The Proviso (10 page)

“So, where is he?”

“I don’t see him. It’s possible he won’t show. Let’s
go find Fen.” She trembled. “Make nice, now, Giz,” Sebastian
murmured. “You hurt his feelings at Thanksgiving this year,
ignoring him like you did. You were downright rude about it,
too.”

“Oh, fuck him. I haven’t heard any apologies coming
my way, and until I do, he’s not funny.” After wandering a bit,
they found him almost where they came in, going from one cluster of
chatting people to the next, shaking hands, laughing, introducing
Trudy. Giselle had to admit that Fen was a handsome man, as tall as
Knox, his near-white hair coiffed with refined elegance, his face
pleasingly carved, his nose perfectly straight and patrician.
Incredibly fit, he wore his tuxedo with aplomb. Charismatic,
generous, and blessed with a silver tongue, he was the perfect
picture of a senatorial candidate and cameras adored him. He turned
the heads of women a fraction his age.

Knox would look exactly like Fen in twenty years, a
true Hilliard but for the blond hair and blue eyes Trudy had given
him. Not for the first time, Giselle wondered if Fen was Knox’s
father, but she said nothing. The three of them had worn that topic
out years ago.

Knox’s mother was exquisite as usual, her blonde
hair swept up in a chic knot and her slim figure wrapped in a mint
silk ruched gown that had a few too many ruffles for Giselle’s
taste. She resisted the urge to rip one or two of them off to
streamline the damn thing, but as she and Sebastian drew closer to
Fen and Trudy, she contented herself with one disparaging glance
down her aunt’s body.

Giselle curled her lip slightly, just enough for
Trudy to see her contempt, and Trudy clenched one fist at her side,
as if she wanted to hit Giselle. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t before,
but now Giselle wasn’t an awkward thirteen-year-old slavishly
devoted to earning the approval of her beautiful aunt, and Giselle
raised an eyebrow, daring her to say a word. Trudy looked away.

“Ah, Sebastian, Giselle.” Fen greeted them
expansively, as if he hadn’t tried to kill Giselle twice and
threatened Sebastian with a seat in front of a Senate panel. “So
glad to see you here. I didn’t realize you would be interested or I
would have invited you myself.”

“I’m always intrigued when the CEO of a company I
have a controlling interest in decides to run for Congress.”

“Come, come, Sebastian. I’m sure nothing will change
for you when I win a Senate seat.” His voice held the slightest
hint of a threat, detectable only to people who knew him very well.
“Giselle,” he murmured, taking her hand and kissing it. “How are
you?”

“I’m just fine, thanks; haven’t seen any goons
lurking around corners lately.” She smiled sweetly.

Fen leaned toward her. “You just can’t help getting
your digs in, can you?” he gritted, his mouth locked into a grin.
“One of these days, I’m going to slap the teeth right out of your
smart mouth, little girl.”

She turned her head so that she could whisper in his
ear. “Aw, I
did
hurt your wittow feewings.”

He drew away from her slowly, still in candidate
mode, all four of them still smiling. His gaze caught on her
shoulder then and he sucked in a breath. When he swallowed, Giselle
chuckled and a faint flush rose in his cheeks.

“Is that remorse I see, Unk?” Sebastian drawled.
“And you didn’t even send her a get-well card.”

Fen’s jaw clenched behind his smile. “Move along,
you two. I don’t want to babysit you all night, particularly since
you insist on acting like children. I’d prefer you leave
altogether.”

“No can do, Fen,” Sebastian replied with an entirely
fake chuckle. “We’re just here to eat your food, drink your booze,
and be a general pain in your ass.”

“As usual.”

They left him there fuming. Giselle still chuckled,
but Sebastian’s body radiated tension and his muscular arm felt
like wool-and-silk-covered cast iron under her hand. He picked up a
glass of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray and downed it in
one swallow.

“I gotta figure out how to get out from under Fen’s
thumb,” he muttered. “Remember when he caught you, me, and Knox
blowing up frogs with the bike pump when we were kids? And
threatened to tell my dad? I feel like that right now.”

