by Carsen Taite
Jeff stood but didn’t invite any of them to sit. “How nice of all of you to come, but Dean Riley and I have known each other for many years. I think we can have a little conversation in private.”
After her last meeting with Burrows, Addison had looked forward to being insulated by the group for this session, but no way was she going to project weakness. “Fine with me, although perhaps you could find a more comfortable place for the group to wait. We’ve been relegated to the benches out front for a while now.”
Julia shot her a grin at the admonition and she smiled back. It was the closest thing to a connection they’d experienced since she’d discovered her apartment had been burglarized.
Once inside Jeff’s office, she didn’t wait for an invitation to take a seat and she settled onto a couch to the side of his massive desk. Jeff sat in a chair across from her and glanced at his watch.
“How long should we stay in here? Will half an hour be long enough to convince everyone I’m well acquainted with your positions? Or is fifteen minutes sufficient?”
Addison settled back against the cushions, more comfortable now that he wasn’t trying to project a veneer of friendly banter. She’d already glimpsed this version of him, and she was prepared for the worst he could deliver. “Why even bother meeting with me? You obviously don’t want to even debate the issues. I may not agree with you on most subjects, but I’ve always thought you had the power of conviction behind your principles. Was I wrong about that?”
“I’m very principled, certainly more so than the cardboard cutout of a president who saw fit to nominate you, but principles don’t get you elected. It’s all about appearances. Meeting with you, smiling while we agree to disagree, that’s how I come to be viewed as a statesman instead of a crackpot.”
“I guess you’ve gotten pretty good at fooling people.”
He laughed. “You have no idea, but aren’t you supposed to be sucking up to me?”
“You know that’s never going to happen. I’ve always respected you, but I’m beginning to think my regard was misplaced.”
“Looks like we’re even.” He looked at the closed office door, and then back at her. “Shall I be perfectly honest?”
“What? Up to now you’ve been sugarcoating your feelings?”
“I have no doubt your baby-killing girlfriend is just the tip of the iceberg. You have other skeletons, and I will find them. You have no idea what you’ve unleashed. When it gets really bad, when you wish you could crawl in a hole somewhere, remember I warned you.”
He’d demonstrated his power by digging up Eva’s past. Maybe she should be afraid, but the only feeling she could muster was anger. Anger that he thought he had the power to subvert the process, anger that he’d harm an innocent bystander to get his way, anger that she’d ever considered him a friend.
She stood and made a show of looking at her own watch. “I think fifteen minutes is plenty of time, don’t you?”
He made a mock bow. “Fine by me. Enjoy the rest of your pointless afternoon of interviews. I hope you haven’t already resigned from your job at the law school.”
She smiled a big Cheshire cat grin and left without another word. Asshat. Forcing a slow pace, she strolled up to the secretary’s desk and asked where she could find Julia and the rest of the group.
“Conference room. Over there.” The mousy woman pointed toward another door.
“Please let them know I’m waiting for them outside.” She walked out into the hall and began to pace. Seconds later, Julia appeared at her shoulder, her voice soft, but urgent.
“Are you okay?”
Addison looked into her eyes, trying to read the source of her concern. “I’m fine. Where to next?”
“You were only in there ten minutes, fifteen tops,” Tommy said.
Julia turned to him and made a slashing motion across her throat, but Addison placed a hand on her arm. “We’re old friends. Jeff, I mean Senator Burrows, already knows all he needs to about me and he wanted to respect the limited time we have.”
Julia’s eyes narrowed, and Addison could tell she wasn’t fooled. She wasn’t even sure why she didn’t tell them the truth, but somehow Jeff’s continued animosity toward her nomination was almost embarrassing. She didn’t have time to sort things out, but she could avoid an interrogation from Julia. Spying a sign for the restroom, she said, “I need just a second to freshen up. I’ll meet you by the elevators.”
She took off walking before anyone could respond. Down the hall, around the corner, until finally she was alone. In the restroom, she leaned against the counter and took a few deep breaths. Her reflection surprised her. She looked confident, poised, not at all flustered by the confrontation with Jeff. She could pull this off. If this interview was the worst, and it had to be, then she was in for an easy few days.
Composed inside and out, she stepped out of the restroom and started back down the hall. As she turned the corner, she nearly ran into a man coming from the opposite direction. She opened her mouth to apologize, but recognition stopped her cold.
“Detective Conland?”
“Excuse me?” He glanced around nervously.
Her gut told her to walk away. She knew he was the detective who’d been at her apartment Saturday night, but why was he acting like they’d never met? And what was he doing here? He couldn’t be looking for her, could he? If so, he wasn’t a very good detective because even in a suit, she didn’t look much different than she had when they’d first met. For a brief second, she considered needling him about the investigation, but the strong sense that he’d had something to do with Weir’s journal disappearing from her apartment held her back. She flashed back to the predatory look he’d worn while watching her in her bedroom and she abandoned interaction. “Nothing,” she said as she kept walking.
