Kiss Across Chaos (Kiss Across Time #10) - Tracy Cooper-Posey Page 0,14
went back to the office and finished the afternoon early. Before he went home, he jumped back to Paris, arriving as the fresh croissants came out of the oven, bought two of them and a cup of Bertrand’s excellent coffee, then timed his jump to arrive next to Jesse’s laptop tomorrow morning around seven and left them there, along with her backpack.
Then he jumped back to the apartment in Georgetown where everyone thought he lived, then home.
He was throbbing with tiredness. He’d done a lot of jumping today—more than he’d travelled in the last month. Longer than that, really. His Washington life had taken over a minute at a time, until all his energy and hours in a day were filled with the jostling and coaxing that was his life as a lobbyist.
Jesse had forcibly reminded him of this buried side of his nature. He supposed that was a good thing.
As it was close to midnight here, he had no trouble falling into bed and sleeping under the eiderdown until the dawn chorus echoed through the leadlight above his bed along with the first pearly grey strands of dawn.
It was still pre-dawn, Washington time, which gave him time to properly prepare and have a leisurely breakfast before heading into the office. Everyone at Abel & Toloni were constantly amazed by his ability to crank out paperwork and still make all his meetings, but the secret to his productivity was to arrive at the office before anyone else was there to shoot the breeze and waste his time.
He jumped back to Georgetown and drove over to G Street. The office was deserted as usual…almost, at least. A Post-It was stuck to his computer monitor.
Come see me when you get in.—H.
Harold Mann was the major partner of Abel & Toloni. He’d earned his political laurels during the Reagan era and the crumbling of the Soviet Union. Aran could never tell him so, but he had gone back to watch Harold at work on Capitol Hill, talking fast, running favors and building the reputation of the consulting firm he’d just started. He’d been full of energy and drive. He’d also had a full head of hair.
Aran dropped his coat over the back of the chair and went to Harold’s office.
Harold’s bald head gleamed in the overhead pot lights when he looked up from the tablet he was reading. Harold didn’t smile at him.
Aran held back his own cheerful greeting and said instead, “What’s happened?”
“You tell me, Gallagher.” Harold spun the tablet around and pushed it toward Aran.
Aran picked it up. The screen showed a page from the Washington Post website, and the logline was midnight last night. One of the early morning posts they liked to dump on unsuspecting politicians, to ruin their breakfasts.
The Surprising Weaknesses and Strengths of Anthony Reenberg’s Re-Election Platform.
The swoop and drop of Aran’s middle was exactly the same as he’d have got from a rollercoaster when it hit the bottom of the dip. He didn’t need to read any more. The headline said it all.
Harold was watching him closely. He nodded. “Glad to see you’re surprised, Gallagher. Means you didn’t know about this.”
“Of course not!” Aran replied. His hand was shaking. He put the tablet back on Harold’s desk, just barely managing not to drop it. He shoved his hands in his pockets.
“The post outlines the entire campaign you drafted,” Harold said. “It quotes ‘a House insider’.”
“Only, no one in the House except Reenberg has seen the white paper,” Aran said, the sickness settling deeper into his bones.
“And me, as I signed off on it,” Harold said. He sat back and put his hands over his corpulent belly. “If this has sandbagged you, and clearly it has, then I have to ask who the fuck this K.F. is on the byline.” He peered up at Aran. “You’ve been dipping your wick in the wrong ink, Gallagher.”
It wasn’t a question.
Aran glanced at the tablet once more. The initial under the headline seemed to glow. K.F.
The bastard hadn’t even tried to hide. His ego was too large to use a completely fake name. He had to keep his initials there, at least. Just so Aran made no mistake about who had done this to him.
He’d have known who it was without the initials, anyway. There was only one person who’d had access to his laptop in the last month, who could have accessed the company’s cloud server.
“You know I can’t keep you here, after this, right?” Harold said.