by Radclyffe
“Don’t move for a second,” Oakes gasped. “Just…don’t.”
Ari’s eyes had gone wide, her pupils dark inviting pools, daring Oakes to drown.
“I can’t.” Ari shivered. “If I do, I won’t last another second.”
“I don’t know what you’re doing to me, but I like it. And it scares the hell out of me.”
As if to taunt her, Ari raised her thigh, pressed it hard against her center. “You’d better like it, because this is just the beginning.”
Oakes panted, struggling to tamp down the tornado swirling in the pit of her being. “Ari, I’m not kidding. You gotta ease up on me.”
“Oh, not a chance.”
Ari circled an arm around Oakes’s neck and kissed her. Oakes lost herself in the sultry taste of Ari’s kiss, surrendering to the knife edge of pleasure striking deep within her.
Ari broke the kiss with a gasp. “Oakes…Oakes, I can’t…”
“Yes,” Oakes urged. “Now. Now?”
“Yes, now.” Ari’s fingers dug into Oakes’s shoulders, her body a taut arch lifting beneath her. A strangled cry tore from Ari’s throat.
Carried away on the tide of Ari’s passion, Oakes relinquished the last threads of her control. Oakes kissed her throat, her heart beating wildly as her body convulsed. Holding as still as she could while her body shattered, she rode the excruciating whirlwind to the edge and finally tumbled.
“You never asked me the details of my meeting with my father this morning,” Ari said softly, tracing the curve of Oakes’s breast. She lay stretched out half on top of her, her cheek nestled in the curve of Oakes’s shoulder.
Oakes traced lazy circles on Ari’s back, her limbs loose and languorous. She wanted her again, but she couldn’t move. Didn’t want to move and dispel the wonder of Ari in her arms. Her body was sated. She was happy. Content. “I figured that was between you and your father.”
“And you’re satisfied to leave it that way?” Ari said.
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” Ari said. “If I totally understood exactly what he was trying to tell me, I might’ve told you sooner. My father is generally not circumspect, but he was today.”
“How so?”
“I’ve been replaying the conversation all day. I think he was trying to send me a message about the election, that I should pay attention to who is supporting President Powell’s opponents in both parties.”
“Okay, that sounds like advice you don’t need.”
“That’s what I thought too. That’s my job, after all, to understand voting blocs, financial supporters, donors, and benefactors. So why would he go to all the trouble to point that out? Why come all this way—why not just be clear about who or what he saw as a complication?”
“Or a threat,” Oakes mused.
“What do you mean?”
“Your father has a lot of contacts throughout the world, right?”
“Of course. His business interests are incredibly diverse.”
“Maybe he was trying to get a message to someone else, through you,” Oakes said.
“That seems awfully hit or miss. Why wouldn’t he just send the message himself?”
“Maybe he can’t.”
“You mean, he might jeopardize his association with someone if he did.”
“Possible. Or maybe there’s some other risk involved.” Oakes didn’t mention the possibility of physical danger—raising concerns about Rostof’s safety would only frighten Ari and leave them no closer to an answer. “Did he mention anyone in particular he thought you should be aware of? Or speak to, for that matter?”
“No, but I got the sense he meant in President Powell’s own party. Someone may be changing sides or withdrawing support, I suppose.”
“He does have competition for the nomination from within,” Oakes said. “Is any of it serious?”
Ari blew out a breath. “Right at this moment—moderately. But we still have a ways to go, and the tide of public opinion can turn quickly.”
“Did you get the sense he wanted to send a warning?” Oakes asked carefully.
“A warning? Like someone was a physical threat to the president?” Ari sat up, her back against the mound of pillows. “No, and if he had known something like that, I’m sure he would have said. But…” Ari contemplated the conversation she had with her father that morning. “He might have been trying to say someone was being influenced or sharing information in some questionable dealings. Collusion?”
“Possibly,” Oakes said.
