front to give you a few local softballs right out of the gate, so make sure you hit them first.”
Graham nodded as he leaned back in the chair. “It’s all coming together, isn’t it? Did I tell you that CJ’s agreed to be there?”
“No, you didn’t mention that,” Daniel said.
Graham looked quite pleased with himself. Daniel almost hated to burst his bubble, but he’d been hired to assure Graham’s election, and he couldn’t let certain things remain unaddressed.
“Why would your brother be asking questions about the prisons?”
The question came close to lowering the temperature in the room. Daniel watched Graham’s face make the transition from ease to confusion and finally to an uncertain frown that told the lawyer his friend was tracking with him.
“You know how this works,” Daniel continued. “If so much as a hint of this gets out before the election, the money vanishes.”
Though Graham’s good humor had evaporated, he hadn’t moved and so it was with his hands clasped behind his head, a slight lean to the chair, that he offered a reminder to his friend.
“Not to mention I would lose the vote of just about everyone in the county.”
Daniel made a small huffing sound and waved Graham off. “You can win the election without those votes. But you can’t win it without the money.”
Smiling, Graham said, “You’re acting as if we’re paupers. If we lose Weidman’s support, we’ll manage.”
Daniel knew that Graham didn’t mean that. The future senator had as much to gain—and to lose—as did Daniel. The difference between the money in question and the rest of the support they’d received since the start of the campaign was extreme enough to justify the alarm bells.
“We might manage,” Daniel said. “But you’ll never make a second term.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be the positive one?”
“For the cameras and for the staffers, yes. With you, I’m just an old college friend who doesn’t want to lose out on a payday that will set me up for life because you can’t keep your family from lifting rocks they shouldn’t even know about.”
Graham didn’t seem to have an answer for that. He let the chair legs retouch the floor and placed his elbows on the desk. Seconds ticked by while he pondered Daniel’s words. Then he said, “I don’t know what CJ was looking for. And I don’t know how he would have heard anything.”
Daniel knew that Graham was telling the truth, and that little could be gained by continuing that line of conversation— the one that had the details of the bill already mapped out, to be introduced well into Graham’s term. Instead he chose to confront the skeleton he’d walked into the room with.
“Tell me about Eddie Montgomery,” he said.
If there was nothing else that was nice about this business, it was at least gratifying to see that his tutelage had paid off. Graham’s face barely moved a muscle, which meant there was likely not a reporter out there who could faze him, no matter how difficult the question.
“That was a long time ago,” Graham said after a time.
“It doesn’t matter how long it’s been if a reporter digs it up tomorrow.”
Daniel sank into the chair that Graham’s son had just vacated, regarding his friend from across the room.
“This is the kind of stuff you’re supposed to tell me on the front end,” he said. “Not have me find out by spending time with the locals.”
Graham remained silent for a while. His eyes were on his speech. Daniel could almost see him reciting bits of it in his mind.
“It was a hunting accident,” Graham said, his eyes still on the scattered papers. “There was a thorough investigation. The whole thing is a non-issue.”
“Um-hmm, um-hmm,” Daniel said, nodding. “Then why do two out of three people I’ve talked to think you popped that boy?”
Graham held up his hands. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
After a long pause, Daniel leaned forward in his chair and looked his friend and associate in the eyes.
“Who knows about it?” he asked.
“Thanks,” Dennis said for maybe the twentieth time—enough so that CJ felt no need to respond.
And, in truth, CJ didn’t have much to say. As he’d suspected, Richard had gone to the police this morning and dropped the charges, but neither he nor CJ had said anything to the suddenly liberated pugilist. Dennis had just assumed that CJ was responsible for his freedom—which CJ had neither confirmed nor denied.
Ronny’s was seeing a fair amount of traffic tonight, and CJ had fielded a