He checks the glucose readout, dials up the correct amount of insulin and then holds the pen aloft and flicks the barrel, checking for air bubbles. Then he waits, looking at my thigh. I realize I need to pull my shorts up. It feels weird, exposing myself to him like this. More intimate than getting naked with someone. I’m painfully aware how dependent I am on that insulin pen and suddenly it’s in his hands. I grasp the hem and turn a little away from him, rucking up the fabric. There’s the cold kiss of the alcohol swab and the warmth of his fingers lightly touching my thigh. I feel the light sting of the needle and hear the clicks as he pushes down on the pen.

“Thanks,” I mutter, taking the pen back from him and putting my gear away. He’s standing so close I can feel the fan of his breath on the back of my neck. “How, um, did you learn to do that?”

“YouTube.”

He must have looked it up yesterday evening when we got back from class. I feel him watching me closely, as if he’s thinking very hard. Finally he steps back and says, “Adrienne, your father has been arrested.”

I’m still all fluttery from what he just did and it’s a moment before his words sink in. “Arrested? What?”

“They came to get him this morning.”

Hours and hours ago. All that time I was coloring in and watching Aladdin and eating lunch Dieter knew about this but I didn’t. I feel my face flush with anger. “But you said they just wanted to talk to him about some formalities.”

“That’s all I thought it was at the time.” He takes his phone out of his pocket and puts it on the counter. “I’ve been following the news this morning and it seems like it’s something more.”

I stare at the phone. “I don’t understand. Is he being charged with murder now?”

“Not murder. I don’t think this has anything to do with Connie Masters’s death, or at least not directly.” He shows me a headline on the Gazette homepage. herald editor arrested on hacking, communications interception charges. There’s a photo of my father being put into a police car, his face gray, his mouth a thin, angry line. “It went up a short time ago. The police took computers from your father’s study this morning, and I think from the newspaper offices as well.”

I shake my head. The charges don’t make any sense. “My father couldn’t hack anything. He can’t even update the software on his phone.”

Dieter nods. “Good points. Perhaps he’s not personally capable of these acts, but he may have ordered them. I only know what I can find online and it’s uncertain how accurate the reporting is. Most of the information is coming from the Gazette.”

“Well, there you go!” I exclaim. “They’re my father’s direct competitors.”

“Adrienne. Even the Gazette wouldn’t go so far as to print complete lies. They’d be leaving themselves open to a lawsuit.”

I think for a moment. I suppose there’s something in that. As gleeful as they would be to spread muck about my father, they know he’d be even more gleeful to sue them for libel.

“I don’t believe it.” The heat in my voice surprises me. We haven’t been close in some time, but he’s still my father. Connie Masters’s death? Yes, he did a shitty thing and he’s probably morally culpable. But hacking? “What would be the point?”

“Well. Someone at the paper might want to get hold of emails and phone calls between victims of crime and their families. Maybe celebrities’ communications; maybe even the royals’. If the charges prove true your father, as the editor, will be held ultimately responsible.”

I think about how many times my father has bragged about paying victims of crimes for their stories, or friends and former employees so they will dish dirt on celebrities. I also recall how angry he can become when another paper beats him to a scoop or he can’t persuade someone to spill the “good stuff.” I’ve heard him on the phone, promising a lead more and more money in an attempt to persuade them to open up. Could he have become frustrated by coercion and bribery and resorted to illegal means?

Dieter

taps the counter with a long forefinger. “I’m sure that a thorough investigation will clear him of all—”

“No,” I interrupt. I can’t stand how carefully bland his voice is. He doesn’t really believe that. “I think perhaps it’s exactly the sort of thing he would do, or ask someone on his staff to do.” I hug myself, suddenly feeling cold, and give Dieter a watery smile. “Anything for the story, that’s my father.”

Dieter tucks his phone back into his pocket. Around us the house is very quiet. In the hall I can hear the grandfather clock ticking. It’s very old. An heirloom from my mother’s side of the family.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything this morning. I didn’t want to upset you if it turned out to be nothing.”

I shrug. “That’s okay.”

He reaches out a hesitant hand, and then tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. I let him. There’s a gentle look in his eyes as he says, “You won’t be alone, Adrienne. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

There’s meant to be a pitch at which an opera singer can make a wineglass shatter. I think Dieter speaks at a pitch that can make my insides go to pieces when he says certain things. Like sweetheart. Like don’t use such a pretty mouth for bad language. And especially I’m not going anywhere.

Looking up at him, I feel a vortex of conflicting emotions. Shock that this is happening. Anger at my father for his recklessness. And gratitude that Dieter is here. There’s a fiercely protective glint in his eyes that makes me feel weak at the knees. He’s not exactly acting like I thought a bodyguard would. I can’t put my finger on what it is, but Dieter seems like something else entirely.

Chapter Four

“When are they going to leave?” Adrienne looks up from her drawing of Alice from Alice in Wonderland to scowl at the uniformed police officer in latex gloves. He’s going through all the drawers and alcoves in the TV cabinet. There are half a dozen more officers scattered throughout the house.

I glance at my watch. They showed up nearly two hours ago with a search warrant. I’ve managed to get Adrienne to sit quietly at the dining table and let them get on with it, but she’s getting peevish, and understandably so. She looks up at every muttered discussion, every thump from upstairs, every time an officer walks past carrying a computer or plastic evidence bag of documents out the front door.

Tags: Brianna Hale Erotic
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