Except for maybe President Stevens.
Yes, Sandra J. Stevens seemed to get along with the mighty Leonard Meadows just fine. Which was a good thing since the chief of staff was the second most powerful person in Washington and itbehoovedhim to be well-liked by the first most powerful person.
Lots of folks thought it was the VP or even the majority leader of the senate who ran the race with the commander in chief. But nope. It was the chief of staff.
“Eliza?” Fisher pulled her away from her thoughts. “Do ya need to inform someone of the senator’s call?”
Maybe? But she was so tired. And her head was back to throbbing dully. And no doubt everything, all these problems and questions, would be waiting for her in the morning.
“Does it make me a terrible person to want a few hours where Idon’thave to think about what happened tonight? To want a few hours to forget?”
“Yup,” he answered unhesitatingly. “You’re definitely a terrible person.”
She blinked and then realized he was teasing her.
“You’re an ass.” She smiled and shook her head.
“Oh, for sure.” He was quick to agree. “But I made ya smile. And tonight that’s my one true ambition.”
“Your one true ambition, huh?” She side-eyed him. “You, sir, need loftier goals.”
“No I don’t.”
She chuckled and he shot a fist in the air. “And now I’ve gone and made ya laugh! I just keep on winnin’!”
“ButIwant to be the winner,” she said with an exaggerated wiggle of her eyebrows. “Weren’t we doing something important before we were interrupted?”
“Were we?” He feigned ignorance. “I can’t remember.”
She grabbed her chest as if he’d stabbed her in the heart. “Ouch. Way to wound a woman’s pride.”
His hair was longing for a cut and curled invitingly around his ears. When he grinned that Fisher grin of his, the one that was all charm and teeth, she couldn’t help grinning back.
Of course, in the next moment, she remembered the sound of gunfire, remembered the state of Charlie’s body, and her expression crumbled.
“Ah, hell.” He pulled her close and she burrowed into his chest, taking comfort in the warm, delicious smell of his fabric softener, in the reassuring feel of his heart setting a strong, steady beat against her cheek.
“It’ll be like this for a while,” he whispered as he smoothed a hand over her hair.
“What will?”
“The grief. It’ll come in waves. Tsunamis to start. And then breakers. And finally, after a while, they’ll just be little swells. And all ya can do is ride ’em out. Each and every one of ’em until eventually ya won’t even notice that they rock your boat.”
11
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Having stolen a white lab coat and a paper surgical mask, Yang slipped through the security doors of the ICU behind a nurse who was too busy balancing a tray of bandages and salves to pay attention to the man hot on her heels.
After speed-walking past the nurse’s station—the coat and the mask meant those there barely spared him a glance—he made his way down the long hall in search of the unfortunate professor. He’d learned if he acted like he belonged somewhere, people naturally assumed he did.
What is it the Americans like to say? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck? Or, in my case, a doctor.
The first room showed an old woman with tubes sticking out of every visible orifice. Her chest rose and fell in a mechanical way that told him she was on full life support.
The next room held a young man of indeterminant ethnicity. His dark skin and black hair said his ancestors came from somewhere with a warmer climate. But because his face was fully bandaged, Yang had no idea about the shape of his features.
Gunshot wound?he wondered.Some horrible facial deformity?
