Thrill Ride (Black Knights Inc. #4)(88)

“Jesus,” Boss ran a hand through his hair. “The Investigator, The Interrogator, and The Cleaner, huh?”

“Yup,” Ozzie nodded. “And I, for one, don’t believe in coincidences. At least not ones this big.”

Neither did Rock.

“Fuck me,” Boss sighed. “So now that we know what piece of shitty psychological mumbo-jumbo started this whole thing, all that’s left to discover is who within The Company ran with it.”

“Yeah,” Ozzie frowned, and a thought occurred to Rock.

“Who wrote the thesis?” he asked.

“Ummm,” Ozzie used his finger to scroll. “Says here it’s a Dr. Donna Ward.”

“Who is she?” he pressed, something scratching at the back of his brain, something he could almost put his finger on.

“Gimme a second,” Ozzie caught his tongue between his teeth, typing frantically. Then he looked up, eyes bright. “She’s married to Governor Ward. He’s one of the politicians Billingsworth was investigating. Holy hell, we’re really onto something here!”

“It’s more than that,” Rock said, his brain absolutely buzzing.

You could have heard a feather drop in the courtyard. Even the distant sounds of police sirens, the subtle trickle of the Chicago River flowing behind the outer wall, and the steady hum of auto traffic on the nearby Kennedy Expressway couldn’t detract from the silence that hung over the entire group.

“What is it,” Boss demanded, staring at Rock’s face, “What the hell do you know?”

“I know who Rwanda Don is.”





Chapter Twenty-three


Eve glanced around the courtyard at the hard faces of the Black Knights, barely believing what she was hearing.

Geez Louise! They were all certifiable. Completely, totally, utterly insane. Of course, she’d begun to suspect as much way back in Costa Rica…

“You guys aren’t really going to confront and interrogate the wife of the governor of West Virginia, are you?” she asked.

But if there was an expression that personified determination, each and every Knight was wearing it.

Okay, so I guess you are really going to confront and interrogate the wife of the governor of West Virginia.

Ozzie frowned at her like maybe she was the crazy one in the bunch. “She’s not just the governor of West Virginia’s wife,” he said. “She’s also Rwanda Don.”

Because, as Rock pointed out, Donna Ward and Rwanda Don were anagrams—which the Knights found too fortuitous to ignore and too coincidental to chalk up to mere chance. Plus, once Rock and that new guy, the friggin’ hit man, began comparing notes and discussing their training, they’d each come to the conclusion that, yes, indeed, come to think of it, Rwanda Don had seemed to use words and phrasing sequences more common in the fairer sex.

Although, for the life of her, Eve couldn’t figure out what those might be. Or perhaps it was the glaring lack of words like dick, cocksucker, and asswipe that led Rock and Mr. Dunn to their conclusions…

And then there was the link between her husband and Billingsworth’s investigation. Just that fast, the ball had started rolling. And Eve could only shake her head in an awed sort of consternation.

“Okay, so how do we get tickets to this thing?” Boss asked Ozzie, who was once again going at his keyboard with the concentration and rhythm of a concert pianist.

And call it fate or kismet or maybe even a touch of old-fashioned luck, but Donna Ward and her husband, friggin’ Governor Ward, were in town, down at the Peninsula Hotel at a Party fundraiser.

And wouldn’t you know? Dear ol’ Daddy was supposed to be attending that same event.

“I, uh,” Eve spoke up, glad, for once, that her family was so well connected. “I could get us tickets. My father is a huge campaign supporter. He could get us in.”

Ozzie glanced up. “All of us?”

“However many tickets you need,” she nodded.

“Remind me to kiss you again,” he winked, then wiggled his eyebrows.

“Try it and you’ll be walking funny for a month,” Billy growled, to which Ozzie made a face and replied, “Touchy, touchy.”

Eve felt the need to shake her head, really quickly, like a dog shaking off water. Who’d have ever thought she’d be involved in all of this?

Not her, that’s for sure. And even though she was scared out of her head, she had to admit there was a little part of her, a part she’d never guessed she possessed, that found it all very exciting.

I mean, come on! I’m about to aid and abet a group of spies in the interrogation of a U.S. governor’s wife!

It didn’t get more James Bond than that. Well, if they’d give her a gun, it’d be more James Bond. Maybe she’d talk to Billy about—

Boss cut into her thoughts. “Okay, then. So how the hell do we get our hands on her? She’s not likely to just come with us. And there will be security at this thing, so it’s not like we can cart her off without drawing an assload of heat.”

“From what I can gather from these political gossip boards,” Ozzie began, and Ghost muttered, “Jesus Christ, political gossip boards? What’s next?”

“Oh, you’d be amazed at all the juice out there on the Internet,” Ozzie wolf-whistled. “I read this one post about the mayor of Newark that’d—”