“I’ve been thinking about this since he announced
last month,” Giselle murmured, disengaging from him to snag a
waiter to request ice water. Sebastian looked down at her, his
eyebrow cocked, waiting. “It’s a threefer. First, you need to block
as much of Fen’s fundraising as possible, like tonight. I’m sure
all your friends feel just as threatened by whatever Fen plans to
do to you.”

“Already done. Next?”

“You need a Truman.”

He stuck his tongue in his cheek. “Raise up a rival
candidate. Wouldn’t that be hilarious? Senator from Taight—but I’d
rather not back a Democrat if I can avoid it.”

“Kevin Oakley.”

Sebastian started, his eyes widening. “Isn’t he the
prosecutor who decided you’d done him a favor by taking out the
assholes who shot you?”

“Yes, he is and there are rumors around school he’s
itching to get on with the next step in his career. He and Knox are
friends, so there’s your in with him.”

Sebastian rocked back on his heels, his hands behind
his back, and stared off into the distance.

“And did you read the
National Review
article
I left on the conference table?” At his absent nod, she said, “The
one on intellectual property rights? Byline Justice McKinley?”

“Yes, and it gave me some ideas on a few tech pies I
could put my fingers in. I googled her, read some of the stuff
she’s been writing on some of the smaller conservative blogs. She’s
like a baby Thomas Sowell.”

“Baby’s about right. She’s twenty-three.”

“How do you know?”

“I go to school with her, that’s how I know.”
Giselle kept the other little piece of information concerning
Justice McKinley to herself for now, since Knox still refused to
talk about that. “She’s a regular little political prodigy, all
strict constructionist pro-life
atheist
. People are starting
to listen to her and talk about her and—” Giselle couldn’t help a
wicked chuckle. “—she’s tying the religious right up in knots.”

“Shit. I could barely spell my name when I was
twenty-three, but now that you mention it, she is a bit
irrationally exuberant.”

Giselle chuckled, then continued, “My thinking is if
Kevin could speak with her, they may be able to help each other
further their own careers. He’s not quite her brand of politician,
but she won’t be happy until Thomas Jefferson rises from the
dead.”

Sebastian pursed his lips. “Even if he wins, he’ll
be powerless to help me. Fen has no such problems because he wants
my head more than the rest of the looters and he’s the only one who
can actually deliver it via the SEC. He’ll have instant clout.”

“All Oakley needs to do is give Fen a good fight.
The Senate’s not going to want to yank your chain too soon and show
its hand if there’s a good chance Fen’ll lose the election. It’ll
buy you enough time to get through the transfer or takeover of
OKH.

“After that, if you do end up sitting in front of
Fen and his newfound senatorial friends, it’ll be a whole different
fight that you can win on your terms without the distraction of OKH
or the threat of the SEC, especially considering your attorney—you
know, that
poor
young man who was cheated of his rightful
inheritance on his wedding day when his bride-equipped-with-child
was tragically and mysteriously murdered. That evil Fen Hilliard,
just like OJ Simpson. Ya know he did it, but the glove doesn’t
fit.”

Sebastian actually smiled in public, which made
Giselle blink. “Go on, Giz,” he muttered over another glass of
champagne. “I’ve always admired your deadpan delivery.”

“The trick is when Kevin should announce his
intentions. Fen needs to get comfy and spend a bunch of whatever
cash he manages to scrounge up. Once Kevin announces and it becomes
known that you’re backing him, Fen’s going to have a hard time
replenishing whatever he spends because nobody’s going to want to
throw good money after bad.

“Third. When reporters start calling you for
comments on Senator Oth’s anti-Taight bitterness, refer them to
Knox. He can hem and haw like the good ol’ boy redneck he pretends
to be—now, y’all know this is off the record, mind—mumble a few
things about how he doan know nuttin’ ’bout nuttin’, but seems to
him maybe Oth either wasn’t a very good businessman—and what does
that say about his leadership in the Senate?—or Taight caught him
with his hand in his employees’ cookie jar. Oopsie. Maybe compare
Jep Industries to Enron, Tyco in passing. Jep employees lost their
jobs, yeah, but that Taight, you know, he made sure they got to
take their 401(k)s with ’em. That should make that rabid skunk back
off and Knox could make you look like a martyr once he gets through
working that shucks-n-p’shaw mojo he uses on his juries.

