The Widow (Federal Hellions Book 1)

by Gray Gardner

  She briskly walked to the table and began clearing it, hoping that Dr. Thomas was too tired to reprimand her. He wasn’t.

  He wanted to yell at her, but he decided against it. He wanted to offer her some wine and see if she took the bait, then get some more information out of her after a few glasses. He hesitated at that thought, though, since he still wasn’t certain that she wasn’t actually a student. The gleam in her eyes when the ambassador told her she had a shot at Yale was genuine. He was frustrated that he couldn’t just confront her. His editor was right, though, it was making for a great story.

  “Jane, you can’t undermine me in front of other people like that,” he said, rinsing off a dish.

  “Like what?” she innocently asked, bringing in more plates. She couldn’t deny that she liked it being just the two of them in his house. It felt comfortable.

  He sighed and looked over at her. “Like smoking on my back porch.”

  “I wasn’t smoking. Lydia was,” she replied, cocking her head to the side and looking as harmless as a child.

  Dr. Thomas clenched his jaw and stopped himself from saying anything else. The last time he’d gotten really angry with her she’d cried. The guilt he felt after that was almost unbearable. He didn’t want to make her cry again, but he wanted to yell so she knew how serious he was.

  George finished off the wine left in a glass on the table and brought it into the kitchen with the last of the dishes. She began scrubbing plates and humming like he wasn’t even there. She was trying very hard to ignore him. He was hard to ignore, though.

  She was playing dumb, but she was very smart. He should have just left her alone and not brought it up, but for some reason he always had to prove that he was the smartest person in the room.

  “So, you like journalism?” Dr. Thomas asked, trying to get her to reveal something to him. He couldn’t help himself.

  She shrugged and dried a wine glass, trying her best to act uninterested. If he thought she was going to write for the school paper on top of soccer and everything else in her hectic life, he had another thing coming. “I like reading the newspaper. Does that count?”

  “Well, Mr. Butler always gives a journalism scholarship every year. I’m sure you talked about it?”

  “No,” George replied, shaking her head and setting the wine glass down in a neat row she was forming. She and the ambassador mostly talked about the influx of illegal substances over unsecured borders. It was a little bit above a sixteen-year-old’s level, but he’d brought it up.

  “So you have no interest in writing for a paper?” he asked, loading the dishwasher.

  “Those can’t go in the dishwasher,” she quickly said, slowly pulling the china out and carefully setting it down on the counter. “They’ll chip. I’ve already washed them, anyway. Just put them back in the china cabinet.”

  She certainly knew a lot about a lot. And fine china? Even he didn’t know the difference. He did as he was told and came back to harass her, but she was already drying her hands and looking around the sparkling kitchen with a satisfied look on her face. Too satisfied, maybe. He shook his head and sighed heavily. He was going to drive himself crazy.

  “Anything else or is my slave labor complete?” she asked, hands on her hips, wisps of hair falling out of her bun and into her face.

  “I think you’ve paid your dues,” he sighed, holding his hands out. “I’ll walk you back to your dorm after your spanking.”

  “I don’t need an escort.” She smirked, grabbing her coat and buttoning it up. “Or any more discipline this evening. But thanks anyway.”

  She just needed to get out of there before she did or said anything stupid. She hadn’t eaten much, not to mention the several sips of wine she’d taken and the beer she’d chugged before coming over. And there was no way in hell she was letting him humiliate her again with a spanking.

  Christ, she was too adorable, looking up at him while standing in his foyer.

  “You were smoking on campus. That’s not allowed,” he firmly said, finding his resolve and lifting up the back of her coat as she pulled away. He got in three good swats before she jerked away from him and glared up at him, cheeks flushed the same as his.

  “Can I go now?” she grumbled through her teeth. Man, she knew about a hundred moves from the academy that would get her out of his grasp and put him in the hospital. But no. She wasn’t supposed to know evasive moves. She was supposed to just let him spank her.

  “Let’s go,” Dr. Thomas nodded his head, fighting off a grin. He loved how defiant she was, which surprised him. He thought he liked full compliance from everyone, all of the time. Jane George was teaching him otherwise.

  The air was still and freezing. They walked in and out of the spotty lamps through the silence of the campus, each trying not to think about the other. George’s legs were freezing but she was pleased when he stopped outside of her door and looked down at her, the glow of the light inside the dorm casting shadows on his face.

  “Jane, I’m serious, okay? You’ve got to stop this cell phone, smoking, and whatever it is you do with James Clancy and Christian Whitman thing you’ve got going on. You have a real future ahead of you, and after seeing Lydia and Lori I know you don’t want to turn into that.”

  “No,” she agreed, nodding her head but looking confused.

  “Those girls spent their entire lives breaking all the rules, and look where it got them. They can’t get hired anywhere. They go to dinner on Friday night with their parents and shamelessly hit on their old teacher.”

  “So you admit it! I won the bet!” she smiled, watching him trying not to smile and be stern.

