Charlotte saw a flash of something dark in Joanna’s expression before her face recovered with a smile. “Of course, Charlie,” Joanna replied.
#
“How much scotch would you say you go through in a month?” Charlotte asked, teasing Harriet.
“The scotch is just another perk of my position. It’s more than just private viewings at art galleries, you realize,” she replied. She refilled their glasses and returned the bottle to the cabinet. The kitchen lights were dimmed, bathing Harriet’s face in shadows.
“Well, the art galleries are a perk of your status at the EBC, right?” Charlotte asked.
“Yes. As is the scotch,” she said with a smile. “One of the other producers has a family connection to the last Speyside distillery.”
“You’re not serious. You get the scotch through the EBC?” Charlotte couldn’t help but laugh. “But all the talk from the government about how we have to be ‘ever vigilant, ever ready’…”
Harriet shrugged and said, “That’s for the masses. It doesn’t apply to people in my position.” She handed a glass to Charlotte and added, “Trust me – I get the hypocrisy of it all. But it doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the perk nonetheless.”
Charlotte lifted her glass and said, “To unexpected perks.”
Harriet hesitated and then said, “No. To you, Charlie. Thank you for putting up with me.”
Charlotte touched her glass to Harriet’s and said, “I’d hardly call it putting up with you. You must know how lucky I feel.” She gazed at Harriet, wanting to compliment her but embarrassed by the intensity of her own feelings.
Harriet contemplated her drink and replied, “I know that it’s hard for me to find someone I can feel close to.”
“Well, I hope you’re not letting just anyone get close to you,” Charlotte said, leaning over to kiss the side of Harriet’s neck.
“You know what I mean.”
Charlotte looked at her and felt a twinge of sadness. Quietly, she replied, “I do. At least, I can imagine. With your responsibility, with the two lives you have to lead, with not knowing who is on your side….” She didn’t say anything, so Charlotte said, “It must be lonely.”
Harriet tried to reply teasingly, saying, “People in my position don’t get lonely,” but they both knew that wasn’t true. A moment passed before Harriet met Charlotte’s eyes and said, “I’m not lonely anymore.”
Charlotte knew that Harriet didn’t like feeling vulnerable. She replied with a smile, “Just so long as I’m not making you soft.”
Harriet kissed her and said, “You would be worth it.”
“I think you’ve had too much scotch.”
“Hardly. Maybe just enough to loosen my tongue,” Harriet replied, a hint of mischief playing on her features.
“Hmm… What do you have in mind?” Charlotte asked, setting down her glass on the counter. She pulled Harriet closer, her hands on her hips.
“We could start with a shower…” Harriet said. Charlotte’s mind immediately went to the conversation she had had with Joanna, and Harriet must have seen the look on her face. “Or, no shower?”
“It’s nothing…” Charlotte said, hesitating and not wanting to ruin the moment. “It was just another conversation with Joanna, and the mention of the shower reminded me.”
“Tell me,” Harriet said, looking suddenly sober, setting her glass on the counter beside Charlotte’s.
She didn’t know how to tell Harriet without just getting right to the point. “She asked me if I would put something in the tanks at work – to contaminate the city’s water supply.”
Harriet squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment. When she reopened them, she said, “Tell me what was said. Word for word, as best as you can remember.” Charlotte relayed the conversation.
Harriet asked, “When you first met Joanna… Did you approach her, or did she approach you?”
“I don’t know, Harriet. I guess…” Charlotte said, swallowing hard, “I guess she approached me. You think she’s been planning this for a long time, don’t you?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible,” Harriet replied. Charlotte could see that Harriet’s mind was racing. Harriet then asked, her voice unsteady, “Charlie… With that last pickup that you did, you didn’t touch the handguns, did you? My darling, tell me you didn’t.”
Charlotte’s face fell. She said softly, “I put them in the bag.” She looked at Harriet’s distraught expression and said, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
Harriet took Charlotte’s hands in hers. In the back of her mind, Charlotte registered surprise that Harriet’s hands felt unusually clammy. Harriet said, “I think Joanna is setting you up.”
