Allison was still with Liz when Dutch walked into the suite. Liz was sitting quietly on the sofa while Allison was seated in the chair texting on her Blackberry. She stood up as soon as the president entered.
“May I be relieved, sir?” she asked as she stood to her feet.
Dutch smiled. “Get out of here,” he said and Allison grinned. But she kept on going. She couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Dutch could see that Liz was sober and freshly scrubbed now, although the anguish in her eyes was still there. She was dressed in different clothes, a simple black dress Allison had apparently rounded up for her, and she looked more, if not entirely, like the Liz of old.
“You look better,” Dutch said honestly as he headed for the bar.
Liz smiled. “I made a fool of myself, didn’t I?”
Dutch didn’t respond. He poured himself a glass of wine, poured her a glass of juice, and then took a seat in the chair flanking the sofa. Liz accepted the glass of juice, but didn’t sip from it. She looked at the president instead.
“Thanks for not letting them toss me out,” she said.
“Why has it come to this?” he asked.
“Come to what?”
Dutch didn’t respond.
Liz leaned back, crossed her legs. With her smooth, brown skin, her bright hazel eyes, her gorgeous body, she still was a beauty to behold, Dutch thought as he stared at her.
“I did it wrong,” she said. It was the same thing she had said at the fundraiser.
Dutch considered her. “What did you do wrong?”
“All of it. Everything. And now I’m pushing forty and I’m all alone. When you turned me down in Brussels, I saw myself for who I really was. For what I really was.”
“And what is that?”
“What do you think it is, Dutch?”
“You were a whore,” he said matter-of-factly.
Liz looked at him. Amazed that he had said that. Then her defensiveness left. “Yes,” she admitted. “I was a whore. I thought my body, my looks, was all I needed to get by. I was wrong.” Tears began to appear in her eyes. “Now I’m alone and all those men I used to take from those older women, doesn’t want me either. Because I’m the older woman now.” She shook her head. “I did it all wrong, Dutch.”
Dutch put his glass on the side table and went to her. He sat beside her and pulled her into his arms. He leaned back, with her in his arms. “Don’t beat yourself up,” he said. “You can’t go back. It is what it is.”
Liz looked up at him, his arms like a balm to her soul. “Why did you put up with me?” she asked him. “I used to think it was because you were in love with me. But you weren’t. Were you?”
Dutch never believed in kicking somebody when they were down, but he didn’t believe in lying, either. And besides, he reasoned, she needed to face the truth. “No,” he said. “I was never in love with you.”
“But you love Gina?”
Dutch was uncomfortable dragging Gina into this. “Yes,” he said.
“Why her and not me?” It was less a plea of envy, it seemed to Dutch, and more a plea for help. She wanted to know the truth.
“I could have fallen for you, yes,” he said. “You certainly had every feature I found attractive. But I never completely fell for you because of that one flaw in your otherwise wonderful character.”
“What flaw?”
“You enjoyed fucking,” he said bluntly. “As did I. But you didn’t know how to set boundaries. There were no limits with you. There was no sense of right is right and wrong is wrong. I couldn’t trust you as my life partner. As my friend, your private life didn’t affect me.”
“Except when I tried to jump your bones,” Liz said with a smile that did not reach her eyes.
“Except that, yes,” Dutch said, smiling too.
She looked at him. “What’s the answer, Dutch?” she asked him.
Dutch looked at Liz, thumbed hair out of her pretty face. Their faces were within an inch of each other’s. “I can’t give you advice, Liz. I’m no saint either.”
“But you’re a good man, and a faithful man, and that’s what I want. I want to be good and faithful. Please tell me,” she pleaded. “What’s the answer?”
“What do you want me to say? The answer is that you do it right from here on out, that’s the answer. There’s no silver bullet here. You stop worrying about your looks and your body and who you can fuck, and focus on your soul. Looks and a good bod, and you have both, will take you just so far. They have taken you far. But only what’s inside of that good bod will take you home.”
