Death's Last Run (17 page)

MARTHA

Ted smoothed his pressed white shirtsleeve and picked up his pen. The campaign office was buzzing with activity, but the energy was subdued. Which Martha didn't blame anyone for — if she were a staffer on this campaign, she'd be scurrying in dazed confusion, too.

“Is that a Mont Blanc?” Martha couldn't remember having seen the pen in Ted's hand before.

“I didn't think it was very presidential for your assistant to be writing with a Bic.”

Martha lowered her voice so she wasn't lambasting Ted in front of the others. “Did that come out of campaign funds?”

“No — constituency funds. Should I spend my own money on office supplies?”

“Change the books. I'll write a personal check and the pen belongs to you. Call it a birthday present.”

“My birthday's in September.”

“Do you care? It's a free pen.”

An intern arrived with coffees. “Chai latte for Senator Westlake . . . um, was it dark roast with milk for you, Ted?”

Martha thanked the young woman for her coffee and gave her a big smile. She liked this office — an open white space with lots of dark hardwood — in the West Eighties, ten blocks from her brownstone. It felt companionable, working alongside her team.

“It was blond roast with cream.” Ted was glaring at the intern.

“Oh.” The girl laughed nervously. “Sorry. Same difference, right?”

“Not even close. Did you get your own order right?”

“Um. Yeah, because I was there.”

Ted shook his head. “Well, at least you're free labor. You get what you pay for,
right
?”

The girl chewed her lip. “Um. I'm really sorry. I'll listen better next time.”

She wandered off, two blond braids trailing behind her.

“Ted, what was that?” Martha hissed. It had taken all of Martha's restraint not to call Ted out in front of the intern. “That girl is volunteering her time to help my campaign. We should treat her with nothing but gratitude.”

“Sorry,” Ted said. “If you worked here more often, you'd understand.”

Martha raised her eyebrows.

“She's just . . . frustrating. Only listens halfway.” Ted leaned forward in his chair. “The
FBI
called. I'm afraid there's some difficult news.”

“What difficult news?” Ted should know she loathed preamble.

Ted's knuckles were white around his new pen. “There's a note. From Sacha.”

Martha moved her lips but couldn't speak, at first. “A . . . note.”

“A suicide note.”

Martha set her latte down, afraid it would slip out of her hand. “What does she say?”

“They won't let me read it. But they've analyzed the handwriting. It's hers.”

Martha's stomach was churning; she found herself wishing for mint tea. But if she asked for some now, her campaign team would worry — it was way too out of character. Maybe there were some soda crackers around, or some plain white bread . . . She said, “Sacha must have known she was about to be murdered.”

Ted reached across and touched Martha's hand. Martha jerked hers away.

She opened her eyes. “She must have known, someone must have forced her to write it, because Sacha didn't kill herself. You agree, right?”

Ted took a long breath in. “Do you want some more time off?”

“If I take any more time off, I might as well hand the nomination to Kearnes. I want to hammer out my platform, as planned.” Actually, Martha wanted to crawl into a hole with Jules and every letter Sacha had ever mailed from summer camp, every finger painting she'd created in preschool. “I need to push forward.”

Ted slid a piece of paper across the desk. “Here are some more detailed talking points I've been working on. I've taken the research of Zedillo and a few others and Americanized the language so it will hopefully appeal to everyone with a brain. The trouble is . . .” Ted looked around.

“The trouble is, most voters don't have a brain.” Martha finished his sentence.

Ted smirked. “Yeah.”

“I think I have to get savvy with this new media. I'm going to need the support of the younger generation.”

“You mean social media? Facebook and Twitter?”

“And, uh . . . a blog?”

“You have a blog. Christy and Melissa run it.”

“Great. Will it work if I start writing posts?”

“All the posts?”

“I don't know. How often do we post?”

“Daily. Sometimes every other day.”

“Maybe I could write the post once or twice a week. Can I sign it as me, so voters know when I'm speaking to them directly?”

“Uh, yeah. I think so.”

“Good. Make it happen. Something else has been nagging me.” Martha wasn't sure how to broach this, but there had been something in Ted's voice the night before, when he'd refused to accept her resignation. And something in the way he had just spoken to the intern. “What are your goals, Ted?”

“At the moment, to win this election.”

“And after that?”

“To work for you in the White House.”

“Do you want to be a political assistant forever? Do you want to run for office yourself one day?”

Ted pinged a finger against his white paper cup. He walked a few feet to the small fridge and returned with a Red Bull. “Why are you asking?”

“Because I worry about you.”

“You do?” Ted's voice was small, like he didn't quite believe that. He opened his Red Bull and took a long glug.

“Of course. Everything you do, professionally, is for me. And since you work more hours than most people are even awake, I'm guessing most of what you do in your life is for me. That can't be good for you.”

“It's what I want.”

“Why?”

Ted shuffled his hands. “You'll think I'm lame.”

Martha did her best not to groan. “Go ahead.”

“You . . . well . . . you remind me of my mom. You know she's gone, right? She died when I was four. When my dad gets drinking, he tells me about how when they were younger, like in their early twenties, my mom used to go to every protest she could find. Sometimes she even helped organize them. He always says that she could have been president.”

