NO SAFE PLACE

by Richard North Patterson

  Lara had never felt this close to anyone.

  Whenever she needed him to listen, he did, whether it was about her career or her family or the harsh demands of their affair. “When you’re away,” she told him after a few months, “I think about you with Meg. Even though you say you never sleep with her.”

  Kerry’s look was gentle, querying. “Would yoube Meg, Lara, if you could be?”

  She took his hand. “I’ve wondered,” she acknowledged. “In spite of everything—my career, the fact that we’d be a scandal. But who you are, the person I want so much, is inseparable from everything I don’t want.” Her voice became quiet. “You’ve been a senator since you were thirty. I can’t imagine you as anything else, can you? Unless, perhaps, as President.”

  He looked down. “If that’s true, Lara, then I’ve become what I’m afraid of being. Someone with no other life.”

  “Maybe you’ve just become what you are. I don’t want you to lose that, Kerry.” She kissed him. “I think you know how I feel, or I couldn’t be here. But if I’m ever married, I’d want a career, a husband who’s got time to be an equal partner, and children who see both of us. That’s not a senator, or a President. Either you’d lose those things by being with me, or I’d lose you tothem .” She turned away. “And knowing that is so painful that sometimes I hate what we both do . . .”

  By unspoken consent, their days were spent in the present, and, in the present, there was little they didn’t share. But often they just made each other smile. One night, at the height of their lovemaking, the sound of a clattering garbage truck beneath Kerry’s window turned passion into a race between fulfillment and complete distraction, until the shudder of their climax dissolved into mirth, two lovers holding each other, laughing helplessly.

  “Timing,” Kerry said at last, “is everything. Two seconds more, and we’d have missed out.”

  Lara kissed him. “And it wasso romantic,” she said dryly. “Like we had a panel of judges with stopwatches.”

  Rolling on his back, Kerry grinned. “I can’t imagine making love in the quiet of nature. Where’s the challenge?”

  Lara turned to him. “Maybe,” she said to her own surprise, “we should try.”

  Leaning on his elbow, Kerry stroked her hair. “An escape?” he asked. “No lovemaking in the urban cocoon, to the mellow sound of boom boxes and the hum of traffic on East Capitol?”

  He was smiling. But in their life, lived hour by hour, the idea of a few days alone seemed precious to her. “If you can,” she said simply.

  His smile vanished, and he looked into her face. “I’ll try.”

  * * *

  For over a year, Lara had escaped discovery.

  If anything, her reporting on Kerry Kilcannon was more penetrating, analytical, alert to the prospect that his growing conflict with Mason over Kerry’s causes—campaign reform, health insurance for children—might lead him to seek the presidency. Sometimes Kerry would joke about this, in passing. But he knew better than to complain; the edge to her coverage was more than protective coloration. In Lara’s mind, it preserved her integrity, at least enough to make them possible.

  “I think you’re right,” Nate Cutler told her at lunch one day. “He’s going for it. The positions he’s taking are like a blueprint for running against Mason.”

  Lara finished her bite of seared tuna. “Maybe he believes in them. I’m sure he does, actually.”

  Nate nodded. “Then he’s that much more likely to do it, and save us all from boredom. Races in both parties—a reporter’s dream.”

  Lara looked down, appetite lost.

  Watching her, Nate hesitated; misinterpreting his silence, she was certain that he somehow knew about her affair with Kerry. “Listen,” he said, “I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner this Friday.”

  He was fidgety, she realized, uncomfortable as she was, but for different reasons. “The two of us?” she asked lightly. “You mean, like people who go out together?”

  He tried a smile. “Something like that. Unless you think there’s an incest taboo.”

  Lara smiled in return. “Haven’t you read the data on office romances? Tragic, and the woman always pays. Just like the President’s chief economic adviser, out of her marriageand her job.” When he grimaced, she touched his arm, voice softening. “It’s not just that, Nate. And it’s certainly not you. There’s someone else.”

  He looked up from the table. “You never said anything. Is this relationship some sort of mystery?”

