he glared past her at the two men. “Yeah,” he said grimly, “you’re fired.”
“Gabe!” she exclaimed.
“Baby, you almost died tonight. You shouldn’t have been on that road alone and upset. You wouldn’t have gone over the edge, otherwise.”
“Uhh, actually, I would have,” she said in a small voice.
All three men stared at her. “What do you mean?” Gabe asked ominously.
“There was a van. It pushed me off the road. Well, it hit me first. Rear-ended me. And I hit my brakes. That’s when it pushed me over the edge.”
“As in it hit you a second time?” Gabe exclaimed.
“No. As in it drove up behind me, put its bumper against mine and the driver stood on the gas until he shoved me off the edge of the road.
The two security men all but jumped down her throat. “What did the van look like? Did you get a license plate? What did the driver look like?” At a terse nod from Gabe, their cell phones came out and both men talked fast into them.
When the guards came up for air, she said wryly, “I guess my guards are rehired, then?”
Gabe nodded reluctantly, but added to the men, “Just so we’re clear, gentlemen. One strike and you’re out. No more screwups.”
“Roger that, Mr. Dawson,” the taller of the two men agreed.
The security team went through their questions again, more slowly this time. She described the van as best she could, which wasn’t actually in much detail. She hadn’t seen the driver at all, nor had she spotted a license plate before it was plastered against her rear bumper.
As their questions wound down, she added slowly, “I have this weird memory of laughter. At least I think it was laughter.” She described the maniacal sound echoing around her as she lay in her mangled car.
Gabe and the security men exchanged significant looks. “Okay, Willa. It’s time to tell us about every enemy you have. Anyone who might have any reason to harm you,” Gabe said gently.
She frowned. “I don’t have any enemies.”
“That’s not exactly true,” Gabe responded soberly. “There’s James Ward, for one. He’s pretty pissed off at you.”
She winced. “I think his mother is madder than he is.”
Gabe nodded at the guard who was taking notes on a tablet computer. “Good point. Roseanne Ward goes on the list, too.”
The second guard asked encouragingly, “Who has given you a dirty look recently or said something nasty to you or hated something you’ve done?”
Willa sighed. “Just about everybody.”
“Like who?” the guy prompted.
Willa went through the past several days in her mind. “Jacquelyn Carver from the charity ball. Those anti-fracking protestors outside the ball. My dad’s right-hand man, Larry Shore.”
“When was he nasty to you?” Gabe blurted in surprise.
“He was furious that the governor appointed me to my father’s position and not him,” Willa replied.
Gabe nodded as she continued building her list. “That reporter, Paula Craddock, seems to have it in for me. Oh, and the guy from my dad’s political party who thought I was going to endorse him to replace my father in the senate race.” She added reluctantly, “And my mother. She’s convinced I’m trying to rob her blind.”
“Then there’s the six-hundred-pound gorilla in the corner you’re ignoring,” Gabe commented drily.
She blinked at him in surprise. “I don’t understand.”
“Have you forgotten about that secret committee your dad served on?”
“You think government agents might be trying to kill me because I found out about them?” she exclaimed.
“Possibly.”
She frowned. “But wouldn’t they have succeeded by now?”
“Honey, somebody pushed your car off a cliff tonight. I’d say they came damned close to succeeding, wouldn’t you?”
He was right.
One of the guards piped up. “What government agency, specifically, is trying to kill the senator?”
Willa cut off Gabe when he would have answered. “It’s classified. I’m not allowed to talk about it.”
“With all due respect, ma’am, every one of the men at Elite Security is ex-Special Forces. We all have high-level security clearances.” When she hesitated, the guard added, “We also have tons of back channel contacts in the government. Maybe we can run interference for you. Call off the dogs, as it were.”
She looked over at Gabe, and he nodded to her. Quickly, she filled in the men on what she’d seen on her father’s computer before it had all been erased and/or stolen. When she was finished, one of the guards let out a low whistle.
The second guard nodded. “That explains why you wouldn’t accept Secret Service protection. We were wondering about that. You didn’t know who