“A patriot in a very difficult position right now, Madam President.”
Vance didn’t address me after that. The last thing I heard her say was to the agent on the other side of the door as she left.
“Show Dr. Cross out. We’re done here.”
Part Four
BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE
Chapter 78
THE MURDER MYSTERY was turning out to be more like a plague, spreading and infecting anyone who touched it, killing them.
Adam Petoskey sat up suddenly on the couch, all five foot four of him. His heart was kicking at the inside of his chest. Something besides a terrifying nightmare had just woken him, though there had been plenty of those lately too.
What was it?
What now?
His apartment was dark except for the TV. He’d been watching The Daily Show when he dropped off, finding solace in the droll humor of Jon Stewart.
Now there was an infomercial on, people laughing and screaming about some weight-loss thing. Maybe that’s what woke him.
Paranoia was his roommate these days, and one hairy bitch to be cooped up with too. He hadn’t left the apartment in a week. Literally a week. The phones were unplugged, the shades were drawn at all times, and garbage was piling up by the back door—ever since he’d nailed it shut on that first night when he couldn’t sleep a wink.
There were things Adam Petoskey knew—things he wished to hell he didn’t know.
Working for Tony Nicholson and his girlfriend, Mara, cooking the books and looking the other way, had been shitty enough. Not working for him, not hearing a word from him, as it turned out, was even worse.
Like tonight, just to use a handy example. He stood up off the couch, still a little shaky.
Halfway to the kitchen, he stopped. For the hundredth time that week, he felt almost sure someone was behind him.
And then, before he could even turn around— someone was.
A strong arm looped across his throat and pulled hard, until his feet nearly left the floor. Duct tape was pressed over his mouth. He heard it rip in the back and felt it stick and tighten.
“Don’t fight, Mr. Petoskey. You fight—you lose—you die.”
A hard finger pressed into the spot between his shoulder blades and moved him toward the bedroom door. “Let’s go. This way, my friend.”
Petoskey’s brain squirmed. He was a numbers man, after all. He could run equations and probabilities like a machine, and right now, everything he knew told him to do as this guy said. It was even a strange kind of relief, following someone’s orders after seven days of solitude in this hellhole.
In the bedroom, the man turned on a light. He was no one Petoskey recognized—tall and white, with gray-flecked dark hair. His gun had one of those extensions on it, a silencer, if the ones on TV were any indication.
“Pack a bag,” he said. “Don’t leave anything out. Clothes, wallet, passport, whatever you need for a long trip.”
Petoskey didn’t hesitate, but a whole new raft of questions floated into his crowded mind as he started to pack. Where was he going? What kind of long trip? And how could he possibly convince anyone of the truth, that he’d never had any intention of telling a soul what he knew?
One thing at a time, Petoskey. Clothes, wallet, passport…
“Now get in the bathroom,” the man told him. “Pack everything you’ll need in there.”
Right, he thought, clinging to the task at hand. Don’t leave anything out. Toothbrush, toothpaste, shaver… condoms? Sure. Why not be positive?
The master bath was tiny, with barely enough room to stand between the pedestal sink, toilet, and shower.
Petoskey opened the medicine cabinet, but then he felt another poke between his shoulder blades.
“Get in the tub and lie down, little man.”
It made no sense, but nothing did right now. Was he going to be tied up in the tub? Robbed? Left behind after all?
“No,” the man said. “The other way, with your head down by the drain.”
And suddenly it all became horribly clear. For the first time, Petoskey screamed—and he heard just how tiny his voice was from behind the tape. This was it. This was really it. Tonight, he disappeared forever.
He knew too much—the famous names, all their dirty secrets.
Chapter 79
I HAD FEWER and fewer people I could talk to about this murder case anymore. Lucky for me, Nana was still one of them.
For a few days, I’d been holding back on her. Somehow it seemed wrong to bring the extra stress into her room at the hospital. But as the days had passed, and these visits of mine turned into their own kind of normal, I started to realize something. If Nana were awake through all of this, she would have been asking about Caroline’s case every day. No doubt about it in my mind.
So I didn’t hold back anymore.
“It’s not going well, old woman. Caroline’s murder case,” I told her that night. “I’m overwhelmed, to be honest. I’ve never been in a position like this before. Not that I can remember, anyway.
“Ramon Davies is ready to take me off. The Bureau was going at it full clip, and now I don’t even know where they are on it. I’ve got the White House breathing down my neck, if you can believe that. Believe it.
“And these are supposed to be the good guys, Nana. I don’t know. It’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference anymore. It’s like somebody said: You can love this country and hate our government.”
It was quiet in the room, as usual. I kept the heart monitor volume down when I was there, so the only sounds besides my own voice were the hiss of the ventilator and an occasional snatch of conversation from the nurses’ station down the hall.
Nana’s condition hadn’t changed, but she just seemed sicker to me. Smaller, grayer, more distant. It felt as though everything in my life was sliding in the same direction these days.
“I don’t know where to go with any of this. One way or another, it’s going to come out, and it’s going to be huge when it does. I mean like Watergate huge, old woman. There’ll be hearings and spin, and probably no one’s ever going to know the real story—but I feel like I’m the only one who even wants to open that particular door. I want to know. I need to know.”
