Pursuit of Happiness

by Carsen Taite

  “‘This’ being a good solider for the campaign?” Stevie’s tone was incredulous.

  “No, of course that’s not what I meant.” Meredith waved a hand between them. “I mean this, us. We’ll have to navigate this carefully, but now that things are out in the open, we can actually go to a restaurant or a movie without having to worry about what people will think.” She saw Stevie start to frown. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just—”

  “It’s just that there’s no room in your life for anything that isn’t carefully crafted to garner more votes. I get it. Running for president is your life’s mission, but I want to be with someone who I can build a life with, not fit into someone else’s preordained plan. Right now, I’d just like you to go.”

  Meredith stood, unable to believe how fast things had spiraled out of control. Less than twelve hours ago, she scored a major campaign victory, she and Stevie had made love. She’d believed anything was possible—a relationship, the presidency, everything. Now, the news had completely shifted away from her big win and onto her personal life which was crashing down around her. She searched Stevie’s face for any sign they could get past this, but for now anyway, Stevie was completely closed off, and she didn’t know how in the world she was going to win her back.

  * * *

  Stevie watched the door shut behind Meredith and held on for several minutes before bursting into tears. The stress that had been growing since she’d walked into the lobby of Meredith’s apartment building that morning bubbled up inside her. Not usually prone to tears, she gave in to the raw pain of finding out the Meredith she thought she knew was as chameleon-like as any other politician, and she let it wrack her with sobs until she was finally spent.

  An hour later, she washed her face, got dressed, and stood in the middle of the hotel room, ready to go. The question was, where? Going home meant fighting through a crowd of reporters, but staying here on Meredith’s dime was out of the question. She pulled out her phone and turned it on, half expecting to see a text from Meredith, half hoping she hadn’t given up so easily, but the only notifications were from Hannah—three missed calls and a chain of texts escalating from “are you okay?” to “CALL ME, 911.” No longer caring if anyone was tracking her calls, she called Hannah and waited impatiently for her to answer.

  “Thank God. I’ve been trying to reach you for hours,” Hannah said. “Where are you?”

  Stevie started to tell her, then stopped. “I’d rather not say, but I can’t stay where I am. What’s the office like?” she asked, hoping Hannah would get the hint.

  “There was a crowd earlier, but Joe shooed them all away, telling them you weren’t working today. I saw a couple hanging around though when I went out for lunch. MSNBC says there’s still a bunch at your house, so you definitely shouldn’t go there.”

  “Damn.”

  “I know a place you can stay. One of the proprietors makes a mean roast beef sandwich with horseradish.”

  Stevie breathed a sigh of relief, but she hesitated to accept Hannah’s generous offer. “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. If you can get to our favorite spot, I’ll pick you up there.”

  “On it. I can be there within the hour.”

  “There’s one more thing.”

  Stevie braced for more bad news. “Yes?”

  “Emily Watkins came by with discovery on that case you’re working with her. She wouldn’t leave it though, and she insisted she has to talk to you today. I told her you weren’t at the office, and she’d have to be blind and deaf not to know what’s going on, but she made me promise to try to reach you. I have her cell phone number.”

  Stevie racked her brain for what could be so important on the Barkley case but came up empty. “Okay, I’ll get her number when I see you. And, Hannah?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks.”

  Stevie hung up the phone, grateful to have a plan that didn’t involve being dependent on one of Meredith’s inner circle. She’d stay at Hannah’s until the heat died down and occupy her time by working on Barkley’s case and all the others that had probably suffered from her lack of attention since she’d met Meredith Mitchell. Getting involved had been a mistake, and once she made it out of here and back to the cocoon of her uneventful life, she and Meredith were done no matter how much it wounded her to break their connection.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Stevie sat at Hannah’s kitchen table and struggled to process what Emily was telling her, but after everything that had happened that day, her brain was sluggish. “You came all the way over here, at eight o’clock at night, just to tell me your agents have finally decrypted the files you seized from William Barkley’s computer?”