“A man likes to fuck and he’s a stud. A woman likes to fuck and she’s a slut. That is so unfair, Dutch.”
“I know it is. But it’s a fact of life as we know it right now. No man is going to marry the trick. They play the trick, and marry the lady.”
“Like Gina?”
“Let’s keep my wife out of this.”
Liz stared at him. “You protect her, don’t you? No matter what, you protect her.” Tears began to appear in her eyes. Dutch pulled her closer against him. “I don’t know how that feels,” she said. “I’m pushing forty years old, and no man has ever protected me.”
Her words unleashed a round of tears that caused Dutch to hold her even tighter.
And later, when she went to the bathroom to clean up and, Dutch hoped, to then be on her way, he went over to the bar and freshened his drink. But just as he was dropping an ice cube in, he heard what appeared to be unrelenting sobbing.
He hurried into the bedroom, and was about to head for the bathroom, but there was Liz, balled up in a fetal position on his bed, crying her eyes out. Dutch exhaled, and leaned against the door jamb.
Six hours later, two detectives arrived at the door of his suite.
SIX
“Well, good morning,” Gina said as LaLa walked into the First Lady’s East Wing office and moved slowly toward the conference table. “What happened to you?”
LaLa, with a cup of coffee in hand, sat her purse and briefcase on the conference table and then glanced at her wrist watch. “What do you mean?” she asked as she sat down too. “I’m on time.”
“Yes, but you’re usually the first one here,” Gina replied without looking up. She was seated at the conference table reviewing her schedule for the coming weeks. “What’s wrong?”
LaLa yarned, lifted the plastic top off of her coffee cup. “I haven’t been sleeping great lately.”
Gina looked at her friend. “And why’s that?”
LaLa hunched her shoulders, and then exhaled. “Crader called last night,” she said.
“Okay.”
“He said he wanted us to have a serious conversation when he got back.”
“But let me guess: you don’t feel there’s anything more to talk about.”
“Yesterday, last night even, you’re right, I didn’t feel there was anything more to discuss. But as that night turned into day, I don’t know. I feel differently.”
“Differently how?”
“Different like . . . In a way I like being by myself and not having to answer to anybody else. Sometimes I love it. But in a way I hate it, too. It’s like I want somebody to love, and to love me, but I don’t know how to go about it. Maybe Crader’s looking like a better option to me. But I don’t know if it’s because he is a better option, or I’m just desperate now.”
Gina leaned away from the table and folded her arms, her sincere eyes staring into her best friend’s troubled eyes. “What’s happened to make you even wonder about all of that?”
LaLa sipped from her coffee. Looked down at her coffee cup. “Robert Rand happened,” she said.
“You mean when he came up to the Residence last night?”
“That’s what I mean. We thought, at first we thought he was coming to maybe ask me out or something. You remember?”
“Yes, of course.”
“But then he just pretty much ignored me and focused on you. And I just sat the
re feeling like a fool, you know? Why do I put myself through this shit, that’s what I kept thinking. My life is pretty okay, you know, until some man comes along. When we were in the Virgin Islands he was acting like he was all into me, like he couldn’t get enough of me.”
“But I thought you weren’t all that into him.”
“I wasn’t. But I liked the attention. It made me feel like maybe I’m not as hopeless in the love department as it was beginning to appear. But last night, that man wasn’t thinking about me. Just like, in the end, every man I’ve ever shown the least interest in.”
“Except for Crader,” Gina said.
“Except for Crader,” LaLa agreed. “He messed up big time, and I’ll never forget what happened, but he hasn’t given up on us when he should have a long time ago. If only he wouldn’t have let that Liz Sinclair touch him we would have probably been married by now.”
“And you wouldn’t have fully understood what you were getting yourself into.”
LaLa looked at Gina. “What do you mean?”
“Crader likes the ladies, La. Just as Dutch likes the ladies.”
“Dutch?”
“Yes, Dutch! He ain’t perfect, none of these men out here are.”
