Private Politics (The Easy Part) (13 page)

Ryan shrugged but there was hardness in his eyes that made Liam swallow. He no longer had any difficulty believing that this guy, or someone he knew, had threatened Alyse. He didn’t seem like the type who’d follow through, but he would have absolutely no difficulty making the gesture.

“People particularly like how you work for the nonprofits too. Places like YWR. They feel like you understand the issues from all sides. That your approach is more modern, a combination of governmental and non-governmental entities.” Liam had no idea if that were true, but the words sounded good strung together like that.

“I’m a real issues-driven guy,” Ryan said. At the moment, he looked like a real dangerous guy. Only the fact that he still hadn’t figured out what to do with his scarf detracted from the menace in his eyes.

“What are your goals for the future?”

They spent the next fifteen minutes exploring Ryan’s expansion plans. He discussed candidly the politics of the committee, asking Liam to keep his thoughts off the record. As they talked, he finally seemed to relax and the guy from the beginning of the conversation began to reemerge.

“I think I have everything I need,” Liam finally said.

“When do you expect the piece to run?” Ryan asked.

“Oh, uh, a few days. Depending on how the news cycle progresses. We’ll want this to get the attention it deserves.”

“I bet running a current events blog is unpredictable.”

“You have no idea.”

The conversation hadn’t been quite as helpful as Liam had hoped it would be, in part because of his blunder, in part because he was afraid to push things too hard. He didn’t want anything to blow back on Alyse, which froze him a bit.

After Ryan Scott left, Liam worked back through his notes. All he could do was start to construct precisely what he’d said he was working on: a profile. A profile that would never be anything more than incomplete because he couldn’t tell, or prove, the most interesting piece: that at some point, Ryan Scott had become more than your average lobbyist. Or less than, depending on one’s point of view.

As he wrote, it began to take on a life of his own. He kept adding details from the conversations he and the other Poindexter staff had had about Ryan Scott. Throw in a dab of insinuation and it was pretty damn compelling. It he didn’t know any better, he would have thought it was one of the better pieces he’d written lately. All it was for the moment, however, was a mirage.

He reminded himself to check with Alyse. If they didn’t figure things out soon, he’d have to run this piece in order to cover their tracks. When it was mostly finished, he sent it to Doug for polishing. Just in case.

* * *

Liam showed up at the restaurant at 7:15. After conferring with the hostess, he was told neither Millie nor Parker had arrived but a woman of Alyse’s description was at the bar.

He rounded the corner and found her propped on a stool, one long leg extended to the floor. Her skirt strained against her muscles as she sipped a margarita. He’d recognize that profile anywhere. As he had fifty times before, he just enjoyed the view. Until he noticed the corporate douche in a shiny suit sitting right next to her and obviously chatting her up.

Liam’s hands clenched into fists in the pockets of his jeans. She had a perfect right to talk to whomever she liked, of course. They weren’t even officially dating. He wasn’t sure what it was when you hooked up with a girl, told her you wanted to take things slowly because you were trying to avoid being cleaved in two and then she invited you on a double date with your closest couple of friends. Dating didn’t seem to begin to capture the nuance.

Even if they were dating, it wasn’t like that immediately could deter male attention. There wasn’t an anti-proposition radar he could deploy around her, much as he might want to. Alyse could handle shooting down men all on her own. She’d put him off for half a year, hadn’t she?

But...but nothing. He didn’t have the slightest ground to stand on in terms of this jealousy. It was a stupid, infuriating way to feel but for two beats, he felt the hell out of it.

Still feeling pissed but knowing he couldn’t fix it from across a bar, he started walking toward her. He dodged several couples, a guy loudly relating the play-by-play from last night’s Wizards’ loss and then touched her on the back lightly.

Alyse turned, immediately rose, and linked her hands behind his neck.

All she said was, “Hey,” but it was enough to vaporize his anger.

The smile she gave him could have lit a cave. It was as if she had been waiting the entire day for this, as he knew he had been. Suddenly, he felt sorry for the suit he could see glaring at them out of the corner of his eye. Without thinking, he ducked his head a touch—she was so deliciously tall—and kissed her.

