Bug Man Suspense 3-in-1 Bundle (97 page)

She felt a faint glimmer of hope as she started down the hallway toward her husband's study.

As she approached the study she saw that the door was open slightly, and she could hear John's voice speaking in a subdued tone.
He's probably on the phone
, she thought, but when she reached the door she heard a second voice: It was Brad, their chief of staff. She stopped at the door and quietly listened.

“I only get one shot at this, you know.”

“I agree, John. Timing is everything.”

“My question is, will we be able to recover from this? Will there be time before the election?”

“The public has a short memory.”

“Not that short, Brad. Watergate, Iran-Contra, Monica Lewinsky— nobody has forgotten those.”

“They don't need to forget—they just need to overlook it at the polls.”

“But will they? That's the question we have to answer.”

“Your wife is a very beautiful woman, John. She's intelligent; she's accomplished. Women like her; they connect with her; men would like to connect with her too, if you'll forgive the crass expression.”

“I quite understand. Victoria is no ordinary woman; she's an ideal, you might say.”

“Exactly. A symbol to other women of what they might become; a symbol to men of what they wish they could have. Your wife has brought you publicity and recognition that you never would have received without her. Victoria smiles and the camera clicks, and all that goodwill rubs off on you.”

“But what if the ideal has become tarnished? That rubs off on me too.”

“I suppose that's true.”

Victoria stepped closer and strained to hear. She heard her husband say in an even lower tone of voice, “What I want to know is, are Victoria and I still a winning ticket?”

“This is your wife we're talking about. It's a moot point, isn't it?”

“Not necessarily.”

“She's not just a running mate, John. You can't just replace her.”

There was a long pause. “No—not yet. But I could go on alone.”

Victoria stumbled back from the doorway; she felt as if someone had punched her in the gut. What did she just overhear? Is that all she was to her husband—one half of a “winning ticket”? And if he now calculated that she was more of a liability than an asset, was she about to be dropped from the ticket—or replaced by another “ideal” with a little less tarnish so that her husband might have a better chance four years from now?

She felt a series of different emotions washing over her like storm surges crashing ashore. She felt shock, then disbelief, then sorrow, then indignation—but it was anger that took the stage last, and it was anger that remained.

Who does that weasel think he is—and why in the world am I trying to protect him?

She returned to her office and unlocked the top drawer with trembling fingers. She took the stack of copies from the drawer and tucked them under her arm, then charged back down the hallway to her husband's office. She reached the doorway in full stride, stiff-arming the half-open door with the butt of her hand and sending it crashing back into the wall.

The senior senator from Virginia and his chief of staff both jumped like startled deer.

“Darling,” the senator fumbled. “I didn't know you were still—”

“It's a little late for a staff meeting,” she said. “Funny—it wasn't on the schedule. What's on the agenda?”

“Brad and I were just discussing—”

“I know what you were discussing—I've been standing outside the door for the last five minutes. Tell me something, John. How are you planning to explain my sudden absence to the American voters? Am I supposed to just drop out for ‘personal reasons'—or am I supposed to suffer a ‘nervous breakdown' from the stress of the campaign—something that might win you a little more sympathy? Or do you have even bigger plans? Tell me, who do you have in mind to replace me on your ‘winning ticket'? I think a wife has a right to know that, don't you? Or maybe I'm not supposed to think of myself as a wife—maybe I'm more like a campaign volunteer who just happens to share your bed.”

Brad rose awkwardly from his chair. “Maybe I should—”

“Sit down, you little quisling.” She tossed the copies onto the floor at her husband's feet. “I want to thank you for being so understanding this evening. I know how important good breeding is to you, and it must have been shocking for you to learn that your purebred wife has been tainted with common blood. It was so noble of you to just sit there and say nothing. Not a single insult or contemptuous laugh—not even a roll of your eyes—what self-restraint! But that's so like you, John—never looking down on anyone until after they've left the room.”

“Sweetheart, I never once thought—”

“Don't bother. I understand completely—really I do. It's just not easy to be in the presence of an inferior—believe me, I know. And the idea of being
married
to one—it almost turns your stomach. I mean, what if we'd actually had children together? Can you imagine the consequences, mingling good blood with bad like that? What kind of moral or intellectual half-wits would we have produced?”

“Victoria, please.”

Now she turned to the chief of staff. “I'm actually glad you're here, Brad, because my husband has raised a very important question: Is this still a winning ticket? A genetic inferior matched with a superior specimen? Can we really keep this charade going—won't the public be able to sense the difference? And even if we do win in November, doesn't this country deserve better than that?”

“Darling, I don't blame you for being offended—”

“Offended, John? I'm not offended—really I'm not. I just need to get these questions answered, that's all, because I have a career to think about here and I need to know what's going to happen when the voters find out about you.”

Braden blinked. “About
me
?”

“You might want to take a look at those photocopies. I think you'll find them interesting—I know I did. Go ahead—I'll just stand here and say nothing while you read.”

Braden gathered up the papers from the floor and began to look through them. “I don't understand this,” he said.

“That figures—it probably has to do with your background, and no one should make fun of you for that. Maybe I can summarize it for you— bring it down to your level. I think Brad will find this interesting too.”

