Part 13 (1/2)

I laugh. And not just a polite laugh, but a full laugh that makes my stomach hurt. The kind of laugh normally reserved for adventure bodywash, which makes me stop.

”So, are you any good at bowling?” I ask.

”Nope. You?”

”Nope.”

Paige takes the seat at the computer and starts typing in our names. ”Are we playing or what?”

Violet comes back with the shoes and gravitates toward Paige. It's part of our game plan. We each get one of the interns alone and try to see what we can find out. Mike is my a.s.signment, but it's not like I can just come out and ask him if he's disclosing our secrets to anyone, so I figure natural conversation is the best bet. Still, I have to keep reminding myself I'm here to do a job. Talking with Mike is just so . . . easy. So natural.

”Good one,” he says after I make my seventh gutter ball in a row. He jostles my shoulder with his, like Abe would do.

The mole, I repeat in my head. You're here to find out if he's supplying information to his defense secretary grandfather.

”So tell me a little bit about your family,” I blurt, then cringe. Smooth.

Mike sits down next to me. Paige and Violet are lined up at the ball return. ”Well,” he says, ”you know who my grandfather is, and I'm pretty sure you know I have two moms.” I nod. ”And my resume told you I grew up in Manhattan, so what else do you want to know?”

I shrug and tell myself to play it cool. ”I just like getting to know the people I work with. So tell me something I don't know.”

He leans back. ”Something you don't know . . . Hmm. Do you know why my last name is Baxter?”

I nod. ”After one of your moms. The one who works in finance.” Layla Baxter, the one Bonner referred to as a renowned venture capitalist. I looked her up after Bonner told me that. Turns out she's one of the only high-powered, female venture capitalists in the world. She's worth more than a billion dollars, 99 percent of which she's already pledged to charity. His other mother works for a nonprofit that provides vaccines in third-world countries.

”After both of my moms, actually,” Mike says. ”Back when they had a commitment ceremony-almost thirty years ago-they decided that they both would change their name. Partly because they wanted the same name and neither of them wanted to hyphenate, and partly for professional reasons. My mom Victoria is the pacifist, hippie type, and the Howe name doesn't get you far in that crowd. My other mom, Layla?” He pauses. ”When she was just starting out in the financial world, things were different. Women in general had a hard time breaking in, but a woman with an ethnic last name like Teremun? Forget it. So they picked a new name.”

”Like . . . out of the phone book?”

A grin spreads across his face. ”Nope. It was the name of a shelter dog they'd adopted and recently lost to cancer. A mutt who was already named Baxter when they got him.”

”Huh” is all I can think of to say. None of this was in the article I read.

Mike laughs. ”Yep, I'm named after a dog. Bet that's something you didn't know. I don't think that story's common knowledge because, you know, it's a little weird.”

”I think it's sweet,” I say. And that's the truth. It's a sweet story, and it's making me feel a little weird because I doubt it's the kind of story Mike tells a lot of people. It feels personal. Intimate.

”What about you? Any pets?” he asks.

”Yeah, one. A dog. Dos.”

”Dose? Like medicine?”

”No, dos, like the number two in Spanish. It's . . .” I'm not sure how much to disclose. ”The dog's name is actually Malarkey the Second, hence the dos.”

”What happened to Malarkey the First?”

”Malarkey was my dad's dog,” I say before I can stop myself. ”He died a few years after my dad died, and my mom rushed out the very next day and went to, like, four different shelters until she found a dog that looked exactly like Malarkey. Then she brought him home and gave him the same name.” And then I do stop myself. I don't have a memory of this-I was too young-but it's still bringing back feelings I don't want right now. Sadness and bitterness, and a whole bunch of things I'd like to avoid. Besides, these days, the dog lives with our neighbor, Mrs. McNamara, most of the time.

Mike's leg brushes mine. I look down. He's moved closer to me. ”I didn't know your dad died. When?”

”I was a baby.” My stomach tightens.

”What-”

”He was a Navy SEAL.” The lie slips off my tongue. ”Working overseas. I don't have too many details. It's pretty cla.s.sified.”

Mike's knee inches closer, and his hand grazes my wrist, and this is wrong. All wrong. I look up and catch Yellow's eye at the bar. Her eyebrows have shot to the sky, and she jerks her head toward the restroom.

I spring up. ”I'll be right back.” Then I look over at Violet. ”Bathroom?”

She drops her purple ball onto the rack. ”Definitely.”

When we're firmly entrenched inside the ladies' room, Yellow grabs onto my arm. ”Sorry, are we interrupting your date?”

”My . . . what?”

”Oh, come on, I've watched you flirt with him for the past twenty minutes.”

I cross my arms over my chest. ”I was not flirting with him. I was getting to know him, which, you know, is the whole point of this thing.”

Violet smooths a few strands of hair while looking in the mirror. ”Oh, please. I was standing right there. You were absolutely flirting with him.”

”I have a boyfriend. I was not flirting. And besides”-I shoot a glance in Yellow's direction-”pot calling the kettle black, much?”

Yellow pulls out a tube of lipstick and dabs light pink on her lips. ”Oh, I definitely was flirting with Colton. The difference is, I was doing it intentionally and with zero feeling behind it.”

”There's no feeling behind what I was doing either!” As I say it, I know that's not the hundred percent truth, and I don't know how I feel about that. Guilty? Not guilty? Somewhere in between?

”So you admit you were flirting then? Finally,” Yellow says with a smirk, and Violet shakes her head with a telling smile on her face.

I grab both of their arms and guide them toward the door. ”Can we focus, please? XP. Chances are, one of the three people out there is related to someone who knows more than they're letting on. So let's focus.”

”I'm not the one who's lacking focus,” Yellow says. ”But I think it's a good idea for us to switch targets. I'll take Paige.”

Violet nods. ”I guess I'm with Mike, then.”

Ugh. Colton.

When we return, Mike is still down at the lane, but Paige has joined Colton at the table. I take a breath and slide in next to Colton while Yellow scoots next to Paige. Colton doesn't take his eyes off Yellow.

”So tell me something, Colton. How is it that you haven't wound up on the front page of the newspapers yet?”

Colton's head snaps to me. ”Huh?”

I plant the biggest smile I can muster on my face as I tilt my head toward the Heineken bottle he's holding. ”Vice President's Son Arrested for Underage Drinking at Local Bar.”