cake, Barkley, his nose firmly up her father's ass, contrived to tell him a joke. At the same time, hidden beneath the table, he slithered his hand between her thighs. Alli leapt up and fled the restaurant, for which, later, she was severely reprimanded. She'd broken her mother's strict rules of social engagement, and that was that.
That might have bothered the old, proper Alli, her mother's clone, but that girl was dead, left at the mercy of the sweaty octopus on the raft. When she'd dropped into the lake, the black water closing over her head, swirling her hair across her face, there had come a breach. Her old self turned to misty cloud that masked the illumination of the moon. She left behind everything she had felt or believed. In the process, she shriveled, closed up like a clam inside its striated shell. But alone with herself she was safe.
In time, even her mother came to dimly realize that something was wrong. Since neither tough love nor punishment worked, she sent Alli to a psychologist, which made Alli retreat even further into her citadel of solitude. She was reduced to weaving lies in order to avoid being sucked into that cold, impersonal office furnished with psychobabble. She never once considered what the solemn man sitting across from her made of those lies; she didn't care. She had already developed a healthy cynicism about males, and as for trust, forget about it.
Within six weeks, unable to make any headway, the shrink recommended a meds psychiatrist, who met with Alli for twenty minutes. Diagnosing her depression, he handed her a smile along with a prescription for Wellbutrin XL.
'We'll give the Wellbutrin several weeks. If it doesn't do the trick there's a whole galaxy of medications we can try,' he said. 'Worry not, we'll have you right as rain in no time.'
She promptly threw the little cream-colored pills into a trash bin at the pharmacy.
In Alli's drugged mind, it was now three years later. She heard 'Neon Bible' by Arcade Fire as if from a long distance away. Superimposed over it was the drone of a familiar voice, repeating instructions she found so rudimentary, a half-wit could follow them. Still, they were repeated to the cadence of 'Neon Bible' until they became as much a part of her as her lungs or her heart.
Presently, on a cloud of memory, she drifted off again, into her past. She had met Emma McClure on her first day at Langley Fields, and from that moment on she knew she wanted Emma to be her roommate. The college had assigned her someone else-a blonde from Texas, whom she loathed on sight; her accent alone set Alli's teeth on edge, not to mention her obsessions with high-end clothes and imported beauty products. Alli lobbied for a switch, for she and Emma to be together, and finally the administration acceded to her request. It wasn't that she'd demanded they do as she asked; she didn't have to go that far, merely point out that she'd mention the «stressful» situation to her father. The headmistress didn't want Edward Carson on her case; no one would, not even the president.
There were reasons Alli liked Emma. Emma came from the wrong side of the tracks, from a family that had to take on debt to send her to Langley Fields. She was smart, funny, and, best of all, utterly without pretensions. Born into a family with, it seemed to her, nothing but pretensions, Alli lived in fear that this trait lay buried in her DNA, sealing her fate, would at any moment turn itself on like a geyser, humiliate her to tears. And when, at Emma's insistence, she read Hunter S. Thompson's
Plus there was an edge, a toughness to Emma, the hardy scuff picked up in the street. She was fearless. Privilege, Alli had reason to understand, made you soft, vulnerable, fearful, as if your body had been turned inside out, pink and pulsing. It was a hateful disfigurement, one she felt powerless to reverse until Emma came into her life.
Then everything changed.
TWENTY — FIVE
IT'S A total blackout,' Chief Bennett said, 'as if the Dark Car never crashed.'
'What about the gunshots on Kirby Road?' Jack asked.
Bennett shook his head. 'Only a small item about a milk truck that caught fire.'
The two friends sat in Tysons Corner in a small coffee shop with a striped awning out front and bistro tables inside. From where Jack sat, he had a good view through the front window of the leafy side street and the occasional passing car. As soon as he had dropped a thoroughly rattled Armitage off at his office, he called Bennett. Then he ran every red light to get here. The pursuit by the Dark Car, the shooting, and its aftermath had shaken him more than he cared to admit. He felt as if he had entered a new and far more dangerous arena.
Bennett turned his coffee cup around and around as if something about its symmetry made him uncomfortable. 'Someone very high up in the government food chain is spinning the news at a furious clip,' Bennett said.
'According to your information, that would be the president, the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, or the National Security Advisor. Why in the world would any one of them want me dead?'
Bennett watched a middle-aged man enter, then slide into a booth where a young woman waited for him. She smiled, took his hand in hers. Bennett lost interest in them.
'I've been in this business thirty years,' he said. 'I've never run up against a brick wall like this. Jack, I've made a career of getting around the brick walls of various government agencies, but this one's different. None of my contacts can help me-or they won't.'
'Too scared?'
Bennett nodded. 'I'm sorry, Jack. I should have followed you, should have protected you.'
'It's not your job.'
'I agreed to have you seconded to Hugh Garner's band of merry men.' He gave Jack a lopsided grin. 'I knew more or less I was throwing you to the dogs.'
Jack nodded. 'You warned me. But it was Edward Carson who asked for me. I don't see how you could've refused.'
There was an unhappy pause while the waitress refilled their cups. Bennett's eyes strayed out through the side window, across the avenue. Following his gaze, Jack saw the bottles of wine, whiskey, designer vodkas, aged rums artfully displayed in the window of the shop across the street.
'I suppose it doesn't get any easier.'
Bennett shook his head. 'It's like a siren's call.'
'As long as you're securely lashed to the mast like Ulysses.'
Bennett's gaze swung back to him. 'I lost my wife because I was drunk all the time; I'm not about to go off the wagon now.'
'I'm happy to hear it.'
Bennett poured half-and-half into his cup, along with lots of sugar. That was his treat. 'Speaking of wives, you ought to get back with Sharon.'
'I was wondering why you insisted she come down to the hospital.'
'To be honest, Jack, she was glad I asked. I think she wanted to come.'
Jack sipped his coffee, said nothing.
'I know you're still pissed about her and Jeff.'
'You could say that. He was my best friend.'
'Jack, what he did-he was never your friend.'
Jack's eyes slid away, staring at nothing.
'Sharon did it to get back at you, because she blamed you for Emma's death. She made a mistake.' Bennett's voice was low, urgent. 'Jack, don't fuck things up with this girl. She loves you.' He gave a little laugh. 'Shit, you're not the hard-hearted bastard you think you are.'
AS JACK turned onto Kansas Avenue NE, he saw Nina waiting for him. He'd called her while walking out of the coffee shop in Tysons Corner. She leaned against her black Ford, smoking one of her clove cigarettes. She looked unaccountably fetching in boots with sensible heels, dark slacks, and a navy peacoat buttoned up to the chin. She seemed oblivious of the sleet.
The Hi-Line had been transformed into the Black Abyssinian Cultural Center. The electronics shop behind
