“Actually, it was Abrianna who did it.” She flashed a smile to Abrianna. “Lovely took one look at her and spilled her guts.”
Abrianna smiled and was proud that she had been able to get Lovely to open up, but guilt also crashed within her at learning that Cargill had other children pretend to be her. His sickness knew no bounds.
Kellerman said, “Look, I’m a hit you later. I’m going to tell Randall the good news. Good job, ladies. Bree, I hope you will to go back out there with one our guys so we can get the proper documentation.”
“Of course. I’m willing to do all I can to help end this mad-ness.”
“Great. I’ll talk to you ladies later.”
The women disconnected the call and gave each other a high-five. When they returned to the Agency, everyone in the office looked glum.
Abrianna sighed. “What is it now?”
Everyone’s gazes shifted to Kadir, their faces clearly urging him to be the one to tell them the bad news.
“It’s Marion,” Kadir said. “She has been arrested.”
57
“We interrupt this program for breaking news: Former President Daniel Walker has died this afternoon in Dallas, Texas. He was discovered unconscious by his wife, Nancy. He had apparently lapsed into a deep coma after suffering a massive heart attack. He was rushed to Baylor University Medical Center but then died at 5:42 this morning. He was fifty-six years old. This news comes as the former president was embroiled in a Capitol Hill murder that many have called the political scandal of the century.”
Home from her and Rocky’s morning run, Tomi stared openmouthed at the morning’s breaking news on TV. Within minutes, her house phone and her cell phone rang. Somehow, she snapped out of her trance and caught the cell phone caller before it was transferred to voice mail.
“Yeah.”
“Can you believe this?” Jayson asked, sounding as stunned as she felt.
“I’m waiting for someone to pinch me right now.”
“President Washington has got to be sighing in relief. This spares the country a trial and the eventual presidential pardon that would’ve tanked her in next year’s election.”
“There’s that,” Tomi said, shaking her head. “But a heart attack at fifty-six? He always seemed so fit.”
“Might’ve been genetics,” Jayson said. “Can’t alter that.”
Tomi almost laughed. “Some might disagree with you on that.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” She finally shook off the morning shock. “I’ll see you in the office. I have to jump in the shower and then feed Rocky.”
“You got it.”
They hung up, and she headed off to the shower, marveling at the latest news. “A heart attack?”
* * *
President Kate Washington was a wreck when she received the news of Daniel’s death. Initially, she was in shock, and then she was convinced that there had been a mistake.
There was not a mistake.
She excused herself from a meeting with President Zuma of South Africa to retreat to the White House’s private quarters. She ignored her husband, who was entertaining guests, and hid in her room until her chief of staff came looking for her.
A speech was expected in the Rose Garden about Daniel. For about a half an hour, she honestly didn’t know whether she could do it. Guilt besieged her. Daniel was dead because of her ambition. It wasn’t enough that she had taken his job, but the added stress of her not immediately issuing a pardon to avoid charges of co-conspiring to murder was no doubt the cause of his massive heart attack.
Eventually, she dried her tears, looked in the mirror, and reminded herself who she was: the president of the United States. She owed no apologies to anyone for making it to the top. By the time she returned to the West Wing, there wasn’t a trace left of her distress. When she stepped out into the Rose Garden, for the first time she truly felt like the most powerful woman on earth.
58
The Bunker
On off hours from the Agency, Ghost and Kadir ghosted around the T4S system, using Dr. Zacher’s ID and passcode to access and copy files. Between his full-time hours at the Agency and the T4S probing he did with Ghost as a part-time job, Kadir was borderline sleep deprived. Tonight, their debate was on how they wanted to get the information out to the public without attaching Abrianna or Tomi Lehane’s name. Thus far, there was no way to put the information out without the average reader connecting the dots to the women.
“We have to respect their wishes to remain private,” Kadir argued. “Neither of the women wants to have this scab ripped off in public. We can remove all the names or change them.”
