Lady Liberty (39 page)

“We’ve known each other for years and you just realized that?”

“No, I’ve always liked you, but not like this. This is…
different.” She blew out a sigh. “Frankly, I’m having a hell of a time with this, Jonathan.”

“That I understand.”

Relief washed through her. “Thank God. I was afraid you wouldn’t. This isn’t a comfortable place to be alone.”

“Oh, no. I do. Trust me on this one.”

She grunted, then ate a streak in her lipstick, pondering her thoughts. “You make me feel special and important to you.”

“You are important to me.”

“I know you told me I was, Jonathan, but you make me
feel
it. There’s a difference. I don’t like it. The difference, I mean.” She pointed at a blue Taurus. “Watch that guy. His brake lights are out.” Without missing a beat, she turned back to her topic. “And I love the way I see myself through your eyes. I hate loving that.” A dreamy smile touched her lips. “But I think every woman needs that sense of feminine prowess, Jonathan. Most don’t know they need it, and some probably never get it, but it really changes the way a woman feels about herself. I’ve never had it until now.”

“You’ve always been feminine.” He sounded surprised.

“I haven’t always felt feminine or attractive.”

“You’re kidding.” His voice was dead-level flat. “But you’re beautiful.”

Her face warmed. “It’s been a long time since anyone has thought so.”

“Sybil, thinking has nothing to do with it. Look in the mirror, for Christ’s sake.”

“You’re missing the point, Jonathan. That’s just surface clutter. The important stuff isn’t reflected in glass, it’s reflected in a man’s eyes when he looks at you. You feel it in his hands. He touches you as if you’re some priceless treasure. He talks to you, not at you, and he hears and listens and respects what you have to say. Those are the things of real beauty, Jonathan.”

He swallowed hard. “We need to change the subject.”

Surprised by the harshness in his tone, she stared at him. “Did I offend you?”

“No.”

If his voice got any sharper, it would cut stone. “I did. I’m sorry—”

“You didn’t offend me, okay?”

“Jonathan, I might have trouble verbalizing my intimate feelings, but I’m not stupid. You’re clearly upset. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, and I’m trying to apologize, damn it, so let me and let’s—”

“I am not upset,” he said, enunciating each word distinctly. “I am, however, fighting an intense urge to park this car and make love to you, so unless you’re in the mood, you need to change the damned subject.”

Stunned, she gaped. “Oh.” Her voice came out as a breath of sound.

“Quit looking at me as if I’ve sprouted a spare head. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, either.” He rolled his gaze. “I’m only human, Sybil.”

Her heart beat hard and fast. He had to be teasing. He did that a lot—teased her. Of course that’s what he was doing. But he didn’t look like he was teasing, and he certainly didn’t sound as if he were. If his words had been any stiffer they could have walked to her ears without sound waves. “Do you really want to make love with me, or are you teasing?”

“I’m not teasing.”

“Really?” She bit a goofy grin from her mouth.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Do you hate it?”

“I did, but the idea’s growing on me.”

Jonathan Westford vulnerable? She never would have believed it. Even seeing it, she had trouble believing it.

He made a sharp left turn. “Regardless, now isn’t the time.”

Time. The crisis. Good God, she’d forgotten about the crisis. “Of course it isn’t.”

He braked for a stop sign and watched a group of teens cross the street, carrying skateboards and Roller Blades. “I’ve had about enough of this back and forth from personal to professional business.”

“Me, too.”

“First chance, we need to talk through some things. Figure out how we want to handle this and where we’re going with it.” He tapped the accelerator and moved through the intersection. “I’ll warn you right now, I’m going to be asking you how I fit into your plans.”

That seemed to be a touchy point with him. Why? “Jonathan—”

“Not now.” He clasped her hand and held it on his thigh. “After.”

He didn’t seem angry, but something had pricked his pride. She’d rather discuss it now, clear the air, and put him at ease if she could, but he obviously needed a little breathing room. Heart-to-heart chats about feelings were probably about as alien to him as they had become to her. “All right.” She lifted her purse from the floorboard. “So where are we going?”

