~~~~~~~~
The apartment was dark, quiet, and empty when Kyle got home from the shop that evening. That wasn’t an entirely unusual occurrence. Anna often worked late these days. There had been a time (in the months directly after their parents had died) that she never let him be alone. If he wasn’t at school or a carefully selected activity, then she was with him. It had been an odd combination of comfort and smothering, and he was glad that they were both better enough to move beyond it. They had gradually settled into a more “normal” pattern of living – one where they had both gained their composure enough that they trusted that they wouldn’t disappear if let out of each other’s sight. Still, there had been a time when he had known that she would never leave him on his own for dinner. It had been their decompression time. Whether or not they would see each other for dinner these days was something he could no longer predict.
Ever since Connor Ridley had stepped out of his upper level office and taken notice of his sister’s work, there had been a lot more late nights. Partly, Kyle suspected because Connor had developed a nasty habit of appearing on their doorstep whenever Anna wasn’t at the office, and Anna, for whatever reason, wanted Kyle kept in the dark about what it was that they were doing. All that had really managed to accomplish was to make Kyle wonder what was up with all the secrecy. Anyone else would have suspected that there was something beyond business going on between the two of them, but Kyle had seen them together enough to know that both of them were completely focused on whatever the mysterious project that Anna was working on was.
Ever since he had confronted the two of them (he preferred to think of it as an intervention) and gotten permission to make an attempt at befriending Lia Lawson, Anna had enacted a strict no Connor in their home policy. She wasn’t happy, and she had blocked Connor from giving him any further information. Connor had stayed away (he had enough sense, apparently, to not push Anna when she was in one of her moods), but he had called her so often that Anna had responded by turning off her cell phone two days previously. What Connor could possibly have to say to her when she left for work before Kyle got up for school in the morning and often got home at eight or nine, he had no idea. It just served to reinforce his previous idea that they didn’t want anyone at work to know what they were up to either. This “project” of Anna’s wasn’t getting any less mysterious despite his tangential inclusion.
He didn’t know what it all had to do with the Lawson family, but this home to himself time would give him an excellent opportunity to do a little bit of digging. It made him relax a little that no one had been waiting to give him the third degree about his meeting with Lia. It couldn’t be that important if they weren’t waiting to pounce on him as soon as he got off shift, right? He wasn’t nervous any longer. He was just curious.
He figured he would start with Lia’s father and work his way out from there. After all, he knew that Ridley Resources dealt with government contracts upon occasion and that made Senator Lawson the obvious person that Connor would be trying to find something out about in this situation.
An hour later, Kyle was pondering the implications of the current muddle that was Ridley Resources, Lia Lawson’s older sister, and Walsh Industrial Solutions. It was amazing what you could turn up with some simple name searches -- even old engagement announcements. That explained Connor’s insistence that he couldn’t be the one to approach Lia despite her fan status because of “history with the family.” At first glance, it looked like some sort of bad personal history grudge carrying over, but he knew that Anna wouldn’t be helping Connor with whatever it was if things were that simple. Plus, he didn’t really think Connor was like that. He seemed like a nicer guy than that despite Kyle’s limited interactions with him and his dogged determination to keep bringing whatever “it” was home to the McKees’ doorstep.
His introspections were interrupted when Anna’s door cam screen popped to life with a beep as someone set off the motion detectors. Kyle closed out the windows he was viewing on his own laptop and went to let the waiting Connor into the apartment. He found himself wondering if Connor had deliberately made sure that Anna wouldn’t be home for this conference.
“What have you got?” The man asked as soon as the door clicked closed behind him.
“You mean besides the everlasting shame of knowing how bad I am at being covert?” Kyle quipped in response to the nervous tension that had entered his home with the other man.
“Yeah, we’ll skip over that part for now.” If Connor had sensed the humor Kyle was trying to convey, he had opted to ignore it. Kyle tried a different track. He had thought that he was going to get to bypass an interrogation tonight.
“Yes, Kyle, your sister is fine and will be home soon. We should start on dinner so it’s ready when she gets here.” He offered in a weak attempt at imitating Connor’s voice. Connor merely stared at him with an unamused, expectant expression for a few long, uncomfortable moments before Kyle caved. An interrogation it was going to be. That was unfortunate since there was only minimal information which could be interrogated out of him.
“I got an exchange of names,” he offered with a sigh.
“That’s it?” He had expected a little bit of disappointment. He wasn’t prepared for the tone in Connor’s voice that implied that something vitally important had been smashed into pieces right in front of him.
“You don’t need to sound like I ran over your puppy you know,” Kyle told him feeling a little bit defensive. It hadn’t been the smoothly stellar introduction that he had planned out in his head, but it hadn’t ended in complete disaster. It wasn’t like Connor should have expected her to plop down and tell him all her family secrets four minutes after they officially met. “What did you think was going to happen the first time I talked to her?”
“Look, your sister was right,” Connor replied (without really replying) shaking his head. “I shouldn’t have let you get involved in this. Forget it. I’ll figure something else out.”
“This isn’t just as simple as you trying to figure out why they’re interested in your family’s company is it?” He tried thinking that if Connor knew that he knew some of it he might be more inclined to spill the rest.
“I said forget it,” Connor reiterated more adamantly this time. “Don’t worry about it, don’t think about it, and don’t ask your sister questions.”