  “That’s not the point,” he replied, turning his head as he fought a smile. She giggled as a reflex. Then he pointed at her. “This is exactly the point! You can pull off this cute thing as long as you’re a kid, but once you’re in the real world, you’ll get fired or arrested…”

  Her stomach flipped around when he called her cute. “Deposed,” she muttered, turning and opening the door. Good God, he’d seen her naked, after all.

  “Think about it,” he said, turning and making himself walk away. He wished he hadn’t seen her naked yet. He couldn’t get her out of his mind. He needed her to be an adult, not a kid. He still wasn’t sure.

  “Yes, sir,” she called, letting the door slam behind her and running for her room.

  Ugh. It was time to get him out of her head and do some work. For some reason, tears filled her eyes as she thought about what it would have been like if he’d kissed her at the door. She knew it could never be possible.

  She researched throughout the night, discovering that a few years earlier St. Patrick’s had done a little housekeeping and shuffled people around. The Dean of Students was now the Headmaster, the Assistant Dean was now the Dean of Students, and the Dean of Academics was the same, though it looked like while she’d taken a sabbatical when the old headmaster had resigned and all of the replacements were made. Promotion from within was normal, but the timeline of all of the changes was too coincidental. Something had happened the summer after Christian Whitman’s brother had graduated.

  The next week went by entirely too slowly. Things that had started brewing earlier in the year began exploding in her face. Clancy and Whitman had started skipping meals and classes, so she hardly had the chance to confront them. The calls from Nelson were almost nonexistent as she was trying to save their jobs back at the DOJ. Dr. Thomas was all over George, appearing wherever she was and bombarding her with questions that led her to believe he might be suspicious of her identity.

  Then Thursday rolled around and another crisis developed. Of course.

  “Jane! Jane!”

  George looked up from her laptops in her room and turned down the music.

  “Jane!” someone screamed on the other side of the door, banging loudly.

  She flipped her computers closed and stuffed them under her desk, kicking the cords out of sight as she answered the door. It was
Cricket.

  “Jane! Oh my God! You have to help me find her! I can’t find her anywhere!”

  George held up her hand and looked at the desperation in Cricket’s face. This couldn’t be good.

  “What’s going on?” she calmly asked.

  “He broke up with her!” Cricket cried, covering her face with her shaking hands. “And I’m afraid of what she might do.”

  “Who?” George asked, a little insensitively. Her thoughts were on the where-the-hell-are-they-cutting-the-opiates train.

  Cricket pulled her hands down and looked terrified. “Bart broke up with Bella and I’m sacred. I think she might try and hurt herself.”

  High school drama.

  “Oh, whoa,” George replied, following and slamming the door behind her. She remembered what teen angst was like but she never remembered having suicidal thoughts. Maybe Cricket was overreacting.

  “Where have you looked?” George asked as they burst outside at dusk. They both still had their practice uniforms on from all of the soccer they’d been playing. Another time waster keeping George away from her real job.

  “I don’t… I don’t know where she’d go. Her car is here and she’s not in her room! She could be anywhere!” Cricket cried. Then she continued, “She was so in love with him and he just… he just ended it with a stupid phone call! Then she ran out and that’s all her roommate told me.”

  “Jesus Christ,” George sighed, scanning the grounds as darkness fell. Statistically, they’d never find her. The more people they had searching for her, the better. She turned to her friend. “Should we go get help? Should we tell somebody?”

  “No!” Cricket cried, shaking her head. “Bart’s a freshman in college! If her parents find out they were dating they’ll kill her!”

  It wouldn’t make much difference if she was already dead. George didn’t voice that last thought as she grabbed Cricket’s shoulder and said, “Okay. You check the parking lot, the auditorium, the concert hall, and the chapel. I’ll check all the academic buildings.”

  They split, and George sprinted towards the administration building. She banged on Dr. Thomas’s door but no one answered, so she turned and darted for his house. If anyone would help them and be discreet, he would. She rang his doorbell and banged on his front door, but no one answered, so she ran around and slammed her fist against the back door. Where was he? She could hear music inside. His car was in the driveway.

  She hesitated as she looked at his bathroom window. Not a viable option. No way. He’d be so mad. He’d probably spank her.

  She cursed herself as she slinked through the window, falling onto the octagonal white tiled floor of the small bathroom and brushing herself off as she ran out into the house. She found Dr. Thomas and a blonde woman playing with the remote to the stereo, turning the music up and down and teasing each other. A wave a jealousy hit her, but she had other problems to deal with at the moment.

  “Dr. Thomas!” she blurted, tripping over his oriental rug and stumbling into the living room.

  Dr. Thomas and his blonde friend jumped a mile and fell backwards as she approached them.

  “Jane!” he yelled, stepping forward, looking really pissed off.

  “I’m sorry, but I need your help,” she cried, trying to catch her breath.

  “Did you break into my house again?” he asked, looking behind her and grabbing her arm. God damn it, how did she keep doing that? And how often did she do it?

  “You weren’t answering the door,” she wheezed, pulling back and trying to lead him to the front as he gripped her arm tightly. “I need your help.”

  “Jane.”

  “Listen to her,” the blonde woman said. “She looks scared.”