By the time she reached the elevator, a churning sense of dread rumbled through her. Julia, Gordon, Tommy, and some other people she didn’t know were laughing about something as she walked up. Standing several feet away, she remembered her calm reflection in the restroom mirror. She briefly closed her eyes, willing composure to return, but when she opened her eyes, Julia was staring right at her, no longer laughing, her eyes piercing their way to her heart. She edged her way toward Addison and pulled her aside.
“Something happened. What did Burrows say to you?”
“Nothing I haven’t heard before. I promise, he was only honest. Don’t expect his support.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Addison shook her head. She wanted to tell Julia about the encounter with Conland, but she didn’t want that to become the focus of the afternoon. “It’s nothing. I just saw that detective from Saturday. Conland. He acted like he didn’t remember who I was.”
Julia pulled her closer and waived Gordon over. As he walked over, she whispered, “Where? Where did you see him?”
Addison pointed down the hall. “Around the corner. We ran into each other literally, he was—”
Julia cut her off as Gordon appeared at her side. “Gordon, take Addison to her next meeting. I have to make a phone call. Don’t let her out of your sight.” And a second later, she was gone.
Addison stared at the space where Julia had been, confounded by her sudden disappearance. One more disappointment in an already very disappointing day.
*
Julia waited until she rounded the corner to pick up her pace. So far no sign of Conland in the hall, but she figured she knew exactly where he was headed, and she was on her way there. She was just a few feet from Burrows’s office when she heard a voice call out to her. She turned and saw Connie Armstrong headed her way. Julia glanced back at the doors to Burrows’s office. She couldn’t ignore Armstrong, but she had to know if Conland was in there. She settled for assuming a position to the left of the doors and waiting for Armstrong to come to her.
“Where are you headed in such a hurry?” Armstrong asked. “Is Dean Riley meeting with Burrows?”
&n
bsp; “No. She just met with him. She’s on her way to her next interview. Senator Jimenez.”
“Any particular reason you’re not with her?”
“You do realize she’s quite capable of talking to these people without someone holding her hand?”
“It’s your job to make this process as smooth as possible. The president assured me he would do everything possible to get Addison confirmed. Pretty sure he expects you to shepherd her through the process.”
Julia looked at Burrows’s door and then back at Armstrong. As much as she hated to admit it, Armstrong was right, but the interviews were the easy part of the process. For all she knew, Conland was in there, handing over Weir’s journal to Burrows who would probably destroy it. But would he stop there or would he take more drastic action to make sure Addison didn’t take Weir’s spot? If he was capable of conspiring to kill a sitting Supreme Court justice, it wasn’t much of a stretch to believe he would and could eliminate a potential successor, especially one he vigorously opposed. Armstrong was right. She should be with Addison, but wasn’t protecting her more important than promoting her?
Instinct fueled a blurted out question. “Who do you know and trust with the Capitol Police?”
The senator’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“Please, it’s important.” She willed Armstrong to get the urgency of her request without further explanation.
“Lieutenant Burke heads my detail. I trust him implicitly.”
Of course. Julia had forgotten that Armstrong, as president pro tem of the Senate would have her own security detail. “Can you ask him to come here right now? It has to do with Addison, and I promise I’ll explain.”
Connie Armstrong apparently got it, because she didn’t ask any more questions. Instead, she pulled out her phone and sent a text. Seconds later, her phone buzzed with a response. “He’ll be right here. Now, I need to know what’s going on.”
“I promise I’ll tell you, but I have to make a quick call. Do you mind waiting here for Burke?” She started to walk away to make a call, but then added, “And interrupt me if anyone tries to leave that office.” Ignoring Armstrong’s annoyed look, she walked a few feet away and dialed Reeves. When he answered, she launched in.
“You need to get that search warrant right now. Detective Conland is here at the Capitol, probably in Burrows’s office with Weir’s journal. I’ve got someone from the Capitol Police headed here to make sure he doesn’t leave, but for all I know they’re in Burrows’s office having a bonfire right now.”
“I don’t have enough to get a warrant yet. No federal judge is going to give us permission to search a senator’s office with what we’ve got. We need something more concrete.” A few seconds of silence preceded an apparent revelation. “Wait, did you see Conland take the journal into Burrow’s office?”
“No, but why else would he be here?”
“Not good enough. Did you say you have someone from the Capitol Police there?”
“Lieutenant Burke. He’s assigned to Senator Armstrong.” Julia looked over at Armstrong and saw she’d been joined by a man in a suit. “Hang on.” She walked over and stuck out her hand at the man. “Julia Scott. And you are?”
“Lieutenant Doyle Burke. Senator Armstrong said that you asked to speak to me.”
Julia looked at her phone and then handed it over to him. “Tell the man on the other end who you are and then do whatever he says.”
She watched while Burke exchanged a few short phrases with Reeves and then he handed the phone back to her. She put it up to her ear. “Yes?”
“You and Senator Armstrong make yourselves scarce. He’s going to detain Conland when he leaves and question him about why he’s in the building. I’ll be joining him, and if he has any information to implicate Burrows, rest assured, we’ll get it out of him. When he talks, we’ll get our warrant.”
