America the Beautiful

by Laura Hayden

  As Emily’s closest friend, she’d seen the casual family snapshots too, chronicling Emily’s earlier years. She remembered seeing shots of a cherubic young Emily with waist-length blonde hair and then photos of a slightly older Emily, her long hair gone and replaced with a dramatically short haircut.

  “It must have been a shock for you both.”

  “It shouldn’t have been,” Emily retorted. She took a deep breath and continued. “She simply didn’t expect me to rebel in quite that manner. But she knew I was both a Benton and a Rousseau. Bentons take charge and Rousseaus manipulate. I simply used the strength of one side to remove the control of the other.” Her shoulders sagged a little. “Things were never the same between me and my mother after that.”

  There was nothing Kate could say to respond to this, so she simply continued brushing in calm, even strokes. But she thought of the love she and her mother shared unconditionally, and she thanked God their relationship had been so close and so simple. And she prayed that Emily would find the peace she needed. Soon Kate could almost feel the tension flow out of Emily in palpable waves.

  “I miss her sometimes,” Emily finally said in a quiet voice.

  Kate realized she could take the statement two ways and she chose the least innocuous. “Your mom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If you feel like you need to visit her, we could probably clear some time in mid-May for a quick trip to Paris.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Oh.” What else could she say? Kate couldn’t imagine the circumstances that would cause such emotional distance between her and her own mother. Sure, it’d been hard for her mother to let go, but then again, Kate’s mother believed in influence, not manipulation. Her security in Christ gave her the freedom to love all those around her unconditionally. It was a gift that Kate hoped she’d inherit one day. She still struggled with showing the fruit of the Spirit as effortlessly as her mom did. That influence stayed with a person, wherever they went in life. Unlike Emily’s mom, who clearly bartered love and manipulated the young Emily. Maybe that was why Emily was so tough. That manipulation stopped the moment she jerked herself out of her mother’s grasp. It was a tough lesson and she’d apparently learned it well.

  And it was still ruling her life, if Kate’s observations were right.

  “Thanks.” Emily suddenly stood up, shaking off the momentary reverie, and held out her hand for the brush. “I needed that breather. I have to admit everything’s happening faster than I expected. But don’t get me wrong; I like what’s happening.” A gleam of determination danced in her eyes. “I like it very much.”

  It was just like Emily to turn off one emotion and go right back into business mode. She’d learned it young, maybe as a defense mechanism in the meat grinder of her famous family. Kate had learned out of necessity not to question such changes but to simply roll with them. In this case, it gave her an opening she’d been looking for. “So, what about Bochner? What are you going to do about him?”

  Emily didn’t hesitate in her answer. “If he announces that he’s pulling out of the race tomorrow, then it means he really is a party man. I’ll admire him for that.”

  “Enough to offer him VP?”

  Emily picked up the hairbrush and began to brush her own hair. “I have to admit I’ve thought about it. He’s a smart man, his military experience will definitely be an asset to us, and I think we could get along. At least he’s remained civil during our debates.”

  She dropped the brush and reached instead for the telephone on the bedside stand. “I’m going to head to bed now. See you in the morning at—” she consulted her planner sitting on the bed, running her finger down the agenda—“seven sharp. G’night.”

  Summarily dismissed, Kate paused at the door to glance at Emily, already dialing. If she was using the hotel phone, that meant she was calling someone within the hotel. It didn’t take a PhD to guess it was Chip McWilliamson.

  As Kate headed to her room, she tried to turn her thoughts far away from Emily with Chip. There was something about the young man that Kate didn’t like, but she was still unable to put her finger on the exact problem. Young might be the operative word, but opportunistic wasn’t far behind. However, his references were impeccable; she knew that because she’d checked them out personally. Twice. Kate tried to tell herself it was simply a form of jealousy on her part—that she was sharing a close friend with someone else now, and any reservations she had were understandable in that context.

  After all, Emily had the right to enjoy some personal time, even if she chose someone inappropriately young, somewhat inexperienced, and just a bit smarmy.

