Page 26 of Gave Proof Through the Night

“You could book that castle,” I say. “And still have enough left for a year-long honeymoon. Twice around the world if you want to be dramatic about it.”

Tanya looks at the screen. A long look. She’s practically drooling.

“Dale would ask where the money came from,” she says, half to herself.

“You’ll figure that out when you get back.”

“But what should I say when he asks me why I need to go to DC?”

“Girl’s trip,” Zoe says. “Someone turns twenty-five on the Fourth of July.” She glances at me pointedly. “Where better to celebrate an Independence Day birthday than in the nation’s capital?”

Tanya’s whole face lights up. “That’s right. It’s your birthday!”

“Yep. It’s my birthday,” I say. “You won’t even have to lie.”

“Dale would insist I go.”

“Because he’s a sweet, nice guy,” Zoe says. “He’ll probably tell you to buy her a cake.”

“He’d send a cookie bouquet,” Tanya confirms.

“I like peanut butter cookies,” I say.

Waffles chooses this moment to get up off the floor to stretch into a downward dog position. A long fart escapes his backside.

“Biiiig stretch,” Tanya praises. “Who’s the goodest boy? Who’s the goodest boy in Louisiana?”

Zoe looks ready to bolt because the smell is atrocious.

Waffles walks back to Tanya’s chair and leans his entire body weight against her leg. She looks down at him. Her face goes soft.

“He’s very gentle,” she says, as a point of record. Then her eyes spark like she just got a brilliant idea. “Hey… can Waffles come?”

“No,” Zoe and I say, at the same time.

Tanya nods once and shrugs sheepishly. “Had to ask.”

We spend the evening with Tanya and Dale once he gets home from work. It’s a nice, relaxing time, and so domestic which gives me a small ache in my chest. We play games and reminisce all night, and at dawn, we say our goodbyes, and Zoe and I are in Manhattan by mid-morning.

Zoe sleeps the entire way but I can’t sleep on planes, so by the time we’re walking the Upper East Side I have reworked the Four Seasons layout twice in my head and need coffee that isn’t from an airport terminal.

My phone buzzes. It’s Ivy. Something about Senator Halloway at last night’s fundraiser. She’s working something with that connection but doesn’t say what.

She’s been laying the groundwork and updating me since our Coffee Loft meeting three days ago. She was so into it before I even got about halfway through the pitch. She just held up one hand and said, “I’m in.”

Just like that.

And I knew right away we’d be fast friends. She’s the kind woman who’s sick and tired of being interrupted mid-sentence by men who then repeat what she’d just said and take all the credit for her brilliance. Who had smiled through a hundred dinners where some chief of staff mansplained the room she’d already worked three times. Who has decided, somewhere along the way, that if these men are going to underestimate her, she’s at least going to make it expensive for them.

That was enough for me.

The “face,” or inside connection, is a critical piece of a job like this. The person who knows which congressman is cheating on his wife, which trustee owes a favor to whom, and which donor will open any door you need if you just let him think it was his idea.

Six years ago, Dennis Hobbs, my dad’s inside guy, turned out to be a brown-nosing social climber. He was a nobody. Dad should have seen the signs. When the job went sideways, he handed investigators everything they needed to put my father in prison and walked away clean.

Ivy has ten times as much access as Hobbs ever did, and she has no reason to give us up to anyone. She has more to gain from exposing what’s been buried than she’d ever get from protecting the people who buried it.

I put the phone away.