Page 19 of Midnight Secrets

PORTLAND

Isabel Delvaux?

Well, fuck.

The Delvauxs were American aristocracy. Joe knew about them but not enough to know individual members. He knew that the family was political, with many members involved in environmentalism. Another couple of kids were involved in movies. The older generation was powerful. Alex Delvaux—Isabel’sfather—had been talked about as the next president of the United States.

“Fuck me,” he said. “She’s rich and powerful.”

“No,” Felicity said. “Not anymore. Not the woman I saw. She’s been reduced to rubble.”

Felicity walked back into the kitchen to the big pan she’d set on the counter. Some amazing smells were coming from it. Joe lifted the aluminum and took a deep breath. “Wow. Big spaghetti.”

“Baked ziti, you barbarian,” Metal answered affectionately. “Are we going to get to eat this, too? I mean, after the boeuf bourguignon this seems almost too much.” He closed his eyes and took in the amazing aroma, too. “Ah, a woman who cooks.” Felicity shot an elbow to his ribs. “What? This is amazing stuff.”

“I cook,” Felicity protested.

Wisely, Metal kept his mouth shut. His fiancée was beautiful and super smart and scary good with IT. Her few stabs at cooking had practically landed them in the hospital. The only thing she cooked well was takeout.

“Isabel said to put this in the freezer, take it out an hour before you want to serve it and put it in the oven at 375 degrees for forty minutes and let it set for about a quarter of an hour before your guests arrive. I can’t believe you get to eat like this.”

“Hey.” Metal cocked his head. “I cook.”

She smiled smugly. “Not like this you don’t.” She turned to look at Joe. He probably still looked stunned.

Isabel, a Delvaux.

He’d been thinking that when she got better they could go out. Well, actually he’d been thinking more along the lines of when she got better they could have sex. A lot.

That seemed pretty foolish now. What would a Delvaux want with a beat-up former soldier?

“She’s rich and famous,” he said again. No use beating around the bush with Metal and Felicity. Metal knew him way too well and Felicity…well, she’d become one of the guys.

“No,” Felicity said crisply. “She’s not. I told you that. She’s a woman alone. Sit down.”

Joe raised his eyebrows.

“I’ve learned to just obey her,” Metal said. “Makes things easier.”

Joe sat down.

“So, Joe, what do you know about the Washington Massacre?” Felicity asked. “It happened while you were in the hospital between your third and fourth surgery so I imagine you read about it after the fact.”

“The Washington Massacre.” Joe lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “Okay. When it happened I was in ICU. I didn’t even hear about it until a couple of weeks after. Still, I think I know what everyone knows. Terrorist attack. Killed almost a thousand people. The electricity grid was attacked too so there was a three-day blackout.”

“Those people who were killed included Isabel’s entire family. Parents, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins. It was a close-knit extended family by all accounts, and they were wiped out. All of them, except her.”

“Shit.” Joe turned to Metal. “Al Qaeda was responsible, right? It was another 9/11, on a slightly smaller scale.”

“Nobody really knows who was responsible.” Metal bounced a fist off his knee. “There were very few survivors. Isabel was one, though I never thought to make the connection. Word was she was in a coma for a while and as far as I know, was never interviewed afterward.”

“It was bad for us, wasn’t it?” he asked Metal.

“The worst.” Metal held up a hand and ticked off the points on his fingers. “First—this was an attack on a gathering of the president’s political party, meeting at the hotel closest to the White House. Practically on the White House’s doorstep. The attack occurred during an event celebrating the announcement of a presidential run by a scion one of America’s top political families. In effect, it took out the man who would probably have been president in a year and a half. The closest thing possible to a presidential assassination without being a presidential assassination. And it took out a good section of the nation’s political elite. There were a lot of undersecretaries and heads of agencies and political journalists. And then the blackout. That scared the shit out of everybody. Images of a dark Washington, DC in the moonlight spooked the entire country. Looked like what would happen after the zombie apocalypse.”

“You think they calculated that? The photo op?”

Metal shot him a shrewd glance. “Yeah. One photo especially was seen all over the world.”

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