Private Justice. Marie Ferrarella

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СКАЧАТЬ just to make sure he understood what she was saying, “barring some kind of divine intervention, you’re not going to give me the address of his ‘safe house.’”

      Her smile was tight. “Finally,” her eyes seemed to say. “That’s what I’m telling you.”

      Okay, if she wanted divine intervention, there was only one way to go. He might not be on a first-name basis with God, but he was, so to speak, with his father. And, he had a hunch that in this case, a word from his almighty father would have the same effect on this overly protective woman.

      “Could you at least call my father and let me talk to him?” Dylan requested, doing his best to sound patient. “We can let him decide.”

      Cindy paused, thinking. The man standing before her did seem sincere, but that was obviously something that, whether he liked it or not, this bright young lawyer had inherited from his father. The senator was the type of man who could persuade a survivor of the Titanic to book a three-week cruise to Alaska and make the person believe it was his own idea. She’d never met anyone so convincing.

      It apparently ran in the family. But she had had her shots, thanks to her ex, and it took a great deal to sway her from her position once she took it.

      Determined to get this woman to come around, Dylan tried again. “Look, wouldn’t you hold yourself accountable if you do keep us apart and the senator winds up getting nailed to the cross for his transgressions?” On his way over to the office, he had done a little calling around to various sources. The picture that had emerged of his father’s immediate future did not look good. “Right now, everyone thinks he’s guilty of everything, including starting both world wars. If I don’t at least try to help him, there’s no telling where this is going to end up.” He pinned her with a penetrating look. “You want that on your conscience?”

      This time, the silence was a great deal shorter. “You’re good,” she told him grudgingly when she spoke. “I will give you that.”

      “What I am,” he countered, “is right. Now, what’ll it be? The new address, his phone number or an eternally guilty conscience?” He laid out her three choices and waited.

      “You know, there is always the possibility that the public will come to their senses, the investigation will find him not guilty of misappropriation of campaign funds and those women will all admit to lying for the purposes of blackmail.” She looked at him. He was the personification of skepticism. “You’ve got to admit that’s a possibility.”

      He congratulated himself on not laughing in her face. Talk about a cockeyed optimist. He wouldn’t have thought it of her, not after first seeing the other side of the woman.

      “Sure it is. Right after pigs fly. They’ll not only fly,” he added, “but they’ll have their pilots’ licenses, pilots’ jackets with little gold wings pinned over the pockets and they’ll all be speaking French. Fluently,” he concluded.

      He was mocking her, she thought angrily. Why was it all the good-looking men thought they had a God-given right to put everyone else down and act as if they were the only ones who mattered? The only ones who were allowed to have an opinion—and that opinion was always right.

      Her eyes pinned him. “You’re a pessimist, I take it.”

      Actually, he saw himself as the reverse in most cases. But in this case, it was neither. “What I am is a pragmatic man who is trying to help the head of his family save face and not go down for the things he hasn’t done, however little that might turn out to be. Now, for the last time, can you at least give me his phone number and let me talk to the man before it’s too late?”

      She didn’t like the way this man kept refusing to refer to the senator by his title, but used either a pronoun or something equally as anonymous. To her, that was a sign of how little he thought of his father. She still couldn’t reconcile the notion that he was willing to go out of his way like this for someone he held in such contempt. Was there an angle he was going for that she was missing?

      In any event, though she hated to admit it, he was right. The least she could do was give him that phone number he’d asked for. The final decision about a face-to-face meeting ultimately had to lie with the senator. She was not about to presume to speak on his behalf. All she could do was lay the groundwork and make sure that no reporters got to Senator Kelley.

      Exhaling loudly as if the act would bring her very lungs out, Cindy capitulated. She pulled a notepad closer to her on the desk and wrote out a telephone number. Finished, she pushed the pad toward him.

      Dylan looked at it. It was an 818 area code, but that didn’t mean anything. This was the number to his father’s cell phone; his father could be anywhere in the state. Or out of it. Nobody said this was going to be easy, he thought with resignation.

      Tearing the sheet off the pad, he said, “By the way, you know my name because it was on my license, but I don’t know yours.”

      She didn’t take the opening he gave her. “No, you don’t.”

      This was like pulling teeth. Or, actually, more like questioning a hostile witness under oath, he thought. “What is it?” he asked her.

      There was pure suspicion in her eyes. “Why, so you can have me investigated?”

      “So I know what to call you when I need to get your attention.”

      “Through,” Cindy told him without missing a beat.

      The corners of his mouth curved slightly. “First or last?”

      Cindy cocked her head. “Excuse me?”

      “Through,” he repeated what she’d just said to him. “Is that your first name or your last name?”

      He was a lawyer all right, Cindy thought. One who wasn’t going to stop badgering her until he got what he was after. Well, she supposed that it was an easy enough matter for him to find out the name of the senator’s Chief Staff Assistant. She might as well tell him now rather than keep the game going.

      “Cindy,” she told him grudgingly. “Cindy Jensen.”

      That hadn’t taken as long as he’d begun to think it would. His smile was broad. “Nice to meet you Cindy, Cindy Jensen.”

      “You know,” she told him, “you’d get along a lot better with people if you lost that mocking tone.”

      Now that amused him. “You’re giving me advice on how to get along with people?” Didn’t that fall into the realm of the pot-and-kettle thing?

      She took offense at his response and what it implied. “I’ll have you know I get along beautifully with people. Non-belligerent people,” she qualified.

      “I only act belligerently with people who are trying to stonewall me.” He looked at the phone number in his hand. “Now that you’ve given me a number where my father can be reached, we can become best friends.”

      Her response was immediate and without hesitation. “I’d rather eat dirt.”

      “Odd choice,” he commented, keeping a straight face even though he knew he was goading her, “but I won’t stand in your way. Whatever makes you happy.”

      “What СКАЧАТЬ