane, start talking.”
Chapter 11
Tobin Lewis took a moment to check his appearance in the large ornamental mirror. Every hair was in place, and his tie was straight. The suit he’d chosen to wear for this occasion was a medium gray, nothing remarkable, and the white shirt and red tie—always a red tie here—reflected one who held conservative values. His clothes were not overpriced, but of good quality nonetheless.
One didn’t show up for lunch with the Johnstones in anything but good, neat, and conservative apparel.
He heard the approaching footsteps, and turned away from the mirror. He schooled his features to show nothing but benign interest.
Every member of the Johnstones’ staff held their positions because of one trait, and one trait alone.
They were zealously loyal to their employers.
A tiny woman dressed in the traditional and, in Tobin’s mind clichéd, maid’s black dress with white apron came into the rotunda and stopped. Gisele really was a French maid, having been brought over to the United States from France years before by the Johnstones. Her inscrutable expression gave cats a run for their money.
Tobin was as impressed by her ability to look through him as he was intimidated by it. He was a quick study, and it hadn’t taken him long to find the one presentation that worked with the woman.
He looked through her right back.
“The Johnstones will see you now, Mr. Lewis.”
“Very well.” He never said “thank you” to the woman, and used a nod in place of “you’re welcome.”
He was certain those gestures had netted him favorable points from her employer. He followed the woman and allowed himself one moment to admit the truth.
The couple he was about to lunch with were his employers, too.
Gisele led him, not to the formal dining room, but to the less formal, more airy solarium. So named because of the profusion of live plants, and the fact that the room’s walls were in fact mostly glass, the solarium was where his hosts liked to entertain when they had a point to make.
“Ah, Tobin, there you are, my boy. Do come in. Cook has prepared a wonderful treat for us. We’re having Coquilles St. Jacques served on a bed of jasmine rice.” Wilma Johnstone looked as impeccable as ever. Her silver hair had been styled up, showing off the sparkly bits at her ears.
She’d likely paid more for those diamond studs than he made in an entire year.
Her clothing—or what he thought of as her uniform—seldom varied. Silk blouse, linen skirt, the colors pastel now since it was officially spring. Though seated, he knew the skirt would be tapered top and bottom, cover her knees, and show off her very tiny waist to advantage.
“Lunch sounds delightful, Mrs, Johnstone. Thank you so much for inviting me.”
“Tobin, Tobin, Tobin, when are you going to call me Wilma?” Mrs. Johnstone couldn’t have sounded more entreating. A foolish man would take her up on that offer. He was no fool. She might seem sweet, like anyone’s affectionate maiden aunt. But Tobin had looked in her eyes too many times to be fooled.
He placed his right hand over his heart. “Ma’am, my mother would be horrified if I did. She taught me to have respect for my betters.”
“I do favor a man who minds his mother,” Wilma said. “Don’t you, Kirkland?”
“Indeed.”
Kirkland Johnstone presented the appearance of being the epitome of a successful businessman. He could in fact be perfectly comfortable in any milieu—a board meeting, a formal dinner, or the dirty asphalt of a back alley while he slid a dagger into a man’s back.
Kirkland had only one weakness, and that was Wilma. Tobin had long suspected that she disciplined him on a regular basis. It was a thought he held close in those moments when he was fearful of feeling that dagger.
The Johnstones were in that category between middle age and senior citizen. Wilma’s hair, a stunning silver, was more a statement of style and vanity than a concession to her years. Her pencil-thin eyebrows and thin patrician nose made him think of Boston nobility at its acme. Kirkland, on the other hand, was in Tobin’s estimation a pure street thug.
No one knew precisely how the Johnstones had amassed the enormous fortune they commanded. Their website—Johnstone Philanthropic Investments, JPI—painted a noble history of shrewd and beneficent investments in various and sundry private enterprises, coupled with the support of “right thinking” groups and organizations.
Tobin thought the corporate name and face the Johnstones showed the world to be the most blatant and clever bit of bullshit he’d ever encountered.
But he played along, pretending to be their perfect, only slightly naïve dupe. To do otherwise would be to sign his very own death warrant.
Kirkland stepped forward and offered his hand. “Glad you could make it. Have a seat.”
Tobin shook hands with his host and then sat. He immediately took the linen napkin beside his plate and laid it on his lap. He nodded his head when the butler, an unsmiling man named Finn, poured him a glass of white wine.
“I hear the cherry blossoms are beginning to show their color in the city,” Wilma said.
“Yes, ma’am. It’s a beautiful sight, while it lasts.”
“And a profitable one for many in the surrounding communities, no doubt,” she said.
“Quite.”
“Amazing that so many people come every year and pay damn good money just to see some flowers on some trees,” Kirkland observed. He sat back while Finn, accompanied by one of the young kitchen maids, served the meal. “A smart man studies the foibles of others, and then profits by them.” He nodded once to indicate the food had been sufficiently served. “That’s what my grandfather did, and my father. That’s what I do.”
