inclined to point to where the subscribe button was. “Do you know who that is?”
“No.” Nick shook his head and peered at the screen. “Ah, yes, MorePylons3000. I’d know that name anywhere.”
Jacob lobbed a wadded-up napkin at him. “This is Justin Williams.”
His friends stopped dead.
He looked at the screen again. While he had listened to the jokes and the awkward attempts at gaining subscribers, flashes of something had continually nagged at his consciousness.
Flashes of Tad Williams, he realized. Justin could be just as direct and to the point when he had a focus.
“This is why we’re doing what we’re doing,” he said quietly.
No one argued with him this time. Amber squeezed his shoulder. “Nick told me what you said to the senator,” she said. “I think you helped him see this was more than a sales pitch. I think you helped him see that his son would be in good hands with you—because you care. You freaking care. And that’s more than those fuckers in the lobbyist firms can say.”
Mary listened to the story of Dru Metcalfe and the forged papers in silence before she stretched her hand out to wrap her fingers around Tad’s. When he looked at her, there was nothing in her face but concern.
“Well?” He laughed but it didn’t quite sound like a laugh.
“Well, what?” She tilted her head to the side. It was the same gesture Justin used sometimes, and his heart constricted.
“Well…” He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “What do I do?”
“The same thing you planned to do,” she said without missing a beat. Behind her, Justin’s heart rate monitor beeped regularly. The bruises on his face had turned all different colors now. He wished he could joke with his son about that.
“How can I fight this?” he asked hopelessly. “How can I fight someone who can turn anything I do—anything I don’t even do—into a scandal?”
Mary laughed then. It was a sound he hadn’t heard since the night they came to the hospital. “If you can’t win, why worry about losing?”
Tad stared at her.
“If you’d been born a woman,” she told him, “you’d have known much earlier in life that there’s no winning some fights. It doesn’t matter what you do sometimes, you’ll still somehow lose. Either you’re loose, or you’re a prude, or you’re a bitch…” She squeezed his hand and shrugged. “When there’s no winning, it hurts. It isn’t fair. But it’s freedom, too. It means you can do whatever you want to do. Look at it this way, Tad—one way, you give up everything that makes you respect yourself but the other way, someone lobs a scandal at you.”
“I won’t get to do anything I wanted to do in Congress if I am tossed out after one term,” he murmured.
“You won’t get to if you’re a bought and paid-for puppet, either,” Mary said sharply. “Anything else?”
“Justin,” Tad whispered. “Justin needs us.”
“Exactly.” She leaned closer, her gaze locked on his. “Justin needs us. If we can’t win, then we do what keeps Justin safest—and you know what I think? I think that means keeping him away from the people who are trying to blackmail you.”
Tad leaned his head against hers for a moment. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”
Mary tilted her face up for a kiss. “Like I’ve never leaned on you?”
He smiled and kissed her again. Calm now, he held her close for a moment before he pulled his phone out. “Okay. I’ll make the call.”
Chapter Nine
Mary stood to the side and clutched Tad’s hand while the nursing team worked.
Dr. Goli had been called in and had appeared with dark circles under her eyes but the same air of quiet competence. She was in constant, calm motion and stopped occasionally to touch a nurse on the shoulder and murmur a quiet suggestion before she moved on to the next.
Dr. DuBois, the doctor the PIVOT team had brought, couldn’t be more different. His lab coat, although clean, looked as if it had been shoved in the bottom of his suitcase without being folded. He rocked rhythmically from his heels to the balls of his feet as he read Justin’s file. Periodically, he would look vaguely at all the monitors before he refocused on the records again.
He didn’t look nervous at all.
Mary couldn’t decide which she preferred—nervousness or a lack of it. Dr. Goli and her team were clearly worried about this transfer. They took extra care as they replaced each monitor with one of those the PIVOT team