Jolene seemed stunned that two uniformed deputies ran into the room. “Ma’am, please,” one of them said.
Jolene looked at the bottle and at Adeline. “I hate you!” she screamed. She threw the bottle against the wall opposite Adeline, and it shattered, spraying wine in all directions. The two deputies immediately grabbed her. One handcuffed her, then ushered her out of the den. The other turned to Adeline. “Ma’am? Do you know that woman?”
She nodded, brushing away tears. “Yes. My stepdaughter. My husband died Friday night and Jolene—she is upset with me, with him.” She took a deep breath. “It’s about money. It’s always about money, isn’t it?” She feigned a dizzy spell and the deputy caught her and helped her sit in one of the plush armchairs. “Thank you, deputy,” she said with a half smile.
He said, “We’ll need a statement. Are you pressing charges?”
“I don’t know—I don’t want to. Can you call her husband? Or take her home? She’s grieving. I’m sure tomorrow she’ll regret everything.”
“Of course. We’ll make sure she gets home. I would suggest you have the codes and locks changed on the house, and make sure your security system is on, even when you’re home.”
“Yes. I hate to see Jolene come to this. I wanted us to be friends, that’s all I wanted after I married Harper, and she hates me.” Adeline put her head in her arms and sobbed.
The deputy took a few minutes to write up a statement, then called his supervisor with a report. Adeline smiled to herself when he characterized Jolene as hysterical. When he was finished, she thanked him for his prompt response and walked the deputy to the door. His partner was standing next to their car with Jolene in the backseat. Adeline closed the door and whispered, “Don’t mess with me, Jolene. I always win.”
As soon as the deputy’s drove off with Jolene, Adeline rushed over to her phone and called her campaign manager, Rob Garza. Other than Joseph, there was no one else she trusted, no one else who understood the many layers of her life.
“Rob, Jolene just attacked me at the house. Two Bexar County Sheriff deputies were here, saw everything, and are taking her home. Make sure the press gets a picture of her when she gets there. You have less than fifteen minutes to set this up. I want her completely discredited. I don’t think she knows anything about our side business—if she did, she would have spilled it tonight, because Lord knows I baited her—but if she does suspect anything, I don’t want anyone to believe her.”
“Consider it done,” Rob said.
*
As soon as blogger Gary Ackerman read that Harper Worthington was dead, he started to pack.
Somehow, they’d found out.
And they’d killed him to keep their secret.
Gary wasn’t certain who they were, but one of them was Harper’s wife, Adeline Reyes-Worthington.
Gary had tried to tell voters seven years ago that Adeline Reyes-Worthington was bad news, but they voted her in anyway. For a while, he’d become obsessed with proving that she had rigged her election, to the point where Adeline had gotten a restraining order against him.
He didn’t know how she did it, but she’d done it.
He’d stayed away from her because he didn’t want to go to prison. He’d be killed inside, because he knew too much. The Chinese were buying up the country with Obama’s blessing—and probably his help—and the Bushes had put their blue-blooded cronies in every corporation in the country. The unions benefitted their leadership more than the workers and Wall Street controlled the financial system to benefit the few. Someone high up in the government had assassinated Kennedy, and someone else high up in the government had tried to assassinate Reagan. Oswald and Hinckley were just scapegoats—part of the conspiracy, but not the leaders of the conspiracy.
Everything was tied together, a sick and twisted fist tightening its control over the hearts and minds of Americans. He told the truth on his blog every day, and he didn’t flinch from the hate mail. He got it from everyone—so-called conservatives who thought he was wrong about their golden child; so-called liberals who thought he was a racist because he didn’t praise the president; racists who thought all the problems were because of blacks/Hispanics/Jews. He despised them all. They didn’t understand that the root of all the evil in the world was the corruption of government on all levels. It was insidious. It was everywhere. And they would do everything they could to preserve their power and control.