In the Still of the Night:Sexy Romantic Suspense (Book 2 The Blonde Barracuda's Sizzling Suspense Series) (18 page)

“I won’t dignify that with an answer. Good-bye, Lexie.”

Chapter 17

Looking at her reflection the next morning, Lexie groaned. Muttering to herself as she stumbled to the shower, I guess that’s what I can expect after maybe an hour’s worth of sleep. And even that hour had been troubled. She didn’t leave her room after Jake left, not even for dinner. Madam Juen had knocked on the door, asking if Lexie planned to eat. Lexie pretended not to hear her. She knew Madam Juen would be upset if she saw that Lexie had been crying.

Both Madam Juen and Master Wan were aware of the issues plaguing Lexie and Jake. And Lexie was sure they were upset that Jake had left.

Lexie knew the Chinese couple, her beloved surrogate parents, wanted Lexie and Jake to marry. They both were fond of Jake. It was more than that. They loved and respected him. He had been a comfort and provided strength to them all after Anthony’s murder. Madam Juen had said more than once in her solemn broken English, “He makes my daughter smile. He is a good man.” Of course he is, Lexie thought with a pang of sadness. He is a good man and a kind man. And she loved him more than she’d known it was possible to love anyone.

But, she wondered, was that enough? Were the issues that were separating them so serious that they couldn’t be breeched? Lexie leaned against the shower stall wall, letting the hot water scorch her back until finally the water ran cold. The answers were even less clear than they were when Jake left her last night. She corrected herself: when he left after she’d told him she wasn’t sure she wanted to marry him. The image of his shattered expression, the raw pain in his eyes, humbled her. She remembered all the times he’d comforted her, held her tenderly when she’d sobbed out her grief, made her smile through her tears. After he left, she’d almost called Brady to ask him to take care of Jake. She couldn’t bear to think of him hurting and alone. Then she remembered that Jake was going to D.C. She wondered if he had friends there. Friends who would see the pain in his eyes and offer him comfort. She doubted it.

Forcing herself to shake off her sadness, she quickly dressed. She had less than twenty-four hours to prepare for her presentation to the City Council. Peter called last night to confirm that he’d arranged for an emergency session of the City Council, a rare event. Particularly since she would be the sole presenter. It was an outrageous thing to do. Because the issue to be addressed was in his District and the Mayor agreed, the rest of the Council was committed. Lexie knew without Peter’s help it would have been impossible. The most she had hoped for was to address the regularly scheduled Friday morning Council meeting. A slot at every meeting was set aside to “hear from the people.” Citizens could show up and ask to be heard during the new business portion of the meeting. This is what she’d intended to do before she connected with Peter.

At their abbreviated luncheon, Lexie took a chance and asked Peter for help. She briefly outlined her plan, giving him enough of the details to pique his interest. But it was the list of massage parlors that had received city permits that caught his attention. His eyes had widened and he’d emitted a low whistle, immediately understanding the significance. When she told him that she had videotaped footage of the city permit proudly displayed at the Rising Sun massage parlor and concrete evidence of blatantly illicit activity, he’d offered to call a special session. She was delighted, but didn’t hold her breath. Like every other government entity the Council was not known for expediency.

When Peter called last night, Lexie was surprised and excited. The faster she could get in front of the council the better. Surprise was critical. The less the Council knew about her information, the less likely they would be able to obfuscate or hide behind bureaucratic mumble jumble. Once the list was public knowledge, the Department of Public Health would go into high gear. They’d throw a mountain of paperwork against it and the scandal would fizzle and die in a flurry of hastily convened commissions and reports. No government agency liked a public scandal. Particularly the responsible department. But this went beyond a specific department.

Someone knew that she had the list of City permits and that someone was concerned enough that they had threatened Ginny Lynn. Lexie knew in her gut that Jake was right. It wasn’t happenstance. And it wasn’t a disgruntled government worker who wanted to get back at Ginny Lynn for giving out confidential government documents. No, whoever it was had been watching Lexie. Closely enough to know that she had the list. And closely enough to know she’d been to the Rising Sun.

