'What?' Blair asked, softer than she had meant, struggling with a nearly irresistible urge to go to her. It was so hard to hold onto her anger when she so wanted to hold her.
'Have you told them downstairs that you're going out?' Cam asked, pushing herself upright.
'No,' Blair answered curtly, just as quickly irritated again as Cam resumed her official role.
'Is it a personal engagement?' Cam continued, keeping her voice carefully neutral. She had to ask in order to do her job, but she didn't need or want to know the details if Blair was seeing someone. 'Will you need the car?' She searched her memory for the day's itinerary, which she had reviewed the night before. After the day she had just spent in Washington that seemed like a month ago to her now. And of course it was before she knew that Blair wasn't really safe anywhere. They would have to provide much closer coverage than they usually did even for non- official functions. 'We didn't have you scheduled for anything tonight.'
'It was a last minute thing,' Blair informed her. She always hated discussing her private plans with her security people. It made her feel so exposed. This was worse. Reluctantly she added, 'It's a party at Diane's.'
Cam's expression didn't change, but she knew what Blair was saying. A party meant it was not 'official'. If it were a date, it was none of her business. 'Can you give me a few minutes to get someone for you? Stark and Grant are both off-duty, and you'll want a woman.'
Blair opened the door and stepped into the hallway. 'Fielding and Foster can wait in the car outside Diane's apartment. They always have before.'
Cam followed her out of the loft, already activating her radio. 'Fielding, bring the car around, and find Ellen Grant or Stark for me. ASAP.' She crossed to the elevator and said flatly, 'I need someone inside.'
'It's Diane's, for Christ's sake,' Blair replied with irritation, punching the lobby button. 'Do you think he's going to show up in drag?'
'I don't know what he's going to do!' Cam retorted in an uncharacteristically aggravated tone. 'Until twelve hours ago, I didn't even know he was active.'
Blair had no answer for that. She had ignored the first few messages she received by post, hoping they were just random crank mail, unrelated to what had happened before. She got them from time to time, usually from disgruntled individuals who didn't like her father's politics. Sometimes from overenthusiastic supporters. Occasionally from people obsessed with her, asking for photos or dates or even articles of clothing. But never anything quite like these messages. Intimate, suggestive, and most frighteningly, knowledgeable. When the email started, she had confided in her friend at the Bureau and that had been a mistake. Friendship has it limits, and her old school chum had decided that it was news she couldn't keep to herself.
'You didn't need to know. Doyle knew,' Blair retorted as the elevator opened onto the lobby, still angry with AJ for reporting it.
Cam didn't bother to point out that she needed to know for any number of reasons, not all of them professional, because it was done. Blair had shut her out, and there was nothing to do now but regain control of the situation.
Blair walked toward the front door, acutely aware that Cam had moved slightly ahead of her to go through first. Unexpectedly she saw it all again in slow-motion replay - the bright sunlight, the screams of frantic men, the spreading blossom of rich red on Cam's chest as she dropped first to her knees, then collapsed to her back on the sidewalk. By then the other agents had pulled Blair inside, behind the glass doors, and she couldn't reach her. She couldn't hold her.
'Blair?' Cam asked, concerned by Blair's sudden pallor.
Blair jerked at the sound of Cam's voice and hurried to cross the sidewalk, the image of Cam's ashen face as she lay dying mercifully beginning to fade. Cam opened the car door and Blair brushed her fingers lightly over Cam's sleeve, reassured by the solid presence of her. She didn't trust herself to speak but just slid into the rear of the black sedan parked at the curb.
*
Diane Bleeker kissed Blair lightly on the cheek as she admitted her to a room already filled with people. The lights were conversationally dim, female servers in white shirts, black bow ties, and tailored black trousers moved carefully through the crowd with trays of hors d'oeuvres balanced in front of them. Soft music accompanied the murmur of voices.
'Your choice of escorts is improving,' Diane remarked, a hint of surprise in her voice as she watched Cam move to one side of the spacious living room.
'I'm alone,' Blair responded, slipping past her and heading for the bar that had been set up in one corner.
Diane threaded her way through the crowd in Blair's wake, reaching for a glass of white wine as Blair waited for the very attractive redheaded bartender in the tuxedo shirt and tight black leather pants to mix her a drink. 'If you needed a date, I could have found you one. Marcie Coleman has been trying to get you to go out with her for weeks. You could do worse than a successful young surgeon, you know.'
Blair took her drink, scarcely noticing the appraising glance that the bartender gave her along with the glass, and turned to look at the other women in the room. As always at Diane's gatherings, the women were a mix of aspiring artists, many of whom were Diane's clients, young professionals, or bar dykes from the Village who were there as escorts or just tagging along with someone they knew and hoping to get lucky. Diane always managed to provide something for everyone.
'I'm not interested in adate ,' Blair said acerbically, making an effort not to look in Cam's direction. She had years of practice at ignoring her security detail. Once she had gotten used to their ubiquitous presence, they had simply become background noise. When she was a preteen, it hadn't been as difficult, because her father had only been a governor then. Other than the fact that state troopers often drove her to school and parked nearby while she engaged in after-school activities, she had been able to pretend she was like everyone else. Unfortunately, at fifteen she learned that she wasn't. That was when she and her prep school roommate had made love for the first time, and Blair had learned that there are certain things best kept secret.
When her father became Vice President, and it was apparent that he would be the party's nominee for President after eight years, the security around her had intensified. She became very good at convincing herself that she wasn't being watched almost twenty-four hours a day, but there was nothing she could do to ignore Cameron Roberts's presence. She could feel her as strongly as if they stood touching.
