by Hart, Stella
Logan exhaled heavily and held his hands up, palms facing me. “Fine. I’ll take you to see her,” he muttered. “But I’ll be listening to every word.”
“I know.”
He grabbed a tissue and leaned down to wipe the beads of sweat off his sleeping sister’s forehead. Then he looked back up at me. “I’ll get your security detail, and then we can go.”
An hour later, we pulled into a spot on West Executive Avenue. Before I could leave the car with Mal and Adam, Logan reached over and grabbed my thigh, squeezing hard. My body immediately flushed with heat in response. “Promise me you’ll be careful,” he murmured, moving his face close to mine.
I swallowed hard and nodded as his spicy cologne filled my nostrils. “I will.”
“If anything goes wrong, I’m coming straight in.”
“I know.”
When I arrived outside the Oval Office, my mom’s secretary greeted me with a pleasant smile. “Hi, Willow.”
“Hey, Lauren,” I said, returning her smile. “Is my mom here?”
“Yes, she is.” She glanced at her computer screen and frowned. “There’s no appointment scheduled for you, though.”
“I didn’t plan it. I just want to have a quick chat with her. Mother-daughter stuff.”
“Sorry, that won’t be possible. She’s on a call with the Australian Prime Minister right now.”
“I can wait.”
“You might be waiting a while,” she said, arching a perfectly-plucked brow.
I shrugged. “That’s okay. Just let her know I’m here when you can, please.”
“Fine.” She waved a hand to shoo me away from her desk. “Take a seat over there.”
There was a small waiting area on her right with a low coffee table and two tufted chaise seats made with pale blue and gold fabric. I sat down on one and stared up at the paintings hanging on the opposite wall. President Rutherford’s portrait had been added to the collection recently.
I stared at his face, wishing he could channel his spirit through the art and tell me the truth about everything. “Who killed you?” I murmured. I jerked my thumb toward the Oval Office doors. “Was it really her?”
“Willow?”
I jerked my head around to see Jamie Torrance staring at me from the hall. My cheeks instantly flooded with heat. I probably looked completely insane, sitting here muttering at paintings.
“Talking to the portraits?” Jamie went on, stepping over to the waiting area. He sat down next to me. “Don’t worry. We’ve all done it. One time I had a few too many whiskeys after a bad meeting and spent five minutes mocking President Kenworthy’s beard. Not exactly my proudest moment.”
I smiled. “To be fair, he looks like an eighteenth-century lumberjack in his portrait.”
Jamie chuckled. “He does. What are you up to, anyway?”
“I came to see my mom.”
“Ah. That’s nice,” he said, reaching over to pat my shoulder.
With a frown, I suddenly remembered a conversation I had with an Order initiate when we were ‘kidnapped’, hustled into vans, and taken to the secret society’s main ceremonial chamber. His name was Richard, and he was the one whose uncle had failed the final initiation test and later told him all about it.
‘Some people actually rejected the tap on the first night,’ he’d said as we made our way through those creepy dark tunnels. ‘You know your mom’s Chief of Staff? Apparently he was one of the ones who straight-up rejected membership that year. Said no way and walked out.’
I turned to Jamie. “Can I ask you something?”
He nodded. “Sure.”
“You know about the Order, don’t you?” I whispered. “Is it true you reje—”
His eyes bulged, and he shook his head wildly. “The lunch order?” he said loudly, cutting me off. “I don’t know where it is, but I’m getting hungry. Let’s go and find out what’s taking so long.”
Before I could respond to that, he motioned for me to zip my lips and follow him out of the waiting area. He directed me into a small office a few yards down the hall, and then he slammed the door shut.
“What the hell are you doing?” he said, eyes flashing as he whirled around to look at me. “This is the fucking White House, Willow. There’s recording devices all over the place.”
“I thought it would be safe outside Mom’s office.”
He shook his head. “That’s the most bugged spot,” he said. He gestured to the room around us. “Don’t worry, we’re safe in here. Now what were you trying to ask me out there?”
“I want to know if it’s true that you rejected membership in the Order.”
“How the hell did you hear about that?”
“Someone told me. I can’t remember who,” I said. I didn’t want to give him a name, just in case.
“Right,” he muttered.
“Is it true?”
He let out a sigh and looked at the floor. “Yes. They tried to recruit me when I was your age. I refused to do it.”
My eyes widened. “So you just said no and walked out, and it was totally fine?”
“Yes. They didn’t bother me after that,” he said. He took a step closer and lowered his voice to a whisper. “You know you aren’t supposed to talk about them, right?”
“Yes, but I figured it would be safe to talk to you, because you rejected them, so it’s not like you’re going to run off and tell them,” I said. “Why did you reject them, anyway?”
“Because I heard all sorts of rumors about them. None of them good.”
“Like what?”
“It’s probably better if I don’t tell you.” He crossed his arms, setting his lips in a thin line. “Why are you asking about them, anyway?”
“I want to—”
Before I could get more than a few words out, his eyes widened, and he cut me off. “Oh, no…. You joined them, didn’t you?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“Why would you do that? Do you have any idea how dangerous they can be?”
