Mixed Signals Page 16

  True to his word, Todd just nodded and then started fussing with his phone. Frank decided to do some research and started backtracking the story, seeing who would break it and why. It seemed ridiculous to him that Benjamin would be the person running a site like MudzNewz, and the thought made his stomach curdle as he started reading. He wondered if Benjamin had been playing him from the start, and if so, why? Why would he go after Frank?

  Why would he lie?

  Feeling sick, he shut off his phone again. Nancy would give him the lowdown and probably a solid dressing down when they got to the offices. He braced himself for it, but by the time he entered the ad hoc campaign headquarters in the familiar conference room, he was feeling drained and angry and betrayed.

  Not that Nancy cared.

  “Did you know? Did you?” She pointed at him as he walked through the door. He ignored her for a moment to just fall into one of the chairs. On the wall, the large TV was silent, but it was impossible to miss that the lead story for the moment was the reveal about MudzNewz. Shots of Benjamin, both those taken recently by photographers who had followed Frank and older ones from, possibly, the university website, rotated along next to pictures of Frank and, worse, pictures of them kissing. Had they kissed that much before getting in the car? He couldn’t even remember.

  “Francis!” Nancy barked.

  “I didn’t know! I had no idea!” Frank barked back.

  “What, you were doing a tonsil inspection on him?”

  “No! That’s not what I mean, dammit! He’s just… he’s not MudzNewz, he can’t be.” Frank shook his head, still transfixed by the photo as it flashed—again—on the screen. Next to him, Benjamin honestly did not look like much; a little dumpy and a little rumpled, but Frank could not help but think he was adorable as he clutched at Frank’s shirt in the picture.

  He was so very screwed.

  “Well, WaPo seems to think so, along with every other major news outlet,” Todd said unhelpfully from where he was hugging the wall, avoiding both Camila and Nancy.

  “No.” Frank knew he was in denial, but it all seemed so… unreal. He could not parse his experiences with Benjamin with what he knew—and hated—about that trashy political scandals site.

  Warren took pity and stepped over, carefully out of Nancy’s flight path as she paced angrily around the room. “We’re pretty sure the story came from Teague’s camp. We’re also pretty sure it’s a move by them to discredit our campaign in addition to neutralizing Mudz, and that it is all probably linked back to the suspected blackmail sting by Corsak.”

  “This is not a le Carré novel!” Frank slapped his hand on the table.

  That made Nancy stop. “No, because this is way too messy and fucked-up for that.” She put her hands on her hips. “That asshole you are very obviously dating—after telling me, to my face, that you were not dating him!—has undermined my whole campaign.”

  “How?” Frank threw his hands up in the air. “He’s in business with me! Dating aside, that only compromises MudzNewz, right? Suddenly it’s not objective, it’s partisan. It has a vested interest in your campaign succeeding.” He stopped. “Oh shit, everyone thinks we bought him off, don’t they?”

  He got a mix of hostile and pitying looks from everyone in the room. He rubbed his face with both hands. “I hate politics.”

  “Unfortunately, I love politics, but this could tank my career!” Nancy bit out the words.

  “I sure as hell did not do this on purpose, Nance! Don’t even suggest I would! I had no fucking clue that he was behind MudzNewz. I would never have gone into business with him if I did.”

  She sighed and collapsed into a chair across from him, her head in her hands. Warren moved to sit next to her, rubbing her back gently. She looked up at Frank. “You really didn’t know.” She said it softly and kindly, her expression full of pity.

  Frank wanted to hit her for it, but they were not kids anymore, and he suspected if he tried his father would do more than send him to his room without dessert. “No, I really didn’t.” He put his hand out across the table, and after a moment, she reached out and grabbed it. “Nancy, I swear, I would never do this to you.”

  Camila snorted from where she sat at the computer. “At least this explains why Mudz backed off a few months ago. He just couldn’t admit he was dating your brother.”

  “We weren’t dating then, anyway. This—” Frank waved a hand at the TV. “This is new. Day before yesterday. Or yesterday. Wait. What’s the date? Fuck.” He rubbed his eyes, exhaustion seeping into his bones.