There was one other thing about the quiet. It meant that I could hear Nana talking back.
Poor Alex. An army of one, huh? What else have you got?
It wasn’t a rhetorical question. She’d really want to know. So I gave it some thought…. I had Sampson on my side. I had Bree, of course. I had Ned Mahoney—somewhere out there.
And I had one other rainy-day idea I’d been sitting on. It wasn’t the kind of thing that could be undone once it was started, but hey, how much rainier did I expect it to get?
I reached through the bed rail and put my hands on Nana’s. Things like touch had become more important than ever to me—any way I could connect with her, for as long as I could.
The room’s ventilator hissed. Someone laughed down the hall.
“Thank you, old woman,” I said. “Wherever you are.”
You’re welcome, she communicated somehow, and we left it at that. As always, Nana had the last word.
Chapter 80
AND PEOPLE CONTINUED to die. Anyone who knew anything was at risk.
It was two thousand miles from Virginia back to the island of Trinidad and the bright blue house where Esther Walcott had grown up, just outside the capital city of Port of Spain. That’s where she’d run to after the raid on Mr. Nicholson’s club.
Mum and Bap had welcomed her home with open arms and, more important, asked no questions about the life she’d left behind so abruptly in America.
Two years of hostessing and recruiting for the club in Virginia had left her with a nice bank account, if nothing else, and she planned on putting it toward a hair and nail boutique of her own, maybe even something at Westmall, like she’d always imagined as a girl. It seemed like the perfect way to start her life over.
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But when she woke up on that third night home with a man’s hand pressed tightly over her mouth, and heard the American accent in her ear, Esther knew that she hadn’t run far enough.
“One peep and I’ll kill everyone in the house. Everyone. Do you understand what I’m saying, Esther? Just nod.”
It was almost impossible not to scream. Her breath was coming in fast, high-pitched gasps, but she managed to nod yes.
“Good girl, smart girl. Just like at the club in America. Where’s your suitcase?” She pointed to the closet. “Okay. Very slowly, now, I want you to sit up.”
He got her propped up in bed and pasted a length of tape over her mouth before he let go. It was seventy-five degrees out, but she was shaking as if it were thirty. The touch of his rough hands on her stomach and breasts made her feel practically naked. And vulnerable. And sad.
When a light showed under her door, Esther’s heart flip-flopped—a rush of hope at first, but then dread. Someone was coming!
The intruder turned to her in the semidark and held a finger to his lips, reminding her of what was at stake. Her family.
A moment later, there was a soft knock. “Esther?” It was her mother’s voice, and all at once, more than she could take. Her right hand flew up and clawed the tape off her mouth.
“Run, Mummy! Man has a gun! Run!”
Instead, the door to the bedroom flew open. For a moment, Esther saw the wide shape of her mother shadowed against the light from the hall.
There was a soft popping sound, nothing like a regular gunshot, but Miranda Walcott clutched her chest and collapsed to the floor without another word.
Now Esther was screaming—and couldn’t have stopped if she’d wanted to. Next she heard her father’s voice, coming closer. He was running!
“Esther? Miranda?” he called out.
The intruder left her side, heading for the door, and she threw herself after him, if only to catch his ankles, make him fall somehow.
Instead, she hit the floor hard and again heard the awful popping sound.
Something shattered in the hall, and her poor Bap crashed against the wall.
Sparks of white light played at the edges of Esther’s vision, and the room swam even as she scrambled up onto the bed again. With both fists, she pushed and clawed through the screen mesh in the window.
It wasn’t far to a patch of black sage bushes below, and she was more outside than in when strong hands latched onto her ankles and started to pull. Her body scraped hard over the wooden sill as she reversed direction.
One more time, Esther screamed, knowing that the neighbors would hear, but also that it was too late to matter.
They were going to kill everyone who knew anything.
And anyone else in the way.
Chapter 81
DAMON HAD COME home for the weekend, which was a great thing for everybody. I’d bought him a ticket and asked him to make the trip, partly because of Nana, partly because all of this upset was making us miss him more than ever.
Anyway, I wanted the kids together in one place, even if it was only for a couple days.
We started with a welcome-home dinner for Day, including a lot of his favorites: Caesar salad for everyone, with anchovies for me; Nana’s sloppy joes in sourdough bowls that the younger two had hollowed out; and Jannie’s monkey bread for dessert. It was the first time she’d ever made the bread by herself, without Nana’s help. Everything about Day’s visit was happy and sad at the same time.
It was interesting to see the changes around the house through Damon’s eyes. Jannie, Ali, and I had gotten used to Bree coordinating schedules, helping with homework, and putting meals on the table. For Damon, though, it was all new. Mostly, he didn’t comment other than a lot of “thank yous,” which were much appreciated by Bree.
I waited until we’d heard about life at Cushing Academy and had enjoyed our meal together before I steered the conversation around to Nana Mama.
“Let’s talk about it,” I finally said.