“A fine family tradition, sir.” Moonshiners and blackmailers is what they were, most like. Tobin mentally congratulated himself for keeping a straight face. The truth was that knowing the truth didn’t change Tobin’s reality.
Once the staff had been dismissed, the Johnstones paid attention to their lunch. Wilma ate sparingly, taking small bites and chewing her food painstakingly. Kirkland used his fork like a shovel, barely taking breaths in between bites.
Tobin ate, enjoyed the dish, knowing that the eating part of the agenda would be done the moment that his hosts began to talk business.
Wilma set her fork down, dabbed her mouth with her napkin, and then took a small sip of her wine. She sat back and her expression became granite hard. “We may have made a miscalculation in the matter of Reese Davies.”
It was just as well he’d had a few good bites of his meal. That tone immediately stole his appetite. He wiped his mouth, and set his napkin aside. “Ma’am?”
“What do you know about his crusade to ruin Senator Cordell?” Kirkland asked.
Tobin had given great thought as to what could be the possible topic of conversation. He controlled the urge to smirk, and instead, sighed—as if he was making a long, held-back confession. “Only that there are times when Senator Davies seems to believe his own press. Some have painted him an avenging archangel come to end the gluttonous ways of big government, and he believes that. Anyone who disagrees with him is just so much cannon fodder. He goes after anyone who crosses his path, or gives him a hard time.”
Kirkland turned to his wife. “That’s pretty much what we deduced. I apologize, my love. I truly believed that Davies was the real deal—the man who would be our man in the senate and eventually in the White House.”
“Is there a problem?” Tobin asked. Of course he knew there likely was a problem and he was going to be expected to handle
it. He was the CEO of Horizon Makers, one of the most powerful PACs in the country.
Horizon Makers was in fact funded primarily by a couple of companies that, if traced, would bring the trail right to the Johnstones’ bank account.
“There is indeed a problem. Have you ever heard of the Benedicts, or the Jessop-Kendalls of Central Texas?”
“No, ma’am, I can’t say that I have.”
“They’re all related, all family. A very powerful and influential family, at that. Their wealth is generations in the making and really quite impressive.”
If Wilma Johnstone thought their wealth was impressive, then they must be very rich indeed. Then Tobin felt everything inside him go perfectly still. Oh, shit. Jessop-Kendall? As in Nancy Jessop?
He was good enough at hiding his thoughts and emotions, he felt reasonably certain his hosts didn’t know his heart had jumped from his chest cavity to his throat.
“A daughter of one of those families has been the legislative assistant of Senator Cordell for the last several years.”
Tobin was the CEO of a PAC and as such was supposed to know all of the major players and several of their staff. He widened his eyes as if just now recognizing the name. “Wait a minute…yes! Nancy Jessop. But…” He shook his head and looked confused. “I understood that she no longer works for the Senator since—well, for a few weeks now. In fact, I heard just this morning, that the good Senator was set to announce his retirement later today.”
“He is, yes. But apparently that fact means nothing to Reese Davies. And since the man is a sniveling coward, too afraid to go after Cordell himself, it appears he has, instead, targeted Miss Jessop. He’s been making inquiries. We all know how the cretin works.” Wilma leaned forward. “It would be most inconvenient for us if Davies succeeded in rousing the ire of either of those families. Most inconvenient.”
Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place! Davies had been his exit strategy, and Jessop his own personal piece of revenge.
Tobin knew what was expected of him. “I’ll take care of it,” he said.
“Excellent. I knew we could count on you, dear boy.”
He lifted his glass of wine and took a sip. Yes, he knew what was expected of him. But how the hell he was going to do that and still come out in one piece, he didn’t have a fucking clue.
In the next breath, he had the glimmer of an idea—a way he could rid himself not only of Davies, but the Jessop woman as well. A way that would leave him blameless before his employers. They’d already expressed a complete dislike for and distrust of Davies. All he really had to do was pull Davies’ chain a little bit more, in just the right way. And if the entire plan backfired and went south, why then, he’d serve his current dinner companions up as a blue plate special to the Feds. Tobin mentally sighed. He was in control of everything. He nodded to Wilma Johnstone.
“Yes, ma’am,” Lewis affected a flattered pose. “You can always count on me.”
* * * *
“We really were just waiting for the right moment to tell you that we were cops.”
“I’m trying very hard to believe that.” Nancy couldn’t explain the emotions that were roiling through her. They’d left Adam’s office, and she had to give the two G-men credit. They’d only made a couple of strangled sounds as she’d gone over the events of “the night in question” for her cousin’s “official report.”
When Nancy had asked all the testosterone makers in the room that if she wasn’t supposed to use her gun to protect herself, why had the family given her one and ensured she’d known how to use it in the first place, no one had had an answer. She was just grateful no one pointed out that the gun really hadn’t done her any good since she’d missed her target. Though she did wonder about that look in Adam’s eyes as they left his office.
Men. They said women tended away from the logical and too much toward the emotional, but that sure as hell had never been her experience.
“What do we have to do to get you to believe us?” Eli walked beside her with his hands tucked into his front pockets.
