The Divide

by J. L. Brown

  Refilling her wine glass, she said, “You seem excited about it.”

  “I am.” He reached across the table and touched her hand. His tone was gentle as he said, “Don’t you think you should slow down?”

  She glanced at the grandfather clock. “A president doesn’t have the luxury of slowing down.”

  “I was talking about the wine.”

  There was a knock at the front door of the Residence.

  Moments later, Sasha entered the dining room, her face strained.

  “Madam President, I’m sorry to interrupt.”

  Whitney set her glass down. “It’s fine, Sasha. What is it? The terrorist attack?”

  “A false lead.”

  “Then what?”

  “My source on the Hill says Hampton and Sampson secured enough votes to overturn the New New Deal.”

  Whitney’s first thought was not of the time and energy and political capital they’d expended to pass the legislation, but rather of her son and his comment at Camp David.

  The New New will die die.

  Chandler had known.

  Chapter Twelve

  Chicago, Illinois

  In a private upstairs dining room of the Oak Club, Jared F. Carr Jr. looked across the table at his younger brother.

  “Superb steak,” Jared said, wiping his mouth with a white linen napkin.

  “That stuff will kill you eventually.”

  “At least I’ll die happy. Unlike you. Your dying wish will be for a juicy double cheeseburger. With cheese fries.”

  “I doubt that,” Jason Carr said.

  The Oak Club was founded over a century ago by Yale alumni living in Chicago. It provided a place for members and their guests to meet, dine, and socialize in a refined and exclusive atmosphere in the city’s North End.

  The server entered and cleared their dinner plates. The two men were silent as he returned carrying a tray containing two glasses of port and clipped cigars. After lighting the cigars, the server retreated. Technically it was a nonsmoking room, but the federal, state, city, and club regulations didn’t apply to them.

  Rules were for those without money.

  Except for their expensive dress, the brothers were nothing alike. Jared was blond, portly, and a Yale alumnus, like their father and his father before him. Jason had dark hair and a runner’s physique, and had graduated from the University of Illinois business school, to their parents’ eternal regret. Jared, married with three children, lived in the Chicago suburb of Glencoe, while Jason, a lifelong bachelor, owned a penthouse condo overlooking Lake Michigan in Chicago’s Lakeshore neighborhood. Often photographed with wealthy women—businesswomen, socialites, models, celebrities, athletes—Jason never managed to keep a relationship going more than a few months. The press constantly speculated on when he would settle down and who the lucky woman would be.

  Whenever he read such speculation, Jared laughed. His brother would never settle down with any woman. Jason was gay. Although he wasn’t out, he wasn’t so deep in the closet that he would enter into a sham marriage. Jason’s sexual orientation was ironic—their nonprofit organization, Freedom of America (FOA), financially backed the Defense of Marriage Act in the nineties.

  At the time, Jason was too busy working for their father’s real estate investment firm to date anyone. In correlation with the nation’s grudging recognition of gay relationships and, finally, gay marriage, Jason began seeing men discreetly, but he still hadn’t come out to his family, including his brother. Jared knew only because of reports submitted by private investigators. It wasn’t personal. Jared investigated everyone. He could never possess too much information about someone, even his flesh and blood.

  After battling the issue of gay marriage for decades, Jared realized that Jason’s sexuality didn’t matter to him. When Cole Brennan had tried to resurrect the Defense of Marriage Act II a couple of years ago, Jared quietly ordered that the topic be removed from FOA’s website and all its promotional materials. It was a lost cause. He only spent his time and money on issues he could win. If Jason noticed the change, he never said anything.

  Not even a thank you.

  Admiring the cigar, Jared said, “A wonderful day.”

  “Yes, it was,” Jason said.

  “The free market reigns,” said Jared, taking a slow, sensuous puff.

  “Did you talk to Hampton?”

  Jared exhaled. “I did. The Senate majority leader was a good solider on this one.”

  “The house we bought him on Hilton Head didn’t hurt.”

  “True.”

  Jason eyed his brother. “What’s next?”

  “Not sure yet. I’m going to enjoy tonight and think about that tomorrow.” After a while, he placed the cigar in the ashtray’s stirrup. “I need to go.” Jared didn’t like to keep his wife, Lisa, waiting. He stood. “Are you coming?”

  “No,” Jason said. “I think I’ll stay here and enjoy this.” He held up his cigar. “Then go down to the bar.”

  From the door, Jared turned and gave his younger brother a pointed look. “Be careful.”

  Jason gave him a sad smile and saluted. “I always am.”

  Returning the salute, Jared thanked God again that he was straight. Living with an affliction like Jason’s couldn’t be easy.

  Downstairs, he retrieved his coat, bracing himself before going out into the sub-zero temperature. As he waited for the valet to bring his car around, he thought about what his sources on the Hill had told him earlier about the overturning of the overreaching New New Deal Coalition Act.

  They had the votes.

  Although Jared was the brains behind the brothers, he and Jason had never received the credit they deserved for their influence on US conservative politics. But that was fine. They didn’t do it for the glory but for love of their country.

