Page 232 of Innocent

I turn and trudge my way down the hall to Camden’s office and walk in without knocking, closing the door behind me.

Do I get brownie points for not slamming it?

Totes should.

He’s on the phone but I must be wearing a “look,” because he sits up. “Um, I need to call you back.” He hangs up. “What happened?”

“We have a bunch of idiots in the polling bullpen, that’s what happened. Did you buy them by the bulk from a manufacturer’s defect bin at Big Lots?”

“Why?”

I tell Camden what happened and, from the look on his face, I can tell he had no clue what they were up to. “Oh,fuckme.” He slumps back in his seat. “Are youshittingme? They wasted time onthat?”

I point at my face. “Would I be this pissed off if I was joking? Who hired them?”

“Ed Lester brought them in.”

“He knows better than that. At least, Ithoughthe did. Where is he? And why isn’t he the one in there chewing them out?” Maybe we’ll need to rethink the man’s contract.

“He’s out on the West Coast. Doing a post-mortem for the DCCC for the California 42nd special election. He’ll be back on Monday.”

“We won the 42nd. Why do they need a post-mortem?”

“I don’t know. I think they’re still trying to figure outhowthey won it.” It’s gone red far more often than not over the years.

Dumbasses. “I can tell you how they won it—stupid, blind luck. Get him on the phone. Right now. Speaker phone.” I drop into one of the chairs in front of Cam’s desk while he makes the call. I mentally call up Ed’s contract and how much we’re paying him. “That’s the better part of five grand blown in consulting fees that he’s damn well going to credit back to the campaign.”

“Agreed.”

I wonder if we’re going to get the man’s voice mail, but he answers. “Ed Lester.”

We’re going to good cop/bad cop this. I’m the bad cop, and Cam knows it.

“Ed, Camden Bruno—”

“Hey, Cam. What’s up?”

“My blood pressure, Ed,” I say. “That’swhat’s up. Jordan Walsh.”

Cam and I exchange a glance as the line goes silent. Cam looks and I guess the call hasn’t dropped.

Ed finally speaks. “Um, hey, Jordan. What’s going on?”

Guess I have developed a reputation.

Excellent. I’ll take it. “We need to have a littlechatabout your polling staffing choices…”

Ten minutes later, Ed’s booking a red-eye back to DC, he’s apologized profusely, and I’ve not only got him to agree that he’s going to credit what the staffers wasted back to the campaign, but he’s going to personally plant his ass in this office and run the team himself from this point forward.

Once we’re off the call, Cam sits back in his chair and studies me.

“What?”

Slowly shaking his head, a smile quirks his mouth. “You know, I heard a lot of things about you over the past few years.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Stuff I didn’t believe, until now. Like that you’re probably Kevin Markos’ younger, hotter twin brother, for starters.”