“Well.” Elissa stood up and grabbed her purse off the back of her chair. “This time of day, we’ve got a long drive to LAX. Grab your go-bag and tell me a story on the way.”
FIVE
Gina, age 22
Regina Sparda walked into her father’s office carrying between her ears one of the worst hangovers she’d ever had. All the Visine in the world would not make her red eyes go away—she knew because she’d tried it about ten minutes ago—every last drop in the world poured into her blinking eyes in a dark bathroom. Light hurt. Sound hurt. Breathing too hard hurt.
Her father was not impressed.
“Good morning, Regina,” he said from behind his desk. Folders stacked in twin piles on either end of the mahogany monstrosity gave the impression he sat between two pillars. D.C. architecture. Paperwork. Secrets on top of secrets on top of secrets.
Regina dropped into a chair across from him. “Can’t fool me, Dad. It’s early afternoon.”
“So it is. For some of us.”
“If we’re playing the ‘time is relative’ game, knowing you, it’s already your dinnertime.” Regina cracked her neck. When she’d crashed sometime around four-thirty and her head hit the pillow at an odd angle, it hadn’t moved until she was rudely awakened by her father’s summons. She was paying for it now.
He smiled, lips stretching into a thin line, corners barely turned up. “If you’re not up with the chickens, you’re down with the foxes.”
“Sometimes, you just gotta party with the foxes to get what you need,” she replied.
“I heard you come in. The whole house did. I’m surprised you’re not covered in bruises, the way you stumbled down the hall. How many times did you walk into the walls?”
“You tell me. I’m sure you counted.” She glanced at one of the pillars of files.
“Five. And you left behind a broken high heel.” He folded his hands and leaned his trim body against the desk. “Soyoutellme. Was it worth it, Regina?”
“God, yes,” she said, reviewing the previous night in her head like watching a movie. The party at the private club, the dancing, the copious amounts of alcohol, the hand on her ass, the whispers in her ear. “Everything I do serves a purpose, Dad. You taught me that.”
Her father steepled his fingers together and studied her over them, his sharp gaze making her think of a hawk flying over a cathedral’s steeple and observing everything below from a high, cool distance. He stayed that way for close to a minute before addressing her again.
“So the prince talked?”
She nodded and tried not to wince at the sloshing pain in her head. “He did. Amazing what a man will say to impress a woman who he thinks gets turned on by stories of torture.”
Disgust flashed briefly in her father’s eyes. “And you caught it all?”
“Of course.”
“He wasn’t suspicious?”
She started to shake her head no then thought better of it. “No. I had to do a lot of evasive maneuvering to keep him from finding the wire, but he said he wants to go out with me again tonight, so obviously he suspects nothing.”
Her father blew a slow, steady breath out his nose. “Unless he’s going to lay a trap for you.”
Regina rolled her eyes. “Of course he is. A trap that leads me to his bedroom. He said he wants to marry me. I’m the same age as one of his daughters and I’d be current wife number four, but he promises I’d rule the roost.” She grinned. “Looks like I’m up with the chickens after all.”
Her father sat back in his leather chair. “Regina.”
“It’s fine. I don’t need to see him again tonight. I already downloaded the recordings onto a disk in the car on the way back home. You’ve got enough to pass on so that maybe this time, someone will actually charge him with war crimes.” Memories of the prince’s descriptions came flooding back along with the excited gleam in his eye.
Maybe the pounding pain in her head wasn’t entirely from a hangover.
Her father shifted in his chair. “You know that’s not how it works.”
She sighed disgustedly. “So, fine, I’ll go see him again tonight. Maybe this time he’ll tell me where some of the bodies are buried if I ask if we can visit them on our honeymoon. Would that be enough to actually do something?”
“Regina—”
