“Not good news?” She glanced at her colleagues, noting they were studiously attending to their projects.
“It’s good-or bad, depending on what you think.”
Eva led him outdoors to a courtyard of lawns and flowers. A water fountain flowed serenely over perfectly arranged boulders. This was all part of the Getty Center, a complex of striking architecture sheathed in glass and Italian travertine stone crowning a hill in the Santa Monica Mountains.
Silently they passed museum visitors and sat together on a bench where no one could overhear.
“What’s happened?” she asked.
He was blunt. “I have an offer from the D.A.’s office. If you plead guilty, they’ll give you a reduced sentence. Four years. But with good behavior you’ll be out in three. They’re willing to make a deal because you have a clean driving record and you’re a respected member of the community.”
“Absolutely not.” She forced herself to stay calm. “I wasn’t driving.”
“Then who was?”
The question hung like a scythe in the sparkling California air.
“You really don’t recall Charles getting behind the wheel?” she asked. “You were standing in your doorway when we drove away. I saw you. You had to have seen us.” They had been at a dinner party at Brian’s house that night, the last guests to leave.
“We’ve been over this before. I went inside as soon as I said good night-before either of you got close to your car. Alcohol plays tricks with the mind.”
“Which is why I’d never drive. Never.” Working to keep the horror from her voice, she related the story again: “It was after one A.M., and Charles was driving us home. We were laughing. There wasn’t any traffic on Mulholland, so Charles wove the car back and forth. That threw us against our seat belts and just made us laugh harder. He drove with one hand, then with the other…” She frowned to herself. There was something else, but it escaped her. “Suddenly a car shot out from a driveway ahead of us. Charles slammed the brakes. Our car spun out of control. I must’ve lost consciousness. The next thing I knew, I was strapped down to a gurney.” She swallowed. “And Charles was dead.”
She smoothed the fabric of her skirt and stared off as grief raged through her.
Brian’s silence was so long that the distant roar of traffic on the San Diego Freeway seemed to grow louder.
At last he said kindly, “I’m sure that’s what you remember, but we have no evidence to support it. And I’ve spent enough of your money hiring investigators to look for witnesses that I have to believe we’re not going to find any.” His voice toughened. “How’s a jury going to react when they learn you were found lying unconscious just ten feet from the driver’s door-and it was hanging open, showing you were behind the wheel? And Charles was in the front passenger seat, with the seat belt melted into what was left of him. There’s no way he was driving. And you had a 1.6 blood alcohol level-twice the legal limit.”
“But I wasn’t driving-” She stopped. With effort, she controlled herself. “You think I should take the D.A.’s deal, don’t you?”
“I think the jury is going to believe you were so drunk you blacked out and don’t remember what you did. They’ll go for the maximum sentence. If I had a scintilla of hope I could convince them otherwise, I’d recommend against the offer.”
Shaken, Eva stood and walked around the tranquil pool of water encircling the fountain. Her chest was tight. She stared into the water and tried to make herself breathe. First she had lost Charles and all their dreams and hopes for the future. He had been brilliant, fun, endlessly fascinating. She closed her eyes and could almost feel him stroking her cheek, comforting her. Her heart ached with longing for him.
And now she faced prison. The thought terrified her, but for the first time she admitted it was possible-she had never in her life blacked out, but she might have this time. If she had blacked out, she might have climbed behind the wheel. And if she did-that meant she really had killed Charles. She bent her head and clasped the gold wedding band on her finger. Tears slid down her cheeks.
Behind her, Brian touched her shoulder. “You remember Trajan, the great ruler who expanded the Roman empire?”
She quickly wiped her face with her fingers and turned around to him. “Of course. What about him?”
“Trajan was ruthless and cunning and won every great battle he led his troops into. He had a rule: If you can’t win, don’t fight. If you don’t fight, it’s no defeat. You will survive. Take the deal, Eva. Survive.”
3
Washington , D.C.
April, Two years later
CARRYING A thermos of hot coffee and two mugs, Tucker Andersen crossed into Stanton Park, just five blocks from his office on Capitol Hill. The midnight shadows were long and black, and the air was cool. There were no children in the playground, no pedestrians on the sidewalks. Inhaling the scent of freshly cut grass, he listened as traffic rumbled past on C Street. All was as it should be.
Finally he spotted his old friend Jonathan Ryder, almost invisible where he sat on a bench facing the granite statue of Revolutionary War hero Nathanael Greene. Tonight a call had come in from Tucker’s wife that Jonathan was trying to reach him.
Tucker closed in. A slender man of five foot ten, he had the long muscles of the runner he still was. His eyes were large and intelligent behind tortoiseshell glasses, his mustache light brown, his gray beard trimmed close to the jaw. Mostly bald, he had a fringe of gray-brown hair dangling over his shirt collar. He was fifty-three years old, and although his official credentials announced CIA, he was both more and less.
“Hello, Jonathan.” Tucker sat and crossed his legs. “Nice to see you again. What’s it been-ten years?” He studied him. Jonathan looked small now, and he was not a small man. And tense. Very tense.
“At least ten years. I appreciate your meeting me on such short notice.” Jonathan gave a brief smile, showing a row of perfect white teeth in his lined face. Lean and fit, he had a high forehead topped by a brush of graying blond hair. He was wearing black sweatpants and a black sweatshirt with a Yale University logo on the sleeve instead of his usual Savile Row business suit.
Tucker handed him a mug and poured coffee for both of them.
“Sounded important, but then you could always make sunrise seem as if it were heralding angels.”
“It is important.” Jonathan sniffed the coffee. “Smells good.” His hands shook as he drank.
Tucker felt a moment of worry. “How’s the family?”
“Jeannine’s great. Busy with all her charities, as usual. Judd’s left military intelligence and isn’t going to reenlist. Three tours in Iraq and a tour in Pakistan were finally enough for him.” He hesitated. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the past lately.”
Tucker set the thermos on the seat beside him. They had been close friends during their undergraduate days at Yale. “I remember when we were in school and you started that investment club. You made me a grand in two years. That was a hell of a lot of money in those days.”
Jonathan nodded. Then he grinned. “I thought you were just a smart-ass-all looks, no brains, no commitment. Then you saved my skin that night in Alexanderplatz in East Berlin. Remember? It took a lot of muscle-and smarts.”
After college, both had joined the CIA, in operations, but Jonathan had left after three years to earn an MBA at Wharton. With an undergraduate degree in chemistry, he had worked for a series of pharmaceutical companies, then gone on to found his own. Today he was president and board chair of Bucknell Technologies. Monied and powerful, he was a regular on Washington ’s social circuit and at the president’s yearly Prayer Breakfast.
“Glad I did the good deed,” Tucker said. “Look where you ended up-a baron of Big Pharma, while I’m still tilling the mean streets and urine-scented dark alleys.”