look at him anymore. He’d really fucked up. Lara was polite to everyone. She couldn’t hold a real grudge to save her life.
He was the exception because he didn’t deserve anything else.
“I don’t know what you’ve got. Dax retrieved the drive from Freddy’s apartment, but Zack would like the explanation from you. If that’s more than you’re willing to give, let me know. I’ll try to figure it out and explain it to him. He really is serious about not using information that was stolen from you.”
“Why? Why not just use what you already have? You paid enough for it. Well, I paid for it.”
She wasn’t going to let up. He’d worried that once she knew who he really was, she wouldn’t want him anymore. He hated being right. “Zack won’t use it.”
Her gaze slid away from his. “He’s not what I thought he was.”
Of course she was talking about Zack and not him. “He’s a good man. I don’t care what anyone else has said or what evidence you’ve collected. He’s good and I’ll prove it.”
“That’s what I meant. I didn’t expect him to back off.”
“He backed off because I care about you.” No matter what, Connor did care. He just wasn’t good enough for her. She was right about that. It just proved she wasn’t as naive as he’d thought.
She leaned over and picked up her dog. “All right. I’ll show him. We’ll see what he has to say after he’s seen what I found.” She walked past him, Lincoln in her arms. “Then you’ll leave?”
“When I’m confident that you’re protected, yes.” He turned to follow her, finally understanding that she might never forgive him.
* * *
What had she done? Lara was spitting-nails angry with Connor, but the look she’d put on his face damn near killed her. The whole ride home she’d let her hurt and anger meld into a toxic mixture. She’d let it roil in her gut and she cried, her tears seeming to fuel her rage.
Then she’d gotten home and everything had been turned upside down.
He’d told his friends he wanted to marry the girl he’d seduced only so he could steal her secrets? His superpowerful friends had been waiting in her home, acting as if they belonged there for the simple reason that Connor cared about her and that meant they accepted her.
Was he serious? Or playing another game? He totally confused her, and she didn’t trust herself to recognize when he was lying to her. She’d proved that attraction and sex only clouded her logic. He knew that and probably wouldn’t hesitate to use it to his advantage.
She stepped out into her living room and set Lincoln down. He immediately wagged and gave a little yip and ran back toward her bedroom, toward Connor. Her dog loved him.
Her dog would just have to get used to being without him. Like she was going to get used to it. She couldn’t trust him again. No way. She would be twelve kinds of fool if she took him back.
Besides, after what she was about to reveal, he would probably hate her anyway. It was obvious Connor had very few weaknesses, but his friends were one of them. She was about to prove to Zack Hayes that he hadn’t been as careful as he should have been.
She stopped before making it to the hallway. This was completely reckless of her. She couldn’t just accuse the president of the United States of killing his wife. What would he do to her? If he’d killed his own wife, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her, too.
She looked back and Connor stood, watching her. Lincoln was trying to get his attention, but he merely stared at her with the same expression she’d seen on his face in the beginning. Bleak and empty.
But for a few days, she’d seen something else on that handsome face. When he’d looked at her, he’d light up.
She’d extinguished that light.
Or it hadn’t been real in the first place and she’d just convinced him to stop pretending.
“How do I know there’s really someone out there trying to kill me?” she asked.
“I think the bullets speak for themselves.”
“Do they? You’re very good at making things up, Connor. How do I know you didn’t concoct this story?”
“The body should be evidence. Would you like to go to the morgue and see it for yourself? She wasn’t an actor.”
“Or you just didn’t mind sacrificing a pawn to make everything look real to me.”
His stare zipped down to Lincoln, but he didn’t stoop to pick the pup up. “Yeah, that sounds like something I would do.”
“So why should I believe you?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He shrugged. “I know the truth and I won’t leave you alone while I think you’re in danger.”
“What if the danger is from your so-called friends?”
His eyes narrowed. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You want me to turn my smoking gun over to them and simply believe there will be no recriminations or backlash. How do I know you haven’t planned this setup all along? Maybe you plotted that, once I gave you the evidence, you’d take me back to your place and make me disappear. You’ve done things like that before, right?”
Her stomach turned even as she forced the words from her mouth. She hated every one of them. Lara knew she should stop poking and pushing him, but something nasty that had never surfaced twitched inside her. She had a terrible need to needle, to punish, to do anything to get him to react. In that moment, she wanted him to hurt as much as she did.
He raised his gaze and she had to force herself not to flinch and take a step back from the pain there. “Yes, I have. I like to kill little fairy princesses. Is that what you want to hear, Lara? You want to make me out to be a monster? I could give you file after file that would prove you right. I’ve got so much blood on my hands I can’t wash them clean, but I’m not going to kill you. In fact, I will never harm a hair on your head. I’m going to protect you, on my terms, on my turf.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you want to know what I’m going to do when I’ve managed to drag you back to my lair?”
She took a shaky breath and prayed he couldn’t tell how much the tone of his voice affected her. “I won’t go anywhere with you.”
