“You want me to drop out of the race.” Madeline stated. “Is that what this has been about?”
“Well, of course that would make my campaign a lot easier,” he began. “But these aren’t from me. I received these pictures today in the mail with a letter. The letter said I was free to use them however I wanted.”
Madeline looked at Officer Austin in front of her, unsure if she should believe him.
“I do have a good team,” he said. “And it was my campaign manager who opened this envelope. He suggested we go public with it. Tomorrow morning, before your reelection campaign launches. That way you wouldn’t even have a chance to start running. You’d be buried in this. The press loves a scandal and they would love watching your marriage crumble. It would be sensational—Madeline Thomas the perfect candidate, the perfect woman, is not so perfect. Not to mention the congressional ethics committee could have a field day. Do you have any enemies there? They’d probably investigate you to see if you used public funds for your extracurricular activities, or if you were using your sexuality to gain favors from someone—not sure who, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be long before the press found out who this man was. Of course your SAVER Bill would also go down the toilet, people would think you were biased, working with the black community against the police. It might get you black votes, but your white supporters would be gone.”
“So should I start preparing my response?” Madeline replied calmly. “Write a concession speech about why I won’t run for reelection?”
“Maybe also start calling divorce lawyers,” Officer Austin said with a smile and a wink. “Talk to all the good ones first so your husband can’t hire them.”
The pair sat quietly facing each other for several moments, both in deep thought of their next words. Madeline knew she wouldn’t speak first. She would let Officer Austin continue, which he did after the pause started to drag on.
“But I am not going to do that,” he said. “I’m going to squash your campaign fair and square. You can deal with your marital problems on your own time.” He pulled an envelope out of the desk drawer. “The third picture is in here. You can take them. I won’t be using them in my campaign, but I thought you should know that someone has them and is willing to use them.”
Madeline was still. She looked at the pictures and envelope in front of her, but hesitated to take them. “So you’re not blackmailing me?”
“Blackmailing you? I am an officer of the law, ma’am,” he said. “I uphold the law and arrest those who don’t. I wish I could give you more information about who sent these or why they want me to destroy your campaign, but I don’t have any.”
Madeline nodded and grabbed the pictures from the officer’s desk. She thanked the officer and wished him good luck on his campaign as she let herself out of the office, into the hall where Jane was waiting, still texting away on her cell phone.
“So, what do we need to do to keep his mouth shut?” Jane asked when she saw Madeline. Madeline shook her head and the two of them got in their separate cars to drive to the office where Madeline’s team was working hard on her reelection campaign launch.
Since finding out about Officer Austin’s campaign, they had completely replanned their strategy. They scheduled a new event for the following evening with donors, supporters, community leaders and colleagues where she would officially announce her campaign. The previously planned event—still a week away—would stay and serve as a ‘thank you’ to her supporters who had helped her thus far while also motivating them to keep the momentum up.
In the next 24 hours her team needed to send out a press release and contact all the local and national reporters to ensure their coverage. They also needed to convince important donors and supports to be available for appearances at her event last minute.
Madeline also had to review her new speech that painted her as a professional, someone with a proven track record of making good on her promises—this would juxtapose her with Officer Austin who was inexperienced in politics. The speech wouldn’t mention his name (a rookie mistake Austin had made by mentioning hers) because any mention gave him recognition and recognition—both for good or bad reasons—led to votes. Her speech would focus on the change she had started and her vision for the future.
Later that evening, after her staff had notified the press of her reelection launch and newspapers were starting to print articles leading up to it, Madeline sat in bed reviewing her speech. Brandon was already asleep next to her. They hadn’t spoken since he saw the picture earlier. By the time Madeline had come home he was already in bed. Madeline took that as a good sign, at least he was still in their bed.
Between gazing over at him and at the papers in front of her, she found herself reading and rereading the same lines over and over. She told herself to concentrate, stay focused, but she couldn’t, she kept checking her phone, reading the headlines with her name in them: Thomas to announce reelection campaign, Thomas to run again, Thomas/Austin battle to heat up. She usually didn’t read the news on her phone (she’d wait for the morning Binder)
