Alien vs. Alien

answer. “I didn’t . . .” He shook his head. “As I said earlier, it was all too easy to believe you and Reynolds were having an affair. But I gain nothing from exposing that.”
    “So you were coming to blackmail me.”
    “Hardly. I involved Guy and Vance so you’d realize I wasn’t trying to extort anything from you.”
    “Seriously? Why in the world would you think bringing them along would help?”
    Armstrong stared at me. “You’re friends with them.”
    “
Excuse
me?”
    Armstrong shrugged. “They talk about you all the time. I mean, Guy’s clearly smitten with you. Vance says he misses you in the Washington Wife class.”
    “And from that you deduced friendship?”
    “They actually like you, so yes.”
    I decided to table my shock and horror, as well as ensure the Inner Hyena remained silent, so I moved back to the real matter at hand. “Okay, so you believed the pictures.”
    “Absolutely. They looked very real and it wasn’t a relationship I would question.”
    “No one who knows you and Chuck would question it,” Amy said, looking up from her scribbling.
    I nodded. “Honestly, I agree.” I looked at Christopher. “So, why didn’t Jeff freak the hell out?”
    “Because Reynolds was the one who brought the pictures to him,” Christopher replied. “And
he
was freaked out.”
    “And Jeff can read Chuckie’s emotions without difficulty.” Lord knew, Jeff confirmed this all the time. I looked at Oliver. “During Operation Assassination the bad guys intended for you to alert us. How did you find out about these pictures?”
    “I didn’t use great deductive reasoning or any contacts. I insinuated I’d heard a tip so that Mister Reynolds wouldn’t waste time or effort accusing me of setting it all up. But the pictures were sent directly to my editor. Because I’ve created a fruitful relationship with you, he showed them to me first. That’s why they weren’t published.”
    “That sounds like the sender expected you to alert Chuckie, though.”
    Oliver looked thoughtful. “Maybe. Or they don’t understand how special some of your people are, your husband in particular.”
    “Or they don’t realize that you have a positive working relationship,” Armstrong said. “Frankly, until this meeting, I would never have actually believed you wanted him around. And no amount of money would have made me believe you would have stopped the rag you work for from printing those pictures,” he said to Oliver, who shrugged and looked, all things considered, rather pleased and a little smug. I let him have his moment.
    “Best investigative reporter in the country, perhaps the world. So, MJO, how badly did your editor want to print those pictures?”
    “Badly. But he’s smart enough to understand that we’re getting access no one else is and how quickly said access would disappear if we printed something like this about you.”
    “Timeline is that the senator got the pictures the day I left. Then, MJO, your editor got them, what, two weeks later?”
    “Roughly, yes.”
    “So whoever sent the pictures to the senat to the or thought he’d do something with them,” White said.
    “And, clearly, whatthey expected wasn’t that the senator would come down to Florida and try to show the pictures to me.”
    “I’d bet they expected the senator to go straight to Ambassador Martini,” Oliver said.
    “Why expect him to bring them to Jeff
or
Kitty?” Christopher asked. “The senator works more closely with Reynolds than he does with us. And we’d run anything to do with him through Reynolds first anyway.”
    It was there again. I could feel the answer throwing itself against the walls of my mind, trying to break in.
    “I’m still amazed, and incredibly relieved, that Jeff acted like an actual adult,” Amy said, not even bothering to look up from her writing. “His jealousy thing is so over-the-top sometimes, I’m amazed he didn’t kill Chuck and then ask questions later, regardless of who brought the pictures to him.”
    And there it was.

    Yi

CHAPTER 41

    “A MES, I LOVE YOU. Keep on writing down the questions, but revel in the fact that you’re totally on fire today.” I dialed and he answered on the first ring. “I know what’s going on.”
    “Baby, now’s a really bad time.”
    “Don’t let Chuckie out of your sight.”
    “I can feel your panic, and, as so often happens, it’s centered around him. Why?”
    “Because whatever’s going on with the dirty pictures