A Billionaire's Redemption(12)

Although she’d been aware of his horse-trading style, a tiny part of her had hoped he’d had at least some small shred of conscience. That once in a while, he voted on a bill because it was the right thing to do. Instead, she even found an email from him to a junior senator berating the young man for voting with his conscience. Her father’s letter closed with a line declaring that conscience had no place in politics.

Was that why her father had been killed? If only the police could make some headway in identifying her father’s murderer. Maybe she’d be less jumpy at night and sleep better. Even if all they discovered was why he’d been killed, that would be better than this giant black hole hanging over her family.

She clicked on yet another file and scanned through a mind-numbingly dull list of people to pressure into delaying a vote on something or other having to do with oil companies’ right to privacy. It had to do with proposed legislation that would force oil companies to turn over complete lists of the chemical formulas of the liquids they injected into the ground as part of extracting oil and gas from shale rock.

The technique, hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking, involved pumping water and a propriety blend of chemicals underground to break up oil and release it from the rock it permeated.

She clicked on the next email, and started as a bright red screen popped up, warning her that the contents were classified. What had Larry said about that? It had been hours ago and her brain was fried. She pulled out the piece of paper she’d scribbled all her father’s passwords on and tried the main one that he supposedly used for just about everything. It didn’t work. She tried the others, and of course, it was the very last one that caused a new folder to pop up on her screen. It was labeled only Senate CMA.

She clicked on the first file. The letterhead made her frown. Senate Committee on Miscellaneous Affairs? She’d never heard of it. But apparently, her father was a member. She paused in her reading to do an internet search of the term and frowned as a message blinked, “No result matches your search.” It must be some sort of secret committee. She wasn’t so naive as to think that everything Congress did was known to the public.

She went back to reading. The letter outlined a schedule of meetings for the past year. She noted that more than a few of the closed sessions were actually scheduled for late in the evening. What senate committee started meetings at ten o’clock at night, for goodness’ sake?

Alarmed, she opened the next file. This one outlined an operation by...somebody...a group called Excelsior...to infiltrate Mexico and kill the governor of a Mexican state. Stunned, she read it again. That was definitely what she’d just read. Someone who worked for this secret committee was killing government officials of another sovereign nation. Last time she checked her civics textbook, that was illegal!

She opened another folder. This one outlined some sort of mission in the Middle East to fund bombings in a country whose regime she recalled hearing the United States didn’t like. But that was terrorism!

U.S.–sponsored terrorism.

Very afraid, she clicked on the third folder. God only knew what the dozens of remaining folders held. She started to read. Assassination. California. Oh. My. God. Whoever this Excelsior bunch was, they were killing Americans on American soil, too.

Folder after folder gave up its secrets, each more horrifying than the last. For nearly two hours she read about the activities of this secret committee. It created mayhem and death wherever it touched.

Finally, she reached the end of the last file. She leaped up from her father’s desk, pacing in agitation. What was she going to do with this information? She couldn’t just do nothing. But then that stack of paperwork the governor’s assistant had shoved in front of her to sign after the press conference came to mind. Some of it had to do with not revealing classified information. Was she seriously required to keep her mouth shut about this secret committee and whatever it was up to?

She couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t do it. Even if she was prosecuted for revealing classified information, there was no way she would stand by and let something like this go on in her country. Not in her government. Being a United States senator stood for something, and even if she had to throw herself on her sword, she would not sully that institution.

She paused by the French doors opening out onto one side of the back patio. The garden was dark, wreathed in shadows that suddenly looked menacing. The room behind her was dark, lit only by the lamp on her father’s desk, and the night seemed to reach right through the window to wrap her in its cold grasp.

Shivering, she rubbed her arms. And that was when she saw it. Flitting through the garden at the edge of her sight. Something ghostly and gray. She swore under her breath. If that was her father coming back to haunt her, she was going to give him a piece of her mind, all right. He’d had no business condoning the shenanigans of that committee. Miscellaneous Activities, indeed.

There it was again. Except this time it wasn’t an it. That was a person out there. Someone was creeping around in the garden and doing a freakishly good job of blending into the shadows. Stories of hit squads and covert ops teams fresh on her mind, panic ripped through her.

She pressed herself back against the wall beside the window in abrupt fear. Who was out there at this time of night? George, the gardener, went to bed at about nine o’clock, and it was after midnight now. Her mother hadn’t even made it downstairs for dinner, and Louise had the night off. Not that the shadow outside looked even remotely female. The intruder was tall and athletically built from what she’d glimpsed.

Willa crept around the margins of the office, hugging the wall, careful to stay out of the line of sight of the windows. She reached the desk and crouched down behind it as she picked up the phone. Quickly, she dialed 9-1-1.

9-1-1. Please state your emergency.”

This is Willa Merris. There’s an intruder in our back garden. A man.”

I’ll send a unit over to have a look, Miss Merris...err, Senator. I need you to stay in the house. Is there a room you can lock yourself in?”

Yes. My bathroom.”

Go there and lock yourself in. Wait for an officer to call through the door and tell you it’s all clear.”

She hung up the phone and crawled on her hands and knees for the hallway door, staying out of sight of the garden. When she reached the foyer’s cavernous darkness, she climbed to her feet and ran for her life. She flew up the stairs, through her bedroom and into her bathroom. She leaned against the locked door, panting in relief in the dark.

Who on earth was in the garden? A reporter looking for a scoop? Some kid just messing around? Or was it more sinister? Someone out to silence her, perhaps? Except she’d barely been a senator for a single day. And everyone knew the appointment was purely a formality until the election could take place. Oh, God. What if it was James Ward out there? Memory of the madness in his eyes shuddered through her. Had he come to take revenge on her for pressing charges? Or even to kill her?

She waited in an agony of suspense for the police. She looked around her bathroom for something to defend herself with and came up with a toilet brush and a can of hair spray. Not exactly inspiring weapons. The mansion creaked and groaned around her, but she swore she detected the stealthy sounds of someone moving around downstairs. Probably just the police. She held her breath to listen more closely.

The faintest whisper of sound came from the other side of the door, in her bedroom, as if someone was breathing very lightly and very carefully only inches away. She was separated from whoever it was by no more than a thin, wooden panel. Why didn’t the policeman identify himself? The only possible answer froze Willa in place in sheer, dumb terror. Because that wasn’t a policeman.

On cue, the faint scream of a siren became audible in the distance, and grew quickly in volume. The police hadn’t even arrived yet! Whoever belonged to that thread of breath on the other side of her door was not a cop.

Fear for her life roared through her. This went so far beyond any panic she’d ever experienced before, it deserved its own word to describe it. Death-panic, maybe.

Her bedroom floor creaked once as if someone had stepped on a loose board, but then silence reigned. So frightened her legs would no longer bear her weight, she slid down the door to sit on the cold tile floor, huddled in a tight little ball as she squeezed her knees to her chest.

Who’d been out there? What had he wanted? Had she nearly died...or worse?

The police were noisy as they stomped around the back of the house and eventually came inside, calling back and forth to each other and clearing rooms as they went.

Finally, an eternity later, a knock on the door at her back made Willa jump a foot in the air. “Miss Merris? This is Deputy Green. You can come out now.”

Shakily, she pulled herself to her feet and opened the door. She’d never been so glad to see an armed man in her life. “Thank God you’re here. Did you find him?”

Ma’am, we didn’t see any sign of an intruder in the garden. It’s as quiet as a sleeping baby out there. Little windy, though. Are you sure you weren’t just seeing tree branches swaying?”