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A month. That lined up with the vandalism in Alexa’s apartment. Had Walker hired Juska on the heels of Nick’s trip to Cuba and his visit with Allen Clatcher?
“You sent me his file?”
“I sent it,” Clay said. “But I thought you were going to use the press on this one.”
“We did,” Nick said. “It's not working.”
“What do you mean?” Clay asked.
Nick tamped down his frustration. “Couple independent journalists picked up the allegations, did some digging, tweeted out some of the details, but the bigger outlets haven't touched it.”
At first they hadn’t understood, had thought maybe the bigger news organizations were just vetting the information, making sure they were reasonably clear of litigation before they went to press with the story.
But days had passed and now weeks, and Nick couldn’t help feeling Walker was greasing the wheels behind the scenes to keep the story from blowing up. What little interest there had been in the accusations against Leland Walker was starting to fizzle. Walker hadn’t even addressed them, sending a clear signal that they were so crazy they didn’t warrant a response.
He’d gained two points in the polls in the past two weeks.
“Damn,” Clay said. “What a crazy fucking world.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What are you going to do?” Clay asked.
Nick looked at him in surprise. MIS wasn’t in the habit of sharing more about their plans with Clay than was necessary for Clay to do his job. It was as much for Clay’s protection as it was for the protection of MIS.
Clay shrugged, reading Nick’s expression. “I hate these dirty politicians. I’m tired of them committing crimes out in the open and getting away with it.”
“Leland’s crimes aren’t exactly out in the open,” Nick said. “Thanks to Frederick and his money.”
Clay waved away the qualifier. “You know what I mean. The rules never apply to them. This guy’s sick. Someone needs to make sure he doesn’t get into power.”
Nick looked at all the kids on the patio, eating and laughing and crying and rubbing their eyes when they were tired. He wondered how their parents stood it — how they brought life into the world and then rolled the dice every day. How they lived with it when someone like Leland hurt their child and never even had to answer for it.
It seemed like the most terrifying gamble imaginable.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Nick finally said. “It’s a tricky situation with the election only a few months away.”
Clay nodded. “A lot of press.”
“A lot of everything,” Nick said, thinking of Matis Juska.
“You think Walker knows you’re on to him?” Clay said. “Frederick, that is. Leland doesn’t seem good for much but smiling and glad-handing.”
He shouldn’t have been surprised. It would be easy to dismiss Clay as just a tech-head, a nerd who buried himself in code because he didn’t like dealing with people, but Clay’s insights had proven helpful more than once.
Now he was articulating a secret fear Nick had been carrying around: that they weren’t just doing the watching — they were being watched.
He hadn't spotted a tail, and the sweeps of the hotel suite he and Alexa were now sharing had come up empty for listening devices, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were as much the hunted as the hunter.
“I don’t know.” Nick thought about the attack on Alexa in her apartment, the break-in that had forced her to leave it behind, Karen LaGarde's warning about Frederick. “But I have a feeling he isn’t going to sit quietly and wait for us to come to him.”
26
Alexa lay on the sofa in the hotel suite, flipping through the takeout menus she and Nick had amassed in the two weeks they’d been hunkered down at the hotel. Nick sat at the table near the window, tapping on his computer as he cross-referenced the information Clay had given him about Frederick Walker’s employees.
“Let’s go to the grocery store tomorrow,” she said. “I could use a good home-cooked meal."
He looked at her over his laptop and she thought a man had never looked so sexy in sweats and a black T-shirt. The glasses he sometimes wore when he worked on his computer for long stretches were just icing on the cake.
