America the Beautiful

by Laura Hayden

  There was a moment of silence; then the man had the unmitigated gall to laugh out loud. “You know, I never did quite trust Nick. Not really. I always wondered if he still had the hots for his ex. I suppose this proves it. Looks like I shouldn’t have been so upset when that little surprise I arranged in New Hampshire almost took him out of the picture. We sure got a lot of good press out of it, didn’t we? I thought at the time it might not be worth nearly losing my secret weapon campaign adviser. Guess I was wrong.”

  What? Kate thought. Had Talbot just admitted to setting Gilroy loose? Didn’t he care that Gilroy had killed a member of his staff? What kind of man was she dealing with?

  But Talbot was still talking.

  “I bet Nick’s hoping to get back in the ex’s good graces and back in her bed by divulging details about tomorrow’s press conference to her.”

  “Actually I’m the only person he’s told about your plans. I haven’t informed Emily yet.”

  Talbot took a moment to digest what she said. “I suppose yet is the operative word.”

  “Correct.” She fought her natural tendency to add a perfunctory “sir” when addressing him. He deserved no such respect. “You will call off that press conference.”

  “Now why in the world would I do that?”

  “Because this presidential campaign is going to be about issues. We’re going to let the voters decide based on the platforms the candidates present to them, not underhanded political mudslinging. You said so yourself.”

  “Well, I didn’t realize I had a gold mine’s worth of mud to sling when I said that.”

  “Your gold mine is actually a field of clay. Here’s the deal. We won’t—”

  “Pardon me, Miss Rosen,” Talbot sneered, “but you’re in no position to call any shots at all. The way I see it, I’m holding all the cards and I’m not in the mood to bluff. It’s simple. She’s going down tomorrow. If you have any sense whatsoever, you’ll walk away from her today. You’re a smart woman. Save yourself.”

  Kate squeezed her eyes shut, glad that he couldn’t see her. It was far easier to play this sort of no-bluff, one-hand-takes-all poker over the phone. But she knew what she had to do.

  “You don’t have all the cards. And my hand beats yours. October 7, 1973,” she said.

  He acted as if he hadn’t heard her correctly. “Pardon?”

  She stood and began pacing the dusty room as she pulled from her memory the details that Lee Devlin and Sierra Dudicroft had ferreted out at her request. Emily had wanted ammunition against Talbot, and Kate had gotten it. She’d swallowed her revulsion and done the task and discovered truths she’d decided were too terrible to use against an honorable man. Carmen del Rio had pointed her in the right direction and District Discreet had flushed out the facts.

  In spades.

  Kate had buried the evidence. But that was before she found out what kind of person Talbot was. She’d given him the benefit of the doubt, and he’d faltered. He’d dug up dirt—but that was just politics. Setting a madman on his own people for publicity’s sake? And laughing about it? Talbot was someone who could take a great country and corrupt it beyond belief. She never wanted to be president herself, but she wasn’t about to let this snake sully the process. God had put her in this place, with the information in her hands, for a reason. She was sure of it.

  Lord, put the right words in my mouth. If I fail now, millions will pay the price for my failure.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the day, Chuck. Let me repeat it. October 7, 1973. That’s the day your girlfriend almost died. Well, it was nighttime, actually. Angela Kaye Kasdan, a poli-sci major at Ohio State, just like you. You and Angie had been staying at the lake cabin your parents owned and the both of you had been doing coke all weekend. But high or not, when Sunday night rolled around, it was time to head back to campus.”

  Kate fell into a pattern she’d learned in school; any good trial lawyer knew that you had to keep referring to the victim by her name.

  “You drove Angie’s car because she was too wasted. But you really weren’t in much better shape, were you? The two of you were only a couple of miles from campus when you missed a curve in the road and plowed into a tree. You thought Angie was dead, so—smart boy that you were—you had the presence of mind to drag her out of the passenger’s seat and shove her body behind the steering wheel, making it appear as if she’d been driving. Once you’d set the scene, you removed all evidence that you’d been in the car. Then you walked back to campus and somehow managed to get into your dorm room without being seen.”

