Undercover Genius (9 page)

“He has a brother and sister, but I don’t think they were
real close. Bill was a lot more open-minded, and they’re… kind of
midwestern-minded,” she finished lamely, probably realizing she didn’t know my
level of
open-mindedness.

“Righteous and Proud people?” I said cheerfully.

“White and Proud, more like it,” she said bitterly. “My
mother’s Hispanic and I wasn’t allowed at his family’s table.”

Crikey. That wasn’t proud, that was stupid, but I only had a
few more minutes before class, so I wasn’t getting into human behavior. “It
takes all kinds, I guess. Thanks for the information!”

I wanted to dive into the audio files but I satisfied myself
with opening the attachments and reading labels while I signed into the website
for my on-line classroom. The titles were too cryptic to translate with accuracy,
although I chortled over
Rosesmells.
Given Carla’s liberal leanings, that was bound to be a Paul Rose boo-boo.

I listened with half an ear as the on-line professor
pontificated on classic essay structure. I could see Magda’s point — this
wasn’t precisely relevant to life as I knew it. Lectures on economics, civics,
technology, and history would be far more useful, but I suppose that a day
could come when I needed an essay.

I reduced the professor to a corner of my screen, zoomed in
on the textbook, and highlighted passages he mentioned. Bored, I started
opening the audio files. Graham was probably itching impatiently to see what
was in them, so I might as well pretend I was working.

Bill had apparently asked Carla at Intrepid for files on
every politician in D.C. connected with the Righteous and Proud organization.
Interesting. Was he feuding with his siblings or did he have a deeper
motivation? A couple of the men on the list had powerful connections to Paul
Rose and his conservative textbook committee, which made them candidates for
Top Hat.

But if Bill had been working on Patra’s tape the day he died,
I didn’t understand the connection to R&P and certainly not to Top Hat. As
far as I was aware, neither group had anything to do with the old wars that Patrick
had been killed in. So maybe Bill had been working on something else — and
that’s what got him killed? Not Patra?

I heard Mallard greet Patra in the foyer above me just as
the professor was giving the homework assignment. I jotted it down and signed
out. It was almost lunch time. We needed to talk.

I jogged upstairs and met her on her way to her room.
“Lunch?” I asked. “At the Irish pub without the talking candelabra?”

She glanced disparagingly at my ragged T-shirt. “Not if
you’re dressed like that. Honestly, Ana, Nick’s right. You look like a ragpicker.”

Since Nick had shredded the bib overalls that I once wore to
hide the holes in my favorite shirt, I shrugged. “My business contacts can’t
see me, and there’s no one at the pub to impress except a bunch of old men.”

“Sean said he’d meet us there,” she corrected. “He’s too old
for me, but he’s just your type. Clean up.”

I opened my mouth to correct her but then decided it might
be a good idea to steer her clear of the nosy reporter by making her think I
was interested.

“He’s a hunk,” I blithely agreed, before running upstairs
and contemplating my nonexistent closet. I had taken my grandfather’s study as
my room and used his file drawers for my undies.

On a hook on the back of my door I had the fancy clothes
Nick had made me buy a few weeks ago. The file drawers contained my Goodwill purchases.
I owned very little in between. The weather was cooling off, so the cool
spandex halter top and capri outfit weren’t working. Unless…

Minutes later, I had my knee-high boots pulled over the
capris and my black blazer over the halter top. Accessories, Nick had always
said, made the outfit.

Patra had changed out of her power red suit and into jeans
and a long-sleeved knit top with half its top buttons undone.

“I want one of those,” I told her, eying the form-fitting,
cleavage-revealing top with envy.

“It’s a cheap Henley, for pity’s sake. Don’t they have them
at Goodwill?” She studied my improvised outfit and rolled her eyes. “He’ll have
to just imagine what you look like, I guess. Why don’t you get your hair cut?”

“Did I ask for your opinion?” It wasn’t as if Nick hadn’t
told me the same a thousand times, but I hated hair stylists, and short hair
required frequent visits, ergo, I didn’t need short hair. Besides, I didn’t
want
Sean taking an interest in me.

