Damage Control - Page 72/83

“I’m back,” Maggie says, “and I can’t believe this, especially since our last lunch got interrupted, but I have to get to the Capitol now.” She flags down a waitress. “Do you want to stay and take a taxi service, or get your food to go and ride back with me?”

She has to get naked with Mike before the Capitol is what she really means. “I’ll get a taxi. You go on ahead.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course.”

“Okay then.” She stands and puts on her coat. “The bill is paid and dessert is on the house.” I blink and she’s gone. Feeling like I have whiplash, and with a whole lot of dread at what my spying skills now require I tell Shane, I flag down our waitress and arrange a cab. Once I’ve tipped her well, she steps away and my gaze catches on the headlines on one of the TVs, my stomach falling. I can’t be seeing what I think I see. I rush closer to the screen and read the headline: WIFE OF BRODY MATTHEWS COMMITS SUICIDE AFTER HIS TRAGIC DEATH IN A CAR ACCIDENT LAST NIGHT. This is insanity. I dial Shane and I get his voice mail. I head for the door and try again. My cab is waiting and I pull up my hood and rush forward, climbing inside, spouting out the address. Again, I get Shane’s voice mail and I text him. And I wait, knowing there is more to this that meets the eye and knowing that somehow, some way, Shane is connected. That terrifies me.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

SHANE

After Emily leaves for lunch with my mother, I head to my office. No longer willing to wait on someone else to find answers, I busy myself going through every piece of data I can find on Mike Rogers. I’m an hour into my research when Jessica walks into my office unannounced and shuts the door, resting against it. “Brody’s estranged wife committed suicide. Oh my God, Shane. It’s tragic. I talked to that man on the phone and now he’s dead and so is she.”

I go still, ice splintering a path down my spine. “How do you know this?” I ask cautiously, aware that my office is bugged, and that Jessica has no real clue what is going on.

“I went downstairs to get lunch, and the TV was on. It’s all over the news. She’s dead.”

“How?”

“They haven’t said or I didn’t hear.”

My intercom goes off, and Seth’s voice fills the air. “I’m at Jessica’s desk. I need to see you.”

“I’ll go,” Jessica says, opening the door to leave. Seth appears, shutting us inside, and without saying a word, he removes an electronic box with antennas from his jacket pocket and starts scanning the office. Almost instantly, a beeping sound leads him to a bookshelf where he removes a book, opens it, and then shows me a tiny chip. He continues his scan and ends up at my desk, focused on my stapler, which he proceeds to open and remove yet another chip. The final stop is at the bottom of my chair. I step back and watch as he removes yet another listening device, and then pulls a bottle of water from his jacket, unscrews the top, and sticks all the offending objects inside. He screws the top on and drops it in my trashcan, and the scanner goes quiet.

He rests his hands on the desk. “Did you hear about Brody’s wife?”

“Yes,” I confirm grimly. “I heard. How did she die?”

“A bottle of aspirin and slit wrists,” he says. “Someone was making sure she didn’t survive.”

“Murder?”

“Murder that looks like suicide,” he confirms. “I’d bet every ounce of trust you give me on it.”

I face the window, snowflakes pummeling the glass, and that silence inside me begins to pool like oil in my gut, churning to anger. Seth steps next to me, his voice inflected with rare regret. “I should have left a man on her and I didn’t.”

“This is not on you,” I say. “This is on my brother.” I hesitate, thinking about my demand for a check to be cut this morning in Derek’s office. “Or my father.”

He turns to face me, both of us crossing our arms in front of our bodies. “You think Senior had a hand in this?”

“I demanded a check be cut to her this very morning, and not in my name. I didn’t want the connection that could be used as blackmail. My father insisted Derek put his name on it, despite his situation making him the obvious choice.”

“Interesting. Protecting his legacy or setting Derek up for a fall?”

“His motivation is more difficult to decipher now than usual.”

“Derek had a visit with someone in a black Escalade about an hour ago.”

“Adrian,” I say, that name acid on my tongue.

“It was,” Seth confirms. “We confirmed his plate.”

“Where’s Derek now?”

“His office, no doubt expecting your imminent explosion, which I’m guessing you won’t give him.”

“And my father?”

“He’s at lunch with Wit Newman.”

“The owner of the Denver Sports Center, where Mike Rogers’s team plays.” I supply. “My father wants to buy the Sports Center.”

“To control Mike,” Seth concludes.

“To control his vote,” I amend. “He wants me to sign off on it or he claims to have the resources together to do it on his own. Where was he later in the afternoon yesterday?”

“The Omni tower for about three hours, in the offices of Huffman Investments. Sounds like he might be trying to make good on that claim to use his own money to buy the Sports Center.”