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“Damn close.”
Well, hadn’t she known it, deep down? She’d even had the thought that she’d
always been easy for him. She didn’t even mind, because the attraction hadn’t been one-sided; they got to each other then, and they got to each other now. She could push him further than anyone else would dare—and have fun doing it.
She cleared her throat. “Back to the story.”
“The story is, when we started investigating Thorndike, we contacted someone who worked at the same place you did, for some technical assistance. He brought you to our attention. Except for your hair, you were a dead ringer for the First Lady. Do you remember anyone ever mentioning it to you?”
Lizzy shook her head. “No. But until Thorndike was elected, no one knew anything about her. If anyone said anything about it afterward … I just don’t remember.”
“We brought you in on the investigation, trained you. The idea was that, with the help of a couple of senior Secret Service agents, we’d be able to get you in and out of the President’s private quarters without anyone thinking about it.”
“Surely to God he wasn’t stupid enough to keep incriminating stuff lying around the White House! Think of the staff, the aides—there’s no privacy.”
“Lying around, no. But everything leaves a trail, if you know how to look. And we weren’t actually thinking about inserting you into the White House; it was on campaign stops, holidays, things like that, where the First Lady would act as a go-between for her husband and the Chinese.”
The Chinese … something teased at her memory, but it was so vague, so deeply buried, that nothing solidified.
“Long story short, we were in San Francisco, and we slipped you into their hotel suite to search for intel on the payoffs. Thorndike made himself a huge fortune, selling the country out to the Chinese. Money has to be kept somewhere, and we were almost certain the First Lady was handling the transactions. With her family background, she knew almost all there was to know about the ins and outs of international banking.”
“And she had this information with her?”
“During the meet and greets, a go-between would slip her a thumb drive during a handshake. On the thumb drive would be information about the latest deposit. They spread it around, to make a pattern harder to spot. She’d download the information to an off-site location, delete the information from her laptop, and destroy the thumb drive.”
“So I had to get the thumb drive she’d been given in San Francisco, copy the info, and get out.”
“And if anyone saw you, including the President, no one would think anything about it. You were dressed exactly as she was that day; your hair had been lightened and cut and done just like hers.”
Lizzy took a deep breath, closing her eyes and taking comfort from the closeness of his big body, the heat of his skin under her hand. “But something went wrong.”
“Fuckups always happen. Even when you plan for them, you’re hit by a different fuckup than the one you’d planned for.”
She swallowed. “Was I the fuckup?”
“No. We’d arranged for the First Lady to leave the suite—took some doing—so the other agents didn’t see her, but the heads of both details were working with us and we got it done. Then we slipped you in. The President was in his bedroom; he wasn’t even aware the First Lady had left. You went into her bedroom, started running the water in the bathroom as if you were in there, located the thumb drive in the purse she’d carried that day, and began copying it.”
She turned in his arms enough that she could look up at him. “So what happened?”
“We were sold out by another agent on her detail. He was working with us—we thought. Instead he was on the take with the Chinese, too. He panicked, told the First Lady what you were doing, and she went back up to the suite before you could get finished. He also gave her his weapon.”
Lizzy fell silent, desperately searching her brain for the pieces of the puzzle, but all she could find was blankness. She had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, a dawning horror that made her want to stick her fingers in her ears so she wouldn’t hear any more, yet what he was telling her was why all of this was happening now, why she was missing two years from her life. Even if she never truly remembered, she needed to know why.
“The President and First Lady together confronted you in her quarters,” he said. His tone went calm and remote. “She had the pistol, but she didn’t know who she was dealing with. From what you told us later, you jumped her, fought for the pistol, pulled the trigger, and Thorndike was hit.”
She knew there was a lot he wasn’t telling her; there were gaps and simplifications, details glossed over, yet there was no glossing over the biggest detail of all: she’d killed the President of the United States.
She didn’t move, stayed locked in his arms. She felt numb and sick at the same time. Later she’d analyze everything he’d told her, poke and prod at the details, but for now all she could do was try to handle the essential fact that she’d not only killed someone—even if it might have been self-defense—but that someone had been the most important person in the world. It went against everything she felt as an American, that no matter what, agree or disagree, the life of the President should be protected. The possibility that she might have been defending herself was cold and scant comfort, because she couldn’t remember, so she couldn’t say for certain what had happened. She might have panicked. She might have lied about tussling with the First Lady for possession of the pistol. She didn’t know and Xavier didn’t know; he was recounting what she’d told him—them—after the President was dead.
“What did I do? How did you get me out?”
“You banged the First Lady’s head against the wall, dazed her, put the gun in her hand, and hid in the closet. Both the details broke into the suite. The First Lady saw us, probably figured they were caught—guessing, here, because no one knows for sure—and she started shooting. She shot two Secret Service agents, killed one, a good agent named Laurel Rose. I shot the First Lady.”
“How did you get me out of the closet, out of the suite?”
“For twelve minutes, we controlled everything: access to the suite, the weapons, the scene, everything. The senior agent of the First Lady’s detail was down. I took over. We’d planned on you being in disguise when you left the hotel, so thank God we had that ready. Change of clothes, a wig, glasses. We got you changed, and out of there through a connecting room, and set everything up to make it look as though the First Lady shot the President because she had proof he was sleeping with her sister—which he was, by the way.”
They’d gotten her changed, got her out. She didn’t miss the way he’d phrased that. She sounded as if she’d been more of a liability than a thinking, functioning part of the team.
