Page 21 of Home Again

6

It was only zero four hundred in Virginia; it would be a pretty shitty thing to do to call Gideon at this hour. Still, he could shoot him a text to have him call him when he got his ass out of bed. Sebastian sent the text before he went upstairs to his room, then he rifled through his duffel bag. He grinned when he found what he was looking through in his Dopp kit. Landon would be so proud that he was finally using the birthday gift that he’d given him.

Sebastian peeked in on Gianna and saw that she was still sleeping before heading back to his grandfather’s office. The desk and credenza were old and all had pin tumbler locks. He unfolded the leather billfold with the lock-pick tools and pulled out the snake rake tool. It took less than thirty seconds to unlock the first drawer.

“Damn, Granddad, just how old are these files?”

Sebastian tried not to sneeze as he pulled out the discolored manila file folders. He set them on the desk. When he got all of them up on the desk, he pulled the drawer out even farther, not all that surprised to see that there were more papers stuffed farther in the back. Lazar was nothing if not predictable. He pulled out those crinkled papers as well, he’d save those for last.

Each file folder had a man’s name on it. He only recognized four names, all the rest meant nothing to him, so he had to google the others on his phone. Almost all of them had at one time been associated with the Louisiana state government, or they were extremely wealthy Louisiana businessmen.

“Let’s see what’s inside.”

Sebastian started with a name he recognized. The man was now head of the National Environmental Protection Agency. Turned out he’d started out as a lowly state senator in Louisiana about the time that his dear old grandfather had started his political career.

There were a lot of letters going back and forth between the two men, all perfectly above-board, mostly ass-kissing types about how they would support one another on upcoming pieces of legislation. Sebastian quickly flipped through the remaining pages and saw nothing but the same thing. Then he went onto the next file of a name he recognized. Same thing.

By the time he was done with the thirty files, he found nothing. Not one damn thing. He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to alleviate the headache he felt building. Shit, he needed to go check on Gianna. He glanced at his watch. An hour and a half had passed since he’d sat down. When he went down the hall towards the drawing-room, it sounded like he was in a wind tunnel. The hurricane had to be right on top of them.

Gianna was still asleep. He crouched down in front of the sofa; the fact that she was sleeping through such loud noise was worrisome.

“Hey, Beautiful, can you open your eyes?”

“Go away.” she slurred.

“Gianna, I need you to look at me,” he said a little louder. He tucked a lock of her dark hair behind her ear.

Her eyes opened. “Not you again.” Sebastian grinned at her surly attitude.

“’Fraid so. How’s your head feel?”

She scrunched her brow. “Depends. Is there a lot of noise in the house, or have Irish river dancers decided to use my head as their new stage?”

Sebastian threw back his head and laughed.

“Stop that,” she grumbled. “I don’t need more noise, it hurts.”

“Are you always such a complainer?”

“You’re the one who injured me. So my complaining is your fault, so you just have to deal with it.” Her eyes narrowed. “And another thing. If you didn’t want me to complain, you shouldn’t have woken me up.”

“If you weren’t so damned funny, you would be pretty damned annoying, you know that?”

“That’s what Jada always says too.” Gianna pushed at the blanket and sat up before Sebastian had a chance to stop her.

“You need to lie back down.”

“Nope, done with the invalid portion of the evening,” she said as she put both of her hands up to press against her temples.

“I’m serious, just go back to sleep.”

She put her hands down in her lap, her expression calm. “And I’m serious too, Sebastian, I’m fine. The ice helped, so I’m going to bed.”

Her pupils were dilated, and there were white lines of strain around her mouth. She was hurting.

“I’m going to get you some ibuprofen and more ice, and you’re going to lay your happy ass back down on the couch,” he grumbled.

“Do these caveman tactics work much?” When she went to swing her legs off the couch, he stopped her.