A Conflict of Interest. Barbara Dunlop

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СКАЧАТЬ not hard enough. How could you give them permission to add a new speaker?”

      “They didn’t ask,” Sandy pointed out with a frown. “Graham Boyle himself put Mitch Davis on the agenda for a toast. Two minutes, they say, tops.”

      Mitch Davis was a star reporter for ANS. Graham Boyle might be the billionaire owner of the network, and the sponsor of this ball, but even he didn’t get to dictate to the president.

      Cara couldn’t help an errant glance at Max. As the most popular investigative reporter at ANS’s rival, National Cable News, he was a mover and shaker himself. He might have some insight into what was up. But Cara couldn’t ask him about this or anything else to do with her job, not now and not ever again.

      Cara pressed a speed-dial button for her boss.

      It rang but then went to voice mail.

      She hung up and tried again.

      She could see that the president had arrived at the head table, in front of and below the stage. He was accepting the congratulations of the smartly dressed guests. The men wore Savile Row tuxedos, while the woman were draped in designer fabrics that shimmered under the refracted light of several dozen crystal chandeliers.

      The MC, popular ANS talk show host David Batten, returned to the microphone. He offered a brief but hearty welcome and congratulations to the president before handing the microphone over to Graham Boyle. According to the schedule, Graham had three minutes to speak. Then the president would have one dance with the female chair of a local hospital charity and a second with Shelley Michaels, another popular ANS celebrity. That was to be followed by seven minutes at his table with ANS board members before taking his leave.

      Cara gave up on her cell phone and started making her way toward the stage. There was a staircase at either end, nothing up the middle. So she knew she had a fifty-fifty chance of stopping Mitch Davis before he made it to the microphone. Too bad she wasn’t a little larger, a little brawnier, maybe a little more male.

      Once again, her thoughts turned to Max. The man dodged bullets in war-torn cities, scaled mountains to reach rebel camps and fought his way through crocodiles and hippos for stories on the struggles of indigenous people. If Max Gray didn’t want a person up onstage, that person was not getting up onstage. Too bad she couldn’t enlist his help and would have to rely on her own wits.

      She chose the stairs at stage right, wending her way through the packed crowd.

      Graham Boyle was waxing poetic about ANS’s role in the presidential election. He’d taken a couple of jabs at President Morrow’s alma mater and its unfortunate choice of mascot given current relations with Brazil. But that was all fair game.

      Cara wished she was taller. At five foot five, she couldn’t see the stairs to know if Mitch was waiting to go up on the right-hand side. She regretted having gone for the comfortable two-inch heels instead of the flashy four-inch spikes that her sister, Gillian, had given her for Christmas. She could have used the height.

      “Where are you going?” It was Max’s voice in her ear.

      “None of your business,” she retorted, attempting to speed up and put some distance between them.

      “You have that determined look in your eyes.”

      “Go away.”

      He tucked in close beside her. “Maybe I can help.”

      “Not now, Max.” She was working. Why did he have to do this to her?

      “Your destination can’t possibly be a state secret.”

      She relented. “I’m trying to get to the stage. Okay? Are you happy?”

      “Follow me.” He stepped in front of her.

      His six-foot-two-inch height and broad shoulders made him an imposing figure. She supposed it didn’t hurt any that he was famous, either. Last month, he’d been voted one of the ten hottest men in D.C. The upshot was he could move through a crowd far faster than she could. Resigned, she stuck to his coattails.

      Even with Max clearing the way, they eventually got stuck behind a crowd of people.

      “Why do you want to get to the stage?” He turned to ask her.

      “For the record,” she responded, “I don’t know any state secrets. I don’t have that kind of job.”

      “And since I’m not a foreign spy, we should be able to carry on a conversation without compromising national security.”

      An unmistakable voice came over the sound system. “Good evening, Mr. President,” drawled Mitch Davis.

      A murmur of surprise moved across the room, since Mitch was a known detractor of President Morrow. Cara rocked back on her heels. She’d failed to stop him.

      “First, let me say, on behalf of American News Service, congratulations, sir, on your election as President of the United States.”

      The applause came up on cue, though perhaps not as strong as usual.

      “Your friends,” Mitch continued with a hearty game-show-host smile, “your supporters and your mother and father must all be very proud.”

      Cara strained to catch the president’s expression, wondering if he would be angry or merely annoyed by the deviation from the program. But there was no way to see through the dense crowd.

      “The president is smiling,” Max offered, obviously guessing her concern. “It looks a little strained though.”

      “Davis is not on the program,” Cara ground out.

      “No kidding,” Max returned, as if only an idiot would think otherwise.

      She glared at him, then elbowed her way past, maneuvering through the crowd toward the president’s table below the stage. Lynn Larson was going to be furious. It wasn’t exactly Cara’s responsibility to ensure that this specific ball went smoothly, but she had been working closely with the staffers coordinating each one. She was partly to blame for this.

      Thankfully, Max didn’t follow her.

      “I expect nobody is prouder than your daughter,” said Mitch, just as Cara reached a place where she could see Mitch on stage.

      There was a confused silence in the room, because the president was single and didn’t have any children. Confused herself, Cara rocked to a halt a few feet from Lynn at the president’s table. Lynn glanced toward the stairs at the end of the stage, as if she was gauging how long it would take her to get there.

      Mitch waited a beat, microphone in one hand, glass of champagne in the other. “Your long-lost daughter, Ariella Winthrop, who is with us here tonight to celebrate.”

      It took half a second for the crowd to react. Maybe they were trying to figure out if it was a sick joke. Cara certainly was.

      But she quickly realized it was something far more sinister than a joke, and her gaze flew to the corner of the stage, where she’d glimpsed her friend Ariella, whose event-planning company had been hired to throw the ANS ball. When Cara focused on Ariella, her СКАЧАТЬ