by Josie Brown
She takes a scarf from her bag. Wrapping it around her neck, she adds, “As for me I’m on a different glide path, one that takes me far away from you, Donna Stone Craig.”
I stare at her; not because of her declaration, but because of the scarf.
It’s the one-of-a-kind Jered Friedman.
It’s Lolita’s turquoise scarf.
“There is still one road that leads right to you, Babette,” I tell her. “It begins at Trident Union Bank, inside the account under the name of JBC Holdings—which you managed under the name of Helen Drake.”
Babette scowls. “That Helen Drake person killed herself! It was all over the news!”
“It wasn’t ‘Helen Drake’ who died,” I insist. “It was Lolita Jamison—and you had her murdered.”
“How dare you accuse me of such a thing!” she snarls.
“It’s not an accusation. Lolita was Harold Hart’s mistress. You commanded Randall to kill her, mutilate the body so that it couldn’t be identified, and toss her into the Potomac. You put your fake ID in her purse. But then being the greedy little fashion slut that you are, you simply had to take her scarf as a keepsake.”
I point to the one in her hand.
Babette’s eyes narrow in anger.
Gotcha.
She backs away slowly.
“Lee got his pardon,” I remind her. “On the other hand, you’ll go to jail—not just for money laundering and treason, but for murder too. You can’t run this time, Babette.”
“The hell I can’t!” She is close enough to the room’s massive fireplace to grab the poker beside it. This time when she rushes me, it’s to stab me with it.
Except for a few boxes and the furniture, the room is practically empty. I pick up Janie’s desk chair, parrying her jabs at each turn with the chair’s legs. Finally, she stabs the chair’s upholstered seat dead center. It goes right through it, stopping an inch from my gut.
With all my might, I shove the chair onto her until I’ve backed her against the wall, pinning her between the chair legs.
But before I can kick Babette’s legs out from under her, she ducks out and tackles me to the floor.
The wind is knocked out of me. It doesn’t help that she’s sitting on my ribcage. She giggles as I grunt. Suddenly, she puts her hands around my throat—
And snaps the chain of my necklace. Waving it over her head, she crows triumphantly: “Ah, the infamous silver locket!”
“Give me that! It belonged to my mother!”
“Like hell I will! It’s my get-out-of-jail free card.”
That piques my interest. “What makes you say that?”
“You silly fool! Carl hid a microdot with the access code to Acme’s agent directory in there—the one he coerced Jack’s first slut of a wife to steal for him.” She slams down again hard on my ribcage. “And now it’s mine!”
If he trusted Babette with the information, it meant he trusted her with his life. Carl never afforded me that privilege, and it cost him dearly.
Babette must have divulged his secret to Eric at one point because he too taunted me about it hiding in plain sight.
Boy, this bitch sure gets around.
There’s a knock on the door. Babette freezes.
But I don’t. My fist hits the side of her face with enough force that she slides to the floor.
I snatch my locket from her hand and leap up.
Just as Babette stumbles to her feet, Lurch opens the door. He stares at her, then at me. His eyes shift to her again as he murmurs, “Your car is waiting, ma’am. The President and the children have just taken off.”
“What? No! NO! They were to go with me! I told the au pairs—”
He looks confused. “I’m sorry, but the ladies told me you’d specifically sent the children ahead.” Lurch stares at her, confused. “Even Janie confirmed it—”
She runs past him.
Stymied, he takes off too.
Instinctively, I head to the window.
As Lurch confirmed, the other car is already moving down the long oval driveway of the White House’s South Lawn. Although the presidential fleet has eleven very similar decoys, I assume it’s the president’s official car, a fifty-one million-dollar tricked-out mini-tank-designed Cadillac Escalade.
Eager to catch them, Babette leaps into the only other car in the driveway, a twin of the one driving away. By doing this, she’s ruined her one chance to make the grand exit she’s plotted for days. The media shouts its disappointment, but she has already slammed the door shut.
