“You mean my date.”
“I thought it wasn’t a date?”
“Okay, sure, maybe deep down I was hoping-”
The line went dead.
Chapter Forty-Five
Table for One
Jimmie reentered the restaurant. The hostess flashed a friendly smile. “Finished with your phone call, Mr. Bernwood?”
“I am,” he said. “But I’ll be dining alone tonight.”
Although it seemed a tad insensitive to Cat to keep his reservation, Jimmie thought it would be what she wanted. Plus, the kidnappers had given him until Monday night to meet their demands. There was plenty of time to stuff his face with some old-fashioned southern-style cooking while he debated the most prudent course of action.
The smell of the made-from-scratch buttermilk biscuits had also been calling his name. He opened the menu. He had to focus. Review his options. Not the options on the menu-he already knew what he was going to order. But his options with regards to the kidnappers. He was out of his league, but that had never stopped him before.
The safest course of action was to cooperate with the kidnappers… for now. Getting the recorder out of the White House wasn’t going to be easy, though. If it was, he’d have already done it. The Trump administration was so overrun with paranoia that they didn’t let bags in or out of the building. No backpacks, no laptop cases, no purses, no briefcases. Not even fanny packs were allowed, which had to piss off Chef Fieri.
After he’d stuffed himself on his second order of complimentary buttermilk biscuits and was awaiting his third, the hostess arrived with another menu. “Your date is here, Mr. Bernwood,” she said.
“That’s… not possible,” he stammered.
Emma Blythe stepped out from behind the hostess and took the seat across from Jimmie. She was wearing a tight, red cocktail dress that accentuated her curves. She looked like she’d just stepped out of a noir novel and into his life.
“Hello, darling,” Emma said. “I hope you’ve saved room for dessert.”
Chapter Forty-Six
The Seventh-Leading Cause of Death in the US
Emma took one sip of the iced tea she’d ordered and made a horrible retching sound. “Dear God, that’s awful. I always forget you Americans put sugar in your tea.”
“Don’t look at me-I’m from the Midwest,” Jimmie said. “Sweet tea is a southern thing.”
“Is diabetes also a southern thing?”
“One would assume so, what with obesity rates being so high in southern states.” Jimmie picked up his phone and Googled states with highest rates of diabetes. “Damn, would you look at that. Says here that nine of the top ten states with the highest rates of type 2 diabetes are in the-”
Emma snatched the phone out of his hand and dropped it into the last of his bowl of creamy tomato soup. He’d dunked enough phones underwater over the years to know that it wasn’t worth diving in after. It also wasn’t the first time he’d had his phone taken away by a woman at dinner.
“I would have put it away, had you asked,” he said.
“I could care less about your lack of table etiquette. I had to make sure the NSA wasn’t listening to every word of our conversation.”
“They might be interested in the seventh-leading cause of death in this country,” Jimmie said. “You never know.”
“While public health statistics are endlessly fascinating to someone, somewhere, that’s not what I came to talk to you about. You’re going to tell me what sort of mess you’ve gotten yourself into.” She paused. “A word of warning, however: Leave anything out, and I’ll know you’re lying. You’ll be arrested for attempted espionage.”
“How will you know if I leave anything out, though?”
“Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. Are you willing to risk it?”
He leaned across the table. “A woman’s life is at stake here.”
“Millions of lives are at stake here,” Emma shot back. “Billions of lives, possibly. We’re talking about the office of the president of the United States of America. Do you not understand that? This is far bigger than one person’s life. No matter how much you want to shag her.”
Jimmie saw that his tie had taken a dip in his soup, and he wiped it on the tablecloth. “It’s such bullshit for you to bring that up. Why couldn’t I just care about another human being for altruistic reasons?”
“It would certainly be a first,” she said. “I’m surprised you even know what the word ‘altruism’ means.”
“I’m full of surprises,” he said, even though she was seeing right through him at practically every turn.
Their waiter brought their entrées out and went to pick up the empty bowl in front of Jimmie. Or nearly empty, except for the dead phone coated in tomato soup.
“Sir… there’s a phone in your soup,” the waiter said. “Would you like me to fish it out?”
“It’s not mine,” Jimmie said coolly.
“I am so sorry. Let me apologize on behalf of the Ritz Cracker Barrel.”
Jimmie stared him in the eyes. “Take it off my bill, or I’m going to Yelp.”
The waiter hurried off. Emma stared at Jimmie as if he’d just shit on the rug.
“What?”
“You’re quite something,” she said.
“Quite charming?”
“Quite something,” she repeated.
While Jimmie picked over his chicken-fried chicken, he told Emma everything. To get information, you had to give up information. He wasn’t sure why he trusted her, but he did. It might have also had something to do with the fact that Jimmie was strangely deferential to women in positions of authority over him. It was a weakness. But he would be strong. Even though he’d been daydreaming about making love to Emma on the beanbag chair Biden had left behind in the VP’s West Wing office, he would be strong. He wasn’t about to get into another mess like he’d gotten into with Cat.
The fact that Emma had arrived just twenty minutes after the kidnappers had hung up on him had to mean someone had alerted her to the call-the NSA or Homeland Security. She’d been watching him closely.
Jimmie didn’t think she’d come here to put the screws on him, though. It wasn’t like she was going to just pull out a gun and murder him right there in the middle of the Ritz Cracker Barrel. Though that would have been a pretty baller move.
“So that’s where we’re at,” Jimmie said after finishing his tale. “I’ve turned over all the cards I have. Now it’s your turn.”
“Is that how you think this works?” Emma said. “Tell me something, James: Were you planning to leak all this to Cat Diaz? Is that why you were meeting her tonight?”
“I signed a nondisclosure.”
“That you planned to break for the right price.”
“Are you going to fire me?”
Emma sipped her sweet tea. Slowly. Deliberately.
“No,” she said.
“No?”
“I’m going to help you get your girlfriend back. In exchange, you are going to drop this amateur little ‘investigation’ of yours. If the press secretary did throw Lester off the roof, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. You’d still have to pin it on him. Surveillance tapes from that far back have already been wiped. All you’ve got is a hunch.”
“Sometimes, that’s all you need.”
“Sometimes,” Emma said. “But not this time. Remember that Lewandowski manhandled that reporter on the campaign trail on video and walked away without any charges.”
“There’s a corpse buried somewhere on the White House grounds, and you’re telling me to forget about it?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
Jimmie sighed. It was an overly dramatic, sort of bitchy sigh. Totally warranted, however. She was asking him to give up on a story? Once he got his claws into something, it was difficult for him to let go. He was like a tick, digging in for the long haul while he drew blood. Could he let go… for Cat’s sake? He’d have to think about that.