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“I’ll help you make it.”
“No, you sit here. I’ll be right back.”
He thumbed through the remaining messages on his phone. He’d made a rookie mistake. He should’ve sent an unknown staffer to deal with this. Yet something about her picture had gotten his spidey senses tingling and he’d decided to deal with it himself. In hindsight, he realized that if the media found him here, in her house, the story would gain even more steam. He’d already taken a chance driving her from the college. Even with his hat, he couldn’t be sure someone hadn’t recognized him. Kat needed to make a statement, and soon. He didn’t have time for coffee.
Thankfully, Kat returned quickly with two mismatched mugs. She handed one to him. “I have cream and sugar if you’d like.”
He shook his head. He’d learned to drink his coffee plain black. Hard to deal with creamers and sugar packets while on the go.
“So?”
She sighed and leaned back into the squeaky couch, wincing at the sound. He expected her to take her time, but she got to the point. “The senator and my mother were married thirty-six years ago. Briefly. She left him then discovered she was pregnant with me. By then the divorce was final.”
His deputy, Crista, had just unearthed all this. The senator was such a public figure, having always put his life and family in front of the media, that Alex hadn’t bothered to dig much deeper before Roberts entered the national stage. Like the media, he’d thought the man was already well vetted and that any skeletons would have been dug up a long time ago. Another mistake.
Her face was now ashen, her eyes large and luminous. She wrapped her hands around the coffee mug and he saw waves in the liquid.
His leg jerked. He wanted to tell her it would all be okay. Except it wouldn’t. Her eyes shone and she stared into her coffee. Then a sound outside caught his attention. Great!
He flew to the window and pulled the drapes across it. She looked up, splashing coffee on her hands.
“What’s going on?”
“They’re here. You need to close all the blinds.” He kicked himself for not asking her to do that first thing.
To her credit, she didn’t let the panic clearly visible in her eyes overwhelm her. The cup clattered as she set it down and ran to the bedrooms. He drew the venetian blinds on the skinny window next to the front door, then walked into the tiny kitchen and did the same.
“How did they find my house?” The accusation cut through the air as she emerged from her mother’s bedroom.
“Probably the same way my assistant just discovered that Senator Roberts and your mother were married for exactly eight months and it was the first marriage for both of them.”
Eyes widening, she stepped backward, pressing herself against the door frame. They were both standing in the kitchen and he suddenly realized how much of the small space he was taking up. Excusing himself, he walked past her and back to the living room couch. This wasn’t the standard situation, but there was an easy answer—one that would get him out of here and back to work on the things that mattered.
“Listen, obviously you don’t want the publicity any more than we do.”
“You’ve got that right,” she muttered, sitting across from him and crossing her arms.
He leaned forward and gave her the smile he usually reserved for female heavyweight donors. Using his classic move, he reached out to take her hand. As soon as their fingers touched, she pulled back like she’d been burned and gave him a look that implied he had cooties. A nerve in his left eye twitched. Okay, then. We aren’t going to be friends.
“Then it’s simple. Have your mother make a statement that you’re not Senator Roberts’s daughter and we’re done.”
Her head snapped up. “You want her to lie.”
“Versus...what?”
“Versus telling them it’s our private matter and they need to stop harassing us.”
He stared at her. Was she really that naive? Then again, she was a college professor. His deputy, Crista, had briefed him on the articles she’d written. Kat was an idealistic academic who had no idea how things worked in the real world.
“You say that, and the story continues. They start interviewing your neighbors, students, Facebook friends, Twitter followers...everyone you’ve ever spoken to.”
“Why would they—”
“People you hardly know will come out of the woodwork with a charming—or nasty—story about you and your mother. Think about how many people want to get on national TV. This is their chance. Have you ever cut someone off in line? Left a bad tip at a restaurant? True or not, people will have all kinds of stories about you. Just look at how many Tweets your students sent.”
If possible, her face went even whiter, the color completely draining out of it.
“I’m not worth that kind of attention, surely...”
He stood and lifted the edge of the curtain. She gasped. There were no less than ten trucks blocking the street and a bunch of reporters crowding onto her front lawn.