“Yeah, you’re nearly as bad at trying to discourage people’s curiosity as I am at being covert.” Kyle retorted annoyed with the high handedness of the command. Connor’s shoulders slumped. For the first time, Kyle realized just how tired he looked. How had he not noticed the circles under the man’s eyes before?
“I can’t answer all of your questions, Kyle,” his voice had gone soft -- almost as if he was pleading for Kyle to just give in and not make him fight another battle. He looked like he had been fighting a lot of them lately, and they didn’t seem to have been going well. “And it isn’t fair to expect you to understand how serious this is without giving you reasons. We . . . I got carried away with what looked like an easy way out, and I didn’t think things through.”
“Slow up there,” Kyle interrupted when it looked like Connor was going to continue on in the same vein. He found himself feeling sorry for the man with his weight of the world on his shoulders demeanor, but it didn’t derail his intention to stick this out and figure out what was happening. If whatever it was was going as badly as Connor’s looks would imply, then he and Anna needed whatever help that they could get. “What’s got you all freaked out? You can’t just snap your fingers and be friends with someone -- even if you’re faking the friend part.” Kyle felt a slight twinge of guilt there, but he shoved it to the side. He wasn’t going to deal with that at the moment. “You have to build from somewhere. Give me some time.”
“Did you hear anything I just said?” He sounded so tired. Was that why Anna had been ditching the apartment so much lately? Di
d she look just as worried and hadn’t wanted him to see?
“I already know something is going on,” he insisted. “And I’m pretty sure it’s something bigger than I thought. You can’t just ask me to pretend I don’t know things that I already know, you know?”
“I’m disturbed that I could actually comprehend that sentence,” Connor replied with the barest ghost of a smile disappearing as quickly as it had come. “It doesn’t change the fact that I shouldn’t have involved you in the first place.”
“See now,” Kyle told him thinking that it was a little late for that. “That sounds like Anna talking.”
“We did have words,” the older man admitted.
“More like Anna had words while you cowered,” Kyle countered. He took in Connor’s surprised expression and almost (almost) chuckled. “What?” He asked. “I don’t care if you are kind of sort of her boss. I know my sister. And I know my sister in overprotective mode when it comes to me.”
“It’s not just me?” Connor sounded genuinely interested in this revelation and maybe a little bit relieved. Kyle couldn’t be sure; he still didn’t know him that well.
“Nope,” he supplied in response.
“That doesn’t change the fact that she was right to want to keep you out of this,” Connor told him. “I would have kept her out of it if there had been any possible way to make that happen. There wasn’t. You, on the other hand, I could have done a better job of keeping out of the way.”
“That would probably make sense if I had any idea what was going on,” Kyle admitted. “Well, more of an idea.”
“You’ve been researching, haven’t you?” Underneath the initial reproach of the tone, Kyle thought he detected a faint bit of amusement. He wasn’t going to feel guilty about his digging -- as he had pointed out to Connor in the beginning, Connor was the one who had dropped this into his living room. It wasn’t fair or even reasonable for him to expect a lack of curiosity.
“You’ve spent how much time with my family, and you’re still asking that question?” Connor had to know Anna better than that, and he couldn’t have counted on that much of a difference in the siblings.
“Keeping this quiet was out of the question the first time I walked through that apartment door, wasn’t it?” Connor asked with a resigned sounding sigh. He was pleased to see that the man was finally getting with the program.
“Pretty much.”
“I’m not trying to be mysterious just to be mysterious,” Connor told him. Kyle wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be reassuring or not. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t already figured that out on his own.
“I kind of figured, but that’s good to know.”
“Why are you so willing to help without knowing what’s happening?” The man sounded genuinely curious. “You shouldn’t be so trusting. I could be the bad guy in this; you wouldn’t have any way of knowing the difference.”
“Should I be insulted on my sister’s behalf?” Kyle questioned wondering where exactly Connor was trying to go with his observation.
“I could have tricked her. I could have exerted undue influence,” he challenged. “I am her boss.”
“Anna trusts you,” Kyle explained hoping that his tone conveyed what exactly that meant. “She doesn’t always like you, but she trusts you.”
“I’m not sure whether I should be insulted by that or not.”
“I think you should stop stalling,” Kyle countered.
“I think you should take the out I’m giving you.” That was supposed to be an out? Connor was really bad at this.
“You think trying to convince me that you might be a criminal mastermind that has my sister under his control is an out?” For once, he was very sure that his facial expression was conveying exactly what he wanted it to -- patent disbelief.
“That’s a good point,” Connor looked as if he was pondering something. “People skills aren’t really my thing.” Perhaps not so strangely given the way Connor kept risking Anna’s ire by invading their home, Kyle didn’t have any trouble believing that.
“Look,” he offered. “I’ll make this very easy for you. Is a connection to Lia vital to making whatever you’re doing work?” Connor paused. Kyle appreciated that he was taking his question seriously. He had no illusions, however, about the fact that part of Connor’s pause was being spent determining just how little he could get away with sharing.
“There’s another potential possibility,” he said slowly as if his thoughts had gone wool gathering. “But I’ll be the first to admit that it isn’t going well.”
“So, how about we start with a way you may be able to help the Lia situation move forward?” Kyle had attempted to ask his question as casually as possible, but Connor was clearly not in a casual kind of mood. His eyes narrowed, and he studied Kyle with a look that he definitely would classify as suspicious.
“I thought you only got an exchange of names?”
“Well,” Kyle told him hoping that his idea wasn’t met with complete dismissal. “That depends on what kind of connections you have.”