Vengeance. Mystery Writers of America Presents B00A25NLU4

“We do have a situation here, don’t we?”
    It took her two attempts to find her voice. “Who are you?”
    He was a lean, strong-looking man, with a tanned face that seemed out of place here in New Hampshire in December, and his black hair was carefully close trimmed and flecked with white. If he looked one way, he could be in his thirties; if he looked another way, he could be in his fifties. It depended on how the light hit the fine networks of wrinkles about his eyes and mouth. Beth didn’t know much about men’s clothes, but she knew the dark suit he was wearing hadn’t come off some discount-store rack or from Walmart. He strolled over and sat down across from her, in a couch whose light orange color matched the shade of her chair.
    “I’m Henry Wolfe,” he said, “and I’m on the senator’s staff.”
    “What do you do for him?”
    “I solve problems,” he said. “Day after day, week after week, I solve problems.”
    “My daughter . . .” And then her voice broke. “Please don’t call her a problem.”
    He quickly nodded. “Bad choice of words, Mrs. Mooney. My apologies. Let me rephrase. The senator is an extraordinarily busy man, with an extraordinarily busy schedule. From the moment he gets up to the moment he goes to bed, his life is scheduled in fifteen-minute intervals. My job is to make sure that schedule goes smoothly. Especially now, with the Iowa caucuses coming up and less than two months to go before the New Hampshire primary. In other words, I’m the senator’s bitch.”
    Beth said, “His boy . . .”
    “Currently in custody by the state police, pending an investigation by your state’s attorney general’s office.”
    “I want to see my daughter,” Beth said. “Now.”
    Henry raised a hand. “Absolutely. But Mrs. Mooney, if I may, before we go see your daughter, we need to discuss certain facts and options. It’s going to be hard and it’s going to be unpleasant, but believe me, I know from experience that it’s in the interest of both parties for us to have this discussion now.”
    Anger flared inside her, like a big ember popping out of her woodstove at home. “What’s there to discuss? The senator’s son . . . he . . . he . . . hurt my little girl.”
    She couldn’t help it, the tears flowed, and she fumbled in her purse and took out a wad of tissue, which she dabbed at her eyes and nose. While doing this, she watched the man across from her. He was just sitting there, impassive, his face blank, like some lizard’s or frog’s, and Beth knew in a flash that she was out-gunned. This man before her had traveled the world, knew how to order wine from a menu, wore the best clothes and had gone to the best schools, and was prominent in a campaign to elect a senator from Georgia as the next president of the United States.
    She put the tissue back in her purse. And her? She was under no illusions. A dumpy woman from a small town outside Manchester who had barely graduated from high school and was now leasing a small beauty shop in a strip mall. Her idea of big living was going to the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut a few times a year and spending a week every February in Panama City, Florida.
    And Henry was smooth, she saw. When she had stopped sobbing and dabbing at her eyes, he cleared his throat. “If I may, Mrs. Mooney . . . as I said, we have a situation. I’m here to help you make the decisions that are in the best interests of your daughter. Please, may I go on?”
    She just nodded, knowing if she were to speak again, she would start bawling. Henry said, “The senator’s son Clay . . . he’s a troubled young man. He’s been expelled twice before from other colleges. Dartmouth was his third school, and I know that’s where he met your daughter. She’s a very bright young girl, am I correct?”
    Again, just the nod. How to explain to this man the gift and burden that was her only daughter, Janice? Born from a short-lived marriage to a long-haul truck driver named Tom — who eventually divorced her for a Las Vegas waitress and who got himself killed crossing the Continental Divide in a snowstorm, hauling frozen chickens — Janice had always done well in school. No detentions or notes from the principal about her Janice, no. She had studied hard and had gone far, and when Janice came home from Dartmouth to the double-wide, Beth sometimes found it hard to understand just what exactly her girl was talking about with the computers and the internet and