The Widow (Federal Hellions Book 1)

by Gray Gardner

  “Dude, your boyfriend just called me and asked if I could bring you a cocktail dress by three today.”

  “Ellie,” George huffed, walking towards her political science class, head down and hair over her hand and her phone at her ear. “I’m sorry, I told him not to.”

  “Well, I was just wondering if you wanted short, knee, midi, or tea length,” Darby said. “Hang on while I look through my closet. I can’t make it to Saks, but I can bring you something I’ve worn only once.”

  “No, I don’t want you to do that,” George replied, grabbing her hair and pulling.

  “Why?”

  “Because if he’s not going to tell me about required attire until the last minute then he’s going to have to suffer through the evening with me in my school uniform.”

  “Ugh, don’t do that. Look, I have a super cute, super sexy Nannette Lepore that I’m going to drop off for you.”

  “Ellie, no.”

  “You’re going to look fucking hot in it, too,” she proudly said.

  George let her chin fall to her chest. She knew there was no point in arguing. “Thanks.”

  “Anytime.”

  “Oh, and for God’s sake, he’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Sure.”

  George finished Dr. Thomas’s exam, practically threw it at his desk, and tore out of the classroom, running back to her dorm and finding Darby’s dress hanging on her closet door. How did she do that? She struggled around, trying to get ready, fixing and re-fixing her hair and make-up. Then she pulled the dress out. It was a gorgeous black silk dress with black lace across the chest and a plunging neckline. It was textured and layered with a lace trim on the bottom, so it didn’t look completely like a nightgown, but it almost did. Ellie Darby. Probably not what Dr. Thomas had in mind when he’d called her.

  She paused and set the dress on the bed as the sun began setting outside of her window. How did he find Darby’s number? She suddenly fell to her knees and dug her cell out of her bag. She threw on her red pea coat and ran up the stairs, jumped through a window at the end of a third floor hallway, and ran across the freezing rooftop of the dorm, dialing as quickly as she could.

  “I need you to dump Christian Whitman’s phone.” She huffed, pacing the roof in her black strapless bra and boy short panties, covered by the open coat. Her gray tennis shoes topped off the ensemble.

  “George?” Cramer asked.

  “Yes, Cramer, it’s George!”

  “Do we have probable cause or some kind of warrant?”

  “Please!” she begged, checking her watch. Five o’clock.

  She heard him clicking away in the background, then he asked for the number. She gave it to him and waited as he brought up past numbers Christian had called. She listened as he rattled off each number, held her breath when the number that had recently been disconnected came up, then quickly wrote down the last number Cramer had.

  “George, I—”

  “Thanks, Cramer!” she said, hanging up and looking at the number. It had to be a new prepaid phone. It had to be her guy. She just felt that it was. She grabbed her own prepaid phone and dialed.

  “I’m sure I don’t need to guess who this is.”

  “You never called,” she replied, checking her watch again.

  “I figured you would when you matched my DNA to a sample in your databases.”

  She grimaced and wished she hadn’t played that card so early. She decided to play along. “No priors to match it with. You’re squeaky clean.”

  Now it was his turn to be silent. At least he thought she actually did have his DNA. And apparently he really didn’t have a record. Who was this guy?

  “Like I said before; there’s been a misunderstanding.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “I can’t talk on the phone.”

  “You better fucking figure out when and where you can talk, then, because just by having your phone number in the pocket of a junkie wearing your coat ties you to enough schedule I drugs for at least five to ten years in prison, and I assume you aren’t under the kind of employment that looks kindly upon felons.”

  He was silent again, then hung up. She squeezed the phone and paced for a minute, then ran inside and plopped on the edge of the bed. She had to get ahead of this guy. How could she, though? He was smart enough to use phones and people that made it difficult to trace anything back to him.

  She checked her watch again. Damn it.

  Her black heels clicked along the sidewalk and her red coat flew behind her as she ran through the melting patches of snow towards the faculty housing. She had one minute.

