Dissident (27 page)

“Then why did you break my heart?” she whispered.

Jack pulled her into his arms. “I’m so sorry, baby. I am.”

She started to push back from him but stopped. His arms felt so good. So safe. And she just wanted to be comforted for a minute, even if it was coming from him. She leaned in and grabbed his suspenders, weeping against his collar.

Jack held on to her with one arm, stroking her hair lightly with the other. Caroline pulled herself in closer, breathing hard. Her hands drifted up over his back, across his shoulders. The wetness from her tears started to seep into his dress shirt.

“Please don’t hate me,” he whispered. “I don’t know what I’d do if you hated me.”

Caroline shuddered and released her arms, and Jack instantly loosened his grip around her. She took a step backward from him, wiping her eyes. Her hands were shaking.

“I can’t do this, Jack. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Do what, sweetheart? It’s okay to be upset with me. I deserve it.”

“No, I didn’t want to give you the wrong idea. This isn’t going to work.”

“What isn’t?”

“Us. A relationship. It isn’t going to work out. Not now.”

“What are you saying?”

“I think you should go.”

“I want you in my life, Caroline. I’m sorry about the other night. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my plans. Please give me the chance to make it up to you.”

“It’s too late, Jack. Maybe under different circumstances, if we were at different points in our lives, if we’d met in a different time or place, but it’s not going to work. I’m sorry.”

“You can’t move beyond this?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What are you so afraid of?” he asked.

Caroline’s face flushed. “What the hell are you trying to suggest?”

“Why are you so afraid of being happy?”

“Oh, that’s rich. Spare me your armchair psychiatry. Everything was fine until you fucked it all up.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Jack said. “You were always holding something back, always acting unsure of yourself, unsure of us. You might not have noticed it, but I sure as hell did.”

“Ever think that was your imagination?”

“No, it wasn’t. You were so insecure, no matter what I did. And now you have an excuse to run and you are.”

“You lied to me, McIntyre. You made a fool out of me. Or are you forgetting that part?”

“I know I did,” he said. “I made a huge, colossal mistake. But that was all you needed to justify walking out the door, wasn’t it?”

“It’s a pretty good reason. I can’t be with someone who doesn’t trust me. You can’t have love without trust.  Don’t you dare turn this around on me.”

“I should have told you. I know that. But maybe I was afraid that if I did, you’d run away. And look what happened.”

“Go ahead and try to rationalize your behavior,” Caroline said. “Whatever makes you sleep better at night. Tell me, what exactly was I supposed to do once you were in Harrisburg? Or while you were campaigning? Twiddle my thumbs? Make weekend jaunts up there for booty calls? Pawn my kids off on someone else so we could run away together and abandon our responsibilities? Hide in the shadows while you could have the best of both worlds?”

“Caroline-”

“You don’t have an answer. Do you?” she asked furiously.

He stared at the jewelry box on her desk. “I guess I was hoping it would all work itself out.”

“Well, it’s not going to happen.” She turned her back to him. “I really want you to leave.”

“I’m sorry, Caroline. I want you to be happy.” Jack’s voice was very sad. “And maybe I’ve done too much to go back. But I want to know that we can speak to each other, be in the same room, function in the same space, maybe try to be friends again.”

“You’ll be gone soon enough and we’ll both be fine. Get out of my office.”

He tentatively placed his hand on her back. “I can’t make you forgive me. I know I don’t deserve it, not right now. But what I felt for you was and is real. I don’t want you to think I was lying about that.”

She shook him off and turned to face him. “I think you should leave, Jack. Good luck with your campaign,” she said.

“I love you, Caroline,” he murmured. “I’m not going to give up. But I’ll leave right now if that’s what you want.”

When Caroline spoke again her voice was even colder. “It is. Please go.”

Jack kissed her on the forehead and she recoiled.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said roughly. “I’ll leave you alone from now on.”

Caroline kept her head down until she knew he was gone. She glanced over at the small velvet box on her desk. Her eyes started to sting again. She shut the door to her office, leaned against the wall, and began to cry.

