Chapter 16

16

President Cushing's stepdaughter's house was a charming refurbished Victorian, all the way at the other end of Beckford from the college.

Just after noon, Cushing came up on it fast, too fast. He cursed as the tires of his speeding Volvo XC90 made a slight barking sound as he hard braked his brand-new eighty-five-thousand-dollar SUV off the street into the U-shaped driveway.

Rush, rush, rush , he thought as he came to stop and threw it in Park and leaped out.

He'd been at a lunch meeting with the social justice club, just done with soup, when he was interrupted by a text from his stepdaughter, Ashley.

With her husband, Jake, away on business, Ashley had gone to visit a friend in Boston with his stepgrandson, Carter, overnight. But they had hit traffic or something and couldn't get back in time to feed her dog, Lady, and give it its medicine and let it out to do its business.

"If it's not one thing, it's another," he said as he took the porch steps two by two.

He heard the dog whining even before he finally figured out the lock.

"Hold on, hold on," Cushing called out, irritated, as he flung open the heavy wood-and-glass Queen Anne–style door.

His wife, Jodi, was the dog whisperer in the family, but she was out of contact for some reason so his stepdaughter had called him.

Jodi had gone shopping apparently. Again. His wife was doing a lot of shopping lately, wasn't she? Even worse, these days Jodi was always forgetting to have any dinner on the table when he came home. Wasn't like she had to lift a finger as he more than once said they ought to have a live-in maid.

But she wouldn't have it. Said a live-in was akin to slavery. Boy, did that drive him nuts when she rolled out her Christian act.

No, things weren't doing so hot on the Cushing family home front these days and as he was approaching his dreaded fiftieth birthday, he had been doing some deep dive thinking about it.

He had thought that Jodi, a fellow UVA Law School alum, was going to be a stepping stone on Cushing's upward ambitious climb. Jodi was attractive and liked to have fun. But most importantly, her family were old money Virginia rich who owned an industrial manufacturing company that specialized in plastic packaging that was on the stock exchange and cleared thirty million a year.

But after the wedding came the bad news. No family job offer was forthcoming. Jodi's aristocratic father, who from the moment they met had looked at Cushing like he was something nasty he had stepped in on his horse farm, broke it to him at the reception.

So, what are your plans? he had said.

This was a disappointing question. Cushing had been pretty much banking on a cushy do-nothing-for-a-big-check job offer from Daddy as a wedding present. It was why he had popped the question to Jodi in the first place. Plus, Jodi already had a kid, a daughter by her first husband, a West Point grad. Now he was going to have to raise some other man's kid at an actual real job?

Jodi was supposed to get him to the next level, he thought with an eye roll as he unlocked the dog crate. But these days she was more like an anchor, wasn't she? Holding him back, sucking him down.

He'd put his time in. Twenty years. Murderers received less.

No, it was time to leave Jodi and Ashley, Cushing thought. Maybe drive them back down to Virginia where he'd found them. Leave them at the door of her father's bluegrass estate with a note. Sorry, Daddy. Change of plans.

When the dog, a labradoodle, whined again by the back door that he apparently wasn't opening fast enough, Cushing gave it a helpful shove out into the backyard.

"Get moving, you," he said.

He watched it take off for the tree line. He was probably supposed to clean up after it as well, but that wasn't happening.

He had his limits, he thought as his phone rang.

He saw that it was Security Director Travers.

"What?" Cushing said.

"She's at the coroner's now. She's in there talking to them."

"I see," Cushing said.

"She" was the female investigator from New York. The one who was unburying what needed to stay buried.

"This woman is relentless all right," Travers said.

"But she was told at the police department that the case was reopened, correct?" Cushing said. "Chief Garner told me as much himself. Why wouldn't that appease her? Why won't she just leave and go back to New York?"

"I don't know, boss. You want me to stay on her?"

"Yes, of course," Cushing said. "Stay on her until I tell you to stop."

Hanging up, Cushing turned to the living room window at a metal shrieking sound. Across the street from his stepdaughter's house, a yellow school bus was dropping off children, little kindergarteners with backpacks almost as big as they were.

As the bus left, his eyes locked on a picture on the living room mantel. It was of him on a petting zoo visit with his stepgrandson, Carter, the one bright spot in all of this. He couldn't help but smile at his towheaded little buddy. He'd be heading off to kindergarten himself soon enough. It would be hard to leave him behind.

Then Cushing's smile vanished as he remembered the night with Olivia.

The night that was about to get exposed for all the world to see if he didn't figure this the hell out and pronto.

This damn New York investigator. What was he going to do about her? He looked up and then down, trying to think. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

Come on, come on , he urged himself. What is my play here?

Then he realized it.

He took out his phone and stepped outside onto the back deck.

It was his other phone, the SAT phone that reached out and touched someone through uplinks to satellites orbiting the Earth instead of regular cell sites. It was supposed to be more secure, but was it really? The satellites were so sophisticated they could orbit the Earth but couldn't record conversations? He doubted it.

But that wasn't his lookout, was it? Even he, the el presidente , as Ashley called him, had his own boss, his own orders.

He brought up the only number in the contacts. It was one he did not want to call. But he had no choice.

Some issues you could skirt. This was not one of them. Not anymore. This was getting out of hand.

"Time to call Frank," he mumbled as he pressed the button.