Chapter 9
Molly ran straight in to say good morning to Katelyn the moment Kathy opened the door.
“So how’d everything go last night after I left?” Kathy asked Alina. “Judging by how tired you look, I’m guessing it went very well. Tell me everything, and don’t even try to spare me the details. I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”
Alina was tempted to make something up so Kathy wouldn’t be disappointed, but she didn’t. Not only did she hate lying to her friend, but she was simply too tired to come up with anything.
“If you want to know how the night went, that’s easy. It sucked.”
Kathy looked surprised for a moment, then hustled her into her apartment and closed the door. Alina had been there enough times to know what the place looked like by heart. The layout was the same as her apartment, with most of the furniture nearly identical too. The only major difference was the pile of small cardboard boxes stacked up against the living room wall. Most likely socks waiting to be sent out in this morning’s deliveries.
“What happened?” Kathy asked.
Alina was in the middle of giving her friend the synopsized version of last night’s events when her cell phone rang. She dug it out of her pocket. It was probably Trevor telling her he wasn’t coming to pick her up and that she needed to take a cab down to Quantico.
It wasn’t Trevor. It was Dick, no doubt wanting to know why the hell she hadn’t returned any of his calls. In addition to calling her several times the previous night, he’d already called twice this morning.
She sighed and let this call go to voice mail, too, then shoved her phone back in her pocket.
Kathy must have seen the look of displeasure on Alina’s face, because she led her over to the couch and plunked her down, then sat beside her.
“What’s wrong? You haven’t had this new job long enough to be hating the thought of going to work in the morning already.”
“It’s not that,” Alina said.
Picking up last night’s story where she’d left off, Alina explained about Seth Larson and how she’d told her boss about the meeting.
Kathy frowned. “I don’t see the problem here. Dick is your boss, right? Why wouldn’t you tell him about it?”
Alina sighed. “This is going to sound crazy, but I’m getting the feeling my boss isn’t exactly one of the good guys. There’s a lot going on that I don’t understand, but my instincts are telling me that Dick is in league with the person who had the previous director murdered. From everything I’ve seen over the past few days, Trevor is trying to get the evidence to prove it.”
Kathy grimaced. “And you just told the bad guy exactly what Trevor is up to.”
Alina nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t realize what I was doing, and by the time I did, it was too late to do anything about it. Then last night, Larson called and said Dick sent some guys to pay him a visit. They roughed Larson up and scared the hell out of his autistic kid. I felt like crap knowing it was my fault, but then felt ten times worse when I saw the look in Trevor’s eyes. He didn’t say anything, but he knows it was me. I feel like I betrayed him.”
Hell, she did betray him.
Kathy considered that. “Well, the first thing you need to do is stop talking to Dick. Second, talk to Trevor, and tell him exactly how you feel. Tell him that Dick duped you into spying on him and that you had no intention of betraying him.”
Alina almost laughed at the simplicity of Kathy’s plan. Leave it up to her friend to uncomplicate the situation and say what needed to be said. Considering the way the tension left her body the moment she heard her friend’s idea, Kathy was probably right on.
“You’re suggesting I blow off my boss’s calls? Ignore the man who signs my paycheck?”
“I remember you telling me that you always felt there was something off about Wade,” Kathy said. “That your instincts had screamed at you for months there was something sideways about him. You were furious you’d let your head overrule your instincts and promised me you’d never do anything like that again.”
Alina sighed. She vaguely remembered that late-night conversation with Kathy and the promise she’d made. Right now, those instincts were telling her Trevor wasn’t the bad guy in this equation. If anyone was—besides Dick and Thorn—it was her.
She nodded. “You’re right.”
“Of course I’m right,” Kathy said. “If talking to Dick feels wrong, it is. Tell the guy the battery on your cell phone died or that you dropped it in the garbage disposal. It worked for that quarterback. It’ll work for you.”
“It didn’t really work for him, Kathy,” Alina pointed out. “He was found guilty, got suspended, and lost millions of dollars in pay.”
“Well, yeah, I guess. You don’t have millions of dollars, and it’s not like your boss can be as evil as the football commissioner, so you should be fine.” Kathy shrugged. “Besides, you lie much better than that cute quarterback. His face is too honest to pull off a good one.”
Alina laughed at the image of Dick losing his mind when she told him she missed his calls because her phone fell in the garbage disposal. But her amusement disappeared as another concern took center stage.
