“Someone claiming to be a rep from your site was bidding hard.”
“I am the whole site. I know what the Deep Web is but I didn’t have an invitation to anything like that. It would be easy to pretend to be me.” After the Niall debacle, she knew well that a person on the Internet could say whatever they wanted. “The question is why would they pretend to be me?”
“And why would Deep Throat contact you? Of all the journalists and bloggers in the country, why you? Unless it’s a little like that environmental group. Maybe he chose you because he doesn’t think you can be bought or intimidated. He contacted me because he knew I would do anything to solve my brother’s murder. And then he suggested I contact you. So here we are, two women with nothing in common except him, from what I can tell.”
She had a confession to make. “I met your brother a few times.”
“You did?”
Lara winced. “I might have been the one who brought the problems with his Third World manufacturers to light.”
Everly’s eyes lit up. “Are you the one who sent fifty pounds of rotted rice to his office?”
Put like that it sounded terrible, but she’d learned it took a lot to get someone’s attention. “That’s what the factory was feeding the employees. And they were forcing them to work eighteen-hour shifts without breaks.”
Everly smiled. “Oh, he liked you. You’ve got to understand. My brother, for all his foibles, truly appreciated passion. He talked about that prank a lot. He was really impressed with how you managed to suppress that smell until he got the package open.”
“He didn’t seem all that happy when he spoke to me later that afternoon.” He’d yelled quite a bit.
“Maybe not, but he shut down that factory very quickly and opened a new facility even though it cost Crawford millions. And what almost no one knows is that he used his own money to set up an education fund for the village. My brother believed in capitalism, but he had a heart and sense of fairness. He might have been pissed that day, but he thanked you later on because he hadn’t known how the factory was being run. His father had set up that whole system and Mad eventually dismantled it. He told Gabe that he was doing a tour of Thai brothels, but I found out he’d been investigating the factories and making sure they’d cleaned up their acts. I can’t believe you’re Rotten Rice Fucker.” She blushed a little. “His name for you, not mine.”
Lara had to laugh. She really had tried to get his attention by sending e-mails and letters. He’d been a busy man, so she’d resorted to something slightly crazy. She felt good knowing he’d done the right thing in the end. That made her feel good, yet worse about his death. Many men in his position wouldn’t have cared and simply let the abuse continue.
“Someone wanted the two of us to put our heads together,” Lara observed.
“I think you’re right. Let’s figure it out.”
Despite the uncomfortable start of their meeting, she was beginning to relax around Everly. If she was going to get the other woman to talk, she would have to offer her something. “I have a theory about Natalia Kuilikov. I think she’s tied in with the president. I learned that she actually worked for Zack Hayes’s father as a domestic caregiver when he was the ambassador to Russia. Since the woman began working for the family shortly before President Hayes was born until the family returned to the States, it’s very likely she was one of the current president’s nannies.”
“Are you sure you didn’t win the diary in that auction?”
Lara sat forward, her heart starting to race. “There’s really a diary out there?”
“Yes. I’ve read it but it doesn’t tell me much more than the fact that she really loved Zack as a baby and she had high hopes for him. She was married herself, but she lost a baby and she couldn’t seem to get over it. She seems to have put all her love into caring for Zack.”
“Do you think she had an affair with the ambassador?”
Everly shrugged. “I don’t know. I know she was trained at a girls’ school, one created and run by the same human trafficking ring that was exposed a few weeks back. My brother found Natalia’s diary somewhere at some point in the past. Someone killed him for it. I have to know why. I have to figure out the reason this woman is so important.”
“Even if it means potentially hurting one of your fiancé’s friends?”
“Are you talking about Zack? I’ve talked to him about it. He doesn’t know anything more than we do. He remembers her from his childhood. He called her Nata and she was more of a mother to him than his own. Apparently Constance Hayes really liked to drink.”
She’d died in a car accident nine years before. The official report was that the roads had been slick. But Lara had heard the woman had a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit.
She had to point out the ramifications to Everly. “If Natalia came from one of those schools, you must know what that means. The press would go wild if the president was raised by a sex slave. It could ruin his father’s legacy.”
Everly shook her head. “I think you’ll find Zack has a healthy attitude when it comes to his father. He kind of hated the bastard, so he’s not terribly concerned with old Frank’s legacy. If the story comes out, he makes a big push to end human trafficking in honor of his beloved nanny and everyone moves on. It’s a flash-in-the-pan story.”
It was hard to get used to the fact that she was sitting with a woman who called POTUS Zack, like being on a first-name basis with the president was no big deal.
“Unless Natalia knows where the skeletons are buried. Then it’s possible that parts of her diary become a best-selling exposé of the whole Hayes family.” Lara didn’t see any other way this journal of the family’s former domestic servant became a moneymaker, and even she wasn’t too idealistic to realize that everything came down to cash. None of this would be happening if someone, somewhere couldn’t make money.
“If she has a story, it could be worth a lot,” Everly said cautiously.
“Yes, it could.”
“But you don’t care about that.”
“No, I don’t care about the money. I care about making sure no other woman gets sold. I do what I do to help make the world a better place. That is all I’m concerned with.”
“I believe you.” Everly leaned forward and picked up one of her cucumber sandwiches. “I think we can work together. For some reason our informant want us to, but that doesn’t mean we’re not calling the shots. I know we started rough, but let’s keep our lines of communication open and see what happens. We don’t have to play by this guy’s rules.”
“As long as you understand that my only concern is helping people. If the president has done something that would harm his ability to serve the American public, I would use this information to take him down.”
“I know Zack. Whoever is running this show might be trying to implicate and harm him, but I assure you he’s a good man.”
But Lara knew something Everly didn’t. She’d seen those tapes. She would have to use them at a later date to make her case, but since she couldn’t get her hands on them now, this wasn’t the time. Instead, she’d try to form some sort of bond with this woman since they’d been thrown together. It was time to take a risk.
“I’m meeting with him tonight,” Lara admitted.
Everly’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”
“Yes, but I hope he gives me some direction on how to find Natalia. When was the last time he contacted you?”
“Weeks ago. It’s why I wrote to you. I’ve had no further communication with him and he didn’t exactly leave me any way to contact him. You’re my only l
ead, but I think we could become partners. I’ll share information with you, Lara. I know you don’t have any reason to believe me, but I promise that I will be your partner in this.”
She could really use a partner. “I won’t ask much of you. Just don’t tell my boyfriend. I’m still hoping I can figure out a way to make the meeting tonight without him.”
She’d agreed to keep Connor’s cover with everyone who didn’t know otherwise, so she hadn’t referred to him as a bodyguard. Besides, after the last twenty-four hours, it was a lot easier to think of him as more than someone her dad was paying. He was her lover.
“That Connor guy is your boyfriend?” Everly looked toward the balcony. “He seems a little protective.”
“Yes, but if I don’t show up tonight alone, I’ll miss the chance to find out whatever the informant knows.”
Everly went silent for a moment. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Do you care about this guy?”
“Yes. I really do, but he won’t understand. He won’t let me go and if this informant even sniffs I’ve got someone watching, he’ll leave and I’m worried he won’t contact me again.”
Everly took a long sip of tea. “He hasn’t contacted me since it became very apparent I’m with Gabriel. I understand the whole protective boyfriend thing. Wait until you’ve got a ring on your finger and see how protective these guys can be. I mean guys like them. Your Connor strikes me as being somewhat like my Gabriel. Oh, they might not dress the same, but underneath that thin veneer of civilization lies the heart of a true caveman. He would love to drag me back to his beautifully decorated cave and keep me there.”