Lexie felt the hair on the back of her neck lift in warning. Jake and Anthony had both talked about that phenomenon but she’d never experienced it. It was eerie. And frightening. On one level she understood why Jake was so concerned. He was right. Someone was on to her. But that fact made it even more imperative that she act and act quickly. Why couldn’t Jake understand that? Peter did. When she told Peter about Ginny Lynn, he was silent for a long moment. His voice was flat. He told her that she should tell no one that she had the list. He assured her that no one would hear of it from him. He agreed on the importance of surprise. Like Lexie he knew how the political process worked. To achieve her goals she needed to catch them off guard. Peter told her he asked the clerk to indicate he’d called the meeting to address a dangerous situation in his Distract. He used the rising number of unsolved murders as the specific reason. The rest of the Council appeared to agree—probably because he was new and the old timers understood that the new guys were always eager to make a splash, get their names in the press.

But after she’d hung up with Peter, she had to confront her concerns. There were just too many unanswered questions about the suave Korean man. She appreciated his help and more than anything she appreciated his understanding of why she had to move now. If anything, he had speeded up the process. She needed to spend every minute between now and the council meeting preparing. As she headed to her office to begin lining up her evidence, she was grateful for the mountain of work facing her. She wouldn’t have time to try to figure out Peter’s motives, who he was, or what he was trying to achieve. And maybe, just maybe, she could forget the pain on Jake’s face. And the fact that he wasn’t here when she needed him as much as she ever had.

Avoiding the dojo, she walked through the garden to get to her office. She didn’t want to be distracted by any of her students. Dewa was to meet her at ten a.m., and knowing the young techie, he’d have pulled an all-nighter working on the audio and video presentation. She’d told him to download everything they had, and that together they would edit it. She knew precisely the way she intended to present her evidence. First, she needed to disarm the members of the Council. Peter would help there. After everyone had begun to relax, lower their guard, she’d begin dropping the bombs. Little by little, so they wouldn’t know what hit them until it was too late.

As she turned the corner, she saw Master Wan on his hands and knees in the herb garden. Lexie was struck by how consistent his actions were with the man he was. The lifelong accomplished martial artist was on his knees humbly pulling weeds so that Lexie and his wife could enjoy fresh herbs. Lexie always ducked garden duty. It annoyed her. Took too much time. Required more patience than she had. Besides, the damn weeds just grew back. Why not buy the herbs at the store? It was a lot less work for everyone. Even in her upset with Master Wan, she didn’t miss the irony of their positions. She was rushing into her office to create a massive expose that would be headline news for days to come. Meanwhile her teacher was on his knees in the dirt. She sniffed, not missing the metaphor. Her spirit was roiling with anger and damaged pride. She ached at her own pain and the pain she’d caused. In contrast, even before he spoke, she felt Master Wan’s soothing touch, his innate peacefulness. Why she wondered, could someone so gentle, so humble be so much stronger than she was? Not for the first time it made her angry.

Master Wan looked up and smiled at her approach. He rose to his feet, the graceful movement more consistent with a twenty-year-old than a seventy-two-year-old man.

His face lit with a welcoming smile. As though the last time they had seen each other, she hadn’t behaved like an outrageously spoiled child.

“Ah Jai Li. Just who I hoped to see.”

Remembering her nasty attack in his office, she should have been embarrassed. But she was saved from contrition by her anger. She tossed her head, preparing to pass him by. Mimicking his words, if not his tone, she said, “Ah, Master Wan. Just who I
don’t
want to see.”

He gazed at her as though he could see through the layers of her anger to her hurt. A sympathetic smile graced his lips. He motioned to the concrete bench where they often discussed important issues or just sat quietly enjoying each other’s company.

“Ah Jai Li, I see that you are troubled. Please. Come sit by me.”

Lexie couldn’t refuse. In truth she wanted to sit by him. To pour out all the pain she was feeling, knowing that if she did, she would be much lighter, freer. That was the effect he had on her without even speaking. But for once her anger was directed at him. He’d betrayed her. He’d sided with Jake without the courtesy of talking to her first. The thought incited her. Sharpened her response.

“Why did you talk to Jake about me? Tell him things that concerned you, without bothering to talk with me first. I don’t understand. You must have known that Jake would be upset and try to stop me from going forward. If you felt that way too, why didn’t you tell me?”

Master Wan wiped the sweat off his smooth brow with a garden rag. He studied her thoughtfully.

