Long May She Reign (38 page)

The common room was empty, for once, and Dirk's door was open, while Susan's was closed. He saw her, and came out.

“Might not be such a good time, Meg,” he said.

No doubt about that. She wanted to go upstairs and collapse on her bed, and maybe even sob hysterically, but she steeled herself and knocked on Susan's door.

After a few long seconds, Susan threw it open, not exactly crying, but damn close to it, her face red and her hair very much unbrushed. “
What?
” she asked, holding a cell phone.

“I—I'm really sorry,” Meg said. “I didn't—”

Susan cut her off. “You're just about the last person in the world I want to talk to right now, all right? And—I'm on the phone.”

Meg nodded, and Susan closed the door.
Hard
.

Okay, then. She glanced at Dirk, who shrugged ineffectually, as though he wasn't quite sure whose side he was on—except that it certainly wasn't
hers
.

So she went back out to the stairs, and dragged herself up to her floor, which was silent and seemed to be deserted. Larry was sitting at the security desk, and they nodded at each other without saying anything.

At first, she couldn't quite think what to do next, but then she saw that Juliana had just come out of her room and was leaning against the wall with her arms folded, looking as angry as Meg had ever seen her.

“Nice going,” Juliana said.

Since it
was
her damn fault, inadvertently or not, Meg couldn't think of anything exculpatory to say. So she went into her own room, slamming the door. Then, she picked up the drop-line. Her mother wasn't going to be available—was she ever?—but to hell with it, they could god-damn well put her through, anyway.

And, indeed, the switchboard stuttered and fumbled about the President being certain to call her back at the first possible—

“Let me make myself really clear here,” Meg said, having to fight to keep from shouting. “I don't give a damn if she's in the process of putting through nuclear missile launch codes at this very second. I need to god-damn well talk to her
right now
.”

It still took a little while—Christ only knew what was being interrupted, and how nervous the underlings had been about passing along this particular message—but then, her mother came on the other end, sounding anxious in a very controlled way.

“What is it, Meg?” she asked. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

“You've got to get me the hell out of here,” Meg said, too angry to feel guilty about scaring her. “I mean,
tonight
. It's bad enough that my life's completely wrecked—I can't fucking take someone else along with me.”

Her mother didn't answer right away.

“Are you listening to me?” Meg asked, even more furious now. “I said,
tonight
. Do whatever you have to do to make it work.”

“All right,” her mother said, very calmly. “Anything you need, your father and I will arrange. Just—take a couple of deep breaths first, okay? Then, tell me what's happening.”

Okay, maybe she didn't sound entirely rational. Meg pulled in one long breath, and then another. “Susan is Susan McAllister.”

“I'm sorry,” her mother said, after a few seconds, “but I have no idea what you're trying to tell me.”

Yeah, right. Meg gritted her teeth. “Susan
Dowd
is Susan
McAllister
.”

There was another silence, during which Meg heard several voices in the background, none of which she could fully distinguish, except that there was an urgency to the conversations.

“Meg, I'm having a slightly more complicated evening than usual,” her mother said, “and I'm also getting ready to go up to Dover in a little while, so you'll forgive me, but I need for you to be very clear and, ideally,
concise
.”

Oh. “Um, Dover?” Meg said. Which was the air force base where military casualties almost always arrived first when they returned to the United States. “What happened?”

Her mother sighed. “We lost a Super Stallion.”

Which was a massive troop transport helicopter. Damn. “Hostile fire?” Meg asked.

“That's really not germane to this conversation, Meg,” her mother said. “Please just tell me what's happening.”

Maybe she should have been savvy enough either to have called her father, instead, or to have checked CNN before picking up the phone in a fury. “How many?” Meg asked.

“Nine,” her mother said. “At least three more are likely.”

A lot of funerals. And a lot of
caskets
to meet on the tarmac tonight. Meg let out her breath, and tried to sit down on her bed, except that her knee was so swollen that she couldn't make it bend. So, she leaned against the bookcase, instead. “I'm sorry,” she said quietly. “I should have—I'll get them to switch me over to Dad, and you and I can talk tomorrow or something.”

Her mother's sigh was the abrupt kind she usually made right before she lost her temper. “Let's pretend—for a moment—that I'm capable of multitasking, and give me the bare outlines, okay?”

Right. Meg tried to think of the fastest and most cogent way to explain it—especially since she still wasn't quite clear on what had happened herself. “There are reporters all over the place up here—I mean,
a lot
of reporters—going crazy, because it turns out my JA is the same Susan McAllister who was in the middle of those murders out in Cambridge a few years ago. You know, at Baldwin.” Which was the name of the prep school.

She could almost
hear
the crackle of synapses firing during the half-second it took the President to absorb that. “How bad is it?” her mother asked.

“Total feeding frenzy,” Meg said. “They've got their god-damn lights shining on my window right now.” Although the bulletproof shade was all the way down, so at least they couldn't see—or shoot; in any sense—her.

“Oh, hell.” Then her mother raised her voice and spoke to someone or other in the room with her. “Will you find Mr. Fielding, please? Tell him I need to see him right away.” Then, she came back on. “Will you be okay if I hang up, and then either your father or I will call you back in a few minutes?”

There was only one appropriate way to answer that, under the very complicated circumstances. “Yeah,” Meg said.

“One of us'll talk to you in a little while, I promise,” her mother said. “Just sit tight. We're going to straighten this out, and it'll be fine, okay?”

Oh, yeah. Everything was going to be just
swell
.

