No Stranger to Scandal Read online

  He grabbed his notebook and sat at the desk. “First, tell me you didn’t remember this when you were in front of Congress and keep it from them.”

  “No, in the cab afterward,” she said, taking the other chair at the desk. “But it was their question that made me remember.”

  “Which question?”

  “They asked if I’d heard of Nancy Marlin.”

  “And you said no.” He’d been taking notes through all the hearings, but he didn’t need to check the notes from Lucy’s testimony—he remembered every word.

  She nodded, she was practically vibrating with restless energy. “But the name bugged me and I remembered in the cab on the way back to work. I overheard a conversation months ago where the name came up.”

  “Who was talking?”

  “Marnie Salloway and Angelica Pierce.”

  The wheels in his mind began to turn. This could be the piece of the puzzle that made all the others fit together.

  “Who is Nancy Marlin?” she asked.

  “A friend of Barbara Jessup.” When the president was young, his family had employed Barbara Jessup as a maid—the list of questions for the hearing had included random names of people connected to the president, even by two or three degrees of separation. There was only one reason journalists could have to be talking about a maid’s friend.

  Lucy’s eyes widened. “This is it.”

  Part of him agreed with her—this could be it—but he didn’t want to count his chickens and jinx it. He drew in a measured breath. “Do they know you overheard them?”

  “I doubt it. I was in the supply closet and they stopped just outside the door. Once I had what I wanted, I waited for them to finish—with Marnie and Angelica, keeping a low profile is essential to survival.”

  Having met Angelica, he understood. “I want you to repeat word for word what they said.”

  “At first they were complaining about one of the other producers, then Angelica asked, ‘Is there any progress with Nancy Marlin?’ Marnie said, ‘Not yet, but we’re still trying.’ And Angelica said, ‘Keep me up to date.’ After that, they went their separate ways and I sneaked out and back to my desk.”

  A buzz of excitement was growing in his blood. He’d finally found it. “They’re both involved,” he said, staring down at the conversation he’d just copied onto paper. “They’ve hacked into Barbara Jessup’s phones.”

  “Do you want to tell Congress to call me back?”

  “We might have to, but I’ll try with Ames and Hall first. One overheard conversation isn’t much to go on, but if I can get them to give Marnie and Angelica up, they might be able to give me more evidence so the charges will stick.”

  She put the remains of her second muffin back in the bag and brushed the crumbs from her fingers. “Wouldn’t they have given them up already if they were going to?”

  “If they think we’re onto Marnie and Angelica anyway and it’s only a matter of time before we gather enough evidence, then they might try to negotiate with whatever they have on them. I can also interview Marnie and Angelica again, telling them that this conversation was overheard. It might be enough for one of them to panic or slip up.”

  With a restless move of her shoulders, she glanced out his window. “I wish I’d remembered earlier.”

  “Remembering at all is great.” Gently, he turned her back to face him. “I’ll try and keep your name out of it if I can.”

  Her eyes flashed fire. “Our ground rules said we wouldn’t let our involvement interfere with the investigation. Don’t try to protect me.”

  “I’d do what I could to protect any witness. If I can get stronger evidence, then we won’t need yours and there’s no point putting you in the line of fire. If we need you, don’t worry,” he said, cupping the side of her face, “I’ll put you back before Congress without blinking.”

  As he’d hoped, his words had coaxed a reluctant smile from her.

  “As long as you had more of these muffins, I’d be okay.” Her smile faded and she picked up her red hold-all bag. “I have to get back to the office. Graham’s waiting to hear how it went.”

  He handed her the leftover muffins. “Are you going to tell him about Marnie and Angelica?”

  “I’ll have to. They’re his employees,” she said, her gaze on the paper bag she’d accepted from him.

  The cynical part of his brain was still sure she was covering for her stepfather. Graham Boyle was at the top of this chain of deceit, Hayden had no doubt. What he wasn’t sure about was whether Lucy’s willingness to help with the investigation was part of her plan to ensure she was on the scene once he found the evidence on Graham. Perhaps she even hoped to influence him into discarding that evidence.

  He hated thinking that way, wished he could just be open with her, but he had to be realistic. Her information had been invaluable so far, but she was an employee of ANS and Graham Boyle’s stepdaughter. Her loyalty would always be with him. Hayden understood that. Didn’t mean he couldn’t protect his investigation where he could.

  “Don’t tell him yet. Come back tonight after work and we’ll make a plan for interviewing Marnie and Angelica again. I’ll see what I can do with Ames and Hall in the meantime. Tell Boyle when we know more.”

  She bit down on her lip as her gaze swept the room, probably remembering the last time she had been in this room at night, and he thought she was going to say no. His gut clenched. Then she said, “Okay, tonight,” and everything inside him leaped as much as it had when they’d made the breakthrough on the case just moments earlier. He cursed under his breath. Seemed working on Ames and Hall wasn’t the only work he needed to do today—he also needed to shut his body into lockdown before Lucy knocked on his door again.

  * * *

  When he opened the door to Lucy that evening, there was an awful formality between them. Only his son seemed to make her relax. Josh squealed from his place on the lounge and reached his arms out, and Hayden felt a stab of envy—he wanted to hold his arms out to Lucy, too.

