“I don’t think she’ll be able to build a case and be ready to go public with it before the election,” the second attorney said, “but if you’re worried, you do have something of value to Ms. Clarkson that you could offer—the legal documents Miss Taylor signed.”
Thanks to a hacker Stephens had employed, Ben had a copy of both the nondisclosure agreement and the questionnaire Kimani had filled out. On the latter, she had indicated a strong interest in almost all elements of BDSM. It was one of her many lies.
Ben rubbed his temples with his middle finger and thumb. He had committed his fair share of mistakes and done a great many stupid things, but Kimani Taylor was easily the biggest mistake he had ever made.
“NO RULING FROM THE FPPC?” Ben asked his uncle after Aunt Alice and Eumie had left Gordon’s office to get boba and milk tea down the street. Ben gazed out the window onto the floor of the headquarters, busy with volunteers that morning as they kicked off the weekend’s precinct walking activities.
“Not yet,” Uncle Gordon replied as he readied himself to pound the pavement for votes. “I bumped into a walker for Oakland Forward the other day.”
After Ben had refused to take calls from Ezra Rosenstein, the committee chair for Oakland Forward had finally gotten the message that he shouldn’t share any information about the PAC with Ben.
Ben’s own pollster, who lived in Oakland, had mentioned that he had received two mailers from Oakland Forward. If the PAC was also hiring precinct walkers, that meant the committee had raised a decent sum of money so far.
Suddenly, Ben stiffened. His whole body turned hollow and hot at the same time. “What is she doing here?”
Uncle Gordon tried to follow Ben’s line of sight. At first, he couldn’t seem to find who Ben was referring to, but then he must have seen the woman in the red Stanford baseball cap with a curly ponytail sticking through the back.
“Ah, Montana,” Uncle Gordon said. “I mean, Kimani.”
Ben turned sharply to his uncle. “How do you know her name?”
“She told me.”
Ben was stunned. “She told you?”
“She came to see me the other week.”
Ben felt the hairs of his neck stand on end. What was she up to now? She would have heard about the impending closure of her paper. Was she trying to unearth more dirt in the hopes of keeping the paper alive?
“Turns out she’s a reporter for the Tribune,” Ben cautioned. “If I had known—”
“She told me,” Uncle Gordon acknowledged in a tone devoid of anger or suspicion.
“She told you?” Ben repeated. “Why?”
“She came to apologize. Said the article that led to the FPPC investigation was her fault.”
Ben was quiet. He hadn’t expected that.
“I told her it doesn’t matter whose fault it is.” Gordon put a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “I mean it. Finding fault compels one to stay in the past instead of moving forward.”
“Analyzing the cause helps us to learn from our mistakes so we don’t repeat them. I shouldn’t have allowed her to get so close. I don’t know why I trusted her.”
“She said you didn’t know she was a reporter and that you did nothing wrong—which is what I’ve always believed anyway—and she wanted to take the blame for that article.”
“I knew something wasn’t right about her, but I didn’t act on my suspicions.”
“I appreciate that you both want to claim credit for what happened, but it really doesn’t help me.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“She asked how you were doing.”
His pulse quickened. Had she inquired after him to be polite or had she been truly interested in the answer?
“So you forgave her,” Ben said. “What is she doing here now?”
They watched her receive a pile of door hangers from the precinct captain.