The Inner Circle (15 page)

“Call him back about
what
?”

“Probably about what I did with some old blank letterhead I found from the Senate Judiciary Committee. It got sent over by mistake so I took one of the sheets—it was just a joke—and wrote a letter to Orlando saying he was being deported. Just dumb office stuff.”

It’s a good enough excuse delivered with good enough calm. I even used the words
what I did
to evoke the one unexplainable moment in Orlando’s message.
What you did…

But Khazei just stands there with his starched military posture, like a giant exclamation point. I glance back at my office. The shadow of the scarecrow is still there.

“Were you in SCIF 12E1 yesterday?” Khazei finally blurts.

“E-Excuse me?”

“It’s a simple question. It requires a simple answer. Were you
in
or anywhere
near
that Vault at any point in time yesterday?”

I take a deep breath, trying hard not to look like I’m taking a deep breath. I don’t know much about Khazei, but from what I can tell of our two conversations together, he hasn’t asked a single question he doesn’t already know the answer to, or at least have a hunch on. And considering that Dallas and Rina and at least one Secret Service agent saw me around the corner from that room… and that the videotape is still unaccounted for…“12E1…” I say. “That’s the one the President does his reading in, right?”

“Beecher, at this moment, I am your friend. But if you want to make me an enemy…”

“Yeah, no… I definitely walked by the room. That’s where I saw Orlando. I was giving a tour.”

“But you’re telling me you didn’t go inside it?”

This is the moment where I can tell him the truth. I can tell him I went inside. I can tell him I didn’t do it. But as I stare at Khazei, who’s still the unmoving exclamation point, all he’s going to hear is that I was the last person alone with Orlando before he died. And once he hears that… once he can confirm that I had actual access to the book…

I shake my head. “No. Never went inside it.”

He tightens his stare.

“What?” I ask. “If you don’t believe me, go check the tape. All those rooms are wired for video, aren’t they?”

It’s a risky bluff, but right now, I need to know what’s going on. Sure, Khazei could’ve been the one who snatched that video from Orlando’s VCR. But if he planned on using it to make me the murderer, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. So either Khazei has the tape and all he cares about is the book, or he doesn’t have the tape and it’s still out there.

“Amazingly, the tape is gone—someone took it from the SCIF,” Khazei says flatly. “But thanks for the reminder. I need to tell the Service about that.”

“The Service?”

“I know. But when Orlando’s dead body showed up at the exact same time that President Wallace was entering the building… Apparently, the Secret Service doesn’t like when bodies are that close to their protectee. So lucky us, they’ve offered to help with the investigation,” he says, watching me more closely than ever. “What an opportunity, though. I’m guessing by the time they’re done, they’ll scan and alphabetize every atom, molecule—every speck of DNA—in the entire SCIF. God knows what you can find in there, right, Beecher?”

Just over his shoulder, there’s a second
ding
as another elevator empties a group of employees into the wide hallway.

“Oh, and by the way,” he adds as they fan out around us, “when you had your lab coat all bunched up yesterday—what was it stained with again? That was coffee, right?”

I nod and force a smile and—
Morning! Hey! Morning!
—wave hello to passing staffers.

“Enjoy your day,” Khazei says, heading for the waiting elevator. “I’m sure we’ll be talking again soon.”

As the elevator doors swallow him whole, I take another peek at my own office door. The scarecrow’s gone. At least I can finally catch my breath and—

No…

I run for the stairs. I almost forgot.

She’s down there right now.

22

Hold on… not yet…
” the President said, holding up a single finger. Backlit by the morning sun, he studied the door to the doctor’s office, which had already closed behind his sister.

Across from him, Palmiotti sat at his desk. Underneath the door, they could see the shadows of the staffers outside.

That’s how it always was. Even in the most private parts of the White House, someone was always listening.

“So you were saying.” Palmiotti motioned to the President. “About your back problem…”

“It hurts,” Wallace insisted, still eyeing the shadows at the door. “And it’s getting worse.”

Palmiotti mulled on this. “Is it something I can take a look at personally?”

The President mulled too, once again staring out at the purposely melted snow of the Rose Garden. It took a ton of work to make something appear this undisturbed.

“Let me think on that,” he said to Palmiotti. “Right now, we’re probably better off sticking with the original treatment.”

“Mr. President…?” one of the staffers called from the hallway. Time for him to go.

“Before you run,” Palmiotti said. “Have you thought about surgery?”

The President shook his head. “Not with this. Not anymore.”

“Mr. President…?” the staffer called again. Four uninterrupted minutes. For any President, that was a lifetime.

“I’ve got a country to run,” Wallace said to his friend. “By the way, if you’re looking for a good book…” He held up the hardcover copy of a book entitled
A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
by Samantha Power. “Give it a look—it won the Pulitzer Prize,” the President said, handing it to Palmiotti. Directly.

“You got it,” the doctor said to his oldest friend as he glanced down at the hardcover book.
A Problem from Hell
. It sure was.

“Oh, and if you see Gabriel,” Wallace called back as he headed for the door, “tell him to block out a quick drop-by in the schedule for Minnie’s conference. But I’m not staying for photos.”

“You’re a sucker, y’know that?”

The President waved an absent goodbye, not saying a word. But his point was clear.

In Wallace’s eyes, family came first.