“That’s why I said dragged, princess. I’ll do it. I’ll drag you by all that pretty hair if I have to. Do you know what I thought about the first time you took your hair down? I thought I would get caught in it. Like a web. I would touch it just once and then I would be stuck forever because something that beautiful had to be a trap. That’s what you are, Lara. A trap. You’re everything I’ve always wanted and nothing I can have. I knew it in the beginning, but I was already reaching for all that beauty.” He took a step toward her, bringing their bodies so close she felt the heat between them. “When I get you to my house, I’m going to spread your legs and fasten my mouth on your pussy. I’ll eat like a man who knows it’s his last meal. Then I’ll pin you down and have my way with you all night long. And you’re going to let me.”
She shook her head even as she felt her skin sizzle at the image his words produced. “No.”
“You will because you’ll want it one last time, too. Because you know no man is ever going to make you feel the way I do. When you find your handsome, limp-dick, vegan prince, he’ll very politely make love to you and you’ll lie there and let him because you think you should. But you’ll lie underneath him and wish he was me. You’ll dream about my dirty hands on your pristine body. You’ll imagine my mouth on your pussy and that, my love, that will be the only way you’ll be able to come for the rest of your life. So you’ll let me have you because you’ll need one more memory to get you through all those years without me.” He raised a brow at her. “Now go out there and show everyone your evidence, and cling to the hope that you can put me off with your cold stares and nasty words. In the end, you’re just postponing the inevitable.”
Her heart raced as she turned away. He surprised her when he let her escape into the hallway.
She no longer thought it was reckless to show off the evidence she and Freddy had gathered.
Nothing was as reckless as staying in that bedroom with Connor. If he touched her once, she would be a puddle of goo at his feet, very likely begging him to take her with him. She wouldn’t care that he’d lied. She wouldn’t care that she was being a doormat. She would only care about being in his arms again, and she couldn’t allow herself to be so weak.
Lara stalked through the living room where Connor’s rich and superpowerful friends were talking quietly. She heard them murmuring about how worried they were before they caught sight of her and went silent.
She was confused and all she really wanted was to get out of here so she could think, but it didn’t seem likely Connor was going to give her meditation time. No. He seemed determined to hound her until he got everything he wanted from her, even if that meant body and soul.
“Do you have the flash drive?” She looked up at Dax Spencer. He was a massive mountain of pure muscle with an all-American smile that likely got every female heart in a mile radius fluttering. Strangely, she preferred Connor’s dark, brooding beauty to Dax’s sunniness. When had that happened? She’d always gone for the optimistic type before. It was how she’d ended up with Tom.
“Sure. It’s with my laptop.” He dialed down the smile, his eyes turning serious. “You’re going to show him?”
She nodded. “He wants to see it. I can throw it up on the big screen so we all have a good view. Maybe I should pop some corn and turn this into a party.”
Dax scowled. “Hey, this is serious to him. This was his wife. I would appreciate it if you had some concern for what you’re about to do. I know Connor hurt you. We all hurt you, but this is not the Lara Armstrong I’ve been following for days. She would be horrified at your callousness.”
Tears threatened to well. He was right. She wasn’t acting like herself, but she didn’t do disillusion well. “The Lara you’ve been following was a dumb girl. I’ll be smarter now that I’ve learned from the best.”
She shot a look back at Connor, who clenched his jaw. Immediately, she felt bad, then forced the feeling aside. Had he felt guilty when he’d been charming her and kissing her and lying to her? Probably not. Besides, she needed to put distance between them. Otherwise, all he would have to do was kiss her and get her into bed and she would give him everything.
Lara took the thumb drive without another word and retrieved her laptop. Dax’s was probably filled with top-secret stuff. Dax had likely never had to deal with someone stealing all his secrets. Surely Roman had downloaded her computer. He knew how many times she searched the web for puppy-cuddling-baby videos and how many romances she bought for her e-reader. As she set up for her demonstration, she tried not to think about how grim Zachary Hayes seemed or the way Connor had shuttered his dark eyes behind a blank mask.
What kind of man was Zack Hayes? He obviously had the loyalty of the others. He was charismatic and smart. Was he ruthless enough to have his own wife killed so he could win an election?
The screen was supersized on the TV monitor. They all gathered around. Dax apparently had already seen the file they’d put together. He stood in the back beside Connor, arms crossed over his big chest. She saw him reach out and put a hand on Connor’s shoulder as if to offer him comfort.
Had she really hurt him? After hearing the enormity of his betrayal, Lara would have sworn that Connor Sparks didn’t have feelings. But his friends clearly seemed to think he did.
Roman had taken a place next to Zack. Everly and Gabe sat on the love seat, hands entwined. Everly sent a worried look her way, but Lara wasn’t sure what she could say or do except get this heinously awkward meeting out of the way.
