I miss my best friend.
That Edwin Markos still breathes isn’t justice. Not when my sweet Lauren is gone. Not when my kids lost their parents, and will suffer for the rest of their lives from that loss.
Not when I remember the gut-wrenching sobs wracking Christopher as Shaeand I held him and tried to comfort him after Charles and Tory died.
Not when I remember the tears in Shae’s eyes as she leaned over my hospital bed and whispered how much she loved me and needed me.
Not when I remember the agonizing tears of Lauren’s mother and father at her funeral.
Not when I Googled Stephen McDannig last night and found pictures of his grief-stricken wife and four youngchildren taken at the cemetery during his funeral.
My father’s attorney enters anot guiltyplea—of fucking course—and I don’t process the rest of it as I stare at him through the video screen and will him to spontaneously combust where he stands.
Bail is, thankfully, denied.
After the prosecutor and defense and judge set dates for hearings and filings, my father is led from the courtroom byUS Marshals.
I open the door to the hallway where two of my Secret Service agents wait with a US Marshal. The entire courthouse is on lockdown until this proceeding concludes and he’s out of the courthouse. No press in the courtroom today, just one pool camera feed all the networks will access.
Without a word, the US Marshal leads us back through a cleared and secure service corridor where weencounter no one. He has us wait, then goes ahead to check something. A moment later, he emerges from another corridor and waves for us to join him. We leave the two Secret Service agents behind outside a heavily reinforced door that unlocks a moment after the US Marshal swipes a keycard and punches in a code.
He keeps his voice low, barely a whisper. “I have to stay with you, sir,” the US Marshalsays as he leads me inside the small holding area. “I can’t let you within arm’s reach of the cell.”
“That’s fine.”
“And we have less than five minutes before I need to get you out of here. We shut off the surveillance feed.”
I nod.
It’s cold in here, with a metallic, antiseptic hint to the air. Fluorescent lights protected by reinforced fixtures in the ceiling shed harsh light that giveseverything a greyish tinge. A purgatory personified, if ever there were one.
Four small, windowless, one-person cells comprise this holding area, but instead of barred walls along the corridor they have solid fronts and reinforced plexiglass viewing windows with tiny air holes, and heavy metal doors. A slot in the door, over a ledge, is probably for food trays or accessing hands for manacles,or something like that.
My father sits on a bare metal bunk and looks up as I approach. He’s still wears his manacles and bulletproof vest. As I stare at him, I realize had ten-year-old me known what he was capable of, I doubt I could have become a functioning adult at all.
Behind the mask, adult me comforts ten-year-old me, tucking that terrified child safely behind Sir, who would, if leftalone with this monster, gladly kill him with my bare hands.
When I arranged this with Leo’s help, I didn’t tell Shae or Chris. I knew they’d talk me out of it, try to insist it was better not to.
That Chris wouldorderme not to, and, for the first time, I’d have to willfully disobey him. Best not to even tell them.
They won’t understand.
Ineedthis.
I need this for ten-year-old me.
Ineed this for Lauren.
It’s not my fault Lauren is dead, but itismy fault she crossed my father’s sights. She did nothing more than love me, and it eventually killed her.
I can’t help but wonder now if, based on my father’s behavior around her when I was married to her, he was jealous of me for marrying her.
Late yesterday, Leo talked to his contacts inside the investigation. They confidedin him that the initial questioning of people around my father confirms he’d been ranting about Lauren right before her death, and then smiling and happy the day the news of her murder broke. That was before he gave the tearful speech on the House floor.
In retrospect, my father likely targeted Lauren because of an incident that occurred at a press conference. Dad gave an interview the eveningbefore, and made some stupid, shitty comments about Shae, the kind meant to play to some mythical “base” and the kind of sound bite that gets a lot of publicity because of how fucking stupid it is.
The next day, during the regular White House press briefing, a reporter naturally asked Lauren for a comment about my father’s comment.
