No Safe Place (66 page)

“Dammit,” Kerry rasped. “You know what I mean.”

Clayton’s tone grew firm. “You were a prosecutor, pal—not an adoption agency. You’d just been shot, and your wife didn’t even want her
own
kids. And John had a great-aunt in Boston. Who seems to have died, unfortunately, a couple of years after he moved.”

Kerry turned his head on the pillow. With renewed quiet, he murmured, “But he came after
me
, didn’t he. Because I was what he’d needed, and I’d turned him away.”

Clayton looked at him steadily. With veiled irony, he answered, “He believed in the sanctity of life.”

For Kerry, the words had a resonance beyond John Musso. Once more, they opened up the pain he had lived with for the last two years, the complex world he had occupied the last five days.

Clayton seemed to track his thoughts. “Do you remember what Liam told you after Jamie died? That politics, like rust, never sleeps?”

Jamie,
Kerry thought, and then realized that there was now another difference between them: Kerry had survived.

“It still doesn’t.” Clayton’s pause signaled his reluctance to go on. “There are hundreds of people standing beneath that window over there, and millions more who are praying for you—that you’ll still run, or simply that you’ll live.

“You’re a hero again, and a near martyr to anti-abortion fanaticism. All you need to win this primary is to show that you’re all right, and say that you still want it.” Pausing, Clayton
let the
implicit question linger, and then he finished quietly: “But you’re also a free man.”

“How do you mean?”

“You nearly died, Kerry. Recuperation will take some time. No one blames you if you withdraw.

“If you do that,
Newsworld
probably goes away—once you’re not a candidate, they don’t have much of a story, and the distaste for it goes sky-high. And in four years, or eight years …” Clayton shrugged. “Maybe it’s a different world.

“Right now,
you’re
the only story. But if you decide to run, you and Lara are the story again.” His voice lowered. “When you were shot, she tried to get to you. She was with you in the ambulance, the emergency room—”

“How?”

“Because I told them to take her.” Clayton’s smile flickered. “If I’d known you were going to live …”

He let the sentence die there. Once more, Kerry felt the depth of his friend’s kindness, his capacity for love.

“Anyhow, Kerry, we’re stuck with it. We’ve concocted some eyewash about a reporter and a campaign answering history’s tragic call. Lara phoned in to NBC, so maybe we can gull the others. Maybe I can even back off the Republicans: they might not want to be caught out doing this, not with you so sympathetic, and their probable nominee is a very decent man. But
Cutler
?”

Kerry gazed into Clayton’s face. Softly, he asked, “What does
she
say?”

Clayton looked down. “She’ll stick to the story, if that’s what you want. But to have a prayer of making it work, you can never see her again.”

Kerry lay back, his eyes shut.

“I don’t expect you to decide now,” Clayton said at last. “That wouldn’t be human. But you needed to know, before you saw her.”

Kerry felt exhaustion overtake him. “I have to rest,” he said at last. “Then I want her here.”

He heard his friend rise to leave. Kerry opened his eyes. “Find out where Kate Feeney’s parents are. When I’m better …”

Nodding slowly, Clayton left.

Lara stopped a few feet from the bed.

There was a nakedness to her expression such as Kerry had never seen before. Though she was still, he could sense that every fiber of her being wanted to touch him.

He held out his hand.

So quickly that it startled and overwhelmed him, she came to the bed and kissed him, gently and for a long time. He closed his eyes, feeling the warmth of her breathe new life into him.

When their mouths parted, he opened his eyes.

Fingers curled, she laid her hand on his cheek, looking into his face. Her own eyes were ravaged with sleeplessness.

“Clayton says you came here with me.”

In silent acknowledgment, her eyes shut. Kerry could feel his own pulse.

He swallowed, trying to speak again. “Well,” he murmured, “I guess we’re out of the closet.”

She took his hand in hers and, with the smallest shake of her head, pressed it against the side of her face.

“Lara …”

She seemed to shiver. A moist film appeared on her eyelashes; Kerry saw her jaw tense, as if she was determined, despite everything, to say what she had come to say. “If I just go away,” she began in a near whisper, “Clayton and I think what’s happened may help you out of this …” She paused, then finished in a low voice. “Without me, you might still be President.”