Martha didn't understand the connection. Her own youth was filled with respectable dresses and trying to act old before her time. Rallies and protests were what the Young Democrats did. “How, uh . . . do you see us as similar?”

“She was idealistic,” Ted said, “in this super-practical way.”

That sounded more like Sacha than Martha. Martha wished she hadn't brought the question up, but she could hardly drop it now. “I'm sorry, Ted. How did your mother die?”

Ted glanced around the office and lowered his voice even further. “She was bipolar. She jumped off the Queensborough Bridge after phoning my dad to tell him she knew how to fly.”

Ah. Martha hoped she didn't remind Ted
too
much of his mother. “I'm sorry. That must have been horrible.”

Ted nodded, glanced down at his pen.

“What are your own goals, though? Separate from mine. It's easier to handle setbacks — like me dropping out of this race, if I choose to — if you have a vision of where you want to go.”

“I want to be president,” Ted said, with a staccato punch in his voice.

Martha was a bit blown back by his answer. “That's fabulous. Why?”

“Because . . . you know what, screw that. It's stupid.”

Martha wasn't sure of the right thing to say, so she said, “If we win this, I'd love to make use of your ambition.”

“You would? How?”

“You're excellent at policy.” Martha fingered the page of sound bites Ted had given her. “I'd be glad to give you an office, a role of your own. Maybe on this drug committee. Or something else if you prefer.”

“For real?”

“Absolutely. For now, though, let's win this election.” She glanced around the office, which seemed to have picked up some energy since she'd been sitting there. “Can you point me to someone here who can give me our campaign's Twitter details? I'd like to start doing some of my own tweeting, as well as blogging.”

Ted laughed.

“I'm serious.”

“I know. I wish Sacha could have seen this new you.”

And Martha wished Ted would shut up about Sacha. But she said, “I wish that, too.”

CLARE

Clare had her legs crossed on Amanda's couch, earphones plugged into her laptop. It was strange, listening to Chopper's voice talking to Richie. Strange but interesting.

When the recording was finished, she ripped out her earbuds and looked at Amanda. “This is bad.”

“How bad?” Amanda was grating carrots at the kitchen island. “What's on the recording?”

“You want to listen, or you want highlights?”

“Highlights now; I'll listen later.”

“Richie and Chopper paid to find the name of the undercover cop.”

Amanda set her carrots down.

“They seem confident my name is on the way. Though they're still saying
he
, even to each other, so that's something.”

“I think your identity's safe.” Amanda started grating again. “My strong guess is that they'll run against a dead end.”

“Your strong guess? Is that what you'll say at my funeral?”

Amanda smiled. “Clare, don't be dramatic.”

“Chopper and Jana have both independently asked me if I'm a cop. Jana directly, Chopper indirectly. He wanted to know why I'm not on Facebook.”

“Sure, because you're a newcomer.”

“I might be able to deflect their suspicion. I can prove to them I'm not a cop by dropping acid.”

“Good one. Because it will be true — if you drop acid, you'll no longer be a cop. At least not on my watch.”

“Has the handwriting analysis come back on the suicide note yet?”

“Yes,” Amanda said. “It's a match.”

“So Sacha killed herself.”

“Looks that way.”

“Can I read the note?”

Amanda shook her head. “Remember your job is to gather, not analyze.”

Clare smiled as sweetly as she could when she said, “So if Sacha killed herself, there's no killer on the prowl. I guess you won't be needing my services.”

“Both organizations are extremely interested in the drug smuggling.”

“Is that my new assignment, then?”

“It's all part of the same investigation. No need to change the assignment. But yes, please do gather information about the smuggling operation.”

“My pleasure. Here's more good news: Norris is for sure dirty.”

“How is that good news?” Amanda scraped the carrots into a large salad bowl and started grating a hard, smelly white cheese.

“Norris is the guy Chopper and Richie paid for my name. So now that we know that, we can feed him disinformation — like a false name to answer his query.”

“I'll think about that,” Amanda said. “But like I've said, it's hardly necessary when only the six people I mentioned know who you are. Six very secure individuals.”

“And Noah.”

“Noah from poker?”

Clare nodded.

“Are you still dating him?”

“Yeah. And before you jump down my throat about breaching security, Bert cleared me to talk to Noah about the case. Noah's working on it from the New York end.”

“How's that going? The relationship, I mean.”

“Fairly fucked up, thanks. How's your love life?”

“Still engaged,” Amanda said.

“Same big shot you were dating last year? The corporate lawyer who never has time for dinner?”

“Same one. What's wrong between you and Noah?” Amanda put the smelly cheese into the salad.

“Noah challenges my brain. He knows my quirks and doesn't care — he even kind of likes them.”

“But?”

“But he makes me insecure. Like if only I were someone
slightly
different, things could work out so much better.” Clare had no idea why she was confiding in Amanda. Probably because she was the only person in Whistler she could talk to about her real life.

“So he's wrong for you.”

Clare stared at the orange shag carpet. She poked at some of its hairs with her big toe. “It's not really fair for you to say that. You've never met him.”

