by J. L. Brown
Chapter Fifty
The White House, Washington, DC
A knock. Sasha popped her head in, her hand remaining on the open door.
“You need to listen to something,” she said.
She traversed the Oval Office and entered Whitney’s study, not asking for permission nor waiting for Whitney to follow her. Whitney frowned at the unusual lack of protocol but followed her chief of staff just the same.
Sasha turned on the radio.
“It’s always been a dream of mine,” said a voice through the radio’s speakers.
Whitney tensed.
“Why did it take you so long to run?” asked the talk-show host for Patriot News, his tone more subdued than usual. It was one of Cole Brennan’s first broadcasts since his son’s death.
“Life had other plans for me, I guess.”
She envisioned the shrug and the boyish grin of Cole’s guest. A grin she knew well.
“My daddy sold cars,” the guest continued, “and I was expected to follow in his footsteps.”
“I read about that in the Washington Times,” Cole said. “The only legitimate paper in Washington, by the way. Then what happened?”
“I realized I wanted more out of life.”
“You were a state legislator in Missouri,” said Cole. “What made you run for Congress?”
“When I learned that Steven Barrett’s death wasn’t an accident,” said the voice, tinged with anger, “and that the FBI covered it up, I had to do something. Congressman Barrett was a Missouri son. Born and raised. He represented our district and state faithfully for many years, and he deserved better than the investigation the federal government conducted for him.”
“Those are strong accusations, my friend,” Cole said. “Any proof?”
“Not yet, but I’ll get it. How the FBI handled his murder was a travesty of justice and an injustice for the congressman’s family. I won’t rest until they receive the justice they deserve.”
“Don’t you find it ironic,” Cole said, “that you and our president both come from the same district and were elected to the House because of a special election?”
A pause. Whitney held her breath, wondering if the guest would disclose their shared history.
“Her opportunity arose because of the suspicious death of Congressman Barrett,” the guest responded. “I was elected after the governor appointed the congressman serving at the time to the president’s vacant seat in the Senate. There’s a difference.”
“Are you implying,” Cole said, his voice rising incredulously, “that the president of the United States was involved in Barrett’s death?”
Another pause. “I didn’t say that.”
Sure you didn’t.
“I know something about insinuation,” Cole said, “and that sure sounded like it to me.”
“All I’m saying is that it’s a curious coincidence.”
“If you say so. What are your plans now that you’re in Congress?”
“There’s plenty we need to do to take the country back, Cole. Decrease regulations, reduce the deficit, and create manufacturing jobs, to name a few.”
“Couldn’t agree more. Well, that’s all the time we have today. Before I go, I want to thank all of you for your phone calls, letters, and emails about my son CJ. They mean a lot to Ashley and me. Now, I’m going to say something else some of you don’t want to hear, but you need to. My son wasn’t my gay son—he was just my son. Like your children. Depression doesn’t happen to only one type of person. Anyone can become depressed: famous actors, celebrities, minorities, teenagers, middle schoolers, men. Anyone. If you or someone you love is depressed, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Remember, you’re not alone. This is Cole Brennan, protecting your life,” he paused, “liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Join us again tomorrow for The Conservative Voice.”
During the broadcast, Whitney had glanced at Sasha a few times. The chief of staff had listened intently. The president hadn’t told Sasha her entire history, although with Sasha’s “sources,” Whitney believed she knew.
The guest on Cole’s show was Cameron Kelly, the freshman representative from Missouri and Whitney’s former high school boyfriend. She still hadn’t told anyone, except for Grayson, that Cameron had once raped her.
“Cole didn’t waste any time replacing Sampson as his puppet,” Sasha said.
“He does sound smitten,” Whitney agreed.
“Sounds as if Kelly has it in for you.” Sasha looked at her. “Is there something you want to tell me about your colleague from the great state of Missouri?”
Whitney stared at the woman who had stood by her steadfastly the fourteen months she’d been in office.
“Yes,” she said, “it’s about time I do.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Washington, DC
It had been over two months since Sebastian Scofield’s murder. The Shakespeare task force had interviewed—and sometimes reinterviewed—every witness to the three murders. In addition to driving back and forth across the Potomac River to and from Virginia, Dante and Micah had flown to New York and Chicago multiple times. At one point, Dante grudgingly asked Jade to review the case files again to see if she could spot something he’d missed.
If something was there, she couldn’t find it either.
Max had created a psychological profile of the unsub. They knew the type of person they were looking for, but at least a million men fit that description.
Meanwhile, other murders wouldn’t wait. Jade had no choice but to assign her team additional cases.
She locked her computer, calling it a day.
Standing, she began to stuff her briefcase with several folders from her desk. She stared at The Complete Works of William Shakespeare and grabbed it too.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Arlington, Virginia
The vibration woke her up.