Despite himself, Kerry felt a desperate impatience, as though there were very few moments left to them. “For once, Lara, tell me how you feel.”

She looked past him, seeming to slip far away. Then he saw her shoulders square, and she looked at him with new directness.

“I’m in love with you,” she said. “So much that it hurts. No matter what, I’ll love you for the rest of my life.”

He felt his throat constrict. Gently, she brushed the hair back from his forehead.

“You need to know this,” she said at last. “From the beginning, I was drawn to you—more, I realize, than to anyone in my life. And I came to trust you, to feel you were the person I could say anything to, and still be understood. So I started making excuses to see you.” She closed her eyes. “That was so frightening for me, Kerry. Not just as a reporter, but because of who I am. I wanted to lie to myself. But I couldn’t.

“I felt that before I ever made love with you. After that, the feeling was like a hunger, so deep that it scared me even more. I knew we had to end,
should
end. But I kept making deals with myself, stealing hours, days, weeks.” She inhaled, voice becoming thin. “And when it was over, I felt completely hollowed out. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Until now …”

He touched her face. “And now?” he asked.

She seemed to gather herself. “Before I answer,
I
need to know something. After all of this, do you still want to be President?”

He hesitated, but only for a moment. “Not if it means never seeing you again. Nothing’s worth that.”

“But suppose you could have us both.” Her voice was firm now, insistent. “No scandal, no abortion—the presidency and me, free and clear. Isn’t
that
what you really want?”

He gazed at the white nullity of the ceiling. For a time, the tragedy of John Musso mingled with the trauma of his own near death, making all ambition seem pointless. But then Kerry found a hard kernel of truth, which Lara must already know: that whatever else these things might change, the man within had come to believe that he should be President, and no longer could—for better or worse—believe any less. And, realizing this, he owed Lara nothing less than honesty.

He turned back to her, saying quietly, “I’d have you both.”

Once more, she looked away. “Then giving you up is the next hard thing I have to do. Again.”

He did not ask why, nor could he quarrel with the justice, or the dignity, of her belief. Instead, he said simply, “That’s not a choice you have.”

She became quite still, lips parted.

“If it takes giving up the race to be with you, Lara, then I’ll give it up.” He paused, feeling the rawness in his throat. “Or I’ll run, and we can take our chances. I think we’re strong enough, but that involves some other things I haven’t the right to choose for you. So you decide.”

Her eyes misted again. “For both of us?”

“As long as, this time, we’re together.”

She took both his hands in hers, looking intently into his face. At last, she said with quiet certainty, “Then I guess we’re running.”

Kerry felt his flesh tingle. “You’re sure …”

“Yes.” Her voice was clear now. “The last time, I decided alone, for both of us. I did what I thought was best. So if we’re caught out, I can hold my head up, as long as you can.

“But you did with your life what I thought you should. And now I’m choosing to be part of it.” For the first time, Lara smiled. “The worst that can happen to me is that you’ll be elected and reelected. At the end, I’ll only be thirty-nine. There must be something that used-up First Ladies can do.”

Kerry felt a flood of emotions: wonder; belief in her strength of character; a deeper love than he could now express. Then Lara’s smile vanished and she shook her head, as though astounded at her own unsteadiness. “I nearly lost you, Kerry. I can’t lie to myself anymore.”

Watching her, tears came to Kerry’s eyes. Then, as he knew he would for as long as he lived, he thought of John Musso, of the incalculable fate that had ended the boy’s life, yet now had brought Kerry to this. “How alone he must have felt,” Kerry murmured.

From her expression, he knew that Lara understood the complexity of his emotions, how one thought flowed from another. “Tell me,” she asked after a time. “If John Musso had lived, would you have wanted
his
life taken?”

“No,” he answered. “God, no. Not for me.” Touching her cheek, he finished quietly, “But Kate Feeney’s parents might feel otherwise.”

She looked into his face again, and then kissed his forehead. “I’ll go find Clayton,” she said.

In a few terse sentences, Clayton explained to Kit Pace and Frank Wells what Kerry had decided.