  There was dead silence for a few moments until Frank looked up and realized they were all staring at him. “I need to talk to him, don’t I?”

  “No!” Camila said. “No, no, no. Do not engage.” She shook her head.

  Nancy let go of Frank’s hand. “I don’t suggest it.”

  “I can’t just not do anything. We really are in business together, and that’s not even accounting for the fact that we have literally been in bed together.”

  Todd snickered behind him, but no one else said anything for a moment. Frank tried again. “What are you doing for damage control?” he asked Camila, who shrugged.

  “As you said, you guys really are in business together. This would be a scandal with or without the kissing. That just makes for better headlines.”

  Nancy opened her mouth but shut it quickly, a flash of terror crossing her face as she looked behind Frank. He realized his back was to the door and turned in his chair just in time for his father to breeze through it and into the office like the avalanche of personality he was. Nancy and Frank stood up instinctively.

  “Father,” Nancy said in greeting as they watched him step around to the head of the table, Camila scrambling to vacate the seat. He stood there, his fingertips touching the top of the table.

  “This is a mess,” he announced.

  Frank groaned. His father was such a drama queen sometimes. “No shit, Father.”

  “Watch your language, Francis,” his father said sharply.

  Frank mumbled an apology and sat down again.

  “We’re gonna go—go do stuff. Yeah.” Camila grabbed Todd’s arm and hauled him out of the room, with Jorge on her heels.

  His father finally sat down, still eyeballing his children critically. Frank gave Warren a lot of credit for sticking around, but then, he had always managed to hold his own against Nancy, so he probably knew no fear.

  “Francis.” His father nodded at him to begin.

  “Yes, I got into business with Benjamin because I thought he was cute and, not for nothing, I wanted you off my back about doing something other than LifeFlight.” Frank tapped the table with his fingers, ignoring his father’s moue of displeasure. “He kept me at arm’s length until, literally, yesterday. That photo? Is our second kiss, ever. And no, I had no fu—uh, no clue he was behind MudzNewz. No idea. I know we talked about it in passing, but he was always pretty dismissive of it.”

  His father turned to Nancy, who straightened up under the scrutiny.

  “Right now we’re just issuing a blanket statement of supreme ignorance. It doesn’t make us look good, but every outlet is insinuating or outright accusing us of buying MudzNewz’s support, so we have to say something. We’re fairly certain the story came from Teague’s side of things, although how his office figured out who Mudz is, no one knows. It’s almost certainly linked to Corsak, though.”

  “Corsak?” his father asked, confused. Nancy groaned in defeat and put her head down on the table with a thunk. Frank kind of wanted to join her. “Corsak?” his father repeated, looking at Warren.

  “Father.” Frank sighed, catching his father’s attention. “That’s the guy I was caught with back in 2010.”

  “What does he have to do with this?” His father squinted at them.

  Nancy looked up at Frank with wide eyes, and for the first time, Frank realized she had never told their father about Paulie. Frank had just assumed that she had revealed that to their fat
her as a matter of course, and that his father never mentioned it out of old-fashioned scruples. But no, she had never told on him. Frank’s heart swelled in gratitude for his older sister protecting him, once again, and he smiled at her. She shook her head and looked away.

  “That’s on me, Father. I need to explain something. I thought you knew? But apparently not.” He proceeded to give a very family-friendly version of the long-running disaster that was his relationship with Paulie, and why he had called it off, and what Paulie had allegedly done to crash Frank’s career. He ended with Paulie’s offer of the condo, which had Nancy snapping to attention.

  “He did what?” she snarled.

  Frank pointed at her. “That? That is why I never mentioned it. I figured you’d go after him with both barrels.”

  “Damn right I would have! That fucker!”

  “Nancy Elizabeth,” their father said dryly.

  “Sorry, Father, but I totally meant every word.” She looked like she was getting ready to jump up, run out of the room, and beat Paulie up with her own bare fists. Warren kept a heavy hand on her shoulder.

  “Let me get this straight. That person treated you like his illicit mistress for years, and when you came to your senses and called it off, he paid Cossack to ‘service’ you and get caught? And now for some reason Cossack is blackmailing him about it?”

  “Corsak, not Cossack. But yes, uh, that’s pretty much the 101.” Frank grimaced.

