Private Politics (The Easy Part) Read Online Free PDF Page B

deeply about the work YWR did; she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize their services. Besides, where would she have gotten the money in the first place?
    That really was the key: where had the money come from? Because whoever Harding Investment Group and R. Cross LLC were, they certainly didn’t have this kind of cash lying around. So where did it come from and why was it being funneled into YWR?
    There wasn’t any explanation that made sense. It wasn’t a huge amount of money, but whomever it belonged to, why didn’t they just hire lobbyists directly?
    Yup, she had no better idea today than she had yesterday, which meant she’d done enough stalling. Life’s problems were simply never solved in bathrooms.
    She opened the door and shot quick glances in both directions before exiting into the hallway.
Stupid
,
stupid.
You aren’t in a John le Carré novel
. With a deep breath, she breezed through the office.
Tried
to breeze across the office. Two steps in, her left ankle buckled and almost sent her crashing into Chris Hannigan’s thankfully unoccupied desk. What the hell? She hadn’t had trouble walking in heels since the age of twelve when she’d put herself through a training program. This thing—this really silly, really terrifying thing—was doing a number on her.
    Pulling herself up, she took off again, successfully this time, and a few steps later knocked on Geri’s door. As they were a fairly small operation, hers was the only private office. Alyse had dreams about having a door. She would know she’d arrived when that happened.
    “Come in.”
    She pushed into the space and was faced with a dilemma in the form of an empty chair. She didn’t usually sit when she went to talk to Geri, but maybe it would be better this time if she did. She’d have fewer things to think about if she were sitting. Fewer things might go wrong.
    She must have stalled for longer than usual as Geri prompted, “Yes?”
    “Uh...how are you?” She’d delivered the question standing up. Now she couldn’t sit; it would seem weird.
    “Fine. You?” Geri had evidently decided this conversation wasn’t important. She’d rotated back to her computer, where several windows were open. Reports overlapped all over her desk, a mosaic of charts and images. If Liam could see this now, she knew that he’d agree with her. Geri couldn’t be involved in what was going on. She worked hard. She cared. She wouldn’t do anything to hurt YWR or its work. There was absolutely no reason to be nervous.
    Feeling confident, Alyse skipped the pleasantries. “I was working on gathering materials for the audit yesterday.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “And I, well, there are some weird receipt letters.”
    At this, her boss’s head snapped over and she angled her chair toward Alyse. Behind chunky, red-framed glasses, her eyes tightened. They didn’t narrow precisely, but her crow’s-feet got deeper.
    “Weird in what way?” She sounded sharp. She should, of course. A senior staffer was bringing something to her attention. It would be crazy not to be concerned.
    “The donations are big. Not
big
big, but good-sized. Mid-five figures. But...” It was difficult to know how to word it. Almost twenty-four hours later, she was working off a feeling as much as anything else. She finished, rather foolishly, “the corporations aren’t ones whose names I know.”
    Geri laughed but her body didn’t participate. Her hands stayed roped together on her desk and her shoulders didn’t shake with amusement. “You don’t know the names of every corporation in America. Even your daddy’s not
that
well connected.”
    Everyone at the office teased her about her family. Not that they’d ever met them or knew anything about how she’d grown up. Geri wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t exactly correct.
    “Right. I wasn’t assuming I did. I did some searches.”
    “What did you find?” The sharpness had honed to a point.
Tread with caution
, it said.
    Almost without