  There were no sounds coming from his end of the phone, but Kate assumed he hadn’t hung up.

  She continued. “You had no idea she survived the crash. Pity you didn’t keep your head and show some courage and try to save her. I guess it was good luck for you, bad luck for her, that she came out of the experience in a persistent vegetative state. It cost you ten thousand dollars, but you bribed two of your suitemates into swearing you’d been in the dorm all weekend, sick with the flu. They also swore that they’d overheard you break up with your girlfriend over the phone that previous Friday. With her unable to contradict you, you covered your tracks well.”

  When Kate looked over at Nick, he was gaping at her.

  “At least you thought you got away with it. I have a signed affidavit from one of those roommates who will admit to having taken the hush money from you. I’ve got pictures of the bills you gave him. And—talk about a sharp guy—your buddy had had a feeling that you might be destined for greater things, so he was even smart enough to preserve the bloody shirt you were wearing that night. I guess he figured it might be worth more someday than that initial five grand you paid him. I’ve been assured that, despite its age, any half-decent forensics lab will be able to determine that the shirt has bloodstains from two individuals—you and another person.

  “You could never prove . . .” Talbot’s voice trailed off as if he realized he’d already said too much.

  “Because Angie finally passed away six years ago? Sorry, wrong. Don’t you remember? Angie had an identical twin sister, Diane, who is still very much alive. A forensic lab should easily be able to prove what happened using DNA testing, to prove that the second blood sample came from Angie by testing it against Diane.” Kate was on a roll now, with all her earlier fear transformed into the excitement of doing the task the Lord had given her. This moment, this mission, was why he had led her into politics. “We’re talking a 100 percent certainty, Chuck, because identical twins have identical DNA.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence on the other end. Then Talbot finally spoke. “I have no idea what shirt you could be talking about.”

  If this was the best he could do . . .

  “Your varsity football jersey, Chuck. The one with T-A-L-B-O-T printed on the back. Remember? Number twenty-three? It’s still an important number for you, isn’t it? You even have NMBR23 as your personalized license plate. Every year on the anniversary of the accident, you sent her twenty-three roses. In fact, you just placed that order at the florist’s four days ago for the roses to be placed on her grave. I’ve got a copy of the receipt.”

  Talbot released a barrage of expletives that made Kate’s hands shake. But it didn’t make her back down. Nothing could at this point, short of a bullet to her brain.

  “I’m sure you know the statute of limitations didn’t start counting down until the day she died, six years ago. That’s why you could still be charged with leaving the scene of an accident, failure to provide aid, failure to report a crime, tampering with a crime scene, and I’m sure a number of other felonies. Even if the case doesn’t put you in jail, the press will convict you of all those things and more in the court of public appeal. Like Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick. Every time he even thought of running for president, somebody mentioned Mary Jo Kopechne, and his presidential ambitions sank as fast as his car did. It would be worse for you. I’ve got everything I need to make sure Angie gets her post
humous revenge.”

  “You little—” He sputtered some of the worst obscenities Kate had ever heard, spewing his rage-filled hatred for almost a minute straight. She held the phone away from her ear, not willing to subject herself to such filth. Kate’s own heart began racing to the point where she wondered how long she could last before it wore out and stopped completely. It occurred to her that Talbot had to be in worse shape, and he was much older than she was.

  In her mind’s eye, she pictured the man, keeled over, suffering from a heart attack.

  For a horrible second, the picture looked good to her.

  What have I become? How can I live with myself after this? But it has to be done. . . .

  Finally Charles Talbot spoke again, his voice gruff and uneven. “Put Beaudry on the phone. Now.”

  “Sure. But before I do, I just want to point out that Emily Benton is an honorable woman. She’d never stoop to mudslinging until the first stone was cast. You brought this on yourself when you cast that first stone, Talbot. I think an aggravated vehicular homicide rap trumps any claims of financial irregularities by Emily, don’t you?” She waited for her words to sink in and then added in her best, breezy tone, “Here’s Nick.”

