Scandal Never Sleeps (The Perfect Gentlemen 1)

He glanced at Connor. “You couldn’t leave him the keys?”

Connor snorted. “As if. He would strip the gears in a heartbeat.”

“Hurry up. We’ll meet you in front of the building.” Gabe hung up, a thrum of adrenaline starting. “Everly thinks she’s got the information.”

“Is there something I should know?” Liz asked.

Zack gave her what Gabe thought of as his politician smile. “Just some information on an old friend. Nothing for you to worry about. Let’s go downstairs. Election day is only, like, six hundred days away. Are you sure I can’t quit now?”

The elevator arrived, and they shuffled in, followed by the Secret Service agent, who pressed the button for the ballroom and the lobby.

Liz fussed over Zack. “Nope. Let’s go, Mr. President. If you quit, I’m out of a job and I need shoes. You can play with your friends later. Roman, I need you to run interference. If anyone lets Senator Baxter too near the gin, you know how that goes.”

The door opened, and Liz and Zack exited.

“I’m coming.” Roman stopped in front of Gabe. “I’ll be at your place as soon as I can. Be careful.”

The doors closed again.

“They need to do it in the Lincoln Bedroom,” Connor said with a shake of his head.

Gabe wished those two would do it anywhere. Sometimes he was fairly certain that Zack had the worst job in the world.

They finally made it to the lobby.

“I’ll have them bring the car around.” Connor stepped toward the valet, and Gabe wished they’d taken the Porsche. He couldn’t get to Everly fast enough.

One way or another, he was going to settle things with her tonight.

SEVENTEEN

Everly pocketed her keycard and wondered who was getting fired in the morning. No one was sitting at the security desk. The place was empty and eerily quiet.

It had been a hell of a night. As soon as they’d gotten off the subway, she’d received a text from a neighbor saying the door to her loft had been standing open and someone had trashed her whole place. She’d briefly called the elderly woman, who said it didn’t appear as if anything had been taken but someone had definitely been looking for something.

Deep Throat’s information, no doubt.

“Gabe is coming, but he’s got to make his way through traffic, so we have a few minutes. Are you sure we shouldn’t go over to your place first?” Dax asked.

She shook her head. “Nope. I had my neighbor lock up. We can deal with that later. We know what they were looking for.”

“This place is creepy at night.” Dax looked around, frowning.

She was getting used to being around him, and it felt right to tease him. “Aren’t you some sort of naval hero? Should you get the creeps?”

She pushed the button for the elevator.

Dax followed her on and touched the button to take them to the fortieth floor. “I am a captain in the U.S. Navy, thank you very much, and that means I’m used to having people around me twenty-four seven. This empty shit is creepy. Give me a big-ass boat with a few hundred men who all carry guns and answer to me, then I’m happy.”

“You’re spoiled, Captain Spencer.” She gave him a smile, but her chest felt tight. Once they had this piece of information, it was possible the rest would fall like dominoes and she wouldn’t have a reason to stay with Gabriel . . . except that she wanted to. Panic threatened when she considered not being in his life. Despite all their fights, she couldn’t imagine not seeing him.

She had to shove those thoughts aside and focus on the issue at hand. She needed to figure out why Scott was involved in this mess and exactly what Tavia was guilty of.

Everly suspected the foundation was at the heart of the mess somehow. Tavia was the foundation. Her family had founded the charity. Tavia’s life and career were all about running it. She had to be involved. It would have been fairly simple for her to manipulate documents to incriminate Valerie.

The question was why would Tavia need the money? Was the foundation in financial trouble? Or was something more sinister going on? And had Valerie been offed to keep her from talking?

“We’re going to get in and get out,” Dax said. “Grab that card thing and we’ll leave. We’ll look at it when we get back to Connor’s.”

Maybe she could still be vital to the case. Even after she turned over the information, they might still need her. “Agreed. I’ll let Connor deal with the document and I’ll start looking for Deep Throat. I’ll e-mail him back and hopefully get him to go to another Internet café to reply. I can figure out where he likely lives if he keeps going to the same spot or one close to it. I suspect the sucker uses cash because I haven’t been able to match up credit cards to the times he’s written me.”

“You’re kind of scaring me now, Parker. You can really do all that on a computer?” When she nodded, he whistled. “You’re a dangerous little thing and I’m sorry. Deep Throat needs a new name because Gabe was right. All I can think about is porn.” Dax stood at least a foot taller than her and had another hundred pounds of muscle, but he made her smile. He was a little like a big, gorgeous chocolate lab.

The elevator doors dinged open, and she led the way out and onto the familiar floor.

“Something’s up. I just lost all my bars.” He stared down at his phone.

“Maybe something is wrong with the cell tower.” She looked at hers. Nothing. “I’ll hurry.”

She hadn’t taken more than five steps when Dax put a hand on her. She turned. “What?”

Dax put a fist up. From years of being around ex-military men, she knew it was a signal to go silent.

She stopped and listened, hoping it was the guards doing a walkthrough or the janitors.

Dax pointed ahead of them.

Everly’s stomach turned as she realized what she was looking at. A pair of sneakered feet poked out from behind the bank of cubicles in front of her. A vacuum was lying on its side.

“Back to the elevators,” Dax whispered. “Someone’s here and they’ve got a cell jammer in place. I’m getting you out.”

“He could have had a heart attack.” Everly started to walk toward the downed man.

“No. Something’s wrong.” Dax pulled her back before they heard someone moving in the hallway to their right.

“It is unfortunate for you that the diary seems to be gone, myshka. You know I can’t return home without it.”

Her whole body went cold. Russian. Whoever was speaking had a thick Russian accent and she could hear his boots thud aga

inst the carpet.

“Uncle Yuri, this has all been a terrible mistake.” Tavia’s voice shook as it got closer.