by Amy Faye
The ride was silent. She didn't have anything to say, and if Secret Service men had personal lives they didn't let her into them. She felt another vibration and looked again. The same number. She frowned and clicked the answer button, but she didn't say anything when she put the phone to her ear.
A long moment passed, a moment in which she considered hanging up. Then finally a voice on the other end of the line spoke. "Lara Beech?"
Lara rubbed her head. "Who is this and why do you keep calling me?"
"You don't want to hang up," the man's voice on the other end didn't seem threatening, even as his words left little room for doubt about how she was supposed to interpret the comments.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I'm trying to be a friend here. I don't want to put your name out there, or anything like that. But if I have to, then I have to."
Lara's teeth ground together. "How did you get this number?"
"I wouldn't worry about that."
"No? What would you worry about?"
He barked a laugh. "What I would worry about? I'd worry about getting involved with anyone related to Helen Green. She's a real warrior, that woman. You pick your battles well. But what I'm worried about for you is that someone finds out exactly what your relationship with Paul Green is, what it was. What his relationship to your son is."
"There's nothing to find out," she told him. One of the Secret Service guys looked at her quizzically. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to tell them but she knew that she wasn't happy with the call.
"You know what? I've got a friend I want you to talk to. One second."
She started to pull the phone away. "I wouldn't do that," the voice said.
She put the phone back to her ear. "Okay, what do you want from me?"
The guy who had turned to look at her signaled to put the voice on the other end of the phone onto speaker. She shook her head. He'd hear it right away. No doubt about it.
"What I want? I want you to think about your son, and about what it might mean to him that his father abandoned him. Have a good day, Lara. I'll be in touch."
She hung up the phone. The Secret Service guy in the front glowered at her just a little bit under their usual veneer of professionalism.
"Was that a threatening phone call, Miss Beech? You should have let me take the phone. We have ways of dealing with people like that."
"Not exactly," she said. She rubbed her head, and like he had told her, like she had every day since Paul had come back into her life, she thought about what it would mean to Tim that Paul was his father. "I think… I don't know what to think."
They looked at her like they wanted a recounting of what was said. They had another few minutes before they would be at the hospital anyways. So she started from the beginning, and left out the parts that she didn't want to discuss along the way.
31
Paul's face pulled as he heard the words coming out of Robbie's mouth. He was a good agent, that was true. And the entire agency knew what they were doing, so when they started worrying about something, then he didn't have to question whether or not it was a good idea to listen.
That made him doubly worried, though, when they were worried about someone else. When it was Lara, that went double still, because she was the only person he knew who, in general, Paul would call good. Everyone else was shades of gray, darker than neutral.
Lara, though? Who would threaten her?
It was hard to guess without knowing what the man on the other end of the line wanted. It was easy to figure out in the broadest strokes possible. She was in a position close to him, and if they knew something about the relationship that she had with Paul, if they had figured out their relationship ten years ago, then they knew that putting strings on her was very likely to put strings on him, too.
But there were a thousand things that someone might want. They might want him to push legislation, they might want information about him, they might just be causing chaos for that matter. The options were too many and too varied to make any solid guesses without more information.
His head hurt. He needed to figure this all out, but he was too slow and his head hurt too damn much. He looked over at Rob, whose expression remained impassive. "Don't worry about it, Mr. Senator. We'll take care of it."
"I trust that you will. But I can't just ignore it, either, can I?"
"I suppose not, sir."
Paul stood up and paced away. He should be at the hospital, too, he knew. She'd told him that he had nothing to do with the boy and he believed her because otherwise it opened a whole different can of worms that he wasn't remotely ready to think about at that moment.
"What would you do?"
"What would I do?"
"If you were in my position. What would you do?"
"I don't know, sir. I think there's a little bit of difference between your position and mine. It's hard to say."
"You don't have to be coy, Rob. Tell me what you'd do. I'm not going to get offended."
"Sir?"
"Speak freely."
"Sir, I don't think I would be chasing two rabbits at once. I'd pick one and chase that one down, then if I needed some other rabbit, I'd let the first one go. Sir."
The comment stung like a slap but Paul tried to keep it off his face. It wasn't bad advice. He had to admit, it wasn't even as if it hadn't occurred to him.
What was the alternative, though? He'd been tied to the woman he was with, rather than trying to clamp down on her. He had already tried to drop her and move on, to change the course that his life was on, but it seemed that the new hitch wasn't interested.
More than that, she still seemed angry about it. He rubbed his head and thought harder about it. Rob was right, and furthermore he'd known it all along. He'd only been fooling himself, thinking that he could have it all. Only an idiot would think that in the first place.
He could have the politics, he could have the power. He could have whatever he wanted. The fact that the Democratic party had nominated him was all he needed to prove that. The fact that President Noble was one of the weakest incumbents in a century certainly didn't help, either. His poll numbers hadn't been above thirty percent since his first year in office. 'One term and out' was all anyone expected of him.
