The Fifth Assassin

10

President Garfield was scheduled to be on the 9:30 a.m. train. Like most Presidents, he was running behind schedule. It was hot in Washington — every summer was always brutal in its own way — and on top of that, Garfield was exhausted. Though he’d spent barely four months in office, he already knew it was hard being President.

And so he was making this train trip. His first stop would be at his alma mater, Williams College, to attend commencement. And then he was heading to northern New England for a well-earned vacation.

He never made it out of the station.

At 9:20, his carriage pulled up to the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Depot at what is currently Constitution and 6th Street in downtown D.C. Behind him, in a second carriage, were his two sons, Harry and Jim.

Realizing he had a few minutes, Garfield decided to stay in the carriage, catching up with his friend and secretary of state, James Blaine. During the election of 1880, both Blaine and Garfield were among the Republican nominees, but it was Garfield who was picked as the true compromise candidate — the man who would unite the various party factions.

As they sat there in the carriage, Blaine was calm, playing with his cane and tossing it over and over in the air. At the time, the Secret Service wasn’t in charge of presidential protection yet. With his top hat and gray traveling suit, the President eventually stepped down from the carriage, leading his friend and family into the station.

Inside, among the Cabinet members who were waiting to see him off was Robert Todd Lincoln, the eldest son of the first slain President.

Entering the nearly empty station with a few minutes to spare, President James Garfield was calm. He was relaxed. And he had no idea that a slight five-foot-five-inch man named Charles Guiteau had arrived an hour earlier and was hiding in the washroom.

Unlike John Wilkes Booth, Guiteau wasn’t an actor. He hadn’t prepared any final, memorable lines.

Waiting for the President to pass, Guiteau was silent as the two-hundred-pound commander in chief marched through the station. Without a word, Guiteau rushed the President from behind, pulled out the small, snub-nosed British Bulldog pistol that he’d bought a month earlier, and fired at the President’s back.

The first shot seemed to graze Garfield’s arm, so Guiteau stepped closer and fired again.

That shot hit President Garfield in the back, above the waist. The President sank to the floor. His top hat was crushed, his gray traveling suit covered in blood.

Still silent, the assassin Guiteau tucked his gun into his pocket and walked quickly to the exit. Outside, a D.C. cop heard the two shots. Racing to investigate, the officer yanked open the door just as Guiteau slammed into him. The officer didn’t let the flustered man pass.

“I have a letter to send to General Sherman!” Guiteau blurted, speaking his first words. Within seconds, a ticket taker and depot watchman grabbed Guiteau from behind, tackling the man who had just shot the President.

Inside, Garfield’s younger son, Jim, was bawling, the older son trying to comfort him. People were screaming, begging for a doctor as blood spread across the station floor.

By noon that day, as the news of the shooting traveled, President Garfield, who just months earlier had been put in office as a result of political compromise, was suddenly a leader of enormous stature.

The nation prayed that Garfield might live — and he did, though he never recovered. Dwindling from two hundred pounds down to a hundred and twenty, President Garfield died in bed two months later.

At the time, some said God was judging the nation. Others said Guiteau was part of a grand, power-grabbing plot.

The assassin Guiteau never hid the truth: He told them he was trying to prevent another civil war. No one believed him.

But he was right — and he said it best: “God makes no blunders… He selects the right man every time for the right place; and in this He always successfully checkmates the Devil’s moves.”

John Wilkes Booth had done his job as the Knight of Spades. And now the Knight of Diamonds had completed his task.

11

Today was a perfect day to kill a President.

The Knight knew it as he stood in the cold on the corner of 16th and P Streets, ignoring the passing cars of early commuters and staring at the wooden double doors of his newest destination, the massive Neo-Gothic castle known as Foundry United Methodist Church. This would go better than the mess last night at St. John’s.

Without a doubt, he could’ve waited — could’ve pushed it back a day… but now… with Beecher already involved… No. History had already been written. It couldn’t be changed.

President Garfield was shot at exactly 9:25 a.m.

The Knight glanced down at his watch. Less than an hour to go.

That’s how it was written.

That’s how it had to end.

Diagonally across the street, a lanky black man in a puffy black-and-red winter coat approached the huge 1904 granite building with its limestone trim and wood-framed windows. At the front door, he pulled out a set of keys. Church custodian, right on time.

Twirling a sucking candy around his tongue, the Knight watched as the custodian disappeared through the right-hand door just like he did every morning. It’d take him at least ten minutes to enter the PIN code, shut off the alarm, and walk through the building, turning on the lights. Otherwise, Foundry Church was now open.

Walking calmly across the street, the Knight couldn’t help but appreciate his current location. By definition, a foundry is a factory for casting metal, which is exactly what Henry Foxall was doing when he built cannons and guns for the U.S. government in the early 1800s. But it wasn’t until the War of 1812 that Foxall had his moment with God. As the British were burning the White House, the rumor was that their next target was Foxall’s munitions factory. So Foxall made a vow that day: If God would spare his operations, Foxall would build something in God’s honor.

That night, a violent thunderstorm appeared from nowhere, stopping the British from advancing any farther. Two years later, Foundry Church was born.

Over the years, it became the place where FDR took Winston Churchill for Christmas services in 1941, and later it was the Methodist home for Bill Clinton when he was President. But to this day, its greatest role was as the true church of Abraham Lincoln.

Since St. John’s was right across the street from the White House, Lincoln used to duck into it for quick prayers. But it was the Foundry, straight up 16th Street, one mile from the White House, where Lincoln became an official church director.

The Knight liked that. God’s message couldn’t be clearer.

Climbing the concrete steps outside, the Knight reached for the front door, but as he gave it a tug, a burning bolt of pain seized his right shoulder. His newest tattoo was still sensitive, and unlike the small spade and the JWB initials, for John Wilkes Booth, that was on the web of his hand, the marking on his shoulder — the one worn by the second Knight, the assassin Charles Guiteau — was far more complex: the shield, plus the fabled bird… and of course the red diamond. It took hours, and over thirty needles, to reproduce the mark.

But again, that’s how it was written. That’s how it had to end.

Inside the church, he climbed another short set of steps and made a quick left, scanning the empty desks and cubicles in the narrow church office that sat behind a long wall of glass. The custodian was still on the far right side of the building, opening the chapel.

The Knight knew this place even better than St. John’s. And this time, he wouldn’t be limited to a one-shot revolver. In his right pocket, he felt the British Bulldog pistol. It had a white ivory inlaid grip and five bullets in its chamber.

Back in 1881, on the day Guiteau bought his gun, the owner of the shop told him that he could save money if he bought the same pistol without the white ivory handle. Guiteau wouldn’t hear of it. He knew that when the act was done, this was a gun that would be on display. The elegant inlaid grip was the only choice.

From there, Guiteau left nothing to chance, spending nearly a month trailing President Garfield and learning his schedule. He even followed Garfield to church, peering through the window to see if he could shoot him in his pew.

Today, the Knight was no different. In less than an hour, history would be made. He’d put in the time. And bought the antique gun. And paid for the specially made inlaid handle. Most important, he’d mastered every detail of Foundry Church, from the building’s layout to every employee in it.

On his left, as he reached the end of the hallway, the Knight peered into the office suite, eyeing his eventual destination — the private office of the new pastor, who everyone knew came in at exactly 9 a.m.

On his right, he shoved open the door to the men’s room and made his way to the back stall, which had a sign reading Out of Order on it. He had put the sign there two days ago. Lifting the tank cover off the toilet, he pulled out the plastic bag that held a white plaster mask — a duplicate of the death mask made from Abraham Lincoln’s face, but with eyeholes cut into it — that he’d hidden during the dry run.

A glance at his watch told him he was right on time. In sync with his predecessor. In sync with God’s plans.

At 9:25, the next lamb — perhaps the most vital lamb — would take his fall.

Until then, the Knight would do exactly what the assassin Guiteau did when he was in the train station waiting to put a bullet in President Garfield.

Kneeling down on one knee, the Knight reached into his pocket and pulled out a small round tin and a horsehair brush that was about the size of a chalkboard eraser. With a twist of the metal tin, the bitter chemical smell of shoe polish filled the air. Dipping the brush into the tin, he dabbed a swirl of black shoe polish onto his loafers. Small circles… then brush, he reminded himself. Small circles… then brush.

It was no different with the Knights.

Small circles were the strongest circles.

12

Nico didn’t like the new building.

“Nico, you’re gonna love the new building,” the heavy male nurse named Rupert Baird called out. “It’s beautiful, right?”

Walking through the gravel parking lot, Nico didn’t answer. He preferred the old building — the redbrick John Howard Pavilion — which for decades had housed the most dangerous of the NGIs. Not Guilty by reason of Insanity.

Today, the John Howard Pavilion was being closed, and all of its patients were being moved to the brand-new facility that had been built directly next door.

“Wait till you see inside,” Rupert said. “New rooms… new TVs… a relaxation garden… You’re gonna think you’re at a damn hotel.”

Nico glanced up at the modern building. It was squat in shape and had only three floors, and from the flat shine on the windows, Nico could tell they were high-impact glass, maybe even bulletproof.

“I don’t like it either,” added the dead First Lady, whom he killed a decade ago.

Nico nodded at her, but didn’t reply. He knew what the nurses thought about him talking to his old victims.

“All your stuff, it’s being transferred as we speak,” Rupert added, leading him around the side of the building, near the loading dock that said, New Patient Intake — Ambulance Parking Only.

Nico knew why Rupert was being so nice. Just like he knew why they were entering through the loading dock instead of the main lobby. With all the VIPs and reporters who were watching during the grand opening, the last thing the hospital needed was to have their most famous patient — the man who, a decade ago, tried to kill the President — making a scene during his transfer.

“It smells different than the old building,” Nico said as they climbed the concrete steps that ran up to the loading dock.

“That’s kinda the point,” Rupert said, approaching a high-tech keypad and swiping his ID. There was a loud ca-chunk as the double doors popped open, swinging toward them and revealing a brand-new U-shaped desk at the front of the still-empty Intake Office. The desk and the surrounding chairs were still covered in plastic. As they reached the hospital’s main hallway, there wasn’t a staffer in sight.

“You should ask to see your room,” the dead First Lady said.

“I’d like to see my room now.”

“You will, Nico. But first they want you in—”

“You’re not listening. I want to see my room,” he growled. To make the point, Nico stopped in the hallway, refusing to move.

“Nico, I am so not in the mood for your nuttiness today. They’re waiting for us in TLC,” Rupert said, raising his voice as he referred to the Therapeutic Learning Center.

Nico still wouldn’t budge.

Rupert grabbed him by the biceps. “Can you for once not be a pain in my rear?” Tightening his grip, he added, “Y’know how many of us got fired to pay for this building? We used to have orderlies running the juice cart. Now I gotta do all that, plus haul you to TLC, plus—!”

“You need to let go of me,” Nico warned in a calm voice.

“Or what?” Rupert challenged, making sure Nico got a good look at the small electronic device — like a miniature walkie-talkie — that Rupert held in his left hand.

Nico had heard rumors that the new building would have those. To be used during patient transfers. It was called a “man-down system.” If a staffer dropped it, or their body went horizontal, an alarm would ring through the building, while the hallway’s cameras would immediately zoom in within twenty feet of the device.

Nico checked both ends of the hallway. Brand-new cameras — encased in unbreakable glass cubes — on each side.

Nico stayed silent. Two years ago, he would’ve jammed his thumbs in Rupert’s eye sockets and pressed hard enough to hear the pop in his brain. But Nico’s therapies… all the drugs… He was a new man now. A cured man, is what the doctors called him. Cured. With a soft exhale, Nico unclenched his shoulders. Even the dead First Lady didn’t argue.

Smiling and still holding Nico’s biceps, Rupert steered him up the—

“What do you think you’re doing!?” a southern voice shouted behind them.

Following the sound, Rupert and Nico spun to find a tall man with tight curly black hair and a fine gray wool suit. Around here, only doctors wore suits. And among those doctors, only this one wore a vintage 1950s King Kong tie.

“Rupert, you have half a second to get your hands off him!” Dr. Michael Gosling barked.

“Sir, you don’t understand,” Rupert pleaded, letting go of Nico’s bicep. “I was just taking him to TLC—”

Gosling’s hand shot out, gripping Rupert by his own bicep and tugging him aside, just out of Nico’s earshot. “Was he putting himself or anyone else in danger?” Gosling challenged in a tense, low voice.

“That’s not the point.”

“It’s always the point. We have rules here, Rupert — and first among them is, don’t put your hands on the patients… especially the ones who’re making actual progress.” Turning to Nico, Gosling forced a smile and added, “You okay, Nico?”

“I want to go to my room.”

Rupert could barely keep from rolling his eyes. Every doctor was careful with Nico, but Gosling was one of the few who built a career on it. A decade ago, Gosling had been the junior member on Nico’s team — and the doctor credited with persuading Nico to stop plucking his eyelashes and using them to form tiny crosses that only he could see.

These days, Gosling was one of the hospital’s top administrators, in charge of not just the new facility’s operations but also making sure it opened without incident. And though Gosling insisted that his vintage movie ties were a way to seem accessible to the patients, everyone knew that he preferred the King Kong tie over the others. That’s how he saw himself: King Kong. The biggest of them all.

“Take him to his room, then you can go to TLC,” Gosling told Rupert.

“I want my calendar, and my book too,” Nico said, his voice back to its usual steady monotone.

“We’ll get those both to you,” Gosling promised.

“He will,” the dead First Lady said. “He means it.”

Nico’s chocolate brown eyes, set so close together, stayed locked on Dr. Gosling.

“Keep up the beautiful progress,” Gosling added, patting Nico on the back and heading up the hallway.

“You’re supposed to take me to my room now,” Nico told Rupert.

“I heard him,” Rupert said as he led Nico toward the elevators.

“Let me know if there’s anything else you need!” Dr. Gosling called out.

Nico looked down at his watch. 9:25 a.m. The exact time Charles Guiteau shot President Garfield.

Nico’s lips curved into a thin smile. After all these years, he would finally have everything he needed.

13

Pastor Kenneth Frick wore a little digital monitor on his left shoe that counted his steps. Two hundred and twelve steps for him to get dressed, comb his sandy blond hair, and mix his Cheerios with blueberry yogurt in the morning. Twenty-three steps to get from his kitchen to the front door of his small Capitol Hill townhouse. Then the full 1,958 steps that it took him to walk the three miles from Capitol Hill to the front door of Foundry Church every morning. Unlike St. John’s, the site of last night’s attack, across the street from the White House, Foundry Church was in a struggling neighborhood, not one most people walk to.

The monitor wasn’t Pastor Frick’s idea. It came from the church’s insurance company, which for every step he (or any of his employees) took gave a wellness discount (up to a total of twenty thousand steps per month). If he expected his staff to do it, the pastor had to lead the way.

It was the same when he was a boy. He wasn’t from an overly religious family, yet Frick was the one who used to drag his mother to Sunday sermons, making him the only five-year-old in their poor Indiana town who could tie his own tie. Back then, Kenneth was drawn to the church because it was the only place his father wouldn’t lay hands on them. But as he got older, Frick was captivated by the mystery of the church — the way it could broaden life beyond what you can touch, feel, and grasp.

“Anybody here besides God?” Frick called out with the same old joke he used every morning. He knew the answer. Except for the custodian, he was always the first one in. Right at nine, which was now his custom.

It’d been barely four months since Frick — only an associate pastor in title — had been assigned to the church, taking over while the head pastor was traveling in New Zealand. Frick felt blessed to be selected, but it took him over a month to work up the courage to cancel the free fruit smoothies that brought in parishioners to the late Sunday service. This was still Lincoln’s Church. Wearing a digital monitor on your shoe for an insurance discount was one thing. Bribing people with fruit smoothies was another.

Down the main hallway, with the bathroom behind him, Pastor Frick entered the main office suite, made his way through the maze of desks, and headed for his office in back. Through the frosted glass doors, he could tell the lights were off inside. The glass was too old and thick to see anything else.

Every pastor has rituals. At 9:05, as he stepped into his office and the door closed behind him, Frick did what he did every morning: He hung his coat — always on the middle hook — grabbed his Bible off the bookshelf, and began his morning prayers. For nearly twenty minutes, he stood praying and looking out the wide glass window that was directly behind his antique maple desk. He could see the reflection of his round face and dimpled chin in the window.

On his left was a door that led to his private bathroom. It was usually open. This morning, for some reason, it was shut.

Frick didn’t give it a thought. In the midst of his prayers, he looked down at the digital counter on his shoe — not to count his steps, but to see what time it was.

Onscreen, it clicked from 9:24…

… to 9:25.

On the floor, a needlepoint carpet covered with green and yellow leaves kept the office warm and mostly silent. The oak floor creaked from a nearly imperceptible shift in weight.

Then the Knight pulled the trigger. Twice.

The pastor’s body convulsed as one of the bullets entered his back.

Another mission complete. For the second time, history had repeated itself.

14

Sir, you ready to order?” the thin black woman with splotchy skin asked from behind the counter.

“Not yet. I’m waiting for someone,” Dr. Stewart Palmiotti replied from the bright red booth as he again scanned the small fast-food restaurant located just inside the entrance of Target.

He knew why she had picked it: It was well lit and safe, with plenty of people watching them. Plus, by doing it in Ann Arbor — Wallace’s alma mater — the message was clear. If the President didn’t deliver, she’d take apart every piece of his life.

“You need to try the hot dogs,” a female voice eventually announced behind him. “They’re better than you think.”

Before Palmiotti could turn, a woman in a stylish brown overcoat was standing over him, looking down. Her hair was short and dyed blonde. But he knew that grin: same as her father, the presidential assassin known as Nico.

“Y’know, after your funeral, I read your obituary. They made you sound nicer than you really are,” Clementine said, sliding into the empty seat across from the President’s oldest friend and most trusted doctor. “By the way, I mean it about the hot dogs,” she added, pointing to the counter, where a dozen thick hot dogs twirled on the grill’s treadmill. She was enjoying herself now, which annoyed Palmiotti even more.

Both A.J. and the President had warned him about this. Everyone thought that Nico was the monster, but it was his daughter who had tried to blackmail them, threatening to expose their secret unless she got the information about her father. And in the end, during her escape, it was Clementine who fired the shot that nearly killed Palmiotti.

But Clementine was different from Beecher, and far more dangerous. If they had any hope of containing this, they needed to make peace, not war.

“The blonde hair looks good,” Palmiotti offered. “Quite a change from the black.”

“Same with yours,” Clementine said, pointing at his own dye job. “Though I also like the scar on your neck. Isn’t that where I shot you?”

Palmiotti cupped his hands, intertwining his fingers, refusing to take the bait. “Y’know, I remember the last thing you said to us: about the cancer that was eating at your body. I lost a niece to brain cancer. She was four years old. When her hair fell out, she used to cry, ‘Why can’t I have pigtails?’ So you can talk as tough as you want, but I’m a doctor. From your skin alone… I’m guessing oral chemo, yes? I know what it does to you. I’m sorry for that.”

Across the booth, Clementine studied him, her eyes narrowing. “Did you bring what I asked for or not?”

“Of course I did.” From underneath his coat on the bench, Palmiotti pulled out a thick manila envelope.

From the back of her pants, Clementine took out a similar envelope that looked slightly thinner, with a water stain on it.

“And this is everything you found?” Palmiotti asked, lifting the flap, where he saw a familiar name typed on the file folder that was tucked inside. Wallace, Orson.

True to her word, this was everything: the complete file that, two months ago, Beecher had tracked down in the Archives. As far as they knew, this was the only proof of what he and the future President did all those years ago, when they attacked and eventually took the life of that man with the eight-ball tattoo.

“How do we know you won’t say anything, or that you didn’t make copies for yourself?” Palmiotti asked.

“You don’t,” Clementine said as she reached for the envelope that Palmiotti had brought in return. Undoing the figure-eight loop, she added, “How do I know this is his real military file?”

She waited for an answer. Palmiotti didn’t give her one. But he didn’t deny it was.

Back by the counter, one of the hot dogs sizzled and popped, spitting a fleck of grease against the protective glass. Clementine smiled. With enough pressure, everything pops. Even a President.

Freeing the brown accordion file from its envelope, she read the name that was typed on the peeling blue-and-white sticker in the corner. Hadrian, Nicholas. Her father.

“You know Beecher’s been looking for you,” Palmiotti warned as she started flipping through the file.

Clementine nodded, licking her finger and flicking to a new page. She’d waited too long not to take a peek. But what caught her eye was the logo at the top of the page: an eagle gripping a metal anchor. The logo of the U.S. Navy. It made no sense. Nico wasn’t in the navy.

“Beecher’s not searching alone,” Palmiotti added. “He’s got help.”

“Who? Tot?”

“And some others,” Palmiotti said, resealing his envelope.

Across from him, Clementine was flipping faster than ever, skimming through the pages — letters of recommendation… physical profile… record of induction — glancing through details of her father’s lost life. But as she read the date of Nico’s induction into the military, three years before she was born, Palmiotti saw the way her hands started shaking.

For so long now, Clementine had waited for this moment: to have details… documentation… the proof of what they did to him, and by extension, to her. Whatever they put in Nico’s body, it was the only way to explain the unknown cancer that she had today. Her doctors said they’d never seen anything like it. That her type of cancer… that it didn’t exist… it was a new mutation. But as Clementine thumbed to the pages labeled Psychological & Medical Records, she felt a swell of tears that surprised even her.

“You okay?” Palmiotti asked.

Clementine looked up, caught off guard by the question. He already had what he wanted.

“What does he have on you?” she blurted.

“Excuse me?” Palmiotti asked.

“I meant it before. I read your obituary. To do what you did, to let the world think you’re dead… You had to leave your wife—”

“Ex-wife.”

“—and two kids—”

“My kids haven’t spoken to me in years.”

“But your life,” Clementine said, her eyes back down on the file. “You left your entire life behind, and for what? For a President? For one man? What the hell does Wallace have over you?”

“You’re questioning me? What about your own life? You’re hiding in Michigan. You have no home. And for what, Clementine? To get Nico’s files?”

“He’s my father.”

“Don’t play the wounded child. We all know that’s not why you did this,” Palmiotti challenged. “All the hurt you caused… that wasn’t for your father. That was for you, Clementine. You did all that for you. And now that you got the files and everything you wanted, you really think it matters how we got here? You wanted something so you did what you had to do to get it. The only thing you have to ask is, was it worth it?”

Clementine stared down at the file folder, rereading the peeling blue-and-white sticker with her father’s name. She thought about how she still had two more days in her chemo cycle, which meant the tingling in her toes, the hideous nausea, and the loose diarrhea would only be getting worse. So. Was it worth it?

“Depends what I find,” she shot back, slapping the file shut and sliding out of the booth. As she was about to leave, she turned back and added, “No matter how much of a piece of garbage your boss is, I’m sorry you lost your life over this.”

“Yeah…” he whispered as Clementine headed for the stable of red shopping carts and disappeared out the front door. “Me too.”

For a full two minutes, he sat there, alone in the bright red booth. And then, in that moment, Dr. Stewart Palmiotti had a brand-new idea.

From there, he made one call. Directly to A.J., who would take it directly to the President. “I know what to do about Beecher,” he said.

15

A little over an hour later, I’m outside Marshall’s apartment building out in Virginia. Standing halfway down the block, I stare down at my phone, pretending to text. It makes me disappear just enough so that passing drivers — including the pasty-faced lawyer in the black Acura — don’t bother to look my way. That’s the lawyer’s first mistake. Actually, I take that back. His first mistake is the personalized license plate that says L8 4 CRT. His second mistake comes as he turns into the driveway at the back of Marshall’s building.

Of course, I tried going in the front door first. But as I approached the double glass doors of the modern apartment building, I saw what was waiting inside: a miserable-looking doorman at the front desk, plus one of those high-tech intercom systems where a well-placed camera lets residents see who’s there before they buzz you in.

If I want Marshall’s real reaction, better that he doesn’t see me coming.

Which brings me to the Acura driver’s third mistake: thinking that just because his building has an underground garage with a code to keep strangers out, it’ll stop me from sneaking in.

Still fake-texting on my phone, I walk casually down the block, timing it so I’m crossing right behind the Acura as Pasty Lawyer leans out the window and enters his six-digit PIN code on the garage’s keypad.

151916.

I keep walking as the garage door rolls open, then closes. When he’s gone, I double back to the keypad, tapping in 151916.

There’s a loud metal rr-rr-rr as the garage door again rolls up, saluting me with a dark black entryway. Bits of dust, lit by the sun, hang in the air. But as I take my first step down the slight decline that leads inside, I notice two shiny black shoes and perfectly pressed slacks standing in my way. Even before the garage door fully opens, I know who it is.

“Do I look blind?” the guard from the front desk challenges. “I saw you checking out the front of the building!” His ID badge says Lance Peterzell. From his beefy build and his tight buzz cut, military for sure. “You really think we wouldn’t have cameras back here?”

In the corner of the garage, I spot the camera — miniature, like a voice recorder. I’ve seen cameras like those, when you check into the White House.

“What do you think you’re doing!?” he shouts.

I try to make an excuse, but he plows forward. I stumble backward up the driveway.

“I–I was just trying t—” I trip on my own feet, nearly falling backward.

“I can have you arrested for trespa—!”

Standing over me, he cuts himself off, suddenly silent. He’s not focused on me anymore. He sees something…

Behind me.

I turn just as a navy blue SUV pulls up, perpendicular to the driveway. As the passenger-side window rolls down, I spot the driver: a man with a strict part in his black hair, and a face that sags. His drooping eyes are the color of white wine. I recognize him from the mugshot. But I’ve known him for a long time.

Without a word, Marshall shoves open the passenger door, motioning for me to come inside.

I hesitate.

“Isn’t that why you came here, Beecher? To find me?” Marshall calls out in a raspy voice that sounds as burned as his face.

Tot would tell me to walk away. That nothing good can come from getting in Marshall’s car. But when it comes to Marshall, that’s the thing Tot will never understand. In life, there are many reasons why we become who we are. Marshall played a minor but memorable role in my childhood. But what I did to him… on that night in the basement… I altered Marshall forever.

“So you came all this way, and now you’re just going to stand there?” Marshall challenges. He takes a deep breath through his nose, like a bull. If I thought he had forgiven me after all these years, I was wrong.

From inside the SUV, his gold eyes lock on me with an odd calm that makes me feel like I’m the only person in the world. Even from here, I can see how meticulous he is — how he holds the steering wheel with just the tips of his fingers.

But as his stare drills down, I realize he’s not talking to me. He’s observing me. He’s not impatient, though. He’s waiting for me to make my decision.

Once again, I can hear Tot screaming for me to stay away. And I should.

In the road map of my life, Tot represents where I’m trying to go. Marshall represents where I used to be. But that’s the thing about the past: No matter how dangerous or disturbing or inconvenient it is, you don’t get to move forward until you deal with what’s behind you.

Plus, if I want answers, there’s only one way to get them.

I dart for the SUV, quickly climbing into the passenger seat.

Still holding the steering wheel with just his fingertips, Marshall backs us into a sharp three-point turn, then hits the gas as we dive down the ramp and disappear inside the underground garage.

I look behind us as the garage door lowers, locking me in the lion’s den. But as I spot that flat grin on Marshall’s face, I can’t help but think that whatever he’s really up to, he’s just getting started.

16

He’d read in some magazine that when you’re hit by a bullet — when it punctures and burns through your skin — you don’t feel it. That the shock overwhelms any pain.

Facedown on the needlepoint carpet, Pastor Kenneth Frick now knew that wasn’t true.

For a moment, he’d forgotten how he got here. He looked around, blinking hard. His heartbeat pumped all the way to his ears. He must’ve blacked out. In his mouth, his tongue—ptt, ptt—it was covered with lint from the carpet.

Turning on his side, he heard a squish. The carpet was soaked. He couldn’t see it yet… but down by his hips, a dark puddle was growing, blooming beneath him and slowly engulfing the carpet’s green and yellow leaves.

Feeling a sudden blast of cold air, the pastor looked up, spotting the wide-open window that led out toward the street. The room swirled. He couldn’t ignore the sharp burning pain in his stomach, like someone was using a hot poker to burrow out from inside him.

He clenched his jaw so hard, he thought his teeth would crack. He’d been through worse… in the army… plus with his mother… to watch what happened to her…

Through the frosted glass, a light went on outside, in the main part of the office. Mina Pfister. The youth director. Always right on time.