“Do you think I’m supposed to pass this message on?”
“Your father knows how smart you are, doesn’t he?”
Ari laughed softly. “I like to think so.”
“My guess is he can’t directly contact any of the agencies, but he knows you could. And he trusts you to figure it out.”
Ari leaned back to look at her face. “I need to talk to Cam Roberts.”
Oakes grinned. Ari was reading her mind. She liked that. “I think you’re right. If your father wants to send a message to someone with the power to investigate anyone or anything, Cameron Roberts is the person. You have direct access to her, and you’re outside every other federal agency.”
“I’ll call her tonight,” Ari said. “I also intend to extract a price from my father. No more Witt.”
Oakes grinned. “I won’t complain. Room service first?”
“You order,” Ari said, “I’ll call, and”—she straddled Oakes’s midsection, her hair draping down around Oakes’s face as she leaned forward to kiss her—“then I’ll come up with something to fill the time until we eat.”
Oakes murmured, “Sounds like a perfect plan.”
Chapter Twenty-two
The Trump Taj Mahal Casino
Atlantic City, New Jersey
Game Day minus 14 days
1:10 a.m.
Matthew fed dollar tokens into the slot machine and pulled the arm, disinterestedly watching the symbols rotate on the three cylinders. Cherries, lemons, and a freaking banana. Only an idiot played these stupid machines. Everyone knew the odds favored the house. He fed in another coin. Three cherries lined up and tokens vomited out the bottom. A few tumbled free of the tray and bounced on his loafers, spinning off onto the grimy gray carpeted floor. He scooped the coins out of the tray into the plastic bucket he’d picked up when he’d traded real American money for the fake tokens at the little window with the bars. An Arab girl sat behind the bars taking money and passing back useless colored chips and silver tokens. That at least looked right. Her behind bars. Probably a jihadist.
All around him foreigners brandished wealth they’d gotten by taking advantage of American generosity. American stupidity. Foreign aid. What a joke. The foreigners were doing just fine, while American working men couldn’t find jobs and lived in run-down shacks while offshore workers stole their paychecks, and the people in power looked the other way.
Not for much longer.
“Hey buddy, hey man! You’re losing your money,” exclaimed a bearded white guy with a beer gut in a faded blue work shirt and baggy black pants, pointing to the litter of coins.
Matthew almost told him to take it, but he wasn’t supposed to be standing out.
Play the slots, keep a low profile. You’ll be contacted.
Giving the money away would probably make him memorable.
“Yeah. Thanks, man. I missed that.” Hurriedly, he raked up the loose fake coins and dumped them in his plastic bucket with the stupid palm tree on the side.
He fed another coin into the slot and yanked the arm.
“Excuse me,” a redhead in a silver spangled top and skintight black capri pants murmured, moving in close. “I think you dropped your room key by the elevator.”
She held out a keycard. “1609, right?”
“Yes, thanks,” Matthew said, taking the card printed with an image of the sparkling shoreline and boardwalk. Another fake. The shoreline was a garbage dump.
“No probl
em.” She turned away and a second later disappeared into the throng.
Matthew slid off the stool, swinging his little plastic bucket, and headed for the elevators. He hadn’t booked a room.
1609 was empty when he let himself in except for a small blue and green nylon cold bag, the kind you got from L.L.Bean to pack lunch in or beer for an afternoon pickup game, sitting in the center of a round fake-wood table by the windows. His breath hitched, and he stared at it for a long moment. He was pretty sure he knew what was in it, but he’d never quite believed he’d be looking at it. All this waiting—years, it seemed, though it had been less than eight months since he’d first been contacted by a like-minded guy who’d seen his YouTube posts on what would really make America great again, asking him if he wanted to connect with others like himself who were going to do something, not just talk.
He unzipped the bag.