Lurch lunges into the driver’s seat. Whatever she’s said to him has him hitting the gas. Soon, he’s blowing well past the White House grounds’ posted speed limit of twenty-five miles-an-hour.
The first car has just reached the west security gate when the second car implodes.
The blast lifts the Escalade off the ground. By the time it lands again, the interior is an inferno.
The news cameras click away, but it takes a while before the stunned correspondents and their news crews find their voices.
The money shot happens when Lee and Janie jump out of their car. The sight of the horror-struck father holding back his inconsolable daughter will haunt the American public for a very long time.
20
Stay Tuned…
To encourage you to keep watching a television channel, sometimes you’ll hear an announcer’s voice imploring the audience to “Stay tuned!”
Before the technological advancement of remote control, the phrase you’d hear was: “Don’t touch that dial!”
(Seriously, how quaint is that!)
Invariably, before this request is some plot twist or cliffhanger—that is, some action that has you on the edge of your seat and dying to know what comes next.
“Dying” is the operative word here.
Still, isn’t it better if it happens on a studio sound stage than on the streets of your town?
As realistic as the violence may seem on your forty-eight-inch TV screen, even through the best Bose speakers the sound of computer-generated gunfire has nothing on one-hundred rounds of Remington ammo spewing from a high power military select fire rifle on full auto.
And how can you compare a movie blood concoction of Hawaiian Fruit Punch, corn syrup, food coloring, and corn starch to the bloodshed on a real battlefield? You can’t, so don’t even try.
In real life, not all heroes walk away after a shootout. Sometimes, bad guys get away with murder.
Still, we stay tuned in the hope that the good guy wins—
Even if it’s only on TV.
“Mom!” Trisha comes running into the kitchen just as I’m pulling a pie out of the oven. Up until now, this most recent attempt at the perfect cherry pie has been incident-free. Although I jump at her shout, I’m able to slide the scalding hot tin onto the marble kitchen counter instead of slamming it down and cracking the crust.
Sighing, I turn to her. “Have you forgotten the rules? Unless the house is on fire or there are federal agents battering down the door, we use our inside voices.”
“But…but Janie just called! She’s home!”
Which means that Lee is at Lion’s Lair too.
It has been three months since the accident that took Babette and Lurch’s lives. From all accounts, the bomb, placed inside the vehicle, was set to detonate when The Beast hit the speed of thirty-eight miles-per-hour. Between the Beast’s eight-inch thick doors and its bomb-proof windows and cabin—not to mention the two onboard oxygen tanks acting as additional lighter fluid—nothing could have prevented the engulfing inferno.
All remaining ashes were sent to Lee.
As they should be. Lurch had no family, and his loyalty to the president he served was matched only by his infatuation for Babette.
Mourning was handled with dignity and discretion. Frankly, Lee did the right thing in forgoing a public funeral or even a memorial service. There was enough drama surrounding Babette in life. No need to continue the circus beyond
her death.
I have no idea where he had the ashes interred.
For the past few months there have been no signs of Lee or his children—not just in Washington or Hilldale but anywhere in the world. Even my calls and texts offering condolences and our family’s love and support have been met with silence.
“She asked if I’d come over.” Trisha eyes me hopefully.
“So, you girls have made up?”
“Yes. I reached out to her a couple of times since…you know, since the accident.” Trisha blinks back her tears. “I wanted her to know that I’m always here for her.” Hesitantly, she adds, “Would you mind driving me over?”
“Not at all.” I’m just as anxious as Trisha to see our dear friends. “Grab the vanilla ice cream from the freezer and put it in the small soft cooler,” I suggest.
When she sees me pulling out the insulated pie carrier from a cabinet, she squeals with delight. “Your cherry is Janie’s favorite!”
Like daughter like father.
Ironically, it’s something else Lee and Jack have in common besides me.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” I tell Lee. He has said that to me so many times that it’s fun to return the favor.
