A Harmless Little Ruse (Harmless #2)(14)

She starts breathing again. I didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath.

“Can’t turn back now. Your dad and mom will gesture to you any minute.”

Her face goes blank.

One long, deep breath. Two. Three. Lindsay transforms before my eyes. She’s still shaking, but now her face gets some color in it again, cheeks pink. She flashes a fake smile at me.

With dead eyes.

“You’re right. This is show time. I’ve spent four years hiding from the world – against my will – and now it’s time to prove to Mom and Daddy that they were wrong.”

“Exactly!” Pride fills me, making it hard not to touch her right now. Public appearances have to be maintained, though.

“And when this is over, you’re helping me to escape.”

“Huh?”

“You said so.” Triumph fills her voice.

“...daughter, Lindsay!” Harry’s giving us a smile that looks so sincere, but under those friendly eyes he’s saying, Get your ass on stage.

Lindsay peels away from me and walks with great confidence into her father’s arms, fluid as a gazelle, graceful and confident. The crowd claps politely, a few catcalls and hollers a bit much.

A quick kiss on Monica’s cheeks and the two women wrap their arms around each other’s waists, staring adoringly at Senator Bosworth, who begins the true speech of the night.

“I stand before you tonight as a proud Californian and a United States senator...”

My attention stays on Lindsay at all times, body tense yet loose, ready to jump into action whenever needed. Paulson and Gentian are scanning the crowd. My team knows what Stellan, John and Blaine look like, but there’s no way they’d actually be here. They wouldn’t do their own dirty work. Not now. Too much to lose.

Whoever they send to try to hurt Lindsay is going to be an unknown. And I suspect they won’t be so blatant. Not their style. This cat-and-mouse texting game is more their speed. In the fight between the mindf*ck and overt physical violence, they’ll take the mindf*ck every time.

Harry stands on stage looking and sounding presidential. Only the security team can look at Lindsay and see what’s wrong. Her body’s angled just so against her mother, leaning for support. Monica’s shouldering it, but her eyes reflect a level of irritation Lindsay will pay for later.

Attagirl.

Get through this. You can do it.

As Harry’s voice takes on the stronger, firmer tone that comes with whipping the crowd into a rhetorical frenzy, I see Lindsay relax. This is the downhill. Like riding a bike up a killer mountain, Lindsay is aching, screaming for relief, and now she’s crested, the rest of the speech smooth sailing. I see her move an inch away from Monica, her shoulders squared, her body language morphing.

I got this, her body says.

I got it.

“When I am your president, I will...” Harry’s refrain generates shockwaves from the crowd, my earpiece exploding with noise, men reporting in to announce suspicious backpacks, people hovering at entrances, and the small accumulation of oddities that come with public events. None of them are noteworthy, nothing that rises to the level where I need to intervene.

Dotted throughout the crowd are supporters with clusters of balloons, red white and blue for the colors of the American flag. Balloon bunches rise up from the legs of the crowd in what is clearly a coordinated effort. It gives the stadium a whimsical look.

Harry makes a final statement, then two staffers walk on stage to hand Monica and Lindsay respective bunches of flowers.

Lindsay begins to sway on stage as she’s handed her bundle. Something’s off. Monica’s fine, taking her batch of white roses dotted with blue and red carnations, but Lindsay is holding hers like it’s a bunch of live snakes. The colors are different. Her smile fades, the panic in her eyes running down her face as she looks up above the crowd.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a bunch of multi-colored balloons lifting, letting go and allowed to float above the masses. It’s a group of three balloons.

The colors match the flowers in Lindsay’s hands.

Blue.

Red.

Purple.

The same color as the scarves those bastards used to bind her four years ago.





Chapter 6





Monica’s smile doesn’t even falter. Only her right eye twitches slightly as Lindsay stares at the bunch of flowers, head tipped down now, not looking out at the crowd with her agreed-upon performance smile.

And then the corners of Lindsay’s mouth spread wide. I see it before she looks up, and as the stage lights catch her face in slow motion, she comes up grinning.

It’s practically homicidal.

From a distance, though, you can’t tell the difference between a super-exuberant, vibrant young woman and a woman who is ready to commit murder.

But I can.

Lindsay walks right past Monica, her eyes staring out at the thousands who cheer, confetti and balloons in the air now, the tri-colored balloon bunch lost into the cavernous ceiling of the auditorium.

She holds the bouquet of flowers high above her head. I follow her at the side of the stage and tell my guys at the edge of the front row to get ready.

The flowers launch as she throws them into the crowd, then looks right out at dead center, her palm pressed to her lips, throwing the crowd a big kiss.