Midnight Secrets (6 page)

“Okay.” Everything Felicity was saying made sense. “So now what do I do?”

Felicity cocked her head and smiled.

“Uh-oh,” Metal said. “I know that smile.”

“We do two things.” Her fingers moved on the keyboard. “First, we answer the guy.”

“Okay.” Joe sighed. “So, what am I going to say?”

“You already said it,” Felicity declared, showing him the message she’d sent.

You bet your ass I’m going to protect Isabel.

She stood up. “And now I’m going to go visit our mystery woman.”

Joe’s eyes widened. “Wait!” he said but it was too late. Felicity moved fast when she wanted to. In a second she’d grabbed the pot the beef stew had come in, and which they’d washed, and was out the door.

Joe and Metal looked at each other when the door closed.

“She doesn’t take no for an answer,” Joe finally said, glancing at his friend.

“Nope.” Metal shook his head. “She doesn’t. And she usually does exactly as she pleases. But living with her, I have learned one thing and that’s that she’s usually right. So I’ve learned to stop worrying.”

And he had her back. That went without saying. Metal was always there for her and always would be.

They sat in the silence of the house and simply waited. As SEALs they’d been taught patience the hard way—through pain. So they were perfectly capable of waiting anything out. Because clearly, Felicity wasn’t just dropping off the pot. She was staying at Isabel’s, God only knew for how long.

“So,” Metal finally said, looking at him keenly. “Isabel.”

“Isabel,” Joe nodded.

“She’s pretty.” Metal had seen her when he’d tended her knee.

“Yeah,” Joe sighed. “Very.”

“Pretty women can be dangerous.”

“Can be,” Joe agreed. “But she’s like Felicity. Nice, not nasty. But she’s also...damaged. Something’s happened to her, only I don’t know what and she isn’t talking. It’s like there’s this huge no-go zone she’s created and I don’t have the courage to step into it.”

Metal gave him a sidelong glance. Joe had courage in battle. He’d proved that time and again. He’d spilled blood time and time again, once in saving Metal’s ass. But it was true. Squeezing info out of Isabel that she didn’t want to give—he just couldn’t go there.

“What?” He met Metal’s eyes. “You’re not gonna make a crack?”

“Nope.” Metal zipped his lips. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned lately it’s the power of women. She doesn’t want you to know something, you’re not gonna know it until she wants you to.”

Joe nodded. Man, yeah.

He’d been present when CIA agents interrogated jihadists and their methods had been brutal, even the psychological ones. Necessary, but nightmare inducing. Joe was down with breaking terrorists. The thought of coercing Isabel in any way, however, made him nauseous. But damn, he wanted to know her deal, find out what happened to her.

Because the truth was, there was that really ugly suspicion rolling around in the back of his brain. He couldn’t get it out of his head that she’d been abused. It wasn’t something he wanted to think about but it stuck in his head like a nasty burr. That first day—she’d been hollow-eyed and terrified. Joe knew that look. None of his teammates had had it, of course, they bent but were never broken. But Joe’d spent the better part of a decade in war zones and he’d seen shell-shocked civilians. They had that same look.

Actually, it drove him bugfuck crazy, the thought of someone hurting Isabel. He could picture it in his mind and it was almost more than he could bear. Isabel’s skin was delicate, incredibly fine. The idea of her covered in bruises made his heart beat faster with rage.

Of course, he couldn’t go anywhere with these thoughts. Who would he talk to about it? Metal and Jacko would just look at him funny. And he couldn’t ask Isabel because she wasn’t talking.

Because if Isabel was on the run from some man, if that cryptic message was from someone who wanted her to be safe, well whoever sent it had sent it to the right guy. Joe had never backed down from a fight and never would. And to protect Isabel? He’d go to the wall.

“What are you thinking?” Metal asked. The guy looked like a WWE wrestling champ, a big slab of meat and Joe had seen people treat him as if he was a few sandwiches shy of a picnic. Nothing could be further from the truth. Metal was sharp—he just had nothing to prove and he liked being underestimated.