“But the president has never been unfaithful to you.”
“I would be shocked if he was, yes,” Gina admitted. “But it’s not just about taking some woman to bed or letting some woman give them a blow job. It’s about the fact that they like the ladies. They like having them around them, talking with them, smelling their sweet perfumes, looking at their soft bodies and just enjoying their company. Have you checked out the president’s White House staff lately? If you haven’t noticed, most of his aides are females.”
“But they aren’t all beauty queens.”
Gina shook her head. She loved LaLa, but when it came to men, LaLa had a lot to learn. “They don’t have to be beauty queens,” Gina explained. “Dutch isn’t into beauty queens. He sees beauty in somebody’s uniqueness, not in somebody’s facial structure or slamming body or anything like that. That’s one of the things I love the most about him actually. That’s why most women love Dutch. He gets it. And they understand that he gets it. But he’s a long way from perfect. If you’re looking for Mr. Perfect, even Dutch Harber will fail your test.”
LaLa smiled. “So you figure I should have forgiven Crader and snatched him up a long time ago?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. You have to make that call, La. All I’m saying is that I’ve paid attention to Crader McKenzie. He’s a flawed man, yes, he is. But he’s a good man, La. I’m sorry, but he is. And even good men mess up sometimes.”
The door opened and Christian Bale, carrying his own cup of coffee and a briefcase, entered the First Lady’s lair. “Good morning, ladies!” he said cheerfully as he took his seat at the conference table.
“Why are you so chipper this morning?” Gina wanted to know. Christian, like LaLa was one of her aides.
“Why wouldn’t I be chipper?” he replied. “My father-in-law is a man I love and admire. My mother-in-law is a woman I love and admire. One of my closest friends, you LaLa, is somebody I love and admire. And my wife. . .” He smiled.
“Your wife what?”
“Gives me good lovin’, honey,” Christian said in such a sister-girl way that both Gina and LaLa leaned over laughing.
“You have changed so much,” LaLa said after the laughter died down.
“Jade’s changed. After the president talked to her, she seems to be more. . .”
“Lovable?” LaLa said and Christian grinned.
“There ya’ go,” he said.
The buzz was heard on Gina’s desk. Christian, still smiling, walked over to the desk and pressed the button. “Yes, Marge,” he said.
“Tell Mrs. Harber that the Attorney General is here to see her.”
Christian, surprised, looked at Gina. Gina nodded.
“Send her in, Marge,” Christian said into the intercom.
LaLa looked at Gina. “She’s new, right?”
“Yes.”
“I haven’t even met her yet.”
“Me, either,” Christian said as he walked back toward the conference table.
The door to the office was opened and Primrose Grier, the president’s new attorney general, walked in. LaLa and Christian had seen her on television and knew her to be a tall, imposing woman, but the TV, they both privately thought, did her a disservice. This woman was well over six feet tall, slender but curvaceous. She wore huge heels, a pant suit with a long, flowing, matching coat, and she carried a Blackberry and what they could only describe as a walkie-talkie. She was a dark-skinned African-American, full lips and nose, and with almond shape dark eyes that were as big as quarters. Her hair was long and straight down her back and her makeup was minimal. Calling her beautiful wouldn’t work at all because beauty wasn’t the main thing she projected. She oozed strength, and power, and fierceness.
Gina had said that Dutch loved surrounding himself with unique women. This woman, LaLa noted, certainly fit that bill.
“Good morning, Mrs. Harber,” Primrose said as she walked toward the conference table. Christian looked from the woman to Gina. The president selected the most exotically attractive women he’d ever seen to be on his staff, and it didn’t seem to bother Gina at all. He could only pray that someday Jade would have that kind of confidence in him.
“Hello, Prim, love that suit.”
The comment seemed to catch Primrose off guard. She was loaded for bear. She hadn’t expected any compliment. “Thank-you,” she said as if she was unaccustomed to small talk.
“Would you like some coffee or juice or something?”