“I didn’t know that when they recruited me,” I said, shaking my head. “They made it sound so good. I thought it would be like having a second family.”
“Has it been like that for you so far? A second family?”
“No. Being a low-level member is useless. They don’t tell us anything. They just use us for whatever they can get and throw lavish parties to distract us.”
Jamie’s forehead creased. “No surprises there,” he muttered.
“The thing is….” I stopped and hesitated, chewing on the inside of my cheek. “I think there’s something really bad going on in the upper levels.”
Jamie let out a short, frustrated sigh. “I’m sorry, Willow, but I don’t know how I can help you with that. I’m not a member.”
“I just want to know what you know,” I said, pulse racing. “I want to know exactly what you heard that stopped you from wanting to join them. Any piece of information could be helpful, even if it’s small.”
He took a step back. “It sounds like you’re trying to investigate them.”
I nodded. “I want to know the truth.”
“Willow, you can’t do that,” Jamie said, holding up a hand. “You can’t start looking into the Order. It’s too dangerous.”
“Too late.”
His jaw clenched. “Christ,” he muttered. “What have you managed to fi—”
He stopped abruptly as the door opened. Lauren poked her head around it. “There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere,” she said, voice tinged with annoyance. “Your mom got off the phone earlier than expected, so she can see you for a few minutes before her next meeting.”
“Okay. Just give me a second, please,” I said, face flushing with warmth. “I was asking Jamie for, uh… Christmas gift ideas.”
As Lauren waited in the doorway, impatiently tapping a stiletto on the marble tiles, Jamie moved his mouth close to my right ear. “Your mom is having a party in a few days,” he murmured. “If she hasn’t
already invited you, I’ll get you an invitation. We can talk more then.”
Before I could reply, he strode past Lauren and out of the office.
Lauren raised an eyebrow in a way that made it obvious she thought I’d been flirting with Jamie. I didn’t bother correcting her. It was far better for me to have rumors flying around about possible affairs with older men than for the Order to hear a single whisper about me looking into them.
We walked down the hall, toward the Oval Office, and she let me in with a curt nod. Mom was sitting at her desk in front of the three mullioned south-facing windows, rubbing her temples as she stared down at some papers.
When she heard the door close behind me, she glanced up. “Oh, there you are. Take a seat.”
I did as she said, folding my hands in my lap. Mom removed her glasses and leaned back with a tired sigh. “You’ll have to make this quick. I’ve only got five minutes before my next meeting.”
I frowned. “I need more than five minutes with you. It’s important.”
Her forehead creased. “Willow, I’m the president,” she said sharply. “I can’t just drop everything for anyone who shows up outside my office. You’re lucky I made any time for you at all.”
My eyes widened. “I’m lucky my mother deigned to give me five minutes?”
She let out an anguished sigh. “Don’t be so dramatic. I’m just saying, I’m extremely busy,” she said. She glanced at her watch. “Now, please tell me what you came here to talk about before we run out of time. We’re down to four minutes.”
I stood up and crossed my arms. “Mom, seriously! Are you kidding?”
“About what?” she asked, looking bored.
“In case you forgot, Dad died six days ago. Six.”
“I didn’t forget.”
“Well, you’ve barely said a word to me about any of it, even though I’m your daughter. In fact, you’ve barely spoken to me in months, and you always act like you can’t stand the sight of me,” I said, cheeks flushing with heat. “On top of that, it’s nearly Christmas and I can’t even spend it with my brother, because if I see him I’ll probably break down and tell him Dad died, and then you’ll hate me even more for ruining your whole plan to wait until after Christmas to tell him. Which I still disagree with, by the way. Not that you’d know, because apparently you don’t listen to me or care about anything I say.”
“Willow, please…”
I ignored her and kept going, eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand how you can be so cold. You didn’t shed a single tear at Dad’s funeral, and now you’re back at work less than a day later, chattering away with Prime Ministers and attending cabinet meetings like nothing even happened. Do you even care that he died? Do you care about me or Jared? Do you care about anything at all apart from your job?”
“Willow, stop.” Mom waved a hand at me, motioning for me to sit down again.
I sank into the soft chair, averting my eyes from her gaze.
“You’re right,” she muttered, clasping her hands in front of her.
My eyes shot up. “What?” I said, certain I’d misheard.
“I said you’re right. I’m sorry. I should make more time for you, and I will,” she replied. “But first, would you let me explain something to you?”
“Okay,” I said, shoulders drooping. The exhaustion from my grief was seeping back in again, and my eyelids were starting to feel heavy.
Mom took a deep breath and leaned forward. “I do care that your father is gone, honey. Of course I do. I’m devastated,” she said softly. “But I know if I let myself crawl into bed and cry right now, I’ll probably never stop. I can’t do that, no matter how much I want to, because I have a country to run. That means I don’t get to mourn. I don’t get that privilege. I need to appear stoic and brave instead, and to manage that, I need to stay busy and try my best to act like I’m fine. I have to keep up that act for the rest of my term.”
“Right.”
