THE KISS WAS SHORT, furtive, and the instant she pulled away, a thousand accusations flooded her mind, making her feel as confident as some idiot schoolgirl acting on her first crush.
“I’m sorry,” she said, secretly thrilled she hadn’t stuttered through her schoolgirl’s apology.
In a perfect world, he would have said, “You have nothing to apologize for,” and then planted a kiss worthy of the movies on her. But this was the real White House, not an episode of The West Wing.
Nick looked thoroughly uncomfortable.
Rather than repeat her apology, she scanned the clinic’s reception area, spotted a shelf of everyday first aid supplies, and grabbed an adhesive bandage.
“Here,” she said, handing it to him. “Put this on and it’ll explain why we were in here.”
Nick opened the package, pulled out the bandage, then hesitated. He held it out to her. “You do it.” He pointed to his head, then bent at the knees so she could better reach his forehead.
After the fact, Kate realized that sometimes the unsuspecting actors in an unscripted drama do hit their cues right.
Her hand remained steady as she peeled off the backing from the small bandage and then placed it near his hairline, covering the scar he sported from the attack months ago.
She felt his breath on her face as she inspected her handiwork. Then she felt his lips touch hers.
Although her mind swirled with thoughts, they only served to provide a pastel backdrop to the emotions that created broad strokes of color in her mind. Reason and logic didn’t disappear completely, but the thrill of the moment certainly pushed them to the back of her thoughts.
After several seconds, he pulled away.
“Where did that come from?” he whispered.
“I don’t know.”
He leaned his head against hers. “I didn’t expect to feel anything. I even told myself I couldn’t feel anything. You’re Kate. You’re my ex-wife’s best friend.”
“I know what you mean. You’re my best friend’s ex-husband. It violates the BFF code.”
“BFF?”
“Best friends forever.”
He nodded, instantly understanding the implications. “Yeah, I can’t imagine that Emily would approve.”
The words came instantly and with a sense of candor that astonished Kate, even as she spoke. “I don’t need her permission or her approval.”
He kissed her again, this time longer and with an increased sense of urgency. When he pulled back, he drew in a long breath. “This is definitely not what I expected to happen tonight.”
“What did you expect?”
“Decent hors d’oeuvres, a glass of tonic water, schmoozing with as many people as I could, twenty seconds or so with the ambassador, and Emily glaring at me all evening long.” He cupped Kate’s face in his hand. “Instead, I get a James Bond assignment and a make-out session in a closet.”
She pretended to take offense at his assessment. “We did not make out. And this isn’t a closet.”
He gave the room a sweeping glance. “Okay, but it would have sounded much worse if I said we had a make-out session in a doctor’s office.”
“True.”
He reached for her hand and squeezed it. “Let me live my fantasy. You’ve given me my assignment. Let me go prove that I’m worthy of your trust.”
And love? She was glad she only thought the words rather than said them because it was far too early to even begin to think along those lines. It was just a simple kiss, she thought as he started toward the door.
Three kisses, she corrected herself.
When Kate returned to the Diplomatic Reception Room, Emily caught her attention immediately, those arching eyebrows communicating, Well? with little effort.
Kate negotiated the crowded room, sidestepping clusters of people deep in conversation. She plastered an artificial smile on her face, hoping it masked the real smile that still lingered.
“Well?”
“Our guest left without any problem. However, he had been officially invited.”
“By whom?”
Kate lifted her hands. “I assume by the same person who invited him to the inaugural ball.”
“Then you’d assume wrong. The ball, yes. This? No.”
Kate hadn’t come unprepared. She leaned closer and whispered, “I didn’t want to say anything, but I think Dozier might have engineered the invitation. And since I doubt it was for any altruistic reasons, he must have had something planned to embarrass Nick or something like that.”
The explanation seemed to satisfy Emily. “Yeah, or something like that.”
The rest of the reception went off as planned. Emily made her farewell at 9:00. At 9:01, White House aides began to circulate in the room and insert themselves politely in the various conversation clusters and congenially say, “The president thanks you for spending the evening with us. We hope you have a safe trip back home.” It was their gentle way of saying, “Now it’s time for you to leave. So leave, already.” It worked with most of the partygoers who were well aware that the White House had a schedule that only major disasters or declarations of war would interrupt.
