She took a quick snapshot of the radios, all displaying a different frequency. There were two Qualcomm Globalstar satellite phones in a recharge pack and two other, more normal-looking, cell phones plugged in as well. She snapped a picture of those. She opened the drawers of his desk and began opening files and snapping pictures no matter what they said. She wasn’t reading any of the files. She was a one-woman assembly line. Open file, snap picture. Open file, snap picture. She was beginning to get nervous now. She had been in the basement over twenty-five minutes, and something felt wrong. Aside, of course, from the fact that she had drugged the vice president and was secretly in his basement gathering evidence that could possibly indicate a conspiracy.
When she felt that she had thoroughly canvassed the room, she turned to leave and then stopped. There was a laptop computer plugged into a modem. What the hell, she figured, so she steeled herself up and reached down, popping out the hard drive of the laptop and tossing it in her bag.
She turned off the light and closed and locked the door. Then she stopped and waited, standing perfectly still and listened.
Nothing.
She waited some more.
Still nothing.
She slowly climbed the stairs and then waited at the top of the last step before opening the door that led to the kitchen.
Still nothing.
She pushed slowly, the door making a slight creak that stopped when she had pushed it past a forty-five-degree angle. She stepped into the kitchen and slowly closed the door behind her, the squeak playing its octaves in reverse. That’s interesting, she thought.
She stopped. Still nothing.
She stepped into the connecting hallway between the kitchen and the living room, where she could see the high back of the sofa, which was a comforting feeling. While she could not see him, she felt in her planning that if she got to this point, she could just sweet talk her way out the door. She watched the sofa as she walked toward the foyer. Despite her progress, something did not seem quite right.
She hit an angle where she could see lengthwise along the sofa.
Hellerman was not there.
She froze. The room started spinning around her like a top, large sections of the house panning toward her quickly and then away like in the horror flicks. She could hear the screeching strike of Norman Bates’ knife with each image racing at her. She was hyperventilating and began to sweat.
Then a thought occurred to her.
Maybe he left. Maybe he woke up and left. After all, it was still daylight outside.
While completely irrational, it was enough to get herself under control. She still had not moved since noticing the sofa was empty. She tried moving one leg, then another toward the foyer. It was working. She was moving. She was going to make it.
“I thought you’d left,” Hellerman said from the dark recesses of the foyer, his face half-lit by a splash of sunlight cutting through the dining room window.
“I just changed,” she whispered.
“Why are you whispering?” he asked, stone-faced.
“Sorry,” she said louder. “When I left you were asleep and I guess I was in my ‘be quiet’ mode.”
“Where were you?”
“I went into the kitchen and changed, honey. Didn’t want to wake you. You were such an animal today, thought you’d need to rest up for tomorrow,” she said, sounding better and proud of herself.
He seemed to consider that and then said, “I went into the kitchen and got some water, then took a leak in the hall bath. I didn’t see you.”
She swallowed hard.
“Well, I was there getting dressed and have to head back now, honey, so why don’t we just drop the inquisition here and be grateful we both had some of the greatest sex in our young lives,” Meredith said, moving toward the door.
“What’s in the bag?” he said, moving forward.
“My coat. These clothes I’m wearing used to be in there. Remember, I showed up naked and we screwed our brains out?”
“Don’t talk to me like that,” he spat.
“Then quit treating me like this. You screw me until you drop, and then I’m quiet and respectful of your need for sleep, and you are giving me the third degree.”
“I just didn’t see you.”
“Well, I saw you, thought you might be sleepwalking,” she chuckled and immediately knew she had said the wrong thing.
“Why are you lying to me, Meredith? What’s in the bag?” He moved closer. He was only five feet away now.
She held her key ring in her hand.
“Go to hell. You treat me like garbage and now accuse me of coming in here and stealing something?” she asked incredulously.
Hellerman lunged toward her, hands outstretched in anger. She lifted her keys and gave a long squirt of mace directly into his face, causing him to double over and scream.
She grabbed the door, darted through the entrance, forearming the storm door. As she raced down the steps, she heard the door smack back onto him.
Safely inside the car, she glanced at the front door and saw Hellerman glaring at her. She shook it off and drove slowly along the quarter-mile driveway, not wanting to alarm the Secret Service agents present.
She passed a black Lincoln Continental parked at the end of the driveway. She smiled and waved at Alvin Jessup. Jessup was no fool. He had known long ago what was going on between his boss and her. She turned east, as she always did, and could not stop the emotions escaping her as she accelerated.
She needed to talk to Matt right away. Pulling out her cell phone, she punched in his number and let the phone ring.
Then she started to cry.
CHAPTER 47
Jacob Olney would do just about anything for Meredith Morris. He had developed a crush on her the first day she stepped into the Pentagon two years earlier and found her way to his cubicle to sign up for a pass and a photo. He remembered how she had smiled at him, engaging him like he really mattered.
Even though it only took a minute to complete the form and then take the mug shot, she shook his hand and talked to him for what seemed like an hour, but was probably closer to ten minutes. She had asked about him, what he liked to do. He immediately launched into a nervous dissertation on his photography business and gave her his card. She had called a couple of times just to check up on him and had even stopped by once since she had been at the White House.
Jacob was a wiry, pimple-faced, thirty-year-old man with shaggy black hair. He knew she was out of his league, but he loved the way she made him feel. And even though they hadn’t chatted for several months, he was delighted to receive her phone call this late afternoon. He was even more than happy to oblige her unique request to meet her at his place for him to develop a roll of film.
Tonight, she was walking into his basement with him.
“This must be why they call it a dark room.” Meredith smiled nervously. They were standing in the room with only the eerie black light to see by.
“Right, it is a room, and it is dark, ergo a dark room.” Jacob’s voice was squeaky, as if puberty were just around the corner. She was ready to laugh, thinking it might be a joke, but she could tell he was serious. He was focused as he pressed the film into the solution in the pan.
“How has your business been lately, Jacob?” She was wearing the same clothes she had on when she left Hellerman’s house and felt dirty.
“Great, Meredith. I’m making about eight hundred bucks a week on the side, lots of it tax free.” He looked at her seriously. “But don’t tell anybody.”
“You have my word,” she said, holding up her hands to emphasize the point.
“So why the big rush to get these developed?”
“They are for a project I’ve been working on, and I have a terrible deadline.”