During the entire time, she couldn’t stop thinking about what she had seen in his study.
Especially the gun.
She no longer knew him. A man who could deceive her so enormously and for so long had to be a psychopath, or something. He could be capable of anything.
At least now, if anything ever happened to her, somebody eventually would find the photos.
But that was little comfort. For the time being—until she could figure out exactly how to use them—she had to make sure nothing did happen to her.
She rose from her desk and began to pace the room.
Avery was a driven man. All right—ruthless. It was time she admitted to herself what she had seen but ignored for so long. He would go to any lengths to get what he wanted, or to defeat an adversary. He would stop at nothing to keep secrets like these.
And he was no fool. He had already asked why she had been upset lately, and it was obvious he wasn’t buying her explanations. He would assume she suspected or knew he was seeing someone else. For all she knew, that affair might even have something to do with his other secrets. He would naturally think she would start to spy on him.
If he did, she might be in danger.
She had to make him think she really didn’t think he was having an affair.
With that thought, she stopped pacing.
No, he would never buy that. It would require a complete change in her demeanor. Which wouldn’t ring true. It would make him even more suspicious.
It had to be a different approach.
Standing helplessly in the middle of the room, she raised her eyes to the office walls. To the empty comfort of the posters and framed photos of her stage and film roles.
To the photo of herself and Avery, nineteen years ago, at the celebratory all-night party held after her second Academy Award triumph. They had just started dating. In the photo, they were posing, he proudly holding her in the circle of his arm, she proudly holding her golden statuette.
The sight of it made her sick, and she looked away.
Then it sunk in.
You are one of the world’s greatest actresses.
Her gaze fixed back upon the photo.
He has been playing a role with you, all these years. Now, you have to play a role with him.
And you are much better at role-playing than he could ever be.
But what role, exactly?
It had to seem authentic. That meant her character had to have a plausible motivation—something consistent with the kind of person he knew her to be, and with her recent behavior.
She moved around the room, visualizing it.
Making it real.
Getting into character . . .
3
He checked his watch as he entered the apartment, and winced. It had been almost three hours.
Maybe she had gone to bed.
But when he stepped through the foyer, he saw her in the parlor, rising from a chair.
“Avery, dear!” she called out, her dark eyes wide with concern. “Are you all right?”
It surprised him. He had prepared himself for an angry scene.
“Yes. I mean . . . I had to attend to an emergency.”
She rushed over to him, arms open. Astonished, he let her embrace him, and he wrapped his arms around her.
“My God,” she whispered, trembling. “I was so worried! The way you looked when you ran out . . . I didn’t know what to think.”
“I am so sorry I frightened you, my dear,” he said, raising a hand to stroke her hair. “I received a call that an old friend—no one you would know—had been in a terrible auto accident. I had to hurry to the hospital,” he added, offering the explanation he had invented.
“Oh, I’m so sorry! Is he going to be all right?”
“Fortunately, the doctors say it was less severe than it first appeared. For a while, they were worried he might have suffered a spinal injury. But it is merely severe whiplash.”
“You must be so relieved.” She drew back, looked up at him, smiled. “You look exhausted. Why don’t you join me in the parlor? I’ll pour us some brandy.”
“All right.”
He went to his favorite armchair, and in a moment she returned with two glasses.
“There. Maybe that will relax you,” she said, claiming her own chair.
“Thank you. I needed this.”
She nodded as she took a sip from her own glass. She wore green lounging pajamas that complemented her long auburn hair.
“Me, too.” She hesitated, casting her eyes down for a second, then looked back at him. The worry was there again, but of a different kind. “Maybe I need it more than you do . . . Avery, I don’t like what seems to be happening between us lately.”
And now it begins. He pressed his brows into a look of concern. “What do you mean?”
She took a deep breath. She looked at him directly. Sincerely.
“Dear, you don’t have to say anything you don’t want to. Actually, I’d prefer that you just listen. You and I, we’ve been married almost twenty years. We’ve had good times and bad times, but a lot more good than bad. We know each other about as well as two people can. But these past few months, you haven’t been yourself. I sense you have been under a lot of stress.”
She paused, expectantly.
He nodded slowly, cautiously. “That is true. I have been going through a rough patch. With work.”
“With work, and I suspect with other things . . . No, don’t say anything, not yet. Please, just hear me out, okay? . . . Look, a marriage that’s endured for as long as ours is also going to be stressed from time to time. And busy people like us, who are around a lot of other interesting people during stressful times—well, the marriage is going to be tested.” She took another deep breath. “And sometimes, under pressure and confusion and God knows what, maybe we’ll make a mistake.”
He could not say or do anything, except to keep his gaze riveted on her face and listen.
“If and when a mistake happens, the other person has to decide what to do about it. Whether to let a long and happy marriage come apart, just because of a mistake, maybe committed under pressures and frustrations.”