  Dr. Thomas sighed and released her arm. She stumbled backwards and reached for his hand. They both looked down at it as she held it.

  “Please, Cricket said that Bella’s boyfriend just broke up with her and that she might try and hurt herself.”

  “What?” Dr. Thomas and the woman asked at the same time.

  “Cricket’s looking on the east side of campus, but I can’t cover the rest on my own,” George desperately said, running for the front door. “I’m going to check the art and history buildings, you check the rest.”

  “Jane, if this is serious then we need to alert security.”

  “You can’t tell anyone!” George cried, looking up at him and his friend. “I came to you because I knew you’d be discreet.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Discretion!” George called, running out of the house with the two of them close behind. No need to panic about them, there’d be plenty of time to mull over his love life later. She dashed into the history building and checked every classroom on all three floors. Nothing.

  This was when her heat sensory equipment would come in really handy, but for now she couldn’t be an agent. She had to be a high school friend.

  She ran across the walkway and burst inside the art building. It wasn’t until she was near her art class that she heard the music and saw the glow of a television under the door. Please be Bella.

  She paused outside of the door, took a breath, and slowly entered.

  Bella was sitting in her practice uniform, minus her shoes and her socks, staring up at the big plasma on the wall. Her face was sparkling with tears. She had something in her hand.

  Laughing and screaming came from the television, so George slowly crept forward and tried not to spook her.

  “Bella?”

  She jerked her head around and dropped the remote that was in her hand. She started crying harder, so George hesitantly knelt next to her and put a hand on her back. This kind of stuff was sometimes harder than flushing out a member of the FARC.

  “He… he said he’s always be with me,” she cried, wrapping her arms around George and squeezing tightly. “Why did he lie?”

  “Oh.” George grunted, as she tried to breathe. She awkwardly sat on her knees as her friend held her. “Well, that’s just what guys do.”

  “Bart wasn’t like the other guys!” Bella cried into her shoulder.

  “Yeah, eventually they’ll disappoint you. You just have to decide how you’re going to react,” she said, hoping this advice was acceptable. In her eyes, it could always be worse. She stopped her thoughts from drifting towards Ralph and hugged her friend.

  “But look at him!” she sniffed, pointing at the home movies on the big screen. “He’s beautiful and smart and funny and he wanted me. He could have had any girl, but he wanted me.”

  George released herself from Bella’s arms and sat next to her, watching the happy young couple on the screen enjoying some kind of picnic. She rubbed her face as she thought about Conrad Thomas. Those were almost the exact words she used when she spoke about him to her friends, except she pointed more towards the fact that he could have any girl he wanted, so why would he ever want her. She cocked her head and actually smiled at the laughing couple on screen.

  Okay, get her head somewhere else. She stood up and opened all of the French doors that led out to a large, old courtyard.

  “Come on,” she nodded at Bella, sitting on the step in the doorway and pulling out her cigarettes. “This will help.”

  “I don’t smoke,” she sniffed, crawling over.

  “Well you’re about to learn,” George said, lighting up. She handed it over and lit another. “It’s okay to let yourself be sad, Bella. You just can’t let it consume you.”

  “But he consumed me,” she replied, coughing as she blew smoke out into the dimly lit courtyard.

  “For God’s sake, you’re sixteen. You don’t think there might be another guy out there for you?” she asked, very insensitively. She tried to regain her composure and pat Bella’s shoulder sympathetically.

  “He told me he’d love me forever. I didn’t think I’d have to look for another guy,” she cried, rubbing the back of her hand over her eyes.

  George exhaled a stream of smoke and shook her head. “S
o you think that after high school no one finds love?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Okay, what about people’s parents who split up? They’ll never find another person who’ll love them?”

  “That’s not what I mean!”

  “What about Dr. Thomas? He’s single and he’s, like, a hundred. But he’s smart, and nice, and fucking hot.”

  Bella smiled as she nodded her head.

  “And you’re all of those things, too. Now I know Dr. Thomas is going to find someone for him. Just like I know that you’ll find a lot of guys who appreciate how smart, and nice, and fucking hot you are, too.” George grinned, taking a drag. “You know?”

  “It’s just… it was out of nowhere.” Bella sighed, blowing out smoke. “I wish I knew what I did.”

  “You might never know,” she sighed, stamping out her cigarette. “But the important thing is, now you can move on.”

  Bella nodded and stood up when George did. “How do you… I mean, you’ve obviously had your heart broken. How did you move on?”

  How could she tell that? She was just a kid. George shut the doors, turned her head and led the way home, trying not to let herself cry in front of her vulnerable friend. The more she tried to merge into this identity the more people seemed to figure out her real feelings.

  “You just don’t let yourself think about it,” she choked out, wiping her eyes quickly as they walked through the courtyard and back to the dorm. She lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply as they walked.

  Dr. Thomas had heard everything that evening. After being nearly startled to death when Jane broke in as he and his sister, Claire, were listening to a new band her company was going to produce a record for, they frantically began checking buildings for lights. They saw a bluish glow coming from the art building and were about to enter on the courtyard side when Jane and Bella suddenly appeared.