“Then it’s not the whole truth, man,” Ghost countered. “I’m in the truth business. Without the real names, it’s fan fiction.”
Roger put in his two cents. “If you ask me—”
“Which we didn’t,” Ghost countered.
“Go on,” Kadir said.
“Releasing the information redacted or otherwise will force T4S to erase their tracks. Right now, it’s more like they want to monitor Abrianna closely. The idea of exposing the program and associating them with Avery’s serial killing may force them to eliminate all evidence.”
“Erase? You mean they’d kill her?”
“I don’t see where they’d have a choice. Do you?”
Kadir’s hard gaze swung to Ghost.
Ghost sighed. “All right. We don’t release the information.”
“Thank you.”
“For now,” Ghost said. “But we have an obligation to the truth.”
Kadir agreed and understood. He would like nothing more than to storm the place and lay everyone out for what they’d done not only to Abrianna but to all the teenagers and test subjects in their labs. It was wrong, unethical, and inhumane.
“Wait a minute,” Kadir mumbled under his breath.
“Whatcha got?” Ghost asked.
“Dr. Zacher has a personal lab file.”
Ghost rolled his chair over to read Kadir’s computer screen. “What do you mean?”
Kadir couldn’t believe his eyes. “He’s testing this shit on himself.”
“You’re fuckin’ kidding me.”
“No. Look.” He pointed to where he was looking, but reading the most recent notes made his heart drop. “He’s dying.”
* * *
Another night and Abrianna couldn’t sleep. This time, she didn’t even try. She stayed up in her and Kadir’s new two-bedroom apartment, pacing before the television, watching alternating top stories between President Walker’s surprising heart attack and Marion’s arrest. “She in there because of me,” she kept repeating.
Kadir arrived home. “You’re up worrying again.” He shut the front door, shaking his head. “Come on. Let’s go to bed.” He tossed his house keys onto the counter.
“I’ll be there in a moment,” Abrianna said, blowing him off.
Kadir saw what she was watching on the television. “It’s not your fault,” Kadir said. “She knew what was going on. I don’t understand why you’re beating yourself up over this. Given the circumstances, you can’t be concerned about being labeled a snitch. The goal is to shut this shit down. If she’s a part of it . . . ?”
“You don’t understand.”
“I’m trying to understand. Honest.”
Abrianna stopped pacing and cupped her forehead; however, her head’s constant buzzing wasn’t the only thing bringing tears to her eyes. “How about this, what makes Marion any different than me? I know I gave her hell when I last saw her, but really, what’s the difference? Why isn’t she a product of her environment the same way that I am?”
“I don’t follow.”
“Really? How did you feel when you were locked up and all your freedoms were taken away from you? How did it feel as a man to have to ask for permission to do such basic human needs as go to the bathroom? You’re told when to eat, sleep, and shit. Someone is watching your every move, and you better b
elieve there are severe consequences if you don’t do as you’re told. A lifetime of that may lead you to block out atrocities, to secretly drink or get high.” She lowered her head. “A lifetime like that, you’d train yourself how to get as small as you possibly can and pray that nobody notices you.”
Tears leaped over her lashes. “I was angry, and I shouldn’t have said some of the things I said to her.”
“Shhh.” Kadir pulled her into his arms. “I see your point. I don’t know Marion. I just hate that she didn’t protect you better. I shouldn’t judge.”
Abrianna placed her head against Kadir’s chest. “I’ve been judging her for a long time. Marion once said some horrible things to me, and now . . . I don’t think she meant them. She was heartbroken that I had . . . that I . . . killed Samuel.”
“What?” Kadir took a half a step back and peered down at her.
Her heart clenched tighter. Here comes the judgment. “I was nine. Cargill was . . . abusing Samuel and . . . he was screaming. It sounded awful. I can close my eyes at any time and still hear that scream. As usual, I had hid in my closet, hoping . . . praying that it would stop. That Cargill would stop, but . . . he never did. None of us could stop him. But that night, I thought I could do it. I told myself that I had to.” Needing to breathe, Abrianna pulled out of Kadir’s arms. She swiped beneath her eyes once and then let the tears flow, but this time she was determined to get through this.
