Page 71 of The Night Of
She froze. Not a molecule in the Oval Office moved.
“If you wanted to escape, you could have found another way. Any other way.” His voice dropped, shifted into a growl. “He was mybest friend.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“Don’t. I know why you wanted to kill the investigation into Steven’s death. You’re trying to cover your tracks, like you’ve been trying to do for months. Ever since Paul Hardacre uncovered your secret.”
Her eyes flashed, the first hints of danger rising out of her previously placid gaze. Her gaze shifted—only a few microns, but suddenly, she seemed deadly. She looked like a woman who had killed and would kill again.
“Hardacre figured out something wasn’t right when he was in Helsinki. He was trying to find your family. Your parents. Their bodies had never been repatriated, and he thought it would be a kind gesture to you and to Steven, his president, to find their remains and bring them home. But you know what he found, don’t you?”
She stared.
“Nothing. He found nothing, because there was nothing to find. Your parents weren’t killed in a car crash in Finland. They weren’t killed in Finland because they—the American parents you claimed to have—never existed. You and your sister weren’t American. The aunt who took you in wasn’t American, either. Everything about you, from your birth certificates on, was forged. Wasn’t it…” Jonathan pulled two folded papers from his jacket pocket and held them out to her. “Yekaterina?”
She took the papers and flipped them open. We all watched her, cataloging her every movement: her muscle quivers, the clench of her fingers, the microexpressions that flitted across her face. Jonathan had just handed her the photocopies of what Rose had left for him in the safe house in Anacostia. What he and so many others had died for. What Steven Baker had been murdered for.
Felicity Baker didn’t exist.
She’d been born Yekaterina Yahontov, with a sister, Mila Yahontov, and those were their Russian birth certificates and Russian passports from when they were eight and six years old, when they were set up in Finland with their spymaster, a woman who pretended to be their aunt. They trained for the rest of their lives to infiltrate the West.
Did they ever imagine, back then, how far they’d go? How well they would succeed?
“I haven’t heard that name in a long time.”
“Since you were eight, based on Hardacre’s investigation. That’s when the Russian government plucked you and your sister out of the orphanage. You were sent to the West and raised to be spies, to live undercover for years. Russia has done this before—sending people over to live as Americans under deep cover for years—but they never started with children. Until you and your sister.”
“We weren’t the only ones.”
“What was your mission? You were, what, told to find men who had upward trajectories? Who were on the rise and would do great things? How did you know Steven would become the president?”
“Steven wouldn’t have ever become president if not for the support of his deeply loving wife. You were there, Jonathan. Would Steven have even taken that first step into politics if it weren’t for me telling him how great he’d be, how wonderful? He dreamed of this office, but he also liked the easy life.”
“You didn’t do anything. Steven was already a great man, and he was destined to be the president.”
Yekaterina scoffed. “No, he needed some guidance to get where he needed to be.”
“You mean where Moscow needed him to be, so you could send back every single thing he said and did.”
She smiled. “You know, you were one of our targets at first. Until we realized you didn’t care for women, and you didn’t care much about your own advancement, either. No, you were always happy to be in the shadows of better men. I found that better man in Steven.”
“You manipulated him into falling in love with you. Into marrying you. Everything you said about how you knew he was the one, that you loved him with all of your soul? All of that is a lie.”
“He did love me, Jonathan. He loved me more than he loved you.”
Jonathan flinched. She rose, smoothing her pants and straightening her watch, her ring. “You have an adorable story, but I think you need to seek some professional help. Your mind is clearly cracking now that Steven is gone. The pressure of this place… it’s getting to you. You’re not made for this office. You were never made to be a great man.” She turned away.
Keith started to pull off his headphones, but I stopped him. “Wait,” I murmured. “He’s not done.”
“Is that how you’re going to play it?” Jonathan asked. “How you’re going to try to get rid of me next? You’ve eliminated everyone else who figured you out.” He stood and grabbed her wrist, stilling her before she could walk away. “How long had you been cheating on Steven? Did that start recently, or were you fucking other men your whole marriage? Since everything else about you was a lie, did you treat your vows like they were a lie, too?”
She tipped her head back and laughed. “Jonathan.” She plucked his fingers off her arm and then crossed the Oval to the Resolute desk. “I can give you one chance to let this go. Don’t you want to enjoy the torrid little love affair you’ve stumbled into? See how far you can go before he gets tired of you? How long do you think it will last? Forbidden love is only tantalizing when it’s forbidden, after all.”
Jonathan could have been carved from stone.
“No? Don’t want to take me up on this one-time offer? Let’s see how far you and I can play out. I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you have.” Her voice shifted. The actress, the woman Jonathan had known most of his life, returned. “Why on earth would I cheat on Steven? The love of my life?”
“Because you know how weak men are,” Jonathan said. “Most men will do anything a pretty woman asks, if only you blink at them and blow them a kiss. Far more if you spread your legs for them.”