  Emily cast a look over her shoulder. “Who else is here?”

  “For crying out loud, quit acting like a spy on a mission. Hannah is here, but she works in the PD’s office, so there’s nothing you can say to me that you can’t say in front of her. Her husband Dave is out of town, and no one else lives here. Now, I’ve had a really shitty day, and I’m not in the mood to play games, so tell me what’s on your mind, and let’s get this over with.”

  “Are you really dating her? Meredith Mitchell?” Emily asked. “I mean, I know you went to Justice Riley’s wedding with her, but this seems more serious. Is it true?”

  Stevie stood. “Did you come here to gossip? Because if you did, you can leave right now. My personal life is off limits for conversation. Understood?”

  Emily nodded. “I hear you, but what if your personal life creates a conflict for you on a case?”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t approach this very well, but we need to talk, so can you please sit down?”

  Stevie sank into her seat, unable to process where this conversation might be going. “I’m sitting, now spill.”

  “It’s about the files. They were on your client’s hard drive, but they didn’t originate on his computer, so we’re not sure if he’s the original source.”

  “Did you bring them to me?”

  Emily ducked her gaze. “I have them with me.”

  “Way to dodge the question. Can I have the files?”

  “If you’re dating Meredith Mitchell, you may have an insurmountable conflict of interest.”

  Stevie’s gut churned at the ominous tone in Emily’s voice. “What are you talking about?”

  Emily faced her square on. “I have a ton of respect for you as a lawyer and a person, but I have a duty to make sure that any prosecution of your client isn’t going to get tossed out because his attorney has a conflict of interest that might impair his defense. I need you to answer the question.”

  The answer should be easy, but Stevie had struggled on and off all day about whether she’d done the right thing by sending Meredith away. Had she overreacted to the way Meredith brushed off Jen’s leak like it was all part of the game? Maybe she had, a little, but that didn’t change the fact that when it came to politics, she might never be certain Meredith would choose her feelings over expediency. She’d sent Meredith away, but a part of her held out hope Meredith might make some grand gesture to demonstrate the intimacy they’d shared and the fledging relationship they’d begun were at least as important as publicity that might buy her votes. Silly, really. Meredith’s goal to be president was a lifelong dream, and Stevie knew she was nothing more than a stop along the road to Meredith’s goal.

  “No, we’re not dating. We’re not in a relationship. We’re not really even friends.” Stevie crossed her hands. “Now, tell me what you’ve got.”

  Emily studied her for a moment, and then seemed satisfied with her answer. “I told you before that the Mitchell Foundation is one of the clients of Barkley’s employer, Folsom Enterprises.”

  “I remember.”

  “The decrypted files show a direct connection between the Mitchell Foundation and the Russian hackers that your client was trying to expose.”

  A dull roar flooded Stevie’s eardrums, an
d she gripped the table.

  “Are you okay?” Emily asked.

  Everyone kept asking if she was okay today, like she was some kind of petite flower who couldn’t handle a cluster of reporters or a bombshell piece of evidence in a case. She’d always been able to hold her own against anything life tossed her way; when had everyone started thinking she was so weak? Was it when she started being cast in the role of the senator, soon to be president’s, girlfriend? Well, it was time to reclaim who she was and do what she did best—advocate for her clients. “I’m fine. Lay it out for me.”

  Emily pulled out a piece of paper and started drawing a flow chart. She pointed to the boxes. “Here’s what we know. The Mitchell Foundation hired Folsom Enterprises several years ago to handle its IT work, as you know. Folsom also does IT work for several government agencies, which is how your client got the information he released about the ongoing FBI investigation of Russian operatives hacking social media accounts.”

  “You say ‘ongoing,’ but I say ‘prematurely closed’ investigation,” Stevie said. “The FBI dropped the ball on that case, and my client was merely exposing their shoddy work and waste of taxpayer dollars.”

