I watchedas my predecessor walked up to Everett and put his hand on his shoulder.
“Grady, what are you doing here?” Everett asked.
“Vincent called me,” Grady said. “Thought you could use a friendly face… he said something about you ending up with a couple of overprotective guard dogs,” he said, a solemn smile on his face.
“It’s not a good time—” Everett began.
“I think it’s the perfect time,” Grady responded. He was a little younger than Everett, but had a stout figure and was almost completely bald except for some patches of hair just above his ears. His sharp eyes settled on Reese. “From what I heard from outside, Reese here is ready for some hard truths.”
“Grady, no,” Everett said, but Grady shook his head.
“You don’t get to order me around anymore, Mr. President, remember? And if Reese wants to keep putting his mother on a pedestal, he doesn’t get to step on you to do it.”
Finally, I thought to myself as I watched Grady approach a very wary Reese.About fucking time.
“Your mother wasn’t talking about your father in that note, Reese,” Grady said.
“You’d say anything to protect him—” Reese began.
“I would,” Grady conceded. “But he’s also my friend and he’d never forgive me for hurting you. The only time I’ve lied was to protect you… and that was only because your father was desperate to let you have the one thing in your life that you still seemed to care about… your mother.”
“She was the only one who was ever there for me,” Reese insisted.
“Was she?” Grady asked. He shook his head. “Let’s start with this,” Grady said as he took the note from Everett’s hand. “I’ve loved you every day since the moment we met more than thirty years ago,” Grady read, then he looked up. “Your mother wrote this three years ago. Thirty years before that, she would have been nineteen years old at the most. She didn’t meet your father until she was twenty-one. But you know who she did know at that time?” Grady held up the letter. “Your father’s vice president and eventual successor.”
“Grady—” Everett began, but Reese was the one who put up his hand.
“What are you saying?” Reese asked, his voice full of disbelief.
“You know better than anyone that the White House is full of more lies than truth, Reese. That at its core, Washington is like one big fucking chess game. Your mother never loved your father, and he never loved her either. Just like your father was groomed for his part, so was your mother. The man she fell in love with when she was a girl, and who would one day take the presidency over from your father, was already married when she began a relationship with him. It continued up until your mother’s death three years ago. He kept promising her he’d leave his wife, but the reality was that your mother was one of many women he was feeding that line to. Your mother found comfort in the arms of other men, though she probably hoped to use them to make the man she really wanted jealous.”
Reese looked like he was going to be sick, and I was glad when he sank down to sit on an armchair.
“How do you know all this?” he whispered.
“Because even though our job is to be invisible to the people we protect, we’re always there. We hear and see everything. And just like I was always loyal to your father, other agents are loyal to the men and women they protect. The day your mother died, she called the president to tell him what she’d done and why. You arrived first to find your mother, and from what I gather, you took this” – he held up the note – “And didn’t tell anyone about it when your mother’s Secret Service detail showed up.”
Reese nodded. “She called me and told me she was sorry, but that she was really tired and she just couldn’t do it anymore. It wasn’t… it wasn’t the first time she said that kind of stuff to me. She usually did it because she was feeling lonely and wanted me to drop everything and come be with her. So I wasn’t expecting to find her like that…”
“You couldn’t have known, Reese,” Grady said gently. “Your mother had a habit of kicking her Secret Service detail out of the house whenever she got upset. When she did, they usually just sat in their car across the street.”
“They were there that day,” Reese said. “They recognized me. Even if they’d been able to see the garage from their position, they wouldn’t have been able to see the exhaust… I didn’t when I got there.” Reese paused before saying, “She was gone when I found her. I saw the note in her hand and I… I didn’t want…”
“You didn’t want your father to be blamed for her suicide,” Grady suggested.
“Reese,” Everett whispered in disbelief.
“She never stopped talking about it,” Reese murmured. “How Dad had ruined her life. That he’d fucked around behind her back. She was so disgusted that it was with other men. The things she said…” He shook his head. “I took the note and opened the garage door to flag down the agents while I called 911. We tried doing CPR, but it was too late. When the reports came out calling it an accident, I didn’t say anything. I was so sure that Dad had arranged to cover it up.”
“Itwasa cover-up and it was instigated by the president, just not the one you thought,” Grady said. “Your father was led to believethe same story the world did. Fortunately, that fucker lost his bid for re-election to our current president.”
“Did you know she was cheating?” Reese asked Everett.
Everett nodded. “I didn’t care,” he admitted. “But I didn’t want you to find out, either. As bad as things were between me and her, I didn’t want you to ever think badly of her. She loved you very much. We both did. You were our perfect little boy?—”
“Until I wasn’t, right, Dad?” Reese cut in.
Everett shook his head. “No, Reese, you were. I wish… I wish I hadn’t been so blind to how hard things were for you. I wish I’d made more time for you and that I’d told you more often how proud I was of you?—”