The commute that morning had been terrible.  It was snowy and icy, and against her better judgment, Maureen drove instead of taking the Metro.  She was now trying to catch up on paperwork, although the exercise seemed rather fruitless. She had informally taken over Bill’s position but she knew it was only a matter of time before she was relegated back to her old duties.

She thought of the box hidden under her bed. Of the random items she’d clandestinely assembled. Separately they wouldn’t arouse suspicion.  Taken together, it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out what she had planned.  Which was why she would have to wait to do it until the last minute.

There was a forceful knock at her office door and she looked up.  The door opened before she even had a chance to respond.

“Colonel Slade,” Maureen said.

The man did not look happy. “It’s been well over a week. The patient will be discharged into our custody tomorrow.”

“On whose order?”

Slade marched up to Maureen’s desk and threw a pile of papers on it. “Here’s your warrant. And your judicial order. See that Ms. Gerard is ready for transport tomorrow at eleven.”

Maureen glanced down at the paperwork. Even if it looked official she knew it was a deception. The rules didn’t apply anymore; no matter what the government said, the concept of a neutral and detached magistrate was nonexistent. She smiled anyway.

“Of course, Colonel,” she said. “You have abided by our request. Thank you.”

Slade frowned at her. “Don’t get any ideas.”

She feigned innocence. “We have protocols and we expect them to be followed. You’ve done that, and we’ll hold up our end of the bargain.”

The colonel cleared his throat. “Reasonable women can always see the light if they’re prodded hard enough. I had a feeling you’d be easier to deal with than the old man. Shame about what happened to him.” He forced a smile. “We will be back tomorrow morning to collect Ms. Gerard. Good day, Dr. Savage.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” Maureen said.

*              *              *              *              *

“I need you to wean Ms. Gerard off those sedatives,” Maureen told Sarah.

“Is everything all right?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. She’s had almost two weeks to recover and it’s time to move forward with the next phase of her treatment.”

“It might be a while before they clear out of her system.”  Sarah looked at the clock above the Nurse’s Station. “It’s noon now. She probably won’t wake up until at least late evening.”

“That’s fine,” Maureen said. “Who’s working the overnight shift tonight?”

“Nora, I think.”

Good. Maureen liked her.  And Nora could be trusted. “Fantastic. I’m going to head out a little early today. If I don’t see you, have a good weekend.”

Sarah smiled. “Thanks.”

Maureen headed out the door toward the parking garage. She didn’t have much time to work with. God willing, she’d be able to pull this off.

Her eyes were shut but the light seemed bright.
Heaven
, Caroline thought.
I’m in heaven
. She had passed out so easily in the cold. Death had been so much easier than she thought it would be. Just like falling asleep.

No, wait. She went to Mass every Sunday but her attention span was marginal at best. She had voted to expand abortion services and access to contraception more than a few times, and had a disturbingly fanatical dedication to her IUD. Her sex life, though largely contained to two marriages, was far more
Penthouse Forum
than good Catholic girl.

When she married Jack she adjusted her middle class perspective rather quickly and lived large, enjoying all the niceties that came with being fabulously wealthy. She hadn’t been to confession in years and had many, many sins to declare. There was no way she’d be able to go straight to heaven unless she was actually right about everything. And she seriously doubted that.

This had to be purgatory. A very high wattage purgatory.

She was laying down. It seemed odd that she wasn’t standing. She went through the parochial school file cabinet in her head but couldn’t remember a damn thing about the specifics of purgatory. Maybe you just floated horizontally until your state of grace was sufficient enough to go up a few levels.

She’d always been a fidgety sleeper and the same restlessness applied whenever she tried to lay down for any reason. She wasn’t quite ready to open her eyes yet but stretching seemed like a good idea. She started to move her arms and discovered she had a limited range of motion. That was odd.

Yawning, she blinked and looked around. It took a minute for her vision to clear, and she realized how thankful she was that Jack had talked her into having Lasik surgery a few years ago. Otherwise, she probably wouldn’t have been able to see a damn thing.

