The smile on that painted face disappears, but her voice is agreeable. “I don’t see why not.”
She leaves Amanda, and just before she gets to her soon-to-be former office, her cell phone rings and she notices the familiar incoming number.
Tammy feels it’ll be the last time a call from this number will ever be received on her phone.
CHAPTER 86
OUTSIDE OF THE Oval Office, it looks like it’s going to rain. The President of the United States slowly sits down, and when his chief of staff makes to do the same, Harrison Tucker holds up a hand.
“You can keep standing,” he says, so very tired and worn. “You won’t be here long.”
“Mr. President, I—”
Tucker motions him to keep quiet. He says, “I blame myself, I guess, Parker. I got the first taste of power back in Ohio, loved it, and you just kept on feeding it and feeding it to me. Like an addict and his relationship with a pusher.”
“Harry—”
Tucker shakes his head. “It’s over. Get out and have your resignation on my desk within the hour. I’ll be polite, I’ll let you depart with my thanks and praise, but that’s it, Parker. You’re through.”
His chief of staff walks around the front of his desk and leans over, both hands on the top of the Resolute desk. “You goddamn fool—put on your big-boy pants and listen to me. All right? Listen to me! That bitch Secret Service agent … she’s bluffing. She won’t go public. She won’t go to the press. We just need to get through the next three weeks and have you win the election. That’s all. Just win the damn election.”
Tucker feels like all he has accomplished, all he has built, all he’s done since coming here to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is finished, done, spoiled because of this man standing in front of him.
“You wanted my wife dead. Get out.”
“I wanted you reelected. And if it meant losing that cold bitch—”
Tucker abruptly stands up, so he’s practically nose-to-nose with his chief of staff. “All right, now you’re out of here—I want your resignation, and I’m going to keep my mouth shut and let you twist in the wind. Get out!”
Hoyt says, “You’re only here because I put you here, and this is how you pay me back?”
“You turn and start walking, or I’ll have the Secret Service come in and drag you away. You want that on the front page of tomorrow’s Washington Post?”
Hoyt turns and walks across the carpet, out of the curved door, not shutting it behind him.
Tucker slowly sits down.
He feels so terribly alone, isolated, even in this people’s house with hundreds nearby.
Only one thing he can do.
He reaches for his phone.
CHAPTER 87
AND TAMMY DOYLE gets inside her office door as her phone rings one more time, and she answers, and a woman says, “Miss Doyle?”
“Yes?”
“The White House calling,” the woman says. “Please hold for the President.”
For a long time that little greeting—“Please hold for the President”—had always thrilled her, making her feel oh so special and loved and cherished.
Now?
Tammy just feels dread.
“Oh, thank you,” she says, and a quiet click, and that familiar voice comes on.
“Tammy?”
She walks to her small office window, thinking with anticipation of how much better her view will be by this time next week.
“Hello, Harry,” she says.
She hears his sigh. “Damn … it’s good to hear your voice. It really is. And I need to talk to you.”
“Harry, glad to hear that Grace has been found. I didn’t even know she was missing. Did you?”
Her lover seems startled by the question. “Well, there were indications … here and there … but look, Tammy, I know the past few days have been rough. I haven’t been fair to you, or open. And I’m deeply sorry. In just a few weeks … the election will be over. And then we can start seeing each other again.”
Tammy keeps on looking out at DC, such a faraway and fairy-tale place from the tenement building she had grown up in back in South Boston.
A fairy-tale place, she thinks. With evil kings and queens, with plots and betrayals, and the constant struggle for power.
“Tammy? I … love you, hon. I really do.”
Those sweet words have now changed. They’re just … words.
Below her small office, a taxicab honks its horn.
“Harry, I love you, too. But I’m going to miss you as well.”
“Tammy … what are you saying?”
She earlier thought this call would be hard, or depressing, or upsetting, but no, she’s finding it …
Empowering.
Liberating.
She says, “Harry, we had a grand time, with special memories. And I promise I’ll never violate the confidence of what we shared. I’ll keep those secrets forever. But I can’t try to go back to what we had. It’s impossible. It’s time for both of us to move on.”
“Tammy, please, give us a chance, give us some time.”
She says, “No, Harry, I’m sorry. My life is going to be mine, and mine alone. I’m not going to be connected to you in the future. I won’t be a second First Lady, or the very first presidential girlfriend. I saw what happened to Grace. I’m not going to let it happen to me.”
“Oh, Tammy …”
And for the first time in months, she uses that old, formal phrase.
“Good-bye, Mr. President.”
CHAPTER 88
THE PRESIDENT OF the United States sits alone in the Oval Office.
The rain is coming down hard now, streaking and streaming down the French doors behind his desk and chair.
So it’s over.
All over.
He broods, staring at his clean and empty desk, and at the photos of him and Grace that were there to fool visitors into thinking he had a wonderful and traditional marriage.
Now what does he have?
A sudden stab of fear, of acknowledgment.
He has nothing now.
Grace will never take him back.
Parker is gone.
And now Tammy wants nothing more from him.
The overcast sky makes it seem darker and more confined in the Oval Office.
The President of the United States stares at his phone.
He can pick it up and talk to the vice president, currently on a campaign swing through Georgia and Florida.
Or he could call his secretary, Mrs. Young, and have a wonderful gourmet meal delivered to him.
Or he could contact the famed White House switchboard, and in a matter of minutes, he could be talking to the president of Poland, the head of Columbia Pictures, the latest and most famous rap star, or the most beautiful movie star in Hollywood.
All that power, all that possibility, all within his reach.
But for what purpose?
Why?
The President of the United States is alone in his Oval Office.
He continues to stare at his silent phone.
CHAPTER 89
ON THE FOURTH floor of the Waterford County Hospital, Deputy Sheriff Roy Bogart checks in on his VIP patient from the open doorway. She’s rolled over in her bed, facing the wall, handcuffs still secured.