The Dangerous Edge of Things - By Tina Whittle Page 0,78
coming down.”
“Don’t start.”
“This isn’t starting. Starting would be loading whatever gun I can find and waiting for your ass to show up at this door.”
There was silence at the other end of the phone. He wasn’t happy, but couldn’t find a way around the situation.
“In the lobby then. Ten minutes. And I want all of it. If there’s a single sheet of paper missing, so help me, I’ll—”
“Shut up, Landon. I’m not in the mood.”
“Just bring it.”
“Oh, I’m bringing it all right.”
***
Landon had planted himself in the lobby like a bad-tempered hill. “This had better be everything,” he said, looking through the folders.
“It is. Including this bunch of stuff here about you and Senator Adams, how he was your partner at the company you sold before you became partners with Marisa.”
He looked at me hard, the folders fanned in his hands. “You say that like you’re discovered something, Ms. Randolph.”
“Why’d he leave?”
“To start his own law firm. Can’t you read?”
“I read fine, especially the part about the illegal wiretaps. Your old firm was about to get into hot water thanks to Adams—spying on the wrong people, it seems.”
“The charges were dropped.”
“Lots of charges got dropped during the nineties—Atlanta was famous for it. People got rich from it.”
“I wasn’t one.”
“No, Adams was the money, you were the talent. Mr. Air Force Special Services. Luckily, Marisa swooped in with her trust fund and bailed you out. Adams leaves, she’s the new partner, the name gets changed to Phoenix, and everything blows over. And now he’s running for governor.”
“And this means what exactly?”
“It means you’ve got a personal stake in this campaign. Quid pro quo. Adams kicks a little influence your way, you toss a little top secret information his. A nice partnership.”
Landon looked at me—pleasantly, it seemed. I’d never noticed how malleable his expression was, how like a layer on top of another layer on top of something hard and fixed and smooth.
“We don’t have to like each other.”
I crossed my arms. “Good thing.”
“So cut the crap. Nobody appreciates it.”
“Eliza might have.”
When Landon spoke, his voice was not argumentative. “One thing everybody at Phoenix has in common—me, Marisa, Trey too, especially Trey—is that the work is the most important thing in our lives. Sometimes it’s the only thing. And it’s never personal. We do what we have to do.”
He turned to leave, then paused. “Ask yourself this—if you’d been the one upstairs sprawled out sick, would Trey have stayed with you? Or would he have made sure you weren’t dead, then left you there to fend for yourself while he did his job?”
He didn’t wait for a reply. Which was just as well, since I didn’t have one.
Chapter 40
The minute I walked back into the apartment, I heard noises in the kitchen. Trey, I assumed.
Boy, was I wrong. It was Gabriella, dressed once again in her white baby-tee uniform, only this time she carried a picnic basket. Her hair fell loose about her shoulders, and she smelled of sandalwood.
I shut the door behind me. “Could have sworn I locked that.”
“I have keys.” She gestured toward the stove, where a small cast iron pot simmered. “Do you like miso soup?”
“I prefer donuts. You know, the ones with the little sprinkles.”
She turned the stove eye on low and wiped her hands. “I came to get my tarot cards and check on Trey. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“You’re not intruding—I’m glad you dropped by. I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”
She cocked her head, her green eyes clever. “Of course. Would you like to join me on the terrace? I’m dying for a cigarette.”
***
So I stretched out once again on the chaise lounge, cigarette in hand. I was done by the time Gabriella joined me, having stopped at Trey’s desk to gather her tarot deck. She brought it and her picnic basket onto the terrace, placing both beside her as she dropped into a half-lotus. Then she extracted a pack of Gitanes blondes from the basket and tapped one out.
“My least interesting vice,” she said.
I offered her the lighter. She lit the cigarette and inhaled luxuriously, almost sexually. “You said you had questions?”
“A few, just to fill in some backstory. Like how you met the Beaumonts.”
She pursed her lips to blow out a smoky tendril. “I was Charley’s massage therapist—we met soon after she and Mark moved here. We became friends, and they invested in my shop.”
“How did Phoenix get involved with them?”
“Phoenix is visible and well regarded, of course. But mostly because of Marisa.