A Harmless Little Ruse (Harmless #2)

by Meli Raine

  Took months to feel safe.

  Took nearly two years to be done.

  Here I am, back in the same place.

  But different.

  Does Lindsay feel like this? Home for a week, already mired in scandal. Except this time, I’m the source of the scandal. Those assholes set me up, and now Harry’s listening to all the wrong advisers.

  For all the “right” reasons.

  “I don’t have time for the emotional fallout of having what happened to me revealed to Lindsay. It’s another complicating factor. Right now, there’s already too much going on. Her safety is paramount. Sifting through the past has to wait.”

  “Sifting through the past may be the most important way you can keep her safe, Drew.”

  I close my eyes again.

  Damn it.

  Now I remember why I kept coming back to Salma.

  Because she’s right.

  “They’re threatening her. Directly. Cut her brake lines and nearly caused a crash. Now Blaine’s sniffing around her at her father’s declaration rally. Hell, he weaseled his way into getting Harry to endorse him for Harry’s old House seat. They text threats to her and make it look like it’s coming from a phone she bought. It’s all manipulated, calculated, and it’s impervious. We can’t figure out how they’re doing it. Someone on the inside is helping them. They’re sharks circling to find the right time to bite. I cannot introduce yet another element of complexity to this situation.”

  “You’re not introducing it. You’re identifying it. Acknowledging it. By doing so, you help to remove the power the past has over both you and Lindsay.”

  “Power?” I lean forward, shoving a hand through my hair again. “They have no power over me. I’ve systematically stripped their influence out of my life.”

  “You wouldn’t be sitting here if that were true, Drew.” She taps the newspaper. “And they wouldn’t have been able to do this.”

  All I can do is blink. I freeze, as if I’m trapped in my body, paralyzed. Blood rushes to my head, away from my heart, flowing into my fingers and toes.

  My chest stops moving.

  The world stops.

  “Look,” I say, the word coming out of my mouth with so much effort. Instead of thinking in sentences, I’m working with syllables here, one at a time, chained together to form words that link with other words to make my thoughts come out. I inhale, then exhale, and say, “If that is true, then four years were wasted.”

  “Why do you think that?” she asks kindly.

  “Because I spent all this time getting ready for Lindsay. Making sure she’d always be safe.”

  “Are you sure it was Lindsay you were protecting?”

  “What?” Anger pours through me like my skin is just a mold, and fury fills it.

  “I don’t think you were only trying to make the world safe for Lindsay. You were working to make it safe for you, too.”

  “Of course I was,” I scoff. “I am,” I stress. The air conditioning clicks on, making me jerk. The sound surprises me, the deep whine of the system hurting my ears. I’m holding my breath and I let it out, my respiration inconsistent, the feeling that I can’t catch my breath becoming overpowering.

  “Not as a byproduct, Drew.”

  I frown. “Lindsay’s safety is always more important than my own. I’d die for her.”

  Salma nods. “And that is admirable, but who would die for you?”

  She might as well throw a brick at my face.

  Because suddenly, my mother and father’s faces fill my mind. How they looked at the viewing at their funeral.

  How their brakes failed.

  Oh, God. They victims, too. How far does all of this go?

  Did my parents die because of me? Because of some strange fixation Blaine, Stellan and John have on destroying my and Lindsay’s lives?

  Bzzz.

  The room makes no sense suddenly, as my emergency phone goes off. Salma glares at my jacket, sitting on the couch.

  “You know I have a ‘no cell phone’ policy, Drew.”

  “I know. It’s turned off. That’s my Code Red phone. It only goes off when there’s a life-or-death emergency.”

  Fuck.

  I leap up, rifling through the cloth, the pocket edge ripping as I grab the phone and answer.

  “Foster,” I bark.

  “Drew. This is bad.” It’s Paulson.

  “Lindsay?”

  “She’s fine,” he says, but his voice sends a cold ribbon of panic down my spine. “It’s you I’m calling about.”

  “Me? What about me?”

  “That guy who works for Bosworth – Marshall. He’s claiming he has intelligence that proves you’re the one sending the threatening texts to Lindsay.”

  “What? What the hell?”

  “I know it’s bullshit. But the tracing report got into the hands of Blaine Maisri’s camp. They’re threatening to leak this to the press. It’s one hell of a set-up. We need to do damage control for you.”

  Damage control.

  My entire life is turning into nothing but damage control.

  Bzzz.

  My phone vibrates in my hand. Incoming text. Salma gives me a look of studied frustration. I know this is sacred space. I know I’m supposed to work on my issues.

  Trust me.

  I know.

  But this situation just went FUBAR and the ante just got upped to the Nth degree.

  I ignore Mark as he tries to get my attention, and I look at the text.

  Don’t play if you can’t win, it says.

  I go numb.

  Another text. It’s a video. The picture has the Play symbol in the middle, a frozen image of me, naked, on my side with a mask over my head.

  A video.

  There’s a video of me from that night?

  “Paulson,” I snap. “Full press.”

  Dead air fills the line.

  He hasn’t just hung up on me.

  Mark’s gone to start a series of procedures that threaten to destroy everything I know.