“No, but I've seen his file.”

“Really?” Clare looked up. “What's in his file?”

Amanda glanced away. “I can't tell you that.”

“I won't tell anyone if you break one rule. Norris takes bribes and he still has a job.”

Amanda laughed. “That's not the professional logic I like to employ.”

“Seriously, it's not fair to tease like that. I'll find the information somehow.”

“Yes, I'm sure you will. Okay. When you encountered Noah on the poker tour last year, his employment security was tenuous.”

Clare sensed that now was not the time to complain about Amanda's gratuitous use of big words. “What do you mean by ‘tenuous'?”

“He'd botched up a case massively. The
FBI
figured Canada was a good place to breathe him while they decided if he was going to stay or go.”

“Love it,” Clare said. “Canada as exile. Is that why I'm here?”

“No, you're here because you're Canadian
and
FBI
; plus your age fit the profile.”

“So how did Noah fuck up?”

Amanda rifled through a drawer. She pulled out a small paring knife and peered at it before trading it for another slightly larger one. She pulled a tomato on the counter toward herself and began to slice it into bright, pulpy wedges. She set the knife down on the cutting board with a sigh. “Six months before you met him, Noah killed an innocent person.”

Clare felt cold inside, though the gas fire was on full blast. “Man or woman?” was for some reason the question she asked first.

“His cover character's girlfriend. But he was cleared of any charges.”

Clare was quiet as she tried to take this in.

“Noah had done a wonderful job befriending and seducing the daughter of a Mafia boss. He'd been dating her for six months when she invited him on a family boat trip. He should never have gone, but the file suggests that he might have actually fallen in love with the woman.”

Clare blinked hard.

“I shouldn't have said anything.” Amanda looked up from spinning the lettuce.

“It's cool,” Clare said. It wasn't cool at all. Who
was
Noah, that he'd killed a girl and kept it secret from her? How could Clare trust someone who would hide such a big part of his past from her?

Amanda smiled sadly. Clare appreciated her silence; it felt kind.

But she needed to know more. “What happened with this girl? Why did he kill her?”

“At some point when the boat was at sea it became clear to Noah's handlers that his girlfriend's father wasn't duped. That Noah had been invited on that weekend so he could have an accident.”

“They couldn't get him the message?”

“They got him the message. Noah was lowering the lifeboat when the girlfriend tried to stop him. From his perspective, she was a threat. Turns out, she probably had no clue about Noah's identity. But as Noah testified in court, he couldn't know that her struggling with him to prevent him from escaping wasn't the girlfriend colluding with her father — she was likely just confused herself.”

“How . . . how did it happen?” Clare heard herself stuttering. She frowned. She never stuttered.

“He stabbed her. In the chest.”

“What?” Clare closed her computer. This was so completely fucked. “Why didn't he just stab her leg? Immobilize her so he could get away?”

“His emotion was involved, most likely. Clouded his brain. On the record, he said he felt betrayed.”

Clare went to join Amanda at the kitchen island. If she was honest with herself, it was because she needed to be physically closer to another human being. Apparently Amanda counted. Clare pulled up a stool and sat down. “What's the moral of the story? Should I run from Noah because killing this girl is going to leave him fucked up for a long time? Or should I understand if he's skittish and maybe try to coax him back to feeling okay about women?”

“Yeah,” Amanda said with a faraway frown. “One of those, I think.”

Amanda took a handful of raisins from a bag and sprinkled them onto the salad. Which was fine — Clare could politely eat this so-called meal and grab a slice of pizza later.

To distract herself from thinking about Noah, Clare said, “The recording also confirms what you suspected: Sacha was smuggling Mountain Snow across the border. They're desperately trying to find a replacement transporter for a new shipment they want to deliver this week.”

Amanda glanced up at Clare.

“Should I volunteer?”

“Absolutely not.” Amanda pulled some froufrou dressing from the fridge. Ginger soy, or some such yuppie delicacy. “A cop would jump at the chance to play a role in a cross-border drug deal. As soon as you said yes, it would red flag you to the criminals.”

Clare wrinkled her mouth. Amanda was right. “Okay,” she said, “but by the same token, a cop would never drop acid. I totally get why you think it's too dangerous. And honestly, I'm not keen to try the drug. But if I end up having to drop, and I keep my phone on, you'll know where I am at all times.”

“Your phone's
GPS
wouldn't tell me if you're alive or dead.”

“Maybe I could wear a discreet wire?”

“You wouldn't have your faculties, Clare. What if you ended up naked and rolling around with your new boytoy, and he found the wire? Then you haven't only killed the case, you've put your life in jeopardy.”

A timer dinged and Amanda opened the oven. She pulled out a baking tray with bread.

“I didn't know you ate carbs.” Clare eyed the fresh loaf hungrily, even if it was covered with oats and other extraneous grainy things.

“I don't, normally. But this mountain air makes me famished.” Amanda opened the fridge and pulled out a tray of cold cuts. “Did you think I would serve you just salad for lunch?”

“I don't know,” Clare said. “I have trouble figuring you out.”