She hadn’t thought that they would broach the greater subject of her lack of trust today, but maybe it was time to do just that. Did they have anything to answer for, these two FBI agents?
She got that they hadn’t told her back in DC. First of all, they hadn’t had a personal relationship then, even if the two men did flirt with her and ask her out. And second, what the hell sense did it make for them to work undercover if they went around telling everyone they were undercover?
And really, they hadn’t spent the entire evening before talking. So no, they didn’t have anything to answer for.
“It’s not up to you, Eli. It has to do with me.”
Now that she knew for certain they were FBI, she could see the signs. The men bracketed her as they walked along the sidewalk, and both of them were subtly looking everywhere—keeping alert in their surroundings.
There had been other tells, too, over the two years that she’d known them. They’d met at a party. Attendance at certain events had been mandatory, although she secretly loathed them. But this one had been hosted by her boss, so of course she’d gone. He’d actually been the one to introduce her to the two men.
Recollection raised a question. She stopped and spun on her heel, so that she faced them. “Does Cyrus know you’re FBI?”
“He’s known from the beginning, yes. It was actually his meeting just over two years ago with the Director of the FBI that saw the birth of this task force,” Eli said.
“Neither he, nor anyone in his office, were ever in the crosshairs of our investigation,” Jeremiah said.
Nancy spun back around and continued walking down Main Street. The men stayed with her, and stayed silent. She turned right, her thoughts still jumbled but finding little pieces of order. It was like when she worked on a jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes she couldn’t see the big picture, so she would make smaller matches, fitting four or five pieces together, then move on to the next.
After a time, the entire image became clearer and she would be able to put it all together.
“Nancy? Where are we going?”
Eli’s question brought her back to the present. Just ahead, the combined school and the park beckoned. The Town Trust had made a lot of improvements since she’d lived in town. The park had been updated to include new benches and picnic tables, and a set of stands near the baseball diamond.
There were also two swing sets—one for toddlers and one for the bigger kids—as well as climbing equipment and a slide. Nancy could see the school’s outdoor fitness area, too—new running track, football posts, and another set of stands on the other side of the field for that area.
She made up her mind she wanted to try out the swing set, and directed her steps accordingly. She shot Eli a look. “Y’all said you wanted to see the town.”
“I hadn’t thought the tour would be on foot.”
“It’s not a very big town.”
There were six swings hanging from the enormous apparatus, and Nancy chose the second from the end. Eli settled down on her right, and Jeremiah chose the one on her left.
It was time to start assembling a few of those puzzle pieces.
“When did you decide to follow me? I’ve been home nearly a month.”
“We didn’t know that you’d absolutely left for good,” Jeremiah said, “until five days ago.”
“We heard that you were no longer working for Senator Cordell, but no one seemed to know who you were working for.” Eli set his feet apart on the ground and let his hands dangle between his knees. It was hard not to look at those hands, or to think about what all he could do with them.
“So we finally stopped in to see the Senator—at his home, not his office—to ask him if he knew where you’d gone.” Jeremiah looked over at her—or maybe it was Eli he was looking at—she really hated that she’d started to be suspicious of every single thing they did in the last few minutes. She thought she’d had a handle
on her doubts.
Apparently she didn’t.
“We’d already talked to the special agent in charge of the task force, and explained that we needed to take a leave of absence—because as far as we knew, you were gone, and we had to find you. The timing wasn’t so bad, because we hadn’t been turning up anything at Darnell, anyway. He agreed to let us have our accumulated vacation time. We’re supposed to try and infiltrate another group when we come back—this time a PAC.” Eli shuddered.
“It was when we were clearing the decks that one of the people we’d asked about you contacted us and told us that Davies was asking about you, too,” Jeremiah said.
“That scared the hell out of us, so we hurried up and then just got on the road.”
“You didn’t fly? That would have gotten you here a lot faster if you’d been that worried.”
“We’d already told our cover contacts that Jeremiah’s mother had broken her hip and we were driving out so we could lend a hand for a month or two.”
“What’s this all about, baby?” Jeremiah turned, twisting the swing’s chains, but turning all his focus on her. “What are you afraid of? Today’s revelations have stirred up something inside you. We can both see it. Can you tell us what’s bothering you, and what it is you really want to know?”
Could she? Maybe it was time to connect a few puzzle pieces and see what they gave her. “I’m not really afraid. I just…I just want to believe that you really came here for me, personally, and not for your jobs. I just want to make sure there is no hidden agenda in play.” Even though she’d known them for two years, they were still brand-new lovers. Did she expect a declaration of undying love after the first night of intimacy?
If I do, I better get a clue. That’s just not realistic. No, it wasn’t, but she knew herself well enough to know that her emotions tended to twist everything up into a real complicated knot—so complicated, in fact, that she usually just walked away.
She didn’t want to walk away this time. Maybe it was time for her to just get the hell over herself and the crap that happened in college. Maybe it was time to take a step out in faith. So no, she wouldn’t ask for the moon, the sun, and all the stars.
Love Under Two Undercover Cops [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 11
