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7
“You’re dead.”
“I am?”
“Up there.” Clarissa nodded toward the upper story of the George, which was no longer there due to the building’s collapse. Further evidence of Rose’s demise was that she looked elegant and cool despite the brutal heat. Her ghost shimmered in an effortless Armani white linen skirt and jacket with a ruffled blouse of the palest green, which offset her deep red hair to perfection. Of course, Rose Ramson would look elegant even in off-the-rack Gap.
“I was afraid that you were…” Rose’s remarkably realistic ghost nodded upward. “I was running late.”
“Hunter?”
“I tried his phone. It goes straight to voicemail. He’ll silence the ring, but he never shuts off his phone. It would only go directly to voicemail if his phone was out of a reception area,” she swallowed visibly, “or it was destroyed. The George has, had excellent reception.”
“Oh,” was all that Clarissa could think to say. The ghost must still be an alive Rose. “Why were you late?”
Rose raised a small, gloss-white bag with no label that she’d been carrying in reply. Thick, high-gloss paper, with actual rope handles that were softer on the skin than the narrow twisted-paper ones.
Clarissa recognized it. Coup de Foudre was a very high-end and very discreet lingerie shop halfway between the George and the White House. “Cosabella?”
“Samantha Chang.”
Clarissa raised an eyebrow. An interesting choice for a woman of Rose’s generous curves. Though Rose at fifty could probably still fit in her Miss Utah bikini as neatly as she had thirty years ago. Clarissa herself never looked quite her best in Samantha Chang designs.
“I was—” Rose waved at the fire a little helplessly. Though they stood a block away, they had to raise their voices to be heard over the loud pumps on the nearby fire trucks and the rush of water from a dozen different nozzles and truck-mounted water cannons. “—was going to let him make it up to me. I have,had been,giving Hunter the cold shoulder for long enough.”
There was no need to ask why. Senator Hunter Ramson’s political machinations had gone terribly wrong. His actions had paved yet one more step along the path to Clark’s death, and her own loss of an eventual Presidency by riding in on his coattails. Hunter also would be the only one to know exactly who had sent that plane spearing into the George—if he weren’t dead.
They stood together and watched the fire in silence. The sun had set, but the street didn’t lack for light. The harsh emergency lights from the trucks flooded the street. The fire splashed blood orange off the glass face of the Hall of the States across the street. Half of the states had their official DC offices in that building.
No one would have complained if the jet had hit there instead, at least no one that mattered. But it hadn’t.
The states had such inflated ideas of their own importance, often undermining the very country they were part of. Someday she’d wander over to the FBI and do a little trading of good stories, tales of crazy countries in exchange for juicy tales of state psychoses.
“I guess I don’t need this anymore.” Rose stepped over to a small pile of flaming bedding, too unimportant for the firefighters to deal with yet, and tossed the bag of lingerie on it.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Rose looked at the fire and nodded. Her carefully composed features couldn’t quite hide her distress. Clarissa had been with Clark for under three years, married for less than one—and she was missing him. Rose had been married to Hunter for more than thirty. Like her own mixed feelings, was it a sadnessanda relief? Clarissa wanted to ask, but knew she wouldn’t like the answer either way.
She stepped over to her car. The up-armored SUV was robust enough that it would still be drivable despite the abuse it had suffered. When she tugged on the door handle, nothing happened.
Rose tried the other side. “It’s locked.”
“Wait here. I’ll be right back.” Clarissa headed to where she’d seen her driver crushed by falling debris. The fire had been fought back from this end of the wreckage, so it was safe enough. The firefighters had moved away and the medical triage teams had already swept the area and removed the merely injured. The morgue teams wouldn’t start in until the forensic people had their photos and measurements.
Being careful to keep her boots well clear of the puddled blood oozing from where his head had once been and now a marble end table lay shattered, Clarissa squatted to fish the keys out of his jacket pocket.
A voice called out from behind her, “Rifling the pockets of the dead, Clarissa? Why am I not surprised?”
Clarissa knew that voice.
Hatedthat voice.
It gave her a focus for everything that had gone wrong with her life in the last twenty-three days. And how close a brush she’d had with death in these last minutes.
She grabbed for the driver’s gun, still there in its shoulder harness.
