“You love us,” Beck counters, smiling.
She melts a little. “I do.”
“And we love you,” I remind her. “Tell us what you need.”
Her request is simple, and we’re able to grant it in a matter of minutes, moving Selene into the office so she can comfortably sort through the personnel files of all the agents who were on the short list for the lead of Aubrey’s detail when Beck and I were tapped for the roles. He’s leaning over Selene’s shoulder, reading the files along with her even though we’ve already told her neither of the men from that day were in the stack.
“Shaw is sure it was them?” he asks, handing her the last folder.
“Yes, she was positive. She said Garrison was the one who referred to you as trash. His partner, Woodard, just stood there and laughed. ”
“Have you seen them with Aubrey?”
“No.” She slams the last folder closed, pushing it away when it doesn’t provide what she’s looking for. “They just announced their addition to his detail today.”
I steeple my fingers, turning everything Selene told us over in my head. “But they’re not on the short list, and no one has heard of them.”
“They weren’t in the disciplinary report either,” Beck adds, hands on his head as he paces behind Selene. “I thought that was weird. If they were agents, they would have had to sign witness statements with their badge numbers and all.”
“Hard to do when you don’t have a badge,” I growl, frustration ripping through me at the thought of being the predecessor of frauds.
Selene rubs her temples. “How could they do that, though? Move freely around the White House with no clearance? Embed themselves in the Secret Service AND put themselves in a position to guard a President?”
“There isn’t anything or anyone money can’t buy in this country.”
Beck pauses, glancing at me. “You think someone bought off Evans?”
“Aubrey.” Resentment wraps around Selene’s vocal cords. “Aubrey paid off Evans.”
She says it with so much conviction, I’m inclined to believe her, but the facts aren’t meshing. “But why would he need to do that? There’s no shortage of morally corrupt agents within the Service who would do whatever he wanted with no questions asked. Paying Evans to shoehorn Garrison and Woodard in would be expensive and unnecessary.”
Even though I’ve taken a sledgehammer to her theory, Selene follows my line of reasoning readily, arriving at the conclusion I’ve yet to verbalize.
“So Garrison and Woodard don’t…work…for Aubrey?”
Beck is right there with us, shaking his head. “No, I don’t think they do.”
A loaded silence envelops us. The idea of Garrison and Woodard was already off putting when it seemed they were doing Aubrey’s bidding, but the thought of them operating at the behest of some nameless, faceless entity whose motivations are currently unclear is nothing short of horrific.
18
BECK
When I was six, I developed a fear of the dark.
I remember exactly how it happened. I’d just moved into a new foster home where I was one of five children vying for the limited resources of the adults’ time, attention and affection. One day, I’d gotten a little too much of one of the three, and Brett, the kid who’d been there longer than anyone else, pulled me out of my bed in the middle of the night and forced me into a small, dank room inside the basement that no one ever went into. He left me in there overnight and was doubled over laughing when our foster dad pulled me out of the closet the next morning and spanked me for wetting my pants.
As an adult, I don’t have an issue with the dark anymore.
Unless, of course, I’m being kept in it.
Selene left our house four days ago and took all the light with her, leaving Cal and me with nothing but each other and the constant worry for her safety. Every second that passes, every day that goes by, we sink a little further into the abyss of ignorance, never knowing where she is, who she’s with, or if she’s any closer to finding out who paid Evans off to getWoodard and Garrison into the Service, and why they want them in Aubrey’s orbit, because we certainly aren’t.
And how could we when we’re so far outside of her world? Disconnected from everything and everyone who might have been able to offer even a little insight because, as Selene so brilliantly put it, our professional reputations are now ruined. I throw the burner down on the couch, and it bounces into Cal’s hand. He’s reading the newspaper with those annoyingly sexy glasses on, and he glances at the discarded device over the black rims, scanning the text thread between me and Agent Shaw. It’s filled with the uninterrupted steam of bubbles representing my outgoing messages.
“Still no reply?”
“Nope.” My leg bounces anxiously. “I guess she finally realized staying in contact with us is career suicide.”