Leaving one arm covering her closed eyes, she swiped her cell phone off the nightstand with the other. Jade didn’t think she’d slept long. After leaving work, she’d texted Zoe for a recommendation for Indian food. Zoe was an encyclopedia of DC-area restaurants, her gift all the more remarkable given how often restaurants closed and opened in the city.
Jade had eaten her takeout while watching an episode of an HBO series that held the attention of everyone in the nation except her. Sleep still eluding her, she’d decided to go over the case files again. Sitting at the small desk in her bedroom, she gazed out the window at the unused patio furniture in her postage-stamp-size backyard surrounded by a faded wooden fence.
She fumbled with the phone. “Harrington.”
“Coach,” the caller said.
Immediately alert, Jade sat up in bed. Her cat, Card, jumped off her chest and onto the bed, circling before settling in next to her in a spot only he occupied.
The clock on the nightstand read 11:30 p.m. “LaKeisha, what is it?”
LaKeisha was the point guard on the high school spring league team that Jade coached every year. Their first practice wasn’t until next week, and on top of that, LaKeisha had never called her before.
“I’m in trouble,” the girl said simply.
Jade threw off the covers. “Where are you?”
@TheGodOfVeritas: Blayze Tishman may be generous and donate to a lot of causes, but he’s also reaping the rewards from exploiting young black men. #shame
Chapter Fifty-Three
Washington, DC
Jade leaned forward, her arms resting on the steering wheel. She stared through the passenger-side window at the small, well-kept two-story row house on a street in Anacostia. Chain-link fences separated the lawns of the homes. This lower-income Southeast DC neighborhood had so far resisted the gentrification epidemic. Jade wondered what would happen to the residents when that day came.
She had some idea.
A basketball lay in the yard. A streetlight illuminated a solitary chair on the concrete front porch. No lights seemed to be on in the
house.
Jade had never been to the house where LaKeisha grew up.
The young woman slouched in the passenger seat next to her. The litheness of last year had transformed into solid muscle. Only a couple of inches shorter than Jade, LaKeisha now outweighed her by twenty pounds.
A sophomore in high school, LaKeisha wore her black hair in long dreadlocks. Her bright smile, made brighter by her dark brown skin, was absent tonight.
Her second-year accomplishments on the hardwood exceeded her first. She was on her way to following in Jade’s footsteps: a college scholarship, the WNBA, a professional contract overseas.
Jade wanted to keep it that way.
Although LaKeisha was smart and maintained a 3.0 grade point average, Jade didn’t believe that LaKeisha’s parents earned enough to pay for college or poor enough to receive sufficient financial aid. Athletics might be her only route to a college education.
When she saw LaKeisha play for the first time at an AAU tournament four years ago, Jade recognized something more than the twelve-year-old girl’s talent and natural athletic ability. She had a will to win.
Now, she looked at LaKeisha. “You had one phone call.”
The girl nodded.
“And you called me.”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?” Jade asked.
LaKeisha shifted in her seat. “Some of my friends… on my AAU team… got together to go see a movie. At Gallery Place.” She paused. “After the movie, we were all hungry, so we went to a store. Kinda like a 7-Eleven.” LaKeisha stopped.
Jade waited, resisting the urge to fill the silence. She wanted to give LaKeisha the time and space to tell the story in her own way.
“They started daring each other,” she said. “Stuffing candy bars and snacks into their pockets. Their purses. A security guard came from the back of the store. He looked at all of us and grabbed me. I thought he was going to rip my arm out of the socket.”
“And your teammates?”
“They didn’t stick around. They ran. I was the only one taken to the station.”
“I wonder why.”
LaKeisha twisted the thin skin on the back of her hand.
“Ah,” Jade said.
The DC Metropolitan PD had transported LaKeisha to the Youth Services Center on H Street NW. Since it was LaKeisha’s first offense, CSS—Court Social Services—decided to release her to a guardian. Given their overflowing caseload, and that she was a federal law enforcement officer, Jade qualified. CSS would monitor LaKeisha for six months to make sure she didn’t commit additional offenses.
“Did you tell them you didn’t take anything?”
“They knew. They’d frisked me. They didn’t care.” LaKeisha laid her head against the headrest. “My parents are going to kill me.”
“If you were my daughter, I would.”
A slight smile flickered on the girl’s face. After a moment, she said, “Do you know the worst part?”
“What?”
“It’s not the getting arrested. Or the racism. Or my parents. It’s that my quote-unquote friends weren’t there for me. They ran.” She broke eye contact. “They were never my friends.”
“My dad used to say that you can count your true friends on one hand,” Jade said.
LaKeisha held up her hand, large enough to palm a basketball, and spread her fingers. She retracted her thumb. “I used to count on my four teammates. Not anymore.” Her hand dropped. “One reason I didn’t take anything was because of you.”
“Me?”
“I could never look you in the eye if I did something like that. I have dreams and goals because of you. I’m not going to mess up my future.” She opened the passenger-side door. “Thanks for bailing me out, Coach. At least I can count on you. Always.”
She slammed the car door shut.