His lips attempt a grin, but it is only a shadow of his signature smile. Still, he chuckles. “We’ve been hiding out in Mendocino County. A great spread. Eighteen acres of redwoods…” His voice trails off. “When you’re standing beneath one of those thousand-year-old beauties, everything in the here-and-now seems insignificant.” He tops his half-eaten pie wedge with another dollop of ice cream. “Wish you could have been there.”
“Maybe next time. You know, a two-family outing!” I wink at him.
Hearing Lee’s unfettered laugh, I realize how much I’ve missed it. “The Craigs—even the ones who might come kicking and screaming—are always welcome on any Chiffray expedition.”
“Jack respects you, Lee.” Sincerity causes my voice to tremble.
“Good to know, Donna.” Lee shrugs. “I’ll take that to mean that he no longer feels I’m a threat.”
“I interpret that as he’d appreciate your friendship too,” I insist.
“Done deal. And it’s probably the easiest one I’ll make this month. I’m in the process of divesting myself fully of GWI.” He grimaces. “No need to go back to the corporate grind.”
“I’m not surprised. As if anything could compare to being the leader of the free world.”
“Only it isn’t so free, is it?” When he swallows a bite of pie, he winces, as if it sticks in his throat. “GWI is an albatross. Considering its nefarious taint, I’ll be lucky to get a decent price for it, either whole or broken apart. But at least I’ll be free of the Quorum’s noose, once and for all.”
“Will you move out of Hilldale?” I hold my breath in anticipation that I won’t like his answer. I only want what’s best for Lee, but I will miss him greatly if confirms my fear with a resigned yes.
He thinks about that for a moment before giving a slow nod. “The last thing I need is to move Janie from Lion’s Lair, or out of Hilldale. It’s the only home she’s ever known.” He stares down at his plate. “You know, Janie blames herself for Babette’s death. She thinks if we’d waited for her mother instead going on ahead in the limo that was already packed with Harrison’s baby gear, Babette would still be alive.”
I drop onto the couch beside Lee. “If you’d done what Babette wanted, gone by yourself in The Beast, you’d be dead. She and the kids would have remained alive.”
“You think she knew it was rigged to explode.” Lee isn’t asking a question. He’s making a declaration.
“Sadly, I do.”
“Why so?”
“By insisting that she and the children leave in a separate car, she certainly did what she could to assure that your last drive away from the White House would take place alone, and that you’d head out first,” I explain. “Lee, I’d never seen Babette so upset than when Lurch told her you’d gone ahead—with the children. She fairly flew downstairs and into the other Escalade waiting there.”
“I guess she thought we drove off in The Beast.” Lee has a catch in his throat. “If what you say is true and she realized we’d left The Beast behind, she wouldn’t have ridden in it, no less insisted on speeding up to catch to us.”
“From what I’ve heard, the investigators still don’t know how the bomb got in there,” I say. “It certainly shook up Edmonton. He’s livid that such a thing could have happened.”
“I’ve always wondered what she would have said had she caught up to us,” Lee muses. “What excuse would she have given to persuade me to change places with her?”
“It was the one lie she never got to use.” Hesitantly, I add, “Lee, before Randall Hart died, he confirmed that Babette was a Quorum operative. He also said you’d outlived your usefulness for her.”
“You warned me. But Donna, I knew it even before you had. I guess I loved her too much to admit it to myself.” Lee drops his head from the weight of this revelation. “She truly was a black widow.”
His grief is painful enough to make me turn away.
I spot a photo on the end table. It must have been taken while Lee and the children were in Mendocino County. In it, Harrison and Janie are standing inside the cutout of a giant sequoia. The light behind them casts a halo. They hold hands and stare up, awestruck and smiling.
Lee is their sequoia. With him at their side, they will weather the loss of their mother.
In the hope of pulling Lee out of his anguish, I ask, “How is Harrison faring?”