“I know how that must sound to you. How it must look,” she went on. “But that’s how it works for people like me. We don’t get to cry. We don’t get to have more than one day off. The world keeps going on around us, and every day a new problem gets thrown at us. It’s our job to suck it up and deal with it, no matter what’s happening in our personal lives.”
I nodded slowly. “I get that.”
She let out another deep sigh. “As for Jared… you’re right about that too. I should’ve told him when it happened. The Christmas thing was just an excuse.”
“An excuse for what?”
Her lower lip quivered slightly, and she dropped her eyes to the desk. “I know a lot of things, Willow, but I don’t know how to tell my ten-year-old son that his father has committed suicide.”
“Oh.”
“You’re twenty-one. You can handle it, horrible as it is. But your brother… how do I tell him something like that? How do I even start…”
She trailed off and wiped her wet eyes, sniffing loudly as she stared up at the ceiling.
It was all extremely convincing. I almost believed that she was genuinely sad over Dad’s death.
“If Stephen died some other way, it would be easier,” she finally went on. “I could tell Jared that Daddy got sick, and then it’s no one’s fault. But that’s not how it happened, is it? So instead I have to find a diplomatic way of saying: Daddy couldn’t handle the world anymore, so he went and jumped in the river.”
I sighed. “I’m sure you can find a gentle way to word it.”
She shook her head. “Jared is ten. He won’t understand it the way we do. He’ll think it’s his fault. He’ll think that if he did something differently, maybe Stephen wouldn’t have chosen to leave him.”
“I understand what you’re saying, but the longer you keep it from him, the worse it’s going to get,” I replied. “There are people who can help with this sort of stuff. Like child psychologists. They can suggest ways of breaking the news to Jared without making him think it’s his fault in any way.”
“I know. I’m just so ashamed,” Mom murmured, wiping her eyes again. “What are people going to think of me when they find out how long I waited?”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. I simply shook my head and looked out one of the windows behind her, biting my lip.
Mom sniffed loudly, picked up the phone on her desk, and pressed a button. “Lauren, what’s the longest I can push this meeting?” she asked. She paused for a few beats, waiting for the reply. Then she looked at me and covered the mouthpiece. “She says twenty minutes.”
I nodded. “That should be fine.”
She uncovered the phone. “Lauren? Make it happen, please,” she said. She looked over at me again. “I’m sorry. It’s a very important meeting, and it has to be today.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Twenty minutes is a lot better than five.”
She nodded slowly and took another deep breath before lifting her chin and looking me in the eye. “I want you to know that I don’t hate you, Willow.”
“You don’t?”
“Of course not.” She paused to let out a sigh. “I know you must think I’m a terrible mother for avoiding you over these last few weeks. That’s perfectly fair. I have been terrible. I realize that now.”
“Why did you do it?"
“I suppose part of me blamed you for this whole Rutherford scandal that’s been hanging over my head,” she said. “But that was unfair of me. It’s my own fault. If I didn’t have that stupid conversation with Jamie about killing Rutherford’s career, none of this would’ve happened. It’s not your fault at all.”
“Thank you for saying that,” I murmured.
“It needed to be said. I’m just sorry I waited so long and made you feel so bad.” She worried her bottom lip between her teeth before speaking up again. “Anyway, I’m here for you now. I’m ready to listen,” she said, leaning forward. “What is it you wanted to talk about?”
I took a deep breath. “I wanted to ask you about
October 20, 2013.”
She cocked her head to one side, lips turning up in a faint smile. She was clearly trying to look casual and unruffled with just a dab of confusion, but I could tell from the sudden coldness in her eyes that she knew exactly what I was talking about.
“Is that date supposed to have some sort of significance?” she asked.
“It does to me now that I’ve finally remembered it.”
Her smile wavered for a second, but she regained her composure quickly. “What did you remember?” she asked.
“I remembered that it was the last time I ever rode the Vespa I got for my sixteenth birthday,” I said, keeping my eyes fixed on hers. “I took it out and crashed it that night. Except it wasn’t a normal crash. I hit someone. It was Chloe Thorne. I don’t remember much after that, because I hit my head pretty hard, but I remember calling you. I asked you to help.”
“Oh, no...” Mom groaned and put her head in her hands, abandoning all pretense of innocence. “Please don’t ask me about this right now. I have enough on my plate.”
“Too bad. I’m asking,” I said stiffly. “What happened that night? What did you do after I called you?”
“Please, Willow. This is not the right time for this conversation.”
“Tell me what happened. I need to know.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose, refusing to meet my eyes.
“Mom?” I said, leaning forward.
She let out a heavy sigh and held up a hand. “All right, fine. I’ll tell you,” she said. “You called me that night. You were hysterical. Slurring your words. At first I thought you were drunk.”
“What did I say?”
“You said you ran over Chloe, and you thought she was dead. You wanted my help.”
“So you helped?”
She nodded slowly. “I was only the Governor back then, but I still had connections. I knew all the fixers. I called the best ones and asked them to deal with it. They got a team out there within ten minutes.”
“What did they do?”
“They picked you up and removed all traces of evidence that you were there.”
“But not Chloe.”