Jannie gave a sigh. She was the one who kept the most informed, but emotionally, I think this was harder for her than anyone. She and Nana were incredibly close; they did everything together, and had since Jannie was a baby.
“What do you mean, Dad?” Damon asked. “We all know what’s going on. Don’t we?”
“Just what I said—we should talk. Nana could get better soon. That’s what we’re hoping for. Or she could be in a coma for a while. It’s also possible… that she won’t wake up again.”
“She could die,” Jannie said, a little rudely. “We get it, Dad. Even Ali does.”
I looked over at Ali, but he seemed all right so far. In his way, he was older than his age. Both Nana and I had talked to him like an adult, respected his intelligence, since he was around four years old. One of my theories, and Nana’s, about raising kids is that you cannot give them too much love, but that the environment inside your house has to bear a relationship to what they will face on the outside. So no excess coddling or making excuses for unacceptable behavior.
I nodded Janelle’s way. “We all get it. We’re all sad and we’re angry. C’mere, everybody. Maybe I’m the only one who needs a little help right now.”
We gathered close for a group hug, and it was better that way, thinking about Nana without speaking.
Bree was the first to break down, and then everybody was in tears. No shame in that, nothing but love on display. That may not work for all families, but it sure does for us.
Chapter 82
BY MONDAY, I was ready to make my next move on the case. Her name was Wylie Rechler, although her readers knew her simply as “Jenna.” She’d been helpful to the FBI and Metro before; in particular, she had aided Vice.
Wylie Rechler was DC’s answer to Cindy Adams and Perez Hilton, with a hugely popular gossip blog called Jenna Knows. She’d used it to break a couple of smaller Washington stories over the years—Angelina Jolie’s nomination to the Council on Foreign Relations, Barack Obama’s closet cigarette habit—but most of her space was dedicated to the social and sex lives of the “people who matter most,” as her home page called them.
Sampson and I caught up with the popular gossipist that afternoon at the Neiman Marcus store in Friendship Heights. Wylie was launching a new designer scent, whatever that means, also called Jenna Knows. With the smell of cheap perfume as thick in the air as it was, I kept thinking of it as “Jenna Nose” instead.
She was set up in the middle of the store, near the escalators. Pretty ladies in black smocks were spritzing passersby, while Jenna herself autographed bottles from a big pyramid of red-and-black boxes on a C-shaped counter.
When she saw our detective badges, she put a perfectly manicured hand up to her chest. “Oh, God! I’ve finally gone too far, haven’t I?” It got a good laugh from the crowd behind us.
“I was wondering if I could persuade you to take five,” I asked her. “It’s important.”
“Mais oui.” Wylie stood up with a little flourish. “Excuse me, ladies, but gossip awaits. The Metro Police know all. But—will they tell all?”
Some of the theatricality dropped off as soon as we were away from the crowd. “I’m not actually in any trouble here, am I?” she asked.
“Nothing like that,” Sampson said, and held the door for her out to Wisconsin Avenue. “We just need some help.”
We waited until we were in my car to go on. Then I just asked her point-blank. “I’m wondering if you’ve heard anything about a sex club for heavy hitters? Out in Virginia? Place called Blacksmith Farms. We’re looking, first of all, for some verification.”
She’d been rustling inside a little red clutch purse, but now she stopped cold. “You mean it’s true?”
“I’m just wondering what you’ve heard. Names, stories, anything at all.”
“Nothing in a while,” she said, pulling out a lipstick. “Not enough to make a story I could go with. I figured it was—what?—a ridiculous suburban myth?”
> “Aren’t you in the business of publishing rumors?” Sampson asked her.
“Honey, I’m in the business of being as accurate as I can be and not getting my ass sued. I learned that the hard way blogging on Condi Rice’s love life. And just for the record, there’s no such thing as an old rumor in Washington.”
“How do you mean that?” I asked.
“I mean you can’t swing a stick around here without hitting some investigative reporter looking to make a name for themselves. Rumors either turn into headlines real quick or they’re dead on arrival. When I didn’t hear any more about that one, I figured it was a dead end.”
She smiled happily and started reddening her lips in the rearview mirror. “Until now, anyway.”
“That’s another thing,” I said, catching her eye. “I need you to sit on this for a while.”
“Excuse me? You do know what I do for a living, don’t you?”
“And I assume you know what I do,” I said. “This is a murder investigation, Jenna, not a game. Do you understand what I’m saying here?”
“Okay, now you’re scaring me,” she said, returning the lipstick to her purse. Then she finally opened up and gave me a few names she’d heard connected to the sex club. New names, which was helpful.
“Listen.” I handed her two of my business cards. “Call me if you hear anything else, and please give me your number too. As soon as this thing is ready to go, I’ll bring you whatever I have. Do we have a deal?”
“That depends.” She fanned herself with the cards. “How do I know you’re the type to return favors?”
I chose my words carefully. “I’m here talking to you because I need you and I know you’ve been helpful to Metro before. That also means I can’t afford to piss you off. Is that honest enough for you?”
She took out a little gold pen, scribbled some digits, then kissed the card. She handed it back to me with a lipstick imprint next to the number.