“Sure, Anita.”
Anita gripped her hands and gave her an imploring look. Then she pulled Wendy close, their breasts pressing together.
“I want you to need me,” Anita said.
“Nita? What are you doing?”
Anita moaned and she clutched the back of Wendy’s neck, whispering harshly in her ear: “This is what happens if I don’t take my pills.”
Wendy wrestled to break free, but Anita’s strength was almost demonic. She fell back onto the sofa and yanked Wendy on top of her. She brought her face to Wendy’s. “Love me, Wendy,” Anita said, and it was desperation, not lust, in her tone. “I need to matter.”
They’d never kissed, despite the occasional teasing. Wendy wasn’t horrified by her friend’s bisexual leanings, her pornographic past, or even her depraved and sudden assault, as if a sexual switch had been flipped and she’d lost all her control.
No, what really scared Wendy was the image of Briggs and his slightly parted lips that had superimposed over Anita’s face.
Do you want to play “doctor,” Doctor?
Their lips touched and the contact shocked Wendy to her senses. It was Briggs she’d been surrendering to, not Anita. She broke free and headed for the door, wiping her mouth. “Good luck with your appointment.”
Just before she closed the door, Anita called her name. Not angry, just frustrated.
“Yeah?” Wendy asked.
“Take your pills. Don’t become like me.”
By the time she got to her car, Wendy was starting to remember things. Chase Hanson. Dr. Briggs. Susan.
Those things never happened if you keep forgetting them.
She took a pill by the light of the dashboard before driving home. She would take as many as she needed to keep the past away.
And to keep her from her true self.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The black limousine turned off the street in front of the hotel and glided through the narrow underground tunnel to the service entrance Mark waited in front of.
Mark Morgan peered at the tinted, bulletproof glass, wondering what they thought as they sized him up. As the limousine came to a stop, Mark caught his own reflection in the window, a pale smudge painted by the unhealthy yellow of the security lights.
The car stopped, its engine so quiet that Mark thought the ignition was off, though the exhaust quickly made him lightheaded. The driver’s door opened and a man in a dark suit emerged, nodding and bending to take Mark’s suitcase. His face was cold, lean, and wolfish.
“I can do that,” Mark said.
The glass on the rear window slid down. “Now, Mark, let Winston feel useful. He hates to be stereotyped.”
“Good morning, Senator.”
“I hope we’re not running too far behind.”
“No, my plane doesn’t leave for another hour.”
“Fine. Get in.”
The door opened as the driver carried Mark’s bag to the trunk and loaded it. Mark settled into the spacious rear compartment. Senator Daniel Burchfield, the Republican from North Carolina, moved into the middle of the brown leather seat.
“You know Wallace Forsyth, don’t you?” the senator said.
“Yes,” Mark said, reaching across the senator’s abdomen to shake Forsyth’s hand. “It’s been a while.”
“That wife of yours is some kind of hell-raiser, Morgan,” Forsyth said. “And I mean that with all due respect.”
“She keeps my hands full,” Mark said.
Forsyth’s skin was cadaverous and cool, as if he’d been dipped in a thin layer of wax, and his cologne was overpowering. “Well, you need to rein her in a little,” Forsyth drawled in his rough, Kentucky-inflected voice. “She’s got the bioethics council chasing its tail. You ever seen what happens when a dog chases its tail?”
“Afraid not, sir.”
“Well, it either catches it, or it drops over dead. I don’t know which one will come first with this bunch. The president put too many liberals on the council, for one thing.”
“Now, now,” Burchfield said. “You really mean he put too many atheists on it.”
Forsyth harrumphed as if he saw no difference in the two. “A good scientist can work God into anything. Especially if it makes better people.”
“Save it for the council, Wallace,” Burchfield said. “We’re all on the same page here. Right, Mark?”
“Right.”
A pane of soundproof glass separated the driver’s compartment from the rear. Winston settled behind the wheel and negotiated a turn between the hotel shuttle vans.
Mark had planned to take a taxi. Alexis had left the previous evening, and Mark had an extra stop on his itinerary. He didn’t feel he could trouble a U.S. senator to make a pit stop, however. He decided to get to business.
“We can give the FDA-”
Forsyth held up a chapped palm. “Is the car clean?” he asked Burchfield.
Mark didn’t comprehend the remark. The interior still had that acrid chemical scent of new upholstery.
Burchfield nodded. “Secret Service swept it.”
“You trust the Service?”
“You know me better than that. I had my own people go over it after that, in case the NSA wants a piece. Defense has been sniffing around, too.”
Mark finally understood they were talking about bugs. He’d never considered that a senator’s car might be bugged, especially by the very federal agencies whose budgets passed through one of Burchfield’s other committees.
“Okay,” Forsyth said with a crooked grin. “Now that Mr. Morgan knows we’re not playing matchstick poker here.”
“The subcommittee on health care is meeting Thursday,” Burchfield said.
“They moved it up a week?” Mark asked. Congress usually moved at glacial speed on legislative matters.
“I had to call in some favors. There’s a certain blowhard Democrat who is scheduled to be in Afghanistan this week, and I wouldn’t mind if he misses a few votes. One thing you can count on in the current political environment-no politician dares cancel a photo op in Afghanistan.”
The limousine merged into afternoon traffic, took an exit, and was soon on the freeway headed for Dulles International. Mark looked out at passengers in nearby cars, who stared back at the dark glass and no doubt tried to guess what type of important person was shielded from their view.
He’d noticed the same phenomenon in Los Angeles, where stargazers imagined Tom Cruise or Sandra Bullock behind every tinted windshield.
Only in New York did people not give a damn one way or another, as long as you weren’t cutting them off in traffic. In that case, it wouldn’t matter whether you were a pope or a polar bear, you’d be in for a horn blast and a middle finger.
“Where are we on Halcyon?” Burchfield asked.
“We’ve got our best people on it,” Mark said.