  As he watched her with Josh—both of them talking and laughing—he couldn’t tear his gaze away.

  Then Hayden’s cell rang and he was almost relieved by the distraction. When he picked it up, the number that flashed on the screen was unfamiliar.

  “Hayden Black,” he said.

  “Mr. Black, this is Rowena Tate. I’m Senator Tate’s daughter.”

  The senator had mentioned today that his daughter was in town, but Hayden hadn’t met her, so the call was something of a surprise. “Good evening, Ms. Tate.”

  “I’ve been following the congressional committee’s investigation,” Rowena said. “As you know, my fiancé has an interest in the proceedings.”

  The senator had also mentioned Rowena’s engagement to Colin Middlebury, a British diplomat who’d worked with Senator Tate to have Congress ratify a privacy treaty, and had helped the senator form the committee looking into the phone hacking in the first place.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked as he tracked Lucy’s progress across to his kitchenette to get a glass of water, Josh on her hip.

  “I have a suspicion about one of the key players at ANS that you might be interested in.”

  His attention snapped back to the phone in his hand. “I’m listening.”

  “Any chance you can meet me tonight at the airport? I’m flying back to L.A. in a couple of hours.”

  “Tonight?” he repeated, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck. It was almost Josh’s bedtime and he hated the idea of dragging a sleepy boy out in the dark of night. “Tonight might be difficult.”

  Lucy moved into his field of vision. “If you have to go out,” she whispered, “I can stay with Josh.”

  “Hang on a minute, Rowena,” he said, not taking his gaze from Lucy. Then he put his hand over the receiver. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “Is it about the investigation?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m helping you with the investigation,”
she said, sweeping an arm toward the piles of documents they’d been sorting through. “Staying with Josh is simply part of that.”

  “But it’s his bedtime in about an hour.”

  “He’s had dinner, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes,” he said, running a finger around the inside collar of his shirt, “but—”

  “I’ll handle the rest. I’ve helped out at my charity enough to handle one bedtime. You can show me where things are before you go. We’ll be fine.”

  He glanced down at his son—who was gazing adoringly at Lucy—wondering if a good father would leave his son with someone else this way. His gaze flicked back to Lucy. He might not trust her about Graham, but he trusted her implicitly with his son. “Are you sure?”

  “One hundred percent.” She nodded decisively. “Go.”

  “Thanks,” he said, then removed his hand from the phone to speak to Rowena. “I’ll be there.”

  Six

  Hayden scanned the crowd in the airport terminal until he caught sight of Colin Middlebury in a café. He headed over and held out his hand. Colin and the woman at his side pushed their chairs back and stood.

  “Thanks for coming, Black,” Colin said, shaking Hayden’s extended hand.

  “Good to see you again, Middlebury.” He’d met the British diplomat when he’d first taken on this job, but hadn’t met Rowena before.

  “This is my fiancée, Rowena Tate.” Colin put an arm around Rowena’s shoulders and beamed at her.

  The willowy blonde smiled first at the man beside her, then across at Hayden. “Thanks for coming on such short notice.”

  “It’s no problem,” Hayden said, trying not to think about Lucy looking luscious on the sofa back at his hotel suite.

  Colin indicated a third chair at their table, and they all sat, both men turning to Rowena and waiting.

  “We won’t take much of your time, Mr. Black. I asked you to come because I didn’t want to discuss this over the phone, given the nature of the investigation.”

  “Sensible.” He knew his cell was safe from hacking, but he couldn’t be sure about anyone else’s. He glanced around—no one was sitting close enough to overhear. “So what’s your suspicion?”

  “It has to do with Angelica Pierce.” She leaned closer over the table, and lowered her voice. “She’s always seemed oddly familiar, but I saw her on the TV reporting a story and the camera caught her at an unusual angle, just off to the side. And I was suddenly struck by her similarity to a girl I went to boarding school with, Madeline Burch. Different-colored hair and eyes, and, if it’s her, she’s had a nose job and some other work. While she was still on the screen, I called a friend who went to Woodlawn Academy with us, and she thinks it could be Madeline, too.”

  Interest piqued, Hayden took a small notebook out of his shirt pocket and wrote the name Madeleine Burch. “Any reason a reporter changing her name to something more appealing is suspicious?”

  “Madeline was...unbalanced is probably the best word. Always bragging that her father was someone big, but she never said who. Apparently he’d paid her mother some hush money so they couldn’t mention his name. And if anyone challenged her on it, she’d lose it.”

  “Define lose it,” he said, suddenly very interested.

  “One time she’d had argument with another girl. I can’t remember what it was over. And that night when we went back to our rooms, the other girl’s clothes were all over the floor, cut into pieces.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Anything done about it?”

  “They had no evidence.” Rowena shrugged one shoulder in a gesture of helpless frustration. “Madeline told the teachers she saw a younger girl sneak into the dorm room, which was a lie. That girl wouldn’t have hurt a mouse.”

  He rubbed his chin as he considered the woman before him. Rowena was showing no signs of lying—she seemed confident and open. On the current evidence, he was inclined to believe her.

