Page 87 of Swerve
“Emory, I don’t have the answer from here. We’re following a trail of breadcrumbs, and the only way I can determine whether what we’ve found has anything to do with Mia is for me to follow it through to a conclusion. Do you want me to call an Uber for you to go back to the city?”
“No,” she says abruptly. “I’m not going anywhere until I know what you’ve found.”
“Okay, but I need to come up with a plan first.”
“To do what?”
“Get inside that elevator.”
“How did they get in?”
“The woman had a remote control.”
Emory stares out the windshield for a moment, silent, and then, “Think she might have a second one in her office?”
“It’s possible.”
“So how do we get in her office?”
“You sure you’re up for that?”
“I’m positive.”
“The young woman at the front desk. Let’s see what we can find out from her. If it looks like I’m getting somewhere, you say you’re going to the ladies room, and you’ll be right back.”
“Should I ask what you have in mind?”
“Probably not.”
The Proprietor
“Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure;
seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.”
?Jane Austen
SHE STARES AT the senator, fury blazing from her eyes. The elevator has delivered them to the hidden bunker of the hotel. The younger senator can barely stand.
“I have no idea what you think you are doing, Senator Hagan, but do you have any idea what you have risked here tonight?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, looking at her with a confidence that belies his words. “He had a little too much to drink.”
“This looks like more than overindulging on wine.”
“May I be honest with you?”
“I recommend it.”
“There’s something I need Senator Arrington to do regarding an upcoming vote. He hasn’t responded to the normal leverage I like to employ. I believe a video clip of him with the date you’ve set up for him would change his mind.”
She stares at him for several long seconds, aware that he is struggling to hold Arrington up now. Her fury has turned to steel, and her mind scrolls through her options like a computer searching through code. With a single photo released on Twitter, she could ruin him. But the game plays both ways. She can see his awareness of this in the way he holds her gaze. They are two predators sizing each other up, weighing the reality of whose weapon will inflict the most damage.
She steps back, pulls a set of keys from her jacket pocket. “This way,” she says, aware that he thinks he has won. The battle, maybe. But not the war.
Mia
“No one will come and save you. No one will come riding on a white horse
