Till You Hear From Me: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

Toni said as soon as Wes opened the door. She was standing in front of him close enough for Wes to smell her perfume. “Because I’m beginning to suspect this was just an excuse to get me up here so you can try to have your way with me.”
    Wes had already showered and shaved, set two plates and a couple of forks out at the counter, and put a bottle of Pinot Grigio in the freezer for a fast chill when Toni rang the bell and he buzzed her in. He felt good, energized, and on top of the situation. He smiled to himself. The situation wasn’t the only thing he hoped to be on top of before the evening was over. He had just wrapped up a busy week with no time for anything but business and Toni’s exhausted fiancé had flown in the weekend before with roses so she wouldn’t think the poor man was too distracted to remember her twenty-seventh birthday. Wes hadn’t been in the mood to call in a backup, so the truth was, he was horny as hell. Toni probably was, too. Herfiancé had a bright future, but based on what she’d told Wes, he didn’t seem to be very creative between the sheets.
    Wes took the bag of Chinese food out of her arms and pulled her gently inside. She slipped off her coat and tossed it casually on the closest chair. She was wearing a slim black skirt, a white silk blouse, and black pumps with four-inch heels.
    “Exactly what
stuff
are we talking about, Miss Cassidy?” He grinned. “My research? My dinner?”
    Toni ran her fingers through her hair in a lovely gesture that Wes had only ever seen in the movies and tossed her head, her smile revealing small, white, slightly pointed teeth. He spread his grin a little wider.
    “My pussy?”
    She raised her perfectly arched eyebrows. “Getting a bit presumptuous, aren’t we?”
    “Don’t worry,” Wes said, putting the food down and leaning over to give her soft, fragrant cheek a quick kiss. “Your secret is safe with me.”
    She laughed and handed him a bright red file folder. “I have no secrets. You know that.”
    “It is your greatest charm,” he said, opening the slender folder. “Is this all you got?”
    “There’s a lot more online,” she said, opening the white takeout containers and sniffing the contents of each. “I put the links in the email for you. These are just to give you a sense of what the guy’s been up to.”
    Wes took a cursory look through the things she had printed out. A piece about the kickoff of the registration campaign. A piece about the Rev’s group BAC-UP!—Black Activist Clergy United for Progress—and how they had managed to get all these churches to work together. Some pictures of the Rev standing on somebody’s front porch with voter registration forms.
    Talk about old-school
, Wes thought, glad all over again that he had had the good sense to head north as fast as he could figure out a way to get there.
    “Why are you so interested in this guy all of a sudden?”
    “My boy called me from the Republican National Committee. His people are worried about Georgia in the midterms, and the presence of one hundred thousand new, energized Democratic voters does not make them happy.”
    Toni was spooning out the meal on both plates while Wes’s eyes scanned the pages quickly. He would check the videos tomorrow. The food aromas demanded his attention and he heard his stomach growling loudly. He closed the folder and put it aside.
    “Go on,” she said, as he removed the wine from the freezer and reached for two wineglasses.
    “They want to know three things,” Wes said, opening the wine efficiently and pouring them each a glass. “How he did it. How they can stop him from doing it again, and how they can get hold of those names.”
    “Your contact told you all that on the phone?”
    Wes shook his head. “Paranoid as these guys are, they’ll barely tell you when they want to meet, much less why they’re calling. All he said was they wanted to talk about the recent high-volume voter registration efforts in Georgia