  Lara summoned another smile. “Completely,” she answered. “Even to me. Someday I may need a friend like you.”

  * * *

  When she went to Kerry’s apartment that evening—fearful, as always, that someone might be following—the conversation was still on her mind.

  Kerry was late. She went to his kitchen nook, slid the wine she had brought into the refrigerator, next to the marmalade she reserved for predawn breakfasts, before she had to leave.

  His apartment was barren—a couch and a television, a few magazines and pictures—and felt empty without him. As empty as Lara might feel after he was gone.

  He’s going for it.

  Nate thought so too. And for the right reasons—the more Kerry’s beliefs widened his fissure with Mason, the more impelled he would feel to run. And then it would all close around him: the need for Meg, the Secret Service, the heightened scrutiny of Nate and all their peers. There would be no place left for her.

  The door opened. Kerry walked in, tie askew, a look of disgust graven on his face.

  Quickly, he kissed her. “Sorry,” he said. “I was at the old EOB, discussing our nation’s future with America’s greatest almost-living Vice President. A man truly worthy of the office.”

  Lara handed him the glass of chardonnay she had poured to share with him. “No help coming?” she asked.

  He sat next to her on the couch. “It was ridiculous, Lara. The man’s so pleasant that the depth of his cynicism takes your fucking breath away.” His voice held quiet anger. “He’s everything that’s wrong with politics in the nineties—cowardice masked as cleverness, leadership by poll, symbolic gestures, careful attention to special interests. What’s so depressing is how little Dick Mason matters to anyone butthem . And himself, of course.”

  It was happening, Lara thought. Mason was mishandling Kerry—perhaps because he still could not imagine that Kerry’s motives were any different from his own.

  “Tell me about it,” she asked.

  * * *

  The old Executive Office Building was all wood and marble and filigree, beautifully restored. Mason’s decor reflected a certain need for borrowed gravitas: a desk that once belonged to Henry Clay, royal-blue curtains trimmed with gold, a delicate vase from a recent trip to China, a pen set used by John F. Kennedy. Dick Mason, Kerry thought sardonically, had already entered history.

  With gracious authority, Mason waved Kerry to a chair. But Kerry was in no mood for anything but business.

  “We need to pass campaign reform,” he said bluntly. “You know why, morally and politically. The system’s so corrupt that it’s breaking down entirely, and the Republicans are killing us with pictures of you and Arab arms dealers.”

  Mason gave him an indulgent smile, though his eyes were keen. “I didn’t knowwho they were, Kerry, and I regret it. But these things fade.”

  “Maybe by 2000,” Kerry said. “And maybe not. But 1998 is already here. We’ve got off-year elections in six months.” Pausing, he softened his voice. “I’m not here to lecture you . . .”

  Mason raised his eyebrows. “Not even to threaten me?” he asked in a jocular tone.

  Kerry stared at him. “Ido threaten you,” he answered. “Even when I’m not trying. And it’s getting in the way.”

  Mason touched his chin with tented fingers and then smiled again. “If I’m still the problem, Kerry, tell me how I can fix this.”

  Kerry leaned forward. “Support my bill in the Senate. I don�
��t mean lip service. I mean getting out front, asking my colleagues for help—putting yourself, the party, and the administration on the line for this.” Kerry’s voice grew urgent, imploring. “You can do so much, Dick. Help me, and all the shady contributions won’t make a damn. You’ll be a born-again reformer, whose own innocent experience with the way things are have proved to him that it’s unacceptable.” He paused, and then finished bluntly. “The President’s in trouble, Dick—this thing about him breaking up Beth Slater’s marriage isn’t going away. You need more to set you apart from him than Jeannie and the kids. And campaign reform is ‘moral’ with a capital M.”

  Mason’s smile was that of a tutor for a slightly dull pupil—kind, patient, and somewhat condescending—tainted by suspicion. “Have you thought about the politics, Kerry? Not enough Republicans will support you; they raise even more money than we do. For some of them, corporate bribery helps offset the parlous effects of letting ordinary people vote—”

  “So reform is in our interest,” Kerry interjected.