So Joe knew better than to lie to Metal. But he could put a little Vaseline on the lens and misdirect.

“Trying to figure out what’s wrong with Isabel. What happened to her.”

Metal narrowed his eyes. “You figure she’s running from some guy who hurt her.”

There it was, out in the open. Joe sighed. “Yeah. I think about it all the time. Drives me nuts.”

“I hear you,” Metal said. “Every time I think about that fuckhead slicing Felicity open, I can’t see straight.”

Felicity had been coming to visit her friend Lauren and instead she’d been met at the airport by a guy who wanted to kidnap her for what was in her pretty head. Felicity had escaped because she was Felicity, but not before getting a nasty knife wound. Metal said it still gave him nightmares.

“Men who can do that...” Joe trailed off. Men who could do that weren’t worthy of being called men.

“Yeah.” Metal looked grim. They both got sick at the idea of men abusing women and children.

“So, suppose a guy like that is after Isabel?” It was his worst nightmare. “How would I know about that if she’s not talking? This guy could just show up one day...” He shuddered.

“Like the email said—protect Isabel.”

Fuck, yeah. Joe opened his mouth to answer when the front door opened and Felicity came in together with a gust of cold air. She was carrying something big wrapped in tinfoil and set it on the kitchen counter.

Felicity started slowly taking off her gloves, picking at each finger, enjoying the attention. One glove, the other...

Joe couldn’t stand it. “Well?”

“Well?” she echoed.

“What did you find out? Did you guys talk?”

“Yes, we did. We chatted. And she said absolutely nothing about herself. But she didn’t have to. One look at her and I knew. I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out yourself.”

Joe followed her out of the kitchen. “Figure what out?”

Felicity sat at her computer. Joe could swear that she didn’t touch the keyboard but it suddenly lit up. He’d often wondered if she had arranged her software to mess with their heads. When she was gone from her computer it automatically shut down. When she sat down in front of it, it automatically turned on.

“Who she is,” Felicity answered. Her fingers flew over the keyboard.

“So.” Joe bent as a number of photos appeared on Felicity’s monitor. “Who is she?”

She pointed at the screen. There was some kind of political event, someone at a podium, surrounded by other people. Joe peered closer and frowned. The person at the podium was Alex Delvaux. Joe had been in-country and then in rehab so he wasn’t too up on politics, but it looked like a rally. He remembered that Alex Delvaux had been contemplating a run for the presidency before being killed, together with his entire family, in the Washington Massacre.

Felicity placed a fingertip over a woman in the background on the podium. The features weren’t clear, all the faces were a blur. She was good-looking but all the Delvauxes were good-looking. Had been good-looking. Now they were all dead.

“So what is it?” he asked, impatiently. He wanted to know what she’d found out about Isabel.

“Here she is. Your next-door neighbor.” Felicity tapped once on the face. “Isabel Delvaux.”

Washington
,
DC

Phase two was tall and distinguished-looking, with a shock of iron gray hair and craggy features. Phase two was also dumb as a rock, which Blake was counting on.

“Hector!” John London stood up with a fake smile showing fake teeth, manicured hand outstretched. Nice dry handshake. “Sit down, sit down! Can I offer you something? Cup of coffee? They have a nice Colombian roast, hill country beans. Or maybe a cup of tea? Loose leaf Darjeeling, none of this tea bag shit.”

“Tea would be fine,” Blake murmured, knowing better than to ask for a drink, which he would have preferred. London was an aggressive teetotaler, having been a drunk half his life. He was a dry drunk, incredibly vain and a massive hypocrite.

Blake had hated him for thirty years.

