“Let him try. Drew’s being targeted. It’s all a witch hunt. I had to fire him, but I won’t throw him under a bus.”
“Why not?” Monica asks. Lindsay’s amusement drains out of her face, lips tight.
“Oh, please, Monica. You’re not a stupid woman. It’s plain he’s in love with Lindsay and she loves him back.”
“What does Lindsay know about love, Harry? When did you become so soft?” Her tone is chiding, feminine and alluring. “I’m worried she’ll get hurt again.” Monica’s voice carries a self-righteous note. “He hurt her so much, Harry. I can’t bear to watch that again.”
Lindsay looks like she’s ready to unleash claws on her mother. Or hug her. Could go either way. Shock ripples through her face as Monica’s words of concern for Lindsay sink in.
“I made a terrible mistake last week, Monica. I have to unendorse Blaine.”
“What? Why? You can’t be viewed as a waffler. That’s political suicide.”
“Not waffling. Just...remember that briefing on the incident? About who the men in the masks were?”
Monica goes quiet.
“Yes,” she finally says, her voice filled with skepticism.
“I have confirmation it’s true.”
A sharp intake of breath ends with a breathy squeal of outrage. “That little shit! Blaine really was in on it? Nolan never said a word.”
Nolan? What the hell is going on here? Why does Harry’s party rival continue to come up?
Lindsay makes a snorting sound. Monica and Harry turn.
“We can’t let them see us,” I hiss, pulling her closer. Lindsay loses her footing and crashes sideways into a big batch of ground brush, squealing slightly as her leg disappears in the greenery.
The click of multiple weapons sighted on us, then the flurry of bodies moving not-so-covertly fills the space around us. I thrust my hands in the air, red laser dots covering my shirt like crooked constellations.
“I’m clear! No weapon!” I shout, knowing exactly how protocol works. Getting shot isn’t high on my list of priorities right now. Two agents surround Harry, two work on me, patting me down until they’re satisfied.
“He’s fine. Not a threat,” Harry announces.
Monica snorts just like Lindsay did a moment ago. “What are you doing here, Drew?” Monica shouts, her voice a hard knife blade. “Haven’t you done enough damage?”
The look Lindsay gives me says, I’m sorry.
“He’s being an ass, Daddy. Following me here while I was on a run.” She points to her earbuds. “Listening to some Jane’s Addiction.” She stresses the word Jane.
Jane.
Right.
“Escort him off the grounds,” Harry says in a monotone, as if telling his personal assistant to hang the dry cleaning on the back of his office door. I’m no one. Nothing.
Not worth emotion.
It hits me.
That’s a good thing.
Because when you don’t elicit an emotional response from people, what are you?
Invisible.
I’m perp-marched off the grounds, where I find Mark Paulson leaning against the main gate, shaking his head slowly.
“Someone located your car.” He nods to a black SUV. “They’ll take you to it.” He sighs. “You don’t know when to quit, do you?”
“Quit?” I purse my lips and shake my head. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
“We’re on the same side, Drew.”
“I know.”
“She’s still going to Jane’s place tonight.”
I grin. “I know.”
And with that, I get a nice escort back to my car, courtesy of the United States government.
Chapter 18
Gated apartment complexes are a complete joke. Lindsay’s out of her SUV, escorted by Silas to Jane’s apartment, and I’m watching the entire thing from a chaise longue next to the apartment complex pool, being chatted up by a senior citizen named Phyllis who thinks I’m the new pool guy.
Five minutes later, I’m checking out the broken pool pump using a back entrance to Jane’s apartment. Nice old Phyllis wanders off to make me cookies. I won’t ever eat a single snickerdoodle, but it made her leave.
Jane lives on the first floor. Could she be any stupider? What single woman chooses a garden apartment? I make a mental note to tell Anya that her daughter needs to put personal safety at a higher priority.
Scratch that.
No, I don’t.
Because I don’t exist.
If I don’t exist, I can’t pick the lock on her back door in ten seconds flat, and if I don’t exist I can’t slide into her apartment and hide in the bathtub while Lindsay and Jane chat in her tiny galley kitchen, each holding a wine cooler and sharing a plate of chicken wings.
And if I don’t exist, I can’t wait her out.
Good thing I don’t exist.
That leaky shower head sure does exist, though. I wait them out, hoping Lindsay still has a bladder the size of a pea. We joked about it for years, road trips dominated by bathroom stops.
By the time she finally comes into the bathroom and locks the door, my hair is soaked, and there’s a cold line of wet cloth running from the nape of my neck down my ass crack.