“But what about the journal? If Burrows has it, he could be destroying it as we speak. Maybe I should go back in there.”
“You think he’s going to let you in if that’s what he’s doing? There’s nothing we can do about that without tipping him off, and if we tip him off now, we’ll never get a confession out of him or Conland. Trust me. This is our best chance. If Conland confesses, we won’t need the actual journal to implicate Burrows.”
He was right. She had no choice but to trust him, but with Addison’s safety in the balance, she didn’t want to trust anyone. “Fine, but I want additional security on Dean Riley until this is resolved. And I want to be kept informed about what’s going on. The minute you have Conland, let me know.” She had no right to make these demands. She was a contractor, not a regular employee of the White House, and her duties did not include directing the government’s law enforcement resources or even merit receiving reports about the results of an investigation. She prepared for pushback, but Reeves was either beat down or he was willing to delay engaging with her.
“I’ll call you as soon as we know something. And we’ll arrange for additional security. Thanks for letting us know about Conland.”
After the call ended, Julia stared at the phone. She wanted to call Gordon and tell him to get Addison out of the building, back to her hotel where she could sit under guard until this ordeal was over. But Burrows might get wind of the change to her schedule and take action. The best thing they could do was to act as if nothing was going on. She glanced over at Senator Armstrong, still standing a few feet away. She owed her the truth. She’d tell her what was going on and then rejoin her group. If she couldn’t whisk Addison away to safety, she would at least stick with her for the rest of the day, vigilant about any potential threat.
Chapter Thirty
“What are you still doing here?”
Addison looked up at Roger who was standing in her office doorway. She thought he’d left hours ago. It was Christmas Eve and the building was deserted. Perfect time for her to get some work done. “I don’t think I’m ever going to catch up. Last week put me so behind.”
“Does it really matter? If things go the way they should, this”—he gestured at the piles of paper on her desk—“will become someone else’s problem.”
“Key word ‘if.’” She was cautiously optimistic. With the exception of the meeting with Jeff Burrows, her interviews on the Hill had gone surprisingly well. Even the staunch conservatives seemed to warm up to her once they got to talking, proving it was always easier to hate an abstract. The thing that really had her off-balance was the distance between her and Julia. She understood, even if she didn’t like, the arm’s length handling of their personal relationship, but Julia had put a healthy dose of professional distance between them as well. Julia had accompanied her on interviews, but had avoided small talk in between, often disappearing for an hour at a time, leaving Gordon to escort her through the gauntlet of meetings. She hadn’t spoken to Julia this week at all, although she’d seen her across the room at the small memorial service given for Larry Weir. Julia had slipped out of the church before she could find her, and she had spent the afternoon wondering what she’d done to earn the cold shoulder. If she could figure out a way to shake the discreet security detail that followed her everywhere, she’d show up on Julia’s doorstep and demand an explanation.
Silly thought since Julia didn’t owe her anything. Even during the night they’d shared, naked and intimate, Julia had never promised anything beyond the moment. She was doing her job, and she’d never pretended to offer Addison anything more. She’d do well to focus on her own work and stop letting her thoughts wander to a judgeship she may not get and a woman whose every action made it clear she was off-limits for the long term.
She turned back to Roger. “You should go home, enjoy the holiday. I promise I won’t stay long, and the suits out front will run interference in case any stray reporters don’t have anything better to do than hound me the day before the holiday.”
She’d finally moved back into her apartment building a few days ago and, with new locks and a secu
rity detail, she felt practically anonymous. The Drudge report about Eva’s abortion still had protestors picketing the White House, but the D.C. police had been vigilant about keeping the protestors away from her block. Eva had left town immediately at the end of the semester to wait out the storm. Addison hoped this was all worth it, for her and everyone else involved.
Which brought her back to Julia. Did she have plans for the holiday or was she working? Addison cast back to what Julia had told her about how she’d spent Thanksgiving. Ordering in Chinese food. Didn’t sound like much fun, but that’s what she’d probably be doing herself this holiday since her father was in Montana and Jack was in Afghanistan. In the meantime, she’d focus on her work.
Roger reluctantly agreed to leave, but as he started through the threshold of her office, Addison’s phone rang. She glanced at her desk phone and then realized it was her cell. Roger waited in the doorway while she answered.
“Hello?”
“It’s Gordon. Are you near a television?”
Addison motioned to Roger to turn on the TV. “What channel?” she asked into the phone.
“Take your pick. The FBI is executing a search warrant on Senator Burrow’s office.”
“What?” Addison sank into her chair as she struggled to digest the news. “Why?”
“I, um, well I don’t know the whole story, and it’s probably better if we don’t get into it over the phone anyway. Julia just wanted me to let you know so you wouldn’t be blindsided by any reporters that may get past your detail.”
Julia was thinking about her, but she hadn’t called. The obvious snub stung, but Addison refocused on the content of what Gordon had to say. “Are you sure about this? And hasn’t he already left town?”
