The Book of Fate - Brad Meltzer [144]
“And Boyle never told you The Three approached him?”
“I was waiting for it . . . praying for him to take us aside. Every day, we’d get a report on whether he’d accepted their offer. No response, they kept saying. I knew Ron was fighting it. I knew it,” she insists as she hugs her own shoulder, curling even tighter. “But they told us to keep waiting . . . just to be sure. And then when he was shot . . .” She stares down at the floor as a surprise sob and a decade of guilt seize her throat. “I thought we’d buried him.”
As I stare across at the handwritten letter in her lap, the mental puzzle pieces slide into place. “So all this time, the real reason Boyle was shot wasn’t because he crossed The Three, it was because he refused to join them?”
She looks back, cocking her head. Her voice is still barely a whisper. “You don’t even know who you’re fighting, do you?”
“What’re you—?”
“Have you even read this?” she asks, slapping the letter against my chest. “On the day he was shot, Ron hadn’t given The Three a decision yet!” There’s a shift in her tone. Her eyes widen. Her mouth hangs open. At first, I think she’s angry, but she’s not. She’s afraid.
“Dr. Manning, are you okay?”
“Wes, you should go. This isn’t . . . I can’t—”
“You can’t what? I don’t underst—”
“Please, Wes, just go!” she pleads, but I’m already staring back at the letter. My brain’s racing so fast, I can’t read it. But what she said—on the day of the shooting, if Boyle hadn’t given The Three a decision yet . . . for all they knew, he still could’ve gone to join them.
My forehead crinkles, struggling to process. But if that was the case . . . “Then why kill him?” I ask.
“Wes, before you jump to conclusions—”
“Unless they knew Ron was having second thoughts . . .”
“Did you hear what I said? You can’t—”
“. . . or maybe they thought they’d revealed too much . . . or . . . or they realized he was under surveillance . . .”
“Wes, why aren’t you listening to me!?” she shouts, trying to pull the letter from my hands.
“Or maybe they found someone better to fill the fourth spot,” I blurt, tugging the letter back.
The First Lady lets go, and the page hits my chest with a thunderclap. My whole body feels a thousand pounds heavier, weighed down by the kind of numbing, all-consuming dread that comes with bad news at a doctor’s office. “Is that what happened?” I demand.
Her answer comes far too slowly. “No.”
My mouth goes dry. My tongue feels like a wad of damp newspaper.
“That’s not . . . Ron didn’t . . .” the First Lady says. “Maybe Ron’s wrong . . .”
“Boyle was deputy chief of staff. There aren’t that many people who’re better at getting the—”
“You don’t understand. He’s a good man . . . he must’ve been tricked,” she continues, practically rambling.
“Ma’am . . .”
“He never would’ve done it on purpose . . .”
“Ma’am, please—”
“. . . even if they promised four more years—”
“Can you please calm down!” I insist. “Who could they possibly get that’s bigger than Boyle?”
Still hunched forward on the trunk at the foot of her bed, the First Lady lifts her chin, staring straight at me. Like the President, like everyone in our office, she doesn’t look at my scars. She hasn’t for years. Until right now.
The question echoes over and over through my brain. They were looking for a fourth. Who would be the biggest fourth of all?
I glance down at the letter that’s still in my hands. On the bottom of the page, the meticulous handwritten note reads:
But I never thought they’d be able to get him.
Blood drains from my face. That’s what she realized. That’s why she asked me to leave. She’d never turn on— “Him?” I ask. “You can’t mean