Lee’s grief softens at the mention of his son by name if not seed. “He’s a champ. Babette never had the desire to breastfeed, so there was no separation anxiety there. He’s had a few crying jags, so I know he misses her. I’m keeping on his au pairs. That way, he’ll at least have some sense of continuity.”
I pat his arm. “You’re a good man, Lee.”
Lee shakes off the compliment. “Despite his parentage, Harrison deserves my love. After all, he is Janie’s half-brother.”
And of course, the same can be said about his stepdaughter. “You’ve always been Janie’s anchor.”
“I’ll be there for her until my last breath.” He pats my hand. “It leads me to wonder if Babette had a role in Jonah’s death. I know he gave her plenty reason to despise him.”
“She was close to Carl, so it is possible. To Babette, the Quorum’s leaders were her own personal chess pieces.”
Lee flinches at this honest jibe against his dead wife but he knows it’s true. Harrison’s birth father was Babette’s lover, Salem Rahmin al-Sadah, was a Saudi billionaire as well as a Quorum member.
I don’t have the heart to tell him what she divulged about her closeness with Carl and what I suspect about her and Eric too.
Lee closes his eyes at the thought Babette. When he opens them again, I see that they’re damp. “Donna, I want to thank you for what you said during the special prosecutor’s investigation. You are a real friend.”
“I only told the truth. Frankly, I was surprised I was given such leeway to do so.”
“Assistant Special Counsel Karami did the right thing on several levels. First, the longer you talked, chances were greater that you’d say something that might incriminate me. And I’m sure Reynolds instructed her to keep the proceedings going for as long as possible to allow him—and yes, Edmonton—to negotiate my departure.” He grimaces. “I made it easy for them: none of the bullshit transition costs. No salary or other expenses. But I stuck to one demand: an immediate ‘full, free, and absolute pardon,’ which ended any possibility of an indictment.”
“Considering that Reynolds was out for blood, why did he agree to it?”
Lee snickers. “He only did it at Edmonton’s behest. And Edmonton only did it because it would leave a stain on Babette as well.”
“Ah, let me guess. He was to be her next victim.” I roll my eyes at the thought. “Well, he dodged a bullet
there! Still, I can’t think of a couple who deserved each other more.”
Lee actually laughs at my declaration.
I join in—
Until I see the tears in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Lee. That was cruel of me.”
He shakes his head. “No, Donna, it was honest of you. On the other hand, I was never honest with myself about my relationship with Babette. My ego—pride, fear, whatever—ruined my life.”
“You’re wrong. The best phase of your life is just beginning. It’s time to build a legacy that will make your children proud.”
I look out toward the lawn, where Janie and Trisha, both in their soccer jerseys, hold Harrison’s teddy bear just high enough for him to grab it. When he pulls it from Janie’s hand, his joyous squeals send them giggling.
Lee follows my gaze. Finally, when our eyes meet, he says, “Thank you for always believing in me.”
His appreciation merits a hug.
As my arms go around Lee, every memory I have of him converges into a montage of the emotions we’ve shared—awareness, suspicion, appreciation, concern, and yes, trust—before forging into a rock-solid allegiance.
I lied to Lee. I did not always trust him. But through his actions, he’s earned my allegiance.
And, now finally, he’s earned Jack’s.
No more backward glances. Lee’s future will be his redemption.
Trisha begs to stay overnight with Janie. I say yes before I take off. They need this time to catch up, to enjoy being ten. Besides, Janie is anxious to talk about her new school.
“At least, I’ll have one friend,” she exclaims.
As assurance, Trisha puts her arm around Janie’s shoulder.
I am walked to my car by one of Lee’s Secret Service detail. Although Lee resigned, one will still be assigned to him for life. It’s the blessing and the curse of having served as America’s Commander-in-Chief.
I’m sad about Lurch. He will always be a hero in my eyes.