“To do a little sleuthing.” He grabbed the neutral topic with both hands and a grateful heart. “Cap Marlowe’s alive. He’s taking his time at coming around, but he could be cognizant in a couple hours.”

“Do you think Cap is in with Austin?”

“I think it’s possible. They’ve been discreetly associating since you took office, and you were experiencing negative info leaks during the marriage.”

“But Austin’s been gone for over a year and the leaks haven’t stopped. Cap still knows things that have to come from staffers.” She dug through her purse, pulled out a roll of cherry Life-Savers, and offered them to Jonathan.

He took one, then passed back the roll. “That’s where Barber must come in. The night I threatened Austin—”

“He was talking to Barber.”

Jonathan nodded. “What if during the marriage, Austin passed Cap the leaks? After you gave Austin the boot, then Barber stepped in and fed the information to Austin and/or Cap.”

“It’s possible. Easy enough to verify with phone records,” she said. “But why would Barber get involved with them?”

“Sybil, the man spends half his day every day jockeying for his next job.” Jonathan draped an arm over the steering wheel. “He’s the brunt of dozens of staffers’jokes about it.”

“He wants a key position in Cap’s administration.”

“That would be my guess.”

Sybil popped a Life-Saver into her mouth, tilted her head, and stared out of the windshield. “And Cap shows up at A-267 to pull a no-notice inspection right in the middle of this crisis.”

“That’s what we need to check out. It strikes me as too coincidental.” Jonathan tapped the vent, directing the air away from his face. “I know we’re jammed for time, and these are tough questions, but we need to answer them.”

“The Senate is bound to call for a complete investigation. If we don’t find the answers now, we probably won’t find them at all. They’ll be buried long before the official inquiry.”

Jonathan nicked the turn signal. “Which is why we’re on our way to Cap Marlowe’s office now.”

Foot traffic in the building was heavy. If Security found that odd for four on a Saturday afternoon when Congress wasn’t racing against the clock to wind up or down, the staff didn’t show it. Sybil and Jonathan were admitted with courteous nods and bored expressions.

They took the elevator up to Cap’s office.

Jean sat at her desk, twisting a gold earring dangling from her lobe. Obviously, she was waiting for them. “May I help you?” Her voice was terse, deliberately distant.

Sybil wasn’t welcome here. Being as circumspect as possible, and about as warm as a butcher’s meat locker, Jean made that evident.

Jonathan went to Cap’s office door. “We need the key.”

“The senator doesn’t allow anyone in his office when he isn’t present.”

Sybil had little patience and no time for this. “Open the door or I’ll get a warrant.”

Beaming resistance, her lips thinned to a fine line, but Jean reached inside the top drawer of her desk, withdrew the key, and then unlocked the door. “I will have to report this, Mrs. Stone.”

Refusing to address her by her title was an intentional slur, but Sybil let it slide. She actually admired Jean’s loyalty to Cap. Loyalty was a relatively rare treasure on the Hill. “Certainly”

Jonathan looked around the office, then began a methodical search, ceiling to floor.

Sybil checked the obvious: Cap’s calendar, the last number dialing in to his office, his desk drawers. Nothing had been scheduled on his calendar for Friday afternoon, which came as no surprise. A-267 itself was classified. He wouldn’t note an inspection on it. “When the senator left the office,” she asked without looking over her shoulder, “did he mention where he could be reached?”

Leaning against the door frame, Jean bristled. “No. He usually does, but this time he didn’t. That’s necessary at times, as I’m sure you know. Right before he left, I reminded him to take his injection. He gets busy and forgets, so I track them on my scheduler and remind him. I—I don’t know where he was when he became ill. Actually, I wouldn’t have known he had become ill if Mrs. Marlowe hadn’t called me from St. Elizabeth’s.”