She put down her drink on the table next to her, stood, and walked over to him. Then knelt on the floor, at his feet. She took one of his hands in hers. Raised it to her lips and kissed it.
“Avery, dear, you are a private man, and I have always respected and allowed you your space. I also want you to know that I allow for mistakes. Because I’m sure I am a contributing factor. I’m busy, too, and haven’t always been around for you when you needed me. But I want to change that. Avery, I want us to be closer.”
He saw the beginning of tears as she continued.
“I still want to be the one and only woman in your life—if that’s what you want.”
It astounded him. It was the last thing he expected. He raised the hand she held and brushed it across her cheek. Felt the smoothness, the warmth.
“Julia . . . dear . . . there are days I realize I do not deserve you—and this is one of those days.” He said it sincerely, and in wonder, realizing that it was one of the only fully honest things he had said to her, or anyone else, in a long time.
“Perhaps we can both do better,” she said.
He swallowed hard.
“I could not ask for a better wife. But from now on, I promise to be a better husband.”
Avery Trammel said it knowing he was already lying again.
4
After apologizing, Trammel kissed her and said he had to wrap up a few things before coming to bed. He headed back to his study, tapped in the keypad code, and entered. He almost tripped over the hanger lying on the floor. He frowned—then remembered what had happened during his hasty exit. Draping his jacket over it, he hung it back on its wall hook.
The next quiet moments were spent toying absently with the items he had left out on the desk. His mind was far away, however, brooding over the unsettling events
of the evening.
He was close, so close to achieving his objective. But formidable threats still stood in his path.
The unpredictability of Carl Spencer.
The continuing popularity of Roger Helm.
The relentless prying of the faux reporter who called himself Dylan Hunter.
But perhaps the foremost threats he faced came from the two women in his life: from the emotional volatility of one, who saw and understood nothing about him; and from the disquieting awareness of the other, who had seen and perhaps understood too much.
He considered each of them in turn, weighing what to do about them. Because something clearly had to be done. Being a decisive man, once again he did not take long to reach conclusions.
Trammel got up, bent over his safe, retrieved and prepared a burner, then sent out the usual text message. He removed its battery and SIM card again, returning it to the safe, and emerged with the satellite phone, which he powered on.
Lasher’s answering call came through within two minutes.
“Yes, sir?”
“I have more work for you,” Trammel said quietly. “It will be complicated. It also will have to be handled delicately.”
Down the hallway, in the guest bathroom, his wife pressed a cold washcloth to her face and neck after throwing up into the toilet.
She rinsed her mouth, then stood, wobbly and shaky, before the vanity mirror. Her complexion was ashen, her eyes dark-ringed. She would have to do something about that before joining him later in the bedroom.
Julia Haight recalled the celebratory photos and publicity posters on her office wall, and the twin golden statuettes on the mantelpiece in the parlor. However, the stellar performances they honored were nothing compared to the one she had just delivered.
She knew her life would now depend on the answer to a single question:
Had it been good enough?
THIRTY-THREE
“Avery Trammel: billionaire investor and progressive philanthropist, whose power is felt at the highest levels in Washington.
“Lucas Carver: influential media strategist and leftist political consultant, whose publicity campaigns shape the ‘narratives’ you encounter every day, on television and radio, in newspapers and magazines.
“Trammel and Carver: old friends and political allies—now colluding through a tangled web of tax-exempt foundations and nonprofits.
“Their plan: to use that ‘charitable, educational’ network—and its millions of dollars in tax-deductible donations and resources—to affect the outcome of this year’s presidential election.”
On the other end of the phone line, Bronowski stopped reading aloud and whistled.
“Dylan,” said the Inquirer’s editor-in-chief , “please tell me you can back all this up.”
“You wouldn’t be reading it if I couldn’t, Bill. You’ll find my source notes at the end of the piece. Remember—you asked me to look into the organized campaign against Roger Helm. What you’re reading in this first installment barely scratches the surface. I’m uncovering more every day.”
“Well, I sure won’t need a second cup of coffee this morning. Damn, I can’t wait to finish reading this. So, what can I expect from you down the road?”
“I interviewed Trammel and a couple of his associates in the Currents network—it’s in the piece. I know how to read people,” he said, thinking of his CIA training, “and I could tell they were hiding something. In Trammel’s case—judging from his personal threats against me—it has to be something big.”
“He threatened you? How?”
“I said it was personal; let’s leave it at that for now. But a man in his position wouldn’t try to scare off a reporter lightly.”
“Damned straight. I’ve been a reporter and editor for decades, and the only people who ever threatened any of us were mobbed up. Who the hell is this guy, anyway?”
“There are things about Trammel’s background that remain murky. Perhaps deliberately hidden. That’s part of what I’m looking into.”