Paul wasn't even absolutely sure that he needed to actively campaign. Certainly not as much as he had been. He could run on the 'D' beside his name and the fact that he wasn't Rob Noble.
But he couldn't have the Presidency without Helen, and the more that the years passed he wasn't sure that the trade off was worth it. He couldn't have a real family, not with her around. He couldn't have a real wife, not with her around.
There were three things here and he wasn't sure what he wanted. He tried to avoid it; he knew immediately what he was doing when he suddenly started looking around the room at the way that he'd left it in relative disarray. Living out of a suitcase meant that it never much mattered if he unpacked. He might as well just leave it that way.
But now it seemed imperative that he pack it all up, get everything straightened out and ready. He forced himself to stay sitting. "I need a ride."
The Secret Service agent nodded. "Okay, you're the boss." They drove in silence. Paul wasn't sure whether or not he preferred that, but he had a lot on his mind that needed to be thought through. A lot of trouble that he needed to sort out first thing, and then eventually maybe he'd be ready for some kind of long conversation.
The problem, the big problem, was that he didn't understand the entire situation and he knew it. If he had the choice to make over again, he knew what he'd choose deep down in his bones. He'd already come so close to giving up his future for Lara that it wasn't hard to guess which way the wind was blowing. There was no way that he was going to give her up all of a sudden now that he had her so close.
But there was more to it than just that, as well. She'd left, and she'd left without a word to him. Without a message, without an explanation. Without anything. The wa
y she kept talking, talking around whatever had made her leave in the first place, that was something that he needed to understand before he could even imagine the possibility of some other future.
The one thing that he knew, deep down in his bones, was that he couldn't keep chasing both rabbits. The thought kept running through his head, in a loop. Any moment now, he was going to have some kind of breakthrough. He was going to remember the fight that he'd had with Lara, the one that made her so mad that she decided she never wanted to see him again.
He'd see some way out of this, or understand that he was really just being sour about politics for no reason. He'd decide that he wanted to be President after all, more than anything else. He'd decide that the entire damn political world hadn't corrupted him as sure as walking neck-deep through sludge.
But nothing moved and nothing budged, and he stood at the beginning again, and his thoughts just went through the same circle again.
He rubbed his eyes. The thoughts were getting him nowhere, but he had his answer, whether he liked it or not. He knew what he wanted, but it wasn't a real choice. He wasn't going to throw everything away on a leap of faith. He couldn't, not now. Not without knowing what the hell it was that had caused her to leave in the first place.
Once he understood why she was so angry at him, he could decide what he was supposed to do. But he wasn't going to put that on her. She'd tell him when she was ready, as long as she understood first that he didn't know what the hell it was he'd done in the first place.
If she didn't understand, then he wasn't going to blame her for that, but he sure as hell couldn't let things keep going the way they were, because something had to change. And as much as it made his chest hurt, if he couldn't have what he wanted, then he at least should know that sooner, rather than later.
Something that wasn't real and wouldn't last was fine, as long as he could pretend. She had come this far; whether or not she was going to let him continue wasn't certain, but he could at least hope.
He took a deep breath as the SUV pulled up in front of Mercy General. There were things that he needed to talk about, and he needed to do it sooner rather than later. He just hoped that he had the guts to do it this time.
32
Tim looked as bad as he'd ever looked. Worse, even, Lara thought. She could hardly bear to look at him like this. She wanted to reach out and touch him, but feeling the heat under his skin, practically burning him up like a match, would only worry her more.
She looked at her phone, hoping that there would be some sort of message from the doctor. Hoping that he'd have some kind of explanation. Hoping that Paul had called and she'd just missed it, and he was promising to come right over.
She didn't know why, but having him there made her less nervous. Her fear hit her in a wave again and she shuddered nervously. There's nothing to worry about, she reminded herself; it wasn't convincing. But she repeated it again, and when it felt unconvincing a second time she repeated it a third until the subconscious part of her mind shrugged and said 'I guess.'
'Fake it 'til you make it' was the order of the day. It was how she'd gotten through law school, it was how she'd gotten through the pregnancy, and after almost ten years of motherhood, it was how she'd gotten through that, too.
It worked as long as she was careful not to let her mind get too far from the original idea. It worked as long as she didn't let herself think that maybe she was wrong without correcting that thought. As long as she was careful to do that, she didn't have anything else to worry about.
She had needed a lot of faking, lately. Faking that she wasn't angry at Paul any more. Faking that she was. Faking that she knew what she was doing here, that she understood why she'd come. She had her reasons; as soon as she understood what they were, she could start acting on them.
She faked that she was going to turn her relationship into something that lasted longer than a few weeks or a few months, until he got bored of her or until she got knocked up again, and she had no answer for who the father was other than the Democratic nominee for President.