  As Kate fumbled with her key card to enter her own suite, her mind jumped to the right description.

  Someone convenient.

  And since when did Emily do anything simply because it was the convenient thing to do?

  After she got home, Kate didn’t call Nick, despite the reminder message he left on her answering machine. She wasn’t sure why she hesitated, but in the long run, it didn’t matter. Nick called her again in the late afternoon.

  “Can you meet me at eight?”

  Her instincts said, No. No way. . . . Absolutely not! “Nick, I don’t think it’s a good idea for us—”

  “It’s about Gilroy.”

  “Can’t you just tell me over the phone?”

  “There’s someone you need to meet.”

  She closed her eyes and sent up a prayer. God, please tell me what to do. Am I seeking revenge or just wanting closure? I can’t tell.

  The answer didn’t come attached to a lightning bolt. She found it within her own heart. She didn’t want retribution or revenge. Just to understand why and then close the door on the fear and get on with her life. Maybe Nick had his hands on a key that could help her do that. “Where do you want to meet?”

  He gave her directions to a house near Chantilly, several miles beyond the Beltway on U.S. 29. Kate knew the area well enough to not need a map. “That’s a little ways out in the burbs, isn’t it?”

  “We’re less likely to be seen or recognized. Neither of us wants to be seen consorting with the enemy. I figured a little precaution seemed in order.”

  By seven thirty, the worst of the rush-hour traffic from D.C. radiating out to the suburbs was over. Kate made good time and reached the neighborhood a few minutes early. New to the world of clandestine meetings with the enemy, she wasn’t sure whether she should wait in the car until the scheduled time or simply walk up to the door early. Stay in the car and someone might drive by and recognize her. Then again, the house had a For Sale sign; no one would think it odd if she were seen looking around the property.

  A light rain had begun to fall, and when she stepped out of the car, she felt somewhat shielded from curious onlookers by her plain black umbrella. Thank heavens, her unique pink plaid one had suffered irreparable damage during their last storm.

  Before she could knock, the door opened. A pleasant-looking man greeted her. “Ms. Rosen? You’re early.” He moved back and opened the door farther, gesturing for her to enter.

  “I hope that’s not a problem.”

  “Not at all. Please come in.”

  When she stepped inside, her footsteps echoed in the empty foyer. Through the archway to her right, she saw a cavernous living room with a fireplace at its end. To the left, an ornate but unlit chandelier hung low in the middle of the space, suggesting it was meant as a dining room. Neither room had furniture.

  The man reached out a hand. “My name is Kevin Cho, and you called me because you wanted to view this property.” He opened his pad folio and pulled out a home flyer with a business card stapled to its corner. “Most people make notes on the flyer when they tour a place. So afterward you might want to take a quick peek at the house and jot down a couple of remarks to substantiate that you were actually here.”

  “S-substantiate . . . ?”

  Nick’s voice reverberated from the rear of the house. �
��We’re back here.”

  Kevin, the real estate agent, gave her a salesman’s smile. “They’re in the kitchen. Through that hallway.” He paused. “And if you do become interested in the house, please let me know. I’ll be upstairs so the three of you can have some privacy.”

  After the man headed up the curved staircase that presumably led to the bedrooms, Kate walked tentatively down the hallway. It blossomed into a large gourmet kitchen with gleaming steel appliances and sleek black cabinets. Nick and another man sat on stools at the counter, playing cards.

  At the sight of her, Nick hopped down and took several steps toward her. “Thanks for coming.” It was an awkward moment—as if he was unsure whether to shake her hand or offer her a hug. Kate solved his problem by doing neither. She still had her doubts and she didn’t exactly hide that.

  “Why am I here, Nick?”

  “Because my friend has some information that you need to hear.”

  The other man stood up, crossed over to her, and instead of holding out his hand, reached into his jacket and pulled out his wallet.

  “Jim Trainor. FBI.”