Those attendees who didn’t get the initial message were reminded two minutes later by Secret Service agents who were no less polite, but whose presence was much harder to ignore.
By 9:05 the room had been cleared of all guests, food, and dirty dishes.
Kate went back to her office, gathered her things, and headed home, where she remained awake almost all night, fretting about the “mission” she’d sent Nick on. She kept reminding herself that her motives were pure —to protect Emily from herself. Kate had no intention of whipping out the copy of the original documents in order to point an accusing finger. But in case Emily’s carefully made plans exploded in her face —as Kate feared they might —she wanted to be able to clarify exactly what had been changed.
But despite reassuring herself, Kate’s heart and her conscience warred to see which one felt heavier. Every now and then, she whispered a quick prayer.
“Tell me I’m doing the right thing, Lord.”
When neither her heart nor her conscience felt the burden lift, she couldn’t help but worry that she’d chosen the wrong path for the right reasons.
Just as she had finally decided to rethink the situation in the morning and given herself permission to sleep, the phone rang.
Buster woke from his deep sleep with a confused howl. Kate automatically reached with one hand to pat him and reassure him that the mean old phone meant him no harm while using her other hand to find the mean old phone on her bed stand.
“Kate? It’s Nick Beaudry.”
She heard something in his voice she didn’t like. “What’s wrong?”
“I need a lawyer.”
Every muscle in her body tightened. What had she gotten him into?
“Why? Are you in trouble?”
“No.” He paused, then repeated, “No. Not trouble. But I have two agents here who want to ask me a lot of questions, and I’ve declined to answer them until I have my lawyer present. They seem insistent on asking them right now.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Interesting timing, don’t you think?”
“I’ll be right there. Tell me where ‘there’ is.”
He gave her directions to his apartment, which he described as “almost in Crystal City.” Since time was obviously of the essence, Kate merely threw on jeans and a sweatshirt and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. As much as she might want to look like a lawyer in a sharp suit and perfect makeup, she would have to contend with only sounding and acting like one.
A heavy rain had been falling since midnight, and as a result, water flowed fast in the gutters and congregated in the low spots on the side of the road. But despite the more treacherous road conditions, she managed to dress, drive, and arrive in less than twenty minutes.
To her surprise, she learned that Nick didn’t live in one of the glass and steel high-rise buildings, but a very mundane, squatty brick apartment house that, from the outside, looked as if it hadn’t been renovated since it was built in the early fifties.
Evidently his position as a lobbyist with Better Energy Alliance didn’t include a paycheck large enough for fancy digs. When she knocked on the door, someone other than Nick answered. For one moment, she worried that she’d mixed up the directions and knocked on the wrong door. But she took a closer look at the man standing in the doorway and pegged him immediately as FBI.
“You the attorney?” he said in a gruff voice.
“Yes. And you?”
He dipped into his pocket and pulled out a leather wallet and showed her his photo ID that proved he was with the Bureau. Special Agent R.T. Stoffler.
“What’s the R.T. stand for?”
“It doesn’t. It’s just R.T.”
“Good to know. Where’s my client?”
“In the kitchen.” He stepped back to allow her to enter the apartment. She shrugged off her wet coat, looked around, and found a peg rack conveniently placed next to the front door. After depositing her coat there, she turned to take in the view.
Although the living room was sparse, its furniture all matched in a sort of cheap, nondescript, nonpersonalized way. It was obviously a furnished apartment. A dozen or so boxes —about half of which had been opened, the other half still sealed —had been piled in the corner.
The agent led her to the kitchen, where Nick and a second agent stood at the counter. She’d expected to see Nick being grilled, not drinking coffee and talking sports.
When he spotted her, he stopped in midsentence and developed a guarded smile. “Oh, good, you’re here. Thanks for coming out.”
She didn’t hide her displeasure. “In the rain,” she reminded him.
