Oath of Office

“Nicole, I detest pledging people to secrecy,” Kim said grimly, “and the last thing I want to do is upset you. But I need to keep this one to myself-at least for the time being.”

“You can’t be serious. I tell you about my damn sex life. The good stuff, too.”

“Believe me, baby, if I had a sex life, I’d tell you all about it, too. But this is business-company business. If Darlene says it’s okay for me to talk with you about it, the first thing I’ll do is get you on speed dial.”

“Good thing I love you,” Nicole said.

Kim embraced her. “Good thing you do,” Kim said.

The other two women arrived together, just a couple of minutes later. Per her agreement with Kim, Nicole led them to the far end of the bar so that Kim could speak to a man who seemed interested in her. The new arrivals, giddy to be drifting away from the responsibilities of their lives, acted as if they had just been told of their friend’s engagement.

As soon as the three women had melted into the evening crush, Kim moved back from the bar, slipped the coaster from her purse, and read it one more time.

Sec’y Evans has been framed. I must speak to Darlene Mallory in secret. If you agree to help arrange the meeting, go put a dollar in the jukebox. Kim nodded to no one in particular, replaced the coaster in her bag, and moved slowly across the room toward the jukebox. There was no sense in trying to pick out the writer of the note. Kim was convinced now that he was clever enough to keep himself disguised or concealed until he was ready to disclose himself and his purpose.

It felt strange to know that he was out there someplace, watching. Clearly, he had done his homework. Darlene was the one closest to the president who might be willing, at least, to listen to what this man had to say.

Kim made her way to the jukebox, taking several furtive glances over her shoulder. What if the note was true? What if Russ Evans had been railroaded into resigning? She approached a man leaning up against the brick wall, drinking a Heineken-tall, intelligent, with razor-cut chestnut hair. He looked at her unabashedly as she neared. A chill ripped through her. Their eyes met. She was just about say something, when a flashy blonde in a tight white sweater came and wrapped her arms around his neck.

He gave a What can you do? shrug, and Kim slunk back into the crowd.

It had been foolish of her to suspect the man. Whoever wrote the note was frightened enough to take these sorts of precautions. He wouldn’t be standing around making eye contact with her.

More people had crammed into the darkened lounge area, making it impossible for her to observe them all. She stopped in front of the wall-mounted jukebox, rifled through her purse, and pulled a crisply pressed dollar bill from her wallet.

Russ Evans has been framed, she kept thinking. Assuming it was true, countless other questions were in need of answering. First, though, there was the matter of proof, and clearly that proof had to be evaluated by the First Lady.

Kim’s hands trembled as she inserted the bill into the machine’s narrow maw. The song playing at the moment was “Voodoo Child” by Jimi Hendrix-appropriate, she thought, given the sense that she was being manipulated. The bill disappeared into the slot like a snake’s tongue retreating back into its mouth. As soon as it was gone, Kim felt a vibration from inside her purse.

Glancing about once more, she opened her bag and took out her iPhone. A year ago, she’d taken a picture of the White House during an August sunset, and liking it so much, she made it her iPhone’s background image. But superimposed over that image now was a semi-transparent rounded rectangle bordered by a thin white line. In the center of the rectangle was a single-line text message.

I’ll be in touch.

CHAPTER 19

Nearly five hours had passed since the hand team had taken Joey Alderson to the OR. Lou and Millie Neuland regularly checked the empty corridor beyond the picture window wall for any sign of his surgeon. Eisenhower Memorial’s interior designers had made the family room as homelike as possible, given the restrictions of a hospital. A forty-eight-inch flat-screen TV covered much of one wall, and according to the laminated instructions tacked beside it, could even stream Netflix. The bookshelves offered a collection of paperbacks, children’s books, and magazines. There were also two computer workstations with wireless Internet access, and a kitchenette-everything needed to pass the anxious hours.

Whatever doubt Millie harbored regarding bringing Joey to Eisenhower Memorial seemed to have vanished before the sheer magnitude of the place, and the attention to detail and family needs. But it was the quiet confidence of hand surgeon Dr. Rafe Kurdi, speaking to her hours ago in the ER, that sealed the deal-especially when he shared glowingly that he, his wife, and kids had once, a year or so ago, eaten at her restaurant.

“This is going to be a long and complicated operation,” Kurdi explained. “But just as preparing wonderful food is what you do, fixing damaged hands is what I do. Saving Joey’s thumb, while preserving as much function as possible, is our goal. We have been aided in this effort by the exceptional work that Dr. Welcome, here, performed at the scene. He has a well-deserved reputation in this place for knowing what he is doing. Joey is a very lucky young man that he was there.”

“I’m figuring that out,” Millie said. “Dr. Welcome insisted that we come here rather than to our local hospital.”

Lou could hear the unasked question in her voice, and knew that sooner or later, he might have to explain why he believed there was something terribly wrong in Kings Ridge and also at her beloved DeLand Regional. Lou pictured Joey Alderson twitching with anticipation as he timed his lunge beneath the huge chopping knife, going for a single, bright orange slice of carrot. Was he yet another example?

Lou checked the wall-mounted clock. Nearly eight. The stress was showing on Millie’s face. She hadn’t appeared at all frail until now. Lou took hold of her hand, which was surprisingly callused.

The woman smiled grimly. “I don’t know what I would have done without you,” she said, pulling a tissue from her purse to dab at her tears.

“He’s going to do fine. After all these years in the ER, I can tell a battler when I see one.”

“Do you have any idea what could have happened back there in my kitchen?”

“I saw most of it developing, and right up until the last second, I didn’t believe he was going to do it. Has he ever done anything that impetuous or poorly thought out before?”

“Joey’s a little what you might call accident prone. That’s why they know him so well at DeLand.”

“I see.”

“But he’s not really reckless-certainly not in this way.”

“Back at the restaurant, you used the word ‘limited’ when you spoke of him. What did you mean by that?”

Millie sank down on a sofa, and Lou did the same on the far side.

“Joey came to my office one day when he was just thirteen,” she said. “He told me he was looking for a job. I still have no idea how he found me or how he got out to the restaurant. I tracked down his family-what there was of it, anyhow. No father. Alcoholic mother. Joey was the oldest of four. They lived in a dump of a place in Baxter. Family Services was about to move in and dole out the kids to foster homes. I talked them into letting me have Joey. Even though he had some learning issues, and an attention problem, he graduated from high school when he was nineteen. A few years after that, I set him up in a small apartment in the Dorms. That’s what I call the place out behind the restaurant where some of the staff stays. He does a good day’s work, and the rest of the staff really likes him and sort of protects him, if you know what I mean.”

“I do.”

Lou was unable to reconcile anything in the boy’s history with what he and Dennis had witnessed, and this hardly seemed like the time to start barraging Millie Neuland with probing questions. Still, she continued her narrative with no prompting.

“Now, don’t get me wrong,” she said. “Joey is hardly a regular guy. He’s sort of, I don’t know, quirky