  Emily looked around. “There’s no jury here, so quit grandstanding. The upshot is that your client leaked classified information, and we think someone was trying to get him to leak more.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “When your client was arrested, his computer was seized, but there were emails in the pipeline to him, on the Folsom server, that he hadn’t downloaded yet. Folsom gave us the runaround when we served them with a subpoena, claiming they couldn’t release all of Barkley’s incoming emails because they contained information that pertained to their government clients and might contain classified material. We fought them on this, ex parte.”

  “Why did you feel the need to go around my back?”

  Emily had the good sense to look slightly embarrassed. “It just seemed easier. If we found something that pertained to your client, we would’ve shared it with you, but if what we found was truly unrelated and also classified, then it was best if you were never exposed to it.”

  The reasoning made sense in the abstract, but Stevie was still confused about how this all tied together. “Fine, we can argue the finer points later. Tell me what happened next.”

  Emily nodded. “Someone sent a bunch of encrypted files to your client within days of him releasing documents to the press about the aborted FBI investigation.”

  “And these are the files that supposedly tie the Mitchell Foundation to these Russian hackers?”

  “Yes. Of course we just found that out. The files weren’t easy to decrypt, but apparently whoever sent them to your client thought he could handle it. They probably weren’t counting on him getting arrested before he even had a chance to download them and, they hoped, release them to the press.”

  “So what do you want from me?”

  “I want to talk to Barkley and find out everything he knows. Bottom line, I want to know if the Mitchell Foundation is trying to influence this election.”

  “Whoa, that’s a big leap. Even if the foundation hired these hackers, you don’t know if it has anything to do with the election. Meredith hadn’t even put her name in the ring when Barkley was arrested.”

  “Don’t be naive, Stevie. This entire town was talking about the possibility of her getting into the race weeks before Connie Armstrong tanked.”

  Stevie scrambled for a response, but she had to admit Emily was right about the timing. For all either of them knew, Connie’s leaked emails could’ve been the result of a hacker too, since no one had come forward yet to claim credit. Could the same people be responsible? Was the Mitchell Foundation behind it?

  She shook her head, unable to conceive that the Meredith she knew would’ve had anything to do with a scheme to influence the election. Stevie thought back to Christmas Day at Meredith’s parents’ house. Clearly, Meredith’s entire family was vested in her success, and Jen’s actions to try to get her sister elected were over-the-top. Maybe Meredith wouldn’t do anything nefarious to win, but her family might do it for her.

  Suddenly, she was overcome with the desire to reach out to Meredith, share this information, and gauge her response. She was convinced Meredith would tell her she wasn’t involved, and she was confident she’d be able to tell if Meredith was telling the truth.

  But going to Meredith wasn’t an option. The information Emily had given her was classified, and Emily had only shared it with her because she’d given her word there was no relationship between her and Meredith. Her only obligation right now was to her client and the truth, whatever that might be. “Let’s set up a meeting with Barkley, but you better come prepared with a really juicy offer if you want me to persuade him to talk.”

  They agreed to meet at the jail in the morning, and Emily promised she’d make it worth Barkley’s while. As they shook hands to seal the deal, Stevie couldn’t help but feel like she’d just sold Meredith out, even as she vowed to do whatever she could to protect her.

  * * *

  Meredith rolled over in bed and reached for her phone on the nightstand. It was six a.m. She checked the local Miami weather and saw there was a chance of thunderstorms, which seemed like a perfect reflection of her current mood. It had been three days since she left Stevie at the Hay Adams in DC, and every moment since had been a struggle between putting on a face for the crowd and curling up in bed in a fit of self-pity.

  She’d stopped calling and sending texts to Stevie after a full day of no response, but she hadn’t stopped thinking about her. Gordon, who thankfully hadn’t said he’d told her so, had commented that she was distracted, but she hadn’t given in to his attempt to fish more information from her about what was really wrong. Jen was the only one she’d talked to and that conversation had been short.

