God, she hated lying to him.
“This is lovely. I’ve never actually had tea like this before.” Everly was a beautiful woman with strawberry blonde hair and a smile that Lara would have called mysterious a few days before. Now she recognized it. Everly Parker was well loved and it showed.
She finished pouring and sat on the couch. She’d decided to have tea in the living room because she was fairly certain it would be a while before she could be in the breakfast nook without thinking about how it felt to take Connor into her mouth. She was surprised by how much she’d loved it.
She flushed as she poured her own cup. “My mom used to take me to high tea a couple of times a year. I love the ritual of it. It’s very civilized.”
“I was raised by a cop. I’m afraid civilized wasn’t in my vocabulary for much of my life. My dad was lucky to get me to wash my hair a few times a week when I was a kid.” She smiled as though she truly enjoyed the memory. “I was something of a tomboy.”
“You couldn’t tell now. You look every inch the New York sophisticate.” Lara had been slightly intimidated by the cool, chic woman who had walked into her condo with her gorgeous god of a billionaire on her arm. Everly Parker and Gabriel Bond made a striking couple. He’d come dressed in a tailored suit and he’d shaken hands with both her and Connor before Connor offered to take him out on the balcony so she and Everly could talk.
She’d been a little surprised, but pleased. He trusted her.
She shook her head. “That’s Gabriel’s doing. Well, and his sister’s. Sara took one look at my wardrobe and declared we were going shopping. Bergdorf’s was happy to see us that day.”
“There’s a rumor that Sara Bond is pregnant with Maddox Crawford’s baby. Are you going to be an aunt? I can’t imagine losing a brother, but a baby would be a wonderful balm, I suspect.”
A chill settled in Everly’s previously warm eyes. “There are rumors everywhere. Did you agree to meet with me so you could exploit my fiancé’s sister? I should warn you, I wouldn’t take that well.”
Lara set the teapot down and hoped she hadn’t gone bright red. She didn’t hide embarrassment very well. She took a deep breath and kind of wished Connor was sitting next to her. “So our confidential informant told you about my . . . venture?”
“I know about Capitol Scandals,” Everly affirmed, setting her cup and saucer down. It looked like her very civil meeting was over. “It doesn’t really matter how. I want to know if you’re planning on writing up a nasty story about Sara.”
She was actually really sick of being painted as the villain. “Have you ever read Capitol Scandals? Even once?”
“I’ve seen the site.” The distaste in Everly’s eyes told Lara she didn’t like what she’d seen.
“Have you read a single story?”
“I did read the one about the president’s girth . . .”
Naturally. “Yeah, that was my shining moment. Maybe you should actually read some of the other pieces before you dismiss me. And no, I would never write a story about Sara Bond’s pregnancy. I just thought you should know those rumors are circulating.”
Everly sat back, regarding her cynically. “Why wouldn’t you expose Sara? You write about all kinds of scandals. You wrote about Congressman Johnson’s affair.”
“I publish stories that have political ramifications and even then, I only do so when I believe releasing the information is performing a public service. Revealing the father of Sara Bond’s baby would serve no purpose other than to spew hurtful, salacious gossip. On the other hand, Congressman Johnson was sponsoring a bill that would have made it mandatory for all school-age children to get a vaccine that medical specialists decried as being potentially dangerous. It caused neurological defects in one percent of the test subjects in the clinical trial. The company paid off officials in the FDA. The woman he was having the affair with was on the board of the pharmaceutical company.”
Everly shook her head, her eyes troubled. “How was that not news?”
“Because no one cares until it happens to them. In the corporate world one percent failure is practically a victory, but I met those kids. Their lives are ruined and all their parents got was some cash and a nondisclosure agreement. After Congressman Johnson stepped down, the bill died and the vaccine is now being reevaluated. Is your fiancé’s sister threatening to ruin the lives of a couple thousand children?”
“Of course not.”
“Then she’s safe from my personal brand of evil, Ms. Parker. I brought it up because I’m stupid enough to think talking about your sister-in-law’s pregnancy would be a female-type bonding thing. I was trying to be friends, but I’ll stop that now and get straight to the point. Are you planning on outing me as the owner of Capitol Scandals?”
“No. I came because I need to find out what you know about the circumstances surrounding my brother’s death. Like I said in my e-mail, I was contacted a few weeks ago by a man who said he knew why my brother was murdered.”
“The newspapers claimed it was an accident.”
“I don’t believe that report.” Everly shook her head.
“Do you think someone influenced the FAA to declare it an accident?” Just because it looked like she wasn’t going to find a new friend didn’t mean she couldn’t get some information.
“I know everyone will point the finger at the president or his chief of staff, but I don’t believe Zack or Roman had any real reason to bully anyone into officially changing their findings. They were close to my brother. They would want his killer brought to justice. That said, I don’t necessarily believe the FAA report. My fiancé swears my brother was a good pilot.”
“Do you recognize a company named Harrison Chemicals?”