  “Was that an isolated incident?” he asked, taking notes on what she’d said so far.

  “Unfortunately, no. She was unpredictable and vindictive. And even though we always knew it was her, she’d try to blame her crimes on someone else. Even conning younger girls to confess a couple of times. We pretty much gave her a wide berth whenever we could. Until the day she was arguing with another student about her ‘secret father’ and the other student called her a liar and a freak. Madeline attacked the girl and was finally expelled.”

  His pulse picked up speed as bits of information fitted together like interlocking puzzle pieces. “Did you see her again?”

  She shook her head. “When all this came up recently, my friend Cara Summers and I searched the internet and couldn’t find a trace of Madeline after she was expelled. And, oddly enough, Angelica Pierce doesn’t have much of a trail before then. I’m not sure if it will help, but I decided it was better to tell you than not.”

  He nodded at the couple, his poker face in place despite the way his mind was racing. “I’m glad you did.”

  Rowena handed over an envelope. “These are the results of our research, such as it is. Mainly basic information, and we suspect that much of it is falsified. I’m sure you have other channels to go deeper. But there is one photo of Madeline that Cara managed to track down from another old school friend.” Hayden thanked both Rowena and Colin, said goodbye and made his way out through the airport. If Angelica was Madeline Burch, she could have set up Troy Hall and Brandon Ames to carry out the plan then take the fall—that would fit the pattern of Madeline’s school days. His blood pumped faster as his investigator’s senses twitched. Something about this felt right.

  Variations of possible scenarios played out in his mind on the trip back to the hotel and, as he used his key card to open the door, he was still buzzing with the new directions his investigation could take. This was a lead that could break the case wide open and point the way to solid answers.

  Everything in the suite was silent, so he quietly walked behind the sofas to peek into Josh’s room. His little boy was sleeping peacefully. Relieved, Hayden smiled as he shut the door. He’d have to thank Lucy later—

  Then he saw her curled up asleep on the sofa and his breath stilled. Despite the temperature-controlled room, his skin heated.

  She was so achingly beautiful, with her blond hair falling over the creamy curve of her cheek. Memories of touching her bare skin assaulted his senses, of the fragrance of her hair, the shape of her hip. Of her fingers touching him, feather-soft at first, then urgently when she needed him. Without realizing he’d moved, he was beside her, crouching down, close enough to feel her breath fan gently over his face.

  His heart frantically battered at his rib cage, and a distant part of his brain screamed to move away before she woke, but he didn’t pull back. Couldn’t. He swallowed hard. Her skin was porcelain smooth, her lips slightly parted as she dreamed. Would he be in those dreams? She’d certainly been in his.

  He leaned forward just a few inches and kissed her lightly. Sweet torture. His eyes drifted closed. He’d pull back any second now. He would. Just as soon as he committed this moment to memory.

  With the softest of moans, Lucy moved her lips languorously under his and her eyes fluttered open. Now was the time to move away, now, but she smiled against his mouth and threaded her fingers through his hair and he couldn’t summon the will to allow any space between them.

  “Hayden,” she murmured, then kissed him again. As she lifted herself up on an elbow, he slid an arm around her, dragging her against his chest, silently cursing the fabric between them. He was lost, drowning in her. The musky scent of warm skin surrounded him, curled through his mind, luring him to the edge of sanity, to a place where the reasons this was wrong didn’t exist.

  Yet a tendril of awareness remained, a slow-blinking warning light in the peripheries of his mind. He tried to push it away, to give himself over completely to the lushness of the woman in his arms, but deep down he knew...

  Thrusting a hand up to cr
adle the back of her head, he kissed her one more time, a kiss tinged with desperation, before wrenching his mouth away and sitting back on his heels.

  “Lucy,” he said, his voice barely audible through a tight jaw. “I’m at breaking point.” He dropped his forehead to rest on hers, holding her more tightly. “I want you—I can’t tell you how much I want you—but making love again would be wrong on so many levels.”

  She pulled back and moistened her lips, unknowingly daring him to throw caution to the wind again. She blinked up at him, as if she was only now truly waking up, then she relaxed and smiled sleepily. “It’ll be fine. Come down here. After last time I know there’s enough room for two.”

  Frustration clawing through his veins, he speared the fingers of both hands through his hair, then tangled them together behind his head. “There’s nothing I want more in this moment, but you know we can’t.”

  She pushed herself up to a sitting position and rubbed her eyes. The movement just made him want to draw her into his arms even more, so he forced himself to go over to the other sofa, creating something of a safety barrier. Though if her pink tongue peeked out and wet her lips one more damn time, that distance would provide no obstacle at all.

  She tucked her legs up beneath her and nodded. “Okay. Let me make a proposal.”

  “Sure,” he said. It would need to involve a suit of body armor for one of them if it had any chance of effectiveness. Or perhaps separate cities.

  “Here’s how things stand.” She held up a closed hand, ticking the points off by raising a finger for each one as she went. “We have some undeniable chemistry. You’re only in D.C. for a short time. You don’t have space in your life for a relationship. Your work won’t allow for a relationship with me in particular.”