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“Obstructing an investigation. That’s what. Now take your old ass back inside!”

“Call William,” Joy said to Cory as they began walking her to the patrol car. “Call William right now! He’s gonna be pissed, but make sure you tell him I was arrested for doing absolutely nothing wrong!”

Cory hurriedly and nervously pulled out his cellphone to call William.

“And tell Elise to make sure Gramps get in that ambulance when it comes,” Joy added, as they put her in the patrol car.

And then they sped away, leaving a flustered Cory, and a worried Gramps.

The neighbors standing on their stoops could only shake their heads too. “Cops,” one of them said. But even she said it too low for anybody to hear.

CHAPTER NINE

William sat in the back of his plane thumbing through his thick briefing book as his new private secretary, Minnie Jawaski, discussed talking points for his meeting in New York tomorrow. He removed his reading glasses, dangling them with one hand and pinching the bridge of his nose with his other hand. His focus should have been on that big meeting tomorrow. But his mind, his entire focus, was on Diana.

Diana.

Not that he was ever in love with her. He wasn’t. Joy was the only woman he’d ever truly been in love with. But he was in love with the ideal of her. She was tough, she was smart, she was ambitious. She was everything he liked in a woman. When he found out that she was throwing her hat in the ring in a quest to become Canada’s first black prime minister, he was elated. Because he knew she had it in her to be an excellent head of state.

But now this.

And why did he feel as if the extortionists may be more connected to him than to her? And how on earth did they get video?

“Sir?”

William didn’t realize Minnie had asked him a question. Twice. He looked at her. “Yes?”

“Are you okay?”

What kind of question was that? “What?”

“I said are you okay, sir?”

He frowned. “Of course I’m okay! Why would you feel it necessary to ask me such an insignificant question? I’m fine.”

Maximus Bluff, William’s chief of security, sat up front with the rest of William’s security detail. He looked at his team because they were looking at him wondering what had gotten into the boss. None of them knew what that meeting at the Canadian border was all about, but they knew he was in a foul-ass mood ever since he got back on his plane.

“Given that you work for me, not the other way around,” William said to his secretary, “why don’t you tell me who will be in attendance tomorrow at the meeting. You’ve been telling me everything but what I need to know. Tell me that.”

William knew he was being harsh, but he couldn’t help it. Sloane, his previous private secretary, was a pain in the ass too. But she was far superior to Minnie.

Minnie was already nervous around Mr. Skeffington. He was a very demanding, exacting sort of person. But whenever he was in that kind of mood, she was downright fearful of him.

But she cleared her throat and did her job. “All of his principals with be there, sir. The CEO. The CFO. The COO. And Mr. Gates, of course.”

William’s phone began ringing. “Make it a one-on-one. We’ll get nothing accomplished with all of those yes-men in the room.”

“Yes sir,” Minnie said, although she was unclear how she could make such a request of such a powerful man like Mr. Gates, but she made a note in her pad.

William looked at his Caller ID, and then he placed the call on Speaker so that he didn’t have to hold it. “Yes, Bobby, what is it?”

Bobby Latham was his chief-of-staff, the first black chief-of-staff in SPR history. “I just got a call from Cory, sir. He was too afraid to phone you directly.”

“And why would he be afraid to phone me?”

Minnie glanced at him. Why did he think? He was probably terrified of him too.

“He felt that you would get upset.”