“As long as you come back,” I said, pulling her into a hug.
“Well, as much as I hate him, Josh said that I could keep the apartment.” She rolled her eyes. “Rather magnanimous of him, don’t you think? He got me the apartment out of guilt and is letting me keep it out of guilt.”
“I’m just glad you’ll be here. But if you hate the apartment, we can sell it and find you something else.”
She frowned. “But I want it. And then I feel stupid because I want it and he bought it for me.” She shook her head. “I’ll have to disentangle some of this.”
“You’ll get there…just not overnight.”
“I know,” she said softly. She pushed her carry-on toward the door. “Off through three more time zones. I won’t even know my own name, the jet-lag will be so bad. Wish me luck.”
“All the luck in the world, friend.”
She blew me a kiss and then was gone.
“God, I feel bad for her,” I told Sam.
He nodded and offered me coffee. “Me too. I can’t believe what Josh did.”
“Yeah. Me either. She’s such a catch.”
“You should be going. Don’t want to be late.”
“And what will you do all day?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “Start looking at jobs, I guess.”
“Well, let me know if you find anything,” I told him, giving him a kiss before I headed out to work.
“Lark,” Aspen said on the intercom sometime after lunch, “it’s Malcolm from the mayor’s office on line two.”
Malcolm?
That was odd. Leslie’s assistant never called over here. We had little crossover between the organizations. For legal reasons, the campaign had to be completely separate from the actual running of politics. So, I’d had to give up the job that I’d had with Leslie at City Hall to come get her reelected. It was all a big ordeal but an important one.
“Got it. Thanks.” Then I pressed the line. “Hi, Malcolm. It’s Lark. How can I help you?”
“Hey, Lark. The mayor just asked me to have you over at City Hall for a meeting at three o’clock. Does that work for you?”
What the hell? Why?
That was what I wanted to ask. But I had a feeling Malcolm was just the messenger, and Leslie would let me know when I needed to know.
“Sure. Three is fine with me.”
“Excellent. See you then.”
I was confused. I didn’t know what this meant. Yesterday, Shawn had said that I was irreplaceable. And now, Leslie was calling me into her office at City Hall. Not the one she used when she was here. It couldn’t be good news. That was for sure.
By two thirty, I told Aspen I’d be gone for the afternoon for the mayor, and I headed to City Hall. My nerves, which had previously calmed down since I talked to Sam, were jittery all over again. I hated this. The not knowing.
I found Malcolm waiting outside the mayor’s office. He was a short, round-faced Indian man with dark, curly hair.
He energetically waved at me. “Hey, Lark! It’s good to have you back in the building.”
I smiled wanly at him. “Sometimes, I miss it.”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. You like getting people elected more than you like running a city.”
He wasn’t wrong.
I just shrugged. “True.”
“I think she’s ready for you. You can go on in,” he said with a warm smile.
I took a deep breath and then pushed the door open. Leslie was sitting behind her imposing desk, writing avidly on a legal pad.
“Hello, Your Honor,” I said, forcing a smile.
She glanced up and smiled grimly. “Lark, I feel like we’ve known each other long enough that you can call me Leslie. Even in here.”
“Leslie, what can I do for you today?”
“You can sit. We need to talk.”
I gulped. “All right.” I sat straight-backed in the chair before her desk. “What do we need to talk about?”
“Court.”
I furrowed my brows. That wasn’t what I’d been anticipating. I’d thought she’d want to talk about Sam and what had happened.
“What about Court?”
“I don’t want to know all the details,” she said, crossing her arms on the desk. “Lord knows, I have no interest in knowing what my son is really up to. But I heard about the raid. That you got him out.”
“Well, it was thanks to Camden.”
She smirked. “Thanks to Camden indeed. He was the one who had tipped the police off to begin with.”
“Wait…what?” I asked in confusion. “No, he said he knew a police detective who had tipped him off.”
“The Percys are not what they seem, Lark. Camden runs practically the entire company. He has significant influence. He likely has a police detective or two in his pocket. But I assure you that he let the police know about what was happening and drew them to the location. There are several men involved, who are currently in custody.”
I couldn’t figure out why he’d lie about that. How could Camden be the whistleblower? Camden Percy who didn’t have a good, just, or righteous bone in his body. It had to have been business. He had disliked Thomas from the start. He must have wanted to get back at him. But I had no idea why he’d go to those lengths for someone like Thomas even if he disliked him.
“That isn’t what matters though. What matters is Anna,” Leslie said.
“Anna?” Then I realized she meant English. No one ever called her Anna. It always threw me. “Oh, right…Anna.”
“I saw what happened with her husband. It’s all over the tabloids. She must be going through such a hard time. She wasn’t there the night this happened.”
“That’s not her fault.”
“No, but I want to make sure she’s not going to be a liability. Is she still on her game?”
God, I didn’t even know how to answer that. Any other day, any other situation, I would have jumped at the answer. This was English. She was always on her game. But after what Josh had done, I really didn’t know.
“Truthfully, I think she might need a little time. Anyone would in the same circumstance. But I know that she’s staying in New York. She just bought a new place. I think once she comes back, she’ll be ready. You won’t regret it.”
Leslie stared straight through me for a full minute before nodding. “Okay. I’ll leave her. She’s done a good job. The polling numbers are looking up, especially related to any questions regarding Court. It seems the work she’s put in has paid off.”
“I agree. The magazine that did the exclusive on the cottage was brilliant. It was everywhere. Who knew we just needed to get him in front of a camera?”
“Lord help us all if we put Court in front of a camera more often,” she said with a lighthearted tone. “Let me ask you this, what would you say is Court’s main character trait?”
I mused over that. “Charisma?”
She laughed. “Yes, I suppose there is that. It’s how he gets away with most of what he does. But I would generally say, selfishness. Whether he is that way because of how I raised him or because of the trauma of his father dying or whatever combination of reasons, Court only thinks of himself.”