“Yes,” I say.
He steps closer, lowers his voice. “Your daughter says you’re a secret agent. I thought she was just being a kid, you know? But ma’am, what is your job?”
“I work for the Secret Service.”
Bannon absorbs that for a moment. “What do you do for the Secret Service?”
I answer automatically, like I always do. “I’m the special agent in charge, Presidential Protective Division at the White House.”
“The White House …,” he starts, and then stops. He takes another step closer. “Special Agent Grissom, I need to ask you this.”
“Yes?”
“All of the evidence here is leading me to think that the break-in was deliberate, was planned. Is there anything going on with your job, Agent Grissom, that would cause someone to … take action against you?”
Where do I begin? “No,” I lie. “Not a thing.”
CHAPTER 46
TAMMY DOYLE IS curled up in her bed, the television set on low, lights off in her bedroom. A long, long day and she’s happy to be home, but she’s also missing being at work. It’s strange, but at work she could focus on the phone calls, checking the invoices, calling her clients across the globe, and just getting things checked off her never-ending task list. Except for the Secret Service agent’s visit and a couple of odd looks and comments, she was able to temporarily put the whole Atlanta disaster behind her.
But now, at home, the loneliness is gnawing at her. For the past eight months she’s been able to thrive, knowing that she would meet up with Harry at some point, and that anticipation had always kept her in a good mood.
But now?
What anticipation?
Another day of ducking out of her condo, ducking into her office … waiting for Harry to call her?
And suppose …
She’s a big girl. She knows the pressure Harry must be under. If it would mean him winning reelection, mean him getting ahead … he would dump her. Publicly, if it would serve him.
Tammy feels a good cry coming on. All those whispered promises, all the times together …
She picks up the remote, starts changing the channels, looking for something, anything that isn’t related to the upcoming election and the “Ambush in Atlanta,” and then she’s on the History Channel, some program about tanks and—
That tickles a memory.
Seeing tanks moving around in the North African desert. World War II, Germans versus the British and fighting in sandstorms.
Tammy gets off the bed, goes to her small office. Starts going through the piles of receipts and business cards that she always collects during the week.
There.
The business card from Jamal, the Ethiopian cabdriver who took her home yesterday.
She scrambles and finds her iPhone, ignores all the missed calls screaming at her with their bright letters and numbers, and punches in the number.
It rings.
It rings.
It rings and—a burst of static.
“Hello?”
In her dark living room, she sits down in a chair. “Jamal? Is this you?”
“Yes,” comes the suspicious voice. “Who is this, please?”
“This is Tammy Doyle,” she replies. “I’m the woman who was in the car accident yesterday, with your cousin … I’m sorry, I didn’t get his name.”
“Ah, yes, Caleb. A good man.”
“I need to speak to him. Do you know where he is?”
He laughs. “Oh, yes, I do. He’s here with me … we’re watching the football match, Ethiopia against Ghana. Hold on.”
Some rustling and tumbling, and Caleb comes on and says, “Missy? Are you all right? Did you forget some luggage, then?”
“No, I’m doing well, thank you. And I have all of my luggage. It’s just … can I ask you a question?”
“Yes, missy, but please, make it quick. We’ve waited two months to watch this.”
She shifts in the darkness. Outside there are lights from the tribe of reporters, still eager for her to come out and confess all. Tammy says, “The accident … you said it made you remember when you served in the army in Ethiopia. Driving through the desert, in sandstorms, dodging armored vehicles.”
“Yes, yes, very true.”
Tammy grips her iPhone hard. “What did you mean by that? I mean, the pickup truck that struck us … was it … armored in some way?”
Caleb says, “It was, it was. That’s what I told the police agents. The pickup truck … it was black, very heavy-looking, and there was something on the front … a big piece of black metal, welded on.” Caleb gives an amused giggle, like this sort of thing was always spotted on the Virginia highways. “It looked like somebody had fixed the pickup truck so it would cause bad damage, very bad damage, to my taxicab. Lucky for both of us, it hit the trunk and not the center. Eh?”
Some shouting in the background, and Caleb says something in Amharic, and to Tammy says, “Please, I must go. The match, it’s very important.”
“Thank you, Caleb,” says Tammy, and he hangs up before she even has a chance to ask him how he’s feeling.
In the darkness now, for at least ten minutes, and another memory has come forth, one that’s screaming for attention.
When she had come home yesterday, her boss, Amanda Price, had been here waiting for her.
Supposedly just to talk.
But maybe she was here for another reason. To search her place, to find something her firm could use against Harry, something embarrassing or humiliating like photos on her home laptop, showing them in a compromising position. Or an email. Or something worse.
And why would she be confident in coming to her condo unit without thinking she’d be caught?
Because …
Because Amanda knew she was going to be in a traffic accident.
She knew.
Remember what her boss had said when she had told Amanda about the car accident?
“Interstate Sixty-six … what a horror show that can be.”
How did she know that?
How did Amanda know the accident took place on I-66?
Tammy sure as hell hadn’t told her.
She moves around her condo, making sure the windows and the door are locked. In her kitchen, feeling panicked, she takes a carving knife and goes back to bed.
Never has she felt so alone.
CHAPTER 47
THE PRESIDENT OF the United States is hanging up his Oval Office phone—after a disappointing conversation with his campaign’s lead pollster—when there’s a knock on the near curved door and Parker Hoyt comes in, looking troubled.
“Yes?” he asks.
Parker comes over, sits down in front of him. “No news.”
“No good news, you mean,” he says sharply. “So far the investigation has turned up her untriggered panic button, a partial note we know Grace wrote that isn’t helpful at all, and the remains of a poor unidentified woman. Am I missing anything?”
“No, sir.”
“Now what?”
“Well, it—”
Harrison interrupts him. “I just got off the phone with Taylor Smith. She says the overnights have shown a two-point drop nationally in the polling. Two points! Can you imagine what it’s going to be by this weekend?”