Trust Me, page 4
“Why exactly should the people in my district be concerned about the effects on property values on St. Charles Avenue?”
“You’re smarter than this, Mackenna. You know how this world works.”
“I know that poor people are continually expected to endanger their own well-beings so that the rich are not inconvenienced. Guess what, it’s not happening on my watch.”
Babin’s smug sneer was like a cheese grater sliding along Mack’s last nerve.
“You’re going to lose on this,” he said. “The mayor is on our side, and it won’t be long before we convince Johnson and Collingswood to come on board too. You can save face if you just admit you’re wrong about this before you get humiliated in front of the entire council, Mackenna.”
“I have to go,” Mack said, grabbing her purse from her desk drawer.
Russell lifted his shoulders in a hapless shrug. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. And don’t expect anyone to wipe the egg off your face when the gas turbine is approved.”
Mack didn’t reply. She remained silent as she followed her fellow councilmember out the door, locked up her office and rushed to her rental car. Despite her attempt to shake off Babin’s words, her mind refused. She tried to focus on what would take place before the Honorable Judge Mabel Winters in a few minutes, but this was a simple petition filing on behalf of a client from the Arts Council. Mack could present this case in her sleep.
Instead, her mind drifted to the warning John had given her before leaving her office.
She wasn’t naive. She knew stepping into the mayoral race would lead to greater scrutiny of her past. She was prepared to answer anything regarding those skeletons John was so concerned about.
But what about the skeletons even she didn’t know about?
Ever since her run-in with Ezra at Griffin’s birthday get-together last night, something about that company he’d mentioned, Starlight Enterprises, continued to gnaw at her. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was, but every time she tried to brush it off, something stopped her.
“It’s probably nothing,” Mack said.
But what if it is?
She damned that annoying voice in her head to hell. And while she was at it, decided to do the same with Ezra Holmes.
He’d been a thorn in her side for the past four months, and nothing she said to him seemed to matter. He was determined to find something to justify his witch-hunt.
“He’s such a pest,” Mack growled.
Her irritation wasn’t reserved entirely for Ezra. Mack placed some of it squarely in her own lap. Because, for a second last night, she’d actually thought he looked cute in that charcoal gray newsboy cap he always wore. But then he’d opened his mouth and all Mack could see was the rage he managed to induce whenever she thought about him these past few months. There was nothing cute about Ezra Holmes.
Well, except for the obvious. Like the rest of those Holmes men, his handsomeness couldn’t be denied. But his stank attitude of late completely obliterated the handsomeness factor.
“Forget about Ezra,” Mack said to the empty car. She had enough to worry about.
Just the thought of having to decide whether or not she should even consider making a run for mayor had Mack wanting to bury her head in the sand and not emerge until Thanksgiving. There were just too many anxiety-inducing items on her plate to worry about whatever Ezra had dreamed up.
Yet, as she pulled into a parking spot in front of the district court building, Mack picked up her phone and set a reminder for herself to Google Starlight Enterprises after she was done with class tonight.
Chapter 3
Mack threw the onions she’d bought pre-diced from the grocery store into the hot skillet and gave them a stir, making sure to coat every piece with the olive oil and butter combination. She scrolled down on her iPad, skimming the recipe she’d looked up earlier today. It was a rare night that she made it home in time to actually cook herself a full meal, but after her class was cancelled because of a busted water main, she suddenly had several free hours on her hands.
She grabbed the container of fresh scallops she’d picked up on the drive home, and ran them under a stream of cold water. Just as she was about to add the scallops to the skillet, Mack stopped.
Seaside.
That’s what she remembered, not Starlight or whatever it was Ezra had mentioned. It was Seaside, wasn’t it?
“No. Wait.”
Mack set the scallops on the counter and raced to the linen closet in her back hallway. She flipped on the light and peered up in the corner, spotting the boxes she’d repeatedly asked Carter to pick up. She grabbed the stepladder she kept in the closet, but just as she reached for the first box, she caught a whiff of burning onions.
“Shit!”
Mack raced back to the kitchen. Smoke billowed from the skillet.
“Dammit,” she cursed. The one time I attempt to cook.
She set the skillet in the sink and tried to scrape the little black chunks of burnt onion that were stuck to the bottom of the pan. It was useless. Putting dinner out of her head, Mack returned to the linen closet and climbed the stepladder again.
She pulled down the first of three cardboard boxes and set it on the floor. She’d skimmed through the boxes just a few weeks ago, ready to toss them out to make room for boxes of her own papers from her office in City Hall.
She uncovered the box, but quickly recognized that it wasn’t the one she was looking for. This one had all Carter’s Atlanta Falcons crap. She should have known something was wrong with him when she discovered he was a closet Falcons fan, but was too afraid to wear any of it outside the house for fear of losing business from local diehard Saints fans.
She pushed that box to the side and climbed up for the second one. She took the lid off and felt around. Feeling the various file folders, Mack slid the heavy box to the edge and gently brought it down. She carried it over to her circular dining room table and started going through the files.
