It would have been horrible to discover her body, and have the last traces of hope destroyed, but surely, it would have been even worse never to find any trace of her at all. For weeks, and months, and years, to go by, with no resolution. “Do you think my parents would have survived that?” she asked.
“I don’t think any of us would have survived it at all intact,” he said.
For his sake, she elected not to point out that they hadn’t, anyway. Also, there was one specific question which she had never, in all of these months, thought to ask. She looked around at the hotel dining room, seeing that, other than the hotel staff, and a few of her agents, they were just about the only people there. Presumably, breakfast service had ended, but it was still too early for lunch. “Why were you the one who took the call?” she asked.
He tilted his head.
“That day,” she said. She’d been too weak and injured to stand, but she’d managed to prop herself against a counter in that Georgia family’s bright clean kitchen and dial the White House, while the poor, stunned kid who’d let her inside just stared at her with his mouth hanging open. “It didn’t make sense that neither of my parents came on right away.”
Preston moved his jaw. “There had been a lot of crank calls. People who—well, pretty sick people.”
No doubt, but— “On the private lines?” she asked.
He didn’t look at her.
“It’s okay,” she said, although she could feel her heart beating a little faster from dread. “I want to know.”
“They were afraid that the numbers might have been tortured out of you,” he said. “So, the call could have been from anyone—and they didn’t want to put your parents through that, unless they were absolutely sure.”
Okay. That was logical. “I probably didn’t sound like myself, either,” she said.
He shook his head. “No. And, even if it was you—” He stopped again.
She gestured for him to go on.
Preston looked very tired. “They wanted to establish whether you were under duress, or—well, there was some concern that whoever had taken you might have been cruel enough to force you to call, and then make your mother listen to you be executed right over the phone.”
Jesus. But if the guy had been wired that way, they probably would have filmed it, instead, and posted the tape on the Internet, where deeply disturbed and amoral types would have downloaded grainy copies, and emailed it to one another, with indescribably obscene fascination.
“I happen to think they made the wrong decision on that,” he said. “If it actually had played out that way, it would have been absolutely unforgivable not to let one, or both, of them have a chance to speak to you.”
Meg shook her head. “Yeah, but Jesus, it would have destroyed them.”
His smile was extremely kind. “They would have done it willingly, Meg, with the hope that, during your last few seconds, it might have been a comfort to hear the voice of someone who loved you.”
And there, surely, would be the personification of selflessness. With a prime example of it sitting right across the table from her. She looked back at him. “But none of them had any compunctions about possibly letting you listen to me be murdered.”
He shook his head.
Very still waters, running very god-damned deep. And if she told him she was sorry, or even thank you, it would never come close to being enough. “You dear, sweet man,” she said.
“Well,” he said, self-consciously, and took a sip of what was now cold coffee.
It wasn’t even lunchtime, and she felt as though it was the middle of the night. She would have expected him to change the subject now, or maybe take a glance at his long-silenced cell phone, but he just sat in his chair—slouched, really, staring at the remains of his coffee.
Which meant that there was still something—or maybe several somethings—haunting him.
“Whatever it is, please talk to me about it,” she said.
He shook his head. “I can’t, Meg. You’re really the last person—”
“I’m probably the last person you should tell,” she said, “but I might also be the only person you can tell.”
He nodded, and then sucked in one slow breath before meeting her eyes. “It never leaves this table, right?”
She nodded.
He checked her expression, and then nodded in return. “They had me spend two weeks looking at morgue photos.”
Okay. He’d already lost her. “I’m not, um—” She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Someone had to look at the photos, Meg,” he said.
Oh. Someone other than her parents, or Trudy.
“I had no idea how many unidentified bodies of thin, dark-haired Caucasian women turn up in this country, day after day—and, for that matter, all over the world,” he said, and shuddered. “All of these anonymous young women, most of whom suffered horribly before some animal somewhere—my God, it was endless.”