The pastor struggled to get up on his knees, determined to crawl to the door. The heartbeat in his ears kept getting louder.

He knew that smell… the smell of charred skin… it was coming from him.

He didn’t care. He focused on his mother… what he’d seen…

Closing his eyes, he whispered a prayer — the prayer he came back to more than any other. Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

“Mina…” he shouted, though he couldn’t tell if any words were coming out. “Please… somebody… someone help me…!”

17

Just a few more steps,” his mother said, giggling.

She was actually giggling as she cupped her hands over her young son’s eyes and walked him into the snow-covered backyard.

Of course, even at eleven years old, Marshall had known they were about to surprise him. He knew it earlier in the week when he caught his mom on the phone, whispering, “He’s here… gotta go…”

Kids aren’t stupid. Christmas was only a week away. And after eleven years of being the only kid in their small town with an unemployed father who also happened to be in a wheelchair, well… Marshall was accustomed to the extra thoughtfulness that came this time of year.

Five years ago, the town pitched in to redo the rotted wood wheelchair ramp that led up to their front door.

Three years ago, when his mom lost her job, they bought new clothes and a new backpack for Marshall to wear to school.

Two years ago, they bought Marshall a new bike to replace the one he’d outgrown.

This year? Had to be a dog, Marshall decided. He’d mentioned a dog a few weeks back. But the fact that they kept him at church… stalling him so long — and that he was now blindfolded and being led into the backyard—?

With each step, the icy snow snapped like fresh popcorn under his feet.

He could hear the buzz of dozens of imperceptible whispers. He could feel their… their energy?… their presence?… whatever it was, he could feel it against his chest. There was definitely a crowd here. But it was coming from…

Above.

“On C…” his father called out. “A… B…”

“SURPRISE!” the crowd yelled as his mom removed her hands.

Following the sound and readjusting his glasses, Marshall craned his neck up at the giant mulberry tree, where at least a dozen kids, plus a few parents, were out on the porch of the — In his head, he was about to use the word treehouse. But this — It looked like a real house, with a pitched roof and a porch. This wasn’t a treehouse. It was a—

“Welcome to the Watchtower!” Vincent Paglinni, a meaty eleven-year-old with furry eyebrows, shouted. “Get up here, Marshmallow! You gotta see this!”

“It was the pastor’s idea,” Marshall’s mom said, pointing to Pastor Riis, who was pushing Marshall’s dad in his wheelchair.

“Give it a whirl,” his dad added, looking prouder than ever.

Marshall darted for the ladder rungs that were nailed to the tree.

“No! Grab the rope! Take the elevator!” Vincent Paglinni yelled from above.

Following where everyone was pointing, Marshall headed for the thick rope that dangled down, a baseball-sized knot at its end. As Marshall grabbed the rope, he looked up and saw the pulley that was attached even higher than the roof of the treehouse.

“Ready for liftoff…!” James Wert, a heavy kid from his class, called out. Without warning, Wert leaped off the side of the treehouse and gripped the rope, wrapping his legs around it like he was sliding down a firepole.

The pulley began to spin; the rope pulled taut.

Like a bottle rocket, Marshall shot into the air, where a crush of hands grabbed him, tugging him onto the porch of…

“It’s the greatest damn treehouse of all time!” Vincent Paglinni shouted as the crowd of kids cheered.

Marshall knew he was right. This wasn’t something built by a dad. This was built by a town. Ushered inside, Marshall saw that the doorway had a real frame — and the way the roof was sealed so perfectly on all sides… No doubt, it was watertight.

“Lookit this!” Lee Rosenberg, who always wore Lee jeans, called out. “Beanbag chairs! Comic books! Foldout beds!” he said, pointing to two cots, which folded down from the wall. “There’s even working windows!” Lee added as someone pushed the large Plexiglas window that had a hinge on top and swung out like a huge doggie door.

“If it’s raining, you prop it open and still get fresh air,” Eddie Williams’s dad, who sold wholesale Plexiglas, pointed out.

“Plus… look! A carpeted floor!” Lee shouted, motioning at the pale blue carpet. “Carpets are the Cadillac of treehouse options!”

“No, here’s the Cadillac!” Vincent Paglinni interrupted, pointing to a bottle opener that was built into the wall. “For beer!”

“For orange soda and root beer only!” one of the brave mothers up there insisted as the whole group laughed.

For Marshall, that was the best part. Not the beanbag chairs, or the working window, or even the bottle opener. It was the laughter. And not at him, for once. With him.

Sure, he spotted friends like Beecher in the corner. And Jeff Camiener, who he always ate lunch with and was the only one who never called him Marshmallow. But most of the kids here were kids he never talked to… who he was too afraid to talk to, like Vincent Paglinni, who usually focused his attention on what rock concert shirt he’d wear the next day. But there Paglinni was, as excited as the rest. They were all thrilled for him. Like friends.

“Check it out, Mallow! The pastor’s looking up your mom’s skirt!” Vincent called out as the mob of kids rushed out to the porch to see Marshall’s mom climbing up the tree’s ladder rungs, with the pastor right behind her.

The pastor looked down quickly. He wasn’t looking up her skirt.

Still, the kids were laughing. So was Marshall. They were all laughing. Together.

Forget the treehouse. For Marshall, this sense of belonging made his chest swell so large, he thought it would burst open. To have so many friends, their mouths all open with laughter…

This was the greatest day of his life.

Even as he looked out the Plexiglas window and saw his father, in the wheelchair, looking up at him — even that couldn’t ruin it.

“You gotta see this!” Marshall called out, pushing the Plexiglas outward and letting in a wisp of cold air.

“Already did!” Marshall’s dad called back, pumping a fist in the air.

“Awesome, right!?” Marshall shouted, not even catching his dad’s lie.

No matter how well the treehouse was built, there was no way his father would ever make his way up there. Not today. Not ever.

But at this moment, surrounded by so many new friends, Marshall wasn’t being naïve, or insensitive. He was just being eleven years old.

He smiled and pumped his fist back at his dad.

From this height, Marshall could see over his house, over the telephone poles, over everything.

Nothing could ruin a day like this.

18

Marshall’s silent the entire ride down.

But as his SUV moves deeper and deeper down into the underground garage, what’s far more discomforting is this: If Marsh is really the one who killed that rector last night — if he’s the one carrying around old playing cards and thinking he’s John Wilkes Booth — why’s he taking me inside?

And more important, why am I letting him?

For both questions, I tell myself it’s because he’s clearly not a murderer. I know that Marshall used to have Muppet sheets on his bed. I remember thinking his house smelled like werewolf. And I remember, when we were twelve, being at his mother’s funeral, right before his dad moved them out of town.

But as the SUV curves down another level, I keep glancing over at him, waiting for him to say something. He never does. I try to play it cool, but I can’t stop staring, especially at his face.

In the mugshot, his face looked shiny, like it was coated with putty. But up close, even in this bad light, the lumpy texture of it makes his forehead and cheeks look like a melted candle. His skin isn’t red, it’s pink. Whatever happened, it was years ago. But he was burned badly. His nose is square at the tip from whatever surgery put it back together. His eyebrows are tattooed on. His black hair covers what’s left of his ears. I can’t even begin to imagine what he’s been through.

I try to say something, but the only thing I can think of is just how much I don’t know this person anymore.

As Marshall continues steering the curve of the ramp, I try to picture the chubby kid with glasses from the treehouse. He’s not there. Today, the new Marshall’s posture is perfect, his shoulders square and unmoving. Even through his wool peacoat, I can see he’s compact, but all muscle. And somehow, there’s an ease about him, like a poker player who already knows the order of all the cards in the deck.

The thing is, as I notice his flat grin, something tells me that even if he didn’t know the order of the cards, he’d still be just as confident. No matter how much I was trying to surprise Marshall, it feels like he always knew I was coming.

“So how long have you lived here?”

Marshall stares straight ahead.

I’ve lived in Washington long enough to know what people do with silence. The CIA uses it as an interrogation technique, knowing that the longer you stay quiet, the faster you get people to talk. Reporters do the same. So if that’s the game Marshall’s playing, he’s about to learn that there’s no one more patient, or more comfortable in their own silence, than an archivist.

My ears pop as the ramp dumps us on the fifth level underground. As we pull into one of the many open parking spots, I don’t know why he took us down this far. Whoever else is in this building, most of them are gone.

Still silent, Marshall hops out, his pale, bumpy face peering back at me through the car’s front window. I follow him in silence as he shoves open a red metal fire door, and we enter a fluorescent-lit concrete room with a dull metal elevator. He’s got his back to me, but now that we’re both standing, I see he’s shorter than I am.

I remember him always being a few inches taller. It messes with the perspective of my memories, like when you go home and see how tiny your childhood room looks.

“How did you know I was looking for you?” I ask as the doors of the elevator stretch wide.

He doesn’t answer as we step inside. He waves his hand in front of the small black rectangle that’s set just above all the elevator’s call buttons. He’s got a key fob in his hand that allows access to the building.

The button for the twelfth floor lights up automatically, and we rise quickly.

“Marsh, I asked you a—”

“I go by Marshall now,” he interrupts, forcing his grin back into place.

“Marshall,” I correct myself, making note of the sore spot. “Listen, Marshall — I appreciate the Clint Eastwood silent thing you’ve got going, but c’mon… how often do you get drop-in visits from people you haven’t seen since puberty?”

He laughs at that one, making the waxy skin on his neck wriggle.

His peacoat is open now. I notice how his burns continue down his neck, into the collar of his pristine white dress shirt. Is he burned all over his body?

I look down at his hands, and for the first time realize he’s wearing gloves. A small pool of sweat fills the dimple of my top lip, and I wonder if the decision to come here was one of the stupidest of my life.

“You’re staring, Beecher.”

I don’t look away.

“If you want to ask about my burns, just ask.”

I pause, staying with him. “How’d you get burned?”

“By a fire,” he says, his eyes narrowing into a grin.

“I just want to know how you’re doing, Marshall.”

The elevator doors open, but we’re not in a hallway. It’s a small entry with a single wooden door. This is a private elevator, in a very private building.

With another wave of his key fob, there’s a click, and Marshall pushes the door open, revealing a long and narrow loft. There’s a slightly outdated white Formica kitchen on the right, overlooking a sparse and just as outdated 1990s-era IKEA living room. On the left, an open door reveals what looks like a bedroom.

Stepping aside, he pats me on the back, motioning me to go first.

He’s still grinning as I step inside.

19

Listen, here’s an even better one…” Beecher said, tucked into the treehouse’s worn beanbag chair, his nose deep in the newspaper. “Guy’s name is Albert “Alby” Eliopoulos. Died at the age of seventy-two. And according to this — oh my jeez, listen to this — it was his unit that raised the flag at Iwo Jima, but they did it without him! Two days before, Alby broke his collarbone and was sent to some hospital unit, missing the whole thing! Mallow, you listening to this?”

“Of course I’m listening,” Marshall insisted, lying back on one of the foldout beds and flipping through the thick stack of bra ads that he’d collected from over six months’ worth of newspapers. It was summer for the two twelve-year-olds, but with the Plexiglas window open, the treehouse still got a good cross-breeze. “Some guy was at Iwo Jima. Sounds galactic.”

“He wasn’t just at Iwo Jima. He missed Iwo Jima! By two days! He’s part of one of the most famous units of World War II… but he pops his collarbone, and it’s like… it’s like you’re about to be selected for the biggest moment of your life, but instead you’re sitting on the can, so you miss it. Can you imagine being that close to history and it passes you by!? How do you ever come back from that!?”

Marshall was silent.

“Mallow, you paying attention, or you still drooling on the bra ads?” Beecher asked from behind the newspaper.

“Beecher, why do you come here?”

“Whuh?”

“Here. To the treehouse. Why do you come here?”

Confused, Beecher peered over the top of the newspaper. Marshall was cleaning up, tucking the stack of bra ads back into the Lucky Charms cereal box that he kept in a milk crate under the bed.

“You don’t like the obituaries as much as I do, do you?” Beecher asked. He didn’t take it personally. He’d been reading the obits since he was almost four, when his dad died. Since then, he loved reading the stories of all those lives of people who, just like his dad, he’d never see. Lives that could’ve been.

“I mean it, Beecher. Why do you come here? I mean, I like you coming here, but… All these years, it’s not like we really talked much… or even ever. We don’t even eat lunch together. We just — I didn’t think we were friends.”

“What? Of course we’re friends.”

“We are?”

“Mallow, if we weren’t friends, why would you sit here every day and listen to me read from the obituaries?”

“I dunno,” Marshall said with a shrug, leaning back on his bed. “Sometimes it’s just — I kinda thought you’d stop coming here if I didn’t listen.”

Sitting there, frozen in the beanbag chair as the newspaper floated down to his lap, Beecher stared across at the chubby kid he forever knew as Marshmallow. “Mallow, tell me this: What do you like?”

“Like for what?”

“When you’re bored… when you’re sitting around… When no one else is looking, what do you like?”

“You really wanna know?”

“I do. I want to know.”

Marshall’s mood shifted in a split second, tumbling from confused, to shocked, to a cautious smile. Excited to answer the question, he pointed toward the Plexiglas window, at the stars that lit the black sky. “Space.”

“Y’mean outer space? Like Star Wars?” Beecher asked. “Time out. Is that why you always say that things are galactic? Because you like Star Wars?”

“Star Wars is fiction. Imagine if you could do it for real.”

“Yeah, I can totally picture that. You’d be a perfect astronaut.” Beecher laughed. “Haven’t you had like every eye disease known to man?”

Pushing his glasses up on his face, Marshall kept staring out at the sky. “But imagine, Beecher. To go that high… to escape everything… Don’t you ever wonder how far we can go?”

Beecher sat up in the beanbag chair, suddenly excited as he waved the newspaper. “No, I know! That’s exactly why I like obituaries! When you see what people have accomplished… They’re proof of how far we can go — of what we’re capable of on our very best days.”

“I guess,” Marshall said, thinking it over. “But obituaries are weird.”

“You wish. Outer space is weird.”

The two boys looked at each other. For a moment, the treehouse was silent.

Hopping off the bed, Marshall raced for the treehouse door.

“Where you going?” Beecher asked.

“To fart. My mom said it’s rude t—”

“How old are you? Six? Fart here! No one cares!”

Standing there, Marshall kept his hands at his side and did exactly that.

It was a quiet one.

“You do realize,” Beecher said, leaning back in the beanbag chair, “it’s conversations like these that make people not wanna hang out with us.”

Marshall laughed at that. A real laugh.

“But with space, and the obits, it’s also why we will escape,” Beecher added. “From here… from Wisconsin. We’ll be the only ones who get out of here.”

“I’m not worried about getting out of here,” Marshall replied, sitting on the edge of the foldout bed and glancing down at his house below them. “I’m just worried about who’ll take care of my dad.”

Beecher fell silent, but not for long. “I bet we can find someone to take care of him too.”

In that moment, as Marshall focused his attention back on the treehouse… as he scooched back on his foldout bed and thought about how many people had been packed in here just eight months ago… as he looked past the Plexiglas window and the super-cool bottle opener, Marshall Lusk realized that when it comes to treehouses, the only thing you really need… is a friend.

“I just farted again, Beecher.”

“I know. I can smell, dumbass.”

20

Sometimes, when the stress felt overwhelming, Clementine would imagine — would practically feel — her chubby ginger cat making figure-eight loops around her ankles.

She was doing it now as she drove back along the highway. In her lap, she had the file that Palmiotti had given her, propping it open and letting it lean against the steering wheel.

Clementine wanted to pull over, to just read it on the side of the highway. But the thought of Palmiotti, or anyone else, catching her by surprise… She knew she had to wait.

She couldn’t. She’d been waiting for so long — for her whole life, really. So as she focused on the calm that her cat brought, she stole quick glances at the file.

It was hard to read, especially at this speed — and there was so much to go through, from the physical and mental profiles to the documentation of her father’s service. As she kept glancing down to fish through the papers, she stopped on the very first thing that looked easy to skim.

It was a single, pink page, right at the front. The word commendation stood out.

It was just a letter. From the typewriter font, it looked like one of the oldest documents in there. Scanning the first paragraph, she kept glancing up at the road, then back to the text. According to the letter, her father — Nico Hadrian—was instrumental in rendering valuable assistance during battlefield operations modeling at Headquarters.

There was a loud tunk-tunk-tunk as her car drifted left out of its lane, plowing over the reflective road studs along the highway. Looking up, Clementine tugged the wheel, bringing the car back on course.

She tried to breathe, but her chest… it felt like someone had reached underneath her ribcage and wedged their fist up into her throat.

It was a simple letter. A commendation. From Commanding Officer Bryan Burgess… rendering valuable assistance… It said he did something good.

In her lap, the file folder fell to the right, spraying paper across the seat.

The swirl of emotions caught her by surprise. Her eyes became watery. But what she was feeling wasn’t sadness. Or even relief. Holding tight to the steering wheel, Clementine felt the fist in her throat growing heavy, sinking down into her belly. This was anger.

With a jerk of her foot, the ghost of her ginger cat dissipated like a rolling cloud.

Palmiotti was right. The real reason she had searched for this file… and risked so much to get it… was so she could get answers about her cancer. About her health. About herself. Her future.

But to see this commendation… to see what they wrote about him…

They always said he was a creature with no redeeming attributes. But here, this was proof. Proof of what could’ve been. Of what should’ve been.

Proof that Nico — her father — wasn’t born a monster. They turned him into one.

21

Washington, D.C.

Here you go, Nico. Welcome home,” Nurse Rupert announced, throwing open the heavy wooden door to Nico’s new room, which wasn’t much different than the average college dorm room, right down to the institutional furniture and the thick concrete walls.

Stepping inside, Nico noticed that instead of doorknobs, there was a metal latch that you push, like you see in hospital rooms. But unlike hospital rooms, next to the latch was a small metal switch. Nico knew what that was. If a nurse flipped the switch, instead of opening inward, the door would open outward, ensuring that as a patient you can’t barricade the door.

“They put your calendar up,” the dead First Lady pointed out as Nico turned toward the only item on the otherwise bare walls: his Washington Redskins calendar that was already hanging above his nightstand, just like in his old room.

“The light switches are new too,” the dead First Lady added.

Of course Nico noticed that. In the old building, patients used to unbend paper clips, jam them into the light switch, and use the live wire to light their cigarettes. But now the light switch in Nico’s room was covered with a bulky porcelain switchplate that was snug around the switch and didn’t allow anything inside.

“It’s childproofing for really big kids,” Rupert joked. “So whattyathink? Does your unbridled happiness make you committed to stop being such a pain in my keister?”

“Where’s my book?” Nico blurted. “They brought my calendar, but where’s my book?”

“I dunno. Check the dresser… or one of the drawers…”

Slowly opening the drawers on his nightstand, Nico saw a copy of his Bible, his red glass rosary, and a few other knickknacks from his drawers in his old room. But not the—

“My book isn’t here,” Nico insisted.

Before Rupert could argue back, the door opened behind them. “Just checking in to make sure everyone’s—” Dr. Gosling took one look at his star patient and could read the stress on his face. “Nico, what’s wrong?”

“They didn’t send my book,” Nico growled.

“I’m sure they sent it. We’ll find it,” Rupert insisted, frantically yanking open the drawers of the dresser.

“You mean this book here?” Dr. Gosling called out, pulling a book from the top of the wardrobe that was bolted to the wall.

“There!” Nico said. “My book.”

“Where’d you find that?” Rupert challenged.

“Right here. It was sitting on top of the wardrobe,” Dr. Gosling replied, his King Kong tie swaying just slightly.

“I–I must’ve missed it,” Rupert apologized.

“I didn’t see it up there either,” Nico blurted as Rupert looked over at the top of the wardrobe. As Rupert knew, Nico never missed anything.

“Maybe now you can take him down to TLC,” Dr. Gosling said, referring to the therapy center downstairs.

“Yeah… that’s what I was thinking,” Rupert said, motioning Nico out into the hallway.

Following a few steps behind the oversized nurse, Nico was already flipping through the pages of the leather-bound book with gold writing on the cover. It was an old book, a novel called Looking Backward. He stopped on page 122, where his bookmark was.

“C’mon, Nico, they’re waiting for you,” Rupert called out.

Nico stayed silent, his head down. He was already lost in his book, which he cradled in his left hand. In his right, he pulled out his makeshift bookmark: a shiny new playing card.

The dead First Lady smiled as she saw it.

“I’m right behind you,” Nico said, rubbing his thumb against the ten of spades and knowing that after the spades came the diamonds.

22

Tell me what I’m looking at,” Tot said, staring as the browser on his computer screen loaded its video image. “These security cams?”

“Traffic cams,” Immaculate Deception’s computerized voice said through Tot’s phone, which sat on the desk of his cubicle in the Archives.

Sure enough, onscreen, the video came to life. The images weren’t perfect, but they were clear — and in color — showing an intersection that Tot recognized as 16th and H Streets in downtown D.C., not far from the White House. “I’m surprised Homeland Security lets you get this close.”

“They don’t. You never get a clear shot of the White House. But one block from it, the Department of Transportation runs feeds over the Internet so commuters can avoid the traffic snares that come with motorcades and other delays.”

“God bless America.”

“No. God bless paranoid people,” Mac said. “See the site you’re on?”

“EyesOnWhiteHouse.com?” Tot asked, reading the URL.

“After 9/11, everyone wanted to know who was walking the streets near the White House. So one site started recording all the traffic feeds, cataloging and stocking the footage so you can view it whenever you want — like your very own DVR. This shot is from 9 p.m. last night.”

In the left corner of the screen, Tot saw a clear shot of St. John’s Church.

The still image refreshed every three seconds, like he was watching bad stop-motion animation. Cars appeared, frozen — then… blink… they were ten feet ahead and then… blink… they were gone.

Leaning in, Tot put on his reading glasses and studied the front steps of the church, waiting to see the killer.

“If you’re waiting for the killer to enter, he doesn’t,” Mac said. “Police report said he entered from the back. But here’s where the fuss is…”

Tot’s cursor, controlled remotely by Mac, clicked a button, and the video fast-forwarded to 9:30 p.m., then 10 p.m. There were still cars on the streets, but not many people.

Until 10:19 p.m.

Onscreen, a man’s shadow entered first, and then… blink… there he was: on the steps, leaving the church. Like a ghost. The church’s tall columns obstructed the view, so Tot could only see him from the waist down.

He had a glove on his left hand, and his other hand was stuffed into his coat pocket. Taking a step down and coming more into frame, he looked left… blink… then right, like he was worried he was being watched.

Blink.

He was down on the second-to-last step, by the curb. But as the light hit his face…

Blink.

Tot’s eyes went wide.

“You seeing that?” Mac asked, freezing it right there.

Tot didn’t answer. He stared at the screen — at the killer. There he was.

On his face was a white plaster mask.

Leaning toward the screen, Tot squinted. Even on a webcam, even under the bad light, even though he couldn’t see much else… some faces are unmistakable.

No question, it was Abraham Lincoln.

23

Marshall keeps his hand on my shoulder and follows behind me as we enter his apartment. He’s unnervingly calm, as if he’s been expecting me for weeks.

In the living room is a dark gray starter sofa from IKEA with matching gray IKEA chairs. It’s the same with his glass-and-metal coffee table, which match his glass-and-metal end tables, which match his glass-and-metal entertainment center. Everything’s from a set — and not the expensive set either, which makes me wonder if he’s on a government salary like me.

But as I scan the room, what really stands out is just how little this so-called living room looks lived in. The chairs are untouched. The sofa doesn’t have a crease in it. On the tables, there’re no books, or framed pictures, or any of the other knickknacks that are proof of life. I feel like I’m in a play, and this is the furniture for the “living room scene.” Or even worse. I look around.

Please tell me this isn’t a safehouse.

I think about the safehouse I was in a few months ago — used by the government to hide diplomats, witnesses… or even for a private conversation with the President of the United States.

I look around again. Except for a neat stack of mail on a nearby desk, and a bowl of blueberries on the kitchen island, the only personal touch in this whole place is on the long wall behind the sofa. A simple white frame holds an elegant… at first I thought it was a photo… but it’s a canvas. A painted canvas slightly bigger than an iPad. I walk closer to see it.

It’s a painting of a woman, though her features are blurred. Her eyes aren’t really there. Her mouth either. And as she enters this soothing, turquoise body of water, her legs… her arms… her whole body seems to dissipate, spreading outward from her waist as if she’s becoming part of the water.

“Nice painting,” I tell Marshall to break the silence.

“Flea market,” he says, blowing past me and beelining toward his bedroom. “I need to use the restroom,” he adds, thinking I don’t notice that as he cuts through his bedroom, he’s still wearing gloves.

He zigzags quickly around his bed, crossing into the bathroom. I pretend to keep staring at the painting, but I can see him back there. He takes his gloves off. And throws them… did he just throw them in the trash?

As he closes the door to the bathroom, I look back at the painting. I work with enough priceless documents to know archive-quality matting when I see it.

Reading the signature at the bottom—Nuelo Blanca—I type it quickly into my phone, adding the words painting for sale. The first hit that comes up is a gallery in Los Angeles. For a painting called WaterFall 5. Price tag? $22,000.

Okay, Marshall — an artist that sells for 22K? This item clearly isn’t from a flea market.

“You got a call?” his throaty voice asks.

I jump, spinning at the sound. Marshall’s standing right behind me.

He motions down at my phone, which is still in my hand. “You got a call?” he repeats with a verbal shove.

“Just checking messages,” I say, staying where I am.

His eyes narrow. “Most people can’t get cell phone reception here,” he says.

I look down at the phone Tot gave me two weeks ago. Souped up by Immaculate Deception. Built just for the Culper Ring.

“It’s a good phone,” I say, verbal shoving him right back.

Marshall licks his lips and I notice that the left side of his tongue is a lighter shade of pink than the right half. It almost looks like it’s plastic. His tongue was burned too.

“Do me a favor,” Marshall says. “Tell me why you’re here.”

I continue to look right at him. “I’m here to see what you wanted to talk to me about.”

“Pardon?”

“When you got arrested yesterday, you had my name in your pocket.”

He cocks his head, watching me. “I get it. The police called you.”

“Of course the police called me. They found my name and number in your pocket.”

His shoulders stay square. His grin’s back in place. I look down, noticing his perfectly shined shoes. “Why else would I have your number on me, Beecher? I wanted to talk to you.”

“Really.”

“Isn’t that what old friends do? I ran into Craig Rogers last week. Remember him?”

“I know who Craig Rogers is. I see him on Facebook.”

“Then you know he has your phone number. Which he gave to me and said I should call you. I didn’t even realize you lived here in Washington.”

I nod and take a look at that $22,000 painting. “Marshall, you know someone was killed in that church, right?”

“So I gathered. Apparently that’s why they arrested me.”

“What were you doing there, anyway?”

“What does anyone do at a church, Beecher? It’s nearing the anniversary of my mother’s death. You know how much prayers meant to her.”

“You were there praying?”

“I was there praying.”

“At ten o’clock at night?”

“The sanctuary is open till midnight. Apparently there are some very religious people who work across the street.”

It’s a perfect story. No holes in it. “They said you also had a pack of old playing cards on you. With a missing ace of spades.”

“I always have them on me. I travel a lot. They’re good for solitaire.”

“And the ace of spades?”

Without warning, he hits both his front pockets. From one, he pulls out the pack of playing cards and tosses it at me. From the other, he pulls out his phone. I didn’t hear it ring or vibrate, but as he looks down at it, this is clearly a call he can’t miss.

“Beecher, you’ll have to excuse me a moment. I need to take this.” Heading back toward the bedroom, he adds, “This is Marshall…”

He closes the door quietly, leaving me alone in the kitchen.

I study the playing cards. The box is yellowed and severely worn. On the back of the pack is a classic hand-drawn American eagle with spread wings. But instead of its head raised high, the eagle ducks down, its head lowered, like it’s ready to bite something.

I glance back at his closed bedroom door. Underneath it, Marshall’s shadow paces back and forth. Whoever’s calling him, he’s caught up in it.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I head for the nearest cabinets. When we were kids, I remember Marshall’s dad kept all his medication in the kitchen drawers, since he could reach them from his wheelchair. If I’m lucky, maybe Marshall does the same. But as I hunt through the drawers — silverware in one, spatulas and wooden spoons in another… nothing to speak of.

The overhead cabinets are the same. The first has dishes, bowls, cups, and glassware.