“Wife and kids?” Blake asked, sitting across from London in an old cracked Chesterfield. The Voyagers Club, founded in 1895, was proud that it hadn’t updated the decor in over two hundred years. There were no more explorers in the upper reaches of America’s elite, but the old tradition of what happened in the Voyagers Club staying in the Voyagers Club still reigned. As old-fashioned as it was, some pretty high-tech people went over it weekly, checking for spyware. It was as safe a place to talk serious business as existed in Washington.

Elites need safe spaces and this was one. A lot of secret business had been done here and it had never escaped these walls.

“Wife and kids are fine,” London said easily. They all hated his guts, as Blake knew. London had two kids. One was a high-functioning cocaine addict who worked on Wall Street and the other was on her fourth husband. London’s wife was a dedicated fashionista who disliked her husband but who wanted ferociously to be First Lady.

Well, Blake was here for that very reason. A reason that had vast geopolitical repercussions, that would change the course of history, but that would, as a minor consequence, make Lindsey London, clotheshorse extraordinaire and superbitch, First Lady.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Blake said. “But I didn’t ask you to meet me to exchange pleasantries. I’m here to talk business.”

London tried really hard to put on an intelligent face. Blake knew that he would report every word back to his campaign manager, Ed Dabny, so Ed could parse it for him. This would make Ed’s day. Not to mention Ed’s decade. Because when London won, Ed would be chief of staff.

Of the president of the United States.

“Business, eh?” London’s face gleamed. Just a little sweat of anxiety. He knew perfectly well Blake was smarter than he was and he suspected some kind of double cross. “What kind of business?” London made a pathetic stab at keeping the worry out of his voice.

Blake plucked at the knife-sharp pleat in his Ermenegildo Zegna trousers. He hoisted his foot slightly to admire his Gucci loafer.

Lifting his head he met London’s eyes. “Did you read the blog in
Area 8
?”

Area 8
was quickly becoming the most important political blog in the city, razor-sharp speculation coupled with deep hard news.

London dipped his head, suppressing a smile. “Sure.”

Liar. London didn’t read. Ed read for him. But Ed would have summarized this one. The article had pulled together a lot of other articles and had quoted interviews with some movers and shakers.

According to
Area 8
, Blake had decided to run. To pick up the mantle of Alex Delvaux and run on his pro-business but green platform. Scuttlebutt had it that Blake was going to ask London to be his veep, though London wasn’t on the
Area 8
list.

London had already done the math. After the Massacre, Blake was a shoo-in for the nomination and would undoubtedly win the election. And after his two terms, London would still be under sixty and could run himself.

Eight years at Blair House and another eight at the White House. That was what was dancing through London’s handsome but empty head.

“I read it. And I watched
Meet the Press
last Sunday, too. Interesting times, eh?” London was watching him avidly.

Blake sipped his tea. “Everyone’s talking about possible VP selections. Fraser, Monti. And Kristen Nash. She’s a woman. That hasn’t been done yet, except on TV. A female veep. What do you think?”

“Nash. She was a firebrand DA when she was young. Some of her prosecutions might come back to bite her in the ass. Though it is a fine one.” London smiled smugly, knowing he could say things like this in the Voyagers Club and no one would object. Blake sure wouldn’t. Kristen Nash did have a world-class ass.

“It is indeed.” Blake tilted his head. “So, that’s
Area 8’s
list of possible VP candidates. The next president is going to have a hell of a lot on his plate.”

“Or hers.”

Blake bowed his head. “Good point. Or hers. So—after the Washington Massacre things have become more difficult. The military has still not stepped down from DEFCON 3. Costs us a billion a day.”

London put on his policy face, the one he put on several times a week when going on news shows. His handsome head had been seen everywhere in the past couple of months. “Not to mention the market losses and economic downturn. The next report from the OBM will say that unemployment is at a ten-year high. We’re going to need a strong hand on the tiller. And whoever is president is going to need a really good team, starting with the veep.”

This was a little piece of red meat thrown out to Blake, the presumed strongest candidate. London was telling him that he expected Blake to be the candidate and win the election and that he wanted to be in the cabinet. Or even better, to be veep.