by Vicki Hinze
Marcus spared the junior reporter a warning look and raised his voice several decibels, clearly wanting everyone in the room to hear him. “If I were you, I wouldn’t use that proof.”
“Why not?” Sniffer still didn’t look over at Marcus’s face. He rifled through pages of documents and supporting photographs. “There’s all kinds of—”
“It’s manufactured bullshit.”
“How do you know that? You haven’t even looked at it.” Sniffer swiveled his gaze, giving Marcus a hard look for the first time. Recognition lit in his eyes and his jaw dropped loose. “You’re the man from the Wall.”
“Oh, shit.” Sam dragged a hand over his forehead, feeling a wall-banger of a headache forming behind his eyes, thumping in his skull. “It’s you?”
He nodded.
Sam glared at Sniffer, who looked embarrassed enough to start a forest fire. “You didn’t know Marcus Gilbert?”
“I’d never seen him.” Sniffer shrugged. “He looks different in his pictures.”
Sam gritted his teeth and reminded himself that Marcus had retired before Sniffer had even graduated from college, much less had come to work for the Herald.
“Let me tell all of you a story” Marcus said loudly enough to easily be heard. “Four months ago I started taking a morning walk to the Vietnam Wall. The vice president saw me there and said hello. The next morning, when she walked past, she passed me an envelope. Twenty dollars was inside it.”
“She’s bribing you with twenty bucks?” Sniffer snorted.
“I didn’t know why she had given me the money. I was intrigued, so I went back.” Marcus elevated the pitch of his voice. “Every day I saw her at the Wall, and every day she passed me an envelope. If she planned a trip, she would put a twenty in for each day she would be gone.”
This intrigued Sam, but it puzzled him, too. “Did she ever explain why she was giving you money?”
“No, she didn’t. Once she asked my name. I told her it was Gil. The only other words the woman ever spoke to me were ‘Good morning, Gil. Isn’t it a gorgeous day?’ He blinked and let his gaze travel reporter to reporter. “One rainy morning she passed me the envelope and an umbrella. There was a hundred-dollar bill inside and a note that read ‘Stay dry, Gil.’” He grunted and a smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “Finally, the humbling truth dawned on me. She had no idea who I was.”
Marcus paused, clearly remembering the incident, and then went on. “I approached a member of her guard detail on the matter. Naturally, he had been concerned about the contents of the envelope early on, and so he had asked her what was inside. She said that, while she preferred to help people anonymously, she didn’t want her actions to raise any concerns. Essentially, she thought I was a homeless vet. The money was for food.”
Sam grunted and smiled. “So much for the allegation of treason.”
“Yeah.” Marcus’s eyes shone brightly.
Sniffer looked as if he wished the floor would open up and swallow him down. “But you’re Marcus Gilbert. You’re a millionaire.”
“I know that, kid.” Marcus’s eyes twinkled. “But she didn’t know it, and she didn’t know me. I looked homeless and hungry, so she fed me and gave me money to get out of the rain.” Marcus let his gaze slide from person to person throughout the room of familiar, respected faces. “Which is one of many reasons I’m going to offer her my services, if she chooses to run for president.”
Sam’s mind reeled. The great Marcus Gilbert putting his muscle behind a woman? Who could have ever expected it? But after what Sam had seen at that missile site, he felt as Marcus did about her. A woman president would be a hard sell to the general public, but what the hell? Sam would put his stock in her. When he thought about how close he had come to publicly levying accusations against her, he got a little nauseous. Not only would he have lost his professional credibility, he would have screwed her up professionally and personally. Factoring in what he now knew about her firsthand, he would have regretted that the rest of his life. “Don’t attack her, Sniffer.”
“What?”
“Don’t do it,” Sam warned.
“I am going to do it. You’re just pissed because you didn’t get the evidence.”
Marcus stood up. “Let me make myself perfectly clear on this, kid. I respect and admire Vice President Stone. She loves this country more than anyone I’ve ever known, and I’ve known plenty of good people, including a fair number who’ve occupied the Oval Office. I don’t give a damn whose godson you are, you hurt her, and your career will be over before it starts. I’ll see to it.”