She was in a hospital room. There was an IV attached to her left arm.  Despite the fuzziness that came from what had to be a heavy dose of some serious sedatives, she was in immense pain.

Her right arm was handcuffed to the bedrail. And she remembered.

*              *              *              *              *

Caroline was leaning against the tree, her eyes closed. Part of her was hoping that Jack would come back. She didn’t know why she’d made him leave. She didn’t want to die alone. But they’d done so much, risked their lives and the lives of their families and friends for so long that it seemed silly for them both to be arrested, or worse. Surrender wasn’t an option.

She firmly believed that he had a much better chance of succeeding without her slowing him down. She’d gotten herself into so much trouble over the last few years that it was only a matter of time before her guardian angel flew off her shoulder and moved on to a less frustrating protectee.

She was cold. She’d forgotten to put her gloves back on and now her hands were so frozen that she could barely move them. She knew it would be over soon. She begged God to take her. She felt herself sinking.

The rustling she and Jack heard previously grew louder, and before Caroline knew it the four soldiers were standing above her.

“Where is he?” one of the men asked, his gun pointed at her head.

She looked up at him. Her mouth remained shut. There was no way she was telling him anything.

Another one of the soldiers kicked at her leg. Caroline took a closer look and recognized him from the raid on their home the day before. His aim had sucked but he still managed to wing her in the leg as she and Jack made a frantic dash to the car.

He noticed the large amount of dried blood surrounding the hole in her pants. “Looks like I got you after all,” he said, pressing down on the wound with his boot.

She groaned in pain, suddenly wide awake. The first soldier knelt on the ground next to her, pressing the muzzle of the gun against her cheek. “Where’s your husband?” he asked.

“Who?” she rasped.

He raised the handgun, bringing it down hard onto her face. Her nose spurted blood and she let out a whimper.

“Tell me!” he barked.

The pain was dreadful. She’d never had anyone hit her in the face before. It pissed her off that this asshole soldier actually had the gall to do it.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” she said.

He hit her again, harder. “Where is he? Where’s McIntyre?”

Blood was dripping down from her nose into her mouth and she tried to spit it out. “I don’t know who that is,” she choked.

He grabbed Caroline by her coat collar and dragged her to her feet, slamming her up against the tree. He brought his arm up against her neck, cutting off her airway. She struggled against him, trying to breathe, and felt herself starting to fall into the dark abyss that she’d almost reached right before they arrived. Caroline heard one of the other men speak.

“We can’t kill her, Sarge. They wanted us to bring them in alive.”

The sergeant relaxed his grip and Caroline gulped for air. He kept her pinned tightly to the tree.

“Oh, she’ll be alive. But she doesn’t have to look pretty.” He drew his hand back and hit her with the pistol again, then threw her down.

Caroline fell face first into the snow, coughing and sputtering. She struggled to rise to her hands and knees. The sergeant stomped down hard on her back and she cried out in pain, collapsing to the ground. She tried to cover her head to shield herself from any other blows but it didn’t work. There were far too many of them and only one of her. The other three soldiers had rifles and their knack for beating the shit out of people with their weapons was much better than their ability to fire them accurately. Tears sprang from her eyes involuntarily as the four men exacted their rage upon her head, her back, her legs, almost every inch of her until she was screaming in agony.

“I think she got the message,” one of them finally said.

The sergeant yanked Caroline up by her hair. Her vision was blurred and she could barely make him out aside from his uniform. But she could tell he and the others had enjoyed themselves. The thought sickened her.

Her gray pea coat was tinged with red, and her eyes were almost swollen shut. Her hair was matted down and her face was smeared with a mixture of blood and tears. The soldiers smiled maliciously, admiring their handiwork.

“The First Lady of Pennsylvania,” the sergeant scoffed. “Not so much of a lady any more, are you?” He backhanded her a final time, and everything went black.

*              *              *              *              *

Caroline jerked at the memory.
Fuck
. This definitely wasn’t purgatory.