Page 42 of A Man of Wealth

I look over at Jared with my patented look of concern and worry that I have perfected over my short career.

“I am so very sorry. That’s my best friend. Her mother just got rushed to the hospital with a possible heart attack. She’s all alone and freaking out. I promised I’d meet her there,” I say with my best impression of a worried bestie.

“Oh, dear. Can I offer you a ride?” he asks.

“No, that’s so kind of you. I’m actually going to grab a car ride and pick up another friend of ours. It sounds like it will be a long night, and she’ll need all the support she can get. I just hope her mother will be OK. I’m so sorry to leave you before dessert. Can I call you about getting together next week?” I ask sweetly.

“Of course, let me walk you out at least,” he says as he raises a finger and tells the waiter to put the meal on his tab as he drops a sizeable tip on the table.

I nod and order a car as we stand, and he escorts me to the front. Thankfully the car is already there. He leans over in an attempt to kiss me, but I turn a bit and the kiss ends up on my cheek. I smile shyly as I pull back. Best to play the innocent damsel card with this guy.

“Thanks again, it was a lovely meal,” I say to him as he opens the door.

“Please text me that you arrived safely,” he says.

“I will,” I say as he closes the door. The second we pull away, I feel my shoulders relax. I drop my head back against the headrest and take a shuddering breath. Why do I feel as though that meeting wasn’t just about me getting information? Jared was sizing me up, but why? What does he know? Is he involved with whoever was chasing us from the shipyard?

I have the driver go by the hospital. I don’t see anyone following us, but I can’t be too sure. I tell him to pull around to a side entrance, and I’ll meet him there in two minutes. He does as instructed, and I walk through the hospital.

My phone rings and I look down. Conner.

“Yes?”

“Are you still at the restaurant dining with the enemy?”

If I could reach through the phone and strangle him, I would.

“I am on my way home.” I pause because right now, I don’t want to deal with him, but I also think we need to make some changes if we plan on actually being able to get to the shipyard without being tracked. I have a backup plan I use often for situations where I need to get away from the world. In my old apartment, there was a lovely little old couple, the Hodgekins. They spend most of the year at a condo in Florida. But they keep an apartment in the city for the summer, so they can visit friends, family, and doctors. I keep tabs on it for them. Checking in periodically and reporting back that all is good. They have always offered for me to stay the night if I need to or if I’m nearby and it’s late. And tonight, I’m taking them up on their offer.

I contemplate what to tell Conner. Hell, are the phone lines even secure? Do I want to talk to him tonight after the shit he pulled at the restaurant? I decide that figuring things out tonight is too important, even more important than figuring out what the fuck is happening between Conner and me.

“Conner…” I trail off as I consider my next words. “I know this will sound strange, but I’m leaving a handwritten message at my front desk for you. I need you to go over there and pick it up, now.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Just…please,” I beg.

There’s a pause and a sigh. “Fine.”

“It’ll explain everything. We can talk after,” I say as I hang up and get back in the car. I have him take me to the back entrance of my apartment complex where I go to the small front desk, leave a long note for Conner, and grab a bag of things from my apartment before getting back in the car with the driver who I instruct to drive me to my final destination.

The driver makes small talk, but inside my head, I’m contemplating so many things. I’m not typically a conspiracy theorist. But right now, I feel like I don’t know who I can trust. I don’t want to trust Conner, but something in my gut tells me that I can and I should.

I get out at my old complex, thankful that I keep their key on my keyring. I walk up to their second-floor apartment and go inside to wait.

I hook up my computer to their Wi-Fi after changing a few settings to redirect my computer, a little hack I learned when interviewing a computer expert a few years ago. I pull out my memory stick of data and start going through the information again while I wait. I also have emails from a source at Confervo. I decide to switch my search and look at those first.

I curse at myself. I should have been more careful, more aware. Instead, Conner sucked me down his rabbit hole, and I stopped paying attention to little details. I can’t do that again. It could cost me my life. Part of me is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to expose what I believe is an evil entity at work in the nation’s capital, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to get killed before I finish this article. I will get to the bottom of things if it’s the last thing I do.

I pull up an email and read it twice. It’s about a campaign contribution from Confervo to the PAC that ran President Lewis’s campaign. It’s talking about giving more and the reply from the finance department inquires why. There is no response, at least not via email.

I switch my search to look for more emails with this person. Jackpot. Jared emailed this Josef Klinsky at least two dozen times during the campaign season. The initial contribution was five million dollars. At another point, he sends two million and then three million. Then ten million. What is this about? The numbers start adding up, the contribution is high by the time I finish reading the emails. The emails read like a bank ledger. I go back and check key campaign points. There’s a clear match between big events that President Lewis had during the campaign season and the dates that money was sent to his PAC.

On a whim, I check public campaign contributions from the Sterling Corporation to President Lewis’s campaign. They are substantial, more substantial than to any other political campaign. It doesn’t make sense.

A knock at the door has me jumping, I run over and peek through the peephole. Conner.

I tentatively open the door. He looks…concerned. I wave him inside and look both ways out in the corridor before closing it behind us and sliding the chain through the lock and then bolting the door.

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