Page 49 of Kiss Me Now
Chapter Seventeen
Ian
My eyes flickered towardmy phone as it vibrated. I normally never checked it when I was in a meeting with a partner, but I’d been half-expecting a text or something from Brooke once she saw the flowers. But the screen showed Gran was calling, and I sent it to voicemail. I’d call her back when the meeting was done.
Keep your mind in the game, dude.The stern talking-to only sort of helped. I tried again to focus on what Don Schill was saying.
“This will be delicate,” the older man said. “But if there’s a sitting senator with skeletons in his closet, he deserves to be exposed.”
I nodded. “Isn’t there always a senator with skeletons in his closet?”
“Fair point. But usually they’re shoved so far back that we can’t get to them. This time, my gut says we’ll find something.”
Normally, this would be when the partner who called me in would give some disclaimer about how our sometimes shady work was doing a greater good. One of the things I liked about Don Schill was that he didn’t try to dress up his motives.
“Rink is a particular lowlife, and it’ll give me great pleasure to bring him down. But also, it’ll make us a ton of money,” Schill concluded.
“We’re going after Rink?” I repeated. Schill hadn’t mentioned the specific senator before, but I wasn’t surprised to hear Rink’s name. I’d gone pretty far out of my way to plant some information with a lobbying firm that wanted to block a tech regulation bill Rink was sponsoring.
“Yeah, it’s Rink,” Don confirmed. “Slippery devil, but I’ve got faith in you. Can you handle it?”
I gave a grim nod. “If there’s something to find, I’ll find it.”
“All right, then. Here’s what the client has given us so far. I’d like end-of-day reports starting tomorrow, no paper trail.”
“You got it, sir.” I scooped up the folder and returned to my desk. I didn’t have to look at the file to know Rink was dirty. Whatever Rink’s dealings with Brooke had been, he’d been entirely in the wrong. A couple of mornings spent with Brooke doing home renovations were enough to convince me of that. Now that I could see past the suspicion Gran had planted, it was clear that Brooke was a woman of character.
It reminded me that I owed Gran a return call.
“You’ve stepped in it now,” she said as soon as she answered.
“Uh, what?”
“Brooke is one of the most sensible young people I’ve ever known but she has one unfortunate weakness: an irrational fear of spiders.”
I held the phone away from my ear for a second to study it, as if that would somehow make more sense of Gran’s words.
“Gran, I feel like you’re starting a story in the middle. Can you back up a bit?”
“Those flowers you sent her,” Gran said. “They were a thoughtful touch except for the part where they were full of spiders. And Brooke hates spiders.”
A sinking feeling struck my stomach. “I definitely didn’t order spider-filled flowers. Is she okay?”
“I expect so, but I’m not certain,” Gran said. “I didn’t hear this from her. I don’t think she’ll even be home for a few more hours. But I asked Nancy, the attendance clerk, to keep an eye on Brooke for me. She’s the one that dropped the flowers in her room for you. Word is all over campus that there was an unfortunate spider incident in Ms. Spencer’s third period class, and that she walked all the way to the other end of campus to throw out a bouquet of flowers. So I’m guessing she either really hates you, or the flowers you sent her were the source of the spiders.”
I groaned. “I can’t get it right with this woman.”
“Interesting that you keep trying,” Gran said, her tone sly. “Why is that?”
“Because you did such a scarily good job of convincing me that she was a scammer that I haven’t been able to apologize enough to her since!”
“And that’s important to you?” Her tone was still sly.
I declined to answer.
