“Really,” Laurie said, “you don’t need to explain.”
When the table fell into a silence, Angela shook her head. “Man, Alex Buckley. Now, that is a small world.”
“You know him?” Laurie asked.
“Not anymore. But I went out with him once a million years ago.”
Charlotte shook her head. “Why in the world would you tell her that?”
“Because it’s a funny coincidence. And it was more than fifteen years ago. Ancient history.” She waved off the thought.
Charlotte was still giving her friend a disapproving look.
“What? Laurie’s not upset, are you? Trust me, this is a non-issue, just like with Hunter.”
“Wait: You dated him, too?” Charlotte mused. “Who haven’t you gone out with?”
“It’s not like that, Charlotte,” Angela said. “You didn’t know me then. I went out every night of the week. I met baseball players, actors, a New York Times reporter. And don’t go thinking what you’re thinking. It was all very innocent. We were so young, thrown into these high-profile social situations where you’re expected to have a plus-one. It’s like Casey said earlier, Laurie: she felt like she knew everyone in New York City. I was the same way in my twenties. One moment, you’d be on a red carpet. Then when it was just a group of us alone, we’d giggle and act like kids. It was as if there were an unofficial club of a hundred popular New Yorkers, all keeping each other company. Nothing heavy.”
She smiled at the memory. “But, my goodness, what a small world indeed. Come to think of it, I met Alex when I tagged along to a picnic in Westchester with Casey and the Raleighs. I was unattached at the time. Alex was smart and so nice looking. Someone told me he was a lawyer at the host’s law firm. We talked through most of the party so I took a chance and called him at the office to invite him out to lunch. When we met, I realized he wasn’t even a lawyer yet. He was a summer associate, still in law school. I was several years older-not a big deal these days, but at the time, I felt like Mrs. Robinson. Of course, what a mistake in retrospect. Look how he turned out!”
Something about Laurie’s expression caused Angela to pause. “Maybe I should keep my younger days to myself, but I promise, it was just one lunch. I’m very sorry if I’ve upset you, Laurie.”
“Not at all. As you said, it’s a small world. So if you met Alex at a picnic the Raleighs took you to, does that mean Alex met the Raleighs, too?”
She shrugged. “I can’t say for sure.”
Charlotte was signaling to the waiter for another round, but Laurie said, “That’s all for me. I might actually have time to cook dinner for my son tonight.”
“You sure? You’re going to miss out on my grilling Angela about that long list of boyfriends from the nineties.”
Laurie was indeed intrigued about something Angela had said, but there was only one person’s past she was curious about.
She texted Alex. Do you have a second?
24
The tip of General James Raleigh’s Montblanc pen hovered above his legal pad, but he hadn’t been able to write a word this afternoon. He was working on his memoirs, already sold to a major publisher. His handwriting was as neat and orderly as the other attributes of his life, so Mary Jane had no difficulty reading his pages and typing them into manuscript format. Usually, the sentences flowed easily. He had been blessed with an exciting, challenging, and rewarding life. He had watched the world change and was filled with stories. He knew that others regarded him as an old man now, but he didn’t feel like one.
He knew why he was having an uncharacteristic bout of writer’s block. He was trying to write the chapter about losing his firstborn son, Hunter. He had experienced so much loss in his lifetime. His older brother, also his hero and best friend, had been killed in combat at such a young age. He watched the love of his life and the mother of his children waste away to cancer. And then three years later, Hunter-his brother’s namesake-was stolen from him. That death had been the worst of all. Wars and disease are horrific, but expected parts of life. To lose a child, to have a child murdered-sometimes James was surprised he had not dropped dead himself from grief.
He placed his pen on his desk, knowing there was no point in trying to work in this state.
His thoughts suddenly shifted to the memory of Andrew sulking in the library today. James knew he’d been hard on his son, but the boy was such a disappointment. Fifty years old, he thought, and I still think of him as a boy. That speaks volumes.
James could only imagine what the Senator, as he and his brother had called their father, would have done to them if they’d ever behaved in such an entitled manner. Andrew had no sense of civic responsibility. He saw money in the basest, most hedonistic terms, something to be thrown about on a whim, solely for enjoyment. The partying. The practical jokes. The jumps from boarding school to boarding school. The gambling. I am hard on you, Andrew, because I care about you. I won’t always be here to guide you. Before long, you will be the only Raleigh left.
So far James’s efforts to drag Andrew into maturity had failed, along with every job he’d helped him land. He’d worked at the foundation but almost never showed up. James finally told him not to bother. He had pushed Hunter to become involved in the foundation when Hunter began talking about a shift into politics. That did not end well, so now the foundation was run primarily by paid staff instead of his own family.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Hunter, if he had lived, eventually would have chosen a suitable spouse and would have carried on the family name. He might have proposed to Casey and put a ring on her finger, but he was never going to make it down the aisle with her. Of that much, James was certain.
As careless as Andrew was about his choices of companions, at least he had never brought them around in ways that embarrassed the family. He could not say the same for Hunter. Casey had been Hunter’s Achilles’ heel. James felt his blood pressure rise as he remembered the night that she began offering her strident political views at the dinner table, in front of a deputy attorney general and a newly elected congresswoman-as if she had done anything in her young, carefree life to have an informed opinion. He finally had to suggest that Hunter escort her home. The woman did not know how to behave, plain and simple.
He realized that his pen was back in hand. He looked at his notepad. He had written, I am responsible.
It wasn’t the first time those words had come out when he least expected them. I was the one who told him that he could not let that woman into our family, he thought. I even went so far as to tell him that if he had children with her, he was forbidden to name them Hunter.
I saw forty-four years of military service. I have seen evil and confronted danger in many forms. But I never saw it sitting at my own dining table. I never thought I was putting my son in danger by expecting him to break things off with a woman who didn’t deserve him.
I am responsible.
Now that murderous girl was planning to cry in front of the cameras to gain sympathy. He would not let that happen. If he had to fight until his last breath, the world would come to see her for what she was-a cold-blooded killer.
He had told Andrew that his role would be limited to putting on a stern face for the show, but he had learned the five p’s in the military: prior planning prevents poor performance. Andrew would do his job of exposing Casey for the volatile sociopath that she was, but James’s efforts would remain behind the scenes.
At the very least, Mark Templeton would not be saying a word to anyone about Hunter or the foundation. James had made sure of that earlier today when he’d spoken to Templeton for the first time in nearly a decade.