The Raven's Assignment

“He’s the one who hired somebody to find the marriage license, birth certificates, the deed to the Georgetown mansion, and destroy them? The same guy who ordered the town hall burnt down?”

“Not to mention the break-ins at the newspaper office and your late grandmother’s feed and grain store, yes. Busy, busy, busy. Although Graham swears he never told his hireling to do any of that. No violence, he told the guy, or so he says. Just to find the papers and destroy them, as if destroying evidence and robbing a family of its just inheritance were forgivable. But that’s Graham. He sees things his own way. Luckily, the documents were always in a locked box in your grandmother’s bedroom.”

“And the lawyers here have verified everything from the original deed for the Georgetown property to the marriage license,” Jesse said, perhaps a bit too sternly.

“Your whole branch of the Colton family is quite legitimate. You can rest assured that nobody on our side of the family is going to oppose your claim in any way.”

“Thank you. And I can tell you that no one on our side of the family is going to look this gift horse in the mouth, or try to profit from a sad situation by going public with it.”

Rand seemed relieved by his last statement. “Sounds like we’ve agreed, then. Good, and I thank you. So, what do you and your family plan to do with the estate? With all that money?”

Jesse grinned, looked quite boyish for a moment. “We haven’t the faintest damn idea, cousin.”

Samantha ate at her desk, some quite wonderful beef sandwiches left over from the Sunday roast.

She knew the meat was good; it had been a nearly perfect rump roast she’d prepared with garlic mashed potatoes and freshly steamed broccoli. Rose, the live-in maid, who was a full-time student and the only staff Samantha would allow her mother to put in the house, had sworn it tasted like ambrosia. Samantha had agreed.

Yet, today, it tasted like cardboard.

She lifted the top piece of bread and stared at the meat, lettuce and mayonnaise. Nope. Not cardboard.

“Damn,” she said, closing the sandwich once more and putting it back down on the desk.

“Something wrong?” Bettyann entered the office and put some papers down on Samantha’s desk, then deposited her rounded rump there as well.

“Nothing I’d want the media alerted for,” Samantha said, and watched as Bettyann blushed to the roots of her dyed blond hair.

“What…what does that mean?” the secretary asked, looking so guilty Samantha was surprised to not see the woman’s hand stuck wrist-deep in a cookie jar.

“It means, Bettyann, that someone was here yesterday, asking questions about me, and you answered them.”

“I did? What did I say?”

Samantha shook her head. Some things just weren’t worth the effort. “Nothing, forget it.”

“No, really,” Bettyann said, standing up once more, and leaning her hands on the desktop. “Did I say something I shouldn’t have said? And who did I say it to?”

“I’m not sure. Some secretary. Do you remember someone asking questions about me?”

Bettyann shook her head. “No. I do remember someone—a woman—coming in here yesterday, asking questions about everyone. You know, run-of-the-mill gossip. What it’s like to work here, how are the bosses—stuff like that. I thought she was thinking of applying for the job we advertised last week. You know, sort of feeling us out without actually handing us a résumé? Why? Was it a reporter? Oh, cripes, Samantha, please tell me it wasn’t a reporter.”

“It wasn’t a reporter,” Samantha assured her. “Still, Bettyann, in the future, please try not to be so helpful to strangers, okay?”

“No, not okay. I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m really, really sorry.”

“I know. But we’re getting closer and closer to New Hampshire, Bettyann, and the magnifying glass is being applied everywhere, including this office. I’ve been working on a memo directed to all staff, concerning questions that may come into the office. A sort of protocol to follow. I should have done it sooner.”

Bettyann grinned. “Oh, good, it’s your fault. I knew it wasn’t my fault.”

“Spoken like a true politician. Get out of here,” Samantha said on a laugh, and watched as Bettyann, hips exaggeratedly wiggling, left the office.

Once the secretary was gone, Samantha rewrapped her half-eaten sandwich and shoved it back into the navy-blue thermal bag she’d brought from home. Maybe she’d be hungry later, although she doubted it.

After Jesse Colton showed up, and looked at the papers locked in her bottom drawer? Maybe then she’d eat. Or she’d never be able to eat again.

Three hours later, while considering designs for a new series of campaign buttons, Samantha looked up at a knock on her opened office door.

She put down the buttons and stood up, then walked around the desk to give the well-dressed brunette a hug. “Aunt Joan, what brings you to the salt mines?”

Mrs. Mark Phillips bestowed an air kiss on Samantha, then stepped back to look around the cluttered office. “Oh, my. Time to get the bulldozers in here again, my dear,” she said as Samantha quickly moved a stack of files from the only other chair and motioned for the senator’s wife to sit down.

Joan Phillips was in her early fifties, but good genes and even better plastic surgery had her looking like a well-preserved forty. Or less.

Dark hair, marvelous blue eyes, skin the consistency of cream. A figure that flattered her designer suits. Jewels glittering on her hands and at her throat and ears, but discreetly, and half of them heirlooms that whispered rather than screamed “old money.” A cultured voice, the ability to look adoringly at her husband as he made the same stump speech for the fiftieth time.

In short, Joan Phillips was the perfect candidate’s wife.

Joan bent down and picked up the “Calm Day Across America” advertisement proposal Samantha had fashioned into an airplane and soared across the office…which was about as far as she thought it should go.

“Is this an editorial comment, or were you just playing?” the senator’s wife asked, unfolding the makeshift airplane and reading the copy.

Samantha smiled. “I’ll let you decide after you read it, okay?”

“Well, that must have taken at least two seconds of thought,” Joan Phillips said after a moment, and then she refolded the page, sent it soaring toward the most distant corner of the room. “Did they come up with anything better than that, I most sincerely hope?”

“I’ve narrowed it down to two, yes, and I’ll send those over for you and the senator to make the final decision. Or would you like to see them now?”

“No, no, not now. There’s plenty of time for that when Mark and I are alone. I don’t want to make up my mind without his input.”

“Okay,” Samantha said, wishing she didn’t feel so nervous. Clumsy. All those bad things she always felt when in the presence of the neatly put-together Mrs. Mark Phillips.

It had always been that way, since she’d been a child. Uncle Mark was a doll, a peach. And his wife was lovely, ambitious. Very, very perfect.

Samantha always felt as if her own hair had to be messy and tangled, her blouse missing a button, her panty hose laddered with runs, whenever she was in Joan’s presence. The woman didn’t mean to make Samantha, or anyone, feel uncomfortable, but that perfection of hers could be intimidating to those who had to deal with her day to day in any official capacity.

To the public, she was just perfect. Pretty, friendly, articulate…even hip.

“Um…so…what does bring you down here, Aunt Joan?” Samantha asked when the silence became uncomfortable. For her, not for Joan. Joan was never uncomfortable.

“Well, dear, to tell you the truth, I just came to use the postal machine for some correspondence your uncle Mark and I want sent out. Is that what it’s called? A postal machine? You know, that machine that marks envelopes with postage so that there’s no need for stamps?”

“Close enough,” Samantha said with a smile. “Would you like me to arrange to have one purchased for your home office? It would be more convenient for you.”

“No, that’s all right. I’m just as happy for an excuse to come see you and all our eager volunteers, dear. Besides, I have an appointment to have my nails done in a half hour.” She reached into the lizard-skin briefcase she’d carried into the room with her and pulled out several flat, brown envelopes. “I’ll just have someone stamp the postage on these and then I’ll be out of your way.”

“Oh, I’ll do that,” Samantha said, coming around the desk to take the envelopes from the woman.

“Really? Goodness, we don’t pay you enough, dear. Thank you.”