  “So,” Mason continued, impervious, “we need every senator on our side of the aisle, and we’d still lose in the House. Then I’m the guy who got fucked twice—not bright enough to turn down the money, not strong enough to fix things.”

  “Dick,” Kerry said in a low voice, “this isn’t just about you.”

  Mason stopped smiling. “True. It’s the Kilcannon-Hawkins Bill we’re talking about.”

  “And either way,” Kerry snapped, “you lose. That’s all that matters, isn’t it.” He felt a hopeless anger wash over him. “You figure I’m running in 2000 and that you’ve got enough money to squash me like a bug. So campaign reform’s my little gimmick to choke off all the cash and steal your place in history.”

  Mason’s face became opaque, a mask. “The thought never occurred to me, Kerry. But clearly it’s occurred to you.”

  Kerry stared at him. “Do you ever feel like a pygmy, Dick? With every minute we spend together, I feel myself getting shorter.”

  Mason returned his stare, then shrugged. “See me as you like, Kerry. I don’t think people out there care enough to justify the risk. And I’ve never thought leadership meant lost causes and self-inflicted wounds.” For an instant, his eyes grew hard, and then he smiled again. “That’s really more your department, I think.”

  Kerry simply looked at him, the slightest smile of his own appearing in his eyes. “If that’s what you believe, Dick, I don’t mind.” He stood. “Please give my love to Jeannie, by the way.”

  Mason stood, shaking his hand. “Always,” he answered lightly. “And to Meg. When next you see her.”

  * * *

  Finishing his account, Kerry poured another glass of wine.

  They sat together, evening shadows filling the apartment. There was little Lara needed to say. Both of them understood the implications: campaign reform was dead this session, and in the perverse synergy between Mason and Kerry, the Vice President had drawn him that much closer to running.

  “Remember what you said,” he asked her, “about an escape?”

  At first, Lara was surprised, and then she realized that he, like she, must feel time closing in on them. “I remember,” she answered softly.

  TWO

  Lara sat on the beach, leaning back against Kerry’s chest, and watched the sun, descending, burnish the ebbing waters.

  They had been on Martha’s Vineyard for a day. “Here,” she said to Kerry, “I feel we’re a couple.”

  For four days they could live without worry: the house, off Dogfish Bar, was at the end of a dirt road near Gay Head, so quiet that few people knew how to find it. Unconstrained as they were by apartment walls, the need to hide, their time took on a careless quality: that morning they had stood in water swelling to their waists, feeling the light breeze on their faces, the warming sun. Kerry looked young, contented, filled with life.

  “I’ve discovered something,” she had told him. “You’re a nature sensualist. Cities have been bad for you.”

  Hands shoved in the pockets of his windbreaker, Kerry laughed, savoring the scent of seawater, the bracing cool of the Atlantic. “I’m a Lara sensualist,” he answered. “I’m only tolerating this.”

  Lightly, she had splashed his face with water. “If you want me,” she announced, “I want lobster. On the beach.”

  He wiped the water from his eyes. “You mean there’s takeout?”

  They spent the rest of the day as they pleased: A climb in the foothills above Menemsha, ending in a panoramic view of the sound, speckled with white sails, the Elizabeth Islands green patches in the spreading blue. Then a walk in the town itself, a fishing village where, in sunglasses, Kerry seemed to go unrecognized. Finally, the purchase of two lobsters. “A down payment,” Kerry said, as he put them in the refrigerator.

  Holding hands, they walked to the bedroom.

  From the windows, no one could see them. They lay naked in the sunlight, unhurried, touching as they looked into each other’s faces. She traced the scar on his shoulder with her fingertips, then the thin line of hair running between his breastbone to his waist. But it was his eyes that had always drawn her; a deep blue-green, they gazed at her, a window to his emotions.

  I’m in love with you,she thought with sadness.I’ll never love anyone this much again.

  The sudden certainty, held at bay for months, was like a catch in her throat. His eyes were intent now, questioning. “What is it?” he asked.