  “We need to put out a statement or you’ll never get the press to cover any of your talking points,” Jen said. “Is girlfriend too strong a word or would you prefer something more vague like ‘Stevie Palmer and Senator Mitchell have been dating’?”

  “I need you to explain to me what the hell you were thinking? You knew I wanted to keep my relationship with Stevie under wraps, but you tipped off the press?”

  “Come on, Mere. It was inevitable they would find out. Don’t you think it’s best that we control the narrative?”

  “Except there is no narrative to control anymore. You thought you were doing me a favor by showing the public I was relatable because I had a steady girlfriend? Well, ironically, your little trick cost me any kind of relationship with Stevie. She’s not returning my calls, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I never hear from her again.”

  “Don’t be silly. She’ll come around. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be involved with the woman who’s about to be the most powerful person in the world?”

  “I hope to God you don’t expect me to answer that question. And there won’t be any statement from this office about Stevie. Not a word. Understood?”

  Meredith had walked away from the conversation shaking her head. Jen had been immersed in politics too long to realize Stevie had no interest in dating her as a power play. She had more integrity in her little finger than all the members of Congress put together.

  Meredith heard a knock on the door and prayed it was the coffee she’d ordered the night before. She put on her robe and padded to the door, annoyed to find both Jen and Gordon standing outside. She fought the urge to ignore their presence and swung open the door. “One of you better have coffee for me.”

  Gordon barreled into the room and shoved a piece of paper in her hand. “Tell me you weren’t keeping this from me.”

  His angry tone was more effective than caffeine. She scanned the paper, and dread filled her with each word she read.

  Mitchell Foundation Implicated in Scheme to Influence Social Media

  William Barkley, arrested last fall and charged with violations of the Espionage Act for
disseminating classified documents, has provided information to government officials regarding allegations against the Mitchell Foundation in exchange for a plea deal on his original case. A source, who prefers to remain anonymous, stated talks are already underway between the US Attorney’s office and public defender Stevie Palmer.

  There was more, mostly vague innuendo, but Meredith tossed the paper onto the bed. “At least they didn’t say, ‘Stevie Palmer, Senator Mitchell’s girlfriend.’”

  “Very funny,” Gordon replied. “CNN is running this story as breaking news in less than an hour, and they’d like a statement from the campaign. You can bet that right after they finish hashing out a possible criminal case against your family, they’ll have a roundtable to discuss your relationship with Palmer.” He shook his hands in the air. “This is serious.”

  Meredith motioned for them to sit down. “I know, and I am taking it seriously. This is the first I’m hearing about any of this, and I can assure you I’ve done nothing wrong. Do you have any suggestions?”

  Jen piped up first. “Let’s not add fuel to the fire. We’ve been holding steady with a ‘no comment’ about Stevie. Let’s stick with that on this too. Let them show their cards and then you’ll know how to respond.”

  Meredith turned to Gordon. “Do you agree?”

  Gordon shot an apologetic look at Jen and shook his head. “I think we need to get out in front of this. You, on camera, vehemently denying the charges, but you won’t answer any follow-up questions, because, as a former prosecutor, you know how important it is to let the process work without interference from the outside. Then we need to examine every scrap of paper, every email you’ve ever written, sent, or stuffed away to see if there’s anything to implicate you if the Foundation winds up getting indicted.”

  “Next you’re going to say she needs an attorney,” Jen said.

  “Probably not a bad idea,” Gordon replied.

  Meredith held up a hand to stop the back-and-forth. “We’re all on the same team, remember?” She looked down at her hands, formulating a plan. She knew what she had to do, or at least the first step, but she dreaded the fallout. While she ruminated, her thoughts drifted to Stevie, and a thousand questions filled her head. When did Stevie find out her client had information about the Foundation? Meredith understood attorney-client privilege as well as any seasoned lawyer, but if all of this was percolating while they were seeing each other, shouldn’t Stevie have given her some indication something was up? Had she held back on giving this information to the government until they broke up? If they hadn’t broken up, would she have shared it at all?