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It’s me on the patio off the Oval Office. I’m laughing. Roses are on their last bloom behind me, and the trees on the edges of the photo are awash in late autumn, their leaves a riot of amber and aubergine and blood red.
I remember this day.I was with Brennan.
He’s there, too, at the edge of the frame with his back to the camera. Now I realize what this photo really shows: the two of us in one of our stolen moments.
The next three photos are still of us on the patio, but Brennan occupies more of the photo. By the third, it’s obvious: someone was spying on us.
They’ve captured our electricity. You can see it, our connection, the kind only lovers share. Brennan is looking at me with love in his eyes, and I’m unguarded, the way I am when he makes me lose my senses. Damn it, this was our moment. It was ours, and it was supposed to be private.
Why does Sheridan have photos of us?
There are more. In the West Wing, on the stairs leading out of the basement. Us in wool coats walking down the West Colonnade, the Rose Garden dusted with snow.
Scandal screams from every image. Every photo tells the story of how we broke the rules.
Is this blackmail? Extortion? If so, why hasn’t Sheridan already made his move? Some of these are six months old. In DC, that’s an eternity.
Is he collecting evidence for someone else? The Secret Service? Am I the subject of an internal investigation? Not that I can blame them if I am, it’s just that I wouldn’t expect Sheridan to be the Internal Affairs officer of my nightmares. Of course, that’s how they get you. It’s never who you expect.
“Sir?”
I power off the screen. Sheridan is pocketing the burner phone as he leans into the lab. He looks haggard and defeated, and an hour ago, I would have felt for him, felt with him. Now I’m searching him for the signs that I missed.
Sheridan lives his life inside out. Instead of secrets and solitude, he cloaks himself in an endearing gentleness and kindness. What has he buried beneath that smile?
“What, Sheridan?”
“NPS brought out the cadaver dogs at Rock Creek Park. They haven’t found anything in a three-hundred-yard radius from the crash.”
I swallow. “Okay.”
“Nothing yet from the Russians, Marshall says.” Sheridan stares at me like he’s searching me, too. He jerks his chin to the tablet. “Do you have something?”
“No.”
Ahn’s gaze ping-pongs between us.
“Sheridan, will you grab me a coffee from upstairs? The hours are starting to stack up.”
“’Course. Can I bring you one, too, ma’am?” Ahn declines, and Sheridan smiles, transformed, it seems, from the ball of frustration and anger he was in the hallway back into his eager-to-please persona.
Have I been too quick to trust that eagerness?
I pull out the .45 rounds I collected from his bedroom floor and hand them to Ahn. “Do any of these match the ones you pulled from the crash?”
“Without the weapon that fired them, I can’t give you anything definitive. Based on a quick look, they’re the same type, copper hollow-points, but you know that already. I can run a basic comparison and check the manufacturer. I can also run a chemical composition test. That will give you information on the batch they came from.”
“Do it. I need to know everything, and I need to know as soon as you find out.”
I meet Sheridan at the stairs, surprising him as he balances two cups in one hand and texts someone on his burner. He bobbles the coffee and almost ends up wearing it. “Shit, I didn’t see you there, sir.” He palms the burner back into his pocket before I can get a glimpse of the screen.
I must find Brennan, and I’ll use anything I can to help me do that.
Even Sheridan. Especially Sheridan, if it comes down to it.
* * *
I don’t tellhim where we’re going. I watch him squirm through the whole drive, reading the interstate signs as if he’s trying to divine my route from thepassing mile markers. When I exit the highway, he sits up. And when I turn into the parking lot for the gun range, he stiffens.