With thirty years of connections to draw on, Marcus could see to a damn lot. Sniffer would play hell snagging a job for a third-rate rag. Sam again offered the kid some healthy advice. “He’s saving your ass, Sniffer. Be grateful, not stupid.”
Sniffer glared at Marcus, at Sam, and then at the others in the room, many of whom held brown envelopes, and finally the fire in his eyes died. “She’s real?”
Sam nodded.
Sniffer gave Marcus a sharp nod as a thank-you for saving his backside, then walked up to the podium and set down the brown envelope.
The Fox News correspondent followed and left his envelope on top of Sniffer’s. Reporters for CNN, MSNBC, and others followed, all depositing their envelopes of evidence against Sybil Stone on the podium.
Marcus Gilbert’s word still carried a ton of clout.
Sybil entered the press room with Jonathan.
Near the door, she stopped next to Winston, who relayed what had happened with Marcus Gilbert. Jonathan’s expression turned tense, strained. He dreaded this confrontation as much as Sybil. Now the cat was out of the proverbial bag on Gil being Marcus Gilbert, and she’d have to confess on that, too.
Sheer exhaustion conspired with dread and her courage faltered, threatened to dissipate. Jonathan knew it, and gave her a smile meant to reassure her. But it was plastic and forced, and so was her smile back at him. To see how he really felt, she looked down at his shoes.
Black loafers.
Loafers, not sneakers. Sybil’s smile turned genuine. This wasn’t going to be that bad. Jonathan had taken off his sneakers. Okay, it would be bad, but she could handle it. He knew it, and so did she.
Stiffening her spine, she walked through a sea of cameras and reporters—and stopped next to Sam Sayelle. “Gil, I’m glad to see you’ve come out of retirement.” He had a press pass clipped to his coat’s lapel.
“You knew who I was?” He was stunned and not at all certain he liked what he was hearing.
“Not at first,” she admitted. “A member of my staff told me.”
He frowned. “Then why did you keep giving me money?”
“You were donating it to a soup kitchen and matching the funds.” She shrugged. “Together, we fed a lot of people.”
He laughed out loud. “Clever.”
Smiling, she lifted a hand. “Why are you here, Gil?”
His eyes gleamed, but the lingering traces of laughter faded from his voice. “I wanted to tell you I’m glad you’re alive.”
Sybil smiled and pressed a hand to his forearm. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”
“More than you realize,” Sam mumbled.
Sybil switched her gaze to Sam. “Excuse me?”
“He said,” Marcus interrupted, “he’s glad you’re alive, too.”
That surprised her. Broadcasts aside, she would have ranked Sam Sayelle as one of the front-runners on her executioner’s squad, though he had seen to it all the A-267 tapes of her had been burned on the premises. “Is that right, Sam?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He lifted his chin, squared his shoulders. “That’s right.”
She studied him carefully. He seemed sincere. But then a lot of people on the Hill seemed sincere. Still, tonight she would take anything positive she could get. “Thank you. For everything, Sam.”
He understood the reference and passed Dean’s journal to her. “This is for you.” Dropping his
voice, he whispered, “The commander might want to take a look at Jean. It’s possible she isn’t only working for Cap. And watch what you say around Winston. He isn’t dangerous, but he isn’t a fan.”
“I appreciate it.” Puzzled, she accepted the journal and then walked on to the front of the room. When she stepped behind the podium, she looked down. Dozens of brown envelopes?
She opened one, shuffled through the damning photographs, and couldn’t absorb the shock. They looked real.
Authentic. But none of them—not one of them—depicted anything she remembered ever happening. Would any of the reporters believe her?
Of course they wouldn’t. They would believe what they saw with their own eyes—in the pictures. Seeing visions of a Senate investigation, she clutched at her churning stomach. Her knees went weak, and she broke into a cold sweat. They had played her for a sucker. Lulled her into complacency in preparation for the kill.
