The Last Invitation (31)
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Gabby
Gabby entered the near-empty coffeehouse a few blocks from the National Portrait Gallery and went straight to the table at the back. She didn’t stop for a drink or say hello. Today was about one thing—making Rob Greene back down.
Rob moved a stack of folders off the table and shoved them into his bag as she got closer. He waited until she’d almost gotten to the table to stand up. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with me.”
“I’m here to warn you.” She didn’t bother to lower her voice. Only a few people lingered thanks to the off-morning hour, but she knew more would pile in the closer they got to lunchtime. She planned to be gone by then. “Don’t go near my daughter again.”
“They got to her.” He shook his head. “This is what I feared.”
“No they. You.” She ignored the comment. “And do you hear me? Stop your games. Never again.”
“They came after you. Just as I predicted. Do you see it now?”
“Stop talking in circles.”
Since yesterday’s big family reveal, and after hours of not being able to get any response from Kennedy except a terse “she’s fine” text from Liam, Gabby was out of patience. She didn’t have much in the way of understanding or mercy either. The man in front of her had screwed with her family, she was certain about that, and he was going to stop, or she was going to cause a scene that would make everyone forget about his invented news sources.
“Whatever happened is a message for you. Subtle but firm. They want you to know they can find out about the secrets you thought you had buried. That they can get to you and the people you care about.” Rob took out a lined yellow legal pad, as if he was going to take notes on this mess.
They, they, they. She wasn’t buying the idea of some secret cabal turning her life upside down. “You did this.”
Some of the feral excitement that had flowed around him at the mention of a possible conspiracy faded. Now he looked concerned. “What exactly happened?”
He dared to sound confused, which cleared the haze off her growing rage. “Pretend ignorance doesn’t suit you. I’m talking about the note you sent to my daughter.”
“Please sit down.” He used his foot to push out the chair across from him.
The few people in the place, including the innocent barista, started looking a little twitchy about her hovering over the table, so she sat. “Fine.”
“I didn’t send anything to your daughter. I don’t even know your daughter.” He leaned in. “Think about it. There’s no reason for me to sneak around and threaten your kid. I came straight to you, just as I’ve gone to others, trying to warn you before it was too late.”
“Other what?” Every word he said dragged her in deeper, but she had to know the endgame here. That was the only way to stop him.
“We shouldn’t discuss this out in the open.”
As if she’d never taken a self-protection class and would just invite some disgraced guy to join her in private. “This is your only choice. Say what you have to say to me here, or I’m leaving.”
“You don’t understand what—”
“You have exactly one shot to convince me what everyone is saying about you is wrong. Choose your conversation topic with care.” That was a lie, which she’d apparently gotten very good at over the years. She needed fodder, evidence to discredit him and protect Kennedy. She needed him to talk and keep talking.
“So that we’re clear, I’ve never faked a story or made up a source. Every piece I’ve written was fact-checked for accuracy. I don’t follow or support wild conspiracy theories.” His whisper grew raspier, more insistent, as he talked. “What’s happening to me now, to my reputation, it’s part of a disinformation campaign about me and my beliefs.”
She wondered if this was what she sounded like when she rambled. “You’re blowing your one shot.”
He grabbed a notebook and held it in front of him. “Several very well-connected, influential people in the metro area, so far only men, have died under questionable circumstances. In all those cases, negative information leaked either before or right after the deaths. Anyone who questioned the manner of death had some part of their lives blow up.”
“That sounds like you’re guessing.” Rambling, actually, but she didn’t want to upset him. Not when she sat this close and didn’t know what he would do.
“If it only happened once, maybe,” he said. “Look at the most recent case. Alex Carlisle. Do you really think he shot himself in the dick then bled out?”
That case seemed to have a new twist every day. But he was connecting dots that didn’t exist. Using generalities and possibilities to invent a case for nothing. “I agree his death sounds—”
“Ridiculous and planned to look that way. Like he was being made to answer in the most obvious way for messing with women he’d paid to have sex with him. Hell, he should have been punished, but by a jury. Not a vigilante group.”
She thought about Alex Carlisle and the very strange way he’d died. His wife insisted he didn’t own a gun, and now this morning’s news talked about her being brought in for questioning, the implication being that the wife had believed the allegations against him and killed him. Almost as if she’d balked at the official story and now she was in trouble.