Page 74 of The Night Of
Steven Baker’s last moments on this planet had been so much worse than I’d originally thought. Drugged and attacked by his wife, a woman he’d come to know was a psychopath, a manipulator, a spy who had been working against him for the length of their marriage, whose support in his climb up the political ladder was fueled by her own traitorous ambition to send American secrets back to Moscow. A marriage he’d realized was a lie, not only because of the spying but because his wife had been sleeping around—not only with Andrew Rees, one of his lifelong best friends, but her Secret Service detail agents and any man she could find who would deliver to her what she needed. Everything they’d had, for over twenty years, was worse than meaningless.
Steven Baker had come to in Aspen with a gun between his lips, and he’d tried to fight Georgi Morozov off, but he was too weak from the drugs Yekaterina had fed him, from being strangled, and all he’d been able to do was wrap his hands around the barrel and push the gun an inch away from his face.
Had he thought, in those last moments, about the letter he’d left Jonathan? Had he known, in the end, that Jonathan would find the truth? That his life and his death would be avenged and that Jonathan would never stop, would never give up, until he knew the truth of that moment and what had happened to his best friend?
I liked to think he did.
I leaned into Yekaterina, my face pushed almost against hers. “I’m going to take that watch you’re wearing, and I’m going to send it to the lab, and when I find President Baker’s DNA dug deep inside that bezel? We’re going to put you away for life.” I bared my teeth at her. “We’ve got you, you bitch. You are under arrest for the murder of President Steven Baker.”
She hissed. Her eyes flashed.
Roaring, she grabbed the last of the photo frames Jonathan had on his desk. It was a photo of Jonathan with Baker and her on their wedding day. The men were so young, so hopeful, so open to everything that awaited them. Jonathan looked dashing in his dress uniform, and his smile was so big and wide it made my heart ache. Baker, too, looked beyond happy. Overjoyed. The happiest man in the world with the woman he loved on his arm. How could they know what the next twenty years would bring?
Yekaterina slammed the frame on the desk and grasped a shard of broken glass in her fist. She swung, and I reached for my weapon as Keith and Nguyen and Silva burst into the Oval Office, as all four of us bellowed at her tostop, todrop the weapon, that we weregoing to shoot—
Jonathan shoved me. He stepped into my place.
Yekaterina’s fist slammed into the side of his neck, the shard of glass digging deep into his throat.
Six gunshots roared across the Oval, Keith, Silva, and Nguyen opening fire. Their bullets slammed into Yekaterina, into her chest and her stomach, and she jerked right and then left before falling sideways and slumping to the floor. Keith and Silva covered her, kicking away the glass as they kept their weapons trained on her face.
I went to the carpet with Jonathan, cradling him in my arms as I screamed for the doctor, for a medic, for someone, anyone to call 9-1-1. Blood poured down Jonathan’s front, soaking his suit and his crisp white shirt. Already he was going pale, his lips turning blue. Nguyen appeared beside me, his hands plunging into Jonathan’s throat and the gash in his neck, trying to find his bleeding artery to pinch it closed.
“Jonathan, you fucking idiot!” I roared through clenched teeth. “Why did you do that? Why?”
He grasped my hands, threading our fingers together. Blood pumped freely between Nguyen’s shaking fingers. Secret Service agents and uniformed police and military personnel were racing into the Oval. I heard someone bellow for the crowd to make a hole, that the medics were coming through. Someone else shouted that Marine One was inbound.
It was that night all over again. Another president was dying in my arms. “Jonathan!”
“I love you,” Jonathan croaked. His words were broken, and blood spilled from his mouth as he spoke. “Sean, I love you. I love—”
Then hands were grabbing me and yanking me away from Jonathan’s side as the paramedics closed in and Marine One touched down on the South Lawn. I kicked, tried to punch over my shoulder, fought the hands that dragged me. Shouted, telling whoever it was I would kill them, I would fucking kill them, would rip them apart piece by piece if they didn’t let me go.
“Sean!” Nguyen’s voice. He was holding me, fighting me. He collapsed, hitting the carpet and folding over me, pinning me to the ground. Blood covered him, covered me, and I felt the hot squish of it on my clothes and against my skin. Smelled the iron on my tongue, like sucking on a hot penny. That was Jonathan’s blood I was tasting. That was Jonathan’s blood soaking my hands.
“Sean, goddamn it,” he cursed. “Let them save him, you stupid bastard. Let them save him.”
I roared as the medics loaded Jonathan onto a gurney and ran him out of the Oval. Behind them, I saw Silva doing chest compressions on Yekaterina, Keith giving her rescue breaths. I laid my blood-soaked cheek on the carpet and watched Marine One lift off from the South Lawn and into the blue sky as my tears fell and mixed with Jonathan’s blood.
Eighteen
They were sittingon the patio, the hideaway tucked off the Oval. The sun was shining down on them both, and they’d shucked their jackets and rolled up their shirtsleeves as they put their feet on the edge of the concrete fountain. Water burbled as birds chirped in the apple trees, and bees hummed between the pink roses climbing the trellis by the office’s tall windows. They were laughing like children, enjoying the sunshine and the lazy afternoon before another presidential trip.
Jonathan chuckled as Steven tipped back his head and roared. No one had ever been able to get him to laugh like Steven had.
“Oh, Jonathan,” Steven said, reaching out and squeezing his shoulder. “I’m going to miss you.”
“It’s only a quick trip.” Jonathan grasped his wrist, squeezing back. He was so rarely touched. These friendly squeezes, the moments where Steven reached out, were like drops of color in his gray world. He cherished them so much. “You’ll be back in a few days.”
Steven smiled.
Jonathan blinked. Steven hadn’t let go of his shoulder yet.
That touch reminded him of something else. Another man’s touch, something warm and wonderful that skipped through his being, lanced his nerves and set fire to his heart. Sean. Sean touched him—dear God, hetouchedhim andtouchedhim—and they were lovers now. They’d found each other again, had finally talked, had figured everything out.
But… that hadn’t happened while Steven was—
“Is this a dream?” Jonathan stared at Steven. “Or a memory?” How could it be a memory if he had the present inside him and Steven within reach, his bright eyes gleaming as he gazed at Jonathan?
