Page 6 of Queen of Ruin

“Fuck,” he says, closing the envelope as if to keep the secrets from making their way out, and I feel vindicated for my initial reaction. “He was a client?”

I take the envelope and stuff it back into the inside pocket of my jacket.

“No, these were taken four years ago. She was a student, and my father was giving a speech at her university. She said nothing happened.”

“Do you believe her?” The photos are damning without context, but that’s the problem with photos – they’re up to the interpretation of the viewer.

“Bailey was there when they met and attests to the fact that he drove my father back to his hotel alone.”

“That’s not what I asked,” he questions.

“I wanted to believe her,” I admit, peering over at Alistair and pressing my lips tight together. “But it’s this part of me,” I gesture to the monument, “that needs the facts.”

I lean my forearms on my thighs and run my hands through my hair. The cold marble seeps through my jeans causing a chill to run along my spine, goosebumps forming on my arms and legs.

Sometimes we want to know things that we really shouldn’t. Seeing the pictures – my father holding a strand of her wheat-colored hair between his fingers – the same hair I’d run my hands through, pressed my face against – was all too much. I can’t get the image out of my head; the profile of her full, parted lips, the way her eyes are slightly closed, the shadow of her long lashes cresting the tops of her cheeks. I shake the thought from my mind, the one that has invaded and taken hold of me ever since I saw the photo. It’s not that she seems to have my father captivated, but that she is looking at him in a way that she would never look at me.

Am I so fucked up that I’m jealous of a dead man?

“Who gave those to you?” Alistair’s question breaks through my thoughts, and I raise an eyebrow at him. “Rausch?” He gives a dark laugh.

“I know he’s pissed that you circumvented the will, but now that it’s done, what does it matter to him?”

“Other than to gloat that he was right about marrying her?” I scoff. “I’m not worried about that.” I shake my head. “It’s who he got the photos from that I’m worried about.”

“If the press had gotten ahold of them…” Alistair doesn’t finish his sentence, but he doesn’t have to. This would be a huge scandal, whether it was an innocent interaction or not. Politics runs on perception, not to mention the media storm that would descend on Evangeline.

Even though I’m angry, I wouldn’t wish that upon her or the destruction of my parents’ reputation.

“Someone’s had these for four years, Alistair,” I point out, my voice sounding grave with the weight of it. “I have a feeling it was Langley.”

“But what would he have to gain from that?” Alistair asks. “Rumor around Washington was that he was going to be your father’s first pick as a running mate.”

Something my father taught me – Presidential elections aren’t won in the final hour. Presidents are made decades before they even run.

“Do you have any idea how my life would have been if my father ran for President?”

Alistair offers me a small smile.

“I’m a selfish prick, I already know this.”

“Maybe you and Lincoln have something in common.”

I laugh at the absurdity.

“You’re both human.”

Alistair stands, as do I. “How did you even know I was here?”

He chuckles, giving me a sideways smile. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you so I went to the house. I thought you’d taken off to Atlantic City or somewhere fun without me,” he continues. “I would have been pissed, because yes, I have a job, but that doesn’t mean I’m dead in the water,” Alistair continues, sounding offended.

“Does your boss hold this same sentiment?”

Alistair’s smile turns into that of a Cheshire Cat, and I shake my head.

“Jesus, are you fucking your boss?”

“Not yet,” he raises a conspiratorial eyebrow. “But I have her wrapped around my finger.”

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