Political Science 101

Chapter Fifty

ANA RARELY spoke with a stern voice, but in this case, she felt it was certainly warranted "If you want me to keep this going," she said, "then I want to know what the hell this is all about."

Lenore Sable gave her niece a bitter look but decided that letting her know the details of her extensive and long-lasting plot would be okay since she played a part that had grown far beyond her original intention.

Ana raised her eyebrows and narrowed her eyes, eagerly expecting an answer.

"Fine," Lenore said to Ana with willful resignation, "what do you want to know?"

"Is this about money, or is this about power?" Ana said, knowing her aunt all-too-well.

"Yes," Lenore said with a slight smirk.

"Huh?"

"Yes."

"Which is it?" Ana's frustration was growing.

"Is there a difference?" The tone of Lenore's voice carried a contemporaneous ring of content happiness and pure evil. "Once this pipeline is approved by Congress, the dominoes will begin to fall, and at the end of the line will be lots and lots of money for all of us."

Ana rolled her eyes. She knew the concept of lots of money would never be enough money for her Aunt Lenore.

"Trust me," Lenore continued, "I have made every feasible arrangement imaginable to make sure every domino falls exactly the way I want. And then I — we — will be set for life."

"We already are," Ana replied with a hint of annoyance.

"Even more," Lenore said, sounding creepily like a supervillain.

"Is it ever enough?" Ana asked, sounding alarmingly sincere.

"You've changed, Ana," Lenore exclaimed but nut in a manner of concern. Instead, she almost sounded like she was accusing Ana of some sort of betrayal. "When this all started, you were fine with all of this." Remember that first night in the parking lot when you first met Mitch Bradley? You were 100% into all of this and you didn't ask questions; you just did what I wanted you to do and you trusted that I knew what I was doing."

"Well, I—" Ana began, trying to get in a word or two.

"You're drifting!" Lenore said with increasing frustration. A year-and-a-half of work is almost through, and when it is, you'll see that this has all been worth it. You've served your purpose well. In fact, you've done even better than I could have expected." Lenore paused, contemplating how to phrase her next series of thoughts. "Sure, your role has evolved beyond what we'd originally planned, but we've been able to use that to our advantage."

Ana thought for a moment. She hated that she was just another pawn in the chess game of her Aunt Sable's lust for money and power. She also wondered why it didn't bother her eighteen months ago, but it bothered her now.

"Plans changed and you rolled with it," Lenore said, "and now it will work out even better for both of us."

"Yeah," Ana said, "about that; why did plans change?"

"Obviously," Lenore replied sardonically, knowing Ana was fully aware of the answer to this question, "because Arnie Jenkins died."

"Died?" Ana replied quickly, "he was murdered!" Ana's frustration was becoming more apparent, both in the tone of her voice and the expression on her face. Her eyes widened, expecting a satisfactory response.

"Well," Lenore said, dodging the statement like a wrench, "regardless of how he died, it changed the plans, and you evolved with it, and that's what is important here."