The sequence of their expressions mirrored the emotional cross-currents in which Clayton himself had swirled—sheer relief that Kerry had lived; delight at having a campaign to run again; an almost superstitious fear for the candidate’s future safety; and then, hearing about Lara, intense distress. “That last one,” Frank said in somber tones, “is going to take some work.”

“Not all gift horses are free,” Clayton answered crisply. “At least Kerry isn’t gay anymore.”

Frank’s contemplative silence made him appear almost professorial. “
If
you set aside the obvious problem,” he said at last, “she’s smart, she’s beautiful, she’s caring—”

“And she’s Hispanic,” Kit interpolated dryly. “On her mother’s side.”

Despite the difficulties, Clayton found himself watching the others rediscover their pleasure in the compulsive exercise of a gift for politics, so fundamental to their natures that they could not hold back. As if reading Clayton’s thoughts, Frank gave him a fleeting smile, then sat back with his hands behind his head, speaking in a ruminative tone. “How old is she, Kit—thirty-one? We haven’t had anyone that young since Jackie
Kennedy …”

“Oh,” Kit retorted, “I think Lara Costello’s a little more substantive.”

“Not
too
substantive, I hope.”

Kit smiled. “Times change, Frank.”

Listening, Clayton had a sense of irony. Perhaps the others hoped that Lara could be managed, but Clayton was already adjusting—with some wariness despite his best wishes for Kerry—to the dawning realization that the Kilcannon campaign, and his relationship to Kerry, now included someone else he must take into account. Lara Costello would have opinions of her own.

“I want you two to draft a press release,” Clayton ordered, “saying that Kerry’s in the race to stay. Then two more, covering their relationship—a ‘his’ and a ‘hers,’ for their approval. Feel free to be creative.”

The gravity of the risk showed in Frank’s gray eyes again. “I guess you—and he—know we’re inviting
Newsworld
in again. Just when we’ve gotten a breather.”

“
They
know,” Clayton answered. “Very well.”

Frank gave an elaborate shrug of fatalism. “Then we work with what we have.”

“And lucky to have him. On any terms.”

Clayton’s deeper meaning seemed almost to shame him. “Oh, I know,” Frank said softly. “I know.”

There was silence. Pensive, Frank propped his chin on folded hands, and then looked up at Clayton. “There’s still an election tomorrow,” he said. “Think you can get Kerry on his feet?”

At two-thirty, ample time to make the evening news, Kit Pace appeared in the makeshift pressroom.

It was even hotter and more crowded than before. But this time Nate was in the front row, next to Lee McAlpine and Sara Sax.

“He’s still in,” Lee predicted. “That’s what it’s about.”

No,
Nate thought,
he’s not. But only I know why.

Looking out over the room, Kit Pace seemed to ignore him.

“I have a statement to read,” she began, “from Senator Kilcannon.

“‘Before I discuss my plans, I’d like to give my heartfelt thanks for all the prayers and good wishes that have come to me this past day. I can never express how grateful I am to receive them, and to be
able
to receive them …’”

“He’s bowing out,” Sara murmured.

“‘I also want you to know,’” Kit read calmly on, “‘that I’m in this race to the end. My intention, as it always was, is to win the Democratic nomination for President of the United States …’”

“Jesus,”
Nate murmured.

It was hard, Clayton thought, to see Kerry so deeply weary, to see the tube still running from his chest.

“The reception desk is like a mortuary,” Clayton told him. “There’re enough floral arrangements to bury all of Vailsburg.”

Kerry did not smile. “Oh, I remember,” he answered softly. “From when Jamie died.”

Clayton watched his face. With equal quiet, he said, “You weren’t meant to die, Kerry. You were meant for other things.” His voice turned businesslike. “There are hundreds of phone calls from people who are thrilled you’re staying in. Including several from the chairman of the DNC—”

Kerry gave a harsh laugh, wincing at the pain of it. “
Dick
’s toady. How many times has he tried to cut my throat?”

“Well, he loves you
now
,” Clayton said sardonically. “‘Kerry, we hardly knew ye …’ And, of course, there was a call from Dick himself.”

Kerry nodded. “I’ve been expecting that.”

“He wants to talk with you. Whenever you’re up to it.”

Kerry turned and, for a long time, gazed out the window at a blue patch of sky. “Can you dial it for me?” he asked.