  But all in the service of saving Lindsay.

  I stare at the texts. Deep breaths come out of me, involuntary, as tumblers in my mind sync, creating an orderly chain reaction.

  I know what to do next.

  I don’t like it, but I know what I have to do.

  Then it hits me.

  They’re sending that video everywhere.

  Lindsay. They’ll text it to Lindsay next.

  Probably already did.

  “Drew!” Salma’s voice fills with a pleading horror as I stand, striding to the door with purpose. I can’t look at her. I am a shell now. Shells hold vulnerable creatures, protecting them from the dangers of the outside world.

  I can’t be naked and soft. That’s for a different part of me, one that can’t come out and play right now.

  A game, right? We’re playing a most dangerous game.

  Which means the man who walked into this room cannot be the one who walks out of it.

  “I’m fine. Bill me, Salma.”

  Her face turns red with anger. I watch, wholly detached. Like the good soldier that I am, trained in psychological as well as physical warfare, I can separate feelings from flesh. I’ve done it before, so many times that being connected is the exception and not the rule.

  It occurs to me that Lindsay does the same.

  I can’t think about that right now.

  “This has nothing to do with money. I’m concerned about dis-regulation in you. You need to stay.”

  I pause, my hand on the doorknob. There’s no turning back now. None. What Paulson is unleashing is the equivalent of starting a nuclear launch sequence. Lindsay isn’t the only person with a revenge plan. Mine has been in the making for four years.

  A love plan for Lindsay.

  A revenge plan for those pieces of shit.

  I didn’t think both would be initiated at the same time.

  But there’s only so much I can control in the world, right?


  “Salma, what I need to do is find out how to stop the people who are hellbent on destroying my life. I came here to try to sort through everything with Lindsay, but the texts and call I just received show that she’s in even more danger than I ever thought. So am I.”

  “What was that about?”

  “I’m being set up. Blaine, Stellan and John are trying to make it look like I’m the one threatening Lindsay.”

  And a video of what they did to me just appeared.

  Her hand moves to her mouth, a gesture of shock, but she’s too smooth. Too professional. Salma catches herself, then slowly lowers her hand, bracelets jangling at the wrist. “I see. The newspaper article?”

  “And some texts Lindsay received. They’ve been traced to one of my phones. It’s all being done to make me look like I’m unhinged. Like I’m the one who’s trying to hurt her. Turn me into a stalker, make Harry look bad for hiring his own daughter’s crazy ex...you can put the pieces together. And if they get their way, Lindsay will be left in an unprotected state and her current team will hand her off to the -- ” I crack my sentence in half. “No. That can’t happen. I have to go and stop them.”

  That’s as emotional and revealing as I can afford to be.

  A tingling starts in my knees. It is not unpleasant. Full-body flushes are like a horn on the battlefield in ancient times.

  A call to arms.

  In a way, I am relieved. Excited, even. While I’m a tactician and a strategist, four years has been too long. Too much planning, not enough action. Too much rumination, not enough motion.

  Too much pain.

  Not enough pleasure.

  An image of Lindsay crashes through me, as if she’s entered my bloodstream and strokes me from the inside out. What will she think of me when she finds out? When she views that --

  All I want to do is find her. Steal her away. Take her someplace where none of this can touch her.

  All I want is peace.

  Too bad I have to go through hell to get it.

  I leave.

  Salma doesn’t try to stop me.

  Chapter 15

  “Silas!” My voice sounds like shrapnel ripping through flesh. I’m on my emergency phone and he’s answering before I realize I’ve shifted to his first name, the soles of my feet digging into the floorboards of my SUV, the unrelenting sun turning the cab of my car into a sauna of retribution and recrimination. The air tastes like regret. “I need your help. Now.”

  “What do you need, Drew?”

  So much for “sir.”

  “Block texts going to Lindsay’s phone. Effective five minutes ago.”

  “I can block all future texts, but -- ”

  “Scrub them. Now.”

  “She has her phone on her, sir – Drew. Too late.”

  Fuck.

  “Where is she?”

  Silence.

  Silence.

  Silence.

  “SILAS!”

  “She’s...er, well, she’s asking for you.”

  Careful what you wish for.

  You just might get it.

  “Me?” I gasp.

  “Yes. We’re under strict orders not to have her see you, be seen with you, come within a thousand yards of you, even -- ”

  “I get the point,” I grind out.

  “But you know Ms. Bosworth.”

  My grimace turns to a tight grin.

  “Sure do.”

  “She’s insistent.”

  A lump in my throat makes it hard to swallow.

  “What’s her mood like, Silas?”

  “Her...mood?” He asks the question like he’s not sure he heard me right.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s, um...she’s pretty stoic. Broken record. She just walked over to the senator’s office and it looks like she’s arguing with her mom and dad.”

  Lindsay can take on Harry.

  Monica? Not so much.

  I’m a man of action. I plan and strategize, examine tactics and enact scenarios.

  Waiting isn’t my style.

  “I’m persona non grata at The Grove, I assume.”

  “If it were legal to shoot you on sight, I’m pretty sure Marshall would have ordered the team to do so,” Silas replies with a rueful huff.