  Of course, his was the last house in the long row, but she did reach the porch with seconds to spare. She paused outside of his front door to catch her breath when it suddenly flew open, startling both her and the other party.

  “Jane?” Dr. Thomas asked, pushing off the wall he’d fallen back against, holding his chest. “I was just coming to retrieve you. Did you run here?”

  “No.” She huffed, trying to catch her breath as she leaned over on her knees in the twilight.

  He shook his head as he turned his porch light on and grabbed her coat, pulling her inside. At least he didn’t have to drag her out of her dorm kicking and screaming, which was actually what he’d anticipated having to do. He hung her coat up and turned to say something menacing, but his breath caught in his throat and he had to cough a couple of times to resume air flow. She was an adult. Good God, she had to be an adult.

  The black silk dress hung perfectly on her petite figure, showing muscle definition in her back, just enough leg, and a tastefully covered neckline that was way too low for a high school student. She turned her head to look at him and he quickly averted his eyes to the kitchen.

  “All right. First, we need to chop,” he said, leading the way. Fuck, she was hot.

  “Chop?” she asked, as he placed an apron over her neck and gently tied it around her waist.

  He tried not to touch her too much as he tied, even though her pale skin looked smooth and perfect against the silky black dress.

  He nodded at a cutting board and a large pile of vegetables.

  “Wait.” She snickered, holding out her hands as he took his dark suit jacket off and flipped his tie over his shoulder in that sexy, can-do manly way. “Wait, you want me to cook?”

  “That’s why you’re here,” he nodded, turning on a burner and checking a pot.

  “Well,” she began, as he grabbed a remote and turned on some jazz music. “But…”

  “But what?” he asked, pouring some olive oil in a large sauce pan. The gas burner clicked several times as he turned it on.

  She opened her mouth, stopped herself from saying whatever it was she had to say, then sagged her shoulders and kicked off her heels.

  She was mumbling something, but he couldn’t hear her over the vent above the stove. “You need to cut the onions a little more,” he said, looking over her shoulder as he sautéed the meat.

  She sniffed and wiped the tears off her cheeks. “You need to cram it up your cram hole.”

  “What was that?” he asked, as the meat sizzled.

  She loudly continued chopping the onions, peppers, celery, and carrots as she forced herself into silence. There were a million things she could be doing at that moment, but instead she was shoved into servitude with the one person she needed to stay away from. She peered over her shoulder as he stuck something in the oven. He could cook. He looked really good in a suit, too. He wrote books, taught children, had muscle definition through his clothing. What in the hell couldn’t he do?

  The doorbell rang, and Dr. Thomas turned from his saucepan in a huff.

  “Could you get the door, Jane? And be extra polite to Ambassador Butler.”

  “Big fish, I know,” she mumbled, setting the knife on the cutting board as she confused directives between her current superiors.

  “Yes, exactly,” he agreed, not able to think of a better description.

&n
bsp; She wiped her hands on her apron and dug her feet into her uncomfortable heels, tripping through the living room and over to the front door. Immediately, two young women stepped in and flung their coats at George, and then a man and woman in their sixties smiled and slowly walked in.

  “Hello,” George grunted, dropping the coats by the rack and kicking them behind her. “Ambassador Butler? Mrs. Butler? Jane George. Please, come on in.”

  “It’s a pleasure, Jane,” Ambassador Butler said, shaking her hand. “Dr. Thomas speaks very highly of you.”

  Her cheeks felt hot, so she turned her head and led the way to the couches in the living room. Why the hell did he talk about her to the ambassadors? The two young women were already at the bar, mixing drinks and whispering.

  “My daughters,” Butler said, nodding their way. “Lori and Lydia. This is their alma mater, so I thought it would be nice for them to return and see it again. Girls?”

  They walked over, both in tight dresses, one bright yellow and one off white.

  “This is Jane George. Dr. Thomas selected her to help out with tonight’s dinner. Maybe you can—”

  He was interrupted by their rapturous shrieks as Dr. Thomas walked into the room with hors d’oeuvres. George rolled her eyes and backed up into the kitchen unnoticed as the girls attacked Dr. Thomas with enthralling details of their life stories.

