by Meli Raine
Alice squeezes my shoulder. “Jane? You can choose. You don’t have to go back. You are your own person.”
Silas closes his eyes and takes his three middle fingers, rubbing a spot on his forehead. “You really can’t say no. The new information indicates you’ve been implicated in communications between John, Stellan, and Blaine on a level no one found before.”
“I what?”
Sadness fills his eyes. Sadness. “That’s all I can tell you, and even that’s too much. Just know that if you don’t come willingly, other agents will come and you’ll be taken back in handcuffs.”
“Am I under arrest?” My heart thumps in my chest like a backbeat.
“More bullshit,” Alice says, going to the fridge to pour more lemonades. I hold up a palm when she grabs the vodka. All my soft, warm feelings are gone, leaving my head swimming. It’s the worst of both worlds, the alcohol loosening me at the same time I’m filled with dread.
“Not arrest, but Jane?” He comes close, gently pulling my arm to guide me away from Alice. He leans in, the scent of his aftershave light, intoxicating. “If I don’t get you back there, the people who will come and take you won’t be as nice.”
“Why do you care?” I ask, at first defiant, then strangely pleading.
“I don’t know,” he whispers. “But I do.”
Chapter 14
The taste of basil from the sauce vierge on the salmon at Alice’s place is still on my tongue as Silas and I walk into the office wing of The Grove. In less than six hours I’ve gone from posing for Alice to returning for an emergency meeting that puts me right back where I was.
Accused.
This would be so much easier if I knew what people assume I’ve actually done.
You might think I’m about to find out, but that’s not how these meetings work. I go in and I’m an object. A thing. A bother. A symbol.
It’s the opposite of how Alice views me. Of how I feel when I am posing.
Here, my physical presence is an indictment of their power. In regular life, you know who your friends and enemies are, mostly. Tara, Mandy, and Jenna were supposed to be my friends, and they turned on Lindsay and–by extension–me. They’re an exception.
In high-powered meetings with politicians and their “people,” you have no idea who is good, who is bad, and who is driven by some agenda you can’t even see.
When I sit in conferences at The Grove, all I know is that I’m about to be managed, sent somewhere new, turned into a hot potato.
And right now, Silas has me in his hands.
He escorts me to the conference room, but no one is there except for Marshall, who has a tighter-than-usual look on his face. In his hands are the ever-present folders he carries, plus a cell phone. When he and Silas exchange nods, I go cold.
Marshall looks at me clinically. “Jane.”
“Marshall.”
“Thank you for coming on such short notice.” Am I imagining that he’s looking me up and down in some sort of robotic fashion? It’s not the look you give a woman you’re evaluating for sexual interest. It’s the same strange inventorying that happens to me whenever I come to one of these meetings.
Usually it’s Monica Bosworth who does it with precision, but Marshall might be taking lessons from her. His eyes narrow and he squints, blinking hard as Drew enters the room, followed by Monica.
Oh, boy.
This meeting just got harder.
Drew doesn’t sit, handing Marshall a slim envelope. “Exam room set up.”
“Exam room?” I squeak, my gut turning to liquid. “What kind of exam room?”
Monica frowns at Drew as if he’s created the conflict. “They’ll explain,” she says.
“Why are you here, Monica?” Drew asks sharply. “You’re too busy to have time for this.” His tone is perfunctory. She’s a problem he’s managing.
Like me.
Her tongue migrates to her upper lip, puffing it out slightly as her jaw tenses. As always, the senator’s wife is perfect. Not a hair out of place, her makeup expertly applied, the wrinkles hidden to the extent that modern technology can manage. A pale cinnamon lipstick with a slightly darker lipliner outlining her mouth looks like an artist painted it on. At the thought of painting, I feel a half smile creep over my face, the right corner of my mouth rising.
“What’s so funny, Jane?” Monica asks, her voice an accusation, acrimonious and taunting.
“Oh–nothing.”
“That’s right. Nothing about this situation is funny,” she spits out, looking pointedly at Drew, who ignores her. She hates to be contradicted but she loathes being ignored.
I look away and say nothing, mimicking Drew.
Lindsay walks in.
“Jane,” she says quickly, looking at her mother when she says my name. “Mom, are you really going to butt in? You don’t need to be here.”
“And neither you nor Drew needs to tell me where I should and should not be,” Monica says through clenched teeth. “I know full well how to allocate my time, and if I think this is important enough to be present, then it is.”
It’s suddenly hard to breathe.
Silas pulls Drew aside. I hear him ask, “Why are Monica and Lindsay here?”
“Lindsay’s here because of Monica. Trying to rein her in,” Drew answers.
“What does everyone here think I have done?” I ask no one, sending the question out into the center of the room.
Marshall clears his throat and answers me. “We have reason to believe you haven’t told us the truth, Jane.”
Because I haven’t. Silas knows more about my informant now, but...
“And that you may be spying via implants.”
“Implants?” I look down at my breasts, which are quite small. “You seriously think these are implants?”
Monica rolls her eyes. “Not breast implants. Chips.”
“You think my body has microchips in it? Like I’m a pet dog? And someone’s spying on you with them? That’s crazy!”