He hadn’t meant to
kiss her
kiss her, just to greet her. Okay, he also wanted to piss off the suit, but they apparently had a problem approaching kissing like normal people. Normal people had first kisses that were exactly that, first kisses. A brush on the lips. If that went well, maybe something a little more serious before arriving pretty quickly at “Good night.” He should know; he’d had his fair share of lousy first kisses.

He and Alyse had shot off the starting block like an Olympian at the 200-meter dash. It hadn’t been a first kiss so much as a first frantic tumble; a groping, hungry, powerful thing bearing only a passing resemblance to a kiss.

This was more restrained but it had jolting power all the same.

When they broke off, he whispered, “Hey” against her mouth, appreciating how her pale blue eyes had dilated and how she looked like she might agree to scrap their dinner plans if he asked very nicely.

Before he could get around to it, he heard, “You know you just made me lose a bet.”

Realizing it was Parker’s voice addressing them, Liam tightened his hold on Alyse’s hips. She laughed and very gratifyingly did not step away from him.

“Oh? How much?” Liam asked over his shoulder. His friend didn’t look pissed; he was grinning like the damned Cheshire cat.

“I think I have to attend some sort of retro jazz evening.” Parker scowled at them. “So, how long has that—” a waggling finger indicated the two of them, “—been going on?”

“Um, about twenty-one hours.” The smile Alyse gave Parker on reciting this fact was different somehow than what he’d received—received being the right word because it had felt like a gift. She really was different with him, but she also seemed pleased to be with him. She hadn’t let go of his neck and Liam was feeling very lucky indeed. If she didn’t seem annoyed Parker knew, she must think of it as a relationship.

He might really be dating Alyse Philips—a thought so strange it could be the basis for a lost Philip K. Dick story.

“Damn it,” Parker said without any acrimony. “Millie said you wouldn’t last three days in an apartment together without, well, you know.”

“Actually, I’m a bit confused about the details of this bet. Are you going to explain it over dinner? Should we ask for a banana and a napkin ring?” Alyse teased.

At that moment, Millie showed up with a server in tow. Taking in the three of them she actually started bouncing slightly on her toes.

When he’d first met Millie, he found her to be quiet and subdued. He’d wondered whether she could handle herself opposite Parker’s man-about-town shtick. It turned out that underneath her mild-mannered exterior, she could match Parker argument-for-argument and discombobulate him in the process. After nearly fourteen years of arguments with the guy, it was fun to watch. But more than that, she’d taken a guy whom everyone had assumed might never settle down and made him so happy that Liam was jealous.

Still bouncing, Millie said, “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! Ha!”

This last observation was directed at Parker and accompanied by a triumphant swish of a finger. At least whatever else they’d accomplished, he’d made his friend fail at something. If anyone could use a dose of humility, it was Parker Beckett.

“You’re always meek in victory,” Parker muttered, dropping a smacking kiss on his fiancée’s forehead.

When they’d been seated, Millie said, “Tell us everything.”

Liam wasn’t sure if she was serious or not. He’d expected that Millie would push for details later when it was just the girls—though it was possible
Girls
had colored his worldview. Obviously he had a lot to learn about women’s culture.

Alyse ignored Millie’s question. She twirled her hair around a finger and read the menu. Probably a joke, then. He felt a little disappointed. Maybe if Alyse told the story she might hint how it was going to turn out.

“Or don’t. Really, I’d prefer you don’t,” Parker said. Or not; his former roommate seemed quite serious, meaning Millie might have been.

Alyse picked up her margarita and regarded Liam over the rim. Finally she said, “We’re taking things slow. Not my decision.”

The server showed up with everyone else’s drinks and prevented Liam from making a serious, and seriously misguided, PDA. It was terribly unfair to flash bedroom eyes at him, to affirm their together-ish status and to imply she wanted more in that husky voice, all when she knew he couldn’t do anything about it.

She wasn’t the only one who could play that way. “We’re only taking it slow because you steal all the blankets.” He shrugged and turned toward his menu.

When he glanced up a minute later, he discovered happiness in Millie’s face, congratulations in Parker’s and hunger in Alyse’s. How strange and delightful.