She stared at the telephone for a few minutes, but it didn't ring. So she clicked on to one of the news sites she had bookmarked on her computer and scanned the headlines. The helicopter crash, cause undetermined, rebel insurgents claiming responsibility, nine Marines KIA, more than a dozen soldiers seriously wounded. A bombing in Tel Aviv, multiple civilian deaths, one of them an American citizen, numerous injuries. Three humanitarian relief workers in Africa ambushed and killed on their way to a refugee camp with food and medical supplies. A train derailment outside Dayton, resulting in a massive chemical spill and the evacuation of hundreds of local residents. And those were just the top four.

Okay, the President definitely had her hands full tonight.

She couldn't stand waiting for the phone to ring, so she made her way back downstairs to the JAs' suite, hesitating before she went in, because several scowling guys—including Andy and Quentin, damn it—were gathered in the stairwell just outside the common room. But she just stood there until they moved out of her way, and then limped past them and over to Susan's door.

“So, I wanted to give you a heads-up,” Susan was saying. “In case they come after you, too.”

Meg knocked a very small knock.

“Yeah, I know,” Susan said, presumably to someone on the other end of the telephone. “I'm really sorry. It's just never fucking going to go away, is it?”

Then she opened the door, looked at Meg, and turned her back—but left the door ajar.

Not sure what to do, Meg stayed in the common room.

“Anyway,” Susan said, into the telephone. “How's Derek?” She listened. “Good. Tell him I said hi.”

Once she had hung up, Meg knew she should say something, but she didn't even know where to start. “I, um, I told my mother I wanted to transfer. I mean, you know, right away.”

Susan's smile was unfriendly. “Funny thing, that's what I just told my mother, too.” Then she blinked a few times. “That is, we were discussing it right up until our call got interrupted by an urgent message from the White House.”

Oh, great. Not an ideal experience, when a person was trying to have an important, and very private, phone conversation. “I'm sorry, I didn't know they were going to do that,” Meg said. “But I can be out of here tonight, if you want.”

Susan sat down on her bed, still smiling the strange, unfriendly smile. “And that would accomplish what, exactly?”

The smile was scary. “Well—they'd lose interest,” Meg said. “The story doesn't have legs that way.”

“It'll
always
have legs,” Susan said grimly. Then, she rubbed her temples, looking exhausted. “Close the door, okay?”

Right. Meg had only moved one step inside, but she retreated and started to shut the door.

Susan looked annoyed now. “Close it with
you
still in the room.”

Oh. Meg reentered the room, and then closed the door behind her. She felt like such a complete intruder—which she was, of course—that she stayed back against it, instead of moving in any farther.

“I can't tell you how sorry I am,” she said. “I had absolutely no idea. About any of it.”

Susan studied her. “I have to admit, I've been wondering ever since you got here,” she said finally. “I wasn't sure whether you honestly didn't know—or were just a self-obsessed asshole who doesn't care about anyone's problems other than her own.”

So much for mincing words. Meg sighed. “Both, I suspect.”

Susan's smile was still odd, but marginally more friendly.

“Whose bright idea
was
it?” Meg asked.

Susan shrugged. “I'm not even really sure. When it turned out that you were going to be coming here, they interviewed a bunch of the JAs, and started doing security screenings and all. And then—” the spooky smile came back— “Dirk and I got picked.”

And had both regretted it bitterly every single day, ever since. Meg hunched over self-consciously, her good arm tight across her chest. “Couldn't you refuse? I mean, my parents didn't pressure you into it, did they?”

“I never talked to your parents,” Susan said. “As far as I know, the whole thing went through the Dean, and then—I don't know—the White House, or the Secret Service or someone, must have approved it.”

So her parents might—or might
not
—be culpable. “You could step down,” Meg said. “Someone else could be assigned.”

Susan nodded. “Oh, yeah, they'll be
lining up
for the chance.”

No doubt. Even under the best of circumstances, it couldn't be much fun to be in charge of supervising a self-obsessed asshole. Even one of the non-notorious, danger-magnet, press-attracting variety.

“Sit down, instead of being a jerk,” Susan said, indicating the desk chair. “Your knee looks as though it's about to give out.”

Probably because it was. Meg made her way cautiously over to the chair, trying not to wobble. There were a lot of photographs around, on the desk and tacked to the bulletin board above it, but Meg found herself instantly drawn to the one of Susan and a taller, quite beautiful, blond girl, both of them about sixteen years old, standing on what appeared to be a New York City street, grinning at the camera. She hadn't exactly spent a lot of time in Susan's room, but she had never noticed it before. Not that she would have made the connection, if she had.

Colleen Spencer, murdered about three years ago now. Headlines across the country, and even a couple of made-for-television movies and quickie true-crime books. Christ, why hadn't anyone
told
her? Or, for that matter, why hadn't she been smart enough to put it together for herself? Except that, mostly, it was Colleen's name she remembered, and the murderer—who had been judged criminally insane, not the steadfast friend who had risked her life to find the killer. And here she was, sitting
across
from the friend.

Meg looked away from the photograph and directly at Susan. “I'm so terribly sorry.”

Susan nodded indifferently. “Yeah, you said that already.”

Meg shook her head.

“Oh.” Now, Susan looked at the picture, too, and her eyes brightened. “Well. Thank you.”

Meg couldn't even imagine what it would be like if Beth was suddenly—no, she wasn't going to let that thought into her head. Not ever.

“I'd give anything if I could have called
her
tonight,” Susan said. “But, then,” she blinked, and whisked the back of her hand across her eyes, “I pretty much feel that way every night.”

Alone in a crowd.

And, even though she bloody well knew better, her first instinct was to want to ask questions. What it had been like, how it had felt, if she still had nightmares.

If she'd been scared.

If she'd ever
stopped
being scared.

“I wasn't trying to hide it from you or anything,” Susan said. “All you had to do was ask. But I was damned if I was going to volunteer the story.”

Meg nodded. “You've been dropping hints, though, haven't you.” For weeks. “And waiting for me to have the good grace to pick
up
on one of them.”