The next has wineglasses… coffee mugs… a few thermoses… but again, nothing revealing. The mugs are all plain, same as the thermoses. No school logos, team logos, work logos — nothing. And for the second time, I start wondering if this sterile place is really a safehouse.

But as I open the biggest cabinet — looks like the pantry — the first thing I spot are large boxes of breakfast cereal.

I scan quickly. Of course, there’s no Lucky Charms. It’s all healthy now: Raisin Bran… Special K… and one of those fancy oat ones you buy at Whole Foods. My brain flips back to the treehouse… and the hiding spot for every nudie pic we could find.

I grab the box of Raisin Bran, ripping it open. Nothing. Same with the Special K. And the fancy oat one. Nothing and more nothing.

Closing the cabinets, I turn back to the bedroom. Marshall’s still pacing. Time for one last attempt.

On my right, where the cabinets run in an L-shape around the corner, there’s a section of the counter that’s built like a desk, but with no drawers. It’s where Marshall threw his keys. There’s also a neat stack of mail and a few boxes from J.Crew.

Tossing his pack of cards on the counter, I flip through the mail. Electric bill… something from a wine-tasting organization… coupon circulars… His name’s on all of them. But the address — it’s not the same as the address here. They’re all addressed to the P.O. box that Immaculate Deception found earlier. It’s the same with the J.Crew packages. But as I lift the rest of the mail off the final box—

The flaps on the box pop upward. It’s already open. There’s no address on it. No return address either.

I look back at the bedroom. He’s still busy.

As I push back the flaps and peer into the box, staring back at me is a shiny white face, with no eyes.

I jump at the sight.

A mask.

It’s a plaster mask. White, like chalk. It looks like…

It’s Abraham Lincoln.

I pull out my phone and try to take a quick pic, but my hand’s shaking. I can’t steady it.

I look again over my shoulder. Marshall’s still pacing in the bedroom.

My phone makes the fake cha-chick as I snap the picture. Tot needs to see this. I forward the photo to him, with a note: Found in Marshall’s place.

Quick as I can, I fold the box shut and put the stack of mail back on top.

I have no idea why Marshall would have his own Abraham Lincoln mask — but considering we’re looking for John Wilkes B—

Over my shoulder, there’s a low steady sound, like someone breathing.

I don’t even have to turn around.

Marshall’s right behind me.

24

There are certain moments that change a person’s life. For some, it comes quickly and violently, in the form of a car crash. For others, it comes from bad news at a doctor’s office.

For Clementine, as she sat Indian-style at the kitchen table in her small rental apartment, papers spread out in front of her, she assumed it would come with Nico’s file.

She finished reading the file days ago. She read every word. Every report. Every review.

She read the commendations — six in total. One called her father sober, industrious, and of impeccable character. Another commented on his attendance record, and noted that he had accumulated hundreds of hours of unused sick leave. Another said that Nico had rendered invaluable assistance when there was a fire on base.

She read the scolding letters of reprimand too — all of them coming in the later years, when whatever they did to him was already long done. Doctors warned of sudden long periods of silence, then of his disregard for the safety of himself and others, and finally of his aggressiveness and inability to distinguish fantasy from reality.

But as Clementine flipped through the file again and again, there wasn’t much more than that. Yes, the file showed that her father… that Nico… had been inducted into the military three years earlier than his public records say. And yes, if she was piecing it together correctly, that some of that time was spent with the navy, despite the fact he was an army man. Aside from that, as she tried to rebuild the file in chronological order, there was no other paperwork from any of those first three years. They were gone. Three entire years — totally unaccounted for. No commendations, no letters of discipline, no nothing.

Until Clementine could unlock those years, she’d never know what really happened, never know what her father went through. Most important, assuming she was right that the experiments on him had been passed to her, she’d never be any closer to understanding the cancer that was currently eating through her own body.

She told herself she shouldn’t be surprised. What’d she expect? That the President would hand her a smoking gun wrapped in a big bow? Here you go… even though we’ve kept it hidden for two decades, here’s that top-secret info about your dad that you kept asking for.

The truth was, the file already told her the answer. Or part of the answer. Those three years — by the mere fact they were missing — that’s when the damage was done.

Unfolding herself from her Indian position and sliding one leg under her, Clementine continued flipping through the file. In front of her, on the table, she made four different piles — one for each of the “acknowledged” years that Nico served in the army.

Page by page, she distributed the papers, assigning each document to its appropriate year. Most of the commendations came in the early years, the reprimand letters in the later years. But for the most part, it was the same as before: nothing.

That is, until Clementine flipped through a set of paper-clipped documents and noticed a pale pink sheet that was stuck inside. Of course, the pink color stuck out. She’d seen these sheets before: immunization reports. The army took vaccinations seriously, and Nico had a form like this for all four of the years that he’d—

Wait.

Cocking an eyebrow, Clementine stared at the piles on the table and counted again. Nico already had four of these.

This was a fifth.

Staring down at the sheet, she double-checked the date. The page started shaking in her hand. This was from one of Nico’s missing three years.

She was reading fast now. There wasn’t much to it. Request for… Nicholas Hadrian… to receive influenza vaccination…

It was a request for a flu shot. So easy to overlook. But unlike the other immunization reports, this one was… Approved.

For whatever reason, someone had to specifically approve this flu shot.

Her hand still shaking, Clementine looked at the bottom of the sheet. There it was, in thin black pen: a muddled signature. The signature of the doctor who approved it. Dr. Michael Yoo.

From there, the next half-hour was easy. An Internet search with the terms Dr. Michael Yoo and army brought back only two candidates. One died last year, at the age of forty-two. Too young.

The other lived in San Diego, California.

Ten digits later, Clementine had her cell phone to her ear, listening as it rang once… twice…

“Hello…?” a soft older man’s voice asked.

Clementine didn’t say a word.

“Hello? Who’s there?”

“I’m looking for Dr. Michael Yoo,” Clementine blurted.

“Who’s this?” he countered.

For an instant, Clementine searched her brain for the best way to keep him talking. But all she came up with was, “I think you know my father. Nico Hadrian.”

There are certain moments that change a person’s life. For some, it comes in the form of a car crash. For others, it comes at a doctor’s office.

For Clementine — as she sat there, her hand now steady — it came from a stranger on the other end of a phone call.

“You must be Clementine.”

25

I spin around. Marshall’s almost nose to nose with me.

“I hope your call wasn’t bad news,” I say.

“Now you’re wondering about the mask,” he says, calm as ever.

“Listen, Marsh—”

“Marshall. And I’m not mad, Beecher. You saw the mask. You should have some questions. Especially considering it came from the crime scene.”

“The mask did?”

He makes a mental note, tracking the fact that, at least for me, the mask is a new piece of the puzzle. “Where do you think I found it?” he asks.

“So now you found the mask?”

“Please don’t take that tone, Beecher. If my story didn’t check out, you think the detectives would’ve released me last night? I know how investigations go. I do them for a living. And I know how often they incorrectly grab the first suspect just because they’re the closest suspect.”

“Just tell me about the mask, Marshall.”

“I found it two blocks away. In a garbage can on the corner of 17th Street.”

“Why’d you even go looking for it?”

“You’re joking, right? If you really have friends who are D.C. Police, you know how overwhelmed they are. If they’re accusing me of murder — which thankfully, they aren’t anymore — you better believe I wanted every piece of evidence that proves my innocence.”

“So why didn’t you tell the police about it?”

“I did. Called them last night. Then again this morning, which is when they finally assigned a detective to the case. Check their call log; you’ll see. They asked me to handle it only with gloves, pack it up in bubble wrap and bring it in today.”

I glance over my shoulder at the closed box that holds the mask and the bubble wrap. Another perfect story.

“What kind of investigations do you do?” I ask.

“I was about to ask you the same,” he counters, reaching for the deck of playing cards and sliding them back in his pocket. “I mean, for you to be looking into this… to track me here… Who you working with these days?”

“Uncle Sam,” I reply, watching him carefully.

“Funny. I have that exact same uncle,” he replies, watching me just as carefully.

My brain starts making guesses. CIA… NSA… FBI… In this town, the acronyms are endless. But if he’s telling the truth — if he’s really on the same side I am — No. Nonono. There’s no way this is all just coincidence.

“We really should grab a drink sometime,” he says, putting his gloveless hand on my shoulder. It’s scarred even worse than his face. Whatever he was reaching for in that fire, he wanted it desperately.

“I didn’t realize I was leaving.”

“Sorry. I need to deal with this phone call,” he says, steering me to the door.

“Well, let me at least give you my email, and my phone at the Archives,” I say, going for one of my business cards. But as I reach for my wallet…

I pat my right back pocket. Then my left. Then my front pockets…

“My wallet!” I blurt, already mentally retracing my steps. “Maybe it fell out in your car…?”

“You check your coat pockets?” Marshall asks.

I pat my coat pockets. Right one. Then left. Sure enough, there it is. Left coat pocket.

“I do that all the time,” Marshall says as I stare down at my wallet.

The thing is, I never put it in my coat pocket. Ever.

“Let’s grab that drink ASAP,” Marshall says, opening the front door, his grin now spread across his face.

As he ushers me into the hallway, I’m still staring down at my wallet. I flip it open. My cards, my ID: Everything’s perfectly in place. I look up at Marshall, then back down at my wallet.

“Really glad we got to see each other, Beecher. Let’s do it again real soon,” Marshall says as the elevator pings behind me and he steps back into his apartment.

I jam my foot in his doorway, preventing it from shutting.

“Beecher, I really have to run…”

“One last question,” I tell him. “Do you remember a girl named Clementine?”

He squints, his glance sliding diagonally upward. “Clementine…?”

“Clementine Kaye,” I remind him. “From that night… With the closet…”

He presses his lips together, shaking his head. “Sorry, Beecher, I don’t. Remember, I left when we were still little.”

With a final slam, he’s gone.

I stare at his closed door. Whatever Marshall’s up to — whatever really happened last night at the church, and whether this has anything to do with Clementine — there’s only one detail I know for sure: I don’t know this guy at all anymore.

But he also doesn’t know me.

In the elevator, I pull out my phone and hit the speed dial for Tot’s office. It rings once… twice… then clicks.

“Please tell me Marshall wasn’t home and you’re driving back here right now,” Tot says.

“Tot…”

“Don’t Tot me, Beecher. Was he there or not?”

“What’re you going so nuts about?” I ask.

“Because I just got off the phone with Mac, who just got off the phone with a source, who just got off the phone with someone at the White House. Guess who your pal Marshall Lusk really works for?”

26

As he entered the Chinese restaurant known as Wok ’n Roll, Agent A.J. Ennis headed for a booth in the very back.

It was the opposite from Secret Service protocol. In most restaurants, especially where they were guarding a VIP, agents were stationed by the front door so they’d have first crack at anyone who raced in.

Today, A.J. was happy in back. Glancing down at his watch, he saw it was—

Ding, the small bell above the door rang.

Usually, doctors were notoriously late, but with this one… considering everything going on… Right on time.

Clearly upset, Dr. Stewart Palmiotti threw himself into the seat across from A.J., his back to the front door.

“Why’d you pick this place?” Palmiotti growled.

“Wok ’n Roll? He told me you liked it,” A.J. said. “Said you had history here.”

Palmiotti sat there, his mind tumbling back over two decades — before Wallace was President… before he was even governor — when they took a road trip to Washington during law school. With no money in their pockets, cheap Chinese food was always a good option. But the reason the President first brought them here? As the bronze plaque outside the restaurant pointed out, back in 1865, Wok ’n Roll was originally Mary Surratt’s boarding house, where all the Lincoln conspirators, including John Wilkes Booth, plotted to kidnap Abraham Lincoln.

“I just figured… y’know, with this Booth thing—”

“Is this a damn joke to you!?” Palmiotti hissed.

“Doc, chill out…”

“Or maybe you think it’s a game! Like we’re playing Monopoly, and you’re the race car, and I’m the dog… and you just move me around the board—”

“Doc…”

“I lost my life! I don’t have a life—!”

A.J.’s hand shot across the table, like a viper. “Listen to me,” he growled, gripping the underside of Palmiotti’s wrist and squeezing hard enough to compress all the blood vessels and nerves. Hard enough so Palmiotti stopped talking. The few customers around them stopped staring and went back to their meals.

Palmiotti unclenched his jaw, trying to swallow. He was in pain.

“Listen, Doc — I know what you gave up,” A.J. whispered, leaning into the table and easing his grip. “I know. And he knows. So if it makes you feel better, the only reason he told me to take you here is because you liked it.”

Seeing the doctor’s calm return, A.J. released his grip and sat back in his seat. From the wooden bowl between them, he stole a handful of crunchy Chinese noodles, tossing them back one by one and studying the man who was across the table from him.

Palmiotti was the same age as President Wallace. But over the past month… these new lines on his face… plus the way he stared down at the empty table… The bullet wound had taken its toll. He looked twenty years older.

“Doc, your friend needs you right now. The President needs you,” A.J. added, sitting straight up and no longer reaching for Chinese noodles. “To pull this off… especially with Beecher so close…”

“I can do it,” Palmiotti whispered.

“You sure?”

“I can do it. I’m already doing it,” he insisted. “He knows I won’t let him down.”

“Not just him. Us,” A.J. said. “All of us. We’re all in it. Like a team.”

Palmiotti nodded. Slowly at first. Then faster. The words made him feel better. Like a team.

At that moment, a busboy came by, putting two water glasses on the table. The two men didn’t say a word until the busboy was gone.

“So you hear anything else from Clementine?” A.J. finally asked.

Palmiotti shook his head. He was staring at the water glasses, watching drops of water swell and skate down the sides of the glass. Like tears.

“But you think the rest is going well?” A.J. asked.

Palmiotti nodded. “This’ll be a big win for us.”

Now A.J. was the one nodding. That’s what he needed to hear.

From the bowl, Palmiotti took a single crunchy noodle. “A.J., can I ask you a question?” Before A.J. could even reply, Palmiotti added, “How’s he doing?”

“He’s doing fine, Doc.” There was a pause. “I think he misses you.”

“I miss him too. We’ll have our time, though.”

“You will.”

“At the Presidents’ Day event. We’re still on for that, yes?”

“Absolutely,” A.J. promised, putting both palms flat on the table and getting ready to stand.

“Do me one favor, though,” Palmiotti urged. “Don’t tell him I lost my cool today, okay?”

“Of course,” A.J. said, rising from his seat and never taking his eyes off the doctor. “I’d never say a word.”

27

Just tell me who he works for, Tot.”

“Not until you get far away from him,” Tot warns in my ear. “Your pal Marshall… Promise me, Beecher. This is not someone you want to be around.”

“Relax, I’m nowhere near him,” I insist, sitting in the pristine 1966 pale blue Mustang, two blocks from Marshall’s building. From the angle I’m at, I’ve got a perfect view of his garage in back. Marshall said he had to run out. Like he had an emergency. So whenever he drives out — wherever he’s going — I’m going with him.

“Beecher, please don’t be stupid. You think I don’t know you’re trying to follow him?”

“You just said the killer was wearing a plaster Abraham Lincoln mask — right as I find a plaster Abraham Lincoln mask in Marshall’s apartment. You really telling me you don’t want to know where he’s going right now?”

“No, what I’m telling you, is, you’re being reckless. Without any training—”

“Tot, you said the most important part of this job would be me using my brain. I’m using it. If he wanted to kill me, he could’ve done it in his apartment. Otherwise, I’m the only one here right now. So I either follow him, or we lose him,” I say as the door to the underground garage opens. A white Mercedes shoots out with a black woman at the wheel. Not Marshall.

“You’re still not listening, Beecher, because when it comes to superpowers, your friend Marshall’s superpower is this: losing people and getting away.”

Up the block, the Mercedes disappears around the corner, and the garage door lowers back into place.

“Just tell me who he is. Navy SEAL? FBI? CIA?”

“Oh, he’s far worse than that. According to Immaculate Deception, Marshall Lusk is GAO.”

“Government Accountability Office?” I say, referring to the guys who do our audits. “They’re America’s accountants.”

“No. That’s where you’re wrong. Accountants deal with numbers. What the GAO does is look for waste and inefficiency.”

“And that’s different from an accountant because…?”

Up ahead, the garage door again opens. This time, a light gray Toyota rolls out. Another woman at the wheel. But just as the garage door is about to roll down, it jerks back up.

Another car pokes its nose out. A navy SUV.

Marshall’s car. With Marshall behind the wheel.

As he takes off, he’s two blocks ahead. I give him another block as a head start. He’s in a rush, but I still see him.

Time to find out where he’s going.

28

Beecher, listen to me,” Tot says through the phone as I kick the gas and trace Marshall’s path. “You ever hear of something called pen testing? Penetration testing?”

Up ahead, Marshall weaves through traffic. But as he makes a sharp left, it’s clear he’s going straight to the highway — north on 110—back toward Washington.

For the most part, he sticks to the left lane, making good time. I let him keep his lead.

“Long before SEAL Team Six or even the Navy SEALs themselves,” Tot explains, “there was a group known as the S&Rs — Scouts and Raiders.”

“The first group of frogmen,” I say, sticking behind a white van and using it to stay out of sight. “I’ve seen their files in the Archives.”

“Exactly. The Scouts and Raiders started eight months after the attack on Pearl Harbor — made up of army and navy men. And in 1943, these sneaky sons of bitches’ graduation exercise was supposedly to kidnap the admiral in charge of the 7th Naval District. During wartime!”

“Did they do it?”

“The point is, that’s what penetration testing tells us. When our own guys break in and grab an admiral, that tells us we have a real problem in security. The military’s used it for decades: hiring units to try and penetrate our top facilities, from nuclear depots, to Air Force One.”

Up ahead, as we approach Arlington Cemetery, Marshall’s SUV veers to the right, following the exit toward the roundabout at Memorial Bridge. Time to pick up the pace. “So that’s what Marshall does now?” I ask as I pull out from behind the white van and hit the gas.

“It’s what everyone does now. These days, we have people trying to break into the White House, into the Capitol, even into the cafeteria at the Air & Space Museum.”

“Like when you see those news stories about guys successfully sneaking knives onto airplanes.”

“Penetration testing,” Tot says as I spot the roundabout up ahead. The few cars around us all begin to slow down. I’m now barely five or six cars behind Marshall. He’s never seen my car. I pull down my sun visor so he can’t see my face. “After 9/11, the GAO realized that it wasn’t just useful for the military. It’s a test for all of us,” Tot explains. “Penetration testing isn’t just about breaking in. It’s about solving problems.”

“So again, back to Marshall,” I say. “He does these penetration tests.”

“And does them well. That’s how he got out of jail last night. In his line of work, when things go bad, he’s got a direct line to the Justice Department, who’ll get him out of any mess he gets into. But yes — from what we can tell, he’s spent nearly four years in the GAO’s Office of Investigations.”

“So why do I hear that worried tone in your voice?”

“Because he’s the whole office, Beecher. There used to be a few of them, but once Marshall came in… that’s it. He’s all they needed. According to our source, when he first started, Marshall was sent to break into some unlisted military base out in Nebraska, and since the general in charge of the base didn’t want to be embarrassed — which is what happens when strangers break into your military base — the general actually broke the rules and told his security guys that Marshall was coming… that they should keep a serious lookout. That night, at three in the morning, Marshall was standing in the general’s bedroom — and woke up the general by putting a gun to his head and whispering, ‘You lose.’ ”

As Marshall’s SUV merges onto the roundabout by Memorial Bridge, my thoughts run back to his apartment — to my wallet being in my coat pocket and me telling myself that there’s no way Marshall could’ve pulled it off.

“Now you understand why I don’t want you confronting him? Look at the facts from last night: for a guy like Marshall — a guy who regularly sidesteps the best security in the world — for him to get nabbed coming out of a church… by two D.C. beat cops…”

“It was bad timing. Maybe the cops just got lucky.”

“No. There’s no luck. Not with people like this, Beecher.”

“So what’re you saying? That Marshall killed this rector and then got arrested on purpose?”

Tot’s silent, thinking it through. “That’s the real question, isn’t it? Do you think you found Marshall, Beecher? Or did Marshall actually use all this to find you?”

The heat in the car is blasting full steam. But for the first time, I’m feeling it. In front of me, as I snake around the roundabout, I’m barely three cars behind Marshall. The white van slides in front of me. I still see the SUV… up by twelve o’clock, where the entrance to Memorial Bridge is. I’m at four o’clock.

“Listen to me, Beecher,” Tot says as I twist the wheel. “I know you two go back a long way. And I know there’s something about this guy — something that happened with him — that’s making you want to believe, with all of your nostalgic heart, that he’s not a murderer. But know this: your pal Marshall? He finds weaknesses in things. That’s how he breaks into things for a living. And of all the things he’s dissecting — when you come chasing him… when you get suckered into his apartment — the thing that he’s found the biggest weakness in, and that he’s broken into the most…

… is you.”

With a final jerk of the wheel, I twist the Mustang to the right and slide out from behind the white van. I look to my right, out the passenger-side window, and onto the bridge. The SUV isn’t there.

I stay on the roundabout. He’s not here either.

I search the next turnoff. There’re only three in total. He’s not there either.

It’s daytime. Light traffic. There aren’t many options, but even so…

“You lost him, didn’t you?” Tot asks through the phone. “You have no hope of catching a guy like this, Beecher. He’s a professional ghost. And y’know what the worst part is? Guess who the GAO reports to?”

“To the legislature. They’re the legislative arm of Congress.”

“That’s right. But the head of the GAO — the comptroller general — guess who appoints him?”

“The White House.”

“The White House, Beecher. So you know who someone at Marshall’s level really works for?”

I turn the heat down in the car, but it still feels like it’s blasting full steam. “The President.”

“Or more specifically, President Orson Wallace, who attacked and was responsible for the murder of a man known as Eightball, and who promised to bury you for finding out about it.”

I’m still circling the roundabout, still searching for the SUV. It’s gone.

Two months ago, this is where I’d bang the steering wheel and give up.

That’s because two months ago, I wasn’t part of George Washington’s secret spy ring.

“Beecher, please tell me you—”

“Of course I did, Tot. I just need to turn it on.”

He knows what I’m talking about, and how it works. I need to get off the phone.

He wants me to be careful, but I hang up before he says it.

To Tot, this is Culper Ring business… presidential business… and it is. But for me, think of your best friend growing up. No. I take that back. Think of the friend you hurt the most. Think of what you owe him. Whatever’s really going on, I still owe that to Marshall.

Back in his apartment, Marshall was amazed that my phone was getting a signal there. He doesn’t know the half of what it can do.

As Tot hangs up, I scroll to an app called Jupiter.

After the Revolutionary War, George Washington was committed to building our country. But in his personal life, his commitment was given to, of all things, breeding.

Not kids. Washington never had kids.

He had dogs.

According to his papers, he wanted a superior dog, one that had speed, sense and brains. He did it too — after merging a set of hounds that were a gift from the French with a set of tan-and-black hounds here.

His creation was the American foxhound. The ultimate hunting machine.

More than thirty hounds were listed in his journals, with names like Drunkard, Tipsy, Sweet Lips, and of course…

Jupiter.

With a press of my thumb, the screen on my phone displays a map. The circular road shows the roundabout and Memorial Bridge. There’s a tiny green pin, which represents me. There’s also a red pin. That’s the SUV.

When I was in his apartment, Marshall may’ve grabbed my wallet to pick through my life. But when we were in his parking garage — when I was in his SUV–I dropped a small silver beacon into the plastic well on the passenger-side door.

Marshall’s smart. And clearly smarter at this than I am. But he’s not smarter than the Culper Ring.

Based on the map, he’s making his way toward the Key Bridge, headed to Georgetown.

When I was little, my mom said I shouldn’t get out of bed until I said a prayer for something I was thankful for. It’s a rule I carry with me to this day. God bless GPS. And Jupiter, the ultimate hunting machine.

Within ten minutes, I see where he stops.

Ready or not, Marshall. Here I come.

29

Don’t let them put you in it, Nico,” the dead First Lady warned.

Nodding at her, Nico squinted down at the floor of the redbrick courtyard, where a section of light beige bricks formed a circular maze pattern.

“So it’s a maze?” Nico asked, his book — with its ten of spades bookmark — tucked tightly under his armpit.

“It’s not a maze. It’s a labyrinth,” Nurse Karina, a short Asian woman with black statement glasses and perfectly smooth skin, offered, motioning her clipboard toward the bricks. “Do you know the difference between a maze and a labyrinth?” Well aware that she wasn’t supposed to let Nico tangle with a problem he couldn’t solve, she quickly explained, “A maze is designed to be an obstacle, with dead ends and wrong turns. A labyrinth will never block you — it gives you a winding but totally clear path right to the center and then back again.”

“So a bad hospital would have a maze?” Nico asked, still eyeing the wide, circular labyrinth that… no question about it… looked like a twenty-foot-wide maze.

“Yes, a bad hospital would have a maze. In The Shining? That’s a maze. We have a labyrinth. It’s very therapeutic. Now would you like to begin?”

Nico didn’t want to begin. It was cold outside, and even though the courtyard was covered, he didn’t like the cold. But he did like Nurse Karina, who always looked him right in the eyes. Most of the nurses never looked him in the eyes.

“I start here?” Nico asked, entering the labyrinth.

“I can hold your book for you. If you like,” Karina offered.

At first, Nico hesitated. But then he saw her outstretched hand… and the pale pink polish on her thin, crooked fingers. His mother had fingers like that.

“I want it back when I’m done,” Nico said, handing Karina the book as she offered a small smile in return.

He trusted her now. Enough to hand her the book and to step into the labyrinth. Yet as he took his first steps around the outer edges of the circle, Nico couldn’t help but notice the double-pane window that looked out onto the courtyard. Through it, he saw a breakroom, where a group of construction workers were watching the local news. In St. Elizabeths, they never let Nico watch the news.

“Y’know back during the Crusades, walking a labyrinth represented a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. For many, they’re still sacred places,” Karina added, knowing that Nico always responded well to religious references.

Nico barely heard the words. As he followed the zigzag and it led him past the window of the breakroom, his eyes were locked on the handsome news anchor sitting at the news desk. The graphic onscreen said: Shooting At Local Church. But it wasn’t until the camera cut to video footage of Foundry Church that Nico stopped midstep.

“Nico…?” Karina called out. From the angle she was at, she couldn’t see into the breakroom. It looked like Nico was staring blankly at the wall.

“Nico, what’s wrong?”

His body was tensed, his arms flat at his sides. He wanted to say something to the dead First Lady, but with the nurse watching, he just stood there, looking in the window, at the screen. There it was. The message he’d been waiting for. Just as the Knight had promised.

“Nico, look at me!” Nurse Karina pleaded, as if she were saying it for the fifth time.

He whipped around, facing Karina. His chest was pumping, though his sniper training kicked in quickly. You don’t hold your breath as you squeeze the trigger. You learn to breathe into it.

“Don’t move,” the dead First Lady agreed. “Let her get us what we need.”

Nico nodded. There was still so much to do. Beecher… and Clementine… would be here soon.

“Nico, you okay?” Nurse Karina asked.

He just stood there, frozen.

“Nico, please. I need you to say something.”

His chest continued to rise and fall. Maybe even a little bit faster. The dead First Lady was right. This was how he’d get what he wanted.

“Nico, I’m serious,” Karina demanded. “Please say something.”

30

I find Marshall’s SUV on a narrow side street in Georgetown, just off the main drag of Wisconsin Avenue. The tracker I hid is still in the car, but it only takes a few footprints in the snow to trail him along the lumpy brick sidewalks.

Up the block, there’s a redbrick building with royal blue awnings. The footprints make a sharp left, into an alley just before the building.

I scramble as fast as I can, sticking to the streets so I get a better foothold to run.

With each of my steps, the gray slush leaps from the pavement, arcing up and outward, like synchronized divers. I don’t stop until I’m near the blue awnings; then I look to my left to make sure the alley’s clear.

Darting from the street and toward the sidewalk, I step through a drift of black snow that doesn’t look that deep but somehow swallows my leg all the way up to my ankle. My sock fills with frozen water. I remind myself I’m not a spy. I’m an archivist. A history major.

But that’s the thing about history majors. We know the value of what’s left behind.

In front of me, the alley’s empty. Marshall’s gone.

But once again, his footprints — curving around to the right… behind the building — are right where he left them.

Racing forward, I tear around the corner. The alley widens into an open brick courtyard. But the first thing I see is — On my right. There’s a door. A propped-open door that’s about to slam shut.

