Free Always Time To Die by Elizabeth Lowell Page A

prepare, along with the Senator’s annual contribution to each. “Everybody wants money. Nothing new about that.”
    “Including me,” Josh agreed. “Running for president is damned expensive, and neither one of you heard me say that, understand?”
    Pete and Melissa exchanged fast glances.
    “Of course,” Pete said.
    “Nothing you say ever goes beyond this house,” she added, smiling. “Do you need anything else?”
    “No,” Josh said.
    Melissa touched her husband’s shoulder and walked quietly out of the room.
    Josh was too busy reading the charity list to notice if Melissa left or stayed. When he was younger, her gently swaying breasts would have required that he get in her jeans. No more. He had more important things to worry about than casual sex. After he’d married Anne, he’d stayed monogamous. He hadn’t enjoyed it, but he’d known it was necessary, like eating rubber chicken at a thousand fund-raising dinners. Today a politician couldn’t set one foot toward the White House without having everything about his sex life vetted on the evening news. So, like Caesar’s wife, a candidate was required to be purer than pure.
    And eat rubber chicken with a smile.
    “About these charities,” Josh said, frowning at the list. “I think several million a year is way out of line. What was he trying to do, buy his way into heaven? Most of the biggest contributions began when he was in his eighties.”
    Pete hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “Considering the gross receipts of the Quintrell Corporation, the amount is generous but not excessive.”
    “Gross receipts be damned right along with generosity.”
    Pete started to object, swallowed, and thought better of it. “Whatever you say, sir. It’s your money now.”
    Josh looked at Pete with the Senator’s hard blue eyes. For a few moments he wondered if his accountant was the blackmailer, then decided it wasn’t very likely. Pete was an outsider, and the only things worth paying blackmail for had taken place when Pete was in Florida discovering why girls had bouncy breasts. Melissa was an insider, of sorts. She also was the daughter and granddaughter of sluts and drunks who’d never thought further ahead than their next bottle. Hardly the stuff of blackmailers.
    Winifred, however, was another matter. That old bitch was too smart and too mean. If anybody knew where the bodies were buried, she did. She also had plenty of reason to make the Senator and his son miserable.
    All Josh had to do was prove it.
    On the other hand, maybe the Senator was right to just pay. Even if every charity on the list was a blind for blackmail, it was only five million and change per year. A small price to pay for the presidency.
    But first he’d make sure he had to pay it.
    “I’m talking profit,” Josh said. “The ranch is a charity case all by itself. I don’t need to give millions to other fools who can’t balance a budget.”
    “If you didn’t make those contributions, you would lose up to fifty percent of the total difference to taxes of one kind or another.”
    “Which would still leave me with millions in cash that I don’t have now.”
    “Agreed. It would also leave a long list of charities crying to various media about the Senator’s stingy son, the one who wants to be president.”
    “Blackmail.”
    Pete blew out a long breath. “What is public opinion but a kind of blackmail? Your choice is whether you pay it or not. Some do. Some don’t. People who want to be president—”
    “Pay,” Josh finished bitterly.
    The accountant shrugged. His new employer looked really pissed off. Not a good thing.
    “Okay,” Pete said after a moment, “which charities do you want to cancel? The one that provides chickens and llamas to poor families in South America, or the one that opened a vaccination and prenatal care clinic in Africa, or the AIDs orphanage that—”
    “Shut up, Pete.”
    Pete shut up.
    Josh sipped his coffee and thought about