The Inner Circle (27 page)

“Daniel. In Preservation. That’s his nickname.
The Diamond
,” I tell her. “And while he’s clearly the expert on book construction and chemical reactions, he doesn’t know squat about library science—because if he did, he’d know that neither of those is a call number.”

She squints as if she’s trying to reread the numbers from memory.

“NC 38.548.19 or WU 773.427,” I repeat for her. “They
look
like library call numbers, right? But they’re both missing their cutters.” Reading her confusion, I explain, “In any call number, there’re two sets of letters. The NC is the first set—the N tells us it’s
Art
. All N books have to do with art. The C will tell you what
kind
of art—Renaissance, modern, et cetera. But before the last set of numbers—the 19—there’s always another letter—the
cutter
. It cuts down the subject, telling you the author or title or some other subdivision so you can find it. Without that second letter, it’s not a real call number.”

“Maybe they left out the second letters on purpose.”

“I thought so too. Then I saw the other listing: WU 773.427.”

“And the W stands for…?”

“That’s the problem. W doesn’t stand for anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Years ago, every library had their own individual system. But to make things more uniform, when the world switched over to the Library of Congress system, every letter was assigned to a different subject. Q stood for
Science
. K stood for
Law
. But three letters—W, X, and Y—they never got assigned to anything.”

“So if a book begins with an X—”

“Actually, Xs sometimes mean books that’re held behind the main desk, maybe because they’re racy or dirty—guess where
X-rated
comes from? But you get the picture. A book that starts WU… that’s just not a book at all.”

“Could it be something besides a book?”

“Ten bucks says that’s what Tot’s working on right now,” I explain as I check in the rearview. The towering Archives building is long gone. “I know under the filing system for Government Publications, W is for the old War Department. But WU—it doesn’t exist.”

“So it can’t be anything?”

“Anything can be anything. But whatever it is, it’s not in the regular system, which means it could be in an older library that doesn’t use the system, or a private one, or a—”

“What kind of private one? Like someone’s personal library?” she asks.

I rub my thumbs in tiny circles on the steering wheel, digesting the thought. Huh. With all the running around for Dustin Gyrich, I hadn’t thought about that.

“Y’think the President has his own private library at the White House?” she asks.

I stay silent.

“Beecher, y’hear what I said?”

I nod, but I’m quiet, my thumbs still making tiny circles.

“What’s wrong? Why’re you shutting down like that?” she asks. Before I can say anything, she knows the answer.

“You’re worried you can’t win this,” she adds.

All I hear are Orlando’s words from that first moment we found the book in the SCIF.
Name me one person ever who went up against a sitting President and walked away the same way they walked in.
“I
know
we can’t win this. No one can win this. No one wins against a President.”

“That’s not true. As long as you have that book—and as long as he doesn’t
know
you have that book—you have him, Beecher. You can use that to—”

I start breathing hard. My thumb-circles get faster.

“You okay?” she asks.

I stay silent.

“Beecher, what’s wrong?”

Staring straight ahead, I motion outside. “Bridges. I don’t like bridges.”

She glances to her right as we’re halfway up the incline. But it’s not until the road peaks and we pass the glowing white columns along the back of the Jefferson Memorial that she spots the wide blackness of the Potomac River fanning out ahead of us. The 14th Street Bridge’s wide road doesn’t look like a bridge. But based on the shade of green that now matches my face with hers, she knows it feels like one.

“You’re kidding, right?” she laughs.

I don’t laugh back. “My father died on a bridge.”

“And my father tried to kill the President. Top that.”

“Please stop talking now. I’m trying not to throw up by visualizing that I’m back in colonial times writing letters with a dipped-ink pen.”

“That’s fine, but have you even seen what you’re missing? This view,” she adds, pointing out her window, “you can see the entire back of the Jefferson Memorial.”

“I’ve seen the view. We have the finest shots in the world in our photographic records. We have the early files from when the commission was first discussing it. We even have the original blueprints that—”

“Stop the car.”

“Pardon?”

“You heard. Stop the car.
Trust me.
”

“Clemmi, I’m not—”

She grips the handle and kicks the car door open. Blasts of cold air create a vacuum that sucks our hair, and a stray napkin on the floor, to the right. The tires of the car
choom-choom-choom
across the plates in the bridge’s roadbed.

I slam the brakes and an opera of horns finds quick harmony behind us. As I jerk the wheel and pull us along the shoulder of the bridge, the open door of the Mustang nearly scrapes against the concrete barrier.

“Are you mental!?” I shout as we buck to a stop. “This isn’t some eighth grade—!”

“Don’t do that.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t go to eighth grade… don’t talk about something old… don’t bring up old memories that have nothing to do with who we are now.
This
is all that matters!
Today
,” she says as the horns keep honking behind us.

“The cops are gonna be here in two seconds,” I say, keeping my head down and staring at my crotch to avoid looking over the bridge. “You can’t stop at national monuments.”

“Sure you can. We just did. Now look up and tell me what you see.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. Just try. I know you can.”

“Clemmi…”

“Try, Beecher. Just try.”

In the distance, I hear the sirens.

“Please,” she adds as if she’s pleading for my soul.