“Especially in the rain,” he repeated. “We’ve been just shooting the breeze until you got here. Special Agent Deakins has been working heavy on the good cop routine in hopes that he’ll disarm me with his congeniality and rip some sort of confession or something out of me. I’m not quite sure yet.”
Kate thought the second agent was going to choke on his coffee, his motives having been so plainly interpreted.
But Nick wasn’t finished. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a dollar, and handed it to Kate. “Your retainer, ma’am.” He then turned to the two men. “Special Agents Stoffler and Deakins, may I present my attorney, Kathryn Rosen.” He waited for the slightest pause before adding, “The White House chief of staff.”
The two men stared at her, trying to look past her übercasual clothes, her utilitarian hairdo, and her makeup-less face. Recognition dawned.
“Ma’am?” Agent Deakins nodded toward the kitchen table and pulled out a chair. “We apologize for not recognizing you immediately.”
She decided to give the man a break. “I doubt my own mother would recognize me like this.” She accepted the seat. “Now what questions do you want to ask my client and about what topic?”
“His whereabouts prior to the crash that killed a woman named Maia Bari and a man named Timothy Colton.”
Kate didn’t have to fake an air of exasperation. “What questions do you have that I haven’t already answered for your superior?”
All three men looked somewhat puzzled, Nick included. Deakins was the brave one to speak. “Someone in our organization has already spoken with you?”
“Yes.” She leaned across the table, her palms outstretched. “Do you not compare notes or check with your superiors before showing up on a man’s doorstep in the wee hours?”
Deakins dropped into the seat across from her. “We weren’t aware you’d been involved in the investigation.”
“I happen to have been with Mr. Beaudry the night that the accident occurred.”
Stoffler tried this time. “So you spoke with our field supervisor?” He named a name.
“No. Higher than that.” She was now playing a game and waiting for them to catch on.
He mentioned another name, evidently higher up in the food chain.
“Higher.” At their continued confusions, Kate decided to play her trump card. “A few days after the unfortunate incident, I spoke with Director Richfield, who asked me questions in the privacy of the Oval Office so as to spare the president any undue discomfort or embarrassment of any publicity concerning the fact that her chief of staff offered an alibi for the whereabouts of the president’s ex-husband on the night of question.”
At their stunned silence, she added, “Evidently you didn’t get the memo.”
Deakins stood quietly, guiding the cheap kitchen chair back under the table as if it were a Chippendale original of unfathomable worth. “No, ma’am, we didn’t get the memo. However, please be assured that we’re anxious to determine why that key piece of information was not adequately relayed to us.” He turned to Nick. “Sir, please accept my personal apology for disturbing you in the middle of the night.” Deakins then turned to Kate. “And, ma’am, I highly regret that you had to come out here on what turned out to be —because of us —a fool’s errand.”
Moments later, the two agents were gone, the door closing with only the quietest noise behind them.
Nick stared in the direction of their departure. “If I hadn’t heard it with my own ears, I wouldn’t have believed it.” He turned to Kate. “Was that the truth? The director of the FBI actually questioned you?”
She nodded. “I was mortified. Sitting there in the Oval Office —Emily looking on. It was like being called into the ultimate principal’s office.”
“I can imagine. And he asked questions about me?”
She nodded. “Had you arranged to meet me, why were you there, when did I first see you, what condition were you in . . . Things like that.”
“I bet Emily was having a blast.”
“I don’t know about that. She admitted to being the one who saw to it that you had a ticket to the Constitution Ball.”
“Really? She actually admitted to it?”
Kate nodded. “Surprised me, too.”
He shook his head. “Will wonders never cease?” He looked up, then colored slightly. “I really appreciate that you were willing to come out here in the middle of the night and act as my lawyer.”
“I’m glad you called. I doubt anyone else could have found the right answers to make them hightail it out of here.”
“You had the right ammunition, for sure.”
An awkward silence muffled their conversation like a heavy blanket of wet snow. But instead of snowing, the rains outside had subsided from roaring storm to gentle mist.
Despite her better efforts to stifle a yawn, it escaped nonetheless. “I . . . I better head home and try to get some more sleep before I have to go into the office.”