  He disdained both major US political parties. In truth, Jared was a Libertarian, believing government had no role in the lives of the American people—period. But to make his dreams a reality, he had to choose a side. Today’s victory, one of many since his ideology supplanted that of his father’s Republican Party, was only the beginning. Jared wouldn’t stop until he’d amassed his fair share of the economic pie, which, to him, meant the whole pie.

  A homeless man shuffled toward him, the bottom of his tattered pants dragging behind him on the sidewalk. He carried a cardboard sign painted in red letters: This is what invisible looks like. The doorman of the club started toward the man. Jared waved him off. “It’s okay.”

  The doorman returned to his place by the front door.

  The homeless man’s eyes shone clear in his dirty face. He held his hand out.

  “I need to eat too.”

  “Get a job,” Jared said, not unkindly. “Then you could buy food, and it will make you feel better about yourself. Give you confidence and self-esteem.”

  This surprised the homeless man. Perhaps no one had ever given him this advice.

  The man tilted his head. “Why do you think I don’t have a job?”

  This brought Jared up short. While formulating a response to this improbable question, the man whipped out a knife from under his thin sweatshirt—unsuitable for the weather, Jared noted belatedly—and stabbed Jared in the chest three times in rapid succession.

  Clutching the knife in both hands, Jared hit the pavement face-first, the blood flooding through his fingers as the knife burrowed further into his body.

  “Hey!” the doorman yelled.

  The homeless man flipped up the bottom of Jared’s coat, ripped the wallet out of his back pocket, and took off at a run, the sound of his footsteps receding into the night.

  Kneeling next to Jared, the doorman said into his cell phone, “A man’s been stabbed. In front of the Oak Club. Hurry.” He recited the address and hung up. “Mr. Carr, you’re going to be all right. An ambulance is on its way.”

  It wasn’t true.

  Jared Carr had known he didn’t have much time left. As the darkness
descended for the final time, he mourned for himself. He would never seize the entire pie.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chicago, Illinois

  Dev ran away, knowing the doorman would choose to try to save the life of a coveted member of the club—and reap all the rewards that that would entail—rather than apprehend her. He wouldn’t have caught her anyway. She kept herself in peak condition, not only for her work, but for herself, taking pride in her long, sinewy muscles. The absence of body fat.

  Before crossing the street, she risked a brief glance over her shoulder. She’d been right. The doorman was bent over, attending to Carr.

  Ignoring stoplights, she sprinted another four blocks before slowing down to a homeless-man shuffle. She passed a delivery van, then ducked into an alley that bisected the block between skyscraper office buildings. Littered with takeout cartons, crumpled candy wrappers, rotting garbage, and empty liquor bottles, the alley was shrouded in darkness, most of the lights extinguished on the lower floors.

  The number of wailing sirens in the distance multiplied. Reaching behind a dumpster, Dev retrieved the bag she’d stashed there earlier. A car drove by the alley’s entrance. She shed the homeless persona, donned a T-shirt over her chest-compression wrap, and slipped on an Under Armour tracksuit. As she changed, she ignored the pitter-patter of rats scurrying nearby. They were looking for food like everyone else.

  Balling up the rags and tucking them under her arm like a football, she ran out of the alley and back into the icy wind.

  Security gates protected the storefronts at this time of night. Every few blocks, she deposited an article of clothing into a trash can. Midblock, some homeless guys and one woman gathered around a blazing barrel drum.

  Serendipity.

  They stared but said nothing as she approached. Eying each of them, she threw the remainder of the clothes, including the sweatshirt, in the drum.

  One man said, “Thanks.”

  A police car rushed past on its way to the crime scene. She followed it with her eyes before resuming her run in the opposite direction.

  While she ran the remaining six blocks, she daydreamed about a woman.

  How she would punish her when she saw her again.

  The doorman of the hotel stood under the awning and opened the front door for Dev. “Evening, sir. How was your run?”

  “Exhilarating,” she said.

  Part II

  Chapter Fourteen

  Washington, DC

  “Come on!” Micah shouted down to her.

  The Potomac River below her, Jade looked up at his backside, which was snug in running tights, five steps ahead of her on the Watergate Steps. This was their hundredth set.

  He jogged in place at the top, waiting for her. “Slow poke.”

  “We’re not done,” she said.

  Taking off at a sprint, she passed him, calling over her shoulder, “Last one to the memorial is a chump!”

  “I presume that’s not a good thing,” he shouted back.

  They ran along Lincoln Memorial Circle, avoiding the midday traffic, and ended up at the plaza at the bottom of the monument. It was nearly empty. Few tourists had braved the bitter January cold.

  Micah and Jade shared a quick glance and, without a word, sprinted up the fifty-eight steps.

  Jade arrived at the top first and shot both arms up like Rocky Balboa in the first Rocky movie, one of her father’s favorites. She shuffled her feet and delivered some air punches at Micah as she hummed the movie’s theme song.

  He shook his head. “Gracious. You look like the female Creed.”

  At the reference to the main character and the name of one of the sequels, she stopped shuffling and bowed. “When you got it—”

  “You did okay,” Micah said, pausing, “for a girl.”