“What?”
“I think… she picked you out from the start. She’s planning something. I don’t know what. But I think she’s going to try to use you. I don’t know whether she’s trying to get to me, or worse – trying to bring attention to the cause.” A tear slipped down Harriet’s cheek. “I’m so, so sorry, Charlie. This is entirely my fault. I should have never—”
“Don’t talk like that, Harriet. Whatever this is, it isn’t your fault. And besides, I didn’t agree to do it – to do what Joanna wants.”
“My dear, she was probably testing you.” And Charlotte had failed the test. “All right, let’s think about this logically,” Harriet said, and Charlotte could see that problem solving made her feel more optimistic, more confident, more in control. “All we know is that Joanna has been planning something. And she’s been using you, or perhaps just intending to use you. We don’t know who else is involved. And we don’t know the whole plan. We don’t know what time frame she’s working with.”
Charlotte nodded and said, “Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe… we can stop her.”
Harriet’s hands went to the sides of Charlotte’s face as she leaned in and kissed her. Her voice low, she said, “I will do everything, Charlie, everything in my power to stop her.” Charlotte nodded, and Harriet added, “I have to go see Daniel.”
Charlotte wanted to object. She wanted to go with her. Instead, she watched as Harriet composed herself in the mirror and then headed out the door. “I’ll be back soon, my dear,” Harriet said just before closing the door behind her.
Charlotte paced. She played the piano for a while. She finished another glass of scotch and washed both their glasses. Eventually, she fell into a fitful sleep on the couch.
She awoke to knocking.
“McGillicuddy, lights,” she said, startled into a seated position. After a moment, she realized where she was, and corrected herself. “Navigator, lights.” With the lights on, she surveyed the room briefly, noting that everything was in place.
The knocking on the front door – no, it was the back door – sounded again but more faintly this time. She moved quickly to the back door, registering that she seemed to still be alone in the house, and knowing that Harriet wouldn’t knock at her own door.
The rear door didn’t have a peephole so she readied herself for whomever she would find on the other side. She pulled the door open a crack to reveal Daniel, his head bent forward and covered in perspiration. She opened the door all the way.
“Daniel—,” she exclaimed.
“Where is Harriet?” he asked through a grimace. He was hurt.
“What? She left, a while ago. She went to see you.” Her eyes glanced over his body but he was standing in the dark and her body blocked the light from the kitchen. “What’s going on?”
He gasped and doubled over in pain. Charlotte ushered him inside the house. “What’s happened?” she asked him, panic rising in her chest.
“It’s Joanna… I came to warn Harriet. Joanna is… making a move,” he said, allowing her to help him out of his leather jacket. As he moved his arms away, Charlotte saw that the front of his shirt was soaked in blood, as was the one leg of his trousers.
“Daniel, you need help,” Charlotte said. Yes, she told herself, focus on just this, focus on right
now. Don’t think about Harriet. If you think about Harriet….
“I’ve been shot,” he said. “I think… I think it’s bad.” He slumped against the counter as his eyes began to roll back. Charlotte tried to support him to the floor as his heavy body went limp. She quickly assessed his injuries, ripping his trousers to reveal a clean bullet wound through his thigh. She took off her leather belt and applied it as a tourniquet around his thigh.
“Daniel… I need you to wake up… Daniel!” She cursed under her breath. She couldn’t assess his abdominal injury without releasing her grip on the belt. Think, she told herself. She pulled the belt as tightly as she could and then knelt on the end, pinning it against the floor. She then peeled his shirt away from the front of him, but his abdomen was pooling with blood and she couldn’t see. She pulled her own long-sleeved t-shirt off her body, leaving her in just a tank top. She balled up the t-shirt and pressed it firmly against Daniel’s wound. She thought, If I could just….
