pile of old volumes. She picks one up and carefully places it in the open grave, and then I take the shovel and—following the lead of others—toss in three shovelfuls of dirt, the blade upside down.
I then bring Amelia’s hands up, and with a sharp whisper she says, “I can do it by myself,” which breaks my heart again, and clumsily, but with strength I didn’t know she had, she matches my three shovelfuls of dirt with her own.
Then we step aside.
A dual line forms and mourners pass through, and most ignore me, although Amelia does come in for some special attention. I’m dreading going back to the synagogue, for a large meal has been prepared, and I must continue to play my part as the evil grieving widow. My sister Gwen, as loyal as ever, sticks with me as the mourners dribble away, and then Scotty comes up to me with a grim look on his face.
“Boss … I hate to do this to you, but we need to head back to the White House.”
“But … Amelia, I sure as hell can’t.”
Gwen steps forward, arm around me, hugging me. My younger sister, whose hair is graying out and who has fine lines around her bright blue eyes, all from her job at the Puzzle Palace over at Fort Meade, deciphering and interpreting horrible secrets that should forever remain secret.
“I’ll take care of Amelia,” she says.
“Gwen … I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“Don’t fret,” she says. “I got some time coming to me. It’ll be just me and your little firecracker, until the parental units and sister Kate show up. I’ll host ’em until things get straightened out.”
My throat thickens and the tears come, and in the middle of this cemetery with the gravestones with Hebrew lettering and the Star of David, I give her a long, long hug. She whispers to me, “Always got your back, big sis, remember that. Always.”
I pull away and we exchange cheek kisses, and Gwen says to my daughter, “Hey, Amelia, how about spending some time with your nutty aunt Gwen?”
Amelia looks up to her. “You live where there’s an indoor pool, right?”
Gwen says, “That’s right, sport.”
“I’d like to go swimming. But I don’t have a suit.”
Gwen takes her hand. “We’ll get you a suit, I promise.”
The two of them start walking away, and I realize I haven’t even said good-bye to Amelia, when Scotty gets my attention.
“What the hell’s going on?” I ask. “Have they found …”
He shakes his head. “Nope. Take a look.”
He flips his large iPhone on its side so I can read the screaming headline from the Washington Post:
FIRST LADY REPORTED MISSING; MAY HAVE DROWNED AT HORSE FARM
I swear and Scotty grabs my arm, and we start to run out of the cemetery as dirt continues to be shoveled into my husband’s grave.
CHAPTER 50
PARKER HOYT HEARS a burst of loud voices outside of his office, with Mrs. Glynn coming in loud and clear with, “You can’t go in there!” and sure enough, Special Agent Sally Grissom slams the door open, pushes her way through, and slams the door behind her.
“Agent Grissom,” he says, “what a not-so-pleasant surprise. Sorry to hear about the death of your husband … shouldn’t you be with your daughter?”
She strolls forward, face twisted with fury, and Parker has a momentary lapse into fear—after all, this crazed woman is armed—but she stops at his clean desk and slaps down a sheet of paper.
“I just got this off the wire downstairs,” she says. “News flash from a ‘highly placed administration source,’ about the First Lady being missing and presumed drowned. That source was you, you son of a bitch.”
Parker doesn’t even acknowledge the paper before him. “Why are you here, Agent Grissom? You should be taking the rest of the week off.”
“Why? Why the news leak?”
“Sit down.”
“I like standing.”
“My office, my rules,” he says. “Park it.”
She slowly takes an empty chair, and Parker feels once more that little thrill, of bending someone else’s will to his own. He says, “Is there anything inaccurate in that news flash?”
“Anything? The whole damn thing is inaccurate. You don’t know if she’s drowned or not.”
“And neither do you,” he says. “Your agency, which managed to lose the First Lady two days ago, has come up with exactly nothing. Zero. Zip. Even when you somehow bribed Homeland Security to come in and help, all you did was find some poor drowned homeless woman a couple of miles downstream.”
Her teeth are clenched as