The canisters looked harmless enough. Silver tubes an inch or so in diameter, eight inches long, with a valve at one flattened end. Ordinary tear gas canisters, used by riot police the world over. Only the gas inside these would do a lot more than irritate the eyes and burn the lungs. It would paralyze the nervous system, cause seizures and cardiac arrhythmias, and kill you. In minutes. Sometimes less.
Matthew zipped up the bag and tucked it under his arm, took the elevator back down to the lobby, dropped his room key in the slot reserved for express checkouts, and went to pick up his Corvette from the self-park lot down the street.
He left his plastic bucket of fake coins on an empty stool in the casino.
The Hilton Hotel
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
4:03 a.m.
Ari’s Apple Watch chimed at the same time Oakes’s phone beeped. She lifted a wrist, peered at the too-bright glowing face through a half-open eye, and hit stop as Oakes, groaning, rolled over, fumbled on the bedside table, and knocked her phone onto the floor.
“Damn it,” Oakes grumbled, leaning out of the bed to search on the floor for her phone.
When she found it and flopped back with another groan, Ari leaned over and kissed her. “It’s not my fault you have to be there hours ahead of everyone else.”
“Where are we again?” Oakes mumbled.
“The president is touring the Bethlehem Steel Mill this morning.” Ari laughed. “I realize we’ve been in four cities in the last fourteen days, but I can’t believe you’ve lost track of the itinerary.”
“It must be because my brain is leaking out of my ears.”
“We can always cut down on the sex,” Ari said lightly.
Oakes’s eyes snapped open, clear and sharp in the sparse light seeping in through the half-open bathroom door.
“You’re wide-awake just like that,” Ari said accusingly. “That’s unfair. I at least need coffee.”
“Waking up with you tends to wake me up…all over.”
Ari kissed her again. “I know. I have the same feeling. I’ve spent a lot of time in hotels while campaigning, but I’ve never enjoyed it quite so much. Even room service tastes better.”
“You know, there’s no way this is a secret.”
“Do you want it to be?” Ari had already dealt with the reality of their relationship. They spent days on end with the same group of people: the Secret Service agents on the president’s detail, the White House medical staff, her own campaign staff, the press corps, the White House press secretary, the First Daughter and her wife. Pretending she wasn’t involved with Oakes Weaver would be impossible, foolish, and to her way of thinking, insulting to them both. They were adults, they weren’t doing anything wrong, and nothing about their relationship impinged on their professional obligations or duties. Oakes hadn’t answered, and Ari’s heart climbed into her throat. Had she misjudged? She was in trouble if she had—she’d thought they were building something here. She’d gone all in, even if she hadn’t said so out loud. Oakes owned a part of her now—a part of her no one had ever touched. A part of her she hadn’t even known she’d wanted to give to someone until she already had. “Oakes? Do you want this to be a secret?”
“What? No! Sorry, I just like watching you think.”
Ari laughed despite wanting to strangle her. “And how do you know that’s what I was doing?”
“You get this little line between your eyebrows and—”
Ari slapped her on the shoulder. “I do not get lines or…frowny faces.”
Oakes grinned and tugged Ari on top of her. “Frowny face. That’s what it is. You get a frowny face.”
Ari narrowed her eyes and said threateningly, “Oakes, you’re on thin ice here.”
“Nah. You’re always beautiful.” Watching Ari’s eyes soften, Oakes swept a hand down Ari’s back and into the dip at the base of her spine. She loved that landscape, the womanly grace and strength of her. She loved it even more when Ari caught her breath and arched above her, pressing their lower bodies closer together. “Really awake now.”
“We don’t have time,” Ari said.
“I can be fast and good,” Oakes said.
Ari nipped at Oakes’s lower lip. “You can be very, very good, but fast is not really one of my preferences. So if you don’t mind, we’ll wait until you can tend to me properly.”
“Oh yeah, I like that idea.”
“Good, hold on to it.” Ari rolled away, and Oakes reluctantly rose. “I probably won’t see much of you today. After he does this meeting with the steelworkers and we finish up in Lehigh with the donor luncheon, I have a meeting scheduled in Newark with the producer airing the debate.”
