“Jer! Bring your friends inside. I made some snacks,” Mom yelled from the back porch.
My face flushed, but I knew my mother would think we were being rude if we didn’t offer something to our guests. That was how the woman was raised.
“If you need to get on the road, I’ll explain it to her. She’s the ultimate hostess, and we rarely have company. Maybe just a quick glass of lemonade and whatever she’s made? I’ll tell her you’ve got a long drive ahead of you.”
Lawry chuckled. “You should meet Maureen Schatz. She’s the same way, and if I left without sitting down with your mother, my own would be quite disappointed in me.”
I chuckled and went to the ring to release the colt from where he’d been tied to the fencepost. Fancy, the mother, was standing next to the foal, so I patted her as I walked between them. “Miss Fancy, you need to move over so I can let your little boy go. We’ll get back to this.”
She pushed against me before I pushed back, and then when I released Thunder’s head from the halter, the two of them trotted away. Could I leave them for a couple of weeks to help a stranger stay alive? That was something I needed to carefully consider.
Chapter Three
Sean
Meanwhile the previous Friday...
Sirens were howling as I crossed the alley after having a cocktail at Café Berlin. Dagmar had brought out my potato cakes and kissed my cheek before she disappeared. I had no idea what the hell was going on because it didn’t seem like a regular late-May Friday evening. Even Claus hadn’t been as friendly as usual.
When I walked around the corner of my office building to enter through the front doors, I saw emergency vehicles with swirling red and blue lights casting an eerie glow on the white building while a whole cadre of first responders rushed around in action.What the fuck is going on?
I pushed my way through the crowd until I found Rashad, the lead concierge. “What happened, Rashad?”
He turned to me and pulled me away from the chaos of first responders, building tenants, and nosy passersby. “Your car blew up, Mr. Fitzpatrick.”
My car blew up?I fucking froze.
The firefighters were hurrying around the building to the garage exit as a tanker truck backed down the alley where I’d just emerged, the crowd pushing against Rashad and me, who were in their way of gawping at the scene. I didn’t move. Icouldn’tmove. “What the hell happened, Rashad?”
“The police and firemen are still trying to piece it together, Mr. Fitzpatrick. It seems as if someone planted a bomb in or under your BMW. You left your car here last night and took a car service to the office this morning, so your car was in the garage all night. The police have already asked for the garage CCTV footage to review it in hopes of seeing when the bomb was planted. It blew up around the time you’d have been driving home if you’d left on time today.” Rashad’s expression showed concern.
I was fucking scared out of my mind.
“Okay, uh, Rashad. Thank you for filling me in. I’ll find a hotel somewhere downtown. Will you call me when you hearanything?” What the fuck was I supposed to do? Clearly, someone was after me. What the hell had I done to cause someone to blow up my car?
I pulled my phone from my breast pocket and called the former Democratic representative from North Carolina, Benjamin Hoffman. I’d taken notice of Ben Hoffman back when he was in the North Carolina General Assembly. He worked hard to shoot down North Carolina’s infamous Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act while he was a senator in the North Carolina General Assembly.
He lost the fight back then, but he won the war when HB2 was repealed in 2017, with the discriminatory provisions implemented in 2016, and went on to sunset in 2020.
Ben had gone on to represent his district in Congress, which was where I had the opportunity to meet him, and he now worked for a private law practice in the DC area. Rumor had it he and his husband were splitting time between DC and Knott’s Island, North Carolina, where they’d both grown up.
Ben’s husband, Raleigh Wallis, worked for a security organization headquartered in New York, and I was hoping he could give me some idea of what to do in my current clusterfuck. I’d been threatened more than once since I began lobbying the power players in DC some fifteen years ago, but no one had ever gone to this extreme.
The phone rang twice before it was answered. “Hello?” Thankfully, it was Ben.
“Hello, Congressman Hoffman. It’s Sean Fitzpatrick. I wondered if you had a moment to speak with me. If not, would you call me back within the next day or so? I was planning to leave a voicemail. I didn’t expect you to answer because I know you’re in the midst of party planning for the celebration of adopting your little girl. I don’t want to detract from your happiness, but if you can spare a few minutes, I’d appreciate it.”
My heart was in my throat. Nobody had ever tried to kill me before, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do about it.
“I’ve got a bit of time right now. It’s the calm before the storms of tomorrow. What can I do for you, Sean?”
I stepped to the curb to hail a cab because Georgetown was a bit of a hike, and in my current state of panic, I was already short of breath. A cab made a U-turn, stopping in front of me.
I hopped in the back seat and said, “Four Seasons Hotel, Georgetown, please.”
I didn’t have my messenger bag because I had planned to go back to the office after I had my drink and snack at Café Berlin. Thankfully, I had my keys, though the car key was now useless. I needed to reach out to the police and contact my insurance company, but first I needed to get my ass somewhere safe and calm the fuck down.
“I was wondering if your husband could recommend someone for a short-term security detail. Someone blew up my car tonight.” I wasn’t going for shock value. I was stating a fact.
