Born to Run (16 page)

Jack took a seat atop the wicker clothes hamper. "I'd be curious to hear it."

"Does that mean our deal is back on?"

"I'm going to say yes. But you're on a roll here. Keep going."

"All right. Let me see if you think the way I do. You got your e-mail after Chloe got hers." "Right."

"Somebody else got the same e-mail before Chloe got hers."

Jack hesitated. He knew that was true from information he'd gotten from the FBI, but he was reluctant to be as forthcoming with Paulette as he once had been. "Let's assume that's true for argument's sake."

"Fine. I'm thinking that Chloe was sandwiched between two bookends. And we all know what bookends do, right?"

"Hold up books?"

"They match, genius."

The closet was dark, but the figurative light suddenly went on. "So if the son of the future vice president got the e-mail after Chloe--"

"Then the daughter of the sitting vice president got it before Chloe did."

"And they both get the same offer," said Jack.

" 'I can make your father president.' "

The line was silent. It was as if, for each of them, hearing it aloud made it sound so logical.

Jack said, "What do we do about this?"

"I called Elizabeth Grayson today and asked her to meet me. I didn't tell her what it was about, but I don't think it would have mattered. The bitch sent me to a Goth bar and didn't show up. Obviously she has no intention of talking to me about anything. Probably still holds a grudge over my sister sleeping with her father. But didn't you mention that you had a lunch date with her?"

"Yeah. She offered to give me a few pointers about having a father who's vice president, but--"

"That's the perfect pretense."

"I don't know. The last time we talked, it was pretty awkward." He was thinking about her late-night visit to the hotel.

"Jack, you are our only shot. If you don't do this, all we can do is wait for the FBI to sort this out on their own terms and on their own schedule. By that time, your father could be part of an administration that is neck-deep in a congressional investigation. And time will only tell who is left holding the bag. Is that what you want?"

Jack considered it. She'd punched exactly the right button. He couldn't help but fear that his father was descending into the land of no return--especially after his conversation with Andie.

"Jack, is that what you want?"

"No," he said, gripping the phone tighter.

"So, you'll meet with Elizabeth?"

Suddenly, Jack was all too aware that the FBI was asleep in his bed. But it didn't change his mind.

"Yeah. I'll do it."

Chapter
25

Paulette was in her car when an idea came to her.

Tomorrow's schedule was busier than usual, starting at 6:00 A
. M
., when she and the congressional correspondent, the chief political consultant, and the senior legal analyst were slated to begin taping a four-part segment on the political and legal ins and outs of the Harry Swyteck nomination. Paulette should have driven straight home and gone to bed. Instead, she drove home, grabbed the key to Chloe's apartment, and hopped right back in her car.

There was no available parking on the street, so Paulette pulled around to the back alley and squeezed her car in between a Dumpster and a utility poll. She climbed out, and the car door closed with an empty thud. The quiet alley was dimly lit, a single yellow-tinted light glowing at the street entrance. While the cold night air had felt good upon stepping out of Club SI, it now made her cinch up her coat and walk quickly. The click of her heel echoed in the alley, and it made her stop and look around. The backs of the surrounding buildings were covered with burglar bars. Not another human being was in sight. The sounds of the city had seemed to evaporate. Urban quiet. It reminded Paulette of her first job as a crime-beat reporter--that eerie, ghost-town effect that marked high time for crime. Her gaze drifted toward Chloe's apartment building, and she could see the lone window in the corner with its second-story view of the alley. She thought for a moment of Chloe all alone, looking out her window toward trash cans and the backs of buildings. Then her thoughts turned t o a stranger standing in this very spot, looking up toward Chloe.

Paulette shook off the image and started toward the rear entrance to the building.

The back door was locked, but Chloe's passkey still worked. Paulette pushed the door open and climbed the stairs to the second floor. The police tape was gone, and there was absolutely nothing about the door to Chloe's apartment to tell the world that a young woman had been murdered. Weird, but even though she'd attended the funeral and written the obituary, Paulette had a fleeting thought that if she knocked, Chloe might answer. Murder was against the natural order of things, and it could play terrible tricks on the mind.

Paulette inserted the key. The tumblers clicked, the lock disengaged, and Paulette opened the door. She was about to switch on the light, but she stopped. From where she was standing, she could look all the way across the little efficiency and out the lone window in the corner. In the darkness, with the alley lit behind the building, she could actually see the very spot where she'd been standing and looking up toward Chloe's apartment just a few minutes earlier. She walked across the room in the dark and tried to pull the Venetian blinds shut. They were broken, however, and the slats wouldn't close all the way. It gave Paulette an eerie feeling. She wondered if it had ever occurred to Chloe that she was on permanent display.

Paulette went back and switched on the light. She would make this quick.

The forensic investigators had left the place reasonably undisturbed--nothing like the way they would have dissected an actual crime scene. The rent was paid through the end of the month, and one of the tasks on Paulette's to-do list was to sort through Chloe's belongings and clear things out. Tonight, however, her focus was on just one of Chloe's possessions. A prized possession. Her autographed photograph of Vice President Grayson.

The framed photograph was still hanging on the wall. Paulette crossed the room and took it down.

She hadn't studied it closely on her last visit, the morning after Chloe's death, when the homicide detective had brought it to her attention. Seeing it then had triggered only sadness. A seemingly unimportant detail, however, had lodged in her brain--and with all the recent talk of the vice president's daughter, her sadness had morphed into suspicion.