Monica looks at Lindsay. “Drew implanted Lindsay to track her. That’s how she was saved–no thanks to you,” she spits out at me. “It’s absolutely in the realm of possibility that the people you work for have implanted devices on you. And a new tip says it’s more than possible.”
For a split second, I wonder if she’s right. No, it’s not logical. I know I’m not microchipped or implanted or whatever you want to call it. But when you spend so many months being told right is wrong and wrong is right, and when psychological warfare is being used against you in a game you can’t understand, it’s totally inevitable that you’d doubt your own body.
“You think John and Stellan, or–that they implanted me?”
“Or someone else,” she says calmly.
I look around the room, focusing on the men. Why is Monica speaking to me about this? Who made her the spokesperson?
“Did you–do you–what evidence do you have? Who gave you this tip?”
“None. Yet. And you know we can’t tell you that.”
The word yet makes me tighten my gut, an involuntary Kegel closing off my lower body. “Yet?” I remember her words when she first came in.
Exam room.
Marshall sighs and says, “We need to have you submit to a physical exam to search for scars or evidence of implants. It’s possible this was done to you without your knowledge.”
“I think I’d know if someone inserted something into me!”
“Would you? Were you ever kidnapped, or subdued to the point of being unconscious?” he inquires, eyes sharp.
“What? No!” My eyes dart all over the room, processing memory as fast as possible. “I have told you everything. My mother was lied to, and handed Lindsay up to them without realizing until the last second who was really on the helicopter that took Lindsay away. When she knew it wasn’t Mark Paulson, she got a phone call telling her I had been kidnapped. John came to my apartment and calmly explained I needed to be their cell phone mule. They had a com
plex system of burner phones, designed to prevent being tracked. That’s all I did!”
“But they kept you somewhere,” Silas prods.
“In Stellan’s apartment, for a short time.”
“And you swear they didn’t hurt you? Touch you? Assault you?” Silas’s words are clear. He’s asking if they raped me. He already knows the answer–I’ve testified so many times, telling the story over and over. Why is he asking?
“They didn’t. They kept implying it. Said they’d finish what they started four years ago.”
Silas’s face goes pale.
“Finish?” Lindsay asks in a tone of befuddlement. I realize she’s probably only heard bits and pieces of my testimony. Most of it was behind closed doors, in private congressional and intelligence agency sessions.
“That’s what they kept saying. I thought at the time they meant that they wanted to do to me what they did to you, back then at the party.” I look at her and want to cry. “I didn’t know what they were planning at Drew’s apartment.”
Monica makes a derisive sound of disbelief.
“Lindsay, when I saw you there, I realized how bad it all was. I had no idea my mother put you on that helicopter. I’m so sorry. I really am. And I know you don’t believe me, but–”
“We’ll see,” Monica says, cutting me off. “Once the exam is completed, we’ll know more.”
“Exam?” We’re back to that topic.
“We have a doctor present from one of the intelligence agencies. A specialist in finding implants.”
“Specialist?” I squeak.
Marshall sighs. “It’s routine. In fact, we’re all surprised it wasn’t done sooner. Mrs. Bosworth noted the error and–”
I turn and look at Monica. “You noted it?”
“When it comes to protecting my family, I am careful to do due diligence. You remain a threat. You are lying and have been lying all along. Your Little Miss Innocent act might fool some people but it isn’t fooling me.”
“You’re so determined to find me guilty of something that you want me to submit to a body search?”
“Technically, you don’t need to submit. We have enough probable cause to find a judge who will...” Marshall’s words fade as I realize what he’s saying.
They’ve treated me like an object you move around in a game.
Now they are literally making a claim to my body.
“You have to tell me more than this. It’s too flimsy.” Alice’s defiance is rubbing off on me.
Drew gives me a look with dead eyes. “Fine. I don’t have to tell you, but I will if you insist.”
“I do.”
“We’ve been given new word that the people behind you were responsible for the car crashes that killed my parents and Mark Paulson’s mother and stepfather.”
Silas looks down, face a mask.
Monica gives me a twisted smile. “See? Your whole disgusting web is bigger than anyone thought. You’re just a pawn in it, a lackey, a game piece. But you can kill the leader by getting enough minions.”
“Minion?” I gasp. “I’m no one’s minion.” Numb blood courses through me. My skin feels like so many balloons being inflated. The accusations are unreal.
Again.
“You’re certainly no leader,” she says with a horrid cackle that makes me want to run away. “You’re just a tool. A sad little tool. And that means we need to figure out how to use you.”
“Use me?”
“If we find the implants, we’ll confirm your role in it all.”
“How does that confirm anything?” I ask. Silas gives me a sharp look, as if I’ve said something wrong.
“It shows you’re complicit,” Drew says.
“You just asked me if I’d ever been unconscious around them, that maybe they planted something on me then. How could I be complicit if I never gave consent?” I look around the room, half wild with terror. No one will catch my eye.
“Backpedaling now? How cute,” Monica says, moving behind Lindsay, placing a protective hand on her shoulder. Lindsay’s not looking at me, giving Drew a questioning look instead. Her shoulders hunch as Monica touches her.
