The Candidate (17 page)

THE SLAVE—OH, SHE'S NOT
REALLY
a slave, silly (or is she?)—is a young Chinese girl who is forbidden to look Lily in the eye. She brings out their green tea, grown on a tiny organic farm high in the Himalayas, and then bows and leaves.

“I'm a little bit worried about this Erica Sparks,” Lily says.

“What's the latest?” Celeste asks. She's glad that Lily has put on a robe, it makes it easier to concentrate.

“Well, the cow”—that's their nickname for pathetic Becky—“overheard Erica telling her spawn that she had to go up to Harvard to meet with a professor about a book. It was the ancient text.”

“And do we know where Martin Vander got the book?”

“We hacked into his computer. He found it at a rare book dealer's in Queens. Using an Internet search. So sloppy of us not to have found it first. The person responsible for that oversight has been disposed of.”

“Vander's death was a terrible tragedy—in that it didn't happen
before
he found that text,” Celeste says.

The two women smile at each other—small, appropriate smiles—and the air between them crackles with their shared secret, their twisted
bond. Ordering the death of another human being is a special kind of magic. The rush is indescribable. Why, it's almost addictive.

“It's really Becky's fault that the manuscript made it to Harvard. She should have searched Erica's briefcase. It's part of her job,” Lily says.

“She was probably too busy polishing the bottom of Erica's shoes.”

They smile again. They have so much
fun
together. And their best years are ahead of them. The day after the election, President-elect Ortiz will name Lily Lau his chief of staff. Then Celeste will be working alongside Lily every day. When all is said and done, that's what drives her. They both understand that.

“Do you think Erica is a real danger?” Celeste asks.

“Not at this point. We've done our homework. But we can't be too careful. And of course, we need her. And want her. As an ally in the months and years ahead. She has a lot of power. The American people trust her. However, right now I'm not sure
we
can.”

“The spawn is going away to camp. So Becky won't be in the apartment as much. We may miss things.”

“Good point.” Lily picks up a tiny sliver of a phone and presses a button.

“Hello,” comes Becky's quivery voice through the speaker.

“Have you been a good girl?”

“Yes.”

“We need live-feed cameras in Erica's apartment—living room, bedroom, office.”

“Oh, you do? Okay, okay.”

Lily mutes the phone and says to Celeste, “We can't have a tech put them in, tradesmen have to sign in downstairs at Erica's building.” She unmutes. “You will get a call from a man. He will come to your apartment with the equipment and will instruct you how to install it. Do you understand?”

“Will I be able to do it?”

“I hope that's a rhetorical question.”

“Oh . . . ah, yes, of course, ha-ha,” Becky blubbers.

“Because if you
aren't
able to do it, well, there
will
be consequences. Let me know when they're up and running.”

“Yes, yes, of course I will.”

Lily gives Celeste one of her mischievous smirks before adding, “Oh, Becky, put one in her shower too.”

“In her shower?”

“Yes, you never know what Erica might be up to in the shower.”

ERICA AND JENNY HAVE JUST arrived at the corner of Seventy-Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue, where the bus is loading to take Jenny up to Camp Woodlands on St. Regis Lake in the Adirondacks. Erica wanted to drive Jenny, but the camp recommends the bus—it gives the girls a chance to bond on the six-hour trip and minimizes teary good-byes.

Still, there are plenty of tears, especially from younger first-time campers. Jenny is being very grown-up. Maybe that's one of the unintended benefits of a rocky childhood—you don't sweat the small stuff like saying good-bye to your mom for six weeks of fun. Erica holds back and watches as Jenny hands her duffel bag to the driver, who slides it into the luggage compartment.

Jenny looks around at her fellow campers. She recognizes a couple of fellow Brearley students and waves. Then she notices a shy, tear-stained girl whose parents have just departed. She walks over to the girl and says, “Hi, I'm Jenny. This should be interesting. Want to sit next to me? I've got a stash of chocolate-covered cashews.”

The girl sniffles and gives Jenny a grateful smile. Erica's pride could just about burst. And then she lets herself claim a little of that pride for herself.

Jenny comes over to Erica, who hugs her and kisses her again and again. “I think you're going to have a blast, young lady.”

“If I can stop worrying about you.”

“Your old mom can take care of herself.”

They look at each other, and Erica's eyes well up.

“Cut that out,” Jenny says. “We Sparks girls don't cry.”

“You're darn right we don't,” Erica manages as a tear runs down her cheek.

