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The gate to the parking area slid back, and Gage drove inside. “It’ll be fine. I’ve used this service before. How old is that clunker, anyway?”
“Don’t make fun of her—she’s given me good service. And…well, my dad named the car. It used to be his.”
Gage nodded. From the way her voice softened, it seemed that she had good memories of her dad. He’d dug into her background—he knew about her father’s death, how he’d been a member of Congress until a scandal had pushed him into the private sector. Her mother still seemed to be a social force in DC. For someone from that kind of background, Anna was remarkably laid-back.
Pulling into one of the visitor spots, Gage shut off the engine and glanced at her. In the dim lights, she looked pale and nervous, her hair a nimbus around her face.
He wanted to reach out, touch her cheek—smooth away the tight line between her eyebrows. But that wasn’t what he was here for. He needed information that she might not even know she had.
“You going to invite me up?”
She blinked at him. “Oh…oh, yes, of course. This way.” She got out and headed to the elevator bank. Bringing the pizza and a six-pack of Miller with him, he followed, nodding in approval. “Good, no stairs.”
She gave a small groan. “No stairs for a month, but I swore to myself I’m going to get back to the gym more regularly. I hadn’t realized just how out of shape I’d gotten.” She punched the elevator button.
As far as he was concerned, there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with her shape, but he should probably keep that thought to himself.
They rode up to her floor in silence, and he watched as she fumbled with her keys. She’d seemed so poised with a camera in her hands. It seemed that once you took the camera away, she didn’t know what to do. Was that camera her shield—a way to keep herself distant from the world?
Once she got her front door open, she called out, “Romeo, I’m home. Where art thou?”
Gage walked in behind her, glancing around.Romeo?Then a gray cat stalked in and sat down. It had to be twenty pounds. Large, green eyes fixed on Gage, and Gage returned the same assessing stare.
Seeming to decide Gage was okay, Romeo started to wash a paw.
“Nice cat,” Gage said.
“Don’t let the nonchalant act fool you. Romeo likes attention, but only on his own terms. You might not want to try to pet him—he’s pretty handy with his claws.”
“Oh, no need to worry about that.” Gage wasn’t a cat person. He glanced around, liking what he saw. Comfortable black leather couch, big-screen TV on one wall, a lot of books in ceiling-high bookcases, a few pillows in bright colors.
The hardwood floors had been left bare, and the pale wood offered a warm contrast with the off-white walls. He glanced at a couple of photographs on display—black-and-white images set in thin black frames. Not the usual shots of famous DC landmarks. These focused on people, with the landmarks lurking in the background, blurry and indistinct, almost like dream images.
A man in a suit sat on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a little girl stared down into the reflecting pool with the Washington Monument rising behind her, an old woman fed pigeons near the Jefferson Monument. The people were the stars of the photos—their emotions seemed caught in the images, their expressions complex and engaging—living and vibrant in contrast to the static monuments around them.
Gage gestured to the photographs. “Yours?”
Anna nodded and headed into the open kitchen. A countertop separated the kitchen from the living room, and Gage didn’t see a dining room, so he followed her.
She turned to pull out plates and cutlery. He stared at her. “Are you serious? Pizza is meant to be eaten straight out of the box.”
She gave him a smile. “You’d shock my mother down to the soles of her designer shoes. Where the heck did you grow up? Were you raised in a barn?” She put a plate in front of him.
He put down the pizza and the beer and slid onto a stool at the counter as he prepared to take the opening she had given him. It was always easier to get intel if you started off by sharing, building rapport and an atmosphere of trust. “I’m from a little town in Kentucky called Winchester. Right along the Tennessee border, near the Daniel Boone National Forest. I didn’t grow up in a barn, but I did spend a lot of time in the garage. My dad liked to rebuild cars. He had a shop attached to the house, so my brothers and I learned how to work on cars at an early age. We also learned to eat pizza the way it’s meant to be eaten. No plates required.”
Anna opened the cardboard box and inhaled deeply. “That smells like heaven.”
Romeo suddenly appeared on the counter. Anna swept him up and deposited him back on the floor. “You had your dinner, buster. Twice over.”
Gage opened a beer and handed it to Anna. “What about you?”
She put it down without taking a sip and started dishing out pizza—onto the plates. He could see he was going to have a hard time convincing her that fancy trappings weren’t needed for pizza. “Virginia to start. I was born in Richmond, but we moved to DC after my dad was elected to Congress. And we just…well, stayed. It’s my mother’s playground, so to speak. She loves all that behind-the-scenes power brokering.”
“The woman behind the politician?” Gage asked. His stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten all day, and that pizza did smell great.
Anna put out forks and knives, and Gage rolled his eyes, making her laugh before she answered him. “She was the one who pushed Dad into it. I think he would have preferred a more low-key life, but she wanted the social scene—the glitz and glamour, the parties and receptions.”
“Would have? Is he retired now?” He knew from his research that her father had passed away, but he couldn’t act as if he knew too much or she’d get suspicious.