He stood and offered a hand to help her up. “You don’t know how much I appreciate this, Kate. Having a friend I can call on . . .”
“Even in the middle of the night,” she supplied with a grin. “I didn’t mind helping, Nick. Not at all.”
He led her to the apartment door, helping her with her raincoat. “Drive carefully.” He pushed back the curtains that covered the living room window. “I think this is only a momentary lull. The weather forecast for tomorrow is more of the same.”
“At least if it starts up again, I won’t have to contend with much traffic.”
“True. Good night, then. Or good morning, as the case might be.” He opened the door and cold air seeped into the living room.
“Good night.”
“Drive carefully.”
“I will.”
Nick put a merciful end to their awkward good-bye by giving her a hug that felt as confusingly pleasant as had the kisses they’d shared earlier that evening. He complicated matters even more by tightening his arms and saying, “I really do appreciate everything, Kate.”
She liked the brief sense of security of his arms. For a passing moment, she could simply enjoy having someone else be protective of her and give her a break from being her own primary protector, defender, and all the other roles she played as a single female in a position of high authority within the White House.
He then leaned down, his lips brushing her ear, and in a husky whisper, said, “As to our little problem? I pulled some strings and should be getting a copy of the original filing documents for the last shell corporation that links you know who with the stock options. He hid everything as a Panamanian foundation, not a corporation.”
The moment of intimacy dissipated and the reminder of the duties of her immediate world flooded back. He pulled away a little and offered her a grin of triumph. “That’s why you had a hard time finding it.”
“How did you ever pull that off?”
“My father had twelve brothers and sisters and my mother had seven. I have first cousins almost everywhere in the world, including one who’s an expat living in Panama. He runs an employment company and specializes in providing a wide variety of services to law firms, everything from shredding services to the night janitorial staff. He was able to get a copy of the original dated application and all the requests for changes. It’ll show a clear picture of the foundation’s origins and when certain changes were made.”
“I assume it’s just as illegal in Panama as it would be here, right?”
“Knowing Donnie? Absolutely. He’s never been one who played well within government restrictions. It’s the reason he doesn’t live in the U.S. anymore.” Nick sighed. “My family runs the gamut of everything from working stiffs down to what my mother always called ‘guttersnipes.’ I’d like to think I skew more toward the working stiff side of the family tree.”
Kate suddenly realized she was still within the circle of his arms. She pushed back, their business conversation not matching the more personal nature of their position.
“When are you supposed to receive the files?”
“They’re coming by courier tomorrow. Or I guess that would be today —this afternoon.”
“Then you need to find a place to stash the proof.” She looked at his apartment. “Not here.”
“Of course not.” He concentrated for a moment. “What about my storage unit? When I left the city to move back to Louisiana last time, I gave up my apartment, so I had to get a friend to pack up and store my stuff in one of those month-by-month storage units.” He thumbed back over his shoulder. “When I returned, this was the only place I could find on short notice. And since it was furnished, I just left the other furniture and stuff in storage.”
“If they get a warrant for your apartment, they’d probably also include any satellite storage units. They can track stuff like that down through bank records, credit card files, or such.”
He winked. “They can’t if there’s no paper trail. The buddy who packed everything up? He owns the moving and storage company. He’s not charging me, so there’s no way anybody can track it down.”
“So you’ll hide the papers there?”
“Seems like the best solution. I can get you a key to the place as well to make sure you have access to it.” Lightning split the sky and thunder rumbled several seconds behind the light.
The rain began to fall again. “I . . . I better start home before it gets worse.”
“Good night, then.” He reached for her hand. Then after a moment’s hesitation, he pulled her closer to him for one long and thrilling kiss that sent a bolt of electricity clear down to her toes.
When they finally broke apart, he kept his grasp on her hand and drew in a breath that was almost shaky. “Oh, boy.”
She held on to his hand as much for balance as anything else. “My sentiments exactly.”
“This . . . still confuses me.”
Kate felt her face redden. “Me too.”
“So what are we going to do about it?”
“Go slow?”
He nodded, giving her a much more chaste kiss on the forehead. “Agreed.” He gave her hand one last squeeze. “But it’s not going to be easy.”