She knew she wouldn’t rest until she confirmed that it wasn’t Starlight Enterprises that she’d glimpsed while going through these files. She needed it to be something else, anything else. Ezra could not be right about this.
Mack’s fingers stilled as she came upon a light blue file folder.
There it was. Starlight Enterprises.
“I’ll be damned,” she whispered.
She took a seat and opened the folder flat on the table. Her anxiety level rose with each minute that passed as she read over the documents. Mack drew the laptop from her briefcase and did a web search on Starlight Enterprises. She skimmed over a dozen sites before she finally made the connection.
“That son of a bitch.”
She grabbed the file folder and tucked it underneath her arm, hauling her purse strap over her shoulder before tearing out of the condo. Twenty minutes later, Mack pulled up to the gated driveway of the home she’d lived in before her ex-husband decided he was ready for “something new.” She jammed her finger on the buzzer.
“Carter, let me in right now,” Mack said.
Her request was met with silence, but a few seconds later the electronic gate slid open. Mack swerved her car around the circular driveway, threw it in park and stomped across the walkway and up the marble steps of her one-time home. Carter stood in the open door, his hands braced on his hips.
“What are you doing here, Mackenna?” her ex-husband asked.
Mack slapped the file folder to his chest. “You are one low-down dirty bastard, you know that?”
He let out an exasperated sigh. “Don’t you ever grow tired of insulting me?”
“Don’t you ever grow tired of giving me a reason to insult you?” she threw back.
“Carter, is everything alright?”
Mack looked beyond her ex-husband’s broad frame and caught his new wife, Leanne, entering the foyer. Leanne had been a paralegal in Carter’s law firm for years, had attended Christmas and Super Bowl watch parties in Mack’s house. Little did Mack know the heifer had been sleeping with her husband.
Leanne could have Carter. Mack was more than happy to be rid of that rat bastard. But it did piss Mack off that this pencil-thin, stringy-haired bitch got to live in this house. This was her house, dammit. She was the one who’d put all the time and effort into decorating it.
“Everything’s fine,” Carter called over his shoulder. “I’ll be done here in a minute. “ He turned back to Mack. “What do you want? We were just about to have dinner.”
She was reminded of her aborted dinner, and the smoke filling up her kitchen, and the damn scallops she’d forgotten to put back in the refrigerator that would probably now spoil.
Dammit!
Her rage ratcheted up another level.
Mack pointed to the file folder Carter still held against his chest. “What is Starlight Enterprises?” she asked him.
The flash of shock on his face was brief, but Mack caught it all the same. She shook her head, unable to keep the derision from her voice. Not as if Carter was due any courtesy from her. He deserved every bit of derision she threw his way.
“You really are an asshole,” Mack said. “Did you think I would never find out about this? Why did you hide it; so that I wouldn’t get a piece of it in the divorce?”
Carter’s jaw ticked, a telltale sign that he was angry. He had some damn nerve. He wasn’t the injured party here.
“You screwed me out of everything else in that divorce,” Mack pointed out. “Did you really think it would be any different if I knew about this little side deal you had going?”
He set the folder on the brushed chrome foyer table she’d found at an estate sale years ago. She loved that table.
Carter folded his arms over his chest. “If it’s no big deal, why are you bringing it up right now?”
She took several steps forward, until only inches separated them. With a sneer, she said, “Because Starlight Enterprises has an interest in BDF Disposal, the same company that won the city garbage collection contract earlier this year. And I’ve had an investigative reporter up my ass for months because he discovered your connection to Starlight Enterprises and thought I knew about it.”
If she didn’t know him as well as she did, Mack would have thought she’d spotted a flash of guilt cross Carter’s face. But he remained silent. The only reaction was that damn tick in his jaw, as if he was growing more and more irritated with her.
“Do you know the kind of shit storm it would cause if this got out? It doesn’t matter that I had no idea your scheming ass owned part of this company. The only thing that matters is that, as a sitting council member, I voted to accept the bid of a company that my husband at the time had an interest in.”
“I wasn’t thinking about you or your little seat on the council when I bought into Starlight Enterprises,” he said.
“Of course you weren’t. You only think about your damn self.” Mack gestured to the file folder. “You do realize I could take you to court over this, right? You purposely hid assets in our divorce. Your buddy is no longer on the bench, so you wouldn’t get the same sweet deal you did in the original settlement.”
It still pissed her off that one of Carter’s law school friends presided over their divorce proceedings. The two of them used every tactic they could to screw her out of every single thing they could.
Except for his precious boat. She still had his speedboat. That boat could rot for all she cared.
“You’re not taking me to court over this,” Carter said. “If you do, it will just bring more attention to you. People will question whether or not you knew about my investment in Starlight the entire time.” He leaned forward, and in a hushed voice, said, “I won’t say a single word. I’ll let them speculate. Just think of the stink it will cause, Councilmember Arnold.”
What she wouldn’t give for the chance to slap that cocky smirk off his face.
“I hate you so fucking much,” Mack said.
Carter tipped his head to the side. “Now, if you want to work out a deal with my speedboat, maybe we can talk.”