It was a lesson not lost on Palmiotti, who knew exactly what was at risk if this current mess was what he thought. It’d be easy to walk away now. Probably smart too. The President’s foot was clearly approaching the bear trap. But after everything Wallace had done for him… everything they’d done for each other…

Family came first.

“Oh, and Stewie, you need a haircut,” the President added. “You look like dreck.”

Dr. Stewart Palmiotti nodded.

A haircut. He was thinking the exact same thing.

23

The girl.”

“What girl?” asks the security guy with the round face and bushy eyebrows.

“The girl,” I say. “There’s supposed to be a girl.”

He looks around the welcome area. The faded green rain mats and gray stone walls make it feel like a crypt. On the right, there’s the metal detector and X-ray machine. But beyond a few more employees flashing their IDs, the only people I see are two other security guards.

“I don’t see any,” the guard says.

“Someone called me,” I insist. “She was just here! Black hair. Nice eyes. She’s really—”

“The pretty one,” the guard by the X-ray calls out.

The eyebrows guard looks around.

“You don’t know where she is, do you?” I ask.

“I think I—I signed her in. She was waiting right
there
,” he says, motioning to one of the benches.

I’m not surprised. They may’ve given me and Tot the full once-over this morning, but for the most part, our security is at the same level as Orlando’s top-loading VCR. We don’t even swipe our IDs to get in. Especially during the morning rush—I can see it right now—a lanky woman in a bulky winter coat waves her ID at the guard and walks right through.

“I swear—
right there
,” he insists.

I glance at the sign-in sheet on the edge of the marble counter. Her signature is the exact same from high school. An effortless swirl.
Clementine Kaye
.

“Maybe someone already brought her in,” the X-ray guard says.

“No one brought her in. I’m the one she was waiting—” No. Unless… No. Even Khazei’s not that fast.

Pulling out my cell phone, I scroll to Clementine’s number and hit send. The phone rings three times. Nothing but voicemail. But in the distance, I hear the ring of a cell phone.

“Clementine…?” I call out, following the sound. I head back past the guard desk and rush toward the Finding Aids room, where most visitors start their research. It would make sense. I kept her waiting long enough—maybe she came in here to look for more about her dad.

I hit send again. Like before, there’s a faint ring.
Here.
For sure from here.

Hitting the brakes, I scan the mint green research room. I scan all four of the wide, book-covered desks. I scan the usual suspects: In the left corner, two elderly women are filling out paperwork. On my right, an old military vet is asking about some documents, a young grad student is skimming through genealogy reports, and—

There.

In the back. By the computers.

Staring at the screen, she leans forward in her chair, hugging the charcoal overcoat that fills her lap. Unlike yesterday, her short black hair has been divided into two ultra-hip pigtails like the kind you see on girls who make me feel just how old I’ve been feeling since she crashed back into my life and made me start searching for rap music instead of Kenny Rogers.

“Clemmi, what’re you doing here?” I ask as I reach the back of the room.

She doesn’t answer.

But as I get closer… as I see what she’s looking at onscreen… something on YouTube…

There are videos in my family that, if you covered the entire screen except for one square inch, I’d still be able to identify the moment. There’s the footage of me and my sisters, the two of them side by side on the vinyl couch in the hospital, holding baby me across their laps when I was first born. There’s me at ten years old, dressed as Ronald Reagan for Halloween, complete with what my mom swore was a Ronald Reagan wig, but was really just some old Fred Flintstone hair. And there’s the video of my dad—one of the only ones I have of him—in the local swimming pool, holding the two-year-old me so high above his head, then splashing me down and raising me up again.

But all those pale next to the scene that Clementine’s staring at right now: of Nico Hadrian, dressed in a bright yellow NASCAR jumpsuit, as he’s about to lift his gun and, without an ounce of expression on his face, calmly try to kill former President Leland Manning.

To most Americans, it’s history. Like the first moon footage. Or JFK being shot. Every frame famous: the tips of the President’s fingers blurring as he waves up at the crowd… his black windbreaker puffing up like a balloon… even the way he holds so tight to the First Lady’s hand as they walk out on the track, and…

“Now you think I’m a nut,” she says, still watching the screen.

“I don’t think you’re a nut.”

“You actually should. I’m related to a nut… I’m sitting here, watching this old footage like a nut… and yes, it’s only because you kept me waiting here that I put his name in Google, but still… this is really bordering on pathetic. I’m practically a cashew. Though watch when he steps out of the crowd: He totally looks like me.”

Onscreen, the President and First Lady are flashing matching grins, their faces lit by the generous sun as they walk to their would-be slaughter.

“Okay, it is kinda nutty you’re watching this,” I tell her.

Her eyes roll toward me. “You’re really chock full of charm, huh?”

“I thought it’d make you laugh. By the way, why’d you come here? I thought we agreed it was better to lay low until we—”

Standing up from her seat, she reaches into her purse, pulls out a small square present wrapped in what looks like the morning newspaper, and hands it to me.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“What’s it look like? It’s a poorly wrapped present. Open it.”

“I don’t—” I look over my shoulder, totally confused. “You came here to give me a present?”

“What’s wrong with a present?”

“I don’t know… maybe because, between Orlando dying, and then finding your dad, I sorta threw your life in the woodchipper yesterday.”

She regrabs the present, snatching it from my hands.

“Beecher, tell me something that upset you.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“In your life. Pick a moment. Pick something that hurt you… a pain that was so bad, you almost bit through your own cheek. Y’know… someone who really put you through the emotional wringer.”