Pandora's Box (12 page)

Darkness had covered
Washington
over an hour ago, and she’d gone straight to the diner after leaving the White House.
 
She needed time to put the clues together, time to outline an agenda, time to decompress.
 
Her usually calm emotional state had become frazzled.
 
She wasn’t sure how much more she could take without cracking.
 

The sound of a wooden chair being dragged from her table brought her chin up sharply.
 
She looked just in time to see
Tyler
placing his bulky form in the small wooden chair.
 
He scooted it closer to the table and forced a smile that didn’t seem real.
 
Although she had to admit, even a fake smile looked good on
Tyler
.

“I can’t believe you went running to my father,” he said.
 
“That was so junior high.
 
Next time you have a problem with me, tell me.”

He caught the attention of a passing waitress, ordered a black coffee with a cheeky grin, and then dropped it the second she walked away.
 
“I wouldn’t have to follow you if you would work with me.
 
I have a feeling we each have an important piece of the puzzle.
 
Maybe if we shared them, we wouldn’t be stumbling around in the dark like a couple of idiots.”

He could have a point.
 

Madison
waved a hand for him to continue.

“Let me tell you a little story,” he said.
 

He placed a small black and white headshot of her father in front of her.
 
She stared at it, afraid to reach out and touch it no matter how much she wanted to.
 
Instinct told her she couldn’t afford to show weakness at this moment.
 
Not in front of
Tyler
.
 
He hadn’t proved whose side he was on yet.

Tyler
put a similar photo beside the first, this one of his father.
 
He carefully arranged them, laying them in a straight line with a mere half inch between them.
 
He quickly added two more.
 
She recognized the men in these photos as well.
 
They had been friends with her father and mother, almost like family, joining them for dinners and parties at their house when she was very young.
 
Dr. Elias Grainger and Rico Boracci.

Before she could ask
Tyler
a single question, he began the story.

“Once upon a time these four boys went off to a prestigious university, each of them filled with ambition and that ambition was their one common denominator.
 
A gangster’s son, a genius, the next generation in a long line of politicians, and the offspring of hippies who just wanted to save the world.
 
They joined a fraternity together and somehow they managed to intimidate everyone they came across from fellow students to the top heavyweights of the school.”

The son of hippies had been her father.
 
She’d seen the picture worn from time of her grandparents, but her father had refused to talk about them.
 
She had gotten the feeling that her father had been embarrassed by them.
  

Tyler
added, “After the boys graduated, they kept in close touch.
 
In fact, once a month they got together at your father’s house here in town.
 
Quite a feat, considering they all lived outside of
Washington
at the time.
 
Then one day poof!
 
They stopped meeting.
 
At least not all four at once.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Our fathers still got together once in a while, your father flew in to see Boracci once a year, and Grainger only met with Boracci.
 
Boracci in turn never got together with my father again.
 
I guess they had a falling out.
 
My question to you is how much do you remember about these men?”

The waitress returned with his coffee.
 
She smiled at
Tyler
, lingering at their table for longer than necessary.
 
Madison
shot the woman a foul glare.
 
What nerve!
 
The waitress had no way of knowing what their relationship entailed.
 
Perhaps they were married or engaged.
 
Little blonde twit was flirting with her eyes as if
Madison
wasn’t sitting at the same table.

Check, please!

Madison
cleared her throat. “Do you mind?
 
We were trying to have a private conversation.”

The waitress finally took her bony butt to another table.

“Now, where were we?”
 
She eyed him for a moment, enjoying his discomfort.
 
He didn’t hide it very well.
 
The man wanted to strangle her for the information.
 
If she didn’t stop stalling, he just might.
 
“Oh yes, my father’s friends.
 
Actually I don’t remember them that well.
 
Uncle Rico was a handsome man, dark hair and dimples, and he bandaged my knee once when I fell off my bike.
 
Uncle Eli was always jotting things down.
 
He would write on anything, even the wall if he couldn’t find a piece of paper.
 
I guess he didn’t want to forget any of his brilliant ideas.
 
He had a nice smile and I adored his wife.
 
She was almost like a second mother to me.”

Her parents hadn’t allowed her to call adults by their first names unless she put an ‘aunt’ or ‘uncle’ in front of it.
 
She wouldn’t admit it to
Tyler
, but the men he wanted to know about had been like family to her.
 
At one time she’d loved them.
 
Then they’d disappeared from her life like so many others.

Tyler
gestured for her to continue, but she clamped her lips together.
 
She wasn’t telling him another solitary thing until he reciprocated.
 
The man was on a fishing expedition, but he didn’t want to share his bait.
 
Hardly fair.

He sighed heavily.
 
“Okay.
 
I didn’t return to
Washington
to track my father’s enemies.
 