I continued to tell myself that half an hour later as I sat
across the battered wooden table from him. Despite Patra’s disparagement, Irish
Boy didn’t seem to be having any problem seeing me. I wore my long black braid
over the front of my blazer, but I didn’t think it was my hair he was admiring.
I sat next to Patra, so it was obvious I wasn’t as bountifully endowed as Magda
and Patra. Yet it was me Sean focused on. My neglected hormones performed a
tango.

“You really think this speech analyst was killed for
investigating the Righteous nutwings?” Sean asked in incredulity. “That doesn’t
even come close to making sense.”

Admiration apparently only went so far. “Well, maybe his
mother killed Bill,” I said with a shrug, dragging a tasteless fry through
ketchup. The food here was close to inedible, but the fries and burgers
wouldn’t cause ptomaine. “I would have if he called
me
three times a day. The media numbers he called weren’t direct to
anyone, but I suppose the operator could have connected him with someone who
didn’t like his agenda.”

“Wiretap,” Patra said through her hamburger. “If his phone
was tapped, everything he said to anyone would have been heard by some person
we don’t know.”

“And the king of illegal wiretap is…?” I asked pointedly.

“Why I mentioned it,” she retorted. “Broderick is the most
likely suspect. His media act as the mouthpiece for R&P, and he’s the only
one wealthy enough to pull off that operation last night.”

“Paul Rose and his cronies are,” I reminded her.

“And Graham,” Sean added for good measure.

I sent him a withering look. Patra looked interested.

Over lunch, I listened in boredom as Sean and Patra
discarded Bill Bloom theories and dived into uninformed speculation about
Amadeus Graham. Sean delivered all the punches about the Icarus who soared too
close to the sun and had his wings scorched in a terrorist attack. I didn’t
need to hear the painful story again. Graham was still a brilliant man, even if
events had turned him into a paranoid nutjob, possibly a handicapped one.

After learning what I could of Patra’s morning and trying to
believe she was safe in BM’s halls, I left the two of them to gossip. Restless
and not ready to settle into my cave once I returned to the mansion, I dashed
upstairs and changed back to my grubbies. I needed to spend more time on
Graham’s tasks, but everyone was entitled to a lunch break. I'd only taken half
of mine.

After suffering stirred-hormone syndrome from Sean’s lascivious
glances, I needed quality time with the upstairs gym I’d been neglecting
lately.

The third floor was sound-proofed. That’s the only
explanation I know for never hearing Graham coming or going. And apparently no
one could hear me when I tore into the heavy bag with feet and fists. My old
therapist had told me I had a lot of suppressed anger, and boxing was better
than beating up thugs. He’d been right. I now had carved biceps and could tear
the throats out of thugs through the internet. My hostility issues are
deep-seated.

So were my sexual frustrations. Maybe I ought to pick up
Sean, if only for the relief.

I sneaked down the carpeted corridor. All the third-floor
doors were closed, indicating Graham wouldn’t welcome my presence — but
he’d given me permission to use the gym.

He hadn’t posted times for that use. I saw no reason to
knock — until I shoved open the gym door and saw a half-naked, heavily
muscled man beating the tar out of a boxing bag.

I nearly dropped my teeth.

If that was Graham, he wasn’t a cripple. Faaaaar from it.
Those were a runner’s solid legs.

He’d apparently thought me still at lunch with Sean. That proved
spying didn’t pay.

He shot me a scowl that should have scorched my hair, but
I’m made of sterner stuff than that. Ask me sometime about my months in
Atlanta’s inner city gyms.

Scowling right back, I donned the gloves he’d bought for me —
so I wouldn’t steal his. And then I proceeded to kick and punch the stuffing out
of the heavy bag until I was as hot and sweaty as he was.

It was oddly soothing and unsettling at the same time —
my steady pow, pow to his fast whackety, whackety,
whack
. We developed a kind of rhythm that built with our awareness.
At least, I was aware of the powerful masculine body emitting enough pheromones
to knock out a female squadron. He gave no indication that I existed — until
he spun gracefully and walloped the side of his foot into the heavy bag,
sending it swinging in my direction.

“O’Herlihy is a gnat,” he growled in that deep bass that
always shot straight to my girly parts. Definitely Graham. No question about
that. And very probably the diamond cufflink man who had rescued me from a mob.
Don’t swoon now, Ana. Breathe.