“Always,” Jade said into the silence.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Clayton, Missouri
“Take a cookie, dear.”
Whitney’s mother pushed the still-full plate toward her on the coffee table between them.
“Mom, I’m not hungry. Truly,” Whitney said.
“I just baked them,” her mother said, her tone scolding. “You’re getting too thin. That job will be the death of you.”
Whitney couldn’t disagree on either count.
Hayden and Claire Churchill still lived in the same middle-class ranch in the St. Louis suburb where Whitney had grown up. Earlier, she’d walked through her brothers’ and her old rooms. Nothing much had changed since they’d moved out decades ago. A Grease movie poster, depicting Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta clutching each other, still hung over her bed. Her cheerleading trophies and academic awards were still on the shelf over the window. Her little desk remained tidy, everything in its place.
Some of her clothes from her teenage years were in her closet. She could probably fit into them again.
Retired now, her father had once been an insurance agent, and her mother was his office manager. Her three brothers lived nearby with families of their own. Whitney didn’t see them much and wouldn’t have time during this visit. Sitting in a worn yellow chair, she gazed around the living room as she sipped lemonade from a glass. Unless one had been told, it would be hard to fathom that the occupants of this house were the parents of the most powerful person in the world.
“How’s Grayson?” her mother asked from the couch across from her.
“He’s fine.”
“I hear he’s back at work,” her father said, dressed warmly in a gray-and-blue cardigan over a collared white shirt and dark pants. The house was almost as cold inside as it was outside. Despite her rare visit, he sat in a light-brown suede Barcalounger, reading the newspaper.
“He said the business needed him,” Whitney said. “Washington can survive without him for a little while.”
“What about you?” her mother said.
“I’m fine.”
“I mean, can you survive without him for a little while?”
“Mom, I’m a grown woman. I don’t need a man to survive.” Whitney forced a laugh. “Besides, we’ve lived apart for so long over the years, I’m somewhat used to it.”
“It can’t be healthy for you or your marriage,” her mother said.
“Mom, it’s temporary. We’re fine.”
“A lot of ‘fines,’” her father said, peering at her over the newspaper. He wore horn-rimmed glasses. “Why are you here? What’s going on?”
Whitney said, “Not happy to see me?”
“Of course I am, but we haven’t seen much of you since you left home.” He paused. “Thirty years ago.”
“We have some events in the Midwest, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to visit.” Her parents looked unconvinced. “I wanted to see you,” she said, simply.
I wanted to come home, she didn’t say.
“Saw that Kelly boy on the news, yapping his mouth. He’s on TV now almost as much as when he hawked cars.”
“Hayden,” her mother said, “I’m sure Whitney doesn’t want to talk about him.”
They knew Cameron had raped her. And did nothing. Instead, her liberal, marched-for-civil-rights-in-the-sixties parents had shipped her off to live with her father’s sister, Mary, until the baby came. They didn’t go to the police. They didn’t take her to the hospital. They didn’t confront the boy. Whitney dealt with the sexual assault and its aftermath on her own. As she had most situations in her life.
Her parents marched and protested and fought for everyone but her.
Some might say it was a different time then. A he-said, she-said situation. In a small town, where there was an inverse relationship between the maliciousness of the gossip and the size of the population, a girl had her reputation to protect. The boy’s reputation would remain intact no matter what happened.
Her parents never explained their actions—or rather, inaction—to her.
“Cameron was an immature kid then,” her mom said.
“You know how boys are.”
The heat rushed to Whitney’s face. She placed her glass next to the plate of cookies. “I do.”
She hadn’t come to fight with her parents. They would never change. That she thought they would be here for her now, when they never were in the past, was the definition of insanity. “I’m going.”
“Off to see Grayson?” her mother asked, oblivious to her daughter’s feelings.
Whitney rose and went to them, bending over to kiss each of them on their soft, papery cheeks. Her hugs were brief, their bodies frailer than she remembered. She loved them despite their failures.
“I’ll call you,” she said.
In the Beast, the presidential limousine, Sasha said, “That good?”
Whitney shook her head.
Sasha continued to stare at her. “Are you all right?”
“Please… just head to the airport,” Whitney said.
As Sasha picked up the phone to instruct the driver, Whitney donned sunglasses and stared straight ahead, even as the armored car passed the entrance to Fairchild Industries headquarters. The ten-story building and its twenty-acre campus were hard to ignore in this town.
Whitney chastised herself for seeking solace from her troubles at home with her parents. It had been a mistake.
She thought about the time she and Grayson had eaten ice cream in the ground-floor kitchen. It was one of the last romantic moments they had shared.
“Sasha,” she said, “let’s stop for some ice cream first.”
“Ice cream?”
“My treat.”
Sasha picked up the phone again.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Seattle, Washington
She didn’t understand the last-minute addition. His name wasn’t on the original list.
But her job wasn’t to question. Or to reason. She was paid to carry out orders. Paid quite handsomely.