  She handed the phone back to Nick with a remarkably steady hand. A moment after that, the adrenaline rushed out of her body as quickly as it had flowed in. She sagged to the seat, a boneless, quivering mess. If Nick said anything further to his boss, Kate didn’t hear it. The blood thrummed in her ears, blotting out all other sound.

  After a while, she realized Nick was no longer talking on the phone and instead, sitting next to her, watching her intently. She drew a deep, shaky breath. “Did Talbot say anything else I should know about?”

  He nodded. “The press conference is on hold. You’ve scared the stuffing right out of him.” Nick stared at her. “Is all that true? You have statements? and his bloody shirt? real proof?”

  “Yes. I’ve got it. Even if I promised myself I’d never use it. Enough evidence to possibly bring in a guilty verdict in a criminal trial. We should probably tell him there’s no use breaking into my place. The evidence isn’t there or at my office. It’s in a safe-deposit box at a bank I don’t regularly frequent, and I’m not the only person with access or a key. I know it’s a cliché, but I’ve left the usual letters that will get that box opened by the authorities if something happens to me.”

  Nick tilted his head and studied her face so intently that she felt self-conscious.

  Finally she turned away from the heat of his stare. “What?”

  “I never dreamed you could do something like that. Emily? Sure. In a split second. But you? It’s like you were channeling her. I’ve never seen you so . . . so . . .”

  “Devious? Manipulative?” Her stomach soured. “Vindictive? It surprised me, too. But I think I had more than my own strength to draw on—it felt to me like that moment was meant.”

  “To me, too.” He stood and walked over to the dirty window, where a plane was pulling up to a nearby Jetway. “It was almost like you were . . . on a different plane of existence. I expect that sort of behavior out of Emily.” He turned around and gave Kate a long, hard look. “Why didn’t you just call Emily? let her be her own hatchet man?”

  Kate leaned forward, holding her stomach and fighting her building nausea. Adrenaline overload. “Like I told Talbot, Emily knows nothing about this. The evidence rested in my hands and my hands only, and I never planned on using it. Or on telling Emily.”

  “Honestly?” He dropped into the seat next to her. “Why not?”

  “I couldn’t tell her. You know Emily. You don’t put weapons of mass destruction in Emily’s hands if you don’t have to. She just might use them. You saw what she did to Mark Henderson. She tends to be a little . . . trigger-happy.”

  “A little?” He leaned forward, matching her position as if these new revelations were causing him a similar pain. “What are you going to do when she becomes president? She’ll have access to all sorts of secret weapons. Real ones. Nuclear and otherwise.”

  “I know. That’s why I plan to be there at her side. That’s why I’ve enlisted Wes’s help. She listens to us. Between the two of us and her own native talent, she’ll be the best president this country has had in decades. I’ve known her since she was eighteen. She’s the best leader I’ve ever seen. People listen to her. She gets things done. She just has moments where she loses her way. That’s when she looks to me. And I have my own agenda. Wes and I hope to revive the faith-based initiative office and really make a go of it. Emily has promised to back us to the hilt. She keeps her promises to me. I hope to find the right place for religion in the White House. Not running the government—that’s Emily’s job. But reaching out to help others and providing a framework in which people of faith can do good in this country and all over the world. Emily’s giving me the platform, but I’ve dreamed of this mission since I was a kid. We discussed a thousand times in college what we could do together if Emily made it to the White House, then more seriously when her political career began. By the time she was elected governor, we were dead serious about it. We’ve got fabulous ideas. Think of it: Emily, me, and Wes. . . . Don’t you think we can accomplish miracles?”

  “So you’re her voice of reason? the angel on her shoulder?”

  “Reason, yes. Angel, no.” Kate grasped for any amount of humor, even macabre, that she could find. “And somehow I don’t think your boss would use either of those descriptions when it comes to me.”