“That is an easy question for me to answer. I raised my concerns in a way that I believed would be most effective.”

Lexie snapped. “So instead of talking to me, you sicced Jake on me?”

Master Wan’s lip curled slightly

“When the student is ready, Jai Li, the teacher will appear. As a student and a teacher, I have found those to be wise words. I also know when the student is willing to hear—and when she is not. Water on a cement block will run off in a useless puddle, whereas water on receptive dirt grows herbs.”

He waved his hand in a circle over the lushly growing plants.

Lexie closed her eyes. It didn’t take much to understand what he was saying, and that as far as it went he was correct. She wouldn’t have listened to him. She would have ignored him, the way she was ignoring Jake. At the moment, his calm peacefulness rankled. It contrasted with the turmoil she was feeling. But she wasn’t up for a discussion. She learned a long time ago that a ‘discussion’ with Master Wan was in practice a circular exercise at best.

She rose to her feet with a disdainful sniff.

“I see. Well, at least now I understand your rationale. Even if I disagree and it makes me madder than hell. So if you don’t mind, this little block of cement will head to my office and allow Confucius to commune with nature.”

Master Wan stood and bowed slightly.

Lexie was relieved to see the amused twinkle in his eye. If she wasn’t so angry with him she knew they both would have ended up laughing. But for now knowing that he saw beneath her anger was enough.

Her phone rang just as she got to her office. From her caller ID she saw that it was Peter. She’d left a message for him earlier.

“Hi, Peter. Thanks for returning my call. I have yet another favor to ask of you.”

“Anything, Alexis, we are in this venture together.”

Lexie laughed. “I’m relieved that you feel this way, Peter, I hoped that you would. But I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“Please, Alexis. This issue is important to me. I’m grateful that you have brought me into your confidence. And I like to think that by working together we can be more effective than separately.”

Lexie breathed a grateful sigh. “Wow. That is most definitely true. Here is my request. We need to involve the press. In fact, they are key to making this work to have the impact I hope to have. But I’m a lightning rod. If I contact anyone it will be all over the news this evening that there is going to be a big splashy event at the City Council tomorrow. Exactly the kind of premature attention that would spoil the—”

Before she could finish, Peter interrupted.

“Say no more, Lexie. I understand. The Blonde Barracuda is hot news. An unassuming nondescript Councilman is not. How about if I have my office notify the ‘regulars’ in the press corps that I am calling a special meeting of the Council to discuss the rising rate of unsolved murders in the District. That will get the word out without giving away what we have planned.”

Lexie drew a relieved breath. Damn, he was good. As savvy as she was. As Jake was. Thinking about Jake caused a flutter of unease, but she squashed it down.

“That’s perfect, Peter. A couple of hours before the hearing I will call my sources and let them know what is going down. That will give us enough time to get significant attention but not blow our element of surprise. By the way, you are anything but unassuming and nondescript.”

Peter gave a soft chuckle. “I see you are too smart to be taken in by false modesty. Thank you. But I agree that is the best way to handle the press. Any chance that you are available to have dinner with me tonight to go over last minute details? Although I presume you are busy.”

Lexie knew from the inflection in his voice that he assumed she would be with Jake. As much as it hurt that she wouldn’t be, she hardly wanted Peter to know that she and Jake had had a serious rift.

“Uh, no, Peter that won’t work. I doubt I’ll be getting much sleep tonight. I’m thrilled that we are going a day earlier than I planned, but we have a lot of work to do.”

“Of course. But perhaps we can have a celebratory lunch? Or maybe a glass of champagne, following the meeting?”

Lexie was relieved that he gave her an out.

“Let’s hope that we have many reasons to celebrate. And yes I will be pleased to celebrate with you.”

After he hung up, her phone beeped and she flicked it open seeing she had a text message. Opening the attachment ice cold terror shook her. It was a picture of her from last night. She was dressed in her shocking pink hooker outfit. Only the picture had been ‘photoshopped.’ A man’s large hand had her by the throat, a huge knife was in his other hand. The front of her body was covered with blood. Inscribed at the top was an insignia she knew well from the gang graffiti in the District. It was the mark of the
Kkangpae,
the warrior enforcers of the
Jopok
, the Korean mafia.