Her thoughts were interrupted by a hard knock at the front door. “Police! Open the door.” Only a moment or two passed before Charlotte heard the sound of wood splintering as the police stormed the door. Her hands soaked in Daniel’s blood, her clothing covered in it, she was frozen in place. She was mere feet from the back door of the house, but if she moved her hands – or her knee – Daniel was certain to bleed out.
At least five uniformed police officers hurried into the kitchen. One spoke to Charlotte. “Get away from that man and put your hands where I can see them.”
“I can’t… he’ll die,” she managed to say.
One of the officers roughly shifted Charlotte from her spot and took over administering aid to Daniel. As another called for an ambulance, the lead officer, a tall man in his forties, rushed her and pushed her against the counter, handcuffing her hands behind her back. “Charlotte Parker, you’re under arrest for treason against the Crown. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
“What’s going on here?” Charlotte heard a familiar voice ask.
The officer jerked Charlotte to a standing position, and she spun around to see Harriet taking in the situation. Don’t tell them anything, Charlotte willed it. Save yourself.
“Who are you?” the lead officer demanded of Harriet.
Harriet’s chin rose in indignation as she replied, surprisingly calmly, “Harriet Spencer. I’m the homeowner.” Charlotte saw Harriet’s eyes dart to Daniel before she looked back at the officer. She didn’t look at Charlotte.
The lead officer glared at her. “All right. Any idea why two suspected terrorists are at your house?”
Harriet’s eyes slowly shifted to meet Charlotte’s gaze, but her expression revealed nothing. It was as though she was looking through her. Finally, while still looking at Charlotte, she told the officer, “She’s a source – an informant. I’m an executive at the EBC.” She looked back at the officer. “The one bleeding all over my Italian marble floor? I’ve never seen him before.”
The officer took a moment to consider what she was saying. Perhaps it was Harriet’s words, or perhaps the way she looked down her nose at him, holding herself as a person of authority, but the officer finally said to her, “I’m sorry, Ms.—”
“Spencer,” Harriet supplied. “And I don’t appreciate having to repeat myself.”
“Of course not,” the officer replied. He pulled himself into a taller stance and said, “We’re taking your source in for questioning. She’s under arrest for treason.”
Charlotte held her breath, waiting for what Harriet would say, how she would get her out of this situation that she somehow found herself in. She watched Harriet’s face as Harriet unblinkingly said to the officer, “Fine.”
The officer gave Charlotte a hard shove to walk toward the front door. She glanced over her shoulder at Daniel on the floor, his blood spilling out further from his body, and then she looked at Harriet. With no one else watching her, Harriet’s face momentarily revealed her emotions, her eyes filling with tears as she met Charlotte’s gaze. And then she looked away as Charlotte was led out of the room.
Part II
Chapter Forty
Soft, classical music filled the room. Harriet had programmed her office computer to play the music at just the right volume so that it wouldn’t distract her when she was busy working, but that it was loud enough to help set others at ease when they came to meet with her. Somehow, the noise took the edge off those who seemed predisposed towards nervousness. A bit of psychology could work wonders.
The intercom on her desk sounded as Anna, her assistant, announced, “Ms. Spencer, your eleven o’clock appointment is here.”
Harriet held the button on the intercom and replied, “Please show her in.”
The door opened and in walked a light-skinned black woman in a pressed suit with a starched white dress shirt, her hair neatly parted to one side. She looked to be in her mid-to-late thirties.
Harriet came out from behind her desk and extended her hand to her guest. “Welcome, Ms. Reese. Thank you for meeting me.”
“Thank you, Ms. Spencer,” she replied. “And please, call me Erin.”
Harriet smiled politely as she sat back down in her chair, her hands folded on the desk in front of her. “Please have a seat, Erin. And you may call me Harriet. I trust that my assistant sent you the files?”
Erin sat in one of the two chairs across the desk, setting her briefcase in the other chair. “Thank you, yes.” She seemed nervous. Harriet wondered if she should reevaluate her musical selection.