“Maybe you'll come for parents' weekend.”

“I'm planning on it.”

They hug one last time, and Jenny climbs onto the bus. She gets a window seat, and as the bus pulls away from the curb, she and Erica exchange one last wave. Then Jenny turns to her seatmate.

Erica decides to walk home through Central Park. As she passes Cleopatra's Needle—the towering ancient Egyptian obelisk covered with hieroglyphics—her cell rings. It's Dave Brennan, the former marine who led the Chinese afterlife workshop Peter Tuttle took just before he killed Timothy Markum and then himself.

“Hi, Dave, this is Erica. Thanks for getting back to me.”

“I'm afraid I'm not going to be much help. Just ask the FBI.” He has a friendly, matter-of-fact voice, with none of the ethereal woo-woo of his voice mail. That must be a marketing tool.

“Can you tell me your impressions of Tuttle?”

“You know, these workshops I run are tricky. They attract a lot of sincere curious people. And they attract some . . . marginal people. I would put Tuttle firmly into that second category. He was needy, a little dirty, moody, attention seeking. He would laugh—this barking laugh—at inappropriate times. I would go so far as to say he was maybe borderline schizophrenic.”

“Did he hook up with anyone in the class? There are days between the end of your workshop and his return home that are unaccounted for.”

“He started sleeping with this older woman in the workshop. She was another marginal. Way marginal.”

“How so?”

“She was a large woman. Who believed in exposing as much of her pulchritude as possible. She said it was her ‘pagan prerogative.' She also claimed to speak Mandarin—and that she used it in her conversations with Confucius.”

Erica stops walking. “Do you know her name? Where she lives?”

“Diane Novotny. She lived in Brattleboro, Vermont.”

“Lived?”

“She killed herself the day after Tuttle did.”

“Oh no. How?”

“She drank antifreeze. Tore her guts apart.”

“Thanks for the information. Listen, what attracted you to Chinese afterlife mythology?”

“I think it's because I'm an optimist.”

“An optimist?”

“Yeah—there's got to be something better than this.”

ERICA OPENS HER FRONT DOOR. As she walks down the long entry hall a wave of loneliness washes over her. Jenny's gone and the apartment is so big and there are no voices, no laughter, no music—just the echoes of her footfalls.

As consumed as she is with her investigation, she does have a day job. A demanding one. She'll hunker down in her office and do some prep work for the conventions—the Democrats kick theirs off next week in Chicago. She heads down to her bedroom to get her reading glasses off her bedside table.

Just as she walks into her bedroom, Becky walks out of her bathroom.

The girl's mouth falls open and she stops dead in her tracks. Then she flushes red.

“What are you doing in my bathroom?”

“I thought Jenny's bus was scheduled to leave at noon.”

“Would it be all right to be snooping in my bathroom if it
had
left at noon?”

“I wasn't snooping, Erica, I swear. I was just making sure everything was clean and the way you like it. I know Yelena will only be
coming in once a week to clean now that Jenny's gone, and I thought maybe the towels needed to be washed or—”

“Do they?”

Becky smiles, a twitchy little smile. “No. If they had, they'd be in my arms. Everything looks fine in there.”

“Okay then, you can head out. And with Jenny gone, you won't be in the apartment much either, so we'll see each other at the office.”

“Don't you think you might want me to run errands and stuff, drop things off, that kind of thing?”

“Maybe. But why don't you give me your keys.”

“But how will I get in?”

“I'll call downstairs and have them let you in. That way there will be a record of your visits.”

Becky looks as if she might start to cry. “They're out in my bag.”

“Well, let's go get them then.”

They walk out into the living room and Becky hands over her keys. Erica escorts her to the front door.

“Would you like me to help you prepare for the convention? Or even come to Chicago with you?” Becky asks hopefully.

“I think everything is under control.”

“Okay, see you at GNN tomorrow.”

“No doubt,” Erica says.

As she locks the door behind Becky, she thinks that with Jenny gone she really won't be needing a personal assistant for a while. She heads back down to her bedroom to get her glasses. That's when she notices that her lingerie drawer is open.

ERICA LOOKS OUT THE WINDOW as her plane banks down for its arrival in Chicago, host of the Democratic convention. Erica hasn't spent a lot of time in the city, but she's spent enough to know that she loves it—the way it's set against the curve of Lake Michigan, the incredible architecture. But it's the people that really win her over—they're friendly and fun and soulful and smart and even their swagger has a sly edge.

