Hutchings.
“Graham?” I sit back sharply as things begin to slot into place.
“Yep.” Stuart nods before downing his second glass of scotch and smacking his lips together. “Hell, I needed that one too.”
“You think Dennis is Graham’s father?” Griffin scours the documents with a frown.
“Again, I don’t think. I know. And you’ve got friends who can find a birth certificate for us, haven’t you?” Stuart directs to Griffin, who rises from his seat in a flash, pulling his cell phone out of his jacket.
“Should we tell him it’s almost midnight?” Stuart looks after Griffin as he paces around the empty bar with his phone glued to his ear and one hand thrust into the pocket of his gray suit pants.
“No, he’s good.” I watch as Griffin nods and then says something else to the person on the other end of the line.
When Griffin Parker calls for a favor, people pick up. Midnight or not.
“So you think Dennis is behind this? And Graham? Father-son bonding they missed out on for all those years? I know, son. Let’s infiltrate the New York Office to cover up our own criminal relations.” I screw my face up, shaking my head. Despite the scotch adding a haziness, everything is beginning to turn a lot clearer.
“I know. Most people go fishing.” Stuart laughs, then looks to Griffin, who’s finished his call.
“We’ll have it within the hour.” He sits back down.
“Nice.” A smile spreads over Stuart’s face. “So now we know the who and the why. We just need to prove it. But we still don’t know the how. It obviously wasn’t personal. If you’d lost the election, they would have found something to manipulate the other person with.”
“I’m just the lucky unlucky one.” I snort.
I don’t consider myself a bad person. I have no scandalous hidden records or covered up history. Apart from that night. If it weren’t for that one incident, they would have struggled to find anything to use as leverage against me.
But it’s not even about that night anymore.
They turned this into a war when they brought Harley into it.
They should have tried to get to me directly. But it’s like Griffin said. Someone knew the best way to me was through her. Someone who has experience of reading my emotions. Who can recognize the way I look at Harley as being something special, because it is completely different from the way I ever looked at her.
A woman, like Griffin said.
Someone who knows about that night.
It can only be one person.
One person who conveniently is also dating Graham Hutchings.
Bea.
We don’t leave the bar until after one in the morning. It’s amazing how much you can plan with two bottles of top shelf scotch and three determined minds. By the time we roll out into the night, we’ve set the wheels well and truly in motion. Griffin could have gotten half of New York up if he wanted. But we decided to bide our time a few more hours to get it right. Dennis and Graham are weasels. And they’ll squirm their way out of a chokehold given half a chance.
I’m not giving them a fraction.
We don’t have enough evidence yet. Merely bank statements and a birth certificate, courtesy of Griffin’s friend, confirming that Dennis is Graham’s biological father. It’s hardly ground-breaking. These things happen all the time. But the fact that there is already so much suspicion and so many unanswered questions from the public surrounding Dennis’s departure from the mayor title plays to our advantage when he has a secret son who was in the running to be next to fill the role.
There will definitely be questions after the ‘anonymous’ tips to three of New York’s largest newspapers and the story will spread quickly.
And it will give us time to put the next parts of the plan into action.
“You speak to Harley yet?” Stuart asks as I put my earpiece in so I can hear him when I’m on stage.
“No. I tried. She was probably on the subway from Suze’s place with no service.”
I wish I had gotten a chance to speak to her first thing this morning like I intended to. But it didn’t connect, and since the city’s press began reporting on Dennis and Graham the second the sun rose, it has been hectic.