In no mood to face another set of law enforcement officers, and still hearing Orlando calling me Professor Indiana Jones, I raise my head and quickly glance to the right. It lasts a second. Maybe two. The wind’s made a wreck of Clementine’s hair, but over her shoulder I have a clear view of the bright white dome of the Jefferson Memorial. I pause, surprised to feel my heart quicken.

“How’s it look?” she asks.

“Truthfully? Kinda horrible,” I say, eyeing the curves of the marble stonework. “It’s just the back. You can’t see the good part with the statue.”

“But it’s
real
,” she says, looking over at the memorial. “And at least you saw it for yourself. Not in a book. Not in some old record. You saw it here—
now—
in the freezing cold, from the side of a bridge, in a way that no tourists ever experience it.”

My fists still clutch the steering wheel. I keep my head down, again refusing to look outside. But I am listening.

“That was the part I liked,” I say.

“You sound surprised.”

“I kinda am,” I admit as my heart begins to gallop. “I’d never seen it from this angle.”

Turning away from the Jefferson Memorial, Clementine glances my way—just a bit as she peers over her shoulder—and looks back at me. Our eyes lock. She won’t let herself smile—she’s still making her point. But I see the appreciation for the trust.

“She did dump me,” I blurt.

“Excuse me?”

“My fiancée. Iris. You asked before. She did dump me.”

“I figured,” she says. “It’s pretty obvious.”

“But it wasn’t for another guy.”

“For another
girl
?” Clementine asks.

“I wish. Then I would’ve at least had a good story.”

This is the part where she’s supposed to ask,
What happened?
But she doesn’t.

My head’s still down. My hands still clutch the wheel. As I relive the moment, she sees the pain I’m in.

“Beecher, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to say it. It really doesn’t matter.”

“She dumped me for the worst reason of all,” I say as the sirens continue to get closer. “For absolutely no reason at all.”

“Beecher…”

I clench my teeth to keep it all in. “I mean, if she fell in love with someone else, or I did something wrong, or I let her down in some unforgivable way… That, I’d understand, right? But instead, she said… it wasn’t
anything
. Not a single thing. It was just
me
. I was nice. I was kind. We just… she didn’t see the connection anymore.” I look up at Clementine, whose mouth is slightly open. “I think she just thought I was boring. And the cruelest part is, when someone says something mean about you, you know when they’re right.”

Watching me from the passenger seat, Clementine barely moves.

“Can I tell you something?” she finally offers. “Iris sounds like a real shitwad.”

I laugh, almost choking on the joy it brings.

“And can I tell you something else, Beecher? I don’t think you’re in love with the past. I think you’re scared of the future.”

I lift my head, turning toward her in the seat next to me. When we were leaving St. Elizabeths, Clementine said that the hardest part of seeing Nico was that so much of her life suddenly made sense. And I know I’m overstating it, and being melodramatic, and rebounding something fierce just because we raised the specter of Iris—but ever since Clementine returned to my life… life doesn’t make complete sense. But it definitely makes more sense than it used to.

I turn toward the passenger seat and lean in toward Clementine. She freezes. But she doesn’t pull away. I lean even closer, moving slowly, my fingers brushing her cheek and touching the wisps of her short black hair. As my lips part against hers, I’m overcome by her taste, a mix of caramel and a pinch of peach from her lip gloss.

There are great kissers in this world.

I’m not one of them.

I’m not sure Clementine is one of them. But she’s damn near close.

“You got better since Battle of the Bands,” she whispers as she takes a quick breath.

“You remember that?”

“C’mon, Beecher… how could I forget my first kiss?” she asks, the last few syllables vibrating off my lips.

Within seconds, I’m no longer leaning toward her. She’s leaning toward me.

I’m overwhelmed by her scent… by the way her short black hair skates against my cheek… by the way her hand tumbles down my chest and slides so close to everything I’m feeling in my pants.

Behind us, a flood of red lights pummels the back window. I barely heard the siren from the police car, which is now two cars behind us, trying to get us moving.

Taking a breath, I slowly pull away.

“Feeling any better?” she asks.

“Definitely better. Though also pretty terrified that we’re still on this bridge.”

She offers a quick laugh. But as she settles back in her seat, she knots her eyebrows, offering a brand-new look—a sad silent confession that I’ve never seen before. Like yet another new door has opened—I’m starting to realize she’s got dozens of them—and I finally get to see what’s inside. “We’re all terrified,” she says as we race ahead and leave the bridge behind. “That’s how you know you’re alive, Beecher. Welcome to the present.”

“
Please make next… left turn
,” the female GPS voice announces through my cell phone over an hour later. “
Destination is… straight ahead… on the left
.”

“Clemmi, we’re here,” I call out as I hit the brakes at the red light, waiting to turn onto her narrow block. As I’ve done at every stop since the moment we left the highway, I check the rearview. No one in sight.

When we first arrived in the small city of Winchester, Virginia, a huge brick residence hall and an overabundance of kids with backpacks told me we were in a college town. But as with any college town, there’s the
good part
of the college town, and the
bad part
of the college town. The closer we weaved toward Clementine’s block, those students gave way to boarded-up row houses, far too many abandoned factories, and even a pawn shop. Let’s be clear: The good part of town never gets the pawn shop.

“Clemmi, we’re… I think we’re here,” I add as I turn onto the long dark block that’s lined with a set of beat-up skinny row houses. Half the streetlights are busted. At the very last second, I also notice a taxi, its dim lights turning onto the block that we just left.