  The sauce was bubbling and the vegetables hadn’t been sautéed, so she quickly stirred, and turned the risotto down as she held the cutting board over the frying pan and dumped the chopped veggies into the sizzling olive oil. She was trying to get them all coated when she saw the bottle of red wine sitting next to the stove. Merlot. Glancing over her shoulder, she grabbed the bottle and tasted it.

  “Oh God,” she groaned with delight, taking another gulp directly out of the bottle. She set it down and licked her lips. That was so good. She knew she couldn’t drink anymore, though, because if Dr. Thomas was anything, he was perceptive.

  “Oh, thanks, Jane,” he said, rushing into the kitchen and pausing as he found her stirring and checking timers. He expected to find her doing something bad. Making long distance calls to her mystery person, drinking vodka from the bottle, doing whip-its. She was actually helping him not ruin his entire dinner instead.

  “Don’t look so surprised,” she frowned, waving a wooden spoon at him. “I’m not as helpless as I look.”

  “I don’t think you’re helpless,” he grinned, pouring a little more wine into the sauce. “I wouldn’t allow any of my students to be.”

  “What about Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dense out there?” she asked, raising her brow.

  “That’s no way to speak about Mr. Butler’s girls,” he said, holding back a grin and shaking his head as she surprised him again. She wasn’t afraid to tell it like it was.

  “Dr. Thomas, they came here tonight in dresses two sizes too small in the hopes that you might see what beautiful women they’ve grown into and invite one of them to play sleepover with you.”

  “Jane!”

  “Now, what I’m sure they don’t know,” she continued, turning and stirring, “is that there is no way on God’s green earth you would ever date a girl who whispers to her sister about how you look like that guy from that South Carolina reality show and who, at twenty-three and twenty-four, haven’t worked a day in their lives.”

  Dr. Thomas was frozen in the kitchen. How in the hell did she know all that? She was absolutely right, but a little too informed for a high school kid. Only a reporter would know that much about an ambassador’s family off of the top of her head.

  “You got all that from a two second introduction?” he asked, his mouth curling into a grin on one side.

  “They don’t whisper as quietly as they think,” George nodded, licking her finger as she checked the sauce. “And when they looked at me they saw me as a threat.”

  “I don’t…”

  “I’ll bet you,” she turned, smiling up at him. “I’ll bet you one get-out-of-jail-free card that both of those girls will not only flirt shamelessly with you all night, but before they walk out that door they use two out of these three phrases: call me; we should get together sometime and catch up; I’ve done a lot of growing up since I was a student here.”

  Dr. Thomas was trying not to laugh, mostly because the thought of past students coming on to him was ridiculous, but also because she was just funny. He nodded and held out his hand.

  “All right, it’s a bet,” he smiled, shaking her hand which was soft and small. He took his own hand back and pressed against his pockets like he was looking for something. He just wanted to keep his hands busy and not think about putting them back on her. All over her.

  Lydia slinked into the kitchen and took hold of Dr. Thomas’s arm as she looked George up and down. “Come out and catch up with us, Conrad. Really, it’s such a short evening that we should just get together sometime and really catch up on things.”

  George opened her mouth and gave a sarcastic unsurprised look at him as he glanced back and walked out with the yellow dress. She grabbed the wine bottle and took another swig. If she was honest with herself, she had to admit that she was a little jealous.

  By the time they sat down to dinner she was very jealous. Another couple had arrived and were very interested in speaking with George, so while she was down at one end of the long table, entertaining the adults, Dr. Thomas was at the other end fending off the wolves. The big chested, hair tossing, giggling wolves. They hadn’t taken two bites before both girls had used all three lines and then some.

  “I’ll get some more wine for the table,” Dr. Thomas suddenly said, jumping up and trying to gently brush Lori’s hand off of his leg.

  “Don’t be silly,” George smiled, standing and setting her napkin down. “You’re the host. I’ll be right back.”