  His father slowly folded his hands together, resting them on the table. He was silent for a moment, obviously rallying his thoughts.

  “Okay, sorry to interrupt!” Camila opened the door. “Sorry! But I think you should know.” She held up her laptop. “Mudz—I mean, Kaplan, he just emailed me that he engineered Corsak’s blackmail campaign. Apparently they were trying to nail him on what he did to Frank.” She nodded at him.

  “Why would he email you?” Frank’s father asked.

  Nancy rubbed her temples. “Well, we first found out about what Corsak was doing, we thought to head the scandal off at the pass by giving Mudz a hot tip on it.”

  Frank snorted in amusement, getting several more hostile glares thrown his way.

  “Go get him. I want him here, in this room, within the hour.” Frank’s father waved a hand at Camila, who glanced at Nancy before scrambling out of the room to go “fetch” Benjamin as if he were an errant puppy.

  Nancy shrugged helplessly at Frank. “At least we’ll get the straight story… er, I mean, the real story from the source?”

  Frank rolled his eyes at the fumbled correction, and Warren chuckled. It lightened the mood a little bit, but not the weight pressing down on Frank. His romantic entanglements were usually a lot less romantic, and a hell of a lot less entangled. He did not like the way he was feeling about all of this, the sense of angry betrayal that ate at his gut warring with his genuine affection for the recalcitrant computer programmer who might have just sunk his sister’s whole campaign.

  Warren left the room and came back with one of his assistants in tow, both of them holding trays of refreshments—sans liquor, Frank noticed resentfully. Although he had to admit it was for the best, he thought as he opened a bottle of caffeinated soda. His stomach was roiling too much to snack on the bagels or anything more substantial than a sugary, carbonated drink. His father engaged Nancy on more mundane aspects of the campaign, such as where they were in the polls prior to the scandal and what events she had coming up.

  Frank heard Benjamin before he saw him, the door opening with Benjamin squawking loudly about being kidnapped. He stopped short when he saw who was in the room. “Frank. Alex.” He nodded at them in turn and then looked over at Nancy. “Senator Sheldon-Kane, and, er, husband?”

  His father motioned for Benjamin to take a seat and he did, fumbling a little. Frank avoided looking him in the eye, instead staring down at the plastic bottle in his hands, fiddling with the label.

  “Are you MudzNewz?” his father asked point-blank.

  “Yep. Er, yes. Yes I am.”

  Frank slammed the bottle onto the table and walked out.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  BENJAMIN’S DISSERTATION committee had been less intimidating, he thought sourly as he watched Frank storm out, leaving him with the Sheldon-Kane junta of doom. Squaring his shoulders, he looked back at Alex. Dr. Alexander Sheldon, industry titan, he reminded himself.

  “Were you leading my son on in order to get a ‘scoop’?”

  The scare quotes were evident in his tone, and his expression was grave. Benjamin shook his head. “I swear on my parents’ graves, no. In fact I spent a long time trying to figure out how to extricate myself from the whole situation.”

  “You could have just broken off with him,” Sheldon-Kane said sharply.

  “Or, alternatively, I could break off with MudzNewz.” Benjamin shrugged.

  Sheldon-Kane’s husband frowned. “What?”

  “I’m not stupid. I knew from the start how bad this would look. My goal was to nail Teague for what he did to get Frank kicked out of the Air Force, and once that story broke, hand over MudzNewz to someone else. I’ve been… ugh, I’ve been carefully balancing all this shit for months now.” He glared at Sheldon-Kane. “But I wasn’t going to break off with Frank.”

  Alex tilted his head. “Why were you trying to catch Teague?”

  Benjamin heaved a sigh. “Because first and foremost, MudzNewz is about catching corrupt politicians at their own game. I rarely stoop to sting operations; usually people gift up evidence for me, but Corsak reached out.”

  “Why?” Sheldon-Kane scrunched up her face. Like her brother, she was too pretty to ever be truly unattractive, but it was not a particularly good look on her.

