Asher isn’t so easily mollified. “The FBI came around to question the intern who found Hall’s body. They seem to feel the cause of death is worth investigating. Drugs were detected.”
Odom appears aggrieved by Asher’s persistent suspicions. “Asher, when I first asked for your help, I explained with complete candor and transparency the nature of our effort. We all share an acute concern over the danger Monroe represents to our nation and a singular interest in legal avenues of diminishing that threat. Murder is not in our toolbox. Information is our best weapon to wield against the ongoing disaster of the Monroe administration.”
This gentle pushback seems to have its intended effect. Asher says nothing, settling for a disapproving frown. Odom rolls forward, unimpeded. “We haven’t heard from you in more than a week. Besides these irrational fantasies, is there anything wrong?”
Asher dials back the petulance. “I’m fine.”
“Anything to report?”
Asher shakes his head. “Nothing that isn’t in the news. I have the clearance level of a White House usher, holed up in the Operations office doing mostly administrative stuff.”
“Have you been worried about any kind of personal exposure?”
Asher dismisses Odom’s solicitousness with an emphatic shake of his head. He hates to be treated like a baby even if he’s acting like one. “No. I told you, I’m fine. No one in the West Wing suspects I’m a rat.” Asher pauses and then tries a different tack. Probing. “Was that Secret Service agent working for you, too?”
“Yes, he was,” Odom admits matter-of-factly.
Odom’s confirmation of what Asher knows to be fact only magnifies his indecision and paranoia. Could Hayley be wrong after all? But why would Scott Billings attack her? Was it, in fact, only a lovers’ quarrel? What does he really know about Hayley anyway? One verifiable fact only gives birth to a dozen more questions.
The CIA deputy director seems only too happy to discuss the dead Secret Service agent. “Mr. Billings was a second set of eyes and ears in the West Wing. We regret his death terribly. Such a tragic accident.” Odom pauses, and then asks innocently, “Are you aware of any personal associations the agent might have had in the White House, Asher? Any romantic entanglements?”
Odom isn’t the only proficient dissembler. Asher makes a creditable display of pondering the question. “None that I know of,” he tells the CIA deputy director.
“Are you sure, Asher? This is important.”
“Why is it important? You said he died in an accident. What difference does it make if he was seeing someone?”
“We need to know if Mr. Billings had confided in a third party, of course. Monroe is a vengeful and vindictive man. If he became aware of our intelligence gathering—”
“Spying, you mean,” Asher corrects him.
“As you will, but surely you can see the need for confidentiality.” Odom pauses, gazing more intently into Asher’s eyes. “You’ve been completely discreet, haven’t you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“What about Hayley Chill?” Odom persists.
“The intern?”
“Yes. Was she involved with Mr. Billings?”
Asher gestures emphatically. “Hayley? No way.”
“Anything strike you as odd about Ms. Chill? Is she unusually devoted to the president? He certainly seems to favor her.”
“I haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary, no more so than you’d expect from a relatively unsophisticated and uneducated military vet.”
Odom nods, grateful for Asher’s seemingly candid assessment. “Not that we doubt your intuition and representations, but we might have a chat with Ms. Chill.”
A flash of panic crosses Asher’s face, despite his effort to maintain neutral composure. Of course, Odom notices the younger man’s anxiety.
“You wouldn’t mind that too much, would you, Asher? If we speak with your friend?” Odom’s words are intended to rattle Asher, but the White House aide has had time to recover his poise.
“Why in the world would I mind?”
Odom only shrugs, as inscrutable as Buddha. He smiles blandly and stands to his feet. “Keep up the fine work, Asher, and thank you. Your country appreciates it.” He raps the tabletop with a knuckle. “Stay in touch!”
Asher watches the CIA man hustle through the crowd forming a ragged line at the counter and out the door. Should he call Hayley and warn her? He wouldn’t put it past Odom to have his phone bugged. Asher wonders if his condo isn’t bugged as well. Maybe the cabal already knows everything about his friendship with Hayley and her allegations. If Odom was willing to kill Peter Hall and attempt to kill a White House intern, what’s to stop them from killing him? How did he ever find himself in this crazy situation anyway? With a sensation not unlike a gut punch, Asher recalls how it all started.
He met Daniel on a rainy afternoon in February, not quite a month after the inauguration. Asher had started at the White House less than a week before. Though he had moved to Washington in January, having been hired by Karen Rey in those giddy first weeks after the election, almost all of his spare time had been spent looking for someplace to live, working with his dad to purchase the condo at 3303 Water Street and the long but enjoyable process of furnishing his new home. Asher was grateful for the enormous amount of work required in making the condo an expression of his own exquisitely good taste and character. Having that activity helped stave off the crushing isolation he felt in the odd duck of a city that is Washington, DC.
Once he had started in the West Wing, Asher thought his loneliness would abate somewhat but such was not the case. Hours were brutal in the Monroe administration, with limited socializing. And it wasn’t as if there were other young people (or older) who really appealed to Asher on a personal level. His taste ran a bit more refined than the cultural and culinary preferences of most of the White House staff. Since the bar, club, or dating app scene wasn’t really his métier, Asher had begun to accept the reality of a very lonely existence in DC, at least for the first year or so.
Which is why it was such a happy surprise to strike up a conversation with a very cute guy his age at Theodores on Wisconsin, the rare, if not only, showroom with a modicum degree of real taste in the District. Asher was mulling over a Tonelli Penrose Desk on sale for under three thousand dollars, and was fully prepared to pull the trigger, when Daniel, blue eyes highlighted by a yummy gray Buck Mason henley under a Taylor Stitch chambray, intervened charmingly, suggesting the desk was a square peg in a potential round hole. For opening lines, not stellar, but Daniel followed up with a recommendation of a BDI Duo desk that portended a less dramatic, more practical sort of fellow just right for this time in Asher’s life.
Sunday brunch at Le Diplomate preceded a Friday drinks date at Nellie’s for their Beat the Clock happy hour, which led to a long, chilly weekend at a bed-and-breakfast in Lewes, Delaware, filled with long snuggle sessions, a warm fireplace, walks on the empty beach, and plenty of belly laughs. Asher’s romantic history before Daniel (BD) was a fairly barren landscape, his heart having been badly mauled his junior year at Harvard when he fell helplessly in love with a sexually conflicted nationally ranked lacrosse forward who dumped him for the daughter of an Oscar-winning actor. Asher adopted a more cautious line following that flameout, hooking up when the need and opportunity arose but his desire for committed companionship remained at low ebb.