Lifting her gaze, she slowly scanned the room, not sure what to do or say. Was this another of Austin’s cruel visions of justice? Or had someone else done this to her? And what in heaven’s name did she do now?
“Madam Vice President.” Sam rescued her. “We received those envelopes from Austin Stone. The information in them is bogus. We’re just returning them to you—so you’ll have them as evidence, if you want to file charges against him.”
Sybil slid her gaze to Jonathan. He was smiling, and this time it was genuine. Things really were going to be okay. They had given her the benefit of the doubt.
She tucked the envelopes under the podium on a shelf. “I, um, appreciate your checking this information for authenticity prior to releasing it. People with less professional integrity would have damaged me first and asked questions later. I—I’m grateful.”
Marcus and Sam rose to their feet and clapped their hands. A sea of media members joined them. Their applause echoed through the room and through the chambers of her heart. The back of Sybil’s nose stung and her eyes burned.
She’d expected them to go for her jugular.
Instead they welcomed her home.
Chapter Thirty
“It went well.”
“I’m still in shock.” Sybil smiled at Jonathan, walking beside her back to her residence. Light cast from neon signs on storefronts spilled on the sidewalk and stretched into the street. They’d have to get back in the car soon, but for the moment, she was riding an adrenaline high and needed to walk, to feel the fresh air and savor the quiet of the night. After the intense pressure of the past seventy-two hours and the press conference, it seemed perfect to be walking with Jonathan, feeling calm and peaceful and joyful at just being alive.
“The president showing up to laud you is normal, but Cap Marlowe, busting out of the hospital to get there to sing your praises?” Jonathan grunted. “I’ll be in shock over that for a long time to come.”
A tossed cola can sat on the sidewalk between a trash receptacle and a green recycling bin. Sybil scooped it up then dropped it in to be recycled. “Don’t be too amazed by Cap’s support.” Chilled, she rubbed at her arms, her left wrist still tender and scraped raw from the metal briefcase cuff. “Faust set him up and he doesn’t want that exposed. But by the time I need him to endorse my next proposal, he’ll hate me again.”
Jonathan laughed, draped his jacket over her shoulders, and then clasped her hand. “He envies you because you’ve got what he wants, and you’re good at it.”
“That, too.” She smiled up at him.
“Some things never change.”
Sybil went quiet, studied the cracks in the sidewalk, the banner flapping in the wind outside the bakery, the lights of the black limo creeping down the street, following them. “I suppose some things never change,” she said, sharing her thoughts. “But other things do. And then those changes create new changes.” She linked her arm with his, leaned against him so their shoulders touched with each step. “I guess change is like momentum, Jonathan.”
He placed a hand atop hers on his arm. “How’s that, honey?”
“Well, a whole group of people step up to the line to race, but no one moves. Then one person does, and some of the others follow. Then someone sprints, and more people sprint. Then someone runs. And before you know it, you’ve got people running, sprinting, and walking, and fewer and fewer are content, standing at the line.”
He stopped and turned toward her. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She shrugged. “Corruption in politics.”
“What?” He didn’t even pretend to understand.
So much for his knowing how her mind worked. Oddly pleased by that, she kept her voice level, matter-of-fact. “Things are changing, Jonathan. Soon corruption won’t be expected or considered normal—it isn’t in vogue any more because David moved off the line.”
Mickey stopped the limo at the curb, and Sybil skipped a beat. This was a big leap for her. Actually, it was a Grand Canyon kind of leap. “I’m not content standing at the line anymore, Jonathan.”
He frowned down at her. “You hit the Hill running, and you’ve never been corrupt.”
Steeling herself, she fingered his jacket. It carried his scent. She liked that. A lot. “I meant I’m not content personally”
“Oh.” He slipped a hand into his pants pocket. “I’m going to spare myself some mental anguish here and just ask. Exactly what do you mean?”
“I mean I ran the race with Austin, hit a wall, and got knocked back to the line.” She stared at the knot in Jonathan’s tie. She could do this, she could take the leap, and now she could look him in the eye while doing it. “I mean I want to run again … with you. Not because it’s inevitable, or my hormones are forcing me to, but because I really, really want you.” Her heart knocked against her ribs, thundered in her temples. She lifted her lids, met his gaze, and held it. “I hope you were serious about us, because I was very serious. I love you, Jonathan.”