She faked that she was going to mean something to him at the end of it, like she'd faked it last time, even though by now she definitely did know better. Her eyes stung and she rubbed at them.
Lara wanted to touch her son, and she told herself that it was a bad idea but she couldn't stop herself this time, in spite of knowing that she'd only get more worried. She took his hand in hers and he reacted by sucking in air. Then he relaxed again, back to looking as if he were asleep. Was he awake? Why was his fever so high?
The cooling pack that was on his forehead slipped off. She turned it over and put it back, and he seemed to relax more still. The doctors still didn't have a clear idea what was wrong, and worse, they didn't have any idea why the treatment wasn't working.
They'd tried antibiotics, and he was still on them. But he hadn't made any noticeable recovery. They'd tried antivirals. But he hadn't made any noticeable recovery. They'd tried just about everything short of hiring a spirit healer to come in and cleanse him with crystals, and if they didn't do something soon then she would get started with the crazy stuff.
The man on the other end of the phone had told her one thing. He'd told her to think hard about how much she loved her son. The thing that he apparently hadn't realized, or hadn't thought about, was that she was already thinking of that.
The whole reason that she was in this mess was that she thought about her son. Every decision she'd made for ten years had been about him, about whether or not she was doing the right thing for him. Apparently, the guy on the other end of the phone didn't realize that, or he just thought that she needed to be reminded.
A noise near the door pulled her attention away from the near-scalding heat of her son's arms.
"How is he?"
Paul's face looked worried. His hair was a mess. If he didn't get any photos taken, that would be a miracle, because the photos that would have been taken would be plastered over the cover of every tabloid known to man, claiming that he was dying of some form of rare cancer.
Going into a hospital, for that matter. Headlines galore, and not hard to figure out what they'd say, or why. That sort of rumor was an almost guaranteed sale.
"He's not good," she told him.
Paul almost immediately made her feel better. She'd expected that to be the case but she hated that she was right about it. He shouldn't have been the thing that controlled her mood. If Tim was sick then feeling better was just downright wrong. But he made her feel better whether she wanted it or not and she didn't even hate him for it. She hated herself.
"Do they even know what's wrong?" Lara shook her head. No, they didn't, or if they did then they weren't telling her about it. She looked up at him and he frowned, his eyes on Tim's face. "I could call the chief physician. I think he owes me a favor or two."
"What would that even do?"
Paul deflated at the question and Lara immediately regretted having asked it. He was trying his best, she knew, but that wasn't changing her mood. She tried again to convince herself that everything would be fine. Paul was here and he was going to look after her. If not her, then at least Tim.
She looked at him as he stared at her son. He rested one hand on the boy's cheek, gently. There were a thousand ways she could describe Paul, but gentle had never been one of them. He was powerful, he was authoritative, he was dominating and he always seemed to be in control of himself, in control of everyone around him.
But he'd never been gentle. With Tim it seemed as natural to him as breathing. Something in her said she should tell him and damn the consequences. Something else reminded her what had happened last time she tried to tell him. Reminded her that as far as he was concerned there was no room for a child in his life.
He didn't look at her when he spoke next, but his voice had taken on a hard quality. "Tell me about this phone call. Tell me everything. What words did he use? What did he sound like? Did he give his name?"
Lara rec
ounted the story of her call. She gave the number, as well, but he dismissed that part immediately. It was likely a temporary phone number, he said; you could apparently get apps on your phone that used fake phone numbers now.
If whoever the caller was hadn't used one of those apps, it was easy and inexpensive to get a pre-paid phone with a hundred minutes or so, and make as many calls as you needed to without having to worry about it ever being traced back to you.
The idea that Paul knew so much about these things sent a shiver rolling up and down her spine. And the way that he was looking at her son, his face set hard as stone even as his fingers traced the line of Tim's jaw…
She'd always known that Paul Green could be dangerous if he wanted to. His wife gave him a wide berth, and Helen had always been a hard woman herself, unafraid of putting things at risk if it might put her in a good position.
To know that he was capable of being dangerous, and to see him with that expression on his face, were two very different things. She didn't like the feeling that wrapped up her gut and started arousal smoldering in it. She was afraid of him, not aroused.
At least, that was what she had to tell herself, because otherwise she had a lot to think about. With an anonymous blackmailer and a sick son, she already had enough on her plate without having to decide what to do about a masochistic streak.
33
Paul looked at the boy because he couldn't look at Lara. If he did then he wasn't sure what he was going to do but he knew right away that it wasn't going to be something he was proud of.
He was proud when he showed some kind of restraint. He was proud when he knew what he was supposed to do instead of having a big stupid grin on his face. He was proud when he made a problem go away without turning to one of the contacts he'd made that made him feel dirty just talking to them.