It leads into the back of the building. Where Marshall just ducked inside.

I race for the door, catching it just before it closes. With a yank, I pull it open and step inside. A familiar but unplaceable smell wafts through the air. Like I said, Marshall’s smart. But I’m—

Uccck.

His fist hits me in the throat first.

He grabs me. My throat—!

He grips my Adam’s apple with the tips of all five of his fingers. Like he’s plucking it from my neck. The pain is — It’s not just that I can’t breathe… My neck…

He’s crushing my larynx—!

My knees collapse. My eyes flood with involuntary tears. But I still see him. The melted-wax face. Those gold eyes.

Marshall’s trying to kill me.

31

Staring down at his eelskin wallet, Dr. Palmiotti knew better than this. He did. But a few minutes ago, as he left Wok ’n Roll and stood out in the cold — amid the back-from-lunch rush crowd — he couldn’t help but watch A.J. walk up the block, back to work.

Back to 16th Street. Back to the White House.

For two minutes, Palmiotti stood there, knowing it shouldn’t matter. But it did.

And so there he was, staring down at his eelskin wallet. Or to be more precise, at the fortune from the fortune cookie that was sticking out of that little secret hiding space that, if he were thirty years younger, he would’ve used to hide a condom. It was the hiding space that you can only get to if you dig at it with your pointer- and middle fingers, which Palmiotti quickly did to pull out the paper fortune.

It wasn’t the contents of the fortune that mattered. It was what was written on back.

Two months ago, after A.J. helped him send that text during the funeral, as they were putting his new identity together, Wallace took the little scrap from a fortune cookie and wrote a ten-digit number on it. The President told Palmiotti that if anything went wrong… if there was an emergency and Palmiotti needed to talk… even if he just needed a friend… this was the number he should dial. A number that would connect him directly to the President.

Palmiotti knew what that meant. The public was told that Wallace carried a BlackBerry. It wasn’t a BlackBerry. Neither was Obama’s or any other President’s. It was a Sectéra Edge, a phone made specially by General Dynamics solely for the use of the President. The one phone Wallace carried himself.

So you won’t be alone, Wallace had promised. I’m always a phone call away.

For two months, Palmiotti had never used the number. Didn’t even think of it.

Okay, that wasn’t true.

He thought of using it during the very first week, when he was watching the Michigan game, which brought back memories of their college years. Then he thought of using it again, later that same week, when he was out for a walk and saw a dog that reminded him of the beagle Wallace had when they were young.

But Palmiotti wasn’t dumb. And he wasn’t shallow enough to break the emergency glass and place a direct call to the President of the United States simply because he was feeling homesick.

Yes, Palmiotti had known it wouldn’t be easy to just walk away from his life. But in those moments of doubt, he’d think back to what his mentor used to tell him twenty years ago when he was doing his cardiac residency: The bleeding always stops — one way or another. It was good advice. True advice. And when the advice didn’t make him feel any better, Palmiotti would close his eyes and inevitably start making a list of all the other people he now wanted to speak to, including his kids.

But as Palmiotti knew, whether he was alive or dead, his kids didn’t want to speak to him. He hadn’t even seen them in over a decade. Not since the divorce. Not after what he put them all through.

It was the same with his ex-wife. That’s why she was an ex.

Of course, it was different with his girlfriend, Lydia, which is why, on that one night a few weeks back, he (with aid from a far too expensive bottle of scotch) dialed her home number just to hear her voice. When she picked up, he hung up. That was all he needed.

After that, Palmiotti was strong. Committed.

Just like he was when it came to dealing with Beecher. After his conversation with A.J., he knew what the next steps were. He knew how to make it happen. And he knew it would only work if he made it work. But still… as A.J. disappeared around the corner and Palmiotti looked down at his eelskin wallet and the phone number scribbled on the paper fortune…

Orson Wallace wasn’t just his best friend. They were brothers. How can you separate brothers? Hesitating, Palmiotti told himself to wait. That he’d be seeing Wallace soon — like A.J. said, at the Presidents’ Day event…

Still.

With everything Palmiotti had sacrificed, would one phone call — just a few seconds… a few sentences to say hello — really hurt?

Studying the phone number, Palmiotti replayed his mentor’s words: The bleeding always stops — one way or another. That was absolutely right.

But as he also learned in med school, there was actually a faster way to stop the bleeding: when you take matters into your own hands.

Pulling out the cheap disposable phone that he’d switch every few weeks, Palmiotti looked down at the fortune cookie and dialed the ten-digit number.

As it rang, he knew, on some level, that the President would be pissed. But once he and his friend started talking, it’d all go back to normal. That’s what friends do.

In Palmiotti’s ear, the phone rang once… twice…

His shoulders lifted at the sheer excitement of reconnecting. Sure, Wallace would be mad, but he’d also—

“We’re sorry,” a female mechanical voice eventually answered. “The number you dialed is not in service. Please check the number and dial again.”

Palmiotti felt a hot, sudden throb in the wound that was healing in his neck. For a moment, he thought he must’ve dialed the wrong number.

But as the mechanical woman repeated herself… even before he checked the paper fortune… before he redialed… Stewart Palmiotti knew he’d dialed exactly right.

32

Marshall doesn’t say anything.

He holds tight to my throat, still clutching my Adam’s apple.

I fight to break free, but my eyes feel like they’re about to pop.

Without a word, he loosens his grip, though not by much. My lungs refill with air and I unleash a hacking cough. But Marshall doesn’t let go. Not completely.

He looks me dead in the eye. His bumpy, burned hand is still on my throat, holding me in place. “If you’re not careful who you follow, you will get hurt,” he says, making sure I hear every syllable.

He finally lets go, letting me catch my breath. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

He doesn’t answer.

As I look around — at the silver pots and pans hanging from the ceiling… the industrial stoves and ovens on my left… plus the stainless steel prep areas with the chefs and waiters…

“Why’re we in a restaurant kitchen?” I blurt as I finally place the smell in the air. Fresh pasta.

Marshall looks over his shoulder. At first, I assume he’s worried about being heard. He’s not.

“What’re you guys doing?” a heavy chef with a thin gray beard blurts, looking up from a tray of pastries he’s filling.

“Mind your business,” Marshall barks back, marching through the kitchen, past the rolling prep carts, and heading for the swinging doors at the far end. His tone is so commanding, the chef doesn’t even push back at the intrusion. But I see how quickly the chef looks away. It’s hard to stare at Marshall’s burned face.

With a shove of the swinging door, the fluorescent lights and stainless steel of the kitchen give way to the muted yellow walls, French doors, and plush décor of a fine Italian restaurant.

A few stragglers from the lunch crowd — all of them in suit and tie — turn and stare. It happens in every posh restaurant in D.C. — people checking to see if we’re anyone famous. But again, after one look at Marshall’s face, they all turn away. What I’m starting to notice, though, is I think that’s how Marshall prefers it.

Sticking to the corner, by the bar, he scans the restaurant. On my right, a stack of menus finally tells me where we are. Café Milano.

I know Café Milano. Everyone in D.C. knows Café Milano. From Bill and Hillary, to Joe and Jill Biden, to Julia Roberts, Kobe Bryant, and every honcho in the last decade — in a town that tires quickly of trendy restaurants — Café Milano has managed to feed pols and celebs, while extending its trend. Which is why I’ve never been here. “Why are we at Café Milano?”

“I’m meeting someone,” he insists, still scanning the restaurant. It doesn’t take long; most of the lunch crowd is gone. Nearly every table is empty. Yet there Marshall is, his eyes flicking back and forth, like he’s memorizing and cataloging the room’s every detail. Unlike in his apartment, his entire stance has changed. His back is straight, his chin is up. He’s working.

It takes me a few seconds to realize that from where we’re standing, we have a perfect view of every entrance and exit.

“Marshall, I know Presidents eat here. And I know what your job is. The penetration testing… Is that what you’re doing? You looking for flaws in their security?”

He turns my way, gripping the edge of the bar with a scarred hand. “You figured me out, Beecher. Just before noon tomorrow, as he heads out to lead his daughter’s class trip to the Lincoln Memorial, President Orson Wallace will be leaving this dining room, which is when I’ll sneak up behind him and use his own steak knife to slit his throat and pull his larynx into his lap.” As he says the words, his lips press into a thin smile.

“That’s not funny, Marsh. How can you say something like that?”

“Isn’t that what you want me to say, Beecher?” he asks, still calm as can be. “Isn’t that why you came here — to prove I’m a heartless murderer?”

On our right, the bartender finally takes notice of us. So does the maître d’. Waving them both back with nothing but a dark stare, Marshall walks — slowly, like he owns the place — through the restaurant and out the front door as I walk behind him. No one approaches. They know a wolf when they see one.

Outside, the front patio of the restaurant has a few wrought-iron tables that’re covered with snow. There’s no place to sit. But at least no one’s listening.

“If you want to know something, Beecher, ask me to my face.”

“How’s your dad doing these days?” I ask.

“He died. Three years ago.”

“I’m sorry, Marsh. I had no—”

“He was sick a long time,” he says in the sort of elegant calm that comes from someone who’s grown accustomed to tragedy.

No surprise, all it does is make me miss my own dad, who died when I was just three. Two months ago, Clementine said she knew the real story of my father’s death. I know it was just another manipulation, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t leave its own scar.

As we linger in front of the restaurant, I wait for Marshall to say something else, but he’s still scanning our surroundings, checking the building across the street and every window in it that looks down on us.

“You want to tell me what really happened at that church?” I say.

“I told you what happened.”

“So you just coincidentally were there? You were just saying some prayers?”

“What’s wrong with saying prayers? When we were little, your mom made us say that morning prayer, for what we were thankful for. You’re telling me you still don’t do that?”

My shoulder brushes against one of the metal poles that holds up the restaurant’s blue awning, sending a sprinkling of snow toward the earth and once again making me think of my own father. “I really did look you up, Marshall. This stuff at GAO — I know how good you are at getting into places you shouldn’t be. So stop insulting me. Why were you really in St. John’s Church last night?”

His stance is still all business. He keeps staring across the street, dissecting every window across from us.

“Marshall, if you’re in trouble—”

“I don’t need your help, Beecher.”

“That’s not true. A man was murdered. You were the one arrested for it!” I hiss, fighting to keep my voice down. “This group I work with… instead of being so stubborn and pushing us away…” I swallow my words, amazed at my own rush of anger.

I take a deep breath. “I know I haven’t been part of your life for over a decade. But for years, I was part of your life. Y’know how many hours I spent with you in that treehouse?”

Marshall is still facing the building across the street. He won’t turn my way. But he’s no longer checking windows.

His voice is still. He never gets upset. “You know that rector who died at the church last night,” he finally says. “The one who got his throat slit?”

“Yeah?”

“He wasn’t the first rector who was killed. There was another. One before him.”

“What’re you talking about?” I ask.

“Two and a half weeks ago. Another pastor died. That’s what I was looking into. That’s what led me to St. John’s.”

Kicking at the ground, Marshall pivots his foot like he’s putting out a cigarette. But the force he puts behind it, it’s like he’s trying to dig through the concrete itself. Last time I saw that look, urine was running down his father’s wheelchair.

“Why were you looking at that first pastor?”

He kicks again at the ground. The snow is almost gone. “He was someone I knew. From Saggy.”

“Wait. You knew him from home?”

Marshall nods. “You knew him too.”

33

How long’s he been like that?” Nurse Rupert asked.

“Almost twenty minutes,” Nurse Karina replied, eyeing the beige brick labyrinth, where Nico was still standing directly at the center, his hands flat at his sides. Like a military man.

“Twenty minutes? You’re kidding.”

“I wish.”

“Karina, you’re telling me you’ve watched Nico stand there—right there—at the center of that stupid maze—”

“It’s a labyrinth. Mazes have dead ends.”

“You’re telling me that for twenty minutes—” Rupert cut himself off. “If Gosling sees this—” He cut himself off again. “Why didn’t you call for help?”

“I am calling for help. That’s why I called you,” she said with Nico’s leather book still tucked under her arm. “Tina said he likes you.”

“Nico doesn’t like me. He just does better with male nurses. Always has.”

“I don’t care if he does better with transvestites. Last time he shut down like this, Tina said he put a mechanical pencil in Dr. Herthel’s leg.”

Remembering the incident, and the blood that went with it, Rupert snatched the old book from Nurse Karina. Every few months, Nico would find an object of obsession. For a while it was his Redskins wall calendar. Before that, it was his red glass rosary, preceded by a pair of reading glasses that reminded him of a truck driver whose throat he punctured. Today, Rupert knew Nico’s current obsession.

Turning back to the labyrinth, he waved the book in the air. “Nico, I got your book.”

Nico didn’t answer.

“I know you heard me,” Rupert called again, refusing to get close until he was sure it was safe.

Nico just stood there, hands flat at his sides.

Rupert took a deep breath, annoyed. Dammit. “Nico, you wanna go to the computer room?”

Nico turned. He knew they’d only offer the computer if they were desperate. That’s why he needed to make his stand in the labyrinth. This was what he was waiting for. It was time to get the Knight’s new message. “Is the computer room here the same as the old one?”

“Even better,” Rupert said, waving Nico out of the maze and steering him with a gentle back pat. “C’mon, you’ll love it.”

“Can I bring my book?” Nico asked, eyeing the book in Rupert’s hands. The book the Knight had sent him.

“Of course,” Rupert said, handing it to him. “Bring whatever you want.”

34

Still pinching the slip of paper from the fortune cookie between his fingertips, Dr. Stewart Palmiotti used his free hand to redial the President’s phone number. Again.

And again.

“We’re sorry. The number you dialed is not in service. Please check the number and dial again.”

He crumpled the fortune like a spitball but didn’t throw it away. He stuffed it in his pocket, not even noticing he was grinding his teeth.

On his left, a few blocks from Wok ’n Roll, a passing woman in a ratty red scarf seemed to be staring at him.

Dropping his head, Palmiotti walked in the opposite direction. With his head down.

The woman with the scarf definitely was no longer looking. No one’s looking, he told himself.

And that was the problem. No one was looking. No one was watching. Despite everything he’d been promised — all the reassurances that the President… that the Secret Service… that everyone would be looking out for him…

Stewart Palmiotti really was out here alone.

Or.

Maybe it was just a mistake.

At the thought of it, Palmiotti’s fists unclenched.

It wasn’t the craziest explanation. For over three years, President Wallace hadn’t cooked for himself… placed a call for himself… he didn’t even carry his own wallet anymore. So was it possible that maybe, just maybe, when Wallace wrote down the number, he wrote it down wrong?

Certainly possible.

Wasn’t it?

Besides, if it were a real emergency, he still knew how to get in touch with A.J. and the Secret Service. He did. It didn’t matter whether the number was right or wrong.

Palmiotti and the President had gone to elementary school together. They had traded snacks in the lunchroom together. They had buried Wallace’s mother. And Palmiotti’s father.

No question, the President would always look out for him. Always love him. But as his thumb skated across the keypad of the cheap disposable cell phone, Palmiotti knew there was one other person who loved him too.

Lydia. The woman he’d been seeing before all this.

She loved Palmiotti as well.

His cheeks lifted as he began dialing her number. He didn’t want to actually talk to her. No. Even he wasn’t that stupid. And even if he was, what would he say? Hey, hon! I’m not dead. I’m alive!

No. All Palmiotti wanted was to hear her voice on her answering machine. The little singsongy way she said Lydi-a, like it belonged in a musical. He knew she wouldn’t be there. It was a workday.

The phone rang once… twice… As it picked up, there was that hollow pause that tells you the answering machine message is about to begin.

For Palmiotti, that’s all he needed. Just to hear her voice.

“This is Lydia,” the message announced as the singsong made his heart balloon, pressing against his sternum. “You called. Leave a message.”

He hung up before the beep even sounded, soaking in the irrational rush of emotions that comes from any mention of an old lover.

Stuffing the phone back into his pocket, Palmiotti told himself that that was all he needed. Just to hear her voice. That was enough.

And as he felt that lump in his throat and that rise in his pants…

It was enough.

But then… it wasn’t.

35

I knew who?” I ask, still lost.

“Riis,” Marshall says.

“Pastor Riis? From our hometown? Pastor Riis is dead?”

“Three weeks ago. Shot in the chest by an old obscure gun.”

He says something else, but I don’t hear it. My mind’s already tumbling back to Sunday school… to Riis’s sermons at church… to the fact that he always smelled like peppermint Tic Tacs and suntan lotion… and of course to that night in the basement when Pastor Riis and Marshall’s mom—

“Don’t look at me like that, Beecher. I didn’t kill him.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“You think I don’t know that look? Get it out of your head, Beecher. When Pastor Riis left town—”

“He didn’t leave town. They ran him out of town! What he did with you… and your mom—”

“Don’t say those words,” he warns as I feel the rage rising off him. He keeps staring across the street, gripping the pole of the awning like he’s about to rip it from its mooring. Behind us, two patrons leave the restaurant and steer wide around us, sensing Marshall’s anger.

“You don’t know what happened back then, Beecher. To me… or my mom. You don’t know anything about what happened that night.”

“Your mom died, Marshall! She put a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger! What else do we need to—?”

He whips my way, his fist cocked.

I jump back, holding my hands up to protect my face. But he drops his hands to his sides.

“You think I’d hit you?” he asks, annoyed.

“You did choke me.” When he doesn’t respond, I add, “I’m sorry for bringing up your mom like that.”

He forces a grin, but his skin is stiff and unpliable. Like he’s wearing a plastic mask of himself. Still, there’s something real in his eyes.

“And I’m sorry for saying that about Pastor Riis,” I add.

“I brought him up,” he points out. “But Beecher, would I have told you about Pastor Riis if I was the one who killed him?”

“I’m just saying, I know he’s not just some guy who means nothing to you.”

“That’s why I started looking. First at Riis, and then at the other two.”

“Two? What two? There’s Riis — and there’s the rector who was killed at St. John’s…”

“And then there’s the one from this morning,” he says, watching me carefully. He was testing me, to see if I knew that one. The thing is, I’m not sure if I passed or failed. Was I supposed to know or not?

“Someone else was killed this morning?” I ask.

“Pastor Kenneth Frick. They found him shot in the back at Foundry Church… up on 16th Street. But from what the paramedics said, he’s gonna survive—”

“Hold on. Back up. You said shot in the back?”

“Yeah. Why? What’s special about the back?” Marsh asks. Unlike before, there’s no calculus in his question.

I stay silent, replaying the facts.

“Say what you’re thinking, Beecher.”

“I’m not sure,” I tell him, though I have a pretty good hunch. In 1881, President James Garfield became the second sitting President to be killed in office when he was assassinated by a bullet wound… in his back.

Last night it was Abraham Lincoln… now James Garfield… two lethal attacks that have now been re-created within twenty-four hours. I knew we had a copycat killer. But whoever’s doing this isn’t just trying to imitate John Wilkes Booth — he’s imitating, in intricate detail, the worst murderers in U.S. history. The only thing that doesn’t make sense…

“How does this tie back to Pastor Riis?” I demand.

“Three murders. All three of them clergy.”

I nod. Of course that’s how he sees it. He doesn’t spot the copycat assassin part. He just sees dead pastors. But as I replay the facts, St. John’s is known as the Church of the Presidents. Foundry Church, I’m pretty sure, is where FDR used to take Winston Churchill for services, and where Lincoln was also a member. That means both churches have ties to the commander in chief. “How about Riis?” I ask, trying to fill in my own sketch. “Where did he die?”

Marshall cocks his head at that, his sparse eyebrows fighting to knot together. “You see something in those two recent deaths, don’t you?” he says.

“You just told me about them. What can I possibly know?”

He looks back up at the windows across the street.

I wear a key around my neck. I found it back in Wisconsin when I used to work at Farris’s secondhand bookshop. It was hidden in an old dictionary, and good things happened on the day I found it — the kind of good things that helped me escape our little town. So, as whacky as it sounds, since that time, I’ve worn the magic key on a thin leather necklace. The only time I notice it is when I’m sweating bad and it sticks to my chest. Like now.

“Tell me more about Riis,” I add. “How’d you find out he was killed?”

“Jeremy Phillip’s dad called me,” he says. A name from our past.

“And did Riis—?”

“Riis didn’t work in Washington. Had nothing to do with D.C. churches, if that’s where you’re sniffing. He was living out in North Carolina. Retired years ago. As far as I can tell, the only thing these two pastors might’ve had in common was that Riis spent a few years in Tennessee, teaching at Vanderbilt Divinity School out in Nashville. And when I looked at the rector who was killed at St. John’s last night…”

“He graduated from Vanderbilt too, from the Divinity School. I saw the diploma when we were at his office yesterday.”

Marshall stops at that, still staring across the street. “You still have that amazing memory, don’t you, Beecher? No detail too obscure,” he says with a smile that actually feels kind.

“So when you were at the church last night,” I say, “it really was because you were doing your own investigation.”

“You know what I do for a living. It’s good government work. And important work. But this one — with Riis — whatever else you think happened with him all those years ago, no one deserves to die like that. So yes, I’m doing this one by myself. But if you have any extra resources, with whatever organization you said you were working with, please jump in.”

“And what happens when you catch him?”

He turns away from the street, his gold eyes hooded as he locks on me. “I told you: I’m taking a steak knife and slicing out his larynx.”

He doesn’t blink. But after a good ten seconds, his lips press into a thin grin.

“I’m joking, Beecher. Can’t you take a joke?”

I think about the Abraham Lincoln mask I found in his house, and how he already knows about this so-called “new” murder this morning. But more than anything else, I think about that night in the basement and the real reason Marshall has so much hate for pastors. And for me.

“I don’t like jokes like that.” I pause, searching his face. “Just answer me one thing: Clementine Kaye. You really don’t remember her?”

He taps what’s left of his pale tongue against the back of his teeth. “Short black hair. Always wore short skirts. You really think I’d forget who your first crush was, Beecher? I looked her up after you left my apartment. Nice job keeping it from going public — it took nearly every clearance I have to read the report, but… Nico Hadrian’s daughter? She screwed you up pretty good too, huh? You never had good taste in girls.”

I shake my head. “Why’d you lie?”

“For a smart guy, you know very little. So know this: Just because you had one devil from your past, doesn’t mean you now have two.”

Before I can reply, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I know who it is.

Tot starts talking before I can even say hello. “You still with Marshall?”

“I am. Everything okay?”

“Not sure,” he says, though I know that tone in his voice. “We’ve got another murder. Some priest got shot in the back. Like President Garfield.”

“I heard,” I say, eyeing Marshall, who, as he walks back to his car, is still staring at the empty building across the street.

“Here’s the kicker, though,” Tot says, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “We did some homework on that photo you emailed,” he adds, referring to the plaster Abraham Lincoln mask that I found in Marshall’s apartment. “I know where Marshall stole it from.”

36

Diagonally across the block on H Street, Secret Service agent A.J. Ennis kept his head down as he stood under the awning at the greeting card store and watched Stewart Palmiotti press the buttons on his phone.

It wasn’t hard to double back around the block after they ate at Wok ’n Roll. Maybe A.J. was just being paranoid. But as he learned a few years ago when he was paranoid enough to check his fiancée’s text messages, sometimes paranoia pays off.

Across the street, from what A.J. could tell, Palmiotti was clearly worked up as he dialed a phone number. A.J. had no idea who Palmiotti was calling. But when you have a guy who’s not supposed to be interacting with any parts of his old life, nothing good is going to happen when he’s punching at a cell phone.

From his pocket, A.J. pulled out his own phone and dialed a ten-digit number that didn’t ring. It clicked.

Click-click-click… Click-click-click…

“You saw him?” the President of the United States answered.

“I saw him.”

“He doing okay?”

“Actually,” A.J. said, “that’s what I’m starting to worry about.”

37

You agree something’s wrong with him?” Tot asks as we fight through traffic in the pale blue Mustang.

“I don’t know about wrong,” I say from the passenger seat, still picturing the scars on Marshall’s face, and the way his tongue looked like it was rebuilt with lighter skin. “Something definitely happened to him. He’s different.”

“No, he’s not just different, Beecher. That job he has… to do what he does… he’s missing the part of his brain that tells him to stay away from danger. And in my experience, when you’re missing that, your problems are just beginning,” Tot says, jerking the wheel and cutting off a muted green Range Rover that wasn’t doing anything but going the speed limit. Since the moment I picked him up at the Archives, he’s been in a mood.

“Tot, did I do something wrong?”

“Just answer me this: Do you know what the worst part was of what happened with Clementine?”

“I told you, this isn’t Clementine.”

“I’m not trying to scold you, Beecher. I’m asking you to take a look at who you are. Because to me, of all the things Clementine did, the very worst was this: She showed them your weakness. When she reentered your life, she showed the President and everyone else that when it comes to an old friend or someone you’re emotionally involved with, you’ll ignore all logic and reason, even in the face of facts that’re telling you otherwise.”

“That’s not true,” I say, stealing a quick glance in the rearview just to make sure we’re alone.

“Beecher, we’re looking for someone who’s been killing pastors while wearing an Abraham Lincoln mask and, for some reason, carrying nineteenth-century playing cards. Earlier today, in your friend Marshall’s apartment, you found a Lincoln mask that — oh yeah — perfectly covers the scars on his face, plus those same cards with the missing ace of spades. Do you really need the smoke to be twirling out of the barrel of his gun before you’ll realize what he’s doing?”

“I hear what you’re saying, Tot, but aren’t you the one who also taught me that even when the whole world is telling you one thing, sometimes you need to follow your gut?”

“Hhhh,” he says, turning the small grunt into a full sentence. In the distance, even though it’s getting dark, I spot the tall black metal gates on my right. “Beecher, have you ever really looked at the men who’ve tried to kill our country’s leaders? Experts put them into two categories: howlers and hunters. The howlers threaten us by sending scary notes and calling in bomb threats, but the good news is, they rarely follow through. They just want attention, so for them, howling and making noise is enough. It’s different with hunters. Hunters act on it. They research, prepare, plot — and follow that path to a goal. But what’s most interesting is that howlers aren’t interested in hunting. And hunters aren’t interested in howling. So now that you spent that time with Marshall, which do you think he is?”

I stay silent, staring at the red taillights of the cars in front of us. But all I see is the hollow smile on Marshall’s face as he made his joke about killing the President with a steak knife.

“He had your name in his pocket for a reason, Beecher. And he wears those gloves for a reason. Now your prints are the ones all over that Lincoln mask. So in case you hadn’t realized it, when it comes to any murder, even the worst hunters know the benefits of bringing along a fall guy.”

“I hear you, Tot. And I appreciate the warning.”

“Can I ask you a different question?” Tot interrupts. “I know I know the answer to this, but if Marshall was trying to kill the President, you sure you’re ready to stop him?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m just saying, we all know how you feel about President Wallace. So with this second pastor that was shot at Foundry Church… First we had John Wilkes Booth… now Charles Guiteau… This isn’t just a single act anymore. It’s a pattern of dead Presidents. So tell me, Beecher: If that pattern kept going toward our current President—”

“Who said that’s where it’s going?”

“You telling me it’s not? Someone just meticulously re-created two assassinations,” he says, his voice getting slower. “And there are only two more presidential assassinations to imitate. So. If this is going where we both think it’s going, and it led to President Wallace having a steak knife at his throat, would you really want to stop it?”

“Would you’ve really picked me if you didn’t know the answer?”

“I said I knew the answer. I’m just trying to get you ready,” he says, his voice more serious than I’ve ever heard him. “I know the President is a piece of garbage, and I hate him just as much as you do, but this is what we do in the Culper Ring, Beecher. Whatever our feelings, we protect the Presidency.”

“I’m not a killer, Tot.”

“And I’m not saying you are. But you have to admit: If Marshall did have his hand on that steak knife — if you just stood there and watched — boy, that would really kill a few birds with one knife.”

For a moment I sit there, my eyes still on the red taillights in front of us. “That’s what you really think of me?” I finally ask.

“Doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is, based on the direction these murders are headed, this will happen, Beecher. And when it does, you need to be ready with your decision.”

I’m still silent as he slows the car and veers right, into the wide driveway filled with flagpoles that hold both U.S. and military flags. The black metal gates are already open, revealing a bulletproof security shack that, a year ago, used to be swarming with armed guards. These days, there’s just one, dressed in full army camouflage and armed with nothing more than a clipboard. In the grass, on our right, is a sign welcoming us to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, home to one of the country’s most famous and respected veterans’ hospitals.

