The Switch

35

Will arrived home in a taxi from National Airport in a funk. He was weary and defeated and angry, and he was in no mood to deal with a cranky Jennifer and a no-doubt squalling Travis.

But when he unlocked the front door, all he heard was quiet. Jen was sitting in her favorite chair reading Entertainment Weekly in a cone of light from the standing lamp. She put her finger to her lips. “Shh! He’s actually sleeping!”

“Now that we’re not starving him to death,” Will said in a normal speaking voice.

“Shh!”

“I think Dr. Blum said you’re not supposed to stay quiet while the baby’s sleeping so he doesn’t, I don’t know, need to sleep in a cork-lined room for the rest of his life.”

“I am finally getting a chance to read something that’s not the label on a formula bottle. When you wake him up, you’re taking him.”

“Fair enough,” Will said in a quiet voice. He didn’t want to fight with her. He just wanted to be alone right now, figuring out his next move. He dreaded having to give the boss the bad news. He didn’t know how she’d react, but he was pretty sure she’d be angry and not hold back.

He had thought he’d played things exactly right with Michael Tanner in Boston, that Tanner had gotten up to get the laptop, finally. But when he came back with a couple of mugs of coffee, he’d said, “I wish I could help you, Will. I really appreciate your coming to Boston to return my laptop. I feel like I should at the very least reimburse you for the train or the plane or whatever.”

“What about the senator’s...?”

“I actually lost my laptop in LA,” Tanner said. “I didn’t take the wrong one. I just must have left it there — I was in a rush.”

“You don’t have the senator’s laptop?”

“Sorry.” Tanner shrugged.

He was lying, Will was certain. But how to get him to admit he had it? Will was stymied. He was near speechless. He’d almost had the guy, but somehow he’d lost him. He didn’t know why. But he negotiated all the time, and he knew when the drawbridge had gone up.

Now Jen asked sweetly, “How was your trip?”

“Fine. No big deal.” He set down his shoulder bag.

“Success?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“You get a good contribution?”

Jen understood the money chase that politics had become.

“Not bad.”

“God, wouldn’t it be great if you got a cut of all the money you help raise? Like a commission or something?”

“Yeah, that would be illegal, I’m pretty sure.”

His cell phone rang, and he saw who it was. His stomach twisted. He hit Answer as he moved toward the bedroom and a little privacy.

“Do you have it?” the senator asked without preface.

“No.”

“What? But you—”

“I totally had him. Then the fish wriggled off the goddamned hook.”

“I don’t understand. What’s going on? He won’t give it back?”

“He denies he ever had it.”

“He denies it? Is that— Is it possible he doesn’t have it? Seriously?”

“He has to have it. I know he does.”

“So how can we—”

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk—” on the phone, he wanted to say.

“I want a plan to get it back.”

“I’m on it,” he said. “Not to worry.”

“At this point,” she said, “we both need to be worried. Very worried.”

And she hung up.