  “True.” A moment later, he added, “Ex-boss. That’s for sure.”

  An uneasy silence fell around them, one she broke as her sense of guilt swelled beyond control.

  “Nick?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did I make the right decision?”

  “Second thoughts?”

  “Right now, I don’t particularly like myself. I swore I wouldn’t use that file. I promised myself I hadn’t sunk that low. Then he came at me like that. And it felt like he wouldn’t stop at anything. It seemed to me that God wanted me to use that file.” Kate paused, searching for an answer within herself and finding none. She’d been so sure just moments ago. “Did I do the right thing?” she whispered.

  Nick remained silent for a long moment. He moved next to her and put his warm arm around her shaking shoulders. Then he finally spoke. “Yeah. Maybe.” He drew a deep breath. “I don’t know.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder. “That covers a lot of ground.”

  They both sat back in the slightly dusty chairs, and Kate reached over to take Nick’s hand. Beyond the temporary wall, the airport bustled with life, the people having no idea what sort of political and criminal machinations had taken place only feet away from them.

  Permanent decisions made behind a temporary wall.

  Kate could scarcely believe it herself.

  “What now?” Nick asked.

  “I don’t know,” Kate said. “I need to take some time. I need to think. To pray.”

  “Me too.”

  “I have a plane to catch.” Reluctantly she stood up, untangling her fingers from his. “You?”

  “I have to go back and see if I can still salvage my reputation.” He tried to smile. “You’d think I’d be used to this by now. It’s almost operatic, the way my life comes crashing down on me at regular intervals.”

  “True.” She paused to meet his pained gaze. “I’m sorry you got caught in the middle of all this, this time.”

  “Me too. But—” he stood—“I’m glad you were able to stop it. Maybe God did put you here, with that information in your head, just so you’d be able to stop it.”

  “Do you think so?”

  He nodded. “I suspect so. If I find out anything else, I’ll let you know immediately.”

  “Thanks.”

  Kate brushed herself off, took several steps toward the door, then turned around. Somehow words just weren’t enough. “I really mean it. Thanks, Nick. For everything. Emil
y didn’t deserve your help. But I’m so glad you trusted me to take on Talbot.”

  He shot her a tight-lipped smile that almost made it to his eyes. “Yeah, that you did. I can’t think of anyone else I’ve ever trusted as much.” He sighed. “You know, Emily could learn a thing or two from you about being a politician.”

  KATE TRIED TO MELT into the flow of travelers hurrying to their next destinations. She was shaking again. She felt almost as if she had a neon sign above her head flashing “Blackmailer! Evil woman!”

  She found an empty waiting area near her gate and leaned up against a corner where she could see anyone approaching her and couldn’t readily be overheard. Relief poured through her when she dialed District Discreet and was put through immediately to Lee.

  “I hope you remember where the burial plot is.” Being cryptic on the phone now seemed simply a way of life.

  “The Kasdan death? Indeed I do.” Lee didn’t have to be as cryptic since there was no danger of her being overheard.

  “Well, I had to resurrect the body today. But I told only two people.”

  “Your boss and who?”

  “No, not Emily. The opposition. Talbot himself.”

  Lee whistled. “You did count your fingers after you handed him that information, didn’t you? He plays for keeps, that one.”

  “I know. He meant to crush us. He sure came after me like he wanted me gone forever. I used the only weapon I had that I thought would stop him. I think I did the right thing. But I’m a basket case.”

  There was silence that Kate could only assume fell under the category of stunned.

  But Lee had worked in D.C. long enough to draw a crooked line between two points. “Defensive retaliation? A case of tit for tat?”

  “In a manner of speaking. More than that, though. What I need from you is more on the tat.”

  “What’d she do now?” They both knew the she was a reference to Emily.

  “It’s not what she’s done now but what she may have done fourteen or so years ago. I’ll text you the basics in a moment. I’m in a public place. But please mark this as highly sensitive, my eyes only. Send nothing to my office and bill this directly to my personal account.”