65

Iowa City, Iowa

“You look beautiful.”

“Charles, it’s the new millennium. Don’t you mean I look powerful? Smart? Capable?” But Senator Gina Hayes’s broad smile showed she was teasing. Her husband always said exactly the right thing. It was one of his gifts.

“I mean it.” He pulled her into an embrace rare enough that Matthew Clemens stopped juggling seven different appointments, hundreds of texts and emails, and a phone conversation with CNN to stare, agape. The three of them were backstage at Kinnick Stadium on the University of Iowa campus. Outside, an unusually plump crescent moon was crawling up the night sky, and the winter-washed air carried ice currents that nipped at noses and fingers. That didn’t keep the record crowd of 35,000 supporters from bundling in parkas, hats, and scarves to hear a historic speech by who looked to be the first female president of the United States of America.

The election was in six days. News stations were predicting the highest voter turnout in history. Technicians, news crews, and security personnel bustled backstage. Since no moment of Senator Hayes’s life was private, at least two different cable stations were showing a live feed of her husband’s embrace. She knew this, or at least guessed.

She didn’t care.

She was going to steal these five seconds in her husband’s arms, safe, grounded, a blink of selfishness before she stepped in front of thousands—millions with television and the Internet—and gave them everything she had. She’d been raised in the ideal of public service, taught by her father that your life only had meaning if it helped others. She’d seen the sacrifices he’d made right up until his death of a heart attack two years earlier. She knew how proud he’d be of her, and that was one of the sparks that kept her fire burning.

Hayes pulled out of her husband’s arms, letting her hand linger on his cheek for a moment. “Do I still look okay?”

He flashed the charming smile that had disarmed men and women—too many women—his entire political career. “You’ve never looked more powerful, smart, or capable.” He leaned close to her ear and whispered, “And I’ve never seen you look more beautiful. If you need help getting out of that suit later, you know where to find me.”

With a wink, he stepped back and let her hair and makeup crew complete their final touches. Hayes threw him one last glance before returning to work, wondering how he could still surprise her, still make her feel so attractive, even after all these years.

She called over her shoulder. “Matthew, has someone tested the teleprompters?”

“Yes, but you won’t need them.” Matthew didn’t pause his typing to answer but did stop to issue a threat to the cable news anchor creeping closer to Hayes despite multiple warnings against direct questions until after the speech. With a single gesture, he also managed to have her pre-speech chamomile tea brought to her.

Hayes smiled as she sipped. American voters were worried they’d be electing her and her husband to run the country when in fact, they should be worried about the package deal of her and her assistant. Matthew had chosen her outfit (a slimming pantsuit in deep “power” red), her hair (“less of the matronly Martha, more Assertive Annie with a dash of Sexy Susie”), and her makeup (“Chop chop! I need her to look like she’s actually slept since last May”). Hayes had chosen the content of her speech, however, and written most of it through the night, working with her team of speech writers.

The address hit the three points she’d based her campaign on: economic power, global stability, and environmental protection. This one also contained an Easter egg, something her speech writers had begged her not to include: a nod to the so-called kitchen table issues that had been important to her as a law student in college and continued to define her. She would address women’s reproductive freedom, gay rights, income inequality, the pay gap, the minimum wage, immigration reform, and veterans’ rights.

She would represent the people.

“Are you ready?” Matthew held his iPad in one hand and her mobile mic in the other.

Hayes nodded briskly and handed him the empty teacup. “Always.”

Matthew appeared wistful for a moment.

“What is it?” Hayes asked.

“I hate to say it, but Charming Charlie was right. You look beautiful.”

Hayes actually laughed, a ruby-colored chuckle seldom heard in public. “You’re not getting a raise, Matthew.”

He winked and stepped away, the melancholy smile still on his face. Hayes was escorted into the wide-open arena, the applause deafening. Tens of thousands of people jumped to their feet, screaming, waving signs, some of them crying. Hayes walked to the center of the stage and held her hands in the air. The teleprompters to her left and right were suspended like thin prisms. The space heaters on the stage created a visible barrier against the frigid November air, a wavy storm front that Hayes had to stare through like a mirage to see her audience.

But it didn’t matter. This is where she was supposed to be. These were the people she was fighting for. She let the cheers wash over her.

“Thank you for inviting me to your lovely stadium, Hawkeyes!”

Impossibly, the volume of the cheers rose.

Hayes’s smile widened.

She had her mouth open to begin her speech when the first shot rang out, popping like a car backfire, the bullet piercing the mirage of the stage.

Two Secret Service agents were on top of Senator Gina Hayes’s body before the second shot was fired.