A Harmless Little Ruse (Harmless #2)(44)

“Sure do.”

“She’s insistent.”

A lump in my throat makes it hard to swallow.

“What’s her mood like, Silas?”

“Her...mood?” He asks the question like he’s not sure he heard me right.

“Yes.”

“It’s, um...she’s pretty stoic. Broken record. She just walked over to the senator’s office and it looks like she’s arguing with her mom and dad.”

Lindsay can take on Harry.

Monica? Not so much.

I’m a man of action. I plan and strategize, examine tactics and enact scenarios.

Waiting isn’t my style.

“I’m persona non grata at The Grove, I assume.”

“If it were legal to shoot you on sight, I’m pretty sure Marshall would have ordered the team to do so,” Silas replies with a rueful huff.

“I guess I have to see her.”

“You guess?”

“I do. I need to see her.”

“What’s going on? Is there intelligence I haven’t seen yet? A viewing of new evidence I missed?”

Oh, is there ever.

“This is personal. Between Lindsay and me.”

“Understood.”

“But it has to do with the texts on her phone. How many people have access to that information?”

He names Paulson, himself, and one techie on the team.

“Scrub those texts and remove the techie.”

“I have to clear this with Paulson,” Silas insists.

“Then do it.” Every word out of my mouth feels like I’m one step closer to death.

“Sir, why are the texts so important?”

As I look out the windshield, the world widens. My hands itch to have Lindsay here, in my arms, her skin under my heated touch, to have her concrete and palpable, able to be grabbed and secured.

Then again, maybe I need her as an anchor.

To keep me from floating away.

“Sir? Drew?” His voice changes, choked with compassion, and it hits me.

He knows.

He saw.

Bzzzzz.

A text from a number I don’t know.

Jane gave me a burner phone. Ignore whatever they’re telling you. Find me at the shore tonight at 8 p.m. Silas will help.

“Drew?” Silas’s voice is back to normal. “Anything else I can do for you?”

“I think I’ll do a little night running on the beach later on,” I say, testing.

“Good idea. I hear the weather’ll be great for it.”

Click.

I spend the rest of the day taking care of paperwork, tying up loose ends in my business, chatting with my sister and Facetiming with my toddler nephew.

Because no one can predict what’s about to happen next.

Least of all me.





Chapter 16





“Drew, you’re nuts.” It’s nighttime, right before 8 p.m., and Paulson’s at the perimeter of The Grove, arguing with me at the shore. Because I know every nook and cranny of the estate’s grounds, it’s easy to bypass four men at various stations.

Not so easy to get past Mark.

“Don’t put me in this position, Foster. Lindsay didn’t ask for you. In fact, she’s been badmouthing you to everyone she sees.” His eyes are hard, but they also plead with me.

Back down, they say.

My eyes transmit a two-word message to him, too.

They’re not the same words. Mine start with F and Y.

“That’s part of some scheme of hers. C’mon, Mark. It’s obvious. She’s creating fake distance between us.” Not a shred of worry inside me. I know her ruse.

“I don’t know what’s obvious anymore, Drew.” He sighs, the sound loud and frustrated. “I had no desire to be head of security for a presidential candidate’s daughter when I said yes to you last month. This is madness. I should be home kicking back beers and being with Carrie.”

“You can always quit.”

He makes a sound of disgust. It happens to be the sound of loyalty, too.

“Like that’s going to happen. You fished my girlfriend out of an underground bunker using old sewer pipes before she could have her limbs removed by a crazed drug lord with an amputee fetish. That’s the definition of owing you.”

“When you put it that way...yeah. You absolutely owe me.”

His mouth goes tight.

I cross my arms over my chest and stare him down.

“If I let you in, not only will Harry fire me, he’ll remove the company from covering Lindsay. Your time’s limited anyhow. Secret Service is stepping in more and more. They’re harder to evade.”

“Right.” I know I have a narrow window of time. “I just need to see her tonight. That’s it. I’ll be done after this.”

His sharp look doesn’t faze me. “That’s it?”

I feign innocence.

“That’s it.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Believe what you want. I don’t care. I do care whether you trust me.”

“I trust you to do something stupid.”

“That’s a start.”

His voice goes cold with anger, teeth clenched, arms flexing as our friendship gets overridden by his sense of duty.