“I know,” Oakes said. “You think that will run late?”
Ari gathered the clothes she’d strewn around the room in her haste to get naked the night before. “The debate’s the last big televised event before the national convention. I need to be sure the coverage is aimed in the right direction and they’re prepared for this to be a free-for-all.”
“Don’t worry, he’s a natural.”
“Oh, I’m not worried about his performance,” Ari said, “but if the moderators are as unprepared as the last two, the atmosphere could turn on us quickly.”
“I’m sure you’ll get them prepped properly.” Still naked, Oakes cupped Ari’s nape and kissed her, long and thoroughly, making sure Ari didn’t forget what they had planned for later.
Ari cupped Oakes’s cheek. “You don’t really think I could forget.”
“How do you do that, know what I’m thinking?”
Ari speared her fingers through Oakes’s disheveled hair, making it even more tousled and loving the rough and roguish way she looked, as if she’d been making love half the night. Which, of course, she had. “It’s the way you kiss me. I can hear a thousand words in every touch.”
Oakes wondered if Ari could hear the three words she hadn’t said. The three that kept playing in her mind every time she looked at her, every time she touched her, every time she was away from her, and every time she saw her again after they’d been apart. The three words she thought every time her heart leapt in her chest and her soul sparked into life.
The three words that, once said, would change her world forever.
“I’d better get into the shower,” Oakes said.
“Hey.” Ari threaded her arms around Oakes’s neck and kissed her. “Room for two?”
“Can you behave?”
“I wouldn’t swear to it.”
“Good.” Oakes took her hand. “Then you can join me.”
Philadelphia
6:58 a.m.
Sandy met Rebecca in the cavernous first floor of Sloan’s building just as the big grates on the industrial elevator slid soundlessly open.
“Morning, Loo,” Sandy said.
“Morning, Detective,” Rebecca said.
Dell dove in as the doors neared closing and they reversed course.
Watts lumbered on. “Good move, kid.”
Ignoring him, Dell said, “Did I just hear that right?” She shot Sandy a glance, her eyes gleaming. “Det
ective?”
“Promotions posted this morning,” Rebecca said. “Ceremony’s next week.” She held out her hand. “Congratulations, Detective.”
Sandy took her hand. Hers was shaking. She was not going to cry in front of everyone. “Thank you.”
There, she sounded just fine. Her vision was a little blurry but no one needed to know that.
“Wahoo,” Dell burst out, grabbing Sandy and lifting her off her feet. She swung her in a half circle, squeezing what little air she’d managed to suck in right out again.
“Yo, watch the flying feet before you nail me in the nuts,” Watts exclaimed.
“I’m so proud of you,” Dell said, planting a big one right on her mouth.
“Okay, that makes up for it,” Watts said.
Laughing, Sandy punched Dell in the arm. “Put me down.”
“I love you,” Dell said as she released her.
Sandy tugged her shirt into shape and tried to look cool. Hopping up and down and squealing would just have to wait. But oh my God, detective!
The elevator opened on the third floor, and she trooped out with the others. Sloan was already seated at the table in the conference area with a cup of coffee. That was weird. She was routinely a few minutes late.
Rebecca paused on her way to the coffee area. “You get something for us?”
“The breadcrumbs are starting to settle,” Sloan said. “A few more pieces, we might actually have an entire slice.”
“I was rather hoping for a loaf,” Rebecca said, pouring herself coffee.
Jason was the last to come in, his hair tousled and circles under his eyes, but his step was brisk and his eyes bright. He plopped into a chair next to Sloan, giving her a brief grin.
Oh yeah, those two had something. Sandy’s heart kicked up, and her shiny new rank moved to the back seat.
“All right,” Rebecca said as everyone settled around the table. “Let’s hear what you two supersleuths have come up with.”
