Defeat clouded Davis’ face. “Now you see why it had to be you working on this?”
She’d already understood that fact.
“When the Secret Service told us who they had in custody, I convinced the president to involve you both. It wasn’t a hard sell. He has great trust in both you and Cotton. He hasn’t forgotten what you did for him last time. I knew Pauline would instantly become a suspect, since only a handful of us knew of the trip that far in advance, so any investigation of her had to be controlled.”
“You knew she was the leak from the start?”
“The idea of her saying something to someone made sense.”
“When did your relationship with the First Lady start?”
A wave of uneasiness passed between them. She knew this was tough. But he’d involved her and she had to do her job.
“I came to the White House three years ago as a deputy national security adviser. I met Pauline… the First Lady… then.”
“Don’t worry about correctness,” she said. “This is just you and me. Tell me what happened.”
“I do worry about it.” A wave of anger flashed across his face. “I’m mad at myself. Never have I behaved in such a manner. I’m sixty years old and have never placed myself in such an awkward situation. I’m not sure what’s come over me.”
“Welcome to the club. Have you ever been married?”
He shook his head. “I’ve had precious few relationships in my life. Work was always the most important thing. I was the person other people turned to in time of trouble. A steady hand. Now-”
She reached out and lightly grasped his arm. “Just tell me what happened.”
His defensiveness seemed to abate. “She’s a terribly unhappy woman and has been for a long time. Which is such a shame, because she’s a good person. What happened with her daughter profoundly affected her. She just never dealt with it.”
And neither had Danny Daniels, she thought.
“She rarely travels with the president anymore,” Davis said. “Differing schedules, which isn’t unusual. So there were times when he was gone that she and I would visit with each other. Nothing improper, mind you. Nothing at all. Just a lunch or a dinner where I’d keep her company and we’d talk. She likes to read, mainly romance novels. That’s something few know. The steamier the better. Shirley would sneak them to her.” He smiled. “They bring her joy, and not because of the sex. That isn’t the allure. It’s the happy endings. They all end on a high note, and that she likes.”
He was relaxing, opening up, as if he’d been living on his raw nerves far too long.
“We talked about books, the world, the White House. There was no reason to pretend with me. I was the closest person to the president. There was nothing I didn’t know. Eventually, we explored Mary, her husband, and her marriage.”
“She made it clear to me that she blames the president for everything.”
“That’s not true,” he quickly said. “Not in the way you think. Maybe in the beginning she did blame him. But I think she came to realize that was foolish. Sadly, a part of her died that night with Mary. A part that could never be reclaimed, and it’s taken her decades to understand that loss.”
“Were you a factor in that understanding?”
He seemed to feel the hint of criticism in her words.
“I tried hard not to be. But when I was promoted to chief of staff, we spent more time together. Our discussions progressed to ever-deeper topics. She trusted me.” He hesitated. “I’m a good listener.”
“But you were doing more than listening,” she said. “You were empathizing. Relating. Drawing something equally beneficial, for yourself, from her.”
He nodded. “Our conversations were a two-way street. And she came to know that.”
She, too, had wrestled with those same emotions. Sharing yourself with someone was tough business.
“Pauline is a year older than me,” he said, as if that mattered in some way. “She jokes that I’m her younger man. I have to confess, I like it when she says that.”
“Does Daniels have any idea?”
“Heavens, no. But like I said, absolutely nothing improper has occurred.”
“Except the two of you have fallen in love.”
Resignation filled his face. “I suppose you’re right. That’s exactly what happened. She and the president have not been man and wife for a long time, and they both seem to have accepted that. There’s no intimacy in their relationship. And I don’t mean in the physical sense. There’s no sharing of each other. No vulnerabilities exposed. It’s as if they’re roommates. Colleagues. With a physical wall between them. No marriage can survive that.”
She knew what he meant. Never before had she been intimate with anyone on the level she was with Cotton. There’d been men, and she’d shared some of herself, but never all. To reveal your hopes and fears, trusting that another person will not abuse them, involved a huge leap of faith.
And not only for her, but for Cotton, too.
Yet Davis was right.
Intimacy seemed the mortar that bound love together.
“Did you know about Quentin Hale’s connection to Shirley Kaiser?” she asked.
“Absolutely not. I’ve only met Shirley once, when she came to the White House. But I know Pauline talks to her every day. Without her, she would have folded long ago. If Pauline would tell anyone about the New York trip, it would have been Shirley. I also know that Shirley knows about me. That’s why I needed you on this one. I figured things could rapidly get out of hand.”
Which had happened.
“Now Quentin Hale knows,” she said. “But, interestingly, he hasn’t done a thing with the information.”
“When he met with me that day in the White House, he surely knew. That get-together was probably a way for him to see if he had to play the trump card.”
She agreed. That made sense. As did something else. “I’m convinced that Hale has Stephanie. Though she was looking into Carbonell, it involved the Commonwealth, too. There’s no doubt about it now.”
“But if we act imprudently, we risk not only exposure and embarrassment for all concerned, but Stephanie’s life.”
/>
“That’s true but-”
An alarm sounded from the visitor center.
“What now?” she said.
They raced back toward the cluster of buildings and into the estate manager’s office.
Concern filled the manager’s assistant’s face. “Some sort of bomb went off in the main house.”
FORTY-SIX
WYATT’S TOYS HAD DONE THE TRICK. PANIC NOW REIGNED INSIDE the mansion. People screaming, shoving, trying to escape. He’d used a modified mixture that added smoke, which only amplified the effects. Thank goodness he’d shipped a supply to New York, since he’d been unsure just what would happen once Cotton Malone entered the picture.
He’d retreated into Jefferson’s bedroom and jammed a chair under the doorknob. He knew another tour would be making their way from the sitting room into the library, then the cabinet. He stepped lightly across the room’s plank floor toward the bed. He recalled the guide earlier babbling about how Jefferson would rise as soon as he could see the hands of an obelisk clock that sat across from the bed. A crimson silk counterpane-sewn to Jefferson’s specifications, the guide had pointed out-covered the mattress, which filled an alcove between the bedroom and the cabinet. He crawled onto the bed and carefully peered around the edge, past arches, to see people in the library, about twenty feet away. The guide seemed to be assessing the unusual situation and, upon hearing the screams from the other end of the house, asked for everyone to stay calm.
Wyatt tossed a light bomb their way, jerking his head back just as the flash and smoke appeared.
Shouts came as fear set in.
“This way,” he heard a voice say over the commotion.
He glanced back and saw the guide leading the group through the smoke, out the louvered doors, into the adjacent greenhouse and fresh air.
He turned his attention to the cipher wheel.
Which rested two feet away.
MALONE STOOD INSIDE MONTICELLO’S TWO-STORY ENTRANCE hall. Smoke billowed from open glass doors at the opposite end, followed by screams and yells that signaled something had just happened to his left.