She looked at Brad. “By now I'm sure you know all about my sordid past; the copies John is holding have to do with
his
. The copies come from a second scrapbook. My mother put it together; it must have taken years. Have you heard of my mother, Brad? Mom's a serial killer, but she's also a sweet old lady and a pretty darned good historian. The scrapbook contains a series of historical documents; some of them are more than two hundred years old. The documents are mostly genealogies and land deeds—pretty boring stuff unless you know what you're looking at. There are a couple of old diary entries in there too, and they make terrific reading. Stories about murder, intrigue, stolen fortunes, deathbed confessions about unforgivable deeds—real page-turners.”

Braden stared down at the copies with his mouth gaping open. “Oh, no,” he kept mumbling. “This can't be happening.” His face was as white as January snow.

“I think John's starting to get it now—I knew he would eventually; it just takes him a little longer than most people. Let me sum it up for you, Brad. John's family fortune consists mostly of landholdings—thousands of acres in rural Virginia. That land has been in John's family almost since Jamestown, or so the story goes—but the documents in that scrapbook show the story isn't quite true. It seems the land didn't belong to John's family in the beginning—it was ceded to another family when Virginia first became an independent commonwealth in 1776. John's family apparently didn't like that—so, being the band of scoundrels and cutthroats they were, they stole the land—they murdered the people who legitimately owned it and claimed it for themselves. There was the problem of the land grants and deeds, of course, but they managed to work that out. They had a few lawyers in the family—wherever there are scoundrels, you find lawyers—and the lawyers had connections in the Virginia Land Office. You can guess what happened: The old deeds mysteriously vanished and new ones suddenly appeared.

“Of course, the other family wasn't going to just roll over and let their land be taken away, so one of them decided to go complain to the governor, Patrick Henry—remember him? Only he never got to Patrick Henry. Somebody in John's family ambushed him along the way— cracked him over the head with a barrel stave, according to his deathbed confession. See, that's the endearing thing about John's family: Whenever they do something immoral or illegal they always feel bad about it later.

“Now here comes the really fascinating part. Guess how John's ancestor got rid of the body. That's right—he got the clever idea to bury it in a graveyard, right on top of an existing grave. Who would ever think to look there?”

“The Patriot Center,” Brad said. “The two-hundred-year-old body.”

“That's very clever of you, Brad. I don't think my husband has made that connection yet, but then you always were a lot quicker on the draw. It's the result of your good breeding, I think.”

“The Patriot Center,” Braden whispered.

“There, he got it—I think a little lightbulb just went on in his head somewhere. That's right, John, the Patriot Center—and it wasn't just the body at the Patriot Center. Check the copies again: There were lots of victims over the years, all from that same family—the original owners of this land. Apparently they passed down the dirty little secret of what the Bradens had done to them, and every generation or two someone in the family set out to prove it. But every time they got close, someone in the Braden family made sure it didn't happen—and another body got buried in a double grave.”

“May I see those copies?” Brad asked.

“Help yourself—here you go. My mom figured it all out—can you believe it? I'm very proud of her. She probably started researching Johnny's family when she first heard I was about to get married. You might say she ran her own background check, and it's a good thing she did—otherwise I might never have known what a scoundrel I was involved with. A girl can't be too careful these days—there are all kinds of poseurs out there.”

“Why is this happening?” Braden moaned. “Why now?”

“Why not now?” Victoria replied. “Can you think of a better time? Don't you think America has the right to know if the descendant of thieves and murderers is in line for the highest office in the land?”

“That was centuries ago,” Braden said. “This has nothing to do with me.”

“I'm afraid it has everything to do with you, John. It exposes you for what you really are. Sorry—no more blue blazers with gold embroidered crests and no more starched pajamas—you're just old Johnny Braden now, an ordinary lump of Hokie Stone like the rest of us. John Henry Braden was born for the presidency—he was bred for it—he
deserved
it—but now you'll have to earn it like everybody else.
Like everybody else
—that thought just kills you, doesn't it? Or maybe it hasn't sunk in yet. Well, give it time—it will.”

“That's not the biggest problem,” Brad said, studying the documents.

“I thought you'd figure that out, Brad, since you have a law degree. Would you like to explain it to my shell-shocked husband?”

“It's the land deeds, John. There are copies of some of the originals here; apparently some of them survived, and they'll clearly prove that the ones your family holds are fraudulent. The original deeds are dated 1777—that's after Virginia broke away from the Crown and became an independent commonwealth.”

“Very good, Brad,” Victoria said. “You see, John, if the deeds were dated just a couple of years earlier, then the land would have been granted by King George—and then your family could have claimed that the grants were no longer valid. Unfortunately, the land was granted under American law—right, Brad?”

“I'm afraid so,” Brad said, “and that opens up the possibility of legal challenge by surviving members of the original family.”

“Translation: They can sue to get their land back, John—every last bit of it, including the very room where you're sitting. There goes Bradenton; there goes the Patriot Center; there goes every last penny you own.”

Braden was shaking visibly. “No one has to know this. We can find the originals—we can cover this up.”

“Spoken like a true Braden,” Victoria said. “You're right, John—it might still be possible to cover this up. It was my mother who put the scrapbook together, and she probably knows where the original documents are. But she killed an FBI agent tonight, and the FBI will want to know why. She might be tempted to tell them about
both
scrapbooks— unless I get to her first and tell her not to. She never has to mention the second scrapbook; only the first one needs to become public knowledge— the desire to protect that little secret would be enough to explain the murders she committed. I could go to her; I could tell her what to say; I could handle this—but I won't.”