In the banquet room, a group of gentlemen, a little worse for wear due to the bottomless characteristic of the punch bowl, could be heard toasting everyone in Christendom in voices loud enough to be picked up by a passing space shuttle. To the king, long may he reign. To the queen. To Barack Obama. To his wife, Michelle. To wives in general, and to girlfriends, past, present and future. To absent friends.
Even the card games were getting rowdy, and I suspected that whist had taken a second seat to poker, although I didn’t know what the players would be using for chips.
Somewhere someone began singing, ‘Whiskey in the Jar,’ only to be drowned out by someone else belting out ‘Yankee Doodle’ in a drunken baritone.
I was certain that the following day, the Capital would report that a good time was had by all.
A jig was called, and somebody said, ‘May I?’
The guy was in his mid-thirties, I guessed. Solid, tan, fit. He wore the red and white uniform of a Maryland militiaman. I couldn’t tell the color of his hair because it was tucked under a fashionable wig.
‘Have we met?’ I asked, as I offered him my hand.
My partner smiled enigmatically, his green eyes twinkling in the candlelight as he led me out of the banquet room and onto the dance floor.
The jig began. Using a kind of two-step, we jigged around each other for a bit, until another dancer cut in. I jigged with the newcomer for a while, fearing that the old guy – a long-time senator from the Eastern Shore – might drop dead of a heart attack, until I had the opportunity to jig away and cut in on someone else. Eventually my younger partner found me again. ‘I’m Hannah,’ I said, my voice bobbly. ‘What’s yours?’
‘Ed,’ he said.
‘Hello, Ed.’ Dancers jigged all around us, whooping and laughing. I was beginning to relax, getting swept up in their merriment, too. Perspiration sheened the faces of every gentleman on the dance floor, ran in rivulets between my breasts, but I didn’t care.
At one point I pivoted and noticed Paul watching me, holding two glasses of punch, one in each hand and looking worried. I waved at my husband, grinned, and jigged madly on. What’s good for the goose, et cetera, et cetera.
All of a sudden, Ed laughed, grabbed both my hands, and jigged me, bobbing and weaving, through a clot of dancers, toward the enormous bronze doors that led from the twentieth-century annex to the porch on the Lawyer’s Mall side of the building. Party-going couples relaxed on benches in the alcoves on either side of the doors, so my partner steered me out onto the porch. ‘It’s hot, Hannah. Let’s get some fresh air.’
I reclaimed my hands and fell back against one of the six massive columns that supported the roof of the porch. ‘Whew!’ I flipped open my fan. ‘What a workout!’
Ed took a step, closing the distance between us. I held out my fan to signal keep-away, but he kept advancing.
Using one arm, he hooked me around the waist and pulled me close. His lips were warm and moist against my ear. ‘Let’s make Paul jealous, shall we?’
I recognized his voice then. Cold. Bitter. Pitiless.
My heart flopped, flopped again. Drew. ‘I heard that you’d been detained. How did you get away?’
He jerked me closer. ‘Rent-a-cops. Don’t make me laugh.’
He jerked me again.
‘Drew, don’t.’ If it hadn’t been for my corset, I think he might have broken my back.
Where the hell was Paul? He’d seen me dancing with Drew, he had to have noticed when Drew dragged me outside. Or had Paul been too distracted, making goo-goo eyes at Amy?
‘It’s over, Drew. The Navy knows that you’re alive,’ I hissed.
His forehead was pressed against mine. He shook his head, slowly, dangerously. ‘Who told them that? You? Or the imbeciles that tried to arrest me outside your house?’
‘They know you murdered Alex Mueller.’
His laugh exploded in my ear. ‘That prick.’
As long as I could keep him talking, I figured I was safe. ‘It was a mistake to come here, Drew. You’ve already been spotted. Why don’t you leave now, before my husband notices I’ve vanished and comes looking for me.’
‘I don’t think so,’ he said, his voice glacial.
The hand that wasn’t pressing into the small of my back slid over my breast and up my throat, stroking gently at first, like a lover. ‘Oh, Hannah.’ His fingers closed around my neck, began to squeeze. ‘I could snap your neck right now, you know. You wouldn’t feel a thing.’ His lips touched mine, lightly, then he breathed against my cheek. ‘I should have done it that night in Amy’s room. Saved myself a lot of trouble.’
Paul, dammit, where was Paul? I tried to scream, but the pressure of Drew’s hand was cutting off my air supply.
‘Alex was trouble,’ Drew muttered. ‘And look what happened to him.’
Suddenly, a costumed couple burst through the door and erupted onto the porch, laughing drunkenly, stumbling over one another in their efforts to reach fresh air. Drew mashed his lips down against mine, hard, so hard that my teeth bit into my lower lip.
‘Ooops! Excuse us!’ the girl giggled.
‘Mmmmf,’ I tried, but Drew pressed all the harder. He’d dropped his hand, though, so at least I could breathe. I sucked a grateful breath through my nose.
Drew had no weapon, except his hands, but they were deadly. I had no weapon, except my fan. I considered jamming it into his eye.
‘Lovebirds,’ the young man drawled. ‘Sweet.’
‘C’mon. Kiss me, honey,’ she said, clawing at her partner’s cravat.
Desperately, I tried to signal one of them with my eyes, but it was too dark for them to see the desperation written in them.
Drew’s weight shifted, and something knocked against my hip. Amy’s iPhone was still in my pocket. I moaned, fell limp, dead weight in his arms. My head lolled, and I felt my wig begin to slip, tilting, sliding, until it dropped off my head, hitting the floor with a quiet floof.
Drew started, giving me the time I needed to reach into my pocket, wrap my fingers around the phone. I pulled it out and jammed it as hard as I could, narrow edge first, into his throat.
He gasped, tried to draw air, but only succeeded in producing an odd squeaking sound. He crumpled at my feet.
I didn’t wait to see what damage I had caused. I lifted my petticoats and ran, scrambling down the long flight of stairs that led to the street, hoping to be well away before Drew had time to recover and take off after me.
‘We got him!’ A woman’s voice.
I paused, my heart pounding so hard I thought it would leap right out of my chest. Who was that?
‘We have him, Mrs Ives,’ she yelled again. ‘You’re safe now.’
The next thing I knew, Paul was running toward me, stumbling down the steps, crossing the street, folding me into his arms.
‘How…?’ I began.
He held me at arm’s length, looked me up and down as if checking for damage. ‘I’m sorry, Hannah. We saw Cornell drag you out…’ He paused. ‘They told me they’d handle it.’
‘They? Who is they?’
‘I told you I’d bring back-up. Even though Jud’s men got hold of Drew, until we knew for sure he was in Navy custody, I thought it better to be safe than sorry. Come with me. I’d like you to meet them.’
On wobbly legs, supported by Paul, I made it to the top of the long staircase. The first thing I saw was the drunken couple looking remarkably sober. He had a cell phone pressed to his ear and a taser in his other hand. She had a gun. Sitting at their feet, propped up against the wall with his hands behind him, was Drew Cornell. His wig, like mine, had disappeared in the fray and the pale hair underneath was dirty and matted. His head was bowed, so I couldn’t see his eyes.
‘Agent Loftiss, Agent Waldholm, this is my wife.’
I simply stared, too stunned to speak.