“You can
not
get into a full-on war with Oth
while Fen’s in the picture, but you do need to get him to quit
riding you. The publicity is what’s going to kill you if you don’t
answer it. Kevin can make Fen retreat and Knox can make Oth shut
up. Once Oth is questioned, the deal you made with Hollander
Steelworks will come out. You’ll end up being the sainted hero and
savior of the pensions and jobs of twelve hundred people—not to
mention what it’ll do for Hollander. Between Kevin and Knox, you
should be able to stay out of Washington for the next three years
until after OKH is no longer an issue. If it doesn’t work all the
way through Knox’s fortieth, hire a Washington-savvy publicist to
take you the rest of the way.”

Sebastian stared at her without speaking for a
while. “Bless your little politico heart, Giz,” he said slowly.
“You
do
come in handy occasionally.”

Giselle took the opportunity to preen a bit. She
very rarely impressed Sebastian because he expected her to function
on his level all the time. She continued,

“The only downside of that is if it makes Fen feel
totally irrelevant—which it very well could—he may go off his
rocker and three years is long enough for him to devolve back to
primordial ooze. I wouldn’t put it past him to do something
devastating to me, Knox, you—or all three of us—if he thinks he’s
going to lose everything any which way he looks at it. He’s already
gotten somewhat unpredictable and that makes me nervous. He has a
taste for killing when he can’t get his way and the fact that we
can’t prove anything only feeds his arrogance.”

Sebastian grunted. “I trust the next time he tries
to kill you, you’ll find him up in Chouteau County somewhere and
put him out of our misery.”

“I plan to, but that might wreck my newfound
ambitions if it comes to light.”

“What newfound ambitions?”

She didn’t bother to suppress a nasty snicker. “One
of the Jackson County APs, Craig Wells, the one who wanted to throw
me under a bus to cut his teeth on Knox? He’s been sniffing around
Oakley’s job.”

“Knox says he’s been sniffing around your
leathers.”

“Oh, good heavens, yes. A codpiece would be less
obvious than his hard-on. He just magically happens to show up
places I hang out, like the law library and the grocery store. He
never talks to me, pretends he doesn’t see me, but really. How
stupid do you have to be to stalk a woman who you know for a fact
carries a nine-mil and uses it? I’ve considered kicking his ass
just for daring to think about me nekkid, but I’m not sure Kevin
would forgive me for that. So my little revenge fantasies have
morphed into a run for Jackson County prosecutor as a possible
career move some time in the distant future once I’ve got some
serious time in a courtroom under my belt.”

“Yesterday I would’ve mocked you for that. Today,
not so much. You going to have Knox train you?”

“Please. Which one of us do you think would end up
dead first? I’ve had quite enough of Professor Shit-for-Brains,
thankyouverymuch. I don’t know what curve he grades me on but it
isn’t the one he uses for the rest of the class.”

“You got him back for it on his student evaluations
last year. He was pissed.”

“Did he think I’d sit still for that?”

“Apparently so.”

She huffed.

“Well, thank you, Giz. Sometimes I forget just how
damned smart you are.”

“I noticed,” she muttered.

He paused to think, but his attention caught
elsewhere. “Oh, damn. I almost forgot why we’re here. There’s
Kenard,” he said, turning toward the south end of the hall where
there were more clusters of people chatting. “He’s the man with the
burn scars on the left side of his face.”

* * * * *

10:
MINE

Bryce hadn’t wanted to come to this thing,
especially considering how he felt about Fen Hilliard and what he
suspected about the man’s involvement in Leah’s murder, but
curiosity won out. He’d spent every other weekend the past two
months playing golf with Fen and various other business leaders
about town just to see how Fen played chess.

Fen had treated Bryce like an old friend without
once mentioning his campaign. He was likable, suave, and not in the
least bit slick or smarmy. No hint of good ol’ boy politics. Not a
whiff of courtship. He had his act down cold and Bryce could
appreciate Fen’s patience, shrewd strategy, and forethought.

In all that time, however, Bryce hadn’t said much,
preferring to listen instead, to observe Fen’s modus operandi, to
wait for the thirty-second pitch that never came. Even the
invitation to this little get-together had no hint of political
purpose in it, but Bryce laughed when the courier delivered it. So.
This was the thirty-second pitch.