She had never considered that, either—and the concept was one that wasn’t going to leave her anytime soon. “Yeah, but DNA, and dental records, and fingerprints, and—”
“Absolutely,” he agreed. “And there were some, who, because of size, or age, or decomposition, they could rule out instantly. But even though they were going to be doing all of the testing, if they had any doubts at all, they thought it was easier, and much faster, to have someone who knows you well take a quick look. That way, they could get a potentially reliable identification in thirty seconds, instead of having it take, say, an hour or two.”
Christ.
“Sometimes Bob Brooks would look, too,” he said, “but they generally came to me, first.”
And so, Preston—and Dr. Brooks—had been forced to go through the same ordeal over, and over, and over. For thirteen days. And nights, she assumed. It seemed cold in the dining room, and Meg repressed a shiver.
“A few of the times, I honestly wasn’t sure. The build was right, and their faces had been—or there was other damage to the body, or—” He swallowed. “I’d have to go watch a live video feed, or have more photos faxed from whatever morgue or crime scene it was, and even then, I was about to fly to Texas one night before they thought to get a blood type from a body whose face and hands had been—Jesus. There are some truly evil people out there.”
All of this was making her head hurt terribly, and she had to fight the urge to slump down and rest against her good arm. If she hadn’t been worried about cameras out in the lobby, she would have.
“See, even people who’d never met you weren’t really playing with a full deck,” he said. “The whole situation was—I mean, most of the time, no one—the White House, the FBI, police officers, you name it—seemed to be in their right mind. And the phone would ring, or I’d hear my fax machine start, and—” He shook his head.
For months, she’d been leaning on him—and never really stopped to think about whether he might have some scars, too. Christ, what the hell was the matter with her? Susan had absolutely nailed it when she’d accused her of being self-obsessed. “I’m really sorry, Preston,” she said. “I had no idea.”
He smiled a tired smile at her. “Would you have done the same for me?”
“God, yes,” she said. God forbid.
He shrugged. “All right, then. Let’s leave it at that.”
For now, maybe they should. Except that there was one small thing she could give him, which might help a little. “You’re nothing like him,” she said, and meant every word of it this time. “You never will be.”
He looked at her for a long minute, and then, she saw the tension leave his shoulders.
“Thank you,” he said.
28
PEOPLE HAD STARTED coming in for lunch, and what had been a good place to have a serious conversation no longer was. Since it seemed like a reasonable idea, they ordered some more food and resolutely began to talk about the Red Sox, and the chances of her mother’s new fuel emissions standards bill passing, and whether it made any sen
se at all to take classes which met at eight-thirty in the morning when there were other, perfectly nice, courses offered at more appealing hours of the day.
Reporters were wandering over to the table again, and civilians kept stopping by, too. Very nice people, who mostly just wanted to say hello, and tell her how hard they had prayed, or how happy they had been when they found out that she was safe. A few asked to take a picture with her, or get a—scrawled—autograph, which was, as always, weird as hell, but she was careful to be friendly and cooperative and patient every single time.
“Ginette’s going to be here through Monday, at least,” Preston said, when they were waiting for the check, “but do you need me to stay, too?”
Wanting him to stay—just to have him around—and needing him to stay were two entirely different things. Meg shook her head. “I’m fine. Go back to Washington, you tired little fellow.”
He grinned. “What, and report to my new boss?
Meg grinned, too. “Absolutely,” she said.
Their good-bye was confined to a brisk handshake in the lobby, which felt strange, since they normally would have hugged, but that seemed like a really bad idea, given the number of people standing around watching them, especially since quite a few were taking extensive notes.
“Thank you,” she said. “I mean it.”
He winked at her. “See you in a week, pal.”
Right. Spring break ever so rapidly approached.
Her agents drove her back to the dorm, where she knew she should immediately start studying for her midterms, but taking a nap sounded like an even better idea. As she passed the downstairs security desk, Larry indicated an envelope with her name on it.