Everly seemed to ponder that for a second. “I’ve heard the name.”
“It’s a company with a plant roughly two miles east of the spot where your brother’s plane crashed.” She’d been looking into Maddox Crawford’s death since that meeting in Manhattan. This was the first time she’d been able to talk about her findings with anyone who would care. “The FAA report stated that the evidence of an incendiary device in the wreckage was actually a cross-contamination from the plant and its chemicals showing up in the water table. Don’t you find it odd that the EPA has rated that plant as one of the best in the country for years? Just a year before, a local environmental group did a study of the surrounding area and declared the plant to be a model of modern waste management.”
Everly paused. “EPA investigators can be bought.”
“So can FAA investigators, but I’ve found private environmental groups can’t be. This particular group is known for being very hard on corporations. If they say this company is clean, they’re clean. The question becomes who would want to shut down the investigation of your brother’s death? Who benefitted by his crash being an accident instead of murder?” She realized what she’d just said and sat forward. “I wasn’t saying you killed him.”
Everly opened her mouth then shut it with a rueful smile. “Can we start over again? I think we’re both a touch anxious. I’m very protective of my future sister-in-law. She’s been through a lot and the idea of anyone exploiting her makes me very angry.”
“Of course. I can understand that.”
“And I haven’t read your work. If what you say is true, you’ve found a creative way to get the word out. I’m sorry I dismissed your site. I’d like it if we could start over again. It seems like you have a lot of information I don’t. Moneywise, there’s only one person who gained from Mad’s death and that’s my fiancé. But Gabe had no idea he was Mad’s beneficiary.”
“And I’ve heard he’s put everything in trust for the baby.”
“Wow. The rumors really are out there. Yes, that’s correct. He’s actually going to turn Crawford Industries over to Sara when the time is right. Gabriel had no reason to kill Mad. He wanted my brother alive so he could be a father to Sara’s child. My turn to ask a question. Why were you bidding on Na
talia Kuilikov’s diary?”
“Bidding on what?”
Everly watched her closely. “I heard about an auction on the Deep Web. Supposedly Capitol Scandals was a major player in it.”
Lara felt her jaw drop. Disbelief spread through her. “I had never heard the name Natalia Kuilikov until a few weeks ago, and I certainly didn’t get into a bidding war over her diary.”
“Someone claiming to be a rep from your site was bidding hard.”
“I am the whole site. I know what the Deep Web is but I didn’t have an invitation to anything like that. It would be easy to pretend to be me.” After the Niall debacle, she knew well that a person on the Internet could say whatever they wanted. “The question is why would they pretend to be me?”
“And why would Deep Throat contact you? Of all the journalists and bloggers in the country, why you? Unless it’s a little like that environmental group. Maybe he chose you because he doesn’t think you can be bought or intimidated. He contacted me because he knew I would do anything to solve my brother’s murder. And then he suggested I contact you. So here we are, two women with nothing in common except him, from what I can tell.”
She had a confession to make. “I met your brother a few times.”
“You did?”
Lara winced. “I might have been the one who brought the problems with his Third World manufacturers to light.”
Everly’s eyes lit up. “Are you the one who sent fifty pounds of rotted rice to his office?”
Put like that it sounded terrible, but she’d learned it took a lot to get someone’s attention. “That’s what the factory was feeding the employees. And they were forcing them to work eighteen-hour shifts without breaks.”
Everly smiled. “Oh, he liked you. You’ve got to understand. My brother, for all his foibles, truly appreciated passion. He talked about that prank a lot. He was really impressed with how you managed to suppress that smell until he got the package open.”
“He didn’t seem all that happy when he spoke to me later that afternoon.” He’d yelled quite a bit.
“Maybe not, but he shut down that factory very quickly and opened a new facility even though it cost Crawford millions. And what almost no one knows is that he used his own money to set up an education fund for the village. My brother believed in capitalism, but he had a heart and sense of fairness. He might have been pissed that day, but he thanked you later on because he hadn’t known how the factory was being run. His father had set up that whole system and Mad eventually dismantled it. He told Gabe that he was doing a tour of Thai brothels, but I found out he’d been investigating the factories and making sure they’d cleaned up their acts. I can’t believe you’re Rotten Rice Fucker.” She blushed a little. “His name for you, not mine.”
Lara had to laugh. She really had tried to get his attention by sending e-mails and letters. He’d been a busy man, so she’d resorted to something slightly crazy. She felt good knowing he’d done the right thing in the end. That made her feel good, yet worse about his death. Many men in his position wouldn’t have cared and simply let the abuse continue.
“Someone wanted the two of us to put our heads together,” Lara observed.
“I think you’re right. Let’s figure it out.”
Despite the uncomfortable start of their meeting, she was beginning to relax around Everly. If she was going to get the other woman to talk, she would have to offer her something. “I have a theory about Natalia Kuilikov. I think she’s tied in with the president. I learned that she actually worked for Zack Hayes’s father as a domestic caregiver when he was the ambassador to Russia. Since the woman began working for the family shortly before President Hayes was born until the family returned to the States, it’s very likely she was one of the current president’s nannies.”
