AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s all right,” she said in a lighthearted voice. “He gave me a beautiful daughter and a lot of financial security.”
“I’m sure the beauty comes from you,” Kline said with a smile.
“Well, thank you.” Lonsdale had learned long ago how to take a compliment. “Are you in the mood for a drink, or just a smoke?”
“I’d love both.”
“Good.” Lonsdale walked back inside. “I’m having a vodka on rocks with a lemon twist. What would you like?”
“The same, but let me get them. Just point me in the right direction, and I’ll take care of it.”
Lonsdale got him started and then retrieved her cigarettes and lighter and met him back out on the veranda. Kline gave the senator her drink and said, “God, I need this.”
Before he could get it to his lips, she stopped him and said, “A toast.” She extended her glass and said, “To living a life without regrets.” Lonsdale gave him a little wink and then took a sip.
“I’ll drink to that.”
“So how was your day?”
“Pretty shitty,” Kline said in a matter-of-fact way. “In fact…I’d say it was one of the worst days I’ve had in a long time. Maybe ever.”
Lonsdale set her drink down on the small black bistro table. “You’re serious.”
“As a heart attack.”
“What happened?”
He thought back on the day, regretting rather intensely that he had given in to his more basic instincts and even worse that he been so foolish in underestimating Rapp. When you stripped it all away the man was a Goddamn professional killer. Even if only a third of the rumors were true, he had pulled off some pretty amazing shit. Who were they to think that they would be the ones to take him down? And it would be one thing if they could confine the fight to the justice system, but he’d been foolish enough to cross the Rubicon with Rapp and enter his arena of violence. He thought back on what had transpired in the cramped interrogation room and knew he was going to have nightmares about it for a long time.
He was lucky the psycho didn’t kill him. After choking him unconscious, Rapp had put his handcuffs back on and called for the guards. Kline awoke to find himself in the ridiculous situation of having to say he didn’t know what had happened. Kline had been in a couple of fights in his life. More like scuffles, really. One was in college and one was in his mid-twenties. Both times had been to defend the honor of his hot dates. There were some torn shirts and some minor scrapes, but that was it. No punches connected and the bouncers broke things up before they got out of hand. He remembered going home with his dates, though, and being rewarded for his bravado. There would be none of that this time, although, he had no doubt he could bed the woman standing before him if he so chose. She was gorgeous, elegant, and one of the most powerful women in America, and there was something about the age difference that for the first time in his life turned him on. It would all have to wait, though. It was far too valuable a card to play so carelessly, and so early in this game.
His thoughts jumped to the moment when he looked down and saw Rapp’s cuffs lying in his lap. The absolute terror that he’d felt at that moment was unlike anything he had ever experienced in his life. Primal fear gripped him with the sudden knowledge that he was stuck in a ten-by-ten-foot cell with a predator as dangerous as any he’d find in the wild. If he had known Rapp was uncuffed, he never would have poked and prodded him the way he did. He couldn’t believe he had been stupid enough to think he could fuck with him.
And then it was all a jumble of movement and pain. Rapp was on him like one of those big fucking lions that you see on the National Geographic channel late at night, and he was helpless. Looking back on it, he couldn’t say whether it was due to his own incapacitating fear or Rapp’s skills, or both, but the bottom line was that he was completely and utterly feeble. Kline considered himself to be in better shape than 99.9 percent of the people out there, and he’d taken kickboxing classes and even done some sparring, but it had all failed him when he needed it most.
Rapp was choking him with his own tie and speaking to him in his deep, confident, deliberate voice, and what did he do? He wet himself. He wanted to believe he did it after he’d passed out, but he knew he’d done it while he was still conscious, because he remembered the warmth spreading down his leg and thinking that Rapp had stabbed him and it was his blood. Then when he’d come to, he’d felt the wetness and saw the expression on Rapp’s face. It was a look of utter contempt. A look that said, “I had no idea you were that big a puss.” Kline had never felt so emasculated in all his life. He shuddered at the memory.
Lonsdale saw him shake and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Kline shook it off and said, “Nothing, it’s just been a really bad day.” Actually, it probably really had been the worst day of his life, but he didn’t want to appear so weak in front of the woman who held so much sway over his future.
“What happened?
”
He skipped over how his day began and jumped ahead a few hours. “It started out with the deputy AG chewing my ass out for a good thirty minutes, and then the assistant AG for the criminal division read me the riot act, and then the director of the FBI called and told me to pull my head out of my ass, and then shortly after that, the AG himself called me and reminded me in extremely unpleasant terms just exactly who I worked for. Secretary of State Wicka’s office left a message for me and finally Secretary of Defense England himself called.”
Lonsdale expected a little heat to come down from within the Justice Department, but not from other Cabinet members. “What did England say?”
Kline looked over the top of his glass as he took a drink and said, “He called me your butt boy.”
“My butt boy?” she repeated, somewhat shocked.
“Yep. He said he knows damn well who was behind this stunt, and he’s not going to put up with some PC attorney from the DOJ sticking his nose in something that was already being handled.”
“I hope you told him it wasn’t being handled.”