An hour later, as the meal was winding down, he shared Doug’s discoveries and his conversation with Ryan Scott with them.

“I’ve definitely met Rynsburger,” Parker said.

Millie actually gasped. Alyse’s fork froze in her hand. Liam immediately launched into questions. “How would you describe him? Did he seem dangerous?”

“Yeah, man, he came across as very threatening at that reception on the Hill,” Parker said with a laugh. “He was a basic corporate type. I only remember him because we talked about Johannesburg.”

“I’m just not certain what the next step is,” Liam said.

“The answer is obvious, isn’t it?” Alyse gave him a look that obliterated whatever warm fuzzies might be lingering in his chest. She had a plan and he already hated it.

Everyone turned toward her.

“We go to YWR, right now, tonight, and find what we need to take care of it once and for all.”

So her plan had a certain appeal, a directness, he liked, but still, it was also obviously unwise and perhaps even dangerous. “We don’t know what we’re looking for. We don’t know there’s anything to find,” he pointed out.

“If we find nothing, we find nothing. We won’t know unless we look.” She looked at Millie and rolled her eye as if to say,
Men!

“Can you get us into the building?” Parker didn’t seem to think Alyse was crazy, which was obviously crazy.

“All four of us? No. That would be too suspicious. But Liam and me, yes.”

“What if someone is there?” Millie looked a bit like a mother hen, imperious and judgmental. At least he had one ally at the table.

Alyse shrugged it off. “There will be. Security for sure and maybe the cleaning staff. If so, I tell them we were on our way back to Liam’s but I needed something off my desk and we get the hell out of Dodge.”

Liam ran a hand down her hair. He’d kept his hands to himself most of the meal. Being close to her, feeling like they were together, had been enough. But now, knowing she evidently had a desperate desire to get them both into an unpredictable situation, he needed to touch her.

At the gesture, she looked over at him with questions and fears in her eyes. With a lightness that belied her expression, she asked, “What’s the worst that can happen?”

“We get caught and it confirms to Geri and Ryan and maybe Rynsburger we’re poking around. They, I don’t know, unleash the hounds of hell on us.”

“I like dogs. Besides, they already think that. You said yourself Ryan Scott seemed suspicious this afternoon.”

That had the annoying dimension of being right, but still, there was more here she wasn’t seeing. He hadn’t been kidding. “You’ve already been threatened.”

“We can’t, um, neutralize the threat without evidence. Okay, I mean that way less mob boss-y than it sounded, but you know what I mean.”

“What does neutralizing the threat even look like?” Millie asked.

Liam looked at Alyse, waiting for her to answer.

“I’m not sure,” she finally said. “We still don’t know what they’re up to, whether it’s legal or not. If it’s illegal, I guess we call the police. If not, well, maybe I take everything to Fred, the auditor. Or I guess you could expose them on Poindexter.”

It had become increasingly clear to Liam that he was at some point going to need to publish some of the stuff they’d been uncovering, so he was glad to hear Alyse say it.

Speaking only to her, he asked, “What if it’s just unethical? What if we can’t prove it?”

“Could you publish what you already have?” Parker asked.

Liam fell back into his chair and contemplated this question. In the past week, as he’d considered the situation from every angle, he always assumed they’d have the entire picture before making a decision. If they didn’t or couldn’t, their options were few.

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s not worry about that yet,” Alyse said. “Let’s go. Do. Find. Fix.”

He couldn’t resist the impulse to throw an arm around her and pull her into his side. She had so much life, so much enthusiasm. She was intractable. From the instant he met her he had known that resistance was futile.

“All of this makes me nervous,” Millie said.

“Think of it as a Craig’s List date,” Alyse said. “If you haven’t heard from us in an hour, call the cops.”

“You haven’t been on Craig’s List dates,” he clarified.

“Why? Would that be a problem?”

“No, I’d just have another reason to loathe myself for not making a move sooner.”

At that, she kissed him on the cheek; in response, he felt like he was breathing at high altitude. Unhelpful. He could use some confidence for what they were about to do, stupid as it probably was, not breathlessness.