Mistress

“Sean, listen to me. Listen to me carefully. Go home.”

He draws back. “Come again?”

“Go back to Chicago. You’ve done your part. This is enormously helpful. This proves what I’ve thought all along.”

“What have you thought all along?” he demands. “What the fuck is this about?”

I sigh. “This is about an SUV detonating today. This is about a conspiracy and cover-up all the way to the Oval Office.”

Sean Patrick Riley watches me for a long time before he speaks. “The fuck it is.”

“No foolin’, Sean. Diana was in the middle of something big. SUVs-exploding-in-the-capital big. Poor Nina was an unknowing pawn in a high-stakes game. I think Nina is lying in a morgue with a tag on her toe that says ‘Diana Hotchkiss.’ And as much as I don’t want to believe it, the evidence you just gave me doesn’t lie. She was wearing Diana’s clothes and staying in her house. She was pretending to be Diana, Sean. She was set up. And you’ve just helped me prove it.”

It takes him a while, but even a skeptical ex-cop like him can’t deny the e-mails he himself found. E-mails that were carefully deleted, that couldn’t even be discovered in the e-mail program’s trash. E-mails that were deleted by a pro, and that could only be discovered by a fellow expert that Sean hired to conduct a forensic examination of Nina’s computer.

“So that’s why you wanted me to do the forensic review of her computer,” he mumbles. “You figured there might be something like this on here.”

Right. Hooray for me. “People will kill you for knowing this,” I say. “So go back to Chicago. In a couple of days, this will all be over, one way or the other. If I don’t survive this, then run with what you know. You can wait that long, can’t you? Nina’s not going to get any deader.”

He argues the point. I don’t know if I’ve convinced him or not. But I do know that I have to get out of here, separate myself from him, and keep on the move.

Chapter 95

I leave Sean at the table and pass through the bar on my way out. I stop to take a gander at the bar’s television to get the latest updates. It’s the only thing the networks are covering.

The news reports are saying at least six are dead from the blast and dozens injured. Four cops and two Secret Service agents, their faces plastered one by one on the television screen, killed in the line of duty. That makes seven law enforcement officials dead, including Ellis Burk. Add in Jonathan Liu, Diana’s brother, Randy, and Nina Jacobs, and we’re at an even ten.

When is it going to stop?

I fish into my gym bag for one of my prepaid phones. I get it out and start to dial when my eyes wander back up to the screen.

Breaking News, the screen says, and I brace myself for yet more casualties from the explosion today.

But it’s not about the SUV. It’s not about what happened in the capital today. It’s breaking news on the international front.

Take a guess.

Threatened by the discovery of a Georgian spy in their country, and days later by an attempt on the Russian prime minister’s life by a Georgian operative, the Russians have begun amassing thousands of troops and tanks on their border with Georgia.

The UN is convening an emergency session of the Security Council. China’s ambassador to the UN is calling for multilateral talks and urging NATO to join in.

Then President Blake Francis is on the screen, standing next to his wife, the wooden princess Libby Rose, in what looks like a taped recording from earlier today in the Rose Garden. The sound is muted but the closed-captioning is on.

Our president is talking about Russia’s right of self-defense, and how NATO must proceed with caution in the face of Georgia’s provocation. Russia, like any other country, he says, cannot be asked to sit idly by when threatened.

“Shit,” I say to nobody. It’s happening. The Russians are moving forward, and we’re lying down and letting it happen. Once we let the first country fall, it will be harder and harder to justify stopping their continued aggression.

I’m running out of time.

I walk outside and dial Anne Brennan on my cell. The next twenty-four hours are crucial for the Russians. Once they invade the first country, there may be no turning back for the United States. And the Russians know that. They’ll be desperate to stop me. SUVs shooting up the capital are probably out now, after today. But finding someone I care about and threatening her? Very much in

. I don’t think they know about Anne, but I can’t count on what I think.

And I admit, I just want to hear her voice. I could use a bit of comfort right now. I can smell her hair whenever I inhale. If circumstances were different, if I could even spend one more night with her-

The phone picks up before one full ring. Weird.

“Hello, yes, hello?” Anne says in a hurried, startled voice.

“Anne, it’s Ben.”

“Oh-oh, Ben. You’re-you’re not here, are you?”