Sean
was the
reason he was beating up sawdust and leather? That was insulting to all of us.

I counterattacked. It wasn’t easy. I wasn’t used to having a
partner, and I was off balance just realizing Graham was a whole man, but I
kept my momentum in slamming the bag. It was hard to keep up with his powerful
return kicks, though. I was easily distracted by chiseled biceps and thick
quads and abs to die for. I was so fascinated by his muscle movement that I
really didn’t absorb the scars covering him until my strength began to flag.

I assumed they were burn scars. I know nothing about medical
deformities, but I’d heard he’d raced into a burning building to save his wife.
And failed. PTSD caused erratic behavior after that, and he’d been very
publicly fired from his presidential advisory position in the years following.

Then he’d wiped himself off the map. He doesn’t exist in
computers anymore. I’ve looked. Most people, except annoying gnats like Sean,
thought he was dead.

But Amadeus Graham was pretty damned real right now. He must
have worn some kind of gas mask when he’d entered the inferno. I could see an
ugly scar along his currently ragged, damp hair line. The rest of his face was
just as intensely Superman gorgeous as I’d suspected. I’d noticed that American
politicians often start out as beautiful as Hollywood stars. Graham would have
been JFK presidential material on his looks alone.

He had a Don’t Tread On Me snake tattoo winding up his left
bicep, over the ugliest scar tissue. Right now, with his dark hair damp and
smeared to his head, he looked like a worse thug than Sly Stallone — definitely
not a presidential candidate. Deepset, dark blue eyes pinned me as he gave the
bag one last punch.

And then I was up against the padded wall with all that
gorgeous male muscle pressing into me and hot lips sucking my breath away, and
I didn’t give a damn who he was as long as he kept on doing what he was doing.

We both apparently had a lot of frustration to express. I
practically climbed his leg after he crushed my breasts in long-fingered hands.
Crotch met crotch and we would have been doing it up against the wall if Patra
hadn’t started shouting my name in the hall below.

I slid out of his grip without a second thought. Id and
libido shouted angry epithets, but my ego wins every time, probably because I
lack a super-ego. Freud only got it half right. I lack morals but reality gives
me a roll.

“Really bad idea,” I think I muttered.

I heard him swearing like a pro as I ran for my room.

* * *

“We need a plan,” I told Patra later, after I’d taken a
cold shower and returned to my office. “We’re dealing with Broderick, a man who
has been accused of shoving his wife off his yacht. He owns a corporation that
condones mass murder in the interest of foreign oil. He’s our best candidate
for ordering the death of your father. If so, he could be guilty of hiring Bill’s
killers and arsonists to burn down your apartment. You cannot simply start
rifling his company files without a cover.”

“Broderick’s father was killed by a hit-and-run driver,” the
intercom intoned.

This time, I didn’t smack it. My lips still throbbed from
the volatility of Graham’s kisses, and just his voice turned me on. Smacking
the intercom would indicate I cared. “That’s how he started his conglomerate,
on daddy’s little newspapers?” I asked with my best professional interest.

Patra grimaced and nodded.

The intercom didn’t answer my question directly. Instead, it
suggested, “A decent position has opened at CNN in Atlanta. I can arrange it
for you.”

I didn’t waste time getting my hopes up. Patra was already
shaking her head.

“If the monster ordered my father’s death, I’m bringing him
down, and then I’m publishing dad’s book on media encouragement of war for
profit,” she said defiantly.

“Meaning
Broderick’s
media,” I corrected. “No other network or chain of newspapers has so
vociferously backed the military as Broderick’s. If he has any hint that you
still have Patrick’s files, he’ll bring you down like your father.”

“Like Bill,” she added.

“I’m not entirely convinced that’s true. Bill’s personal
conflicts might be equally dangerous. Unless we can find the connections,
that’s a dead end street,” I warned. “We need to hire another voice analyst.”

Patra looked mutinous, but we’d discussed my little foray
into Bill’s phone calls. She knew I was right. “BM supports R&P,” she
argued, reducing our problem to acronyms that could be translated as
shit supports death.
“Bill could have
been proving the connection.”