Senator Clarence's eyes narrowed. "He said all of this to you? You spoke to this man? When?"
"I didn't speak to him. Not exactly." She was still trying to make sense of everything that had occurred tonight. "He saw me through the window in the viewing room. He started talking, saying a lot of strange things."
The senator slowly shook his head. "Paranoid, crazy things from the sound of it, Tavia." "Yes, except he didn't seem crazy to me. He seemed disturbed and volatile, but not crazy." She stared at her boss, watching as he rubbed idly at his wrist - the same wrist that had been crushed in the punishing hold of the man who'd broken free of his handcuffs and breached a supposedly secure witness room before half a dozen police officers and federal agents could contain the situation. All so he could get his hands on Senator Clarence. "When he saw you, he said he was already too late. He said this person, Dragos, owned you. What did he mean by that? Why did he think you know this person, or where to find him?"
A tendon ticked in the lean, chiseled jaw. "I'm sure I don't know, Tavia. Politicians make a lot of enemies - some of them harmless crackpots, others destructive sociopaths who crave attention and think that violence and terror are the best ways to get it. Who knows what sins this lunatic thinks I'm guilty of. All I know is, he came to my house to commit murder, and when he failed in that, he and his militant pals decided to blow up a government building and take several innocent lives in the process. The only clear danger any of us seemed to be in tonight was coming from him and him alone."
Tavia acknowledged those sober facts with a grim nod. She couldn't argue with any of it, and she didn't know why she felt compelled to dissect and examine any of what she had heard in the police station viewing room. She didn't know why she couldn't get the man and every bizarre word he said out of her mind.
And his eyes ...
She could still see their steely blue color, and the intensity with which he held her in his unflinching - undeniably sane - stare.
She could still feel the peculiar heat that seemed to radiate out from those stormy irises in that instant when their gazes clashed and held, mere seconds before the Tasers' probes bit into him and the bullets began to fly.
She was so deep in her thoughts, she jumped a little when the senator lightly smacked his palm against his knee. "Ah, damn. I knew I was forgetting something."
"What is it?" she asked, turning to look at him as the SUV exited the highway to begin the couple-mile stretch of rural blacktop that would lead to her house.
He gave her a sheepish look, the one he usually reserved for those times when he was about to ask her to work the entire weekend or help him find a last-minute gift for some society function hostess whom it was crucial he impress. "Tomorrow morning is the charity breakfast for the children's hospital."
Tavia nodded. "Eight o'clock at Copley Place. I sent your dry cleaning to your house and emailed your speech to both your mobile and your home computer before I left the office for the police station tonight."
She'd covered all the bases for him, as usual, but he didn't look satisfied. He winced a bit. "I was thinking of making some changes to the speech. Actually I was hoping you might help me rewrite it completely. With everything that's been going on lately, I haven't had a chance to talk to you about it. I'm sorry, Tavia. And I know you're probably exhausted, but can you spare me an hour or so tonight yet? We can work at my house, since we're halfway to Marblehead already - "
"I can't," she replied, the words tumbling out even before she realized she was going to say them. She'd never refused any task he gave her, but something about tonight - something about Bobby Clarence himself - made her instincts stir with an odd wariness. She shook her head, even as his look of surprise turned to one of disappointment, then cool disapproval. "I wish I could help, but my aunt is very sick. I have her medicine right here." She reached into her purse and pulled out a prescription bottle full of white pills. "I'm afraid if I'm not there to make sure she takes it and has a proper meal ..."
"Of course. I understand," the senator replied. He was aware of her general living situation - the fact that her aunt Sarah had raised her alone for most of Tavia's life. She was the only family Tavia had ever known, and the fact that Tavia would drop everything to take care of the older woman was no stretch. At least that much was true.
The Suburban slowed, crunching ice and snow under its tires, as they approached the little gray Cape with its neat black shutters, Christmas wreath on the front door, and cheery yellow light glowing from nearly every window. Tavia met the senator's watchful gaze from across the wide bench seat. "I'm sorry I can't help this time. I'm sure your changes will be just fine." He nodded. "Give your aunt Sarah my best. Tell her I hope she feels better soon." His mouth curved into a smile that might have looked sympathetic if not for the dark gleam of doubt in his eyes. "I'll see you in the morning, Tavia. We can talk more then."
She opened the SUV door and started to climb out.
Perhaps she should have bitten her tongue, but a question had been riding the tip of it since the moment they left the police station - a question that disturbed her almost as much as the ones now swirling in her head about the senator himself. In fact, it was something that had been nagging at her even longer than that ... from sometime last week, and the instant she first laid eyes on one of Bobby Clarence's most generous supporters.
She paused outside the vehicle, pivoting to peer in at the senator. "How well do you know Drake Masters?"