He pressed his lips flat. “What about your plans? I don’t fit into them any more now than I ever did.”
“You sound bitter. Why?”
“Because I want to fit, damn it. I’m not perfect, but I’m not bad. Actually, I come in handy now and then—like when you bail out of planes or fall into quicksand pits.”
“Jonathan, are you thinking I’m ashamed to love you or something idiotic like that?”
“It’s crossed my mind.”
If his grimace was any gauge, it had done more than cross his mind. It had nagged at him. “I’m not. I think you’re a wonderful man.” She patted his chest, apologizing. “I meant I didn’t plan to ever love any man again. Austin should have cured me for life. But then you came back and everything changed. You scared the hell out of me, Jonathan. I didn’t want to care for you—and I tried not to—but it was there, and before I knew it, it was love. Do you know how neurotic loving you has made me?”
The look in his eyes softened and warmed, and he smoothed back a strand of hair the wind had blown over her face. “Yeah, I think I do.”
“Do you really?” He was back in mask mode. She couldn’t tell a thing by his expression or his body language.
“You scared the hell out of me, too. You still do.” He nodded, again stuffed a hand into his pocket. “You weren’t the only one to promise yourself not to fall in love.”
What was she supposed to make of that? Of all of this? He hadn’t responded to her asking if he had been serious about them, he hadn’t responded to her telling him she loved him, and now he talked of promising himself not to fall in love, and he hadn’t said whether he’d kept that promise, either. When they’d been at A-267 and all but certain they were going to die, he’d almost said he loved her. He definitely left that impression, but he hadn’t given her the words. She wanted a home and a family, but she wanted him to want her, to love her, not to be with her willingly because his hormones forced him to come along for the ride.
If she had even an ounce of sense, she would keep her mouth shut and let this go. B
ut she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t hit a wall while standing on the line. “I know you came back to me only as a favor to David.”
“That was true. But it’s not why I’m here now. I promised you I’d stay”
She recalled it. On the helicopter, leaving the swamp. “Until the crisis was over. It’s over.”
“Yeah, it is.”
He didn’t have to look so damn cheerful about it. “So I guess you’re saying you’ll be returning to Home Base for your next SDU assignment, then.” Her chest went tight. She couldn’t look at him. It took all she had left to find enough of her voice to say what she needed to say. Since he
hadn’t disabused her of the idea, this is what he wanted to hear. “I’m going to miss you, Jonathan.”
He tipped up her chin with a finger and searched her face, her eyes, as if he were doing his damnedest to see straight into her soul. “I told you, I’m not leaving you again.”
What precisely did he mean? Unsure, she slipped off her pump, touched the cool concrete with her toes, grounding her. “You’re not leaving the veep, or you’re not leaving me?”
“It’s a moot point, Sybil. You’re one and the same.”
“It’s not a moot point.” She swallowed her pride and leaped. “When we’re together, I need to know you’re with me. I’ve fallen in love with you, Jonathan, and I won’t always have this job. What happens then? Do you leave me then?”
“I’m going to say this one more time: I’m not leaving you again.” His eyes widened. “Did you just say you love me and you’re in love with me?”
Of course the two were different, but his startled reaction proved that to him, those differences were monumental. Her nerves stretched tight. “Well, yes.”
He looked dumbstruck, and skeptical. “Are you sure?”
“Unfortunately” She lifted her chin. Gabby had been right. No matter how hard you try, you just can’t legislate the heart.
“Since when?”
Amazing, but he really was surprised. “I think when I was in the quicksand.” She fingered his shirt placket, rubbing the smooth fabric between the second and third buttons. His heart thumped against the backs of her fingers, beating as hard and fast as her own. “You knew you could get me out, and you didn’t laugh at me for wanting to cut off my hand.” She blinked hard. “It meant a lot to me that you didn’t laugh, Jonathan.”