“I’d set that boat on fire before I let you have it,” Mack said. She poked him in the chest. “You better let me know if there’s any other bullshit you were involved in that can be tied to me. And if you want that crap you left at the condo, you have one day to pick it up. Otherwise, it’s going in the trash.”
“I did you a favor.” He slid the folder from the table and held it up to her, that smug grin tilting up one corner of his mouth. “If I’d picked up those boxes when you first asked, you never would have found this.”
Mack had never had the urge to spit on another human being before this very moment, but she wouldn’t stoop to this bastard’s level. She snatched the file folder out of his hand.
“Fuck you, Carter,” she said before turning and stomping down the steps.
She got behind the wheel of her car and tore out of the driveway. Five minutes later, Mack pulled into the parking lot of a dry cleaner on Metairie Road. Her hands were shaking so much she could barely grip the steering wheel.
What if the scenario she’d just laid out for Carter had actually happened? What if Ezra had decided to run with whatever information he’d been able to find so far on the connection between Starlight Enterprises and BDF Disposal? Mack knew there was no direct connection that he could make between her and the companies, but that didn’t matter in this age of click-bait headline reporting. All it would take was the insinuation that she’d somehow had knowledge that Carter had an interest in Starlight. They’d been married for fifteen years. One of New Orleans’s power couples. Of course people would assume she knew.
The scandal it would cause made Mack’s breath hitch. Everything she’d worked so hard for; it would all be gone. Her mayoral run? Yeah, right! It would be over before she could ever get it off the ground.
“All because of that asshole.”
Mack lowered her head onto the steering wheel and sucked in several deep breaths.
For the first time in months she actually had something to be grateful for when it came to Ezra Holmes. Most journalists would have run with the story. At least he’d practiced some restraint and taken the time to do his due diligence.
Goodness, she actually owed Ezra an apology. And a thank you.
All this time he hadn’t been on a witch-hunt at all. She wasn’t sure who or what had tipped him off, but he’d had a legitimate reason to look into her background. Ezra had simply been doing his job.
And doing a damn fine job at that. He’d done a better job than both she and her lawyers did back during her divorce. She was sure they’d uncovered every business dealing Carter had been involved in for the past decade, yet this Starlight Enterprises had flown right past them.
Yes, she owed Ezra an apology.
Mack blew out a disgusted breath.
“Well, this should be fun.”
* * *
Ezra’s knee bobbed up and down, hitting the underside of the small round table as he checked his watch for the tenth time in the last three minutes. He was giving her thirty more seconds and then he was out of here. He’d told himself not to do this. What possible good could come from meeting with Mackenna Arnold?
Unless she was ready to confess.
“You wish,” Ezra mumbled to himself.
It was foolish to even entertain the thought that Mack would cave. She’d fought him tooth and nail since the minute he started investigating her, never backing down from her claims of innocence. Ezra was convinced that even if he displayed all the evidence against her on the jumbo screens in the Super Dome in the middle of a Saints game, she’d continue to deny it. The problem was that he still hadn’t found evidence directly tying her to BDF Disposal.
But you’re close.
He’d touched a nerve when he mentioned Starlight Enterprises the other night. He’d seen it in her eyes. The way those deep brown orbs had widened with shock had been the confirmation he’d needed. Not only was he on the right track, he was close to pulling into the station.
He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d spent these last couple of days trying to figure out how she could spin this story so that she didn’t look like the crooked politician she was. But there was no spinning. He’d caught her. Maybe she was on her way here to confess. Maybe he wouldn’t even have to find the proverbial smoking gun.
Despite the vindication that surged through him at the thought of finally getting a confession out of Mack, Ezra couldn’t deny that a part of him was disappointed. Sure, he’d spent all these months investigating her, banking on outing her for using her influence on the city council for her own personal gain. But there was another part of him that had hoped he was wrong about the entire thing.
For years he’d thought Mack was one of the good ones. From the first day he’d met her, when she’d walked into his parents’ home wearing a red, black and green sweatshirt with an outline of the African continent on it, Ezra had known she was down for the cause. It didn’t matter what the cause was, he just liked knowing that she stood for something. It was disheartening to uncover that even one of the good ones could be turned by the seedy world of politics.
He checked his watch again. He stared at it as the second hand ticked by and the time changed from 10:59 to 11:00.
That’s it. He’d sat here for a half hour without hearing a word from her. Ezra was willing to wait for a story, but he expected people to respect his time. The least she could have done was call or text when she realized she wouldn’t be here for their scheduled 10:30 a.m. meeting—a meeting time which she’d set.
Ezra was halfway to the door when something occurred to him. She hadn’t called him to ask for this meeting. She’d sent an email to the public email address that followed his stories. Hell, he didn’t know if Mack even knew his phone number.
He returned to the table he’d occupied for the past half hour and clicked into his email app.
“Shit,” Ezra muttered.
She’d sent an email forty-five minutes ago, letting him know that she was stuck in court and asking if he could meet her at 11:00 a.m. instead of their agreed upon 10:30 a.m. Not even a minute later, Mackenna walked through the door of the coffee shop. She spotted him immediately and made her way to his table.