“My friend Freddy practically lives in online chat rooms. He specializes in conspiracy theories. He heard one earlier this year that he latched on to. It was about the president’s wife and . . . um, the election.”
“Just say it, Lara. It’s not the first time I’ve heard it,” the president said, his mouth a flat line.
“It was about the fact that you probably won the election because of the sympathy vote.” There it was. She tried to be unemotional, intellectual. That was how she’d get through this. It was one thing to discuss the situation intellectually with her friends and quite another when the man in question was sitting in front of her, his eyes on the screen, his shoulders back as though he was bracing to see something truly terrible.
“Of course. The conjecture began roughly five minutes after Joy died.” His voice was utterly devoid of emotion, but she was fairly certain that was an affectation on his part, a wall he’d had plenty of practice erecting.
Somewhere under all that calm, she sensed the president was actually a ball of emotion. The only question was which one? Fear of being caught? Or genuine pain because he’d lost his wife horribly?
“One of the people on the board said they’d caught something on some news footage that proved the assassin wasn’t after you. Freddy did some digging and this was what he found.”
“But why would anyone want to kill Joy?” Roman asked. “She wasn’t even terribly interested in politics. She was interested in being first lady, but she never tried to influence Zack. She was the perfect political wife.”
“What my best friend is trying to say is that Joy was sweet and everyone loved her. She didn’t have any enemies,” Zack explained.
“But she did have someone stalking her.” Lara pressed a couple of keys, and the footage from the Des Moines rally came up. “This is from three days before Joy Hayes was murdered.”
The screen filled with the image of Zack Hayes walking to the podium. He leaned over and kissed his pretty, dark-haired wife. Joy Hayes beamed up at her husband. She wore a light yellow business suit, the skirt modest and heels conservative. As Zack reached the podium and began his speech, Joy sat beside Roman Calder.
“Since these political rallies are orchestrated down to the second and they’re the same everywhere, I know exactly where in the speech to look.” It wasn’t lost on Lara that both Zack and Roman looked years younger in this tape. There was an openness to Zack’s expression that didn’t exist now. How much of that was the heavy mantle of responsibility and how much was the incident that happened only days later?
“Well, it’s called a stump speech for a reason,” Roman said impatiently. “We can’t possibly write a different speech for every town. Zack visited literally hundreds of places on the road. Of course we treat them all the same.”
“I’m pointing it out because the anomaly happens at the same time every time. He knew when he wanted to take her out. This is the part of the speech where Zack talks about valuing American families.” She glanced back and noticed that Connor was watching the screen intently, gripping the back of her sofa.
She wondered if he’d been there. Roman had been. She didn’t remember Gabe or Maddox from any of the tapes, but she had to wonder if Connor had been lurking in the shadows, providing security. How had it felt to know he failed?
“I don’t see what we’re looking for.” Everly leaned forward, her eyes glued to the screen.
“Watch her suit. It’s coming up.” She always got a chill when she watched this video. All of them, actually. They were a road map that led to this woman’s death.
“What the fuck is that?” Gabe asked, pointing to the screen.
There it was. A little red dot in the middle of Joy Hayes’s chest. Lara paused the file.
“That’s from a scope.” Connor’s voice shook.
Yes, from a long-range rifle. The glowing red mark on Joy Hayes’s chest was faint, but there was no way to mistake it.
“Yes, had she been wearing a darker color, I don’t think the mark would have shown up on film.”
“Joy liked pastels and bright colors,” Zack commented, his voice a forced monotone.
Lara stopped that file and moved on. The real proof was in the sequence. One incident could be brushed off. Three formed an undeniable pattern. “This is from the following day in Wichita, Kansas. I’ll fast-forward to the same part of the st
ump speech.”
She moved the video forward. This time Joy Hayes was wearing a lovely white suit, and the red dot was very clear. It was only for a few seconds and the eye could easily miss it if one weren’t really looking for it. Lara paused and pointed to the screen. “You’ll see this is at the same time in the speech.”
Zack Hayes had gone a pasty white, but his face was perfectly still. “How many times?”
“We’ve found three videos. The three days leading up to the actual act. The assassin set it up carefully and he timed it. He followed your campaign.” She moved on to the final file. Kansas City, Missouri. Joy wore pale blue but the red dot showed up right on time. It hovered over her heart before disappearing. “The next day you went to Memphis and that was the day your wife was killed. She was always the target of the assassin. Not once did he take aim at you. He never meant to kill you. His one and only goal was ensuring that Joy Hayes died and America watched you mourn. Days after, they swept you into office.”
Zack Hayes stood suddenly. “Where’s your bathroom, please?”
She pointed to the small guest bathroom. “Right there. Are you all right?”
He turned and walked away, slamming the door behind him and then came a sound she would never forget.
The president of the United States retching in her bathroom.
“Oh, god. He wasn’t behind it.” That fact hit her like a ton of bricks. She stood and glanced around the room at all the shocked faces. What the hell had she done to that man?