“Any second, they’re going to come banging on the door. The only reason they haven’t yet is they need to get their cameras ready and the uplinks to their networks established.”
This time he went and sat next to her on the love seat. She moved slightly but didn’t get up. “They’re not going away. You’re the story of the day, and the only way to get them off your back is to tell them there is no story. Discredit it, and they’ll slink away.”
“I don’t want to lie.”
“Your birth certificate doesn’t have a father listed. There is no record of when your mother separated from the senator. Our spin would be that they were separated when you were conceived, so he’s not your father. There’s no way, without a DNA test, for them to prove you’re his daughter.”
Her eyes were big and wet. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. Something pricked his heart. Risking another rebuke, he put his hand on hers, and this time she didn’t move.
“Listen, I know this is hard, and I don’t agree with the tactics, but they won’t stop harassing you. Your mother is sick...”
She snatched her hand away with such force that the coffee cup sitting on the table teetered, threatening to fall. “How do you know about my mother?” She inched away from him on the couch. He was handling this all wrong.
The job necessitated being able to put on a number of faces, so he furrowed his brows and leaned in, his eyes conveying sympathy and understanding. He couldn’t show his impatience with this woman now. Why is she being so stubborn? She obviously didn’t want the media attention, and he was giving her an easy way out.
He felt a familiar anger bubble deep inside, and he took a breath, modulating his voice, softening it, the way he’d been taught. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to intrude. Unfortunately, the internet has more information on all of us than we’d like to disclose. When the story first came out, I had my staff research you.”
“You thought I did this for attention. Fame.”
Her sharp tone cut through him. “We didn’t know you. The story came out of nowhere...”
“I want nothing to do with Senator Roberts, nor do I want any part of that circus.” She jerked her head toward the window. There was raw pain in her voice and fear in her eyes. He didn’t doubt for a second that this wasn’t a publicity stunt for her. Kat genuinely didn’t want the attention. There was a backstory there, and he made a mental note to have the campaign’s private investigator do some deeper digging. They hadn’t had much time to search smaller, local newspapers for archived articles.
“Then make this story go away. If your mother is up to it, have her make a statement that it’s not true.”
“I most certainly will not do that.”
An older version of Kat walked into the room. Emilia Driscoll looked frail, far thinner than Kat but with the same blue eyes and blond hair, identical cheekbones. The PI had sent Alex Kat’s birth certificate, which showed that Kat was thirty-five and her mother had been twenty-two when she had her. Emilia was fifty-eight years old, yet she looked closer to seventy.
His own mother was about Mrs. Driscoll’s age, having had him when she was only seventeen, but she was vivacious, still working as a housekeeper despite his protests. Whenever he insisted she stop working, she’d tell him there was no shame in hard work, even if her occupation embarrassed him. There was no point in having that argument with his mother anymore.
He stood. “Ms. Driscoll, I’m Alex Santiago. I work for Senator Roberts.”
Taking her hand, he controlled his grip. She seemed so fragile; he didn’t want to break her fingers.
“Call me Emilia.” She took a seat next to her daughter on the love seat, forcing him to go back to sitting across from them. “How is Bill?”
Alex widened his smile, giving her his disarming “I’m your friend” look. “He’s doing well, ma’am. He’s currently on a plane overseas, or else he’d be here himself to talk to you.”
“Oh, I very much doubt that. Bill never wanted to deal with me personally. He arranged it so he didn’t even have to show up to court to sign the divorce papers. Gave his proxy to a lawyer.”
Alex opened his mouth to defend the senator then stopped when he saw the ice in Kat’s eyes. She put an arm around her mother.
“Mrs. Driscoll, I know this is a difficult situation...”
“Look, young man, I know where you come from in DC—people have affairs and children out of wedlock. That’s not how it works in these parts. I was raised better, and I won’t have people believing my little girl is illegitimate.”
This is going to be tougher than I thought.
“I understand how you feel, but if you don’t dispute this story, they’ll hound you all the way to the elections.” He put his elbows on his knees and folded his hands.