“Are you sure you didn’t win the diary in that auction?”
Lara sat forward, her heart starting to race. “There’s really a diary out there?”
“Yes. I’ve read it but it doesn’t tell me much more than the fact that she really loved Zack as a baby and she had high hopes for him. She was married herself, but she lost a baby and she couldn’t seem to get over it. She seems to have put all her love into caring for Zack.”
“Do you think she had an affair with the ambassador?”
Everly shrugged. “I don’t know. I know she was trained at a girls’ school, one created and run by the same human trafficking ring that was exposed a few weeks back. My brother found Natalia’s diary somewhere at some point in the past. Someone killed him for it. I have to know why. I have to figure out the reason this woman is so important.”
“Even if it means potentially hurting one of your fiancé’s friends?”
“Are you talking about Zack? I’ve talked to him about it. He doesn’t know anything more than we do. He remembers her from his childhood. He called her Nata and she was more of a mother to him than his own. Apparently Constance Hayes really liked to drink.”
She’d died in a car accident nine years before. The official report was that the roads had been slick. But Lara had heard the woman had a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit.
She had to point out the ramifications to Everly. “If Natalia came from one of those schools, you must know what that means. The press would go wild if the president was raised by a sex slave. It could ruin his father’s legacy.”
Everly shook her head. “I think you’ll find Zack has a healthy attitude when it comes to his father. He kind of hated the bastard, so he’s not terribly concerned with old Frank’s legacy. If the story comes out, he makes a big push to end human trafficking in honor of his beloved nanny and everyone moves on. It’s a flash-in-the-pan story.”
It was hard to get used to the fact that she was sitting with a woman who called POTUS Zack, like being on a first-name basis with the president was no big deal.
“Unless Natalia knows where the skeletons are buried. Then it’s possible that parts of her diary become a best-selling exposé of the whole Hayes family.” Lara didn’t see any other way this journal of the family’s former domestic servant became a moneymaker, and even she wasn’t too idealistic to realize that everything came down to cash. None of this would be happening if someone, somewhere couldn’t make money.
“If she has a story, it could be worth a lot,” Everly said cautiously.
“Yes, it could.”
“But you don’t care about that.”
“No, I don’t care about the money. I care about making sure no other woman gets sold. I do what I do to help make the world a better place. That is all I’m concerned with.”
“I believe you.” Everly leaned forward and picked up one of her cucumber sandwiches. “I think we can work together. For some reason our informant want us to, but that doesn’t mean we’re not calling the shots. I know we started rough, but let’s keep our lines of communication open and see what happens. We don’t have to play by this guy’s rules.”
“As long as you understand that my only concern is helping people. If the president has done something that would harm his ability to serve the American public, I would use this information to take him down.”
“I know Zack. Whoever is running this show might be trying to implicate and harm him, but I assure you he’s a good man.”
But Lara knew something Everly didn’t. She’d seen those tapes. She would have to use them at a later date to make her case, but since she couldn’t get her hands on them now, this wasn’t the time. Instead, she’d try to form some sort of bond with this woman since they’d been thrown together. It was time to take a risk.
“I’m meeting with him tonight,” Lara admitted.
Everly’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”
“Yes, but I hope he gives me some direction on how to find Natalia. When was the last time he contacted you?”
“Weeks ago. It’s why I wrote to you. I’ve had no further communication with him and he didn’t exactly leave me any way to contact him. You’re my only l
ead, but I think we could become partners. I’ll share information with you, Lara. I know you don’t have any reason to believe me, but I promise that I will be your partner in this.”
She could really use a partner. “I won’t ask much of you. Just don’t tell my boyfriend. I’m still hoping I can figure out a way to make the meeting tonight without him.”
She’d agreed to keep Connor’s cover with everyone who didn’t know otherwise, so she hadn’t referred to him as a bodyguard. Besides, after the last twenty-four hours, it was a lot easier to think of him as more than someone her dad was paying. He was her lover.
“That Connor guy is your boyfriend?” Everly looked toward the balcony. “He seems a little protective.”
“Yes, but if I don’t show up tonight alone, I’ll miss the chance to find out whatever the informant knows.”
Everly went silent for a moment. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Do you care about this guy?”
“Yes. I really do, but he won’t understand. He won’t let me go and if this informant even sniffs I’ve got someone watching, he’ll leave and I’m worried he won’t contact me again.”
Everly took a long sip of tea. “He hasn’t contacted me since it became very apparent I’m with Gabriel. I understand the whole protective boyfriend thing. Wait until you’ve got a ring on your finger and see how protective these guys can be. I mean guys like them. Your Connor strikes me as being somewhat like my Gabriel. Oh, they might not dress the same, but underneath that thin veneer of civilization lies the heart of a true caveman. He would love to drag me back to his beautifully decorated cave and keep me there.”