Jean was afraid, carrying the burden of guilt, and she was obviously seeking absolution. Understanding all about that need, Sybil gave it to her. “It isn’t your fault, Jean.”

“That’s what Grace said.” She shrugged, knocking her shoulder against the hard wood.

Sybil’s assistant, Grace, had never hidden the fact that she and Jean were friends, and that never had concerned Sybil. Both were longtime staffers and professionals and, while there had been a steady flow of leaks from Sybil’s office and/or home to Cap, Sybil felt confident none of them flowed from Grace. “She’s seldom wrong about anything.”

That comment seemed to surprise Jean. As if trying to hold in a sudden swell of emotion that felt too big to contain, she crossed her chest with her arms. “But I didn’t see to it that he took the shot. I just used the intercom. If I’d gone in…”

“Why didn’t you go in?” Jonathan closed a desk drawer, opened another.

“I—I don’t recall now.”

Sybil frowned. The woman clearly did recall, but for reasons of her own, she elected to be evasive. “Have you spoken with Mrs. Marlowe in the last hour?”

“Yes.” Worry haunted Jean’s eyes. “He still isn’t coming around.”

“I hope he does, Jean.”

She looked confused, torn. “Mrs. Marlowe phoned the medics to raise hell because they didn’t take him to Bethesda. They told her you ordered them to go to St. Es. Why did you do that? Bethesda would have been more private.”

“Because I was afraid he would die. St. Es was closer.”

Jean looked surprised. “Mrs. Marlowe was right. She said you saved his life.”

“That’s not important.” What else had Mrs. Marlowe said? “He’s getting the care he needs. That’s all that matters.”

“Ground Serve.” A man in the outer office elevated his voice. “I need a signature.”

Startled, Jean jumped and then went out to him.

“We’re not going to find anything here,” Jonathan said. “Or learn anything from her.”

Agreeing with him, Sybil nodded. They walked out of the office and, when she passed Jean, she glanced at the messenger. He held his head down, keying something into his tracker. Something about him seemed familiar, but the Ground Serve uniform didn’t feel right.

She looked at Jonathan out of the corner of her eye but couldn’t tell if he had noticed the messenger. Unreadable expressions were an asset to Jonathan, and he had honed the skill to an art form. Unfortunately, guessing what he was thinking when he didn’t want anyone to know was impossible.

“Thanks, Jean,” he said, then walked on at Sybil’s side to the elevator.

On the elevator, he kept his thoughts to himself. When they got outside, she tilted her head. A sharp gust of wind plastered her gray slacks against her legs. “Where to?”

He opened the car door for her. “We wait.”

She slid inside. When he got in on the other side, she asked, “What are we waiting for?”

“To see what Jean does.” He slid the key into the ignition.

“You think she’ll report to Cap?”

“I’d say the odds are good as soon as he’s conscious.” He spared her a loaded glance. “And they’re even better that he wasn’t at A-267 for an inspection.”

There was something in Jonathan’s tone, a certainty that hadn’t been there earlier. “Did you recognize that Ground Serve messenger?”

“Not specifically, but I have seen him before, somewhere.”

Maybe it wasn’t just her intuition, pounding out warnings. “You’re suspicious of him.”

Jonathan nodded.

“Why?”

“I smelled death.”

The smell of antiseptic burned his nose.

Flat on his back with his eyes closed, Cap Marlowe assimilated familiar sensations. A blood pressure cuff circling his upper arm tightened and slackened at regular intervals. A clip attached to his right index finger gauged his blood-oxygen levels. An IV dripped fluid into his left arm, and a heart monitor emitted a steady beep that assured him his ticker was fine and he was still in the physical world. Definitely in a hospital.

He hadn’t yet opened his eyes or let anyone know he was awake. In the past, bedside remarks made over the unconscious had proven most honest. But how had he gotten here?

He had been locked in the outer rim at A-267, and that young lieutenant—Gibson, his name was Gibson— had poured sugar water down his throat. After that… nothing. Nothing, until now. Had he told them about the key in the mail chute?