“They still haven’t shut it down?” I ask as Tot rolls down his window.

“The hospital’s closed. They moved most of it to Bethesda. But that’s not all they had here.” Tossing a smile at the guard, he adds, “We’re here to see Dale Castronovo. We should be on the list.”

I don’t like it here, I think to myself as we drive through the dead-empty streets that snake across what looks more like a college campus than a military base: lots of brick buildings with pillars in front, lots of open green spaces. But no one’s in sight. Truly no one. “You sure it’s even safe here?”

Tot doesn’t answer, and I get the picture. Doesn’t matter if it’s safe. We need what they have.

Up ahead, there’s a five-story 1970s-era gray concrete building with a U-shaped front driveway. As we turn into the U, a light outside the building flicks on, revealing a tall and severely skinny woman. Dale.

Unlocking the front door, she’s wearing a preppy plaid sweater, stone-washed jeans from the late 1980s, thick glasses, and three pens clipped in her pants pockets. I know an archivist when I see one. Who better to run the army’s private medical museum?

“You got a real ghost town up here, Dale,” Tot says as we get out of the car.

“Okeeyeah, you have no idea,” Dale replies with a rat-a-tat-tat laugh that sends puffs of her frozen breath through the air. “You ready to see the body of Abraham Lincoln?”

38

Out in the cold and speedwalking up 23rd Street, Secret Service agent A.J. Ennis remembered that when Clementine first reached out and demanded Nico’s files, the President told him to schedule a doctor’s appointment, which A.J. knew meant have Palmiotti handle it.

When Clementine wanted the meet-up out in Michigan, the President said, “schedule another doctor’s appointment.”

And this morning, when everything first went wrong — with Marshall… with Beecher… with everything at St. John’s Church — the President kept his same refrain: “Schedule a doctor’s appointment.”

In A.J.’s mind, President Wallace was being safe. But he wasn’t being smart. Sure, to Wallace, Palmiotti was like a brother. But as A.J. learned all too well when his mother died and the fighting started with his siblings, no one can disappoint you more deeply than family.

More important, as A.J. reported back to the President after lunching with Palmiotti at Wok ’n Roll, the doctor wasn’t the man he used to be.

Maybe it was the shooting, maybe it was from one too many personal sacrifices, or maybe — as A.J. had seen on so many staffers when they left the White House — Palmiotti’s ego simply couldn’t handle the fact that the President was moving on without him.

Whatever the case, reassurances from Palmiotti were no longer that reassuring. So when the call came in about another pastor being shot — this time at Foundry Church — A.J. of course brought it to the President. If this was what he thought… if the snowball was already moving this fast… it had to be dealt with. Immediately.

“Sir, just tell me what to do,” A.J. had asked in the side room off the Oval Office, where President Wallace kept a small refrigerator and his stash of frozen Snickers bars. “Should I schedule another doctor’s appointment?”

Unwrapping a Snickers, the President didn’t say anything. Not one word.

A.J. heard him loud and clear.

Twenty minutes later, A.J. marched toward the monstrous beige brick building that took up most of the block. He didn’t bother slowing down, even as the automatic doors slid open and a puff of indoor heat warmed his face.

Letting his training take over, he scanned each sector left to right, then up and down: A black granite reception desk up ahead. A single security guard on the right. Back in Beltsville, the very first lessons of Secret Service training had taught him to look for the person who wasn’t acting like the other members of the crowd. Find the person who was fidgety, or sweaty, or who was patting his own chest, a well-recognized tip-off that he was carrying a weapon. But right now, the few men and women who were pacing and waiting by the leather sofas all had similar looks of anxiety, even desperation.

He expected as much. Especially here.

“Welcome to the George Washington University Hospital,” the woman at the front desk announced. “Are you looking for a doctor or a patient?”

“Patient,” A.J. said. “A pastor.”

39

Marshall didn’t go to the front gate.

The front gate meant a guard, which meant being seen, which meant being remembered. Worst of all, if the guard made a phone call, it would let them know he was coming.

Instead, as the sun faded from the sky, Marshall pulled his SUV around to the back of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Most people knew Walter Reed for its hospital. A few, like Beecher, knew it housed a medical museum. But what most people forgot was that, like any army facility of its size, Walter Reed also had barracks and apartments. Soldiers lived here. And made a mess here. And needed that mess cleaned up by a privately run garbage service, which, true to army form, arrived and exited through a maintenance entrance around back. There was no guard stationed there, just a gate with a well-hidden keypad. Sometimes, even generals wanted to come and go without being seen.

None of it was news to Marshall. He’d been here two weeks ago, in the exact same spot: standing outside the metal gate, eyeing the keypad.

Electric gates like this all operated over radio frequency, usually between 300 and 433 megahertz. But to get inside, you didn’t need to find some top-secret frequency. You simply needed a way into the powder-coated metal access box below the keypad.

Fortunately, Marshall was good with locks. As good as anyone. With nothing more than two slivers of metal, the tiny lock turned and the access box popped open, revealing a circuit board. From there, it was like operating a light switch. When you flip a light switch on, a small piece of metal is lowered into place, connecting two wires. When that connection happens, the power starts flowing.

It was no different here. Holding a strip of eighteen-gauge wire that was thinner than a paper clip, Marshall touched it to two metal screws on the circuit board. As the electricity began to flow, the metal gate jumped, then rolled wide open.

Same as two weeks ago.

Stepping inside, Marshall didn’t even attempt to hide. This was a nearly empty army facility. How hard could it be to find a 1966 pale blue Mustang?

40

All around us, the display cases of the museum are covered with white sheets. Cardboard boxes are stacked like crooked pillars in every corner. The museum is in the process of moving. At the center of the room, Tot and I are both staring down, squinting into one of the few uncovered glass cases, like the ones that hold jewelry at department stores. But what’s inside is far more valuable than diamonds.

The two circular flat velvet discs have their own glass tops. Little flecks of white sit at the center of each disc: They look like human teeth that’re broken in half. There’s a larger chunk too.

“Abraham Lincoln,” I whisper.

“Abraham Lincoln’s skull,” Dale clarifies, showing that, like every archivist, she’s a stickler as she points down at the old bone fragments. “Or at least what’s left of it.”

“Why do you even have this?” I ask, unable to look away.

“That’s what we do,” Dale says, sounding almost cocky as she runs her fingers down the Def Leppard lanyard that holds her ID around her neck. As she twirls it, I spot a stack of concert tickets tucked behind her ID. I’m not gonna ask. “Back in 1862, when they founded us as the Army Medical Museum, our job was to document the effects of war on the human body. So the Smithsonian was sent all the cultural items. And we were sent all the human body parts, including the pieces of Abraham Lincoln.”

“And the shirt with his blood on it. And the bullet,” I say excitedly as I race from case to case. Speed-reading as I go, I can’t help but think that the exhibit would be better served if it started with—

There it is. The final item in the final case: the small silver slug of metal that resembles a wobbly lead gumball.

The bullet that killed Abraham Lincoln.

“Tot, you need to see this.”

He’s back by the open doors of the exhibit. “Do I need to close these?” he calls out.

“Doesn’t matter,” Dale says with a wave. “We’re the only ones here.” Following behind me, she motions down to the bullet.

I hold my breath as I read the description. This handmade ball of lead, fired from a Philadelphia Derringer pistol, was removed from Lincoln’s brain during autopsy by Dr. Edward Curtis.

Dale doesn’t say a word. Dr. Curtis’s own words are laminated on a card just below the bullet, in a letter he wrote to his mother. He explains that when they took out Lincoln’s brain to track down the bullet, he was lifting the brain from the skull and suddenly the bullet dropped out through my fingers and fell, breaking the solemn silence of the room with its clatter, into an empty basin that was standing beneath. There it lay upon the white china, a little black mass no bigger than the end of my finger — dull, motionless and harmless, yet the cause of such mighty changes in the world’s history as we may perhaps never realize.

I’m still holding my breath. On my left, Dale isn’t playing with her lanyard anymore. Even today, there’s no way to know all the changes to history that came from John Wilkes Booth’s actions that day. But whoever’s killing these pastors now, if they really are working toward the current President, I can’t help but think they’ve got their own idea.

“Tell me about the Lincoln mask,” I say, finally breaking the silence.

Pointing us to the left, toward a nearby case, Dale yanks on the eggshell-colored sheet, revealing another glass museum case. An empty one.

“I came in two weeks ago and — poof — it was gone.” From a nearby display case, Dale grabs a file folder, flips it open, and pulls out a blown-up color photo of what used to be in this case: a plaster mask. There’s no mistaking who it is — the pointy nose, the high cheekbones — even in full plaster, we all know Abraham Lincoln. But unlike the mask from Marshall’s apartment, the one in this photo has plaster over the eyes. Marshall’s had holes cut into it. So someone could see through it. More important, this one is yellowed and old. Marshall’s was pristine and white.

“Look familiar?” Tot asks, as I replay what Marshall told me. That he supposedly found the mask in a garbage can a few blocks from the crime.

“Dale, if someone stole the mask, how hard would it be to make another cast from it?” Tot adds, already knowing what I’m thinking.

“That was the whole point. Once the cast existed, people could use it to make busts of the President without having to bother him. They even used it to make the big statue in the Lincoln Memorial. What’s odd is, ours is just a copy of the original.”

“So what you’re saying is that this mask isn’t even the most valuable thing here?” Tot interrupts in a tone that tells me he already knows the answer.

“Exactly… okeeyeah… that’s exactly my point!” Dale insists a bit too enthusiastically as she readjusts her glasses. “Lincoln’s bone fragments and the bullet that killed him, those things are priceless. But to take a reproduction plaster mask and some random pieces of Booth. How does that make any—?”

“Booth?” I blurt. “You mean as in John Wilkes Booth?”

Dale looks at Tot, then over at me. “Back then, in the 1860s,” she explains, “we were sent everybody.”

“So you also have pieces of John Wilkes Booth,” Tot says, full of fake excitement. “And those pieces were stolen too?”

Tot’s not stupid. He knew about the Lincoln mask and the Booth part long before we got here. But for him to keep the Booth part from me… to hold it back… I’ve known Tot since my very first day at the Archives. In the Culper Ring, I put my life in his hands. Why would he lie about—?

He shoots me a look and I get the rest.

Marshall.

Back at the restaurant, he was worried I’d tell Marshall.

You’re wrong, I say to him with just a dirty look.

Doesn’t matter, he replies with his own look.

But it does. Trust always matters.

“Can we see it?” Tot asks, motioning for Dale to lead the way.

“Absolutely,” she says, her Def Leppard lanyard twirling as she leads us to the last remaining body parts of John Wilkes Booth.

41

Nico knew all about steganography, which was Greek for hidden writing.

He knew of its history in ancient Greece, where they wrote messages on wooden tablets, then covered the tablet in wax, which made it look blank. It wasn’t until the tablet was delivered and the wax was scraped away that the hidden message was revealed.

Nico knew that’s what made it different from cryptography, which was all about secret codes. Steganography had nothing to do with codes. In steganography, the message isn’t scrambled. It’s simply hidden so no one knows you’re sending a message at all.

“You’re joking, right?” Nurse Karina asked as she stood behind Nico.

Nurse Rupert didn’t bother to answer, standing right next to her.

Ignoring them both with his back to them, Nico sat at a blond wooden desk, staring blankly at a computer screen, both of his palms flat on the desk. Along the left wall of the room was a working stove, a microwave, a washer/dryer, and a toilet, each item right next to the other.

The room was used for ADL skills — Activities for Daily Living — which meant that patients came in here to learn how to survive in the actual world. Staff taught them how to turn on a stove, wash their clothes, and even the most basic of tasks, like keeping a clean toilet.

For a few patients, including Nico, it also included minor computer privileges.

“And that’s what he likes?” Karina whispered.

“That’s it. It’s his favorite,” Rupert replied.

From the angle they were at, they had a clear view of Nico’s monitor, which held a YouTube video called “Cutey Cute Lester.”

Onscreen, a fluffy and adorable tabby kitten named Lester rolled back and forth across a plush gray carpet, like he had an itch he couldn’t reach. In the background, the cat’s owner tapped his foot, laughing along with him.

“So the man who shot the President also likes cat videos?” Karina asked.

“Sometimes he prefers one called ‘I’m Just a Cat and I’m Doing Cat Stuff.’ Though personally, I prefer Lester. Look at that range…”

Onscreen, Lester the kitten was stretched out on his back, his front left paw looking like it was waving right at the viewer.

Nico stared at the screen, thinking of ancient Greece, where Herodotus told the story of a secret message that was tattooed onto the shaved head of a slave and concealed by his grown-back hair. The message stayed hidden until the slave arrived at his destination and shaved his head again. Perfect steganography.

Almost as perfect as George Washington using invisible ink and writing between the lines of his own handwritten letters.

Almost as perfect as what Nico — and the dead First Lady — were staring at today. The video uploaded by a user named LedParadis27.

“That’s all he does? He sits here and watches cat videos?” Karina asked.

“We call it his kitty porn. But yeah — ever since they stopped letting him feed the cats next door, you wanna keep Nico calm, this is how you do it.”

“So how long does he—?”

Before Karina could finish, Nico stood from his seat, picked up his book, and headed past them.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” he announced, the dead First Lady right behind him.

“I think it’s on the left… down the hall,” Rupert said, pointing him out into the main section of the clinic. The building was still new to them all. “Oh, and Nico — y’know you can leave the book here if you want.”

Nico looked at him blankly. Then he looked at the female nurse.

Saying nothing, Nico headed for the restroom that was just down the hall. Onscreen, the kitty named Lester was still rolling and wriggling wildly, fighting to scratch the itch on his back. All the while, the cat’s owner tapped his foot, presumably laughing.

Yes, Nico knew all about steganography. And now, thanks to the Knight, he finally had the newest message.

Flicking his ten of spades bookmark, all he had to do was write back.

42

As the lock clicks and the metal door slowly yawns open, the smell hits me first.

It’s bitter, like vinegar mixed with mothballs and the smell of rain. I know it immediately. Formaldehyde.

The sign on the door reads Wet Tissue Room. I don’t know what wet tissues are, but I’m sure this is what they smell like.

“Sorry, I should’ve warned you,” Dale says, reading our expressions. “I don’t even smell it anymore.”

Before I can reply, the motion sensor lights pop on, and the worst part hits: I see where the smell is coming from.

There are jelly jars of all shapes and sizes — each filled with pale yellow fluid and stacked on shelf after shelf, from floor to ceiling. This is an archive. Just like the one Tot and I work in. But instead of books, these shelves… this whole room… it’s filled with—

From inside the jelly jar, a mucusy gray ear is listening to our every word.

“Now you know why we moved all the Booth stuff back here,” Dale explains as we reach the back corner of the room. “After the break-in—” She cuts herself off, stopping at a metal map cabinet. Like the ones we have at the Archives, it has a half dozen wide drawers that are only a few inches tall. “We figured, who’d be sick enough to break into here?”

I keep my eyes locked on Dale, refusing to see the hundreds of pale yellow body parts that’re floating in the jelly jars all around us.

“So you were saying about John Wilkes Booth?” I nudge.

“Yeah. No. Sorry, we had two parts of him,” Dale says, pulling open the middle drawer of the map cabinet, which is lined with a thin sheet of white foam board. On it is a clear plastic cube with a brownish-white piece of bone preserved inside. Running diagonally through the bone is a bright, sky blue plastic probe.

“Booth’s spinal cord,” Tot says as if he’s asking a question. But like before, he knows the answer.

This time, though, so do I. After Booth was shot at Garrett’s Barn, they did a quick autopsy, then buried him secretly so he wouldn’t become a martyr. What I didn’t know was that they kept some of his body parts.

“The blue probe shows the actual path of the bullet,” Dale adds, handing me the cube. “Many think that’s the actual killshot that did him in.”

“So this is the prize of the collection,” Tot says.

“Exactly, and like before, instead of taking the priceless artifact, they instead stole this…” From her file folder, she pulls out a color copy of a dark gray vertebra that’s mounted on a round wooden stand.

“Booth’s cervical vertebra. He was hit there too,” I say, noticing where the bone is jagged and sharp.

“Were there any signs of a break-in?” Tot asks.

“That’s the thing,” Dale says. “No windows smashed, no doors kicked open, no fingerprints, no nothing. It’s like a ghost himself came in and walked off with everything.”

Tot glances my way. He doesn’t have to say Marshall’s name. In the last forty-eight hours, who else have we encountered who knows how to break into a military installation?

“Here’s what still doesn’t make sense, though,” Dale says. “Whoever it was that broke in, why’d they take a random Booth vertebra, but leave the far more priceless killshot?”

“And why’d they take a replica Lincoln mask, but not the actual bullet that killed him?” Tot asks.

“He wants them alive,” I blurt.

They both turn my way.

My eyes stare down at the plastic cube and the chunk of spine that’s locked within it.

“I’m not following,” Tot says.

“You said this was the killshot, right?” I ask, holding up the cube.

Dale nods, just as confused.

“And in your display case, the bullet that shot Lincoln. That was the killshot too, right? The bullet from Lincoln’s brain.”

“He left both of those here,” Tot says, starting to see where I’m going.

“But the plaster mask, even if it’s a replica… that was made when Lincoln was alive,” I point out. “And the same with this,” I add, motioning to the color photocopy of Booth’s stolen vertebra. “Booth was alive when he got hit here.”

“So you think whoever broke in is ignoring the pieces from when Lincoln and Booth were dead…” Tot says.

“… and stealing the pieces from when they were alive,” I point out.

Tot rolls his tongue inside his cheek. He’s not there yet. But he’s close. “Why, though?”

“Y’mean besides the fact that you have to be utterly insane to steal people’s body parts? Think of yesterday at the church,” I say, referring to all the work the killer put into re-creating Booth’s crime. “Maybe he’s not just copying Booth. Maybe… I don’t know… what if he wants Booth alive?”

“Or wants to be like him,” Tot points out.

“Or be like all of them.”

As the words leave my lips, there’s a faint noise from outside the closet.

I stand up straight, turning at the sound.

Tot shoots me a look. He heard it too.

“That’s just our air conditioner,” Dale reassures us, adding a laugh. “It does that every time someone tells an old spooky story.”

It’s an easy joke designed to calm us down, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling like there’s a snake coiled around my spine, slowly winding and climbing up my own vertebrae. It’s one thing to copy John Wilkes Booth, but to actually want to be that monster, or mimic him. I’m not sure what bothers me more: the thought of someone sick enough to even imagine such a thing… or the thought that that person might be Marshall.

“It’s the same with Guiteau,” Dale adds, referring to the assassin who shot President Garfield.

“Pardon?” Tot asks.

“What you said, about stealing pieces from when Booth and Lincoln were alive… Whoever stole it, they did the same with Guiteau.”

On my left, Tot again rolls his tongue inside his cheek. “You have Charles Guiteau’s body too.” He’s trying to act unsurprised. But I see the way he’s running his fingers down his bolo tie. He may’ve known about Lincoln — and Booth — but Tot had no clue that the body of President Garfield’s killer was also here.

“Why didn’t you tell me that?” Tot asks.

“You asked about Lincoln and Booth. You didn’t ask about Guiteau,” Dale explains without a hint of apology. Though the truth is, we didn’t figure out Guiteau until Marshall mentioned the second murder.

Turning back toward the map cabinet, Dale reaches down toward the lowest drawer. As she tugs it open, it’s filled with assassin Charles Guiteau.

Literally.

43

A.J. tried the pastor’s hospital room first.

A nurse told him the pastor was downstairs. In the chapel.

A.J. nodded a quick thanks but didn’t bother to ask directions. Like most Secret Service agents, he knew the hospital well. George Washington University Hospital was where they operated on Dick Cheney while he was Vice President — and where President Wallace had his gallbladder out.

As for the chapel, A.J. knew it best of all, since it was there that Wallace — right before going under the anesthetic for his gallbladder surgery — signed away his power as leader of the free world and said a teary, just-in-case goodbye to his wife and kids. For the agents and few staffers there, it was a terrifying moment.

But as A.J. looked back on it, what he was doing now was far more dangerous.

Avoiding the elevators and sticking to the stairs, A.J. stayed out of sight until he reached the first floor. As always, he checked each sector of the long hallway, left to right, then up and down. A nurse with a rolling cart… a gift shop to buy flowers… and at the far end of the corridor: the only door in the whole hospital with blue-and-gold stained glass in it. Interfaith Chapel.

As he opened the door and craned his neck inside, there were two voices talking.

“… forget going to the games — just give me one good reason why anyone would root for the Orioles.”

Straight ahead, underneath a wide window that was covered with broad wooden horizontal blinds, a man and a woman faced each other, talking casually.

The woman sat on one of the room’s three cherry benches that was covered with beige padding. The man was in a wheelchair, dressed in a hospital gown, but wearing socks and slippers. He had a round face and a dimpled chin that reminded A.J. of an elf. And a nose that reminded him of a boxer. Pastor Frick.

“May I help you?” the woman asked in a calm voice tinged with a British accent. “I’m Chaplain Stoughton,” she said, though A.J. remembered her from the President’s surgery.

“I’m here for Pastor…” A.J. looked at the man in the wheelchair. “You must be Pastor Frick.”

“I am,” he said, surprising A.J. by standing up from the wheelchair. A.J. expected a quiet old man. This guy was a show-off, but in the warmest of ways.

“Pastor, please…” the female chaplain begged. “The doctors told you to take it easy.”

“I’m fine — they all know I’m fine. If I weren’t a man of God, they would’ve sent me home hours ago instead of making me stay overnight. They just don’t want God sending a lightning bolt through their windows.” He wasn’t old — maybe in his fifties — but his voice was lush, like a grandfather’s. As he grinned, A.J. again spotted the elfish twinkle in his pale blue eyes. But he also saw those old dents in his nose. A.J. knew: Dents like that can come from sports, or a car accident, or from people who fight — but they can also come from a dad who used to put a beating on someone’s mother. No doubt, this was a guy who liked righting wrongs.

“Let me guess: You’re another detective. A cop?” Frick asked.

“Secret Service,” A.J. replied, flashing his badge and approaching quickly. “If you’re in the middle of praying, I don’t want to interrupt,” he said, looking hard at the chaplain.

“I was just headed upstairs,” she said, walking toward the door.

“So the Secret Service,” Pastor Frick began as he lowered himself back to his seat in the wheelchair, gritting his teeth slightly. “I didn’t realize this had something to do with the President.”

A.J. forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “The Service does lots of work that doesn’t deal with the President.”

The pastor nodded absently. He was still in shock. “Y’know the bullet went right through me. The doctor called it a… he said it was a miracle… a reward for all my service,” he said with a laugh.

A.J. didn’t laugh back.

“Anyway, for someone to sneak into our sanctuary…” The pastor took a deep breath, readjusting himself in his seat. “I want to help you catch who did this.”

“That’s our goal too. So. Your attacker. Did you happen to see what he looked like?”

“I saw his legs. And shiny shoes. I know it sounds nuts, but… I’m good with smells. His shoes were just polished.”

“What about his face? Did you see if he was wearing a mask?”

The pastor shook his head, clearly confused.

A.J. let out a small sigh of relief. If they wanted to keep this quiet — and away from the President — the last thing they needed was another witness.

“And you didn’t see him going out the window?” A.J. added, still reading Frick’s confusion. “After shooting you, the attacker escaped through the window.”

“I remember that!” the pastor blurted, as if he’d forgotten it until that moment. “I heard the window open! And he said something. He had a deep voice and he told me… He said what our church did was a blasphemy.”

“A blasphemy? And do you know what he was referring to?”

“No… Our church… We pride ourselves on being open to all.”

“And you didn’t see anything?”

“All I saw was the carpet. Once I got hit, I was — The pain was just—” He cut himself off. A.J. had seen it before. Especially with those who demand a lot from themselves. They kick themselves for not doing more. As A.J. knew, it was no different with Palmiotti, which was why A.J. was now dealing with this mess.

“Help me get out of this chair,” Pastor Frick blurted. “My rear end’s falling asleep.”

A.J. helped him up and watched as Frick took a few steps around the room. He was moving slowly, but he was clearly strong. A pastor in a tough neighborhood has to be.

“You need to be careful,” A.J. warned. “Bullet wounds can take the life out of you.”

“That’s fine, but you have any idea how many congregants will stop believing in the Almighty if I’m not there tomorrow morning when they have their crisis? I’m not joking. As they say: Faith begins with self-interest.”

A.J. paused, then: “One more question, Pastor. Do you know the rector who runs St. John’s Church?”

44

The skeleton is in hundreds of pieces, yellow bones of every shape and size. But what catches my eye is the jelly jar that’s lying on its side in the corner of the drawer. Like the ones around us, it’s filled with a milky yellow fluid and a pale gray, spongy mass.

“Guiteau’s brain,” I say, still listening for any noises coming from down the hall.

“What makes you think that?” Dale laughs, lifting the jar and pointing to the handwritten sticker on it that says, What is left of brain of Guiteau.

“He’s not as famous as John Wilkes Booth, but he still killed a President,” Dale explains. “The jury found him guilty in little over an hour, and since the science back then said that you could actually see insanity in someone’s brain, after Guiteau was hanged, the doctors dissected every part of him, trying to prove it. The theory was that people were insane because of the degeneration of gray cells in their brain. They actually find the same thing today in people who are in asylums too long — and in their offspring too,” she says as Tot shoots me a look.

“You were saying, about the parts of Guiteau that were stolen…” I interrupt.

From her file folder, she pulls out a final color photocopy, this one of a flat piece of pale brown leather. It’s cracked and faded, like it’s been in the sun too long. At the center of it is a picture of…

The lines of the drawing are slightly muddy, and the colors are pale red and blue, but there’s no mistaking the hand-drawn threepointed shield with the American flag on front. Gripping the top of it is an eagle with wide wings and a lowered head. Just like the eagle on the package of playing cards that Marshall had in his apartment.

“That’s not a canvas, is it?” I ask.

“Skin. It’s human skin,” Dale says.

The muddy lines. The pale blue-and-red coloring. It’s a tattoo.

“That’s what he stole?” Tot asks. “I didn’t know Guiteau had a tattoo, much less that they saved it.”

“What about the symbol?” I ask, staring at the eagle and the shield. I know it’s not the eagle from the Great Seal. That one has its head held high, holds the arrows and the olive branch, and came in around 1782. But this one — with its head down for the attack — is a pretty standard eagle from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

“You’ll see it on china, and as a decorative accent on some antiques. Even the Philadelphia Eagles football team used to use a similar one for its logo,” Dale offers. “But back during Guiteau’s time, this apparently was the emblem of some group.”

“What group?” I ask.

Dale purses her lips. “I hadn’t even heard of them until a colleague mentioned them after the robbery. They were called the Knights… the Knights in the…”

“The Knights of the Golden Circle,” Tot says coldly, still locked on the red-and-blue tattoo.

45

St. John’s? You mean the church down by the White House?” Pastor Frick asked, slowly walking in a small circle around the hospital chapel. “I’ve heard they run a nice service, but the truth is, we’re Methodist and they’re—”

“Turns out, the rector at St. John’s was found murdered last night,” A.J. interrupted. “It was on the local news this morning, but happened too late for the papers to pick it up.”

“M-My word… I had no… Oh.” The pastor’s pale round face grew even paler. He made his way back toward the wheelchair and held its pushbars to steady himself. “You think the same person who did that might have been the one who came after me?”

A.J. knew that was the question. Two churches… two pastors… two places filled with history. “Pastor Frick, does your church have any ties to Abraham Lincoln?”

The pastor looked thoughtful. “Lincoln was a Methodist. Back when he was President, he was actually a life member of our church.”

“So he spent time there?”

“Of course. A great deal of time. But none of that — In our neighborhood, we always have a few too many robberies and muggings. Nothing violent, thankfully. That’s part of the territory when you serve a less affluent population. But that doesn’t explain—”

“Sir, I saw that your regular pastor — Pastor Phelps — is away in New Zealand for over four months now,” A.J. said. “Any particular reason why he left?”

“He has family there. Why?”

“When I spoke to the staff at St. John’s, some of the staffers there said that in the weeks before their rector was killed, he took a lot of criticism for trying to update St. John’s, instituting a Date Night for singles and things like that.”

“Pastor Phelps used to give away fruit smoothies to bring people in. But that’s just part of running a modern church,” Frick agreed. “Though what makes you think that’s tied to Abraham Lincoln?”