“Then let them.”
Kat’s hand went to her neck and he watched her turn over a pendant in her fingers. “Mom, we don’t want to deal with the media.”
“They will pick apart your lives, sensationalize every detail,” he chimed in, his voice low.
“I want Bill to claim his daughter. Publicly. It’s her birthright.” Emilia sat back, lips pressed together.
Alex stared at her. Oh, boy. Was she the anonymous source to the media?
“I’m not the one who started this thing, but I’m sure as heck gonna finish it,” she responded to his unasked question. Something in the way she said it set his intuition tingling. What more is she hiding? Her fingers played with the flowered fabric of her skirt.
“We can reimburse you for your inconvenience,” he said carefully.
Both Kat and Emilia glared at him and he realized it was the wrong thing to say.
“This is not about money. It’s about honor.” Emilia clasped her hands in her lap.
Several thoughts raced through his mind: he could have the senator call this crazy woman and talk sense into her. Or they could discredit her with the media. His phone buzzed and he excused himself to go to the kitchen.
“Yes,” he barked. Crista was on the other line.
“Alex, one of the students uploaded a video from her lectures. I just emailed it.”
Hanging up, he clicked on the email. The video came to life and he activated his Bluetooth earpiece so Kat and Emilia wouldn’t be able to hear it in the living room. He had to watch only a few minutes to get the gist of it.
He strode into the living room and switched to speaker on his BlackBerry. He pointed the video at Kat.
“Did you really say that the IED robots are a waste, and the money should be spent saving lives at home?”
She gazed at him unflinchingly. “I’m a political-science professor lecturing in class. I was legitimately criticizing his policies.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “And you’re a registered Democrat.”
“Excuse me, but when did that become a crime?”
“It’s not, unless you’re the secret daughter of a Republican senator in a hotly contested race. You just gave the other candidate a two-point boost in the polls.”
Her eye roll told him that not only did she not care, but she wasn’t inclined to help him.
“I did a whole class on the Democratic candidate, too, pointing out his flaws. I present a balanced view to my students.”
“That’s good. Do you remember what day that class was?” He began typing an email to Crista to see if she could get that video. Senator Roberts’s poll numbers were falling every second, and with them, his odds of getting the bill passed. If the senate rank and file thought Roberts wasn’t going to win reelection, they would stop supporting him on the IED issue. Alex had spent a lot of time on things that wasted taxpayer money: initiatives that didn’t improve people’s lives, investments that were downright wrong. The IED technology was the one purchase he knew would save his soul, or at least give him an image other than that of his buddy lying on the desert sand with his leg blown off. He wasn’t going to let anything get in his way.
“I don’t want any more videos of me out there.” Kat’s frosty voice pulled him back into the moment.
“Then go outside and tell them this is a nonstory.”
Emilia stood. “Mr. Santiago, please leave my house. Now.”
He looked at Kat, who also stood and put an arm around her mother.
The doorbell rang, followed by loud knocks. They all started at each other.
Emilia Driscoll was the first to speak. “The vultures are back.”
CHAPTER THREE (#uba8ced3c-2b44-5659-8f4b-997917a83fb0)
“CALL THE POLICE. They’re not allowed to be on your property. They need to stay on the street.”
Kat began rummaging through the drawer in the hallway credenza. Everything was happening so fast, she needed a minute to catch her breath.
“What’re you doing?” Alex said impatiently.
“Looking for the number to the local police department.”
“It’s 911.”
“The nonemergency number.”
He picked up the phone, dialed and held it out to her. “Hello, what’s your emergency?”
“Hi, it’s not really an emergency, but I need the police.”
“Are you in danger, ma’am?” came the dispassionate voice.
‘Well, not really, but—”
Alex snatched the phone from her. “There are twenty people on the front lawn, banging on the front door and threatening to come inside. We need the police.” He rattled off the address.
Kat heard the woman put him on hold then come back and ask for his name. “I can’t talk right now. They’re breaking down the door.” He hung up the phone.
Kat stared at him.
“You lied.”