  She glanced at the identification long enough to recognize the seal and his name. Her heart quickened.

  He continued. “I was one of the people who questioned Daniel Gilroy. And I wanted to talk to you about what he said.”

  Kate remained perfectly still, her instincts whispering for her to be suspicious. “What’s wrong with this picture? If the FBI wants to talk to me, all you guys have to do is respond to the dozen or so calls I’ve made to you. Or even crook your little finger and I’d make a beeline to the Hoover Building to talk.” She pinned him with a glare. “Why go through Nick to talk to me? Why all this?” She glanced over her shoulder, indicating the empty house beyond.

  Trainor shrugged artfully. “I’m sorry for all the pseudo-spy stuff, Ms. Rosen. My superiors don’t know I’m here, but Nick thinks you need to know. I agree. I could lose my job if anyone learns why we’re here. So we have three reputations to protect.” He paused and added a cryptic “If not more.”

  Trainor turned back to his stool and plopped down, gesturing to the empty seat beside him. “Please?”

  She looked at Nick, who nodded toward the counter with a silent sit and listen request.

  Kate hesitated. What real harm would there be in listening to what the man had to say? At best, he might have some real information. At worst, she’d have wasted two hours and inadvertently rekindled the ember of desire she’d buried for a beautiful house like this in the burbs.

  She took a seat at the counter and crossed her arms, then uncrossed them, realizing how petulant she must look.

  Once Nick was settled next to her, Trainor began. “I was one of three people who questioned Daniel Gilroy once he was brought into federal custody. We started with the threatening notes. He denied any knowledge of the first note you received. We did find fingerprints on it, but they weren’t his. They’ve yet to be identified. We don’t believe he sent it.”

  “But the second note?” she prompted.

  Trainor pulled a copy of it from the file folder sitting in front of him. “Gilroy admitted he’d written that second note. He then launched into a rather long-winded explanation of his philosophy of government, but it was mostly incomprehensible. Once he got to a stopping place, we asked him why he wanted to harm you. That’s when . . . that’s when his weird answers got even weirder.”

  “How so?”

  “At first he talked about seeing you and Nick conspiring against Emily and how upset that made him.”

  Kate turned to Nick. “Gilroy must have seen us together at the bagel shop in New Hampshire.” She returned her attention to Trainor. “But we weren’t conspiring. We were just talking. In public, no less.”

  “In any case, then he started telling us about how his stepmother, Connie, tempted him into betraying his own father, and he compared that to you, Nick, and Emily.”

  Kate and Nick looked at each other. “Huh?”

  “Gilroy blamed his stepmother/wife for . . . How did he say it?” Trainor thumbed through his folder, pulled out a report, and read, “‘. . . for blinding me with my own greed, enticing me to deceive my own father and to steal that which was rightly his.’ It seems that after she married Senior, she talked Junior into ousting the old man from his own power base.”

  Kate supplied the next part. “Then she divorced Senior, married Junior, doing so because she thought she could get control of the group from Junior. But she and Senior died in a car accident, leaving Junior with complete control.”

  Trainor and Nick stared at her, both somewhat surprised.

  “That’s old news.” She shrugged. “I did my homework. But what does any of that have to do with Emily?”

  “It took a while, but we finally figured out that he was trying to draw an analogy between the betrayal he’d experienced with the betrayal that he thought was about to be sprung on Emily.”

  “By Kate and me,” Nick supplied. “But why would he even care about what happens to Emily? I can’t imagine she’s his favorite person. She brought him to justice, literally.”

  “We asked him about that, and it turns out that while incarcerated, he spent most of his time conjuring up a . . . for the lack of a better word, a fantasy love life centered around the woman who ‘saved’ him from himself—Governor Emily Benton.”

  “O-o-okay,” Nick said, obviously fighting some sense of incredulity. “So he thought Emily loved him. . . . Then his note to you must have been a warning that he knew you were being enticed by the devil and that he, the devil—meaning me—would die. Not you.”