“What about our current President?” A.J. asked. “Have you had any interactions with him?”

“I don’t understand. What does this have to do with President Wallace?”

“These are just standard questions, sir. That’s our job in the Service.”

The pastor blinked quickly, taking a seat in the wheelchair. “I’ve only met the President once, when he came for services.”

A.J. froze. Over the years, he knew there were dozens — maybe hundreds — of religious leaders, of every denomination, whom the President had said prayers with. But last year, after the Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn, President Wallace had gone to services at St. John’s. And now it was clear that the President had also attended services with Pastor Frick. “Sir, can you please tell me everything that happened when you were with President Wallace?”

46

It didn’t take long for Marshall to find the small silver beacon.

He knew it had to be there. It was the only way to explain how Beecher tracked him to the restaurant in Georgetown. Sure enough, after a few minutes of searching the passenger seat and the floor mats, there it was, tucked into the plastic well of the passenger-side door.

From the tiny size of the beacon, Marshall knew this was certainly as good as anything the government had. Maybe even better, which wasn’t a surprise. Years ago, the CIA and NSA had the best research and development shops, producing the smallest and most impressive toys. These days, it was the private sector that led the way, doing the R&D themselves, then selling it at top dollar to the government. For better or worse, industry was no longer about keeping the world safe — they cared about making money. So for tech this good, whoever Beecher was working with, they knew exactly what they were doing.

Marshall made a mental note. He knew what he was doing too. And now that it was dark, it was all so much easier. Still, he had to admit, despite all his planning, even he was surprised by the rush of emotions that came with seeing Beecher.

Following the same path he took two weeks ago, Marshall stuck to the service road and eyed the gray concrete behemoth at the center of Walter Reed. At the front of the building was a wide U-shaped driveway that held two cars: an old white Honda with an Elliot in the Morning radio show bumper sticker, and a pristine 1966 Mustang.

Checking over his shoulder one last time, Marshall approached the passenger side of the Mustang, then got down on one knee like he was tying his shoe. Beecher had already done enough damage. Now it was time to return the favor.

47

That’s them. The Knights of the Golden Circle. You’ve heard of them?” Dale asks, revealing just how little she knows Tot.

“We have a few of their items in the Archives,” Tot replies, holding the photocopy to his nose and studying the strange eagle tattoo. “I know them from there.”

He’s not the only one. Back during the Civil War, groups like the Knights were popping up in every direction, providing outlets for all the anger running rampant in the country. But unlike the Freemasons or other secret societies, who were focused on longtime traditions, the Knights of the Golden Circle wanted something far more hateful: for the Union to end so they could run their own slave-based society. Their goal was to create a true, physical “golden circle”—with Mexico and the Caribbean — to build a private part of the country where slavery would continue.

The Knights supposedly had two famous members: Jesse James. And John Wilkes Booth.

“So this tattoo,” Tot says, pointing to the top right corner of the photocopied skin. “Any idea what this stands for?”

Dale and I both lean in. Just above the eagle, in the corner, there’s another tattoo — a smaller one, of a knife — a dagger, really — that’s drawn 3-D style so it looks like it’s stabbing into the skin. What Tot’s pointing at is the tiny red item on the hilt of the dagger.

A red diamond.

“You guys know better than I would,” Dale says. “Maybe Guiteau liked playing cards.”

“Maybe so,” Tot says, handing me the photocopy.

As I look for myself, Tot drills me with a long stare. I have no idea if John Wilkes Booth really was a member of the Knights. But no matter the answer, one thing seems unarguable: Over two hundred years ago, the only reason Booth got into Ford’s Theatre was by showing a mysterious card to Lincoln’s valet. Last night, after the rector was murdered at St. John’s, the police found Marshall carrying a deck of cards — with this exact eagle on the package — that was missing the ace of spades. And now, as I study the cracked beige skin of the killer who hunted President Garfield, I’m seeing that Charles Guiteau clearly had a tattoo of a dagger with a red diamond on it.

Two presidential killers. Two suits of playing cards.

For a moment, I tell myself to focus on the present and what we know: that there’s a copycat killer who’s imitating old assassins and slaughtering religious leaders. But if John Wilkes Booth had the ace of spades. And Charles Guiteau had the ace of diamonds. Either we just stumbled onto a hell of a coincidence…

… or throughout decades of history, two of the world’s most ruthless hunters were not just organized, not just linked together — they might’ve actually been working for the same cause.

48

Oh, please. Now you’re just rewriting history,” Tot says a bit too angrily as he tugs the steering wheel and the Mustang rumbles and bounces back onto 16th Street.

“What’re you talking about?” I ask as Walter Reed fades behind us. “You’ve seen what we’ve found: the mysterious card at Ford’s Theatre, plus the missing ace of spades, and now this ace of diamonds…”

“No, Beecher, what we found is someone killing pastors and imitating the most famous presidential killers. Which is twisted enough. What you’re saying now is, even though every history book on this planet says otherwise, that somehow all these killers were what? Plotting together over the course of a hundred and fifty years?”

“How long’s the Culper Ring been around, Tot? Two hundred years? Two hundred and fifty? You’re telling me George Washington can create that, but that the Knights of the Golden Circle—”

“The Knights of the Golden Circle were a bunch of racists from the Civil War…”

“… who suddenly disappeared just as John Wilkes Booth put a bullet in the back of Lincoln’s head!”

“I know how it played out, Beecher, and I know that every conspiracy nut in the world likes to say that the Knights’ real motives went underground with them, but I’m telling you: The Knights of the Golden Circle don’t exist today.”

“How do you know that?”

Tot licks his lips, suddenly quiet.

“Tot, just say it.”

Holding the steering wheel like he’s about to strangle it, he turns to me with his milky bad eye. “I know because we fought them already. Years ago. And beat them.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“We — the Culper Ring — we beat them. Years ago. And the last time I heard the Knights mentioned, it was—” He cuts himself off. “Back when I was first recruited.” He stops again. “We’re talking nearly fifty years ago, back when Kermit—”

“Kermit?”

“Kermit,” Tot says, his voice catching. “Kermit was to me what I hope I’m being to you.”

As we veer around the traffic circle at Colesville Road and head for the Beltway, momentum pins me against the passenger-side door. I stare at him, appreciating the—

“Don’t go mushy on me, Beecher. I’m just saying, when I was younger and Kermit brought me in, like any parent, there was a lot he didn’t say in front of me. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t listening. And back then, what they were always whispering about — like Holocaust survivors whispering about the concentration camps — were the horrors that happened with the Knights of the Golden Circle.”

“Did you ever find out what happened?”

“I know what happened: We won. We beat them. Whatever they were up to — and I can tell you, it had nothing to do with John Wilkes Booth or ancient playing cards — Kermit made one thing absolutely clear: We stomped them. So the odds of them suddenly being back, and being responsible for murdering these religious leaders, or even working their way up to the President—”

“Are you even listening to yourself? You’re part of a secret underground group that’s existed for the past two centuries, and you’re telling me that there’s no way that another secret underground group could’ve done the same?”

Tot hits the gas, the Mustang jerks, and we pick up speed on the highway. “Beecher, y’know how every family has one moment where they weren’t at their best?”

“Can you please just spare me the metaphor and tell me what you’re really trying to say?”

He pauses, and then: “You have to understand — the Culper Ring, for all our secrecy, we’re no different than any other clandestine unit. We’re made up of people. And for that reason, the Ring itself always develops its own personality, especially depending on who’s in charge.”

“You’re saying someone bad was in charge back then?”

“Not bad. Aggressive. Proactive. In the right situation, those are still good words. Back then, it was exactly what we needed. So when it came to the Knights, and every last person involved with them… anyone they were associated with…” His voice slows down to that tone you only hear at funerals. “The Culper Ring tracked and hunted and slaughtered them all. Like dogs.”

As the words leave his lips, he pulls on the steering wheel, exiting the highway at Rockville Pike. At this hour, the roads are quieter and a bit less crowded. But it doesn’t bring a single bit of calm.

“You never tried to find out why?”

“Of course I tried to find out why. But it was like trying to find out about when your grandfather had an affair on your grandmother. Like I said, there are some things only the adults talk about. I was a child.”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“It does, Beecher. They’re done. The Knights are done.”

“You keep saying that, but just remember, all it takes is one crazy cockroach to skitter free.”

“I agree. Which is why it’s our job to find him. Whether it’s Marshall or anyone else,” he says as we enter the residential streets of suburban Maryland.

“I hear you, Tot. But after everything we just saw at Walter Reed, plus the way the murderer’s meticulously re-creating these crimes—”

“He’s not that meticulous. Don’t forget, the pastor he shot today didn’t die. He survived.”

“Then maybe he’s even more of a perfectionist than we thought,” I counter. I don’t have to explain. Tot knows that when President Garfield was shot all those years ago, he should’ve never died. What killed him was the medical malpractice of a Dr. Willard Bliss, who stuck his unsterilized fingers into the wound, causing a hemorrhage. “And Tot, wasn’t that the same Dr. Bliss who was also there at Lincoln’s deathbed? Quite a historical coincidence.”

Turning onto my block and stopping in front of my narrow townhouse, Tot doesn’t answer. He knows that around every dead President, there’s always talk of a greater group at work.

Kicking the car door open and grabbing my brown leather briefcase, I step out into the cold and look back at Tot. “Can I ask you one last question?”

“You want to know who’s running the Culper Ring now.”

“No. Well… yeah, but—”

“It’s been two months, Beecher. Give it time.”

“I will, but—” I look up at the black sky, then back into the car. “Just tell me, what you said before: about how aggressive the Culper Ring used to be, and the proactive guy who hunted everyone down…” I stare at Tot as the moonlight makes his blue eye glow the color of lightning. “Tot, are you sure the Culper Ring are the good guys?”

His lips curl into a grin that lifts his wizard’s beard. “Beecher, I wouldn’t be involved if we weren’t. But let me also say, if you do wanna look at history, you know that no one can always be the good guy.”

He takes his foot off the brake, hoping I’ll shut the door. I grip it, refusing to let go. Up until two months ago, I used to keep a brass perpetual calendar — a paper-scroll calendar with a built in clock — on my desk at work. But when everything happened with Clementine, and Tot invited me into the Culper Ring, he told me that you have a choice: You can run your life with a clock, or run it with a compass. The next day, I bought an antique Watkins & Hill thermometer-and-compass from the late 1700s. That’s what’s on my desk today.

“No, Tot. We need to be the good guys. I need to. Always.”

His beard lifts even higher. “I know, Beecher. That’s why I picked you.”

With a kick of the gas, the Mustang disappears up the block as a cyclone of exhaust spins through the night air.

My brain’s spinning just as fast as I fish for my keys and climb the steps to my townhouse. But as I realize that my front door is already unlocked, the spinning stops.

A careful push sends my door swinging inward. The lights in my living room are on. And like the three bears coming home from their walk in the woods, I find a woman with short golden locks sitting in my oversized lounge chair.

Last time I saw her, her hair was black. The silver rings on her thumbs and pinkies are all gone. So’s the funky wooden bracelet she used to wear.

But I’ve known those ginger brown eyes since I was twelve years old.

“I know you want to kill me,” Clementine says, palms facing me in the hopes of making peace. “But before you say anything, Beecher, I know what happened to your father.”

49

President Wallace was in your church. Were you advising him?” A.J. asked, standing at the center of the hospital chapel and taking a step toward the pastor’s wheelchair.

“No. It was this past Christmas — on the anniversary of when FDR brought Winston Churchill there during the war. Every President goes to church on Christmas. That’s why President Wallace—” Pastor Frick rolled backward, his face going pale.

“Is something wrong, sir?”

“T-This morning, in my office… when the attacker called it a blasphemy… Do you think he was referring to the President’s Christmas visit?”

“Did something happen?”

“Nothing terrible… not like this… but if you remember, we took criticism for the visit,” Frick explained, his voice slowing down as he relived the moment. “They told us that Wallace was bringing his son and his daughter, so we had everything ready, a beautiful service. But when the President finally arrived, he didn’t just have his family with him. He brought other guests too.”

A.J. wasn’t there, but he slowly remembered, nodding at the pastor. “He brought a rabbi,” A.J. said. “And a Muslim leader.”

“A rabbi, an imam, and a pastor. If the three of us walked into a bar—” Frick smiled inadvertently.

“So back to your attacker. You think that when those three religions were brought together, he might’ve seen it as a blasphemy?”

“I’m just telling you that some of my fellow church leaders like a little more Christ in their Christmas.”

A.J. heard that tone in the pastor’s voice. “And how did you feel about it, sir?”

At that, Pastor Frick was silent.

“I’m not trying to criticize the President,” the pastor finally offered, “but when they first approached us about the Christmas service, they said that Wallace wanted to bring the three faiths together so we could have a dialogue. That was his word. Dialogue. But when it came to actual communication, the three of us — me, the rabbi, the imam — we didn’t say a single word to each other. They gathered us together, your fellow agents made President Wallace appear from nowhere, and next thing we know, fifty flashbulbs and camera lights are shining in our faces.”

“It was a photo op.”

“Of course it was a photo op. But do you know why President Wallace did it? Because on Christmas morning, it’s far better for millions of voters to see the President with three different religious leaders than to see him kneeling in church and proclaiming his servitude to Christ. That’s not a personal attack. It’s just the state of politics and religion in the twenty-first century.”

“I’m not sure that’s a blasphemy,” A.J. countered.

“That’s not my word either,” the pastor said. “But let’s not forget, the people who founded this country were religious men. President Wallace isn’t — he attends on the big days. It’s not a flaw, but for millions of believers out there, it will take a toll.”

A.J. nodded. “What about the rest of the President’s visit? Did you get any time alone with him? Did you offer any advice? Say any prayers?”

For the second time, Pastor Frick went silent.

“Sir, if there’s something you shared with the President…”

“It was Christmas Day. Of course we shared a prayer. But what was said between us… forgive me, but that moment is private. Even if he is the President, I promise my congregants—”

“Pastor Frick, I understand how sacred those interactions are. I do. But you also understand — I work for the Secret Service. I wouldn’t be asking these questions if I didn’t think the President’s life was in danger.”

Still seated in the wheelchair, Pastor Frick stared at A.J. in horror. “Did I do something wrong?” Frick asked, his voice catching. “If I put President Wallace in danger…”

“This is solely for our investigation, sir. You have my word.”

The pastor took a deep breath. “We only had… it couldn’t have been two minutes. It was after we took the photo, before I went out on the pulpit. He pulled myself, Rabbi Moskovitz, and the imam into a small circle and told us how vital it was to bring everyone together. He told us he was trying to do the same for our country. So that’s what we prayed for. We lowered our heads… we clasped hands. His prayer was to bring the country — to bring all our voices — together. It was a heartfelt prayer.”

“And that was it? Did he give you anything or bring any gifts?”

“That prayer was his gift,” the pastor insisted, a crease forming between his eyes. “After that, his staff stepped in and… You know how they rush him everywhere. By then, the Christmas photo of the three different religions was all across the globe. To some, his blasphemy unleashed.”

A.J. felt his phone vibrating. Caller ID told him it was the one call he was waiting for. Holding a finger up at the pastor, he put the phone to his ear and pressed the answer button. “You find it?” he asked.

“They just brought it in — took all day to finish the crime scene,” D.C. police officer Saif Carvalho said on the other end. For three years now, Officer Carvalho had been playing cards with one of A.J.’s dear friends, and now he had an application in to the Secret Service. As A.J. knew, everyone needs a pal on the inside.

“You were right about one thing,” Carvalho said, referring to the gun that the attacker used on Pastor Frick. “It was definitely an old weapon.”

“How old?”

“Museum old. As in over a hundred years old. According to one of the detectives who’s a big gun collector here, it’s something called a British Bulldog pistol.”

A.J. felt the hair on his scalp prickling. After what Beecher found at St. John’s, he’d looked up the rest. A British Bulldog pistol was the gun that killed President Garfield.

Sonuvabitch.

What the hell did Palmiotti get us into?

Racing to the door, A.J. didn’t say goodbye to the pastor. This wasn’t just about imitating old assassins. President Wallace had spent time with Pastor Frick at Foundry Church… and he’d also gone to services at St. John’s. Now A.J. knew where the bull’s-eye was heading. The pastors were just the warm-up, like target practice. And now, thanks to Pastor Frick, A.J. knew the one thing all the victims had in common: President Wallace himself.

Bursting out from the chapel and into the long hospital hallway, he dialed a new number on his phone. It was time to move the big chess piece.

Running down the hallway and concentrating on his phone, A.J. didn’t bother to scan his surroundings. As a result, he didn’t see the lone man lingering just inside the hospital gift shop.

The man fit right in at the hospital. He looked like a staffer, or a doctor, especially because of the ID badge clipped to his lapel.

It was from a hospital too. St. Elizabeths.

Sipping from a cup of coffee that he held with two hands, the lone man stood just inside the glass door, studying A.J., and the fact that he was leaving in a hurry, and the urgent way he was whispering into his phone.

Now the Secret Service was definitely involved. They knew the pattern. And most important, they were well aware of the Knight’s final target: the President of the United States.

Nico would not be happy about this.

50

Apple or orange, Jerome?” Rupert called out nearly an hour later as he pushed the juice cart into the room of the old man who, in almost two years, hadn’t once said hello back, much less answered apple or orange. Tonight was Jerome’s first night in the new building.

“I hear the orange is better tonight. No pulp, no ice,” Rupert added.

But as was always the case, Jerome didn’t even look up. He simply stared at the only section of the newspaper he ever read: the colorful advertising circulars.

“Sleep tight, Jerome. And remember: Your sister loves you,” Rupert said, keeping the promise he had made to Jerome’s family.

Naturally, every family made special requests, and Rupert couldn’t keep all of them, or even most of them. But in Rupert’s eyes, sisters were different.

His own sister was the only person who got him through their tough childhood in Baltimore. And to this day, his sister was the only reason Rupert always asked to be staffed on the NGI floors. With the extra pay that came from working with Nico and the other NGIs, Rupert ensured that his nephew — his sister’s son — could keep going to the private school for the deaf that his recently divorced sister would never be able to afford without him.

Was it worth it?

His nephew just got a recruiting letter from North Carolina. For chess. A silent game.

Even Nico couldn’t ruin news like that.

“Almost done?” the nurse with the sad eyes called out from the nurses’ station at the end of the hall.

Rupert put one finger up, pivoting the juice cart in the short, bright new hallway. On his right was his final delivery, to the room marked Nico H.

He paused a moment, thinking whether he should dock Nico his juice for giving Karina such a hard time. But Rupert knew, when it came to Nico, no matter how annoying he was, it was never personal.

Nico had a sickness. Nico was confused. Sure, they’d gotten him to the point where he was no longer talking to the dead First Lady anymore. But that didn’t mean he was cured.

Most important, Rupert knew that if he held back the juice tonight, that’s a whole different headache they’d be dealing with tomorrow.

“Knock-knock. Apple- and orange-type drinks coming!” Rupert announced, shoving the juice cart into the door and forcing it to swing open. “Who wants sugary—!?”

“—ust thought you’d want it back,” Dr. Gosling said, standing by the head of the bed and handing something to Nico.

Dr. Gosling turned at the sound. Nico just sat there, in bed. Already staring at the door. Like he knew Rupert was coming.

“I–I’m sorry,” Rupert said. “I didn’t realize you were—”

“It’s fine… it’s fine… it’s fine…” Dr. Gosling said as he put on a wide smile and flashed his crooked ultra-white teeth. “Was just checking up on our favorite resident. Had to make sure he has a good first night, yes?”

Rupert nodded, taking an involuntary step backward. In Nico’s hands, he saw what Dr. Gosling had given him. A leather book. Nico’s book.

“He left it in TLC, in the restroom,” Gosling said, his smile still in place. “I just thought he’d want it back.”

“That’s nice of you,” Rupert said, looking at the leather book. The brown leather was the same, and the title was the same: Looking Backward. But when Rupert saw it earlier, the bookmark sticking out of it was a ten of spades. He remembered thinking that spades were sort of sinister. But now, the bookmark was a ten of diamonds.

“You bring my apple juice?” Nico demanded.

Rupert nodded, handing it to Nico.

“Apple is better than orange,” Nico added. Rupert continued nodding and Dr. Gosling laughed.

“We should really let him get his rest,” Dr. Gosling said, putting a stiff hand on the juice cart and motioning Rupert backward toward the door.

Rupert tugged the juice cart back into the hallway, and Dr. Gosling pulled the door closed behind them. As it was about to shut, Rupert saw Nico looking down at his lap. He couldn’t tell if Nico was staring at the book or the juice. But there was no mistaking this: that dark, haunting smile. Nico was definitely happy about something.

“He’s doing well, don’t you think?” Dr. Gosling asked as they both walked back toward the nurses’ station.

As the door shut behind the two men, Nico kept his head down, focusing on the quiet that returned to his room.

“He’s doing well, don’t you think?” Dr. Gosling asked out in the hallway.

To anyone else, it’d be too hard to hear. But Nico’s hearing was more acute than the average person’s. He could hear what others couldn’t. And see too.

“You don’t like it when they ignore me, do you?” the dead First Lady asked, standing in the corner of the room.

“Shhh,” Nico whispered, still focusing on Rupert and Dr. Gosling.

“Nico, do you even know how lucky you got?” the First Lady asked. “With all the money they spent on this building, the doors still aren’t thick enough to mask the sound.”

Nico nodded. That’d be useful. “It’s good to know when someone’s coming.”

“Sure is,” the First Lady said. “And it’s even better to know about the bang before the bang happens.”

Refusing to take a sip of his apple juice, Nico looked down at the leather book that he’d intentionally left in the downstairs restroom. Thumbing through it, he stopped on the playing-card bookmark: the ten of diamonds on here. Behind it was another card. A new card. The ace of clubs.

Message received. The third Knight was on his way.

51

Tot was tired as he followed the checkerboard floor down the long basement hallway. He wanted to go home. He needed the rest. But right now, in the basement of the National Archives, he needed something else even more. If the Knights of the Golden Circle were truly back…

He picked up his pace. He’d have the answer soon enough.

Checking one last time over his shoulder, he stopped at the room with no room numbers on it — the thick glass door with beige horizontal blinds.

He knew the glass was bulletproof. He knew the treasures that were stored inside. And he knew better than to knock. The hidden camera above the doorjamb already announced his arrival.

Underneath the door, the lights were off. Tot didn’t budge.

Sure enough, within seconds, there was a muffled click and the heavy door opened.

“You really are a pain in my ass,” a man in a crisp white lab coat said, running a manicured hand over his perfect, brushed-back blond hair. Daniel “the Diamond” Boeckman. The head of Preservation, and a master of ancient documents. “This better be life-or-death,” the Diamond added.

From his jacket pocket, Tot unfolded a color photocopy of a mottled and worn ace of spades.

“It is,” Tot said as he eased the bulletproof door shut. “Now, how much do you know about playing cards?”

52

Marshmallow loved sleeping at Beecher’s house.

And not because of the food, which, when you’re twelve years old, is one of the greatest benefits of a sleepover at a friend’s house. Back then, as everyone knew, Marshall’s house was the one with the best food. Cap’n Crunch… Lucky Charms… Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles, plus two different flavors of Pringles and you could drink Yoo-Hoo at dinner, not just as a treat. Forever compensating for having a husband in a wheelchair, Marshall’s mom made sure her son had it all.

When Marshall slept at Beecher’s, he had to slum his way through Honey Nut Cheerios and regular Cheerios.

But as Marshall was all too aware, Beecher’s house had the one thing his house would never have.

A teenage sister.

Two weeks ago, right before bed, Marshmallow was coming out of the bathroom just as Beecher’s sister Lesley stepped into the hallway. She was wearing a sky blue nightgown that came well below her knees. But Marshall could still see her ankles. He pushed his glasses up on his nose. Galactic, he thought to himself.

“If you even say a word to me, I promise your penis will fall off,” Lesley threatened.

Keeping his head down and rushing around her, back to Beecher’s bedroom, the chubby Marshmallow kept quiet.

He was mortified. And already making plans for the next sleepover.

“Beecher, maybe this isn’t smart,” Marshmallow whispered, two weeks later, now regretting that decision. “We don’t even know if they’re coming up here.”

“They’re coming. They have to,” Beecher insisted as the two of them knelt in the dark, peeking out from inside Beecher’s sister’s closet. “Don’t be such a coward.”

They heard the rumbling, like thunder, of half a dozen teenage girls racing up the stairs, and then saw the crowd of them burst into the pale pink bedroom, scattering and gossiping as they stole seats on the bed, at the desk, across the carpet with the daisy edges.

Marshall saw her immediately. At the back of the crowd, walking hesitantly. The last girl to enter the room. The girl who had just moved back to town. Clementine.

Now it all made sense.

“You knew she’d be here, didn’t you?” Marshall whispered.

Beecher didn’t answer, his eyes stuck on Clementine.

“Beecher, can I break the news to you now? She doesn’t like you.”

“She doesn’t even know who I am,” Beecher whispered.

“Doesn’t matter. You oogle.”

“I’m in puberty. I’m allowed to oogle. Besides, you oogle my sister.”

Marshmallow pushed his glasses up on his nose, still focused on Clementine. “How’d she get invited anyway? She’s not friends with your sister,” he whispered, leaning his nose toward the crack of the door.

“My mom felt bad for her — new girl, new school — she told my sister that Clementine had to be invited.”

“And she came? If Andy Levey invited me to his house, I wouldn’t—”

“Shhhh,” Beecher hissed as one of the girls — a short and bossy one named Rita — called out…

“Okay, who’s playing?”

Within seconds, a small circle formed at the center of the room. Girls scooched in, then out, to make more room. In the best childhood games, no one had to discuss the rules.

Beecher’s sister reached under her bed and pulled out an empty glass Diet Coke bottle.

“Please, God in heaven, I’ll go to church every day if these girls start making out with each other,” Marshmallow whispered.

Beecher flicked Marshmallow’s ear. He took the hint. Be quiet.

With a sharp twist, Beecher’s sister gave the bottle its first spin. A few girls smiled. A few looked terrified. But every girl in the circle shifted with a nearly imperceptible flinch as the bottle twirled past them. Everyone but Clementine, who — as Beecher noticed — was still standing awkwardly, her hands behind her back, by the door.

“And the winnah is…!” Beecher’s sister announced.

The girls began laughing, clapping, squealing as the bottle stopped and pointed at the short, bossy girl who just a minute ago had called the game to order. Her wavy brown hair was tied in a messy braid that was slowly coming undone. Rita.

“Sorry, sweetie,” Beecher’s sister sang as Rita got on her knees and crawled into the center of the circle.

From the closet, Beecher saw the forced smile on Rita’s face, and the terror in her eyes.

“Who wants to start?” Lesley asked as Rita sat Indian-style in the center of the circle. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Your house smells like pickles,” one of the girls, a blonde with braces, called out as everyone laughed.

“Your mom drives that dumpy old Mercury Capri,” a girl in a unicorn sweatshirt added as Rita pretended to laugh with the group.

“You look better from far away,” another called out.

The group giggled at that one, but it caused a pause in the action.

Watching from the closet, Beecher assumed that they were now feeling bad — that they had taken the game What’s Wrong With You too far. Until…

“You st-st-stutter when you read out loud,” a girl with a gold cross around her neck blurted.

“I know you stuffed your bra for Reina Pizzuti’s birthday at the bowling alley!”

“You stuffed it for my birthday too!” another girl yelled.

“Stovetop stuffing!” the girl with the gold cross added.

“Stovetop stuffing!” Lesley repeated.

“St-st-stovetop!” the blonde with braces added, getting the biggest laughs of all.

At the center of the circle, Rita tried to hold her smile in place, but it wobbled. A swell of tears built just behind her eyes.

From the closet, Marshall looked back at Beecher. “Girls are like… evil bitches.”

“What was that!?” someone shouted.

“From over there!” another yelled.

The crowd went quiet.

Beecher froze, hiding his eyes by staring down at the closet’s wood floor, which was a mess of shoes. He held his breath. Marshmallow did the same. No one was pointing at them. Maybe they didn’t—

The door to the closet flew open as the burst of bright lights attacked their retinas. “You little rat fink!” Beecher’s sister screamed. “You’re dead for this!”

Beecher scrambled backward, deeper into the closet. But with nowhere to go, he was tripping, tumbling, stumbling over the mess of shoes.

“Grab him!” a girl yelled.