  She tried not to laugh as she walked through the kitchen to the large storage room in the back. Those girls really wanted a piece.

  “Oh, hey,” Lydia said, walking past the storage room and heading for the back door. She held up a cigarette. “Smoke?”

  George looked at the wine bottle in her hand, set it down, and nodded. She wanted nothing more at that moment.

  “Lori’s all over him,” Lydia sighed, blowing smoke out into the night as the two of them huddled on the cold, dark back steps of the house. “And she’s older so she gets what she wants.”

  George nodded and took a drag.

  “You don’t even see how hot he is, do you?” Lydia grinned, shrugging her shoulders. “I guess I didn’t either when I was a student here. Only had one thing on my mind.”

  “College,” George muttered, her teeth starting to chatter as the cold breeze blew.

  “College,” Lydia agreed, exhaling. “I mean, sure, I noticed he was hot, but if you don’t get into a good college you are finished, you know?”

  “Pressure,” George exhaled, trying to relax. It was all she felt these days. “That’s why we need something a little stronger than this.”

  Lydia grinned as George waved the cigarette around. “Not since college ended.”

  “Right.”

  “Hey,” Lydia grinned, giving a nod. “Is Rick Whitman’s little brother still here?”

  George recognized the fondness in her eyes. She nodded.

  “Christian? Yeah, he’s a senior.”

  “I heard he, uh,” she said, lowering her head, “took over the family business.”

  What in the hell was going on? The Whitman kids had been dealing at this school for nearly a decade? She rolled her eyes and casually stuffed out her cigarette, so eager to get information out of Lydia that all of her muscles tensed.

  “I guess, but his prices have gone way up.”

  “Really?” Lydia asked, nodding her head. “Makes sense. Rick got into a lot of trouble when we were seniors. The risk got too high to keep dealing out of his dorm, so legend has it he got his little brother to come on Parents’ Weekend, break into the dean’s office, and g
et all of his stuff back that was confiscated. Then he just took over. It’s, well, legendary.”

  “Wait, the dean knew about the Whitman kids?” George asked, frowning. And he had something on Christian? An icy wind blew through.

  “Sure,” Lydia shrugged, tossing her cigarette butt into the bushes. “But, I mean, look at who all of our parents are. He can’t go around kicking everyone out.”

  “The dean caught Rick dealing drugs and Christian stealing them and Rick got to graduate?”

  “Yeah.” She huffed, opening the door. “And since you seem to know so much about it, wouldn’t you appreciate not getting kicked out if you were caught with them?”

  George stepped forward to say something, but was interrupted by Dr. Thomas, standing with the wine she was supposed to have brought in, staring her down.

  “Sorry, Conrad,” Lydia grinned, patting his shoulder as she walked back to the dining room. “We were just having a smoke.”

  His mouth dropped open as George shook her head and held up her hand.

  “You were smoking?” he asked, in a loud whisper as someone called for him from the other room. “In my backyard?”

  “Get out of jail free card!” George snapped, stepping forward and holding up a finger. She had won the bet, after all.

  “I don’t think so!” He huffed, feeling angry that she was arrogant enough to break the rules in his own house. “You’re my responsibility!”

  “We shook on it!” she replied, hands on her hips.

  “I don’t care!”

  “Oh, so you’re a liar now?”

  “What?”

  They stared at each other for a few seconds before turning and quietly speed walking back to the dining room. A momentary truce. George knew that fight wasn’t over, but she was way more interested in finding out more about who the dean was when Lydia was a student and why he’d let a student dealing drugs go free.

  Spying Eyes

  The evening ended just before midnight with a forced performance at Dr. Thomas’s upright piano by George, and some warbling on either side of her by Lori and Lydia. Everyone said goodnight. Ambassador Butler assured George that he’d write her a glowing recommendation letter to Yale; Lydia told Dr. Thomas to call her; Lori held him a few seconds too long in a tight hug; and the other couple pinched George’s cheeks as they left.