Page 21 of The Night Of
“I need to speak to the First Lady,” I said. “Can you set that up?”
Jonathan sighed. “She’s struggling. I’m not sure how useful that will be.”
“I have to. Today.” Investigations 101. You have to talk to the family, ASAP. I should have done it the day before instead of falling asleep on the couch.
“I’ll text her when we get in. I’ll tell her it’s important.”
“Thanks.”
The tires splashed through puddles and rainwater that had overflowed the gutters. The wipers swished back and forth, a steady slide and whir over the windshield. I’d agreed to let Jonathan ride in the front seat because of the rain, because of how obscured everything would be. I’d need to put my foot down on this, though, and soon. Or I’d need to check out an SUV with the front windows blacked out.
“I need you to do something else, too,” he said, breaking the silence. My stomach clenched. My shoulder blades crawled for each other, my back tightening as I kneaded the steering wheel.Never speak to me again after this is done. Move to the other edge of the earth. Go jump off a cliff.I waited. “The chief judge of the district court in DC is coming to see me today. I’d like to have a search warrant ready for her to sign for this investigation. Can you write up what you need? Steven’s phone records, his financial records. What else?”
“I need access to his medical records. I need to talk to the White House physician. And I need to see what he was working on. I’ve got to run this like a traditional murder investigation.” As much as I could. “Most of the time, the reason someone was killed comes down to money or sex. Usually what the vic was working on or who they were sleeping with.”
“It’snotsex,” Jonathan said quickly. “But there are probably thousands of people who wanted Steven dead because of who he was: the president of the United States.”He looked out the passenger window. “I can get you White House records, along with whatever you need to know about what Steven was working on.”
“You sure? That’s all ridiculously classified information.”
“I’m the president. I can declassify it. Or I can read you in.” Unease crawled across his features. The weight of the presidency was one he didn’t want to carry. “The rest of what you need, put it in the warrant. I’ll ask the judge to sign it under seal. I want to do this the right way. Steven still has rights. They don’t vanish just because he died. Also, I want to catch this son of a bitch, and I want to put them away for what they did.”
If there was a murderer out there, I wanted to do more than put them away. I wanted to put them down.I arched my eyebrows.
“That’s what this country is about,” Jonathan said. “Doing the right thing, even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.”
Chastised, I kept my mouth shut as we turned into the underground garage. Jonathan was right. And, once again, he’d showed me his character. I’d fallen for that moral fiber, that strength of will to always do the right thing, never the expedient one. He was a man I looked up to, in so many ways.
“You can write the warrant in the Oval while I contact Felicity,” he said when we’d parked.
I nodded and set my empty coffee cup in the center console. I grabbed my suit jacket and slid it on, covering the main pistol on my belt and the secondary in my shoulder harness. I was loaded for bear.
Jonathan held out his coffee to me.
I blinked. “That’s yours.”
“I had a whole pot at home. You’ve been up most of the past two nights. I made this for you before we left.” He set the coffee on my empty seat and got out of the SUV. “I don’t want you falling asleep in the middle of our investigation.”
I grabbed the coffee and jogged after him, taking him through the rarely used basement entrance and up through the maintenance tunnels, all the way to the West Wing and into the Oval Office. I cleared the way before Jonathan and then waited in the hallway while he disappeared into his study and came out with a laptop for me. We sat down on the couches again, facing one another as we started our work.
The whole time, he didn’t say a word, and neither did I.
* * *
Jonathan’spersonal cell buzzed an hour later. Someone else might have missed the fraction of a wince that ghosted across his face as he checked it. “Felicity will see you,” he said. His voice was gruff, and he didn’t look at me as he stood, buttoning his suit jacket. “I’ll walk you.”
He didn’t need to. I knew the way, of course, and I was cleared, of course. But I didn’t quibble. After a full year of putting so much damn distance between us that we avoided not just the sight but the thought of each other, now he was making me coffee and walking me the four hallways it took to get to the Residence? This wasn’t what I’d imagined would happen if we were forced together again. I’d expected seething hatred, frigid glares. Isolation. I didn’t know how to handle coffee made the way I liked it, or him asking the Secret Service to bring me fresh clothes and toiletries. Where was this consideration coming from? And why? I didn’t deserve it.
Though Jonathan was the kind of man who would give his worst enemy water and help them to their feet. I really wasn’t special.
Ice blasted me from the inside, like a frag grenade going off in my guts. Was that what he thought this was? Giving his enemy water?
I stayed a half step behind Jonathan as his shoes squeaked over the Cross Hall and up the carpeted steps to the Residence.
He stilled after we made the turn on the landing, out of sight from the ground floor. He wouldn’t meet my gaze. “I’m not going up,” he said, his words a soft growl. He shook his head. “I can’t see her yet.”
He couldn’t see his best friend’s wife two days after the shooting?
“That is her home, and I’m not barging in there like—”
