All the President's Men 1: Derek's Darling Damsel

“Why would a simple reporter need Secret Service protection round the clock? Seems like a waste of the tax payers’ money to me.” The little weasel looked at Derek like he was an idiot.

Derek blew out the breath he had been holding and answered, “That is classified,” holding Dottie tighter to him.

“Not so classified that I can’t find out,” Preston said, walking away with his radio.

Derek knew the arrogant asshole wasn’t going to find anything out. Turning his back to the twerp, he walked Dottie to her desk area to check for missing i

tems.

Still holding the radio mic in his hand, Officer Preston hurried back to Dottie and Derek. “Hey, I didn’t dismiss you.” He practically squealed.

Derek just ignored the squawking man. Looking at Dottie, he sat her down at what was left of her desk and said, “Honey, why don’t you try and figure out what might be missing while Officer Preston, his superiors, and I all have a talk.” Derek was dealing with this ass and now. When he was done, the jerk was going to be back on street patrol.

* * * *

When Derek walked back to where Dottie was sitting, he was alone. A couple quick phone calls on his part and a quick talk with a few supervisors and bye-bye officer Preston. With that stress gone he could concentrate on Dottie.

She was sitting at her desk, her head in her hands again. Walking up behind her, he started rubbing her shoulders and back soothingly. “Have you found anything missing, baby?” he asked, quietly trying to keep some calm.

“Both my flash drives are gone, all my personal pictures and everything I’ve been working on for the past months. All the information on the General, all my stories, everything,” she answered, shaking her head and wringing her hands.

“Baby, was all that stuff backed up on the drives you had in your purse?” he asked, still trying to keep his voice calm.

“Everything but the work I did the Friday I interviewed the General. My notes from that night are still at your place, I haven’t taken time to transcribe them.” Her voice was full of despair. Losing her work wasn’t really a big deal, she did have backups, but her pictures and some of her personal things really bothered her. Most of the pictures were her only copies. They were just pictures of her with various celebrities and dignitaries, but it was her history. The story of her career. Her climb up the ladder.

She was proud of how far she had come. The pictures showed her in various countries on assignment and held a lot of memories. She had always planned on scanning them onto one of her flash drives, but now it was too late. All she had left was her memories. Why would someone do this to her?

As she sat there feeling sorry for herself, Terrance, or Ter as he liked to be called, came into the office. She had been working with him for several months and they both had done a couple interviews on the General. The story on his country and the trade negations he was involved with was a big one and it was a credit to both of them to be assigned to it.

“Hey, baby, how’s it hanging?” Ter bounced in, his usual jolly self. “This place is a mess, you throw a fit again?”

Ter loved teasing her and their relationship was a good one. They were friends, but nothing more. Dottie didn’t know for sure, but she thought he was gay.

“Hey, you, I thought you made this mess,” she answered him, trying to smile through her tears.

He walked up to her, giving her a big hug, then looked Derek up and down. He knew Derek from several activities at the White House and they were comfortable with each other, even though Derek knew little about him.

Shaking hands with the man, he gave Ter and Dottie some space, knowing if they could talk and compare notes, he would get his answers quicker and they could get out of there.

Tyler walked up to where he was standing and told him that Preston had been escorted off the property by internal affairs. Seemed the man had been getting his nose in places it didn’t belong.

The video camera that was supposed to have been recording activity in Dottie’s office had been disabled during the time of the break-in and things were beginning to look like an inside job.

Derek listened to Tyler’s report and nodded his head. They couldn’t catch a break on this one. Between his team, the FBI and local yokels, everyone in the building had or was being interviewed. The situation was as under control as it could be.

Running his hands through his hair, a gesture he did when he was frustrated, Derek walked back to where Terrance and Dottie were still talking.

She was smiling when Derek walked up and reached for him. “I was just telling Ter about how we’ve been spending time together,” she said, grasping his hand and pulling him closer to her.

He slipped an arm around her and pulled her to stand. “Baby, if you’ve done all you can here, let’s go and get out of here.”

“There’s not really much more I can do except clean up and Matt hired a crew for that. Ter, catch you later.” She talked to a few more people as they walked out and he drove her to her condo so they could check out what the crew had been able to accomplish. She hadn’t seen it since it had been broken into.

Chapter Thirteen

Dottie hadn’t been back to her condo since the night she had seen it trashed. The change was remarkable. Except for a few things that were out of place, it looked like nothing had ever happened. Most of her pictures had been restored and the picture of her mother looked perfect. Tears started streaming down her face as she walked through to all the rooms. It was perfect.

Turning to Derek, she threw her arms around him. “Thank you, I don’t know what I would have done without you to lean on these past few weeks, you’ve been my rock.” And I’m starting to depend on you too much. She didn’t say this last out loud, but the more she thought about it, it was true.