Private Justice. Marie Ferrarella

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СКАЧАТЬ to catch up was just not his father’s way. These days, he seemed to like his family subdued and out of sight.

      Too bad you can’t follow your own required behavior, Dad.

      “This is Dylan Kelley,” he answered, then added, “your son,” for good measure.

      The information was met with more silence on the other end.

       Chapter 3

      Just as he was about to surrender his last shred of patience and say something really terse to his father, Dylan heard the voice on the other end of the line challenge, “How do I know that you are who you say you are? How do I know that it’s really you?”

      He didn’t remember his father being this paranoid. But then, his personal memories of his father were admittedly not only few and far in between, but vague as well.

      “Why?” Dylan asked. “You have another son named Dylan?”

      “No, but my son Dylan hasn’t spoken to me in months now. So many that I can’t really recall just how long,” his father replied.

      It annoyed Dylan that his father made his answer sound more like an accusation than a statement of a situation that he had brought upon himself. “And I wouldn’t be calling now if you hadn’t gotten yourself into one hell of a mess.”

      Hank was still wary. Still nervous. “My son wouldn’t care.”

      “I don’t,” Dylan answered coldly. “But all of this is ripping the hell out of Mother.”

      The last he’d heard, his mother had gone into hiding to avoid having to make any sort of a statement or subject herself to the public’s insatiable appetite for scandal.

      For a split second, Dylan debated continuing on this path. Inadvertently, his father was handing him his way out. He could just back away, saying something inane about just wanting to check on his father’s whereabouts and now that he had, he was done with it.

      But that wasn’t why he was here, Dylan reminded himself stoically. He was here not just to do damage control but, like it or not, to try to pull his father out of this quagmire.

      “I’m offering you my services so we can find a way out of this and spare Mother any further humiliation. After everything you’ve put her through, essentially leaving her to raise the four of us by herself, she doesn’t deserve this.” And if it hadn’t been for his uncle Donald, they would have found themselves to be all alone. The nannies and servants were exceedingly poor substitutes for a parent’s love, a parent’s attention. “The press is hell-bent on hounding her.”

      He heard his father laugh shortly. “I know the feeling.”

      Dylan knew he should keep his comment to himself, but he just couldn’t. There was a deep-seated anger he needed to vent before he could be of any use to the old man. “I doubt that you’re able to feel anything at all that doesn’t directly affect you.”

      There was a pause again. He was sincerely skeptical that guilt had backed his father into silence. When it came to what the family thought of him, Dylan was convinced that his father had the emotional hide of a rhino.

      When the senator spoke again, it was to ask another question. “How did you get this number?”

      Dylan glanced toward the woman who had given up all pretense of not paying attention to every word he was saying. She stood on the other side of the desk, unabashedly listening to his end of the conversation, most likely trying to fill in the blanks that she wasn’t able to hear.

      “Your Chief Staff Assistant gave it to me.”

      “Cindy Jensen gave it to you?’ his father asked incredulously. “She believed you?”

      Dylan sighed. He hadn’t come here to play games. His time was too precious for that. Hitting the speaker button, he retired the receiver into the cradle. “Here, why don’t you ask her yourself? I just put you on speakerphone.”

      “Where are you?” Hank wanted to know, far from won over.

      “I’m standing in your Beverly Hills office,” Dylan told him. And then he turned his attention to Cindy. “Ball’s in your court, Chief Staff Assistant,” he said, deliberately putting emphasize on the word chief.

      “Cindy?” Hank asked uncertainly.

      “I’m right here, Senator,” Cindy answered, moving closer to the phone on the desk.

      “Cindy.” There was relief in Hank’s voice, as if he could now relax because someone he trusted—one of the few individuals he trusted—was there on his behalf. “And you’re convinced that you’re dealing with my son? One of my sons?” Hank said, qualifying his question.

      “Yes, sir,” Cindy replied firmly. “He showed me his driver’s license.”

      “Driver’s licenses can be faked,” Hank pointed out, then instructed her to describe him.

      Cindy frowned. She hadn’t thought of that, that the man could be showing her a fake driver’s license. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the individual on the other side of the desk more closely. Something in her gut told her she was right, despite the momentary uncertainty.

      “He’s about six foot one,” she began.

      “Six foot two and a half,” Dylan corrected her. It wasn’t that the inch and a half difference was so important, he just wanted her to be accurate. He knew damn well that his father had absolutely no idea how tall he actually was.

      Cindy ignored Dylan’s interjection. “He’s got intense blue eyes and really thick dark hair.” She paused for a second, weighing her next sentence before continuing. “He could stand a haircut,” she commented.

      He’d gotten nothing but positive responses from the women in his office and the ones he went out with. Obviously this one liked to go against the grain. “I like it this length,” Dylan informed her.

      Cindy responded with a careless shrug of her slim shoulders, then went on as if he hadn’t said anything. “But he dresses well. And if I look at him from the side,” which she did now, moving to another vantage point around the desk, “he looks a little like a younger version of you, Senator.”

      They heard Hank blow out a breath, as if he’d been holding it. “All right, I’m convinced.”

      “Hallelujah,” Dylan enthused cryptically. “Now can we get on with this, please?” He didn’t wait for a response to his plea. “Where are you?”

      Ever since the scene on the courthouse steps, Hank had taken measures to keep ahead of the media hounds. “I’ve been moving around, trying to stay a step ahead of the press.” The silence that met his statement told Hank that Dylan was waiting for him to elaborate. “Staying with different people.”

      “Your mistresses?” Dylan asked. There was a coldness in his voice.

      He didn’t expect the answer he heard. “Hell, no,” his father hooted. “They’re a jealous bunch. They didn’t know about each other,” he confessed. “Now СКАЧАТЬ