Nights With Him(47)

“We’ve been looking into him,” Paul said, but the red flush on his cheeks made it clear they’d found nothing.

“Yeah?” Jack raised an eyebrow in question. “What have you found?”

“We’re still looking.”

Jack nodded. Held up a hand. “You need to run some serious counterintelligence on him. Everyone has skeletons in the closet. Every single person has something they don’t want the opposition to know. My job in the military was to find that out. Everything was findable. Everything was obtainable. You need to get your intelligence men working harder, and figure out what Conroy has in his closet so you can fight this battle.”

Paul gulped and nodded, and Jack couldn’t deny it felt good to give some kind of order again.

* * *

Jack walked back to the office with his sister, unknotting his tie on the way.

“I hate having to tell a good guy like that to dig up dirt,” he muttered, as he dropped his shades over his eyes to block out the afternoon sun.

“I bet I could find something on Conroy,” Casey mused, and Jack shot his baby sister an inquisitive look.

“I know I could. Since when are you a spy?”

“I grew up with you. I learned how to find things out,” she said with an impish grin as they walked past a group of construction workers whose heads all turned to stare at his sister. Instinct kicked in, and he turned to the crew, his eyes flared with anger. That was enough for them to focus on their jobs.

“Look at you. Running a little espionage.”

“I just don’t want someone messing with our business. I love Joy Delivered. I’ll fight for it,” she said as they walked past a Duane Reade on the corner, bustling with mid-day shoppers. What would he fight for? He’d fight for this company, and he did every day, especially now, with the Conroy onslaught. He’d fight for his sister, of course. But beyond that? What did he love madly? He’d like to know because he hadn’t loved his fiancée enough. That had been the big fucking problem.

“Speaking of fighting, you were ornery at lunch. Was it only over the campaign?” she asked, stopping in her tracks when they reached the red light at Madison. She parked her hands on her hips and stared at him, her blue eyes refusing to let him get away with anything. She’d always been like this. Firm, strong, passionate. Take no prisoners. This was one of the reasons he was so close with his sister—she was fiery and full of emotion, and yet their parents were so . . . dispassionate. They rarely held hands with each other, and hardly ever kissed, even a peck on the cheek. That lack of affection had extended far and wide. Jack could remember riding his bike in the summers as a kid, then running inside, sweaty, but wanting to give his mom a hug. She’d always refuse, saying it was too hot for hugging. That was her modus operandi. There was often a distance with her, as if she didn’t want to get too close.

Maybe that was his problem. Maybe he’d inherited it like a congenital disease—a lack of the ability to love. If he couldn’t love Aubrey, what the hell was wrong with him? That’s what he’d really like to figure out. He bet Michelle would know. He was sure Michelle would have all the answers as to what ailed him.

But it wasn’t as if he could ask her those questions. Not now. Not for so many reasons.

“I just saw the shrink,” he said in answer to the ornery question.

“Ah. Then all that talking has got you pissed off.”

“Hardly any talking from me. More like the questions she asked.”

“So how is it going?”

He heaved a sigh as the light changed, and the cars squealed to their stops at the red. Casey started to walk, but a cab careened by, not bothering to stop. Grabbing her quickly at the waist, he tugged her back.

“Careful,” he said, his heart galloping.

She looked up at him with wide, fearful eyes. “They’re crazy here.”

“Everyone’s crazy. Just watch out, Case.”

“Anyway, so how is Dr. Milo?”

“Here’s the thing,” he said in a clipped voice. While his sister didn’t need to know he was sleeping with his almost-shrink, he didn’t like lying to her. He could skirt the details. “It didn’t work out with her so I’m seeing someone else. A few floors down.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding surprised. “Is the new one good?”

He shrugged.

“Jack,” she said, like a plea.

“I’m trying, but I don’t know that anything is going to make a difference. It happened. I said what I said to Aubrey and she’s dead, and there’s nothing that I can ever say or do to unwind things.”