  He took off running—the man wasn’t stupid—to the other side and hid behind one of the thirty-six Doric columns, each of which represented a state in the Union at the time of President Abraham Lincoln’s death.

  Jade laughed and jogged over to sit beside him on the top step. “Smart man.”

  He smiled, his white teeth bright against his mocha skin. “I inherited my brains from my mum.”

  Staring out at the reflecting pool, the World War II Memorial, and the Washington Monument, she said, “You don’t talk much about your parents.”

  “Neither do you.”

  “Touché.”

  Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket, saving them both from a topic neither of them wished to discuss.

  “What’s up?” she said.

  “A detective from Chicago PD called,” Dante said, “asking for you. Lieutenant Tom Blanchard.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He has a case that might interest you.”

  Jade had solved three high-profile cases over the last two years—well, two, if you didn’t count the Robin Hood case. Consequently, members of law enforcement from all over the country called her office requesting her counsel. She removed her hair tie and shook out her shoulder-length hair.

  “What is it?”

  “He caught the Jared Carr case.”

  “And?”

  “Blanchard just got off the phone with a detective in New York City.”

  This caught her attention. “New York?”

  “The investment guy? Knifed outside the library? Sebastian—”

  “Scofield.”

  “There are some similarities to their cases.”

  Rising, she stepped back up to the monument level and started pacing. “How so?”

  “Both victims were stabbed. Knives left in the body. He said that his crime looked like a robbery.”

  Jade stopped pacing. “Looked like?”

  “Yeah,” Dante said. “He didn’t think robbery had anything to do with it.”

  *

  Forty-five minutes after hanging up the phone with Dante, Jade stared at a photograph on her computer screen of the late Jared Carr. While she and Micah had sprinted from the memorial to the FBI gym to take (separate) showers, Lieutenant Tom Blanchard had emailed Dante part of the case file, which he’d forwarded to her.

  Carr’s body was pitched forward, face-first, on the sidewalk, a pool of blood in a semicircle beneath him. She clicked the arrow key for the next photograph. This angle was from behind him. The back of his coat was lifted, his pants pocket ripped, apparently empty. His clothes looked expensive, the bottom of his dress shoes barely worn. The autopsy photos revealed that he was obese. Wealth afforded him suits that masked his girth.

  Carr had been stabbed three times in the chest. The medical examiner found evidence of prostate cancer, which had metastasized to other organs.

  Had Carr known? Was that what had driven him? Impending death?

  She called Dante and told him to come to her office.

  “What did you think?” she asked after he was seated.

  “He was stabbed in the aorta. The other two strikes were overkill. I called the Chicago ME, who said Carr would’ve bled out in two to thirty minutes from the first wound.”

  “Where did it happen?”

  “The Oak Club. A membership club downtown.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “Only the doorman.”

  “Did he check out?”

  “Said Carr was talking to a homeless guy, then said something that seemed to agitate the other man. The guy then took out a knife and stabbed Carr.”

  “Camera?”

  “Yeah. Aimed at the front of the club. Corroborated everything he said.”

  She sat up. “And the perp?”

  “Blanchard said you can see him shuffle into view, exchange words with Carr, and then stab the hell out of him.”

  “We need that recording.”

  Dante didn’t move. “I’ll get it, but Blanchard said you can’t see anything. The perp’s back is to the camera, and he’s wearing a hoodie.”

  She sat back, momentarily deflated. “Any prints on the knife?”

&
nbsp; Dante shook his head.

  “We need the number of the detective in New York,” Jade said.

  Fishing something out of his pocket, he held up a slip of paper.

  *

  Later, Jade poked her head into his office. “Busy?”

  Dante looked up from his computer. “Nope.”

  She frowned. “You should be.”

  “I should’ve said, ‘Not too busy for you.’ What’s up?”

  “That’s better,” she said.

  She settled into the only other chair in her old cramped office, which Dante had made his own. Photographs of him and his live-in girlfriend, Laurie, sat on top of his desk and the one filing cabinet. She was the reason he was so damn happy. Until he’d met her, Dante had hit on every woman under fifty. Including Jade. He hadn’t appreciated her rebuff at the time, but he eventually got over it.

  A photograph of his favorite chef, Eric Ripert, hung on the wall behind him—French cooking was Dante’s hobby—as well as a poster of his father, Marco Carlucci, soaring for a jump shot in his Italian professional basketball league uniform. He’d played his twilight years in the NBA.

  “Awesome,” Jade said, admiring the poster. Turning to him, “Seen Christian?”

  Dante averted his eyes. “He took the week off.”

  She waited for him to look at her. “We need to keep him. He’s a key member of this team. I expect you to make that a priority.”

  “I got it.”

  She said, “Talk to me about Scofield.”

  “Talked to a Detective Katz, NYPD. Unlike with Carr, there were lots of witnesses, including Scofield’s wife. She claimed a gentleman bumped into her husband seemingly by accident. Only after he fell and she saw the knife did she realize her husband had been stabbed in the back.”