“Well, Harrison’s running a smart campaign,” Mark argued. “It’s you who cannot afford another mistake. We’ve worked for this very moment for years, yet you play it like it’s no big deal—like it’s a game,” he seethed. “It’s not a fucking game, Theresa.”
“Mark,” she answered earnestly, “everything has been fine with our strategy so far. I don’t understand—why are you so upset over an off-the-cuff comment?”
The governor had been boxed into a tight corner in a recentMorning Joeinterview about her policy toward Taiwan and microchips, and whether she would or would not defend the island from the Chinese. Of course she wouldn’t let the Chinese have free rein over the island, but all she’d said was that the current administration hadn’t figured it out yet, and that such a complicated foreign-policy decision would require the expertise of her future advisers. She never said anything about independence. Case closed.
It was a safe answer to a loaded question. Any other politician would have given the same vague answer. But apparently that wasn’t good enough for her husband.
“We only have one chance at this!” Mark yelled, his face crimson with rage. “It is real, and it is war, and like I said, if you are out then I am out.”
He stormed out of the room and slammed the door hard enough to make several paintings rattle against the wall.
The governor lit another Marlboro, took a drag, and indulged in her recurring fantasy: killing Mark herself. She pictured him on his knees, crying, begging her not to pull the trigger as she stood over him with a Walther pistol. She imagined the whispered sound of the .22LR bullet leaving a suppressed barrel, and the sight of the small hole in his forehead as he fell backward to the floor.
Then she’d shoot him in the balls.
The thought made her smile. She would make him pay one day.
Yet she had to admit that Mark was right about how far they’d come together. Her rise from local school board to the state legislature to the governorship—and now, the national stage—had been swift and magical.
With Mark or without him, Theresa Larson had to believe she could still grasp the prize. As her uncle liked to say,Bad things happen to bad people.
CHAPTER 8
Wilson Estate
Cliff Road, Nantucket
It was time to meet the Wilsons on their home turf.
Si gave me directions to his family’s “cottage” on Cliff Road, which overlooked the most stunning expanse of waterfront I had ever seen on this island or any other.
I admired the circular cobblestone driveway, the manicured lawn as lush as the putting greens at Augusta National, and a flagpole flying Old Glory, POW/MIA, and the Wilson family crest.
Si introduced me to his mother and went to get cleaned up. Connie Wilson was clearly happy to have her wayward son home.
She was a natural beauty with a genuine smile. Like her husband, she was a fit, tan fifty-something with a few light streaks of gray in her hair, and looked like she’d stayed activewith years of tennis and maybe some Tae Bo or spin classes, definitely a lap or two down at the club. She wore a high-end version of the Nantucket summer uniform: red shorts, a white tee, and flip-flops.
We chatted comfortably, comparing favorite spots on the island, as Connie gave me a quick tour of their eight-bedroom place, which was as tastefully appointed as it was architecturally impressive. It had to have cost north of $15 million.
When we moved to the large veranda overlooking the Atlantic, Alan brought us each a beer in a green bottle. I liked that despite their clear wealth, the Wilsons were down-to-earth, beer-in-a-bottle kind of people.
Straightforward, no bullshitting around, right up the gut without a chaser, I sprang my plan on them.
I suggested that effective immediately, Si come work directly for me and CSTC until he went back to college in January. I explained a little more about what I did on a normal day, then laid out a timeline: In a few months, we’d take stock to see if he wanted to make a deeper commitment.
“Would he be carrying a firearm?” Connie asked somewhat nervously.
“After sufficient training he would be licensed to carry a weapon, but only if he traveled overseas with me.”
Alan was smiling. “I think it would be a great opportunity for him, Nat. Hell, I still remember going through airborne school at Benning.”
I’ll be damned. Alan Wilson, scion of the financial world, was a member of the Benning Boys Club.
To my relief, Connie was all smiles too.
When I mentioned that some of my team members were coming to the island this weekend, she went directly into party-planning mode. Before I knew it, a CSTC welcome-to-Nantucket party at the Wilson shack was on the calendar.
When I dipped inside, I encountered the youngest Wilson—a handsome devil now that he’d cleaned himself up. The peach fuzz was gone; his sandy hair was neatly combed; and he was dressed in a summer uniform much like his parents’.