Before he knew what was happening, the group of girls were grunting and pulling…

But not at Beecher.

“Get the fat one!” someone shouted.

“Nonono… please…!” Marshmallow pleaded as they dragged him from the closet. The girls were bigger — and two years older. Marshall didn’t have a chance. He tried grabbing Beecher’s shirt, then the cuffs of his jeans, but at the back of the closet, Beecher was tucked down, curled into his own self-preserving ball.

With a final tug, Marshall was out — literally pulled onto the worn yellow carpet with the daisy edges. The girls didn’t have to say a word. The circle formed instantly around him.

“You fat little shit!” Beecher’s sister shouted. “I should tell Pastor Riis what you did!”

“Y’know the pastor’s screwing your mom!” the girl with the gold cross added.

“That’s not true!” Marshall said.

“I heard he’s screwing her because your dad’s penis is even more broken than his legs,” the blonde with braces added.

“That’s why you’re an only child!” another girl said.

“I bet your penis is broken too!” Rita chimed in as the group let out their collective giggles and laugh.

“Broken penis!”

“Little penis!”

“No penis!”

The laughter grew louder as Marshall lay there, curled on the carpet, covering his head like he was in one of those 1950s Cold War instructional videos trying to protect himself from an atomic bomb.

In the back corner of the closet, as Beecher jammed himself against a row of once neatly hanging sweatshirts, he felt the empty clothes hug him, like cotton ghosts.

“They call you Marshmallow because you’ve got those boy boobs too, don’t you, fatty?” one of the girls called out.

“His dad has man-boobs too. Bigger than his mom’s!”

“Maybe the pastor’s screwing your dad too!”

The circle tightened around Marshall, like a gang when they start kicking their victim.

“Don’t cry, fatty!” Rita threatened as Marshall’s body started to shake.

Of course, Beecher wanted to stop them. Wanted to race out and help his friend and scream to stop them all. But he didn’t. He couldn’t, he thought. They were older. And bigger. How could he take on a roomful of—?

“That’s enough,” a girl’s voice interrupted. Calmly. Confidently.

The room turned.

Still embraced by the ghost-sweatshirts, Beecher peered out from the closet. He knew who it was.

Clementine.

“What’d you just say?” Beecher’s sister challenged.

“Listen, if it was my little brother, I’d kill him too,” Clementine said. “So go kill your brother. But don’t think you’re all-powerful just because you can pick on the fat kid who can’t fight back.”

The room went silent.

“Listen, bitch — you weren’t even really invited to this party,” the short bossy girl named Rita jumped in.

“You think I wanna be here? I’d rather gouge my eyes out than look at some Napoleon-teenbitch who’s so insecure she can’t remember how much the same thing hurt two minutes ago.” Turning to Marshall, Clementine added, “C’mon, get up.”

Jamming his fingers underneath his glasses to wipe his eyes, Marshmallow slowly rose to his feet. He didn’t say anything. He simply followed Clementine to the door.

Beecher watched it all from the closet. Clementine was incredible. Even more incredible than he had thought before.

But as she disappeared and Marshall trailed behind her, Beecher was still waiting for Marshall to turn back to him. He waited for Marshall to take one last glance over his shoulder.

Beecher kept waiting for his friend to look.

Marshall never did. He didn’t need to.

Beecher knew what had happened — he knew he was the cause of this.

And the sad truth was, it wouldn’t be the worst pain that Beecher would cause for Marshall Lusk.

53

Get out of my house!” I shout.

“Benjy, listen to me…” Clementine pleads, using the old nickname my mom used to call me.

“Get out!”

“Beecher, before you—”

“Get the hell out of my house!” I insist, rushing forward and swinging my briefcase at her.

She hops from the chair but doesn’t take a single step away from me.

Her smell — a mix of caramel and a pinch of peach from her lip gloss — washes over me, reminding me of our kiss two months ago. She’s wearing the same tight black sweater from that first day we reconnected. It’s not nearly enough to make me forget what happened after that.

“Beecher, just listen.”

“Listen!? You’re a liar. You’re a manipulator. And the last time we were together, you — oh yeah—you murdered someone!” I yell the words so loud, they burn my throat. “I’m calling the cops. They’re going to arrest you,” I tell her coldly as I reach for my phone.

“No. You won’t,” she challenges. “That doesn’t help either of us.”

I dial 911 and hit—

Her hand whips out, slapping the phone from my grip. It rockets against the armrest of the sofa and ricochets off the floor, skittering under the coffee table.

“Are you insane!?” I ask. Then I remember who her father is. Of course she’s insane.

I dart for the phone. She grabs my wrist.

I try to pull away. She’s holding so tight, her nails dig into the underside of my wrist.

“Get… off!” I shout, fighting to pull free and giving her a hard shove that slams her in the shoulder, catching her off balance and sending her stumbling backward.

Her feet hook on the carpet and she falls like a cut tree. The back of her head hits the edge of one of the lower shelves on a nearby bookcase, and her head snaps forward. A few picture frames sky-dive from the higher shelves, crashing next to her.

Heading for the coffee table, I reach for my phone.

“Beecher, can you please calm down a second?”

Thankfully, my cell’s not broken.

“I’m serious, Beecher! You need to listen!”

Again, I dial 911.

“You really think I came here without a good reason?” Clementine pleads. Her voice is desperate now.

I hit send and wait as it rings.

“I didn’t come here empty-handed!” she says, struggling to sit up. She reaches behind her back like she’s pulling something from her waistband.

If she has a gun—

“You need to pay attention,” Clementine says, pulling out a…

… folded-up sheet of paper.

No gun. In my ear, 911 rings for the second time.

“Beecher, you need to see this. It’s written by your father.”

“Everything you say is a lie, Clementine.”

“Not this time, Beecher. It’s a letter he wrote.”

“And that’s how you planned to hook me in? That’s as low as you could go? By using a letter that my dead father supposedly wrote to me?”

“He didn’t write it to you. He wrote it to your mother.”

On the third ring, I hear a click as the operator picks up. “Emergency Assistance. What is your location?”

“What’re you talking about?” I ask. “It’s a love letter?”

“No,” Clementine says. “It’s his suicide note.”

54

Most people made small talk with Julie Lyons. She knew why. It’s not that they liked her. They knew where she sat, and what she was in charge of.

Back during the President’s term as governor in Ohio, Julie — a fifty-four-year-old, square-faced woman who, around her neck, wore gold charms with her kids’ names on them — did all of Wallace’s scheduling. Today, her job was exactly the same, making her the only person who sat in the small room that connected to the Oval Office — and more important, the official gatekeeper for anyone who wanted to see the President.

“Hey, Julie — how’s it going?” most staffers asked.

“You do something new with your hair?” the real suck-ups would add.

“How’s your daughter doing at Dartmouth?” the smart ones said.

But as A.J. stepped into the cramped office and approached Julie’s desk, the last thing on his mind was small talk.

“Ma’am, we need to speak with him,” A.J. announced, using the word “we” even though he was alone. So Secret Service.

“Sorry. He’s on the phone,” Julie said, pointing A.J. to the wingback chairs across from her desk.

A.J. didn’t move. At all. “Ma’am, we need to speak with him. Right now.”

Julie stared up at A.J. It was easy saying no to staffers, and interns, and even to Secretary of Education Prebish, who brought his new wife and stepkids to the White House. But that’s different from saying no to the Service.

Squeezing around her desk, she headed for the curved door that connected to the Oval. A.J. couldn’t help but notice the blown-up photograph that filled the wall behind her desk. It was a shot — a private one — of the President (in profile and in full suit) pitching a whiffle ball to his eight-year-old son as the two of them played on the South Lawn. Even in profile, it was easy to see the joy on Wallace’s face. Yet like any Secret Service agent, A.J. knew his protectee. He could also see that deep wrinkle that ran from his nose to his chin and burrowed a dark parenthesis around the President’s smile. It was a worried wrinkle — the kind of wrinkle that came with knowing the peace wouldn’t last. As A.J. was well aware, that crease was only getting deeper.

On his left, Julie popped open the curved door. President Wallace was at his desk, on the phone. But as he glanced over at Julie, he could see who was standing right behind her.

A.J. didn’t have to say a word.

“Conrad, let me call you back,” the President said, hanging up the telephone.

With that, A.J. stepped into the Oval and the curved door closed behind him.

55

I know you’re lying,” I insist.

“I can’t always be lying, Beecher. Not about everything.”

From my phone, I hear the 911 operator asking what my emergency is. I tell her I dialed wrong — that there’s no emergency — even though I see one standing right in front of me.

“Just read the letter,” Clementine pleads, holding it out and trying to hand it over.

I don’t reach for it. I can’t.

“Just read it, Beecher. Judge for yourself.”

I still don’t move. Across from me, Clementine waves the letter like a white flag. She can soften herself all she wants with the blonde wig and all; it’s still the same person living in that body. But the most compelling part of Clementine’s argument has nothing to do with her.

“It’s your father,” Clementine says, still offering me the white flag. “How could you not at least read it?”

I glance down at the inside of my wrist. Her nails left crescent indentations. They’ll fade soon. My questions won’t.

“You’ll only regret it if you don’t read it, Beecher.”

I snatch the sheet from her hand. From the poor quality of the photocopy, it looks like a fax. I try to read it immediately, scanning it once, then again — but the words don’t make sense. My hands start to shake, and I feel like a teenager trying to read the directions for a home pregnancy kit.

Dear Teresa,

My mother’s name. But what makes my body numb — what makes it feel like there’s a thin plastic sheet between my outer layer of skin and my inner layer of skin — is when I see the starkly printed “T” in front of the scribbly cursive “eresa.”

My father died when I was three years old. He wasn’t around long enough for me to know his handwriting. But to this day, my mother keeps the last card he sent her — a Valentine’s card with Snoopy on it — in the giant hat box that she has in the corner of her bedroom and stores all of our loose photos and Polaroids in.

My mom didn’t believe in photo albums. She wanted the photos out, so you could sift through them at any time. As an archivist, the disorganization still kills me. But as a son, I appreciated the opportunity to study the old Valentine.

It didn’t say much. My dad wrote To My Valentine Teresa at the top, then let the card do the talking. But the way he wrote Teresa—printed “T,” cursive “eresa”—I studied that card for hours, down to the UPC barcode on the back and the price that was ninety-nine cents. I know that card. And I know my father’s handwriting when I see it. Blinking hard, I fight to read it.

My entire life, I was told my father died in a car accident on a bridge in Wisconsin. The plastic sheet that feels like it’s between my layers of skin now seems like it’s expanding, cleaving me in half. My hand starts to shake even harder.

Clementine, standing now, reaches out to comfort me.

“Don’t touch me,” I warn her. “Where did you get this?”

“Beecher, before you—”

“Where’d you get it?”

“Beecher, please. I know it’s hard. When you helped me find Nico—”

“I didn’t help you find Nico! You found him yourself and then came to me, pretending you were clueless! Now what the hell is going on!?”

She takes a half step back. “Did you look at the date?” she asks.

I stare down at the note. My father died on July 20th. But this suicide note, or whatever it is, it’s dated July 27th. One week after he supposedly died.

My tongue swells in my mouth. I try to breathe but nothing comes out. I know it’s a lie. Everything she says is a lie. “My father didn’t commit suicide,” I insist.

“I’m not saying he did, Beecher. But don’t you—?”

“He didn’t commit suicide! He wouldn’t do that!”

“Beecher, I know this is a wrecking ball for you, but you have to—”

“Don’t tell me what I have to do! You didn’t know my father! You never met him! He wouldn’t leave us like that!”

“Beecher—”

“He wouldn’t leave us!” I explode. “It wasn’t his choice! So for you to come here — to… to… to make a fake letter like that… I knew you were a monster, Clementine! But to use my dead father to manipulate me like that.”

“I swear on my life, I’m not manipulating—”

“You’re a liar! It’s always a lie!” I shout, shoving the sheet of paper back in her hands. She tries to hand it back, but I push it toward her. “You lied about Nico! You lied when you first approached me. And then all that crap about having cancer and how you’re dying? What’s not sacred, Clementine? What won’t you lie about? It’s like the bullshit wig you’re wearing right now!” I shout, grabbing at her phony blonde hair.

“Beecher, get off!”

“Why? What’s wrong with some truth for once?” I grab at her hair again, this time getting a grip on it. It goes cockeyed on her head. “What’s wrong with revealing the true you—?”

I yank the wig from her head. But instead of revealing short black hair, she… she’s…

Completely bald.

56

I’d say eighteenth century — y’know, if I were a guessing man,” the Diamond said.

Tot’s good eye narrowed. “Daniel, don’t do that. You never guess.”

“Agreed. And I never said I was guessing here,” the Diamond teased, waving the color copies that held pictures of the old playing cards, and tossing them onto the nearby light table.

Tot didn’t care for show-offs. But he did care that when the Archives had to manually reweave the frayed corners of the original Bill of Rights, Daniel was the only man trusted to do the job. In the world of document preservation, no one was tougher than the Diamond.

“I’d date them to somewhere in the 1770s, maybe 1780s,” the Diamond added. “But if you had the actual cards — or even that missing ace of spades…”

“What’s so important about the ace of spades?”

“That’s where cardmakers used to sign their work. Think of the cards you played with when you were a kid. The ace of spades used to have the company’s name on it: US Playing Card Company, or the guy on the old bicycle, or whoever it was that made it. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it’s where the printer signed them too. Depending on the year, though, these cards you have here might even date back to the… Hmmmm.” Spinning on his heel, the Diamond headed for the corner of the room, toward a bank of map cabinets and storage units. He stopped at one that held two stereobinocular microscopes and an array of tools and brushes, all lined up in size order, of course.

“By the way, she said yes,” the Diamond added, pulling open the lower drawer of the file cabinet. Tot knew who he was referring to. The only thing that the Diamond loved more than old artifacts: Tot’s officemate. Rina.

“We’re going on a date. A real one. Next Tuesday night.”

“Tuesday night?” Tot asked. “Tuesday nights aren’t dates.”

“It’s a date. Whatever you said to her, it worked. I owe you and Beecher big.”

Tot hadn’t said a word to Rina. Neither did Beecher. But in the world of the Archives, where nerdy librarian love was far more common than people thought (You like old books? I like old books! Let’s date!), Tot knew better than to get in the way.

“Where do you think I should take her?” the Diamond asked. “Are wine bars still considered cool?”

“Daniel, can we please focus here? You were saying about the ace of spades…”

“Of course, of course,” the Diamond said, kneeling down at the open bottom drawer of the cabinet and fingerwalking through the hanging files. Toward the back, he opened one and rummaged through it. Tot saw what was inside. Tons of loose…

“Playing cards? Is there anything you’re not hoarding down here?”

“You kidding? I’ve got Thomas Jefferson’s left shoe down here. If you put it on and it fits, you get to be President.”

“Daniel…”

“Playing cards. Got it. Anyway, most of these are from that exhibit we did on cards a few years back — back when Bill Clinton was playing hearts all the time. Turns out, he wasn’t the only card player. Back in World War II, the government used playing cards to send secret maps and messages to our POWs in Germany, since cards were one of the few things the enemy let them have. If the tax stamp was crooked on the pack, that meant it was a fixed deck. So our troops would soak those cards in water, then peel them apart, revealing secret maps to help them escape,” he said, pulling out a nine of clubs that had been peeled open. “In fact, years later, in Vietnam—”

“Daniel, I know that playing cards have been used throughout history. What’s this have to do with the ace I’m looking for?”

Still kneeling at the file drawer, the Diamond stopped, staring up at Tot. “Tot, you know I never mind helping you, especially in these cases I know you can’t tell me about. But don’t talk to me like I’m some college-kid researcher.”

Tot took a deep breath, staring at the peeled-away nine of clubs. “I apologize, Daniel. I’ve just… It’s been one of those days.”

“Is this like before? Are you and Beecher—? You hunting another killer?”

Tot didn’t answer. He’d known the Diamond for years, for decades even. But he never talked openly about the Culper Ring. Or about the Ring’s real history and all the things he didn’t even share with Beecher. As always, though, the Diamond never missed a detail.

“Tot, if you’re in danger, I can help you.”

Tot stared back at him. “Sorry, you were about to say something. About my missing ace of spades…?”

The Diamond shook his head, knowing better than to argue. “Y’know, Tot, you’re the reason people don’t like the elderly.”

“Do you have the information or not, Daniel?”

Reaching into the back of the file folder, the Diamond pulled out one final item — a single old playing card in a clear case. It had sharp corners rather than modern rounded ones. Yet what made the weathered ace of spades so memorable was the familiar symbol on it: the hand-drawn American eagle with wide wings and a lowered head.

Tot’s chest tightened as he studied the image. It was the same eagle from the pack of old cards they had found on Marshall. The eagle from Guiteau’s tattoo. And the same eagle that was the symbol of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a group that Tot’s mentor swore didn’t exist anymore.

“Like the magician says,” the Diamond added with a grin. “Is this your card?”

57

Clementine steps backward, her bald head down, her hand shielding her eyes.

“Clemmi, I–I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

She looks up. It’s her glance that interrupts me.

To see her like this, so pale, with no hair. Her face looks longer.

In my hands, her wig feels dead, like a mound of straw. I hand it back. Holding it, she just stands there as I stare.

“You really have cancer.”

“I told you, Beecher. Not everything’s a lie.”

The light in the living room reflects off her forehead. Her bald head looks so small. So fragile. And though she stands up straight and offers a half-smile, it’s like looking at any woman in a cancer ward. Since they have no hair, you can’t help but focus on their eyes — and then all you see, imagined or not, is the vulnerable sadness within them.

“Have they given you a prognosis?” I ask.

She shakes her head. I expect her voice to be quiet. It isn’t. “No one knows what it is. They said they’ve never seen anything like it. That’s why I’ve been searching so hard for”—her jaw shifts off center and she again hands me the letter from my father—“for Nico’s files. That’s how I found what your father wrote. The s—”

“Don’t call it a suicide note,” I interrupt.

“I won’t.”

“And it doesn’t mean that’s how he died.”

She studies me, not saying a word.

I scan the letter that’s supposedly from my dad. The teeny letters running across the top say FedEx Office with a 734 area code.

“What were you doing in Michigan?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer.

“Clementine, I’m feeling bad for you right now, and because of that — despite everything you did — I’m actually considering whether to listen to you.”

“I was hiding, Beecher. I was going through the file I stole from the Archives, and I was hiding. First in Canada. Then I snuck into Michigan.”

“And that was it?”

“What else do you want there to be? How bad a person do you think I am? Oh, that’s right, you already told me. You used that word, the one they use for my dad. Monster.”

I feel bad as she says it. And I feel even worse seeing her bald with cancer. “You still killed Palmiotti,” I tell her.

She doesn’t speak, but I see that familiar wicked twinkle in her eyes.

“What? How is that amusing, Clementine? You killed him. You shot him.”

“Palmiotti’s not dead.”

“I saw it happen! I saw you pull the trigger!”

“And I saw him six days ago in a Target in West Bloomfield, Michigan, when I traded him the President’s file. They dyed his hair. He has a scar on his neck from where I shot him. And he still thinks pleated khakis count as a fashion statement. But he’s breathing just fine.”

A burning pain stabs my chest, like someone just jammed a shovel in it and started digging. I look around, but the world is blurred. All I see is Palmiotti. When he was shot, I saw the blood… his neck… he was—How can—? “Oh no…”

“Oh yes,” Clementine says, still smiling.

“Th-That’s not possible.”

“Beecher, he’s the best friend of the President of the United States. Anything’s possible. And if it makes you feel better, without Palmiotti giving me Nico’s file, I’d never have been able to track down the doctor.”

“What doctor?”

“The military doctor. His name was in Nico’s navy records. Dr. Yoo. I found him in San Diego. All those years ago, he was the one who treated Nico… the one who looked after him while they did their testing. But he also — he treated your father, Beecher. He treated all of them.”

“No. No way,” I say, refusing to be suckered. My father was older. He didn’t… he couldn’t have served with Nico.

“They were plankholders together,” Clementine says. “That’s what the doctor called them. Plankholders. Y’know what that means?”

I nod, feeling numb as I mindlessly stare at the patch of pale freckles on her bald head. I recognize the term from our navy files. “They’re the first crewmembers to serve on a ship.”

“Yes — but in the army, they’re also the first members of a unit. The ones who launch it. Plankholders.”

I look down at my dad’s handwriting. “So you just found this doctor and what? He conveniently told you all his secrets?”

“No, he wouldn’t say much. He’s old. I think he’s sick. But he knew what they did to Nico. He knew it was wrong. And when I asked him for the paperwork… He didn’t have much. But he did have this,” she says, pointing back to my father’s note.

“My father didn’t commit suicide,” I tell her for the third time.

“Maybe not. But to even have a note like that — it’s time to ask the questions. Why’d your father write this suicide note? And how’d he write it a week after he supposedly died?”

My brain cartwheels, fighting for balance. I try to tell myself this is just another Clementine trick. But as I look back at her, I know it’s not. It can’t be.

“Maybe it’s something your father wrote and never used,” she suggests.

I look at her, confused. “That doesn’t even make sense. Whatever you think that note is, my dad died a week earlier. How could they get the date of his death wrong?”

“I don’t have the answer. I’m just saying, maybe he wrote the note — or even planned to use it — but then he died first.”

“So his suicide note was postdated? Do people even do that?”

“Why wouldn’t they? I mean, if you wanted to be prepared for your death, wouldn’t you want to write it and… I don’t know… work toward it?”

“I don’t think so. I think those notes are the last thing people do. The very last thing. But again: Even assuming it wasn’t, if he postdated it and planned to die — and then he somehow actually died right before the big day — doesn’t that seem a little ridiculously convenient to you?”

She thinks about that a moment. “Maybe it’s something they made him write.”

“You mean they threatened him to do it?”

“Or required him to do it. Who knows what they needed it for.”

I collapse in the lounge chair and wrestle out of my jacket. “In the Archives, I once read about this high-level military program that was organized after the first war in Iraq: a group of UN weapons inspectors. But what no one knew was that they weren’t weapons inspectors. They were there to search for and rescue three of our MIA troops that were being held in Mosul. And before they went in, rumor was, their commanding officer had them write suicide notes. That way, if it all went bad and they were killed, they’d still be able to keep their true mission quiet.”

“See, that makes sense to me,” she says, now excited.

“Yeah, but so does them lying to my mom and telling her it was a car accident just to spare us the horror of a suicidal father,” I reply, balancing the note on the edge of my left knee.

Clementine watches me carefully, clutching her wig with both hands and tapping it over and over against her belly. She’s more than excited. For the past year, she’s been searching for the truth about her father. She’s lived her life with questions, so she’s not afraid of the answers. But for me, I wasn’t aware the questions even existed. I’ve spent my entire adult life carving the image of my dad into my emotional bedrock. Stories of his unstoppable work ethic are why I still carry his old briefcase every day. His untold adventures — and my obsession with his death — are why I begin each morning reading the obituaries. And when it comes to his impact on my psyche, why else would I work in the Archives, reminding people every day of the power that comes from exploring their past?

But now… to hear that my dad’s death might not have been an act of chance, but an act of choice—that he left my mother and my sisters, that he left me, not by accident, but on purpose? I stare over at Clementine’s empty wig, feeling my bedrock start to crumble. The note in my hands doesn’t just undo the construct of my father. It undoes my father. It undoes me.

“Now you understand why I had to bring it to you, Beecher. For the doctor to send this…”

“I still don’t understand. How’d he even have it?”

“I told you, he treated the whole group of them—”

“Group of who? What group?”

“The plankholders, Beecher. The first members of the unit.”

I shake my head, redoing the math. “Clementine, my father was in the military for barely two years. He was a mechanic. How could he possibly serve with Nico, much less be a plankholder with him?”

“I’m just telling you what Dr. Yoo said. He told me they were all brought in together. All three from our hometown.”

Three? She reads my confusion perfectly.

“There were three of them, Beecher: Your dad… my dad… and the dad of…” She looks off in the distance, like she’s pulling a memory from the back of her brain. “Do you remember a kid — his dad was in a wheelchair — his name was…”

“Marshall Lusk,” I whisper.

58

How bad?” the President asked.

A.J. shook his head. He didn’t have to say it.

“So you went to see him?” Wallace asked, sitting on the edge of his desk and careful to never say the word pastor. Sure, they were alone in the Oval, with all three doors closed. But it didn’t take a copy of the Nixon tapes to know that there were always ears in the White House.

“I saw him. And spoke to him. He said he actually met you.”

The President paused at that.

“You don’t remember him?” A.J. asked. “He said it was at Christmas. That you said a prayer together. He was with a rabbi and an imam.”

“You’re kidding, right? You know how many people I say prayers with? Or how many of these I give out?” he added, pointing to the pink carnation on his lapel. It was a trick he stole from President McKinley, who every day used to pluck a carnation from his lapel and hand it as a gift to some lucky citizen. The real trick was that McKinley kept half a dozen carnations in his Oval Office desk.

“Sir, the point is, that’s two in two days. And the only thing they have in common is they’ve both spent time, and said prayers, with you.”

“So you think whoever’s doing this, I’m next?”

“No, but my fear is there’ll be a third attack, then a fourth, and after that…”

A.J. knew better than to finish the sentence.

Leaning there on the edge of his desk, arms crossed at his chest, Wallace looked more annoyed than anything else. For nearly four years, he had begun every morning with a private briefing that informed him about the most active threats against the United States. After the first one, he realized there was a whole different world that he never knew existed. By now, he’d gotten used to it.

But A.J. saw the way Wallace rubbed his thumb and middle finger together.

Even to the President of the United States, there was no threat like a personal one.

“And that doctor you’ve been seeing?” the President finally asked. “He’s been no help?”

“Not with this. For this you need a specialist. Maybe even a surgeon.”

Wallace thought about that. “What are you suggesting?”

“I think we take you out of here. Get you on the chopper, let us put our hands on this guy, and in the meantime, you’ll be safe at Thurmont,” A.J. said, referring to the compound known as Camp David.

“Yeah, I’m not doing that.”

“Sir…?”

“I’ve been in this job for almost four years,” Wallace said as he headed to the small anteroom on the opposite side of the office. Opening the mini-refrigerator, he scooped a handful of frozen Snickers from a silver bowl. “You know how many threats there’ve been?”

“I hear you, sir. And I know moving you is a disruption. But if I’m right about this—”

“Did you hear what I said? I’m the President of the United States. I’m not trashing my schedule, panicking my family, and hiding in a bunker just because some nutcase started seeing secret messages in the crumbs from his morning toast.”

“But what if it’s a nutcase you already know? From high school?”

The President slammed the mini-fridge shut. “What’re you saying, A.J.? You think our doctor’s become a quack?”

“I’m just saying, whoever’s doing this, he seems to know where you’ve been.”

“So does everyone with an Internet connection. My schedule’s posted every single day. So go alert the shift leader and tell them what’s going on. Time to let the rest of the Service do their job.”

“I can do that, sir. I will,” A.J. said, trailing the President back into the Oval and watching him toss back one of the Snickers. A.J. had heard it for years: All Presidents were stubborn. But for Wallace to take a risk like this, it made no sense. “Sir, can I just ask: Is this about tomorrow, about Presidents’ Day?”

Wallace’s gray eyes narrowed. “What about Presidents’ Day?”

“I’m just saying, I know you want to bring your daughter to the Lincoln Memorial… and I know they’re expecting a big crowd, but—”

The President dug his tongue into his back teeth, freeing some remnant peanuts. His voice was as calm as A.J. had ever heard it. “I have full confidence in the ability of the Secret Service to do its job.”

“I do too, sir. But that doesn’t mean—”

“I have full confidence in the Service,” the leader of the free world repeated. “That means get the hell out of here and find out who’s doing this,” he growled.

“Of course, Mr. President,” A.J. said, heading for the curved door. “I’ll take care of it.”

59

Tell me about this card,” Tot demanded, gripping the faded ace of spades and studying the familiar crouched eagle on it. The card was heavy and thick, made of a layered cardstock, probably rag paper. “Why’s it so important?”

“Forget the card a moment,” the Diamond pleaded, delicately taking the card from Tot’s hands and placing it on a nearby art table covered with sheer Japanese paper that was used for repairing fine works of art. The gossamer-weight paper was so thin, it was barely visible when applied to the object. “This isn’t about a single card. It’s about the history of cards.”

“Daniel, there are lives on the line here. If you’re telling a story, tell it quickly.”