  The revelation sat in Kate’s stomach like a stone. “He was warning me in advance about his plans to attack Talbot headquarters?” She turned to Nick. “I had no idea. . . .”

  He raised his hands in mock surrender. “I don’t blame you. It went over my head just like it did everyone else’s.”

  Trainor pulled out a copy of the “Handmaiden of the Devil” note. “Yeah, a little punctuation would have helped.” He took out a pencil. “This is how we all read the note.” He added the missing bits so that it read: Repent, Handmaiden of the Devil! She who serves The Devil will die by the hands of True Believers.

  “This, as it turns out, is how he said he meant for it to be read.” Trainor erased the first changes and added different punctuation. Now it read: Repent, Handmaiden of the Devil, she who serves. The Devil will die by the hands of True Believers.

  Kate stared at the words. “Gilroy thought he was helping Emily? By killing Nick?”

  Trainor nodded. “He said he knew that if the temptation was removed—i.e., Nick—you might redeem yourself and faithfully serve Emily again.”

  “But we . . . ,” she faltered. “But Nick and I . . . we’re not . . .” She looked helplessly at Nick, but instead of agreeing, he flushed slightly and turned away.

  Trainor stepped in to end the awkward silence. “I know. But Gilroy sees what he wants to see. In his own situation, had Connie been removed from the equation, he believes he and his father would have patched up their differences.”

  “Oh.” Kate sat for a while, trying to digest the revelation. Both revelations. She never should have agreed to meet with Nick in the first place. Pure and simple. Nothing had been said at the bagel shop that couldn’t have been said over the phone. She didn’t need to meet him again, learn how much he’d changed, see how he’d worked hard to regain his respectability. . . .

  Dear Lord, deliver me from temptation. . . .

  Luckily Nick couldn’t read her thoughts. He reached over and patted her hand. “The man is a certified nut job. A wacko. A flake. A raving lunatic.” His attempt to laugh bore more than a hint of hollowness, then died off to silence.

  “I’m sorry you were injured, Nick,” she said at last, finding the words. “And I’m even sorrier that I didn’t listen to my first instinct.”

  “Which was?”

  “Not to meet with you. I told
myself there was nothing wrong with hearing you out. Well, I guess now we know I was wrong.” She sat at the counter lost in her thoughts—not ones of accusation but of regret, of should-have-knowns. Then something hit her. She turned to Trainor.

  “Why hasn’t the FBI released its findings? Why is this considered some big, deep, dark secret?”

  Jim Trainor looked her dead in the eye. “Because we think Daniel Gilroy is lying or that someone is using him.”

  Both she and Nick gaped at him.

  The man tapped the note sitting on the counter. “We do believe Daniel Gilroy wrote this note. But we believe it was delivered seven years ago. To his wife, Connie.”

  At their stunned silence, he continued. “The original note was used at his trial as proof of his mental state. I think you’d agree that it makes him sound pretty unhinged. When we pulled the case file on him, we discovered that someone had replaced the original note with a xeroxed copy.” His face darkened. “The last time the evidence file for that case was pulled prior to our request was at the hands of District Attorney Peter Shaiyne.”

  Kate heard the words but discounted them immediately.

  But judging by the look in Nick’s eyes, he’d also made the Benton family connection and he obviously thought it was possible. “So you’re suggesting that Emily got her cousin’s husband to pull the complete files—evidence included—steal the original note, replace it with a replica, and then . . . ,” he hesitated as if wondering if he should say his thoughts aloud. “Then Emily sent the original to Kate in order to implicate Gilroy. But why?”

  “Public sympathy, perhaps? Or free publicity. Or perhaps the relationship between you and Ms. Benton isn’t as finalized as you both thought.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” Kate and Nick spoke the words simultaneously.

  Nick crossed his arms and stared at the agent, his body language a true reflection of his disbelief. “Okay, let’s assume for the sake of argument that Emily did this for reasons we haven’t yet determined. Then why is Gilroy lying and helping her cover this up?”