To his credit, Kadir stood patiently, ready to listen.
“Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I crawled out of the closet and went and took Cargill’s gun out of the safe. I had to stop him. Nobody else was going to do it. But then I entered Samuel’s room and . . . once I started shooting, I couldn’t stop. I hit Cargill, but I also hit Samuel.” She choked on a sob, and before she knew it, she was back in Kadir’s arms.
As she’d secretly prayed, he resumed whispering, “It’s all right. It’s okay.”
“No. It’s not all right. He’s dead because of me.”
Kadir was speechless, but continued to hold her.
Abrianna sobbed. She may have confessed, but she would never forgive herself. Never.
* * *
Tomi needed to come at Cargill Parker hard, but what could she dig up that she hadn’t already learned through Abrianna? She spent most of the afternoon trying to find out the official charges that Marion had been arrested for, as all Capitol Hill reporters were doing at that moment. Of course it had to be something to do with her husband’s charges. Had Marion known what was happening the whole time? She had to have known—common sense. But why hadn’t Abrianna said so? And why was Samuel off limits?
Lautner alluded that Abrianna had something to do with his death, but Marion had said that the kid was killed in a freak firearm accident, hadn’t she? For a while, Tomi tried to make one plus one add up to something other than two. But alternative facts weren’t going to help her with the truth that was staring her in the face.
Did Abrianna kill her own brother—by accident? She had to add the mental tag because she couldn’t believe that it could’ve gone down any other way.
She returned to her numerous files on the Parkers, and she dug again in all the states that the Parkers owned property, and still she couldn’t find a death certificate or even a live birth certificate for a Samuel Parker. Then she thought maybe Marion was Samuel’s birth mother, but Cargill wasn’t the birth father, so she dug for Marion’s maiden name. She couldn’t find that, either. It was hours before she found one certificate for a Marion Parker in Puerto Rico. She almost dismissed it, because what were the chances of her maiden name being the same as her married name? She clicked on the public record and was surprised to see Duke Parker’s name listed as the father on the certificate. She paused, rolled the information around in her head for a while. But it was another one plus one equation.
“It can’t be, could it?” Tomi asked her computer screen. “Marion Parker isn’t Cargill’s wife, but his sister?”
* * *
Cargill was fit to be tied over Marion’s arrest and beyond pissed that Lautner had been unable to do anything about it.
Lautner sighed and told his client yet again, “We knew that this could happen.”
“Get her the fuck out of there. Now!”
“You’re upset, but I need for you to keep a level head. We both know that Marion won’t talk. If anyone knows the rules of this game, it’s Marion. She won’t dare cross the Dragons.”
Cargill nodded, but he couldn’t dispel a lingering bad feeling. Marion had been acting . . . off, lately. For example, she gave an interview to a damn newspaper when she knew better.
“Cargill, are you still there?”
“Yeah. I’m here.” He walked over to the wet bar; the protesters outside briefly caught his attention.
“I’ll call down there and see if I can speed up the arraignment. They aren’t giving me an explanation to why she wasn’t arraigned this morning, but I’ll have her home soon.”
“She was never supposed to be arrested. You assured me.”
“No. I’ve always maintained that it was a slim possibility.”
“I don’t like it.” He reached for the bourbon decanter, but then changed his mind and went for the brandy.
“I know. But to be honest, for appearance’s sake, it’s good that she’s been arrested. We need to check all the right boxes for this defense. Everything is going according to plan, especially with Walker out of the way.”
He’d almost forgotten. “Yeah. It’s still all over the news along with Marion’s arrest.” Cargill sighed. “Massive heart attack. Nice touch.”
“Thank you.”
“I’d rather the asshole had suffered, though.”
