Chapter 6 - THE SENATOR'S SECRET
Rebecca went still.
“My father?”
Julian’s voice was weak.
“Langley knew about the laundering.”
Rebecca looked sick.
Adrian grabbed the phone.
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you see?”
“No windows.”
“Who has you?”
Silence.
Then:
“Your uncle.”
Thomas.
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
Julian continued.
“But he’s not working alone.”
Rebecca’s face had emptied.
“No.”
Julian whispered:
“Senator Langley funded the contracts.”
The call cut.
Nobody moved.
Rebecca sat down slowly.
I expected denial.
Instead:
“I knew he was corrupt.”
Adrian stared.
“What?”
“Not this.”
Her eyes filled.
“My father has always used shell donors and consulting firms. I thought it was political money.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She laughed.
“You mean while you were lying about your dead fiancée?”
Fair.
Owen began cross-checking contract payments.
Parker Development received inflated municipal contracts.
Langley-controlled foundations redirected portions.
Thomas laundered money.
Senator Langley protected the process.
Julian discovered it.
Then Adrian did.
Suddenly the wedding made horrible sense.
Adrian thought marrying Rebecca would bring him inside Langley’s protection network.
Instead, he had walked directly into the other half of the conspiracy.
“You were marrying the daughter of the man funding your assassination,” I said.
Adrian closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Rebecca stood.
“I’m calling him.”
“No,” Adrian said.
She looked at him.
“Watch me.”
She called Senator Warren Langley on speaker.
“Rebecca?”
“Dad.”
“Where are you? Guests are asking questions.”
“I know about Parker Development.”
Silence.
Then:
“Who told you?”
Rebecca’s entire expression changed.
Not surprise.
Confirmation.
“You just did.”
Langley exhaled.
“Listen to me.”
“No.”
“Rebecca—”
“Did you know Thomas tried to kill Adrian?”
Another silence.
Then:
“Thomas was supposed to scare him.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“Scare me?”
The senator realized speakerphone was on.
“Adrian.”
“You ordered the car bomb?”
“No.”
“I financed pressure. Thomas escalated.”
Rebecca began crying.
“You used my engagement.”
“I was trying to keep you close to him.”
“For what?”
“Leverage.”
There it was.
Her father had used her too.
Rebecca whispered:
“You knew Adrian didn’t love me.”
“I knew love was irrelevant.”
That sentence ended their relationship more effectively than any scream.
Then Langley said:
“There’s something you don’t understand. Meredith Cole is the reason this became dangerous.”
I froze.
“What?”
Adrian looked at me.
The senator continued.
“Her father found the original books.”
My father?
He had died eight years ago.
A heart attack.
Or so I believed.
“What books?”
“The Parker-Langley accounts.”
My throat went dry.
The conspiracy was older than Adrian.
Older than Julian.
And apparently my father had known.
Senator Langley lowered his voice.
“Meredith’s father wasn’t a high-school accountant.”
I gripped the table.
“He worked for us.”
Then the line disconnected.
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My father had spent my entire childhood telling me he worked for a school district.
Apparently, he had kept books for men powerful enough to stage funerals.