“I should put our I-team on this to back you up. You need—”
“Thanks, but no thanks, Bill. You know I work solo. I have my own resources to call on for help, if I need any. Besides”—he thought of Julia Haight—“I have to tread carefully with certain confidential informants, to avoid spooking them. They are in positions to blow things wide open.”
“All right, then,” Bronowski said, sounding dubious. “Play it your way. I trust you, you’ve always come through . . . So, what do you need from me?”
“Just publish the pieces as I submit them. I’ll email them to you, on no particular timetable, as I learn more. Of course, you want the staff to dig up appropriate photos and graphics to accompany them.”
“Sure. We’ve been headlining nothing but the terrorist attacks for the past week. This will be a change of pace for the readers. And of course, none of the other papers in town are going to touch this story, so we’ll own it . . . I’m excited about this, Dylan. I don’t want to waste a day or two teasing it. I’ll hustle it over to the fact checkers right now, see if we can get it out on the front page tomorrow.”
“Great. You’ll hear from me again very soon.”
“Can’t wait.”
2
“I am so sorry,” Avery said. “Considering how I disappointed you, I was hoping to make amends by showing you a splendid time this evening. But New York just called, and I have to be there in three hours for an unscheduled dinner meeting. I am at Reagan now, waiting to board a shuttle flight.” He sighed. “The meeting is unlikely to break up until late, so I shall have to stay in Manhattan overnight.”
“I understand.” She squeezed the phone tight, wondering whether to believe him. Then she heard a flight gate being called somewhere in the background, and felt a wave of relief. “Really I do.”
“The frustrating thing is that I managed to get seven o’clock dinner reservations for us tonight at that new place in Georgetown, Petit Plaisir.”
“I’ve heard about it. But it’s all right. We can go another time.”
“No, it is an opportunity wasted. Because of the review in the Post, it is already such a huge hit that reservations are almost impossible to come by. I was fortunate that someone cancelled. But now . . .”
“That’s too bad. I do love French food.”
She heard him sigh again. “I suppose you could always go without me. After all, there is no point in wasting the reservation.”
“You mean go alone?”
“You could . . . But what am I thinking? That is silly. You should have an escort.”
“Right. I couldn’t show up by myself at a place like that.”
“Of course not.” He paused. “You know . . . I just had a thought. Have I mentioned that I just hired a new driver? A real gentleman—well-traveled, speaks a number of languages, an amusing raconteur. He tells me he is working on a novel. Anyway, he is returning home after dropping me off. I could call and have him come by with the limo later this evening, and then escort you to dinner.”
With what had happened between them so recently, she immediately felt wary .
“Dinner, with a complete stranger? Avery, that seems more than a bit bizarre.”
“Not at all. The last thing I wish is for you to be stuck in the apartment and miss out on another good time, just because of me. Besides, you can act as my scout—let me know whether the food is as grand as they say.”
“Honestly, I should just stay here and—”
“Nonsense. My dear, I truly want to do this for you. You deserve it. Let me call ahead and tell them to put everything on my account—anything you want. My present to you. And please, do not worry about your escort. I had him carefully vetted.”
She pondered it for a moment. The driver would pick her up in Avery’s limo right here, at the Watergate, drive her straight to the restaurant; they would eat for a couple of hours, then return directly back home. Under the circumstances, it seemed unlikely anything u
npleasant could happen.
Besides, she was tired of the long days and nights of fear and worry. Her spirits could use a boost, and—all things considered—yes, she did deserve it. After everything she had been through, the least Avery owed her was a spectacular dinner.
“All right,” she said finally. “It sounds special. Thank you, Avery.”
“Thank you for accepting. I am delighted to do it for you. You will have to tell me all about it tomorrow.”
“So,” she asked, “who is this remarkable driver I should be expecting?”
“His name is Ray,” he answered. “Ray Lasher.”
3
From his latest hotel room, Lasher called her on the phone number that Trammel had provided. When she came on the line, he greeted her in as warm and charming a tone as he could muster, before explaining the slight change of plan.
“I’m really sorry, but on the way back from the airport, Mr. Trammel’s limo broke down. I had to have it towed to the shop to be looked at. I hope you don’t mind if we take my car to the restaurant. It’s not much, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I’m not fussy.”
“I’m relieved. Please don’t tell him I picked you up in a Taurus, okay? He’d be furious.”
She chuckled. “Don’t worry. It will be our secret.”
“Thanks. I’ll be there at six forty-five sharp. Do you want to meet me out front, or in the lobby—or should I ring for you at the desk?”
“I can be down in the lobby. What do you look like?”
He laughed as he finished applying the spirit gum to his upper lip.
“Please don’t ask me to describe myself. I don’t want you to change your mind. I know what you look like, of course, and that’s all that matters.”
She laughed, too. “All right, Mr. Lasher. You can surprise me. See you at six forty-five.”
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