Born to Run

Chapter 24

At 10:00 P.M. Paulette Sparks drove to Club SI. Paulette was not a clubber, but she hadn’t picked the meeting place. Her source had.

Paulette had stayed up all night Tuesday to decipher Chloe’s notes. As best she could tell, Chloe and her source had spoken about a half dozen times. Each time, Chloe had managed to extract a few more details, all on the promise to pay “big money,” though nothing ever changed hands-a good thing from Paulette’s standpoint. Paulette and her network wouldn’t touch a story built on checkbook journalism. By stringing her source along, Chloe had kept the story alive. Paulette could only speculate whether that same tactic had gotten her sister killed.

The story Chloe had cobbled together would have enticed any journalist. Potentially, it was bigger than anything Paulette had ever done. Chloe had collected most of the puzzle pieces, but in the end her story-the bombshell that would “bring down Keyes”-was based on a single source and built on inferences that bordered on conjecture. Paulette was confident that she could fill the holes. Step one was the corroboration of key facts. Paulette had spent the entire day following up leads and hunches, making phone calls, but all were dead ends. Except one.

Three little words-“Let’s meet tonight”-had been music to Paulette’s ears.

“Press,” she said, as she flashed her credentials to the three-hundred-pound goon at the velvet rope. Club SI catered to the upscale twentysomething crowd, the kind of place that turned away unaccompanied women who weren’t dressed like a cling-wrapped piece of sirloin. The promise of free publicity was Paulette’s best shot at getting inside.

“You’re good,” he said.

She pushed through the door and stepped into the world of flashing lights, mirrored ceilings, and pounding music. The dance floor was packed, and people were lined up four-and five-deep for drinks at the bar. It was a much bigger crowd than she’d expected on a Wednesday night. And a much different crowd. Unbeknownst to her, Wednesday night was Goth night, and everything was black, except for the occasional multicolored hairstyle, which incorporated reds, purples, and some faded blond. Women wore black hoodies, black chokers, black armbands, and gossamer black halters with black leather flames licking their breasts. Black corsets were hot, as were black bustiers. Men wore everything from leather to tuxedo jackets, always with heavy chains. Man or woman, it was often hard to tell where the clothing stopped and the tattoos began. On the lighter side, there were dragons, fairies, or fantasy figures, but equally popular were the symbols of white witchcraft-a five-pointed star called the pentacle, and the “athame,” a double-edged blade used in Wiccan rituals. Paulette remembered all that from Chloe’s Goth days. “We’re not the occult,” Chloe would tell her, “we’re highly intelligent creative types.” Then she would lock herself in her bedroom and listen to her music-“Horror Show,” by the Birthday Massacre, “Transylvanian Concubine” by Rasputina, or Zombie Girl’s “We Are the Ones (Rotting Corpse).”

“Buy me a drink, Mama?”

Paulette turned. The guy standing next to her had jet-black hair, pasty white skin, and a silver ring in his pierced eyebrow. Paulette guessed he was about twenty-two, but she was hardly his “Mama.”

“Kool-Aid stand is that way,” she said.

He laughed and moved on, though the music was so loud that Paulette wondered if he’d even heard her. She tried to move forward, but the crowd was impenetrable. Paulette was losing patience. Her plan was starting to feel like an ill-conceived long shot, the product of too much enthusiasm and too little sleep. She knew her source wasn’t in this crowd and wasn’t coming any time soon. The joke was on Paulette. Send the ambitious bitch from CNN into Goth Night at Club SI. Ha, ha, ha, what a belly buster.

It was time to bail.

She zigged and zagged through the crowd and ducked out the exit. The transition from the stuffy, hot nightclub to the cold night air felt good on her face. Her ears continued to buzz as she started down the sidewalk, and her thoughts churned. She knew she was on to something, but she was being jerked around. She needed another angle to reach her target. Paulette wasn’t too proud to ask for help. She pulled her cell from her purse and dialed Jack Swyteck.

Jack was in bed when his cell phone vibrated on the dresser. Quietly, so as not to wake Andie-she had given him a second “opportunity”-he slipped from beneath the covers, pulled on his boxer shorts, and grabbed the phone. The LCD read “Paulette Sparks.” He debated whether to answer, then ducked into the walk-in closet and closed the door so that he could take the call without waking Andie.

“Jack, hi, it’s Paulette. Got a question for you.”

“Paulette, I can’t-”

“Has anyone mentioned anything to you about another e-mail like the one you and my sister got?”

The question left Jack silent. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry, I can’t talk to you about that.”

“You’re breaking our deal. Remember: I agreed to tell you what I found out, but you had to tell me what you found out. We shook on it.”

“That was then. I’m out of the loop now and back in Miami.”

“I know, you got fired.”

“Well, I wasn’t really fired, but-”

“Jack, news travels fast in Washington. But it doesn’t matter. This is a simple question: Have you heard anything about a third e-mail?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“After Chloe’s funeral, I found some of her notes. She mentions that someone got an e-mail just like hers about a month before she did.”

“Who?”

“She doesn’t say. It’s almost as if she was afraid to mention a certain person by name. But I have a strong hunch.”

Jack took a seat atop the wicker clothes hamper. “I’d be curious to hear it.”

“Does that mean our deal is back on?”

“I’m going to say yes. But you’re on a roll here. Keep going.”

“All right. Let me see if you think the way I do. You got your e-mail after Chloe got hers.”

“Right.”

“Somebody else got the same e-mail before Chloe got hers.”

Jack hesitated. He knew that was true from information he’d gotten from the FBI, but he was reluctant to be as forthcoming with Paulette as he once had been. “Let’s assume that’s true for argument’s sake.”

“Fine. I’m thinking that Chloe was sandwiched between two bookends. And we all know what bookends do, right?”

“Hold up books?”

“They match, genius.”

The closet was dark, but the figurative light suddenly went on. “So if the son of the future vice president got the e-mail after Chloe-”

“Then the daughter of the sitting vice president got it before Chloe did.”

“And they both get the same offer,” said Jack.

“‘I can make your father president.’”

The line was silent. It was as if, for each of them, hearing it aloud made it sound so logical.

Jack said, “What do we do about this?”

“I called Elizabeth Grayson today and asked her to meet me. I didn’t tell her what it was about, but I don’t think it would have mattered. The bitch sent me to a Goth bar and didn’t show up. Obviously she has no intention of talking to me about anything. Probably still holds a grudge over my sister sleeping with her father. But didn’t you mention that you had a lunch date with her?”

“Yeah. She offered to give me a few pointers about having a father who’s vice president, but-”

“That’s the perfect pretense.”

“I don’t know. The last time we talked, it was pretty awkward.” He was thinking about her late-night visit to the hotel.

“Jack, you are our only shot. If you don’t do this, all we can do is wait for the FBI to sort this out on their own terms and on their own schedule. By that time, your father could be part of an administration that is neck-deep in a congressional investigation. And time will only tell who is left holding the bag. Is that what you want?”

Jack considered it. She’d punched exactly the right button. He couldn’t help but fear that his father was descending into the land of no return-especially after his conversation with Andie.

“Jack, is that what you want?”

“No,” he said, gripping the phone tighter.

“So, you’ll meet with Elizabeth?”

Suddenly, Jack was all too aware that the FBI was asleep in his bed. But it didn’t change his mind.

“Yeah. I’ll do it.”