“I’m not backpedaling,” I insist. “I’m trying to use reason and logic here.”
“You’re trying to play mind games,” she replies. “And you’re doing it poorly.”
“This is a witch hunt,” I say, my body separating from my mind. The wedge is small but grows by the minute as the dawning horror of what they’re proposing seeps in. “It’s like the drowning test for witches in the 1600s. If I sink and die, I’m innocent. If I float, I’m guilty.”
Baring my body for Alice to paint a work of art is a far cry from submitting to a naked body search for a team of people determined to find me guilty of crimes I’ve never committed.
“No one is asking you to kill yourself,” Monica counters. The words are out of place, incongruent with what we’re talking about.
“Who ever mentioned suicide?”
Her eyes turn sympathetic. “No one, but you know. Your father.”
I inhale sharply, the room filled with confused looks. Very few people know that my father committed suicide while my mother was pregnant with me.
So few that it’s clear Monica is the only one in the room.
Aside from me.
“Depression, anxiety–they’re genetic. They run in families.” Why is she talking about this? What on earth is her point?
“Why are you bringing up my father? He has nothing to do with this!” I say, my breath quickening, fists curling into tight balls.
“You father has everything to do with this,” she shoots back, eyes little fireballs of blue evil. She shakes her head slightly, as if surprised by her own words, and reels it all back in under control. “I just meant that you seem to have a persecution complex. People often do with family histories like yours.”
“You’re not making any sense, Mom,” Lindsay interrupts. Silas is watching Monica with cold interest, while Drew sorts through papers in a folder in front of him, but I can see how tightly he’s holding his body.
“Drew,” I say.
He turns to look at me, impassive but oddly attentive at the same time.
“How solid is this tip that I am somehow connected to the people who killed your parents?” I ask, my voice dropping with pain. Empathy floods me. My mom just died. It’s like someone ripped out all my teeth and expects me to still chew. I can only imagine the need for answers if she’d died in a mysterious car accident.
“From the highest levels of government,” he says, looking down at the table.
I sigh. “And if I let your doctor do a body check, will you believe me?”
“It will strengthen your case,” he says dully. “And discredit the person who tipped us off,” he adds. It’s an unnecessary comment, but it makes Lindsay squeeze his hand.
Monica rolls her eyes and says to me, “Just do it. Make it easy on everyone, including yourself. Do it for the country.”
“The country? I’m doing this because I don’t have a choice! Don’t try to gaslight me.” The longer Monica talks to me, the more I want to push back. Lindsay used to complain about her overbearing mother, and I always thought she was exaggerating a bit.
I was wrong.
Monica reaches for me, Silas shoving himself between us, but she gets my forearm. “Listen here, you conniving little bitch. If anyone is gaslighting, it’s you. Lindsay’s been through enough because of you. Now we have new evidence that your people might be behind Drew’s parents’ deaths, and all you care about is putting me in my place?” Her face is red, eyes so narrow, they might as well be closed, and I have the distinct feeling that if we were alone, she’d have no problem strangling me to death.
“I–I’m not! But you can’t go around saying that I should–”
“Don’t you dare try to tell me what I can and cannot do!” she roars. “You’ve created an impossible situation for Harry!”
Lindsay looks up, craning
her neck. “What does Jane have to do with Daddy?”
“What doesn’t she have to do with Harry!” Monica explodes. “She’s at the center of this whole mess, all the way back. Can’t you see that, Lindsay? She’s the cancer that has metastasized into every part of your father’s career!”
Even Drew looks up, astounded.
“You’re giving her a lot of credit for power Jane can’t possibly have,” he says slowly, frowning.
“How do we know?” Monica stresses. “We can’t know until she’s been thoroughly investigated. And we have a tip. We need to follow up on it.”
“What does this exam involve?” I ask Marshall, deciding to ignore Monica at this point.
“Blood work. We need to run some tests. Looking for biologic agents,” he adds vaguely. “And a skin search for implants.”
“Can’t you just do an MRI or a CAT scan?” Silas interrupts. Monica glares at him.
“Not good enough. Some of the implants are designed to self destruct inside the subject’s body if they are subjected to a high-energy scanning technology. Hence the blood work, plus we have a doctor who is a visual specialist,” Marshall says matter-of-factly. “It’s nothing more than what you’d experience at a dermatologist for a skin cancer check,” Marshall assures me.
Monica’s chin goes up, her composure back.
“It’s a twenty-minute process. If you’re really innocent, it should be no problem,” she sniffs, giving me a glare. “If you have nothing to hide, why would you argue?”
“For someone who wants to be First Lady, your grasp of constitutional rights leaves much to be desired,” I reply, struggling to keep my voice calm. A few minutes ago I was afraid she’d strangle me.
Now I’m worried in reverse.
Drew smothers a smile with his hand, while Lindsay stays perfectly still, the only hint of a reaction her twitching nostrils.
“Great!” Marshall declares. “It’s settled then. Jane, Silas can guide you to the exam room. We’ll be here when you get back.”
“Assuming the doctor finds nothing,” Monica adds. “When he finds a chip, you’ll be transported elsewhere.”
I don’t even want to ask where elsewhere is.