“What’s the most popular book of all time?”

“The Bible,” Tot said without hesitating.

“Exactly. In our modern world, where everything is constantly changing, it’s simply amazing that the Bible itself has managed to stay pretty much the same—for centuries,” the Diamond said. “That’s how it is with playing cards.”

“That’s not true. Look at that eagle on the card. Name another pack of cards you’ve seen that on.”

“Forget the eagle and what decorates the cards. I’m talking about what doesn’t change. The modern suit symbols: hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades. In Italy, they used to be called cups, coins, swords, and batons. But those modern symbols — hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades — those were created in France back in the fifteenth century, by a knight named Étienne de Vignolles.”

“A knight?” Tot asked.

“Not just any knight. One of France’s most famous knights. A man who rode with Joan of Arc herself,” the Diamond explained, noticing the change in Tot’s posture. “This was a knight who served both church and king, and as the story goes — and I’m not saying I believe it — to test his loyalty, each side — church and king — entrusted Vignolles with their greatest secret. Vignolles was the chosen knight. So when it came to decorating the cards… his lasting legacy… he picked his symbols with great care. These days, most historians will tell you that the four suits represent the four classes of medieval society: Hearts were the sign of the church; diamonds were arrowheads, representing vassals and archers; clubs were husbandmen or farmers; and spades were the points of lances and therefore represented the knights, and by extension, the king. Others say Vignolles was just inventing a game, or that the symbols were a key to the knight’s true loyalty. But there are a few who insist that Vignolles, when he was forced to choose between church and king, used the cards as a vehicle to deliver a hidden message.”

“I’m lost. A message to whom?”

“To his fellow knights. To the others who he’d eventually entrust with his secret.” Clearing his throat, the Diamond asked, “Have you ever really examined the court cards in a deck? Why does the king of diamonds have an axe, while all the rest have swords? Why are the jack of hearts, the jack of spades, and the king of diamonds the only cards that appear in profile, while all the others are full face?”

“You’re telling me that’s a secret message?”

“Tot, you of all people know how much gets lost in the march of history. Today, we keep printing cards like this out of habit. But it’s no different than when the dollar bill was first designed and someone decided to put a pyramid with the all-seeing eye on the back of it. The designers didn’t just pick random symbols. They selected things for their meaning.”

“That doesn’t mean there are secret messages hidden in playing cards.”

“You sure about that? Look at these here,” the Diamond added, kneeling back down to the file drawer and flipping through the loose cards in the file, eventually pulling out a modern-day king of hearts.

“In just about every deck in the world, every face card — the jacks, the queens, all the other kings — they all have two hands. The king of hearts always has four — two of which are stabbing him with a sword, like he’s stabbing himself. That’s where we get the term suicide king from. But look closely. His sleeves don’t match. He’s not stabbing himself or committing suicide. He’s being stabbed by someone else. Someone so hidden, the king can’t see him coming.”

Tot pulled the card closer, examining the image.

“You see it now, don’t you? They match another card in the deck,” the Diamond said, now excited. “Those are the sleeves of the queen of spades.”

“So the spades kill the hearts?”

“Or as Vignolles designed in his original symbols: the knights — and by extension the king — kill the church.”

“But you said the queen—”

“Forget the queen. In the very early decks of cards, there was no queen. Women weren’t recognized as a part of civil society. Even jacks were introduced years later. So in Vignolles’s original deck, and the decks that were passed down generation to generation, it wasn’t king, queen, jack. It was king, knight, knave. That was the warning Vignolles was sending. The real killers of the church were the knights of the king. So if the church’s greatest secret was to be protected, a new army had to be formed. A secret army. A sacred group sworn to protect the church. A group of knights who would hide amongst the king’s knights and attack when they were needed most… and when no one would expect it,” the Diamond explained as Tot glanced back at the antique ace of spades from the deck Marshall was carrying.

Tot eyed the familiar eagle on it: the symbol of the so-called modern Knights — the Knights of the Golden Circle.

“Vignolles knew this battle would outlive him,” the Diamond explained. “The battle between church and king has been waged for centuries. It’s the ultimate civil war. So for his few secret knights who were loyal to the church, Vignolles hid his warning right there in the images: Without these sacred knights, the king would slaughter the church. The cards were their call to arms — the message hidden right in front of everyone — as a secret signal that would make sense only to those who knew the message was there,” he added as Tot thought about the mysterious card that John Wilkes Booth used to get into Ford’s Theatre… or the red diamond tattoo on Charles Guiteau’s shoulder.

“Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s all silly folklore,” the Diamond continued. “But when you look at a deck of cards, make no mistake, those cards still tell a story. And it’s a story that always ends the same way…”

“With a knight murdering the church.”

“There you go. Now you see Vignolles’s warning — and why he wanted to change that story. When his signal was given…”

“His knights would murder the king,” Tot whispered.

“Or murder whatever leader was in charge when there was no king,” the Diamond countered.

Confused, Tot asked, “What’re you talking about?”

“You think I just keep a stash of antique aces for no good reason?” the Diamond asked, motioning to the ace of spades with the ancient eagle. “Those cards you brought in here — they’re the same ones that belonged to George Washington.”

60

Marshall. You remember him?” Clementine asks, sounding energized as she grips her wig.

“Of course I remember him,” I reply weakly. “Marshall was my friend.”

“He was? I forgot that,” she admits, still not putting her wig on. “According to Dr. Yoo, before Marshall’s dad was in the wheelchair, he was a plankholder too. They were young back then, before any of us came along or—”

“Clementine, when was the last time you saw Marshall?”

“I dunno, when did he move away? I think I was… maybe thirteen or fourteen?”

“And you haven’t seen him since?”

“Where would I see him?”

“What about speaking to him? Have you spoken to him?”

“Beecher, you okay?”

“Please just answer the question.”

“Y-You’re acting like—”

“Just answer the question, Clementine! Have you spoken to Marshall or not!?”

Clementine’s eyes go wide, then quickly narrow and tighten, clicking back and forth like she’s frisking me for information.

“You spoke to him, didn’t you?” she blurts. “You know something about Marshall.”

“I don’t—”

“You do, Beecher. I know you do. Your left eyebrow goes up when you lie.”

“Clementine, I barely saw the guy…”

“Hold on. You saw him!? I told you! I knew it!” Rushing forward, she grabs me by the front of my shirt, like she’s about to attack. “What’d he say to you!? You need to tell me!”

“Are you high? Let go of me!”

“Tell me what he said, Beecher!”

“I said, let go!”

“Then tell me what the hell is going on!” she demands, tugging harder on my shirt and still clutching her wig. It’s so close to my nose it smells like wet fur. “Tell me what Marshall said about Nico!”

I pull back, confused. Nico? This has nothing to do with Nico.

Before I say a word, her eyes flood with tears and her shoulders fall. “I told you everything about your dad, everything I knew,” she says, steeling her jaw and refusing to let herself cry. “How can you not tell me what you know about mine?”

“I don’t know anything, Clemmi. I swear to you.”

“But you saw Marshall, didn’t you? You spoke to him?”

“Yes, but when I spoke to him, it wasn’t about Nico. It had nothing to do with Nico. Or the plankholders.”

She looks left, then right, like she can’t get her bearings. I’ve never seen her so rattled. In fact, I’ve never seen her rattled.

With her hands shaking, she touches her ear, brushing an imaginary curl of hair behind her bare earlobe. At this point, some things are pure instinct. “If this isn’t about Nico, then why were you talking to Marshall?”

“Because we’re trying to figure out if… it sounds crazy when I say it out loud.”

“My father lives in a mental institution and tried to shoot a President. I’m used to crazy. Just say it, Beecher.”

“I’m trying to figure out if Marshall killed someone while pretending to be John Wilkes Booth. There. That looney-tunes enough for you?”

Clementine takes two steps away from me, clutching her wig at her chest. “What’d you just say?”

“I know. And if we’re right about what’s going on, it’s not just Booth. There’s also Charles Guiteau, who—”

“I need to go,” Clementine insists, finding the tag on the inside of her wig and sliding it back on her head.

“What? Where’re you going?”

“I need to go, Beecher.” She’s patting her blonde locks back into place. Even with the hair, she looks paler than I’ve ever seen her.

“Clementine, please… What’re you not telling me?”

“What you said — about Booth… and Guiteau… Is that true? Marshall’s copying old killers?”

“I have no idea. Maybe it’s Marshall. I pray it’s not. But we know that pastors are dying, and whoever’s doing it, they’re copying old presidential assassins.”

“No, Beecher. They’re not.”

“What’re you talking about?”

She covers her eyes with her hand. “Oh, God, it’s happening again!”

“What’s happening again?”

“You need to listen to me, Beecher. Please,” she begs, clearly terrified. “When I spoke to Dr. Yoo, he told me. There was someone else. Someone who did this, who copied John Wilkes Booth… and Guiteau… and all the rest. He did it years ago. And now, this killer you’re looking for… He’s not just copying the original assassins.” She takes a breath, barely able to get the words out. “The killer is copying my father. He’s copying Nico.”

61

George Washington?” Tot asked. “You’re telling me these are George Washington’s personal playing cards?”

“Washington was a big card player — always playing whist,” the Diamond explained. “When it came to these particular cards — with the so-called eagle on them — Washington was, without question, their biggest purchaser. Every few months, he’d order the same deck from the same printer and cardmaker.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t either — until I had to fill an entire exhibit on the historical significance of playing cards. And what was most interesting — at least to me — was what else was going on as George Washington was buying all these playing cards. Don’t forget, we may see the Revolution as this idealized American victory, but not everyone was thrilled with changing the power structure.

“George Washington may’ve picked a fight with the British, but suddenly there were all these other groups pointing guns at his head: locals who preferred the old way of doing things, Indians who were forced to pick a side, even wealthy families who just didn’t want to lose what they had. It affected everyone who had a vested interest in the status quo — including small selfish groups who won’t even reveal themselves until their power is threatened,” the Diamond said, motioning back at the ace of spades with the eagle symbol.

“You’re talking about the Knights?”

“I’m talking about the church—or at least a small subset that these sacred Knights were a part of. Even with all the colonials’ Puritan values, territories dedicated to self-determination aren’t always good for church business.”

“So what’s that have to do with playing cards?”

“According to the curator at Mount Vernon, Washington knew how many of these factions were working against him. And when it came to that faction within the church, he even knew how they communicated — hiding secret messages in the same way Washington hid his own… in books and in letters… But one of the great tricks of the church was also hiding things in…”

“Playing cards,” Tot said, his knees suddenly aching far more than usual.

“In 1777, y’know how many decks of these cards George Washington ordered for himself?” the Diamond asked, his finger hovering above the ace of spades, but never touching it. “Six dozen. That’s seventy-two packs! Just for himself!”

“You think he was looking for something?”

“Or that he found something — or at least found the way these so-called sacred Knights communicated. Look at how it played out: Right as Washington’s big order for cards was placed in 1777, the church suddenly asserted itself, coming to Morristown and asking Washington to issue an order to all his troops. You know what it said?”

Tot nodded. Of course he knew what it said. “It forbade all his officers and soldiers to play cards and other games.”

“They said it led to moral indecency — but that’s a pretty particular request, don’t you think: no more playing cards? It’s like they didn’t want Washington to see what they were doing. Washington had no choice. It was still the church. But have you seen George Washington’s diaries at the time? He never stops playing cards. Never. Instead, he keeps writing about these specific playing cards. Over and over. Like there was something special about them.”

“You think he knew that this faction of the church, that these Knights, were using the cards to send messages?”

“George Washington was not a stupid man. He knew who he was fighting. And he knew how they were communicating. Some say that’s when he started to smoke them out. That he even put together his own little spy ring…”

“The Culper Ring.”

“Exactly. Some say that’s why the Culper Ring was born. To protect Washington and hunt the Knights.”

“That’s not true,” Tot insisted, surprised by his own reaction. “That’s not why the Culper Ring was founded.”

“It doesn’t matter why they were founded. All that matters is that the mission of the Knights never changed. They were watching. And when it came to protecting the church from any perceived ‘king,’ the Knights knew one thing: George Washington was wielding the power of the state in a brand-new way. And he wasn’t going anywhere.”

As the Diamond said the words, Tot couldn’t help but think of the current President, and of Beecher and Marshall. But he was also thinking of his own mentor, Kermit, and all the stories that Tot only heard in whispers: the stories no one would talk about — of the horrors unleashed by the so-called Knights of the Golden Circle.

“Can I ask you a question, Daniel? Even assuming this whole thing isn’t some old campfire tale, assuming that these original Knights, or some variation of them, somehow continued to exist all the way to George Washington’s time — you think there’s a chance, or more important, any proof, that they could’ve lasted even longer than that?”

“Define longer.”

“You said the battle between church and state was the ultimate civil war, so let’s say, to our Civil War. To Lincoln’s time. Or maybe even to, I don’t know… 1963.”

The Diamond stared across the art table, studying his old friend. “Tot, I’m going to ask you this only one time: This killer you’re chasing that you can’t tell me about…? Is he trying to kill the President of the United States?”

“Daniel…”

“You’re mentioning Lincoln, and then the year JFK gets assassinated. How am I not supposed to ask?”

“You are supposed to ask. But if I thought that was about to happen, you’d have fifty Secret Service agents in here asking you this question instead of me. All I care about is: Could these Knights, whoever they are, whatever they stand for, could they possibly survive long enough to exist today?”

“Isn’t that the point? That’s why they picked the symbol.”

“What symbol?”

“This one!” the Diamond said, pointing down to the ace of spades.

“Y’mean the eagle?”

“You keep calling it an eagle, but have you actually looked at it?” He taps a finger against the head of the bird. “The tuft of feathers on an eagle’s head goes down, flat against the neck. The feathers here curve up. This isn’t an eagle, Tot. It’s a phoenix.”

“A phoenix,” Tot whispered, rolling his finger into his beard and still remembering Kermit’s words: that the Knights were gone, completely defeated.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Tot. Whoever you’re chasing here, it doesn’t matter if they were around for Lincoln, or JFK, or anyone else. What matters is they think they were. So if these Knights are now trying to take a shot at the current President — and start a new civil war — now you know who you’re facing. This isn’t a fight to them. This is their destiny. In their eyes, like the phoenix and their church predecessors, they’re holy warriors who can never be killed.”

62

No. That’s impossible,” I say.

“It’s not. It happened,” she shoots back.

“But how can—? The killer we’re chasing — How could he possibly be copying Nico?”

“Because that’s what Nico did.”

“I don’t understand. All those years ago, when Nico shot at the President… It was during a NASCAR race. What does John Wilkes Booth have to do with NASCAR?”

“You’re missing what I said, Beecher. When Nico took those shots at the President, that was the end of Nico’s journey. What I’m talking about is his beginning.”

Watching me digest the statement, and everything else she’s said, Clementine stands by the front door, once again taking off her jacket.

“Was this in the file Palmiotti gave you?” I ask.

“You think they’d give me something like that? No. This was from the doctor.”

“Dr. Yoo.”

“He wasn’t there when the plankholders first started — he came after the experiments began. In South Carolina. In Charleston — at the Naval Shipyard.”

“My dad wasn’t in the navy. He was army.”

“So was mine. But from what Yoo said… this wasn’t just about the navy. It was about privacy.”

I nod, well aware that throughout history, when it was time to brief the President of the United States in true privacy, they’d put him on a ship since it was the one place they could guarantee he’d be alone.

“Nico was barely eighteen,” she explains. “Yoo said that even back then, they knew Nico was having trouble adjusting to life as a soldier. That’s why Dr. Yoo was brought in. He was an addiction specialist — one of the first to realize that methadone was a good way to help soldiers fight heroin addiction. But when it came to what they were giving Nico, no one had ever seen anything like it. One week, he’d be happy and easygoing; the next week, he’d stop sleeping… stop eating… and suddenly they’d find half a dozen dead possums all around the naval base.”

“Possums?”

“No one could explain it. Until one morning at breakfast, when Nico took a spoonful of his morning cereal and calmly announced he was killing them. With his bare hands and a cinderblock. That’s when Yoo was called in.”

“So what do possums have to do with John Wilkes Booth?”

“Nothing,” Clementine says, her eyes following me as I pace. “In fact, everyone thought Yoo had it all under control and that everything was back on schedule. But what they didn’t know — and couldn’t possibly know — was that a few months later, a hunter in the South Carolina woods was shot in the back of the head at around 10 p.m. while hunting coyote. Police assumed another hunter did it by accident. Then a month after that, a second man was shot in the back of the head — caught him right behind the earlobe — while he was out on a night jog.”

“Also at around 10 p.m.?”

“No one thought twice about it, but yes, around 10 p.m. Again, because it was South Carolina, they assumed another hunting accident. But soon after that, there was a third man shot in the back of the head, point-blank, in a local movie theater. Exact time of death was 10:11 p.m.”

“The exact time John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln.”

“Don’t you see?” she asks, starting to pick up the books that fell when she crashed into the bookcase. She knows I need the order. “Nico was practicing, Beecher. Working out the details so he could work his way toward the perfect kill.”

“And nobody put it together?” I ask, slotting an old red leather book into place. “Were all the deaths out by the shipyard?”

“No. That was the problem,” she says, gathering the last few books and a small picture frame. “They were all spread out. The first was over seventy-five miles away in Hampton County. The second was in the opposite direction. And the last one was right outside of Charleston. It got even harder when the fourth body turned up — this time in Georgia. A thirty-three-year-old dental equipment salesman was getting off his Amtrak train, and as the train pulls out of the station, he gets shot in the back…”

“Like Guiteau shooting President Garfield…”

“… and a month after that, up in one of the mountain areas of North Carolina, as the local county fair is shutting down, a drunk soybean farmer has to pee, so he darts behind one of the loading trucks… and gets shot in the belly…”

“Like Czolgosz shooting President McKinley at the World’s Fair…” I say, slotting another book into the bookcase.

“The whole thing didn’t come to a head until months later, when, back in Hampton County, some poor retired priest—”

“A priest? That’s what—”

“I know. Just listen. While the priest was working his garden, he got shot in the back of the head with something called a CE 573—a 6.5-millimeter caliber metal-jacketed bullet. Based on the way the priest’s head exploded, they think a sniper picked him off from something like two hundred and fifty feet away.”

“Or two hundred and sixty-five feet to be exact.”

She nods, cradling half a dozen books and waiting for me to finish. “No one else came close to connecting the killings — until the local sheriff started thinking that a shot like that, from two hundred and fifty feet, could only be made by someone who’s military. From there, he started making phone calls to all the local area military bases, where the young administrative assistant who picked up the phone happened to notice that the time of death was exactly 12:30 on the nose. For most people, that wouldn’t mean much. It’s a standard time. But for this assistant, who was a certifiable JFK conspiracy enthusiast, it was a clarion call. He not only knew that 12:30 was the exact time that President Kennedy was shot, but that a 6.5-millimeter caliber bullet was the exact one that traveled two hundred and sixty-five feet and was used by…”

“Lee Harvey Oswald,” I say, slotting a book onto the top shelf. It hits with a thunk.

“On a hunch, the investigative folks checked Nico’s locker. And his belongings. All were clean. Until they ran a metal detector over his mattress and found, burrowed deep inside it, a Mannlicher-Carcano bolt-action military rifle.”

Now I’m the one nodding, recognizing the rifle that Oswald used on JFK. My brain swirls, thinking about the current killer going after rectors and pastors. But that still doesn’t explain…

“Why’d they let Nico go?” I ask. “If they knew he did it, how come they didn’t tell anyone? Or arrest him?”

“Back when it was open, do you have any idea what the navy used to use the Charleston Shipyard for?”

“I assume to dock our ships?”

“Yes, of course that’s where we docked our ships. And when our ships and submarines were there, they’d also clean them, upgrade them, whatever they needed for upkeep. But according to Dr. Yoo, there was also something called the Weapons Station.”

“We have some of their files in the Archives. They upgrade the ship’s weaponry.”

“Again, yes,” Clementine says, still cradling the half dozen books that she picked up from the floor. “But even within the Weapons Station, there’s a hierarchy. Some places did regular weapons. Others did nuclear weapons. And then there was Subgroup 6.”

“Subgroup 6? That sounds like a fake name.”

“It’s real. Look it up. At one point, it was run by Admiral Thomas Coady, whose goal was to take Subgroup 6 and use it to produce the one weapon more dangerous than even a nuclear weapon.”

“Which is?”

“The ultimate weapon, Beecher: the human weapon.”

At the bookcase, Clementine dumps the stack of books on a chest-high shelf.

“You think that’s what our dads were working on?” I ask.

“No, not at all. My dad, your dad, and Marshall’s dad were eighteen- and nineteen-year-old grunts. Subgroup 6 didn’t hire children. Think about it: When you’re putting together your top-secret team, you choose people you know. Veterans with experience. For Admiral Coady to bring our dads there, c’mon, Beecher. You know what they call an eighteen-year-old who’s drafted into something that top-secret? They were the experiments. The guinea pigs.”

Her words pop the imaginary membrane I didn’t even realize I kept around myself whenever she’s around. I’ve kept it there as a shield. But as the membrane ruptures and reality seeps through it, there’s nothing more emotional than hearing her talk about my own dead father. And the unspeakable things that might’ve been done to him. No one wants to hear that their dad was in pain.

“I know it’s a nightmare, Beecher. It’s a nightmare for me too. But now you know why they couldn’t let him be arrested. Whatever they put inside Nico — whatever they’d invested in him — if their top lab rat showed up on the front page of the newspaper with a story about how he was a homicidal maniac copying Lee Harvey Oswald, every eyeball in the country would’ve been staring at Subgroup 6. And that was a risk no one in the program was willing to take.”

I look down at the note — the suicide note — that I’m still gripping in my hand. “You think that’s why my dad died? Because of some cliché military cover-up?”

“No… I don’t think so. From what Dr. Yoo said, your dad died a year later. When Nico flipped, the Subgroup was split up. Nico got punished internally, locked away for nearly a year until they were convinced that whatever they put inside him was out of his system. Everything else was wiped.”

“And when Nico shot the President, none of this came out?”

“This is the government we’re talking about. You really think they’ll admit they created the monster that attacked their own President? Back when they thought Nico was cured, they sent him into the regular army as if he was a brand-new recruit showing up on day one. Your dad and Marshall’s dad were sent elsewhere.”

“And that’s the big finale? They buried the records, hoping no one would ever find them?”

“But don’t you see, Beecher? When it came to Nico’s records, someone did find them! You know this better than anyone. No matter how hard you hide them, or where you bury them, the files are always found. So for someone to be re-creating the crimes of John Wilkes Booth… and killing pastors on top of it… someone clearly knows what Nico did!”

“Or maybe they’re just copying the original assassins. Don’t forget, when Timothy McVeigh blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, he was wearing a T-shirt that said Sic Semper Tyrannis. These assassins have never been forgotten.”

“But to kill pastors…”

“Nico only killed one pastor.”

“No. He only killed one that we know about. Look at the similarities, Beecher. You think someone just happened to have the same crazy idea, using the same ancient weapons, targeting the same innocent pastors? This isn’t Timothy McVeigh. Whoever’s doing it read Nico’s files!”

“Maybe,” I say, my voice slowing down. “Or maybe they just heard the story from their father.”

She looks at me. “Wait. You don’t think I—?”

“I didn’t say you.”

“So you think Marshall—?”

“I’m not saying it’s Marshall either. And when it comes to who he could’ve heard it from, from what he told me, Marshall’s dad is dead.”

“So? His dad could’ve told him the details before he died,” she says, grabbing one of the books — a narrow book about the cartography of battlefields — and slotting it onto the bookshelf.

I snatch it back out. “It’s in the wrong spot,” I say with a verbal shove.

I wait for her to shove back. She always shoves back. But instead she just stands there, chastised, like she’s physically shrinking in front of me. She shifts her weight, and I get the feeling that this—right here — is the first real and honest reaction she’s shown me. She knows the pain she’s caused. But as I study this petite, broken girl who, back in eighth grade, pulled me close and gave me my first real kiss… I can’t help it. Even now, even bald, I forgot how stunning she is.

“So what happens now? How do you figure out if Marshall’s the killer?” she finally asks.

“You go to the source. The only one who’s left.” From the way her face falls, she knows who I’m talking about.

There’s no avoiding it. We know a third murder is coming. If we want to stop it…

“We need to go see Nico.”

63

And if you had to rate the pain on a scale of one to ten?” the doctor with the bald head and thin beard asked.

“Probably a five,” Pastor Frick said, walking down the hallway toward his room, on the fourth floor of George Washington University Hospital.

The doctor watched the pastor carefully, motioning for him to walk the hall one last time so he could see how Frick was breathing. “And no shortness of breath?” the doctor asked.

“No. No more problems than I usually had,” the pastor joked, though the doctor, like most doctors, didn’t laugh. It was late. These were clearly the last of the doctor’s rounds.

“What about pain anywhere else?” the doctor asked.

“I told the nurses, I’m sore, but otherwise just fine. The thing I feel worst about is taking this bed. If you need it for someone else—”

“We can spare the bed,” the doctor reassured him, motioning Frick back into his room. As Pastor Frick took a seat on the bed, the doctor pulled his stethoscope from his pocket. “I just need to listen to your lungs and we can—”

There was a loud ringing: the hospital phone on the side table.

From the look on the doctor’s face, plus the late time, he didn’t want Pastor Frick to pick up the phone, but the pastor had been away from the church all day. If someone needed him, or needed help…

“Sorry, it’ll just take a minute,” the pastor promised. “Hello…?” he asked, cradling the phone.

“Pastor Frick, I’m sorry to bother you at this hour, but my name is Tot Westman. I’m working on the investigation of today’s shooting and was just wondering… is now a good time to chat?”

The pastor wanted to help, was determined to help. But he took one look at the doctor, who held up his stethoscope, not even bothering to hide his impatience.

“Actually, is there a way we can do this a little later, or maybe tomorrow?” Frick said into the phone.

“Tomorrow sounds perfect,” Tot replied. “If you want, I can come by first thing in the morning.”

“That’d be great.” Hanging up the phone and turning back to the doctor, he added, “My apologies. Just trying to help them catch who did this.”

“No worries at all,” the doctor replied as he pressed his stethoscope against Pastor Frick’s chest. “We all have our jobs to do.”

64

It’s nearly midnight as I head downstairs clutching an old comforter, fresh sheets, and a waffle-thin pillow against my chest.

“Beecher, I really appreciate that you’re—”

“Please stop thanking me. And stop pretending we’re friends. You have information about my father. And information about these murders — information which I hope will save innocent lives.” I dump the sheets and comforter on my black art deco sofa.

“I can stay in a hotel if you want,” Clementine says. “I’ll be fine there.”

She’s wrong. It may not be the smartest move to keep her here. In fact, considering she’s still wanted for questioning by the Secret Service, it’s a pretty dumb move. But to put her in some random hotel room, by herself, where there’s nothing stopping the killer — or even the President — from taking their own crack at her? I’ve seen enough movies to know what happens when you let your key witness out of your sight. This isn’t the time for taking chances. Especially when we’re this close to finally figuring out what’s really going on.

As Clementine spreads out the sheet and tucks the pillow near the sofa’s armrest, her wig is back on and all once again seems calm. But she tentatively glances back at me.

“Can I just ask you one last thing?” she pleads.

“Only if it’s not about psychotic killers or dead parents.”

“It’s not. It’s about — When we were little, did you ever listen to my mom’s CD?”

I don’t answer. Clementine’s mom was a hippie lounge singer whose only recording was the “Greatest Hits” CD she made herself. Most people in town never bought a copy, much less listened to it. But in tenth grade, all I wanted was Clementine. I listened to that album more than even the Grease soundtrack. “I heard it once or twice. Why?”

“Y’remember the third song on there?” she asks. “ ‘The Worst Thing You’ll Ever Do…’ ”

“ ‘… Will Be to Someone You Love,’ ” I say, completing the title.

“You actually remember it!” Her face flushes with excitement. “Beecher, what I did to you, I can’t take it back. But when I think about hurting you, all I can say is… My mom sang it right,” she adds, reaching out for my forearm. She’s so close, I notice her nose piercing, a sparkling silver stud no bigger than the head of a pin. As she puts her hand on mine, her body temperature feels about ten degrees warmer than my own.

Two months ago, that would’ve worked on me. In fact, if I’m being honest, it’s still (slightly) working on me. But not entirely.

“Good night, Clementine,” I say coolly as I head for the stairs.