Life of Secrets (13 page)

But if he
knew everything else I’ve done to him…

She bit her lip
and tried to fight back tears. She looked away and wiped her eyes with a bar
napkin.

I hurt him
all my life, and he tells me it’s all forgiven. But he only knows about one
thing, one moment. If he knew the rest…

"So tell
me how you saved my life," she said after a long pause.

"I felt
stupid as soon as I let that slip about
Laphroaig
15.
Obviously you know scotch better than I do. I knew there was a risk that you
would know where I’d gotten it. It was out of my mouth and that very second I
started beating myself up. Stupid, stupid, stupid."

He shrugged,
and then continued.

"I held
out some hope when you didn’t react and didn’t say anything more about it, and
the conversation turned to other things. As the day went on, my hope got bigger
and bigger."

"And then
I nodded off for a while as it got to be pretty late at night. And when I woke
up, you weren’t in the room, and you weren’t in the bathroom, and you didn’t
come back after I waited and waited."

Matt shrugged
again.

"I knew
where you had to be. I had effectively told you. I figured I’d go and try to
explain. Maybe if you heard it from me before you formed your own
conclusion…"

He concluded.

"So I was
walking up to the Buchanan Club when some dude barges out the front door and runs
away down the street. He left the door swinging in the breeze, so I was walking
up to see what’s up when I heard sirens in the distance. I ran inside, grabbed
you… you know the rest."

Alyssa reached
across the bar table to place her hand over his, and said, "The rest is
that I’m not in prison waiting for a death penalty trial because of you."

He smiled at
her for a second or two before he couldn’t take it anymore and looked away.

"I
couldn’t have done anything else."

"Matt, you
saved my life. And you’re saying it’s no big deal that I tricked you into
telling me how to find the Buchanan Club. So I already feel bad about how I
treated something that’s obviously serious to you, but I can’t help it. I have
to know. Why couldn’t you tell me about Mike Vincent?"

He sighed.

"Somehow I
was hoping you hadn’t learned before that guy attacked you."

She shook her
head.

"‘That
guy’ is Fred Harris. He and I have been crossing paths for as long as I’ve been
in this business. And I looked in the RSVP book at the Buchanan before he got
there. Vincent was the only name there who means anything to me. It has to be
him, but I don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me."

Matt looked
away from her, and then back to her, and then away.

"I really
don’t know what to do. I made a promise to him. I don’t know how I can keep it
and discuss this honestly with you."

Chambers
gritted her teeth.

"Yeah,
well, once upon a time Vincent and I made promises to each other. He broke his,
so I’m no longer feeling very bound by mine."

Matt tilted his
head to one side.

"Tell me
more."

Her anger at
being betrayed got the better of her, tempting her into speaking about a
subject she wasn’t really eager for Matt to discover.

"Pretty
simple, really. We met a long time ago. I caught him at something, he caught me
at something. Neither of us was exactly eager for our indiscretion, so to
speak, to become public knowledge. I agreed to keep his secret, if he agreed to
keep mine – it was one of my early jobs as a plumber, and he saw my face."

"So I’ve been
protecting him from Tilman and Reeder and all the rest of them all these years,
so they never knew how untrustworthy he was. And now he betrays me. Right when
it matters most, his promise goes out the window, and he rats me out. Yeah,
maybe you still feel like Mike Vincent’s word is worth something, but I
don’t."

Matt stared at
her. "Wow," was the only word out of his mouth.

"What?"

"Where to
even start? Alyssa, you still get so angry, after all these years."

"You
wouldn’t? I’ve been hunted for days, turned into a national devil on TV, all
because he picked this moment to break his word. Yeah I’m mad. He sold me out.
He betrayed me. If I had him in front of me I’d…" she shook her fist.

"Mike
Vincent didn’t betray you, Alyssa."

She gave him a
condescending stare.

"He was
protecting you."

"Say
again? How does telling the press I’m a criminal protect me?"

Matt closed his
eyes and sat silent for a moment. Then he spoke.

"When Mike
and