I’m here to find out the truth about my father, your father, and their buddies.
 
We want to know why those four men met once a month for years and then suddenly stopped.
 
We have a feeling they were up to something interesting.”

“Like what?”
 
Her eyebrows went up.

“Well for one thing, Boracci’s father was gunned down and circumstantial evidence points to his son even though someone went to a lot of trouble to make it look like a professional hit.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
 
She had thought he wanted to clear her father of attempted murder not convict him of another one.

“And you think our fathers were involved?”

He clamped his lips shut and shook his head.
 
He wasn’t going to tell her anything more until she parted with some information and by the stubborn look on his face, she knew he would want something stronger than superficial crap.
 
He wanted something that would rock the foundation that his father had built his presidency on.
 

Madison
wondered what sort of man would turn on his own father.

******

Fifteen minutes later
Tyler
left the diner feeling a great deal less satisfied than when he’d entered it.
 
He had hoped the pictures now settled deep in his jacket pocket would shake some truth out of
Madison
.
 
Their appearance had definitely thrown her.
 
But she’d recovered her composure in a heartbeat, fueling his admiration.
 
Too bad she still stubbornly refused to trust him.
 
He had a feeling she knew something important, something that could possibly save him a great deal of time and energy.

He walked down the sidewalk, passing a group of loud tourists and continued on foot, unsure of his destination.
 
Home and bed sounded good to him, but he hadn’t checked in with Skinner in a while.
 
His frazzled guest would want to know how the mission was progressing.
 

A huge knot pressed between his tight shoulders.
 
With a tired sigh, he turned and crossed the street.
 
He could sleep later.
 
Raising his hand, he hailed a passing taxi cab.

Tyler
slid into the back, gave the driver the address, and settled in for a long ride.
 
He rested his head against the seat and closed his eyes.
 
A dull pain throbbed between them.
 
Once again his thoughts returned to
Madison
.
 
He agonized over how much he should tell her.
 
He’d bet money that she had nothing to do with the assassination attempts.

The taxi stopped and
Tyler
opened his eyes to see why.
 
The traffic light before them had gone to red.
 
His eyelids drifted back down again, content to rest until they arrived at their destination.
 

The door to
Tyler
’s right opened and
Madison
slid in next to him.
 
She turned, glaring at him, and tried to catch her breath.
 
Her chest heaved with the effort.
 
She must have chased the taxi for several blocks before catching it.
 

He blinked at her in disbelief before leaning forward to talk to the surprised driver.
 
“I’ve changed my mind.
 
I want to go home.”
 
He rattled off the address of his apartment.

The driver nodded.
 
He flicked on the turn signal and cut over the center line, turned them around, honking his horn as he did it.
 

Madison
shook her head fiercely.
 
“I don’t think so.
 
You were about to go somewhere you don’t want me to know about, and that’s exactly where we’re going.
 
Tell him to take us to the original address.”
 
When
Tyler
didn’t immediately cooperate, she moved her face close to his.
 
Their eyes locked.
 
He could feel her breath on his mouth, too intimate.
 
She said, “I mean it.
 
You take me to wherever it was you were going and reveal your secret, or I’ll blow you out of the water.”

She was bluffing.

“And just how will you do that?”

“I could make a lot of threats.
 
I could tell you I’ll go to your father or the press or the CIA, whoever will scare you the most.
 
Instead, I’m going to promise you something.
 
If you keep holding out on me, I’m going to become your best friend.
 
You won’t be able to take a piss without me standing right there.
 
I’ll sing while you’re trying to sleep, step into your every conversation, stick to you like glue.
 
I don’t have a job right now so I can spare the time.
 
In a couple of weeks you’ll be begging me to listen to the truth.”

He stared deep into her fabulous brown eyes.

She wasn’t bluffing.

Tyler
tapped the driver on the shoulder and said, “I hate to do this to you again, but I need to go to the first address I gave you.
 
Thanks.”

The driver rolled his eyes at them in the rearview before spinning the car around and heading in the opposite direction.
 
Car horns honked around them.
 
Tyler and Madison were thrown together, bumping shoulders.
 
She was practically sitting in his lap now.

She asked, “Well, are you going to give me a hint or do you want me to guess where we’re going?
 
What are you hiding from me?”

Under his breath he said, “Skinner is not going to like this.”

“Skinner?
 
Where do I know that name from?”

Her eyebrows knit together as she tried to put a face with the name.
 
He didn’t imagine it would be too hard at this point, so he saved her the trouble.
 

“I’ve been working for the CIA.”
 
He pulled the four pictures from his jacket pocket again and separated them so
Madison
could see each individual face.
 
“We’re trying to figure out which of these four men has been trying to take over the world one person at a time using a little project called Pandora’s Box.”