Chapter 84

“These four men are staying with us all the time? Don’t they have wives?” I asked, suddenly feeling naive as the words left my mouth.

Governor Kruck gave me a patronizing smile. “Our agents are dedicated to no one but the state. This means that they can give their full attention to an assignment like babysit- uh, guarding you two.”

“Oh,” I said, then clamped my mouth shut. What else was I supposed to say?

An awkward silence stretched through the room, pulling tight and making me squirm. I really felt like I needed to fill the silence but had no idea what to fill it with. I glanced at Charles, who uncharacteristically looked as lost as I felt. Evidently, even he didn’t know what to say to the news that we were going to be living with four burly, no-nonsense security wolves.

Governor Kruck clapped his hands together, almost gleefully. “Oh, good. If there are no complaints, comments, or what you feel are witty retorts, that will make this go so much faster. I don’t know about you two, but I have a throbbing headache. I can’t wait to get home and let my masseuse Jenna work all the tension out.”

He grinned wolfishly at Charles. “For a little extra, she’ll do my wife and I at the same time. Hope you have fun this afternoon because I’m going to.” He followed this with a sleazy wink.

Ugg. How had we gotten stuck with somebody so gross? But I agreed with one thing. Just like Governor Kruck, I was so ready for this meeting to be over.

Governor Kruck looked at one of the agents. “Did you happen to bring the key?”

The agent nodded and held out a single key on a key ring shaped like a small gold crown.”

Governor Kruck held this out toward Charles, thought again, and set it on the table, sliding it toward Charles as if he couldn’t stand the idea of possibly touching him.

“That’s the key to your new place. The agents have the address. They will take you there as soon as we’re done here. You can come and go as you wish. Just understand that your security detail will be going with you—for your own safety.”

“So, if I want to go out reporting, I can go straight away?” I asked.

“If that’s really what you want,” Governor Kruck agreed.

He was already packing up, pulling his items from underneath the table and gathering them as if he couldn’t get out of the room fast enough.

“The instructions on how to submit materials once you’ve found, researched, and completed the draft of any article you wish to publish are in the packet. Just follow those. I’m sure even you’re smart enough to figure that out.”

I grimaced at yet another thinly veiled implication that I lacked intelligence or individual worth. “And I will be allowed to continue investigating government corruption here?” I clarified. “I did hear you right. You said that thanks to my previous articles and discoveries, you were beginning your own investigations here in Lupinton.”

Governor Kruck grimaced and stuffed his hat on his head. “Anything that you wish to publish needs to be submitted for approval to a fully licensed news agency. Freelancers are subject to their oversight panels to ensure you’re complying with all laws. It’s just to make sure freelance reporting doesn’t devolve into some sleazy, paparazzi, free-for-all.

“Once you have their panel’s approval, then whatever it is that you’ve researched will be allowed to be published. It’s all in the papers I gave you, so beyond that, I can’t tell you one way or another whether something that you want to write is going to make it to publication. Do what you want and stop wasting my time.”

Charles reached over and put a hand on my arm, gently squeezing in a clear indication to just stop and let it go. I didn’t really want to. I wanted to press the man and force him to give me a real answer. But maybe Charles was right. Perhaps continuing to force the issue wouldn’t actually gain me anything.

Governor Kruck seemed to have caught this gesture on Charles’s part because he gave Charles a sharp nod. “I’ll be off then,” he said. And he dashed from the room.

Charles heaved a sigh of relief, his tension seeming to leave the room along with Governor Kruck. He gave each of the agents a smile.

“Well,” he said, “since it seems that we’ll be working together for the time being, perhaps we should get to know one another?”

Not one of the four said anything.

Charles kept his expression pleasant and tried again. “Will all four of you be joining us on the way to the house?”

“Is that where you would like to go first, Sir?” one of the four asked in a clipped, hard voice.

Charles sighed and shrugged. “So that’s how this is going to be? Then, yes. I’d like to see where the housing is.”

The four agents separated, two of them heading out into the hallway without any comment or conversation, and one of the two remaining gestured for the door. “This way, if you please,” he said.

I felt a little bad because I’d already forgotten which agent was which, so I had no idea which of the two was leading us out the doors to our new home. But I felt halfway to a prisoner being escorted to their prison cell. So maybe I shouldn’t feel too guilty not knowing their names.

The feeling of being in custody didn’t subside anywhere on the ride, and I missed most of the city on what should have been an exciting first trip to the capital. That was okay. We’d have plenty of time to explore the city once all of this tension had been released. We just needed to find our new place, settle in, and get a good night’s sleep.

As if sharing my thoughts, Charles asked the stone-faced guards, “Will someone else be bringing our bags along?”

“Yes, Sir,” one of them answered again.

I really wished I knew which was which. This was the opposite guard from the one who had spoken before. But from the way they spoke, it was hard to tell that there was any difference between them at all. Because all three of the ones who had said words had spoken in hard, clipped tones that very much resembled the others. Had they trained to sound alike?

We rode in a private car that was as plush as any of the ones that Charles drove back home. When we arrived at our new place, the agents took us into a very fine apartment building with a concierge at the front and plush carpet down all the hallways. I felt like I was entering a Grand Hotel rather than a residence.

Our elevator ride took us up, up, up, nearly to the top, and stopped on the 18th of 20 floors. When we stepped out, the hallway was even more luxurious, if possible. Thickly soundproofed walls and lush carpet dampened all of the sounds that we were making. Only four doors appeared on this floor, and our joyless guards took us to one with the gold number 1802 on the door.

Charles put the key in the door and turned it. Once the door opened, the lights flicked on automatically in response to our presence. And the view inside left my jaw on the floor.