“Thank you,” I said, with real gratitude, snagging a campaign brochure from underneath the paperweight before pulling Lou back to the elevator by the elbow. “You don’t even know how helpful you’ve been.”

Chapter 9

Lou and I grinned at each other, stupidly, arms intertwined, all the way back to her car. She kept leaning into me and giggling, giddy with possibility.

I couldn’t stop myself from twirling in front of the security guard, flirting outrageously on my way out, giving him a little salute while I bit my bottom lip. For a moment, it didn’t matter that I still thought Carrigan had too many red flags, that I got short of breath every time I thought of that nineteen grand I owed. There was magic in our work when the pieces started to drop into place.

As Lou drove, we talked out the things we’d learned: the lack of flyers in Carrigan’s office, the lackluster support from the staff. A favorite restaurant and a date that he frequented it would make it so much easier for the first meeting between mark and girl to appear coincidental. The old boys’ club mentality, even as he ran on a platform of progressive change backed by old money.

I read to her from the campaign brochure and showed her the pictures, the little details I picked up. The suit Carrigan wore in the first picture was navy blue, which I assumed Tana had picked to match his eyes. Even from the tiny brochure photo, I could tell the suit was custom-made. A well-curated swath of diverse city dwellers all looked eager to shake his hand. That suit probably cost their entire month’s rent. It would’ve cost a few of mine. Most of the space was dedicated to those pictures—it seemed Carrigan was a man of few, if any, words. There was only the slogan: Make Money Work for You! Tana looked more approachable in print than she did on TV, sugar blonde and beaming. She could fill out a twinset, all right. They looked like any handsome, unhappy married couple.

But my favorite photo featured a graying man with a hand on both Carrigan’s and Tana’s shoulders. Tana held her piglet of a son against her thigh. The caption read: Hollis Carrigan and family. Three generations of Angelenos: The past, present, and future of Los Angeles. Nowhere did it mention that Hollis Carrigan was the father of Tana and not Mitch. That fact alone painted a vivid picture of the man we were tailing.

I wondered what Carrigan’s first wife would think of the photo.

“A drink?” Lou asked, cruising back into Beverly Hills. “And then maybe we go by his house. See if he’s headed anywhere else tonight.”

I laughed uneasily. “I can’t. I’m meeting Jackal,” I lied.

“More lessons he needs to learn?”