When they sat down, Black positioned his chair a foot farther back than Alaric and Emmy, and he made no move to speak. Was this some sort of test? Because Alaric would have no problem passing it. He’d dealt with a hundred O’Shaughnessys in his life.
“I think the more appropriate question is ‘why are you here?’”
“Why are you here?”
“We had front-row seats for yesterday’s debate.”
“So, what? You’re here to gloat?”
“The opposite, actually. We’re here to work out how to undo the damage. The people of Kentucky deserve an above-board election, and there’s concern that one of the parties isn’t playing fair.”
“Not playing fair? You know where I was before this? Getting interviewed by the police. They’ve taken my laptop to be forensically examined, and the media’s talking about jail time.”
“It was your laptop?” Alaric asked, to confirm the rumour. “Not an aide’s?”
“No, it was mine. It’s my habit to keep the final version of the speech and presentation on my own computer in case I need to make any last-minute adjustments. Communications move at a frantic pace these days.”
“Any idea how the porn got on there?”
“Of course not! I never watch that stuff.”
Liar. Alaric was watching O’Shaughnessy’s face closely, and he blinked three times in quick succession before the second phrase.
Black, it seemed, agreed with Alaric’s assessment.
“Really?”
Alaric couldn’t see Black’s face, but he could imagine those cold eyes fixed on O’Shaughnessy’s. Black’s irises very nearly matched his name, and the effect was unsettling.
“Well, not the gay stuff. And definitely not the kiddie stuff.” His gaze flicked towards Emmy. “Just the…you know. The regular stuff.”
Alaric took over again. “You watch it on your laptop?”
“No, only my phone. And that video popped up right in the middle of my presentation. Talk about timing.”
“Which leaves two possibilities.” Alaric had discussed the problem with Naz earlier in the day, and Emmy had done the same with her team. Both had come to the same conclusions. “Either you downloaded a virus and got unlucky, or someone sabotaged your speech. How well do you know your staff?”
“It wasn’t Malorie. She’s been with me since the beginning.”
“Malorie was in charge of playing the presentation?”
“Yes, and she’s devastated. My wife had to drive her home.”
“How’s your wife taking this?”
“Yes, well…”
“She’s not speaking to you?”
“It’s been a shock for everyone. The police interrogated her too, you know. Kept asking how I behaved around the younger members of the family. As if I’d ever touch them.”
He shuddered, and Alaric did believe he was genuinely disgusted.
“Did you speak to Malorie before she left?”
“She said the computer just went crazy. The presentation vanished, and nothing she clicked would make the video stop. Even when she closed the lid, it kept playing until she pulled the cable out.”
So, sabotage then. It was a thirty-second job if Alaric had access to the laptop. Jam a USB stick into the side, wait nonchalantly as it loaded a malware file timed to activate while O’Shaughnessy was speaking… Each candidate had been allocated a time slot yesterday. Child’s play to write a program like that, Naz said. They’d hoped to look at the laptop, but if the police had it, they were left with guesswork for now.
“When did the schedule for yesterday get announced? How far in advance did you know you’d be speaking?”
“We’ve known about the event for weeks. This debate was a big deal.”
“And the running order?”
“That kept getting changed. At first, they wanted to do some sort of presentation to local veterans at the beginning, but then they switched it to the end, right before Elodie Bryan was meant to perform.”
The cynic in Alaric said they’d saved the best part until last to keep people from leaving. Elodie Bryan was an up-and-coming country singer from Frankfort, and he’d been looking forward to her set himself.
“When did they finalise the timings?”
“Sometime in the morning. Around eleven o’clock? You’d have to check with my team.”
“And where was the laptop then?”
“On the battle bus.”
“The bus that takes you between campaign stops?”
“Yes.”
“And who has access to the bus?”
“Just my team. But I’m telling you, none of them would have done this. And besides, my wife was there for most of the day, sitting in the chair right next to my desk. She wasn’t feeling well.”
It wouldn’t be the first time a wife had sabotaged her husband, but it seemed an unlikely option. Meagan O’Shaughnessy had always appeared supportive.
“Okay, so let’s narrow it down to the times the laptop was out of sight of the two of you.”
“The police already asked these questions.”
“Would you mind going over it again?”
“Why am I even doing this? I still don’t know who you’re working for.”
“Let’s assume we’re working for you.”
Emmy chipped in. “The police aren’t going to win you this election, Mr. O’Shaughnessy, but they’ll sure as hell help you to lose it if you don’t take steps to control the damage.”
O’Shaughnessy had started off pale, but now he lost another shade of colour. “The only time the laptop was out of my sight was when I handed it over to Malorie.”
“Then we need to speak to Malorie.”
“I’m not sure she’s in a fit state—”
Emmy tapped her watch. “The clock’s ticking, Mr. O’Shaughnessy.”
Malorie Sykes was a nervous blonde in her early twenties. This was her first job in politics after majoring in political science at the University of Kentucky, and possibly her last if she was involved in this monumental fuck-up.
“I only ran to the bathroom,” she said. “I was gone, like, five minutes max.”
“And you didn’t take the laptop with you?”
“There’s no place to put it in those bathrooms except on the floor, and…” Her ski-jump nose crinkled. “Yuck.”
“So you left it…where?” Emmy asked.
“On a chair beside the stage. There were people around. Like, security people. I thought it would be okay, and when I came back, the bag was right where I left