GNN producers, directors, and technicians have been in the city for weeks setting up. Erica will be reporting from a skybox at McCormick Place; the rest of the operation is housed in a series of trailers outside the arena.

The convention itself holds no surprises. What little suspense there is concerns who Mike Ortiz will pick as his running mate. Even there, it's pretty much a done deal that Governor Alice Marshall of Missouri will get the nod—the Dems need a Midwestern woman to try and offset Lucy Winters's appeal.

Erica is much more concerned—make that obsessed—with getting inside the heads and hearts of Mike and Celeste Ortiz. Every instinct in her body tells her there is something strange and dangerous going on. But without proof, any accusation she might make would get her
laughed right out of a career. She's a journalist. She needs facts. And she keeps hitting brick walls. And antifreeze-swigging New Age freaks.

She arrives at her suite at the Four Seasons and unpacks, feeling anxious and frustrated. Her requests for an interview with Ortiz have been turned down. He's also turned down every other cable network, choosing to speak only to Diane Sawyer, in another savvy nod to the gender dynamics of the race. But what is Erica going to do for the next three days—report on the tedious speeches, celebrity sightings, and hyperpartisanship that will define the overblown confab? Although they were before her time, she yearns for the days when nominees were actually picked at the parties' conventions, where they were filled with horse-trading, rumors, smoky rooms, and real suspense.

Erica sits at the suite's desk and goes over her schedule—she's due at McCormick Place in an hour for a walk-through—but she has a hard time concentrating. She calls Moy.

“Hey there.”

“I'm in Chicago, trying to figure out how to get close to the Ortizes. He's being kept under wraps.”

“Listen, Erica, this is a two-way street. You host the go-to show on cable news. They need you almost as much as you want them. She may be easier to get to than him. Get ahold of her schedule. She's bound to be doing some parties or fundraisers. Show up.”

“Show up and what? Ask her if she's controlling her husband? She'll laugh me off with, ‘Well, I certainly hope so.' Moy, look at the body count—the Buchanans and the bystanders, Markum, Tuttle, Vander, Tuttle's Vermont lady friend. Everyone who could possibly help answer my questions has been offed.”

“Are you afraid for your own life?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Good. Stay that way.”

Erica hangs up and heads over to the arena. It's barely controlled pandemonium as final preparations are made—lights, sounds, seating, special effects, balloons, the thousand details large and small that
translate to a seamless show for the folks at home. Erica begins to feel her juices flowing. Canned, overproduced, predictable—say what you will—this is democracy in action. It matters. A lot.

Her sky booth has a great view of the floor and the stage—the stage on which, in two nights, Mike Ortiz will be making the most important speech of his career, formally introducing himself to the American people and asking them to elect him president.

As Erica checks out her seat, her desk, her mic, she has a moment where she wonders if her suspicions are all wrong—the product of an overactive imagination and a little understandable paranoia, in light of the evil Nylan Hastings turned out to be up to. After all, Ortiz is well-spoken, has demonstrated leadership in the Senate and proven his appeal—the people of California elected him by a landslide. Could he really be some kind of brainwashed human robot? The fact is she has no
evidence
that he is. Is she chasing a chimera down a dead-end street? She could fold up her tent right now. Her life would be so much easier.

As she heads back to her hotel, Josh calls. Their trapeze date was two weeks ago and they've only spoken once since, and she didn't return his last call. She debates whether to answer this one. The truth is she's still tangled up in blue about Greg. His surprise visit stirred up all her old feelings and left her torn. Josh is a really great guy, but . . . but . . . does he stir her soul the way Greg does? And if he doesn't yet, might he later? And as for Greg, she still feels once bitten, twice not ready to trust again.

She decides not to pick up and listens as he leaves his message: “Erica, it's Josh. Listen, if I'm being a pest, too bad. Until I get my marching orders I'm moving forward. I had so much fun the last time we were together. Please call me, I can't help but worry about you. This is your pal, Josh.”

His concern touches her. But right now her romantic complications are one complication too many. She texts him: I
N
C
HICAGO BUSY WITH CONVENTION PREP
. T
ALK SOON
.

Back at the hotel, Erica gives herself three days to come to a decision
to either curtail or double down on her investigation. She orders a light dinner from room service, does a little work, and is in bed by ten. Just as she's dozing off, her phone rings.

“Erica, it's Celeste Ortiz. Can we talk? Off the record?”