  “Apparently he found God. I mean that literally. He had a gambling and drug problem back in the day, owed money to unsavory people, and wanted out of the military. He got that plus a handsome payoff thanks to Teague, but later sobered up, got ‘saved,’ and decided it had been a shitty thing to do to Frank. He loathes Teague, I mean, he has a serious hate-on for the guy, and he wanted to do whatever it took to keep him out of the governor’s office. Even if it meant his own discharge might get reopened and demoted, and outing himself as bisexual. He does not care. It’s some kind of personal redemption quest for him. He wants to tank Teague, whatever the cost, whether I helped him or not. I figured it was in everyone’s best interest to help him.”

  Alex studied him for a long, long time, and Benjamin nearly opened his mouth again to ramble on about the sting, or anything, just to break the silence, but the older man held up a hand. There was another long pause before he spoke.

  “Explain MudzNewz to me,” he said instead.

  “Uh, what? It’s… uh, it’s a political site for—”

  “No. I mean, explain why you run it.” Alex tilted his head. “We’ve met several times to talk business, Benjamin. You are a very smart young man, and very clearly entirely smitten with my son. Why would you run a site like this? It’s beneath you.”

  Of course a man like Alexander Sheldon would think that. To be fair, almost anyone would. It wasn’t as if Benjamin ever tried to play off MudzNewz as sophisticated or elitist. It had noble goals, sure, but was also a low-down scandal site with a garish logo and one purpose: ruin corrupt politicians.

  He looked around. “Look, this doesn’t leave this room. If you are recording me right now, I will use every power I have at my disposal to destroy you.”

  Sheldon-Kane’s husband looked surprised. “No. Nothing is being recorded right now. At least, not with anyone’s permission.”

  Benjamin nodded. It was as good a promise as he could ask for. “My sister.” He took a breath to go on, but Sheldon-Kane started unexpectedly.

  “Lamarque!” She pointed at him. “The first big takedown by MudzNewz. Les Lamarque, pedophile and human trafficker.”

  Benjamin nodded. Alex seemed familiar enough with the case to frown.

  Sheldon-Kane’s husband looked
thoughtful. “None of the girls were named Kaplan, if I remember.”

  “No, they weren’t. He attacked my sister nearly a year prior to that. She thought it was a one-off, and she was fifteen,” he snarled despite himself. “She didn’t want to go to the cops, and to be honest, our parents had only died a few years before. She was a mess and I was a disaster, and I’ll never forgive myself for not realizing something bad was going on until I nearly lost her.” He took a deep breath, ignoring the look of horror on Alex’s face. “Anyway, later a friend of hers got sucked up by Lamarque and his men. Rachel wanted me to do something, and believe me, I was on board with that idea. Honestly I thought we could take Lamarque down and then shutter the website, but we got so many leads on other politicians. Not all legit, but a few. Enough. Rachel isn’t very involved. She writes some of the content when I need it, but that’s about it. It’s all me.”

  Alex just stared at him for a moment. “How is your sister?”

  “She’s still got PTSD and an alcohol problem, but… we’re coping, now. We’re dealing. Therapy is expensive, but we’re dealing.” Benjamin studied his hands, pushing back a cuticle. “I got her through the cosmetology school of her dreams, and now she’s planning a beauty empire. She takes after Mom; she’s got a lot of ambition.”

  “And you don’t?” Alex’s eyebrows went up.

  “My ambition is making my ideas a reality. Hers is financial and social success. So yeah, I guess I do, but I’m more like Dad—he was a local musician and was pretty happy just jamming with his pals, making music happen. Drove Mom nuts,” he said with a chuckle, then shut that down when he remembered where he was, and why. “Ah, anyway, Rachel is good, better than I had hoped afterward. Setbacks happen,” he added, thinking of her DUI with a grimace.

  Sheldon-Kane was rubbing her temples, her eyes closed, with her husband’s arm thrown over her shoulder. Her father looked over at her. “Nancy?”

  “It’s hard to hate this jerk when he did it all to avenge his sister,” she muttered.

  “Hey, thanks for making me sound like a superhero vigilante. But, as true as it may be that I did this for revenge, it’s not like I’m flying around with a cape and taking out bad guys. It’s a political muckraking website. I’m proud of what we’ve managed to do, but it still makes me feel dirty doing it.” He shrugged.