Meg reached forward, then pulled back. “Is it from a stranger?”
He shook his head.
She leaned back against the banister, so that she could put her cane down and open it, finding a sheaf of Xeroxed psychology notes inside, with “Hope you can read my disgustingly neat handwriting. Jack” written across the top.
“Poetry?” Larry asked hopefully.
Christ, had her agents been sitting around taking bets on her romantic prospects or something? Meg laughed. “Just some class notes I missed. Sorry.”
She was just pushing away from the banister when a football came flying in her direction. She managed to catch it, awkwardly, although she lost her balance and stumbled down a step or two in the process.
Khalid, who had just missed it—judging from the general noise level, most of her entrymates were in the middle of a pretty rowdy afternoon—looked guilty. “Hey, sorry about that. You should have ducked.”
No, hurled footballs were—always—meant to be caught. Being crippled wasn’t enough to change that. She shrugged and threw it back.
“Hey, pretty good spiral,” a guy standing behind him, whose name she didn’t know, although she was pretty sure he lived in Sage C, said. “Bet you can’t do that twice.”
She might not be able to catch it a second time, without falling, but she could sure as hell throw it with no problem. “Five dollars,” Meg said.
“You’re on,” he said, took the ball from Andy, and flipped it down to her as a few other guys from the entry, including Dirk, came crowding out to watch.
She gave a split second’s thought to performance anxiety, but made sure she had a halfway decent grip on the laces and whipped the ball up to him with a little extra zip—the spiral tight enough to win her a few yells of appreciation of the “Sage women rule!” variety. Then, she very slowly hauled herself up to the landing, stopping to hold her good hand out to the guy she didn’t know.
He grinned sheepishly, dug into his pocket, and gave her five dollars.
“Thanks,” she said, and stuck it in her jacket pocket.
“How about we go outside and see if you can throw it at least twenty-five yards?” he asked. “Double or nothing.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m saving my energy for the combine.”
The jock types all laughed, and the ones who were less sports-inclined nodded wisely, although she was pretty sure that Gerard, and maybe Eric from the first floor, had no idea what she meant. Of course, if they began to talk about organic chemistry or developing software programs or Latin translations of obscure tomes, she would have been equally puzzled.
She could hear unfamiliar adult voices in the second-floor common room, and was suddenly afraid that some reporters—or terrorists—might have charmed their way past her agents and inside the dorm.
Only, how likely was that? It was probably just people from the Dean’s office, or maybe the campus police or fire marshals checking up to make sure none of them had candles and burning incense and stuff like that in their rooms. But, as she was about to go into the second-floor hallway and take the elevator up to her floor—instead of fighting the stairs, she saw a tweedy man with greying hair, and a chic, but conservative-looking woman about the same age, and realized that it was only someone’s parents. There was also a girl, who looked about thirteen, with long, brown hair and—oh, hell—very blue eyes.
Susan’s family.
Great.
She thought about retreating—this might be a really good time to go outside and win herself ten dollars, after all—but the little sister had already seen her.
“Hey, wow!” she said. “You do look just like her. That is so cool.”
All right. Too late now. Christ, Susan’s parents must absolutely hate her for having made their daughter’s life miserable.
“Uh, hi,” Meg said. She should smile. Smiling was always nice. “You must be the McAllisters. It’s very nice to meet you. I’m Meg Powers.” Which probably wasn’t going to come as a great shock to them, but good manners still required the basic formalities.
While Mr. and Mrs. McAllister were introducing themselves, and the little sister, whose name was Wendy, Susan came out of her room.
“Mom, before we go, can Dad help me with the—” She stopped. “Oh. Hi.” She took in Meg’s new immobilizing brace with one very sharp glance, but just frowned, instead of saying anything about it. “I guess you’ve—?”
They all nodded.