“Suffering leaves evidence and raises too many questions,” Lautner reminded him. “But, uh . . .”
Cargill tensed. “But what? Spit it out.”
“I’m handling it, but . . . I spoke with Randall. There are a couple of hiccups.”
I knew it. “We’ve spent a fortune getting her to lose and erase evidence. How much are these hiccups going to cost me now?”
Lautner hesitated.
“That much?”
“Randall claimed that she had had a heated argument with Kellerman. It was bad enough for her to think he’d quit and might go directly to the press about suspicions of her sabotaging the case.”
Cargill drained his brandy. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”
“Agreed.”
“Then take care of him.”
“I don’t think it’s that simple, and neither does she. Apparently, Abrianna and a detective . . . Castillo? I think I’m pronouncing that right.”
“Castillo?”
“Do you know her?”
“We both do. She’s the ex-cop that rescued Abrianna years ago.”
“Oh.”
“Damn it! I knew that bitch was lying. She knew where Abrianna was this whole time.”
Lautner cleared his throat. “They paid a visit to a little girl named Lovely Belfleur. Do you know who that is?”
Cargill’s chest squeezed.
“If you don’t, apparently this little girl remembers you. According to this Kellerman fella, the little girl took one look at Abrianna and spilled her guts.”
“Fuck!” Cargill threw his glass across the room. It shattered against the portrait of his grim-faced father.
“I’m going to take that as a yes,” Lautner said, sighing. “Anyway, I think you see the problem. Randall told Kellerman that she didn’t want to risk putting the little girl on the stand, and he lost his mind on her. President Walker was a big get, but if we start dropping too many bodies, it will be the same thing as planting a big red guilty flag in your front yard. I got to tell you, I’m surprised Abrianna is turning out to be a woman of her word. She’s determined to take us off the dance floor.”
Cargill surprised himself by laughing. “Hardly.”
“So what do you want to do?�
� Lautner asked.
Cargill made himself another drink and processed everything. “We don’t need to drop a trail of bodies. “We need to drop the right one.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I think that little Lovely has outlived her usefulness. We take her out, and Randall’s shoddy case continues to fall apart, and that other fella has nothing to report to the press. But we have to take care of it swiftly.”
“You got it.” Lautner laughed.
“Good. But make sure you get Marion out of jail first. If Abrianna decides to pay her a visit, I don’t want her to all of sudden get diarrhea of the mouth, too. I want Marion where I can keep an eye on her.”
* * *
Castillo couldn’t believe her ears when Kellerman called. “What do you mean your boss doesn’t want to use Lovely as a witness? She’s your star witness. I recorded most of the interview on my phone. Do you want me to send you a digital file so you can take it to her and convince her?”
“Send it over to my personal email in case I no longer have a job and can’t access my computer in the morning.”
“She fired you?”
“Not exactly. I may have quit. I’m not sure. I was so mad, I may have blacked out and said some things that may affect my being able to pay the mortgage next month. But something is going on. I think I accused Randall of personally sabotaging our case during that rage blackout, too. But I will take this to the press if I have to.”
“I don’t fucking believe this,” Castillo groaned. “This is . . . beyond.”
‘What is it?’ Abrianna mouthed to her.
“All right, Melvin. I’ll send that recording over. Please do what you can.” She hung up and looked at her curious crew. “The attorney general doesn’t want Melvin to put Lovely on the stand.”
“Why?” Abrianna asked, shocked.
“He’s not really sure, but he thinks that she’s trying to sabotage the case.”
“Shit. Of course.” Abrianna groaned. “This is like Bowen again. Randall is probably on Cargill’s payroll, too. In fact, I’m willing to bet my life on it. The missing surveillance, erased files, and Randall’s initial anger at Kellerman bringing me onboard. It all makes sense. There’s nothing that man’s money can’t buy. I wouldn’t even be surprised if he’s somehow behind what happened to President Walker.”
Collusion Page 29