“No, ma’am, I’m. . . not here for that.”
“Understood,” Gina said, staring at the Attorney General. “Have a seat.”
Primrose seemed almost flustered about nothing, LaLa thought. Then thought again. A woman that size, and that fierce, was accustomed to being in control. But Gina controlled this room.
“Yes, ma’am,” Primrose said and took a seat at the conference table.
“I’m not sure if you know my two assistants. This is Loretta King, and my son-in-law Christian Bale.”
Gina Harber looked far too young to be calling some grown man her son-in-law. She was only thirty-seven herself. But Prim wasn’t the type to mind other people’s business. “Nice to meet you both,” she said. Then she looked at Gina.
Gina was nobody’s fool. The Attorney General didn’t visit her unless some craziness was going down. Gina was trying to rack her brain as to what offensive thing she could have said or done since their return from the Virgin Islands. “What’s happened?” she asked.
“It’s the president, ma’am,” Primrose said.
Gina’s heart dropped. “The president? What about the president?”
The desk intercom buzzed again. Christian hurried to answer it.
“He’s currently being detained by the San Francisco police about an incident that occurred overnight.”
“Christian,” Gina’s secretary chimed on, “please tell the First Lady that the National Security Advisor and the president’s political director are here to see her.”
Gina’s heart was pounding. If Manny Levine was coming to see her, she knew it had to be something major and something so politically damaging to the president that he couldn’t manage it by phone. Christian didn’t even bother to ask permission when he heard that Manny was with the National Security Advisor. He told the secretary to send them through.
Gina, however, was still so confused it was beginning to infuriate her. “Why is my husband being detained, Prim?” she asked the Attorney General.
“I used that word, but detained is too strong a word. He’s being questioned, although he’s been instructed not to answer any of their questions, because there was an incident that occurred overnight.”
“You told me that already. Please don’t tell me that again. Tell me why is it th
at my husband is being questioned, detained, whatever the hell you want to call it.”
The office door opened and Ed Drake, the president’s National Security Advisor, and Manny Levine, his political director, hurried into the office.
“Oh, Prim, you’re here, good, good,” Manny began saying as soon as he entered. “How are you holding up, G?” he asked Gina. But before she could even answer he pivoted back to the Attorney General. “I take it you’ve briefed the First Lady?”
“No, she hasn’t briefed the First Lady,” Gina snapped. Then she turned to Ed Drake, a man she respected. “Ed, what’s going on? What’s happened to Dutch?”
Ed walked over to Gina, sat in the chair beside Primrose and across from Gina. He patted her hand. “You remember Liz Sinclair?”
Gina glanced at LaLa. Liz Sinclair and Crader had had a sexual encountered that led to LaLa’s break-up with him. Yet she was Dutch’s friend and just as he didn’t throw Crader under the bus for allowing the situation to unfold, he refused to throw Liz under the bus for unfolding it. He eventually fell out with her, when she came onto him in Brussels, and Gina thought that was the end of that friendship.
“Of course I remember Liz,” she said. “What does this have to do with Liz?”
“Liz Sinclair was found dead in his hotel room, Gina,” Ed said.
Gina just stared at Ed. Surely she had heard him wrong. Liz was dead? Did he just say Liz was dead? “She’s dead?” she asked, to be certain she didn’t mishear him. Both LaLa and Christian were floored too.
“Yes. She was found dead in his hotel room”
“Oh, no,” Gina said with anguish. “That poor woman.” Then Gina thought about his actual wording.
“In his room? What do you mean she was found dead in his room? Why was she in his room?”
Ed glanced at Manny Levine. And it was obvious that both Ed and the director were too personally attached to the president. They looked to Primrose.
Primrose took it from there. “Apparently he invited her up,” she said.
Again, Gina found herself at a loss for words. This couldn’t be true. Why would Dutch invite her up to his hotel room? And how is it that she ended up dead?
Dutch and Gina: The Power of Love Page 7