“Okay, good,” Susan said, and put her hands in her pockets, took them out again, and folded her arms across her chest. “That’s good.”
So, at least she wasn’t the only one who thought this encounter was strained.
“Susan was just showing us the President’s letter,” Mrs. McAllister said.
Letter? But Meg smiled, inquisitively.
Susan shrugged. “The, um—your mother sent it up with Preston.”
Good—both that she had taken the time to write a personal apology, and that she had made the choice not to advertise having done so. “Well, if you were so inclined, I’m sure you could do very nicely with it on eBay,” Meg said.
Susan laughed. “That’s exactly what Mary Elizabeth said.”
No big surprise there. “Were there any spelling or grammatical errors?” Meg asked.
Wendy looked shocked. “The President has trouble spelling?”
Thirteen could be a gullible age. “Oh, yeah,” Meg said. “It’s a horror show to keep it covered up. Normally, I try to proofread everything, and do some revisions for her, but since I went away—well, she’s really fallen upon hard times. Frankly, I often fear for the country.”
“She’s kidding,” Wendy said to her mother, sounding almost sure, “right?”
Mrs. McAllister nodded.
“I knew that,” Wendy said. “Yup. I did.”
One of the many moments when she was reminded of how much she missed being able to goof around with—and sometimes, goof on—her brothers. “And there’s also the little matter of her drinking problem,” Meg said, mostly to herself.
Wendy’s eyes widened, and she looked at her mother, who shook her head.
Susan came over and stood next to her. “I want to spend some time with my family,” she said in a low voice. “So, call off your attack dog, okay?”
>
Meg stared at her. “Hannah Goldman’s been coming around and bothering you?”
Susan looked confused. “Who’s Hannah Goldman?”
Oh. Right. Hannah was a shark. Ginette must be the attack dog. “You mean, Ginette, then,” Meg said. “Okay. But if you change your mind, all you have to do is—”
“If anyone bothers us, I’ll just tell them that they’re bastards, and your agents are going to shoot them,” Susan said.
Always an effective strategy.
It developed that Mr. McAllister had some new software he wanted to install on Susan’s computer, and while this was being discussed, and Wendy wandered towards Dirk’s room—obviously, Susan’s family had been here before, and they all knew one another—Meg took the opportunity to nod politely, mumble that it had been very nice to meet everyone, and resume her limp upstairs.
She was about to open the door to her floor when Susan’s mother caught up to her.
“I wanted to invite you to come along with us to brunch tomorrow,” Mrs. McAllister said. Although she was also quite small, Susan didn’t really look very much like her, and seemed to take after her father’s side of the family physically. The hair, the serious eyes, the general mien.
“Um, that’s really nice of you, ma’am,” Meg said, “but I don’t think it’s a very good idea. I mean, with everything that’s been going on.”
Mrs. McAllister flashed a smile, and now Meg did see a vivid resemblance to Susan. Friendly, but authoritative. No-nonsense. “We’d be delighted to have you come. Surely, you won’t make me insist.”
Hmm. A parent voice. Sort of a command-performance voice. “I have a lot of security, ma’am,” Meg said. “It tends not to be—fun.”
Mrs. McAllister shrugged that off. “It’ll be fine, Meg. We’ll just go over to the Inn, or down to Le Jardin or someplace.”
Meg was going to argue, but— “This is what normal parents do when they come to visit their children at college, right? Invite their—” Could she say “friends?” It might be presumptuous—“dormmates out for a meal?”
Mrs. McAllister nodded.
Okay. She was a little foggy on the concept of conventional parental activities. “Then, thank you, ma’am,” she said. “I’d like that.” Getting to do something completely ordinary would be a treat. Of course, running it by Susan, first, to make sure she didn’t mind, might be a good idea, too. “I’m really sorry about everything that’s been going on for the last couple of days. I didn’t know about what happened to Susan’s friend, and—I’m sorry. I hate it that she had to be hurt that way.”