Page 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THE ROOSEVELTS

“You need to find Hank,” Cynthia says, trying to mask the desperation in her voice.

The head of her detail twists around from the front of the SUV. “We don’t have investigative authority. DS’s jurisdiction is protection-focused. The Bureau is the agency that—” Mitch stops, almost certainly because of her derisive gaze.

Cynthia could give one shit about investigative authority or the jurisdictional dick-measuring of the seventy different federal law enforcement agencies and their alphabet soup acronyms.

Mitch continues: “Since the divorce, we disabled the tracker on your ex-husband’s phone. I can see if there’s a way to reactivate it remotely. But the Bureau is all over this. I’ve asked around. This Agent Keller, she’s good.”

Cynthia had the same impression. She liked that the agent didn’t cower to Cynthia. Didn’t suck up either. A straight shooter, a rarity in Cynthia’s world.

“Find him,” she says. “Hank may know where Blane…” Cynthia lets the sentence fade. Her heart thrums at the thought of Blane. She can’t go through this again. She takes in a deep breath, trying to quell the panic rising in her chest.

“You’re sure this has nothing to do with Blane’s abduction?”

Mitch nods. “The director said that every agency involved back then assured him.”

“How can they be so sure?” She shakes her head. Most of the half-wits running the federal government are walking embodiments of the expression Often wrong, never in doubt .

“I need to use the restroom,” she says as they continue their drive to nowhere.

“The safe house isn’t cleared yet.”

“I don’t know why we had to move. The house last night was fine.” She shakes her head. “When will the new house be cleared?”

Mitch looks at his watch. “About an hour.”

“ Oh , about an hour. So I suppose I should just pee in a Gatorade bottle. That’s what you all do on long shifts, isn’t it?”

Mitch doesn’t reply.

“Better yet,” Cynthia continues, “let’s stop at the Seven-Eleven, you can run in and get me some adult diapers.”

“Cynthia,” her chief of staff says from the seat next to her. “Everyone’s doing everything they can to—”

“I don’t want to hear it. Just find my son!” She needs to calm down. Regain control. You don’t think straight when you’re erratic. She needs a clear head. “Pull over there,” she says, pointing to a run-down gas station.

Wisely, Mitch and the other agent up front don’t question her, and the SUV pulls under the awning. Cynthia reaches for the door handle.

“If you can give us five to check things out,” Mitch says.

“What? You think my friends are staking out a dirty roadside bathroom?” She’d taken to calling the hostile government that put a bounty on her head her “friends,” which somehow made the situation less terrifying.

“Secretary Roosevelt,” Mitch says. “Please.”

She tightens her lips to a seam. “Tell them to make it fast.”

At that, Mitch says something into his wrist microphone and two agents in another SUV that has arrived from out of nowhere jump out of their vehicle. One goes inside the gas station’s small store, the other around back to a separate structure that must be the bathroom.

The first agent returns with a key tied to a piece of wood.

The door to the SUV finally opens and she’s escorted to the structure adjacent to the store.

Cynthia goes inside and shakes her head at the disgusting scene. The floor is wet, like the toilet has a leak. Soggy paper towels and toilet paper smear the tiles. The walls are scrawled with graffiti.

No way she’s using the facilities here. She didn’t really have to go, anyway. One of her mentors, the senior senator from Virginia, had once given Cynthia a wise piece of advice: “The woman’s bathroom is your sanctuary. There are no men, no cameras, and no one will judge you if you cry.”

Cynthia goes inside the stall, shuts the door. She closes the lid to the rancid toilet, steps up, and sits on the tank, her feet resting on the seat. And she lets out a long, primal scream. It’s audible to no one. Her mouth is wide open, her face hot and contorted as she roars at the sky without making a sound.