Red After Dark (Blackwood Security #13) - Elise Noble Page 0,16
think Kyla got her hands dirty? Of course she didn’t. She may be a monster, but she’s not dumb.”
Emmy slid a cup of tea in front of Harriet, and no surprises, she’d managed to find cookies somewhere.
“You sound as though you’re speaking from experience. You’ve met Kyla?”
“Met her? I went to school with her. Ever seen the movie Mean Girls?”
Alaric hadn’t, but he could imagine what it was about. Fifty bucks said Emmy hadn’t watched it either.
But she nodded. “Kyla was one of them?”
“The queen bee. She always had to be the centre of attention, and if you crossed her, you’d pay. Senators are meant to be public servants. Kyla only serves herself.”
“I see.”
“Do you? If Kyla wins that senate seat, she’ll spend her entire term pushing legislation for her own benefit. Or perhaps for her friends, if she has any left.”
Carnes had resigned with almost five years remaining on his term. That gave Devane scope to do plenty of damage, and it wasn’t easy to oust a senator once they’d been elected. Like that guy from Vermont who’d won by a handful of votes in a low-turnout year, for example. He’d gone on vacation to California—with a twenty-year-old blonde who wasn’t his wife—and spawned a thousand internet memes when he punched a journalist in the face on Rodeo Drive. Still he refused to vacate his seat.
“Nobody commits a crime without a trace,” Emmy told Harriet. “If we follow the trail…”
“Oh, please. Kyla swept up afterwards, trust me on that. And even if she did miss a few breadcrumbs, the elections take place in two weeks. I’ve seen how slowly the FBI moves. Remember that psycho sending letter bombs to politicians nine years ago? Our housekeeper died, and you people took nearly a year to catch him.”
Hmm… How should they play this? Their FBI badges had opened the door, but now they were stuck in mud on the other side of the threshold. They needed to demonstrate they were on the same wavelength as Harriet. Convince her that they could work fast. The old man had to know something about Red’s origins, and if they caught him during one of his lucid periods…
Alaric opened his mouth to speak, but Emmy got in before him.
“Yeah, we’re not FBI agents.” Shit. What was she playing at? Her American accent had fallen by the wayside too. “We’re private investigators.”
Hegler spat out his tea. “But you said…”
“Actually, I never did.”
He pointed at Alaric. “He has a badge.”
“Five bucks on the internet. Pretty convincing, huh? I think they make them in China.”
Tea slopped into Harriet’s saucer as she pushed back her chair and stood, arms akimbo. “Get out of my house.”
Emmy sat down instead, nonchalant as she sipped her tea with one pinky extended. “Let’s talk instead.”
Alaric put his head in his hands and groaned. Emmy had that devious glint in her eye, and he realised she hadn’t mellowed with age, not one bit. This wasn’t going to be good.
CHAPTER 7 - ALARIC
“WHY ON EARTH would I want to continue this conversation? You just admitted you’ve lied to me.” Harriet glanced at her watch. “And I have a TV crew due here in half an hour. Somebody has to try and undo the damage my father did.”
Emmy dodged the question. “Kyla’s a devious bitch, yeah?”
“Didn’t I just say that?”
“Tell me, whose chances would you rate against her? The FBI? Or another devious bitch?”
Harriet didn’t answer, but she did drop her arms to her sides.
“The way I see it, you’re fucked. Rumour says your father’s made bad business decision after bad business decision, and now he can’t leverage his senate position to borrow more money. How much does this place cost to run? Ten thousand a month? Fifteen? When will the cash run out? If you sell many more horses, you won’t have enough breeding stock left for next year.”
Oh, shit. Was Emmy right? The pieces all fit, although Alaric would never have put it quite so bluntly.
Harriet didn’t so much sit back down as collapse into the chair. “I…” She cleared her throat and tried again. “I can’t. Stéphane, I’m so sorry. I know I shouldn’t have kept this from you, but…”
“How bad is it?” he whispered.
“Daddy borrowed against this place. If I don’t find a hundred thousand dollars by the end of June, then the bank wants to foreclose. Until he got sick and I started going through his paperwork, I had no idea.