  “De nada,”Lara murmured. The words he had used the afternoon Lara had met him, two years before.

  Two years, and now you’re so much a part of me I don’t want to let you go.

  He kissed her throat. “Oh,” he murmured. “It’s hardly nothing.”

  Later, she lay in his arms. Would a life for them be possible, she found herself wondering, if Kerry never went beyond the Senate?

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Kerry said.

  Gazing at the ceiling, Lara shook her head. “I seem to have lost control of them.”

  “Why? And over what?”

  “Give me time,” she answered. “To sort things out.”

  Kerry did not press her. He had the grace of silence, Lara thought, another gift she valued. But it was more than that, now. Kerry simply knew her.

  “I’m hungry,” Lara said after a while. “I thinkthat’s what it was.”

  Together, they planned dinner, then went to gather driftwood on the beach.

  It was a mile of white sand and half-buried rocks, stretching toward the final red-clay promontory on which the Gay Head lighthouse stood, a distant spike against the blue of early evening. They found a spot free of rocks and scooped an indentation with their hands, then started a fire with the help of matchsticks and dried sea grass. Within moments, they were sipping chardonnay from paper cups as they waited for the lobster pot to boil.

  Tender, the lobsters tasted of lemon Kerry had squeezed, the drawn butter Lara had melted in a pan. They sat back in the sand, drinking wine, pleased with their achievements. “Not bad,” Kerry said, “for a couple of urbanites.”

  At dusk, they watched the sun backlight a thin line of clouds, the sky fade to cobalt. Things seemed so much clearer, Lara thought, when she slowed down, altering the pace and rhythm of her life. And then a truth about her relationship to Kerry struck her so hard that, to her surprise, she spoke it aloud. “Something’s changed for me,” she told him.

  “What is it?”

  She shook her head. “It’s hard to explain, Kerry. But all my life I’ve been afraid of being like my mother was with my father—lost to herself. Even after he took off with someone else, she loved him so much that she kept his picture in a drawer, just to look at.

  “I never told her that I knew. But I promised myself I’d never be like her. That I’d have my own life, some irreducible self that belonged to no one but me.

  “I’ve lived that way, until now. No one would ever make me forget who I was.” Pausing, Lara realized that it wa
s better like this—talking to the water instead of facing him—and made herself go on. “When we started, no matter how strongly I felt about you, I knew we had our limits. I wasn’t going to be a political wife, or someone like my mother. The rest of my life, my career, went on as it had. And I tried to believe that, when we ended, the core I’d kept would help me face that.”

  “And now?”

  “I know I’ve been lying to myself.” The sting of tears caught her by surprise. “It’s too good being with you like this.You’re too good, and I’m having a hard time with that.”

  His arms tightened around her. Silent, they watched the sun vanish. A night wind, stirring to life, cooled their skin.

  “Lara,” he said at last, “I never thought you wanted more than what we have. But if you ever do . . .”

  “I’ll tell you. For now, I just need to be quiet with this.”

  For a long time, she was.

  The night closed around them. Burrowing against him, Lara gazed at the star-streaked sky, brighter for the absence of a city, listened to the deep spill of the ocean, the crackle of red, dying embers. “I’d like you to tell me something,” she said finally. “Areyou running for President?”

  Behind her, she felt Kerry shift his weight, his chin resting lightly on the crown of her head. “It’s too soon, Lara.”

  “You’llknow soon—after the off-year elections. Either the President and Dick repair the damage, or the party stays in the minority.” Tilting her head, she gazed up at the stars. “I think it will. And so do you. That’s part of why we came here now, isn’t it?”

  His silence, Lara thought sadly, was a tacit acknowledgment that what she’d said was true. “I look at Mason,” he said at last, “and I think of all I’d do if I were in his place. But even if the President and Dick are the last passengers on theTitanic , the cost of running is so high.” His voice dropped into a lower register—pensive, thoughtful. “And then there’s this endless cycle of myth-making and myth-destroying. It’s the one thing Jamie escaped.”