Elizabeth Grayson was in the photograph.

Paulette moved closer to the lamp for a better look. The pose seemed almost candid, or perhaps it was a staged pose that had broken down into something more casual. The vice president was seated on the corner of his desk. Chloe was standing next to him. Elizabeth was right beside Chloe. Right beside her--with her arm around Chloe's shoulder. The two women were smiling widely, heads tilted to the point where they were almost touching.

Paulette laid her hand atop the photograph and covered the vice president. With him out of the picture, the photograph told an entirely different story. There was nothing forced about the connection between the two women. Chloe and Elizabeth looked like old girlfriends, a couple of college-aged women cutting up and having a laugh in the White House.

Suddenly, the vice president's betrayal was of a whole new magnitude.

Shit, Chloe. How could you have done that to a friend?

Paulette put the photograph back on the wall and switched off the light. One last glance through the half-opened blinds rekindled that Ym being watched feeling, and she resolved to come back and clean out Chloe's apartment in the daytime. She locked the door on her way out, took the rear staircase to the back entrance, and started toward her car. She hadn't parked far away, but the night was turning colder, and the walk across the cracked concrete seemed longer than it was. Paulette didn't frighten easily, but she was eager to get out of there. She reached into her purse as she approached, disengaged the lock with the keyless remote, and opened the driver-side door. Her hand was actually shaking as she aimed the key at the ignition--and the tip had just touched the slot when she felt the plug of cold metal behind her right ear.

She froze.

"Don't make a sound," the man said. He was behind her in the backseat with his gun to her head.

"What do you want?" said Paulette.

There was silence. Enduring silence. The man couldn't or wouldn't tell her what he wanted. Paulette did not take that as a good sign. Suddenly his left hand was at her throat. She gasped, about to scream, but he shoved a bottle in her open mouth.

"Drink," he said.

Paulette couldn't have swallowed if she'd wanted to. The barrel of the gun pushed more firmly against her skull.

"I said drink"

Paulette's heart raced with fear, but whatever was in the bottle had to be better than a bullet in the brain. She tilted her head back, and the warm liquid poured down her throat. It was bitter and a little salty, unlike anything she had ever tasted. She coughed through the last few swallows.

"All of it," he said.

She closed her eyes tightly and forced the rest down. When she finished, he took the bottle from her lips.

"Good girl," he said, though his voice seemed strangely distant, as if she were hearing only the tail end of an echo. "Now we wait. We wait. We . . . waaaaaait."

Chapter
26

The scream woke Jack at dawn, and he shot bolt upright in the bed. The window shades were drawn and the room was still dark, but Jack immediately sensed that the other side of the bed was empty.

"Andie?" he said, but he didn't wait for a response. He heard something--muted voices?--and ran toward the kitchen.

"Whoa!" said Theo, shielding his eyes. "Forty-year-old naked man. Not pretty." Jack quickly wrapped himself in a towel from the hallway linen closet and entered the kitchen. Andie was standing at the counter, already dressed for work and making coffee.

"What was the screaming about?" said Jack.

"Oh, you mean Andie?" said Theo. "There's a black man in the house, there's a black man in the house!"

Andie swatted him. "I didn't say that. I just didn't expect someone to be standing in the kitchen."

Jack said, "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Time to go fishin', dude. Dolphin are running."

Jack had a three-year lease on the most modest waterfront property on Key Biscayne, one of the original "Mackle houses" that were built mostly for World War II veterans who were brave enough to live in what was, at the time, little more than a mosquito-infested swamp. The house originally sold for twelve thousand dollars, and the current owner was renting it out to Jack until market appreciation added three more zeros to the land value--which wasn't far in the offing. It was basically a two -
bedroom concrete shoe box, but it came with over one hundred feet of waterfront and a dock. Four years ago, Jack and Theo had gone boating, and by the end of the day, they were too tired to load the boat onto Theo's trailer. Jack said he could dock it overnight. It was still there.

"Coffee?" said Andie.

"Sure," said Theo.

"She was asking me" said Jack.

Andie poured a cup for each of them. Jack enjoyed the aroma before drinking. Theo gulped his, then said, "I hear President Keyes is a real coffee carouser."

"Connoisseur, Webster."

"Sorry, I don't speak Latin."

"It's French."

"Technically, it's English," said Andie, reading from the web
-
page on her iPhone. "Derived from old French. Originally from cognoscere, which is Latin."

"I was right!" said Theo.

"Whose side are you on?" Jack asked Andie.

Theo poured himself more coffee. The guy couldn't get enough of anything that was free.

"So," said Theo, "did you at least have coffee with the prez in the White House before you got canned?"

"I didn't get canned."

"That's what the paper said."

"Shit, it was in the newspaper?"

"Jack," said Andie, "you were fired, okay?"

"I repeat: Whose side are you on?"

She didn't answer. Her gaze was still fixed on the display screen of her iPhone, but she had turned very serious.

"Something wrong?" said Jack.

"I--" she started to say, then stopped. Jack knew she'd received one of those FBI e-mails that she couldn't tell him about.

She looked up and said, "Turn on the television."

Jack grabbed the remote and switched on the set. Andie took the control from him and tuned to CNN. On-screen, a reporter was standing outside a three-story apartment building. The red banner with white letters at the bottom of the screen identified her as Heather Brown, and her location was listed as the LaDroit Park neighborhood of Washington, D
. C
.

"That's where Chloe Sparks lived," said Jack.

Andie raised a hand, telling him to listen.