  “I guess I have to see her.”

  “You guess?”

  “I do. I need to see her.”

  “What’s going on? Is there intelligence I haven’t seen yet? A viewing of new evidence I missed?”

  Oh, is there ever.

  “This is personal. Between Lindsay and me.”

  “Understood.”

  “But it has to do with the texts on her phone. How many people have access to that information?”

  He names Paulson, himself, and one techie on the team.

  “Scrub those texts and remove the techie.”

  “I have to clear this with Paulson,” Silas insists.

  “Then do it.” Every word out of my mouth feels like I’m one step closer to death.

  “Sir, why are the texts so important?”

  As I look out the windshield, the world widens. My hands itch to have Lindsay here, in my arms, her skin under my heated touch, to have her concrete and palpable, able to be grabbed and secured.

  Then again, maybe I need her as an anchor.

  To keep me from floating away.

  “Sir? Drew?” His voice changes, choked with compassion, and it hits me.

  He knows.

  He saw.

  Bzzzzz.

  A text from a number I don’t know.

  Jane gave me a burner phone. Ignore whatever they’re telling you. Find me at the shore tonight at 8 p.m. Silas will help.

  “Drew?” Silas’s voice is back to normal. “Anything else I can do for you?”

  “I think I’ll do a little night running on the beach later on,” I say, testing.

  “Good idea. I hear the weather’ll be great for it.”

  Click.

  I spend the rest of the day taking care of paperwork, tying up loose ends in my business, chatting with my sister and Facetiming with my toddler nephew.

  Because no one can predict what’s about to happen next.

  Least of all me.

  Chapter 16

  “Drew, you’re nuts.” It’s nighttime, right before 8 p.m., and Paulson’s at the perimeter of The Grove, arguing with me at the shore. Because I know every nook and cranny of the estate’s grounds, it’s easy to bypass four men at various stations.

  Not so easy to get past Mark.

  “Don’t put me in this position, Foster. Lindsay didn’t ask for you. In fact, she’s been badmouthing you to everyone she sees.” His eyes are hard, but they also plead with me.

  Back down, they say.

  My eyes transmit a two-word message to him, too.

  They’re not the same words. Mine start with F and Y.

  “That’s part of some scheme of hers. C’mon, Mark. It’s obvious. She’s creating fake distance between us.” Not a shred of worry inside me. I know her ruse.

  “I don’t know what’s obvious anymore, Drew.” He sighs, the sound loud and frustrated. “I had no desire to be head of security for a presidential candidate’s daughter when I said yes to you last month. This is madness. I should be home kicking back beers and being with Carrie.”

  “You can always quit.”

  He makes a sound of disgust. It happens to be the sound of loyalty, too.

  “Like that’s going to happen. You fished my girlfriend out of an underground bunker using old sewer pipes before she could have her limbs removed by a crazed drug lord with an amputee fetish. That’s the definition of owing you.”

  “When you put it that way...yeah. You absolutely owe me.”

  His mouth goes tight.

  I cross my arms over my chest and stare him down.

  “If I let you in, not only will Harry fire me, he’ll remove the company from covering Lindsay. Your time’s limited anyhow. Secret Service is stepping in m
ore and more. They’re harder to evade.”

  “Right.” I know I have a narrow window of time. “I just need to see her tonight. That’s it. I’ll be done after this.”

  His sharp look doesn’t faze me. “That’s it?”

  I feign innocence.

  “That’s it.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Believe what you want. I don’t care. I do care whether you trust me.”

  “I trust you to do something stupid.”

  “That’s a start.”

  His voice goes cold with anger, teeth clenched, arms flexing as our friendship gets overridden by his sense of duty.

  “I’m not fucking around, Drew. Your presence compromises her. Those guys are after you as much as they are after her. You’re literally luring them to her. What are you thinking?” You would think his anger would upset me, but just the opposite happens. I’m pleased. When he’s this protective of Lindsay, I know he’s vigilant. I know that anyone who tries to hurt her will have to go through Paulson, too.

  “They texted me today.”

  He closes his eyes, then runs a hand over the back of his neck, tension bleeding off him. “Of course they did. What’d they say?”

  “‘Don’t play if you can’t win’,” I recite, the words like burrs on my tongue.

  “Assholes. That’s just a taunt.”

  “And a promise.”

  “A promise of what?”

  “That they’ll follow through. I have to talk to Lindsay. I think I know what’s about to happen next and I need to warn her.”

  “Care to share with her head of security? Not that you’re exactly forthcoming with important information.” He is pissed. The double meaning is clear.

  He knows. He knows about that video.

  I don’t care, actually.

  Part of the truth is all he needs.

  I ignore the barb. Can’t deal with it. “They’re going to invent some charitable cause for her. She’ll be sent to work with the homeless in Haiti, or with a literacy program in Appalachia, or to restore hurricane damage in Guatemala. Whatever the story, it’ll be designed to get her out of the limelight and for all the attention to die down.” I say this with impatience, and Mark crosses his arms over his chest like he has all the time in the world.

  He knows I’m in a rush.