Harriet decided to try an easier topic to warm her up. “My assistant informs me that you’re a solicitor,” she said.
At that, Erin’s face lit up with a proud smile. “Yes, I qualified just under a year ago. I suppose you could call it a second career.”
Harriet returned her smile and said, “Congratulations. I don’t suppose you have designs on becoming a Member of Parliament?”
Erin laughed self-consciously and replied, “Oh, no. I greatly respect what you do, Ms. Spencer—”
“Harriet,” she corrected.
“Sorry—Harriet. But I just don’t see myself… That is, I could never do what you do.” She flushed and added hastily, “As an MP. I didn’t mean… That is, I wasn’t referring to anything else.”
Harriet made a mental note. It seemed that Erin knew more about her than she had realized. She wondered what Charlie had told her, all those years ago.
“I see,” Harriet said. “Well, back to the task at hand… I understand that you were a friend of Charlotte Parker.”
“I’d like to think I still am,” she replied.
“Indeed. Twelve years of no contact... and yet you’re still interested in her case.”
Erin looked at the desk as she said, “It was difficult at first. I didn’t even know what had happened. I went over to Charlie’s flat and waited outside for a long time before one of her neighbors told me the police had been there, searching the place. I went to the police and they told me she’d been arrested, but they wouldn’t give me any details. Eventually, after my repeated inquiries, I found out she’d been sent to prison. But they wouldn’t tell me where, for what, for how long… and none of it made the news.”
Yes, I had made sure that nothing made the news, Harriet thought. She replied, “And now you’re a solicitor.”
Erin’s eyes snapped up to meet Harriet’s as she blurted, “I’ve read the case files now – what you sent me.” She paused and started again, “I read how Charlie’s fingerprints were on the handguns that had been used to shoot at the Prime Minister, how the suspects – a short, brunette woman and a tall man – were never caught. I know that her employee code had been used at work to gain entry to the water storage tanks, and her home computer showed a history of searching for terms related to poisoning the water supply. And I know that, as an American
, she didn’t have a chance.”
Harriet nodded and replied, “She was charged with conspiring against the Crown, a charge she didn’t contest.”
“I don’t believe for a second that she was guilty, and I don’t know what happened,” Erin said. “But the heart of the matter is that although Charlie was involved in, well, let’s say a certain… organization… there’s nothing that can be directly pinned on her. She didn’t shoot anyone. She didn’t go through with poisoning the water tanks. The government imprisoned her because, well, they could.”
“She was never going to poison the water,” Harriet said quietly, knowing that it was more than she should say. She wanted to trust Erin – not because she came across as being earnest, although she did, but because Charlotte trusted her.
Erin’s voice faltered slightly as she replied, “I also read in the files how you were there that night – when she was arrested.”
Harriet couldn’t allow herself to think back to that horrible night, not right now. She simply said, “Yes, I was.”
“The files said you worked for the EBC, and that Charlie was giving you information – that she was some kind of informant,” Erin said, her brow furrowed, indicating this didn’t fit with what she knew.
“That’s partially true,” Harriet replied. “I did work for the EBC.” She could tell Erin wanted more, but instead she said, “Listen, I asked you here because I think you can help Charlie. There are things that, you have to understand, someone like me can’t do directly.”
“Help her how?” Erin asked.
“As an educated woman – a solicitor – you must have noticed how things… how the political climate… has been shifting. There’s been some talk of reunification and reopening the borders. I believe there’s room for leniency that wasn’t possible before.” Harriet felt a pang as she added, “She’s served twelve years in prison. It’s possible to appeal to the Crown to let her out on license.”
Erin looked hopeful and asked, “You think they’ll let Charlie out?”
Harriet was careful with her tone and words as she replied, “I think there’s a chance. Nothing more.” She knew Charlotte’s to be a difficult case. Charlotte had been given an indeterminate sentence for public protection, meaning they could hold her indefinitely. With this sentence came a tariff – a minimum sentence that she was required to serve. In her case, it was twelve years.
The Organization Page 17