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I say nothing.
“I told Stephen that I would look into both your relationship with President Walker and the theft of his memory card. I didn’t confront Sheridan then. It wasn’t until I needed his cooperation that I told him I knew what he’d done. He didn’t deny it.” He sighs. “Ironically, it was Agent Sheridan overhearing my conversation that first gave me the idea that the traitor could be a Secret Service agent. Who else knows every one of our secrets?”
We’re often closer than your shadow—and we have to be, to do our jobs.
I shake my head. That memory is tainted by Henry’s presence. Everything he touched tastes like ash. “I found the memory card in Sheridan’s bedroom. He’d hidden it.”
I’ve carried it with me ever since. It’s my self-indictment.
I set it on Marshall’s desk.
Marshall plucks the card from his desktop and snaps it in half, then tosses each piece into the classified wastebasket, the garbage that is collected every hour and shredded. Even the scraps are burned.
“I understand, now, the depth of your dedication and devotion to President Walker.” His eyes flick to my left hand, where Brennan’s gold band lies.
Silence lengthens between us, punctuated by the deep tolls of his grandfather clock. “Thank you,” I finally say.
“You were right, you know.”
“Sir?”
“You told me you’d have whoever was responsible on their knees by the end of the day. It took you less than that to put everything together and save the president.”
“I had help, sir. I wasn’t alone.”
“Still. I am proud you’re leading the detail, Agent Theriot.” He holds out his hand as he walks me to the door.
The allegations of dereliction of duty—and worse—have been dropped. Marshall himself issued a retraction from Bethesda and spent more time than necessary praising my efforts to rescue Brennan.
“Thank you, Mr. Vice President.”
“You and Brennan are both very lucky men.”
* * *
I wanderthe empty West Wing until I end up outside the Residence, in the courtyard beneath the North Portico. What should be a bustling space is deathly quiet. There are no delivery trucks pulling in with flowers or fresh food, no cooks barbecuing in the sunshine.
We’re going to be running a skeleton crew for a while now, until this clench around everyone’s hearts has eased.
There’s a man in a dark suit sitting on the steps leading up to the North Drive. His elbows are on his knees, and he’s leaning forward, staring at the ground as he sucks down a cigarette.
“I didn’t know you smoked.” I climb the stairs until I’m side by side with Sheridan.
He flicks the ash away. “I used to, in the Marines. I quit when I got this job. Now…” He shrugs.
I sit, my right side leaning into his left. We’re connected from our shoulders to our hips to our thighs. He’s warm from the sun. He’s been out here a long time.
When Brennan came back to the Residence, I came with him and never left. It’s not something anyone talks about. In fact, someone has been signing me in and out of the logs each day. I think it’s Sheridan.
Henry’s house is a crime scene, and it’s still being picked apart by our forensic techs. Sheridan was homeless for one minute until I gave him the keys to my place and told him to move in. He’s living in my second bedroom now.
Does he watch the White House from the balcony like I used to?
Is he sleeping? I barely can. Every time I close my eyes, even wrapped in Brennan’s arms, I’m plunged right back into those awful hours. I’m back at the crash, only this time, Henry left Brennan there to burn alive, and I watch him writhe and scream, hanging upside down until he’s gone.
Other times, I’m in the bathroom in Anatoly’s safe house. I don’t have to imagine a worse outcome there. What happened in that tiny room is a nightmare that lives between Sheridan and me.
I finally figured Sheridan out, too. It was a bad moon that pulled the pieces together. I woke in a cold sweat, whatever nightmare that had crawled through me skittering away in the dark. Still, there would be no more sleep that night, and I watched Brennan breathe until dawn.
