COMING WINTER 2016 FROM BERKLEY BOOKS
I DON’T really need a bodyguard.” Lara Armstrong took a sip of her chai tea and sat back, staring out the coffeehouse window. Everywhere she looked, people bustled by, their briefcases in hand, cell phones pressed to their ears. They were lawyers and politicians, along with their aides, and anyone else who thought they were important in the political spectrum. Soon, one of those people hustling about would be the man designated to throw himself in front of a bullet for her.
Connor. No last name. Or maybe that was his last name and he hadn’t given her his first name. She wasn’t sure. She only knew that enigmatic Connor had commanded she meet him here at three thirty. Did he realize how bad traffic was going to get?
“Look, someone knows what you’ve been doing, L, and that means you need a bodyguard.” Her best friend, Kiki, traded a look with the only male at the table.
Tom sat forward, his hands around his nonfat latte as though he needed the warmth. “I don’t know. I kind of agree with Lara.”
Kiki rolled her dark eyes. “You always agree with Lara. You even agreed with her when she broke off your engagement. You’re a doormat.”
“I’m helpful and practical.” He frowned. “Look, she’s only received a couple of e-mails, and it wasn’t as if the sender attached a bomb or anything. The contents simply stated that they ‘know.’ Know what? That could mean anything.”
Lara sighed and lowered her voice. Only a couple of people in the world knew what she did for a living, and she meant to keep it that way. “He knows I run CS.”
Capitol Scandals, DC’s most fun and informative news site. Oh, most people called it a horrid tabloid rag that aimed to ruin the lives and reputations of politicians and bigwigs, but Lara liked her description better. And she never ran a piece that wasn’t true or aimed at someone who didn’t deserve it. Well, she never ran a serious piece that she couldn’t verify. She didn’t personally know the size of the current president’s penis, though several confidential informants had used the words extra extra large.
“Shit.” Tom’s thin lips flattened further, and she knew she was in for a lecture. Unlike Kiki, who often wrote articles for CS, Tom thought the site was a horrible idea. “I told you something bad would come of this. You can’t expose the people you do and expect to get away with it. I thought someone had realized you spearheaded the effort to remove vending machines from public schools or something.”
“Those vending machines never sell anything but processed foods. Kids should have healthier options in school,” she began.
Tom shook his head. “People don’t like it when you take away their sodas, L. They get crabby. Still, I was fairly certain no one would actually kill you over that. Running a tabloid that ruins high-powered careers? That might be a little different.”
Kiki nodded. “Exactly. Have you told your father?”
Lara winced. Her father knew about Capitol Scandals. He’d been very supportive when it had been a little site that reported on things like environmental bills and ran essays on the Lilly Ledbetter Act. When she’d changed to the current iteration of the site, she knew she’d tested him. He’d called screaming when she’d run a not-so-glowing story about one of his closest allies. She’d detailed just how much money the congressman had spent on hookers outside his district while those actually working in his district had lamented about a drastic downturn in income.
She’d been perfectly right to publish the story since the congressman had been running on a platform to bring new jobs and opportunities to his constituency. All the while, he’d been making deals with businessmen to send jobs offshore to Korea. So it really was a true-life metaphor for all that was wrong in politics.
Shortly after she’d published the story, the late-night circuit had picked it up. While the comedians and hosts had laughed about the hookers, their viewers had also heard the very true news about backdoor deals, too. Lara had learned early on that she had to catch the public’s attention if she wanted to do any good in the world. And she wouldn’t do that with a protest or a well-crafted op-ed piece.
“I’m not telling my dad. He already blackmails me. If he found out that someone else knows and is sending me semi-threatening e-mails, he would likely force me to move in with him or something. It would be awful.”
It wasn’t as if she didn’t love her father. Her parents were amazing people. She couldn’t think of another man in the world who would support her the way her dad did. He’d been angry when he’d learned about CS, but he hadn’t outed her. And given that he was a senator from the great state of Virginia, he probably should have. Instead, he’d forced her to accept an apartment in a swanky part of town. She could never have afforded her DuPont Circle condo on her own. She’d wanted a little loft in a more real part of town, but her parents had been insistent.
Luckily, she’d never had to decide whether or not to run a story about her father. He was madly in love with her mom and he played things straight. Lara had never gotten a tip about him taking bribes or selling out his constituents. When she’d started Capitol Scandals, she’d realized a surprising majority of politicians were acting in the public’s best interests—even if you didn’t agree with their beliefs, they were following their own convictions. It was just that rancid ten percent who really screwed things up for everyone else.
She’d created Capitol Scandals to call them out.
“Maybe you should move back in with him. He has serious security.” Kiki set down her mocha. “Not just a doorman named Moe who sleeps on the job.”
“Moe has a serious case of narcolepsy. You shouldn’t judge.” She shook her head. “Besides, I can’t risk working at Dad’s place for two reasons: One, I don’t know who’s watching him. I’ve long thought the CIA, the NSA, or DARPA listens in on all elected officials.”
Tom coughed but it sounded suspiciously like paranoid.
She ignored him because she knew paranoia could be a lifesaver. “And two, if anyone ever learns my secret and outs me, I want my parents to have plausible deniability.”
“I don’t think they’d care. They would stand by you,” Kiki said.
Bringing trouble down on them was her only real fear. Well, that and global climate change. She fought for what she believed in, but she loved her parents, too. She didn’t want to cause her dad issues.
“I have a plan,” Tom said, getting serious again. “Hear me out. You close down the site for a while and come stay with me. I have a second bedroom. I can watch out for you. I am a Krav Maga god. We’ll hang, and the heat will die down. Then you can go back to fighting the good fight.”
She loved Tom, but she wasn’t going there again. There was a reason she’d broken off their engagement. There was also the fact that Niall thought she needed someone to watch out for her.
Niall. Her heart did a little shudder as she thought about him. Since he ran a small site that called for transparency in California politics, he’d come to her a confidential informant. Nothing he’d sent her had actually panned out, but that wasn’t so surprising. Ninety percent of her leads were dead ends. But Niall had come to mean more to her than just a source. Over the course of the month, she’d come to view him as something of a soul mate.
“No,” she said with a sigh. “I need to meet this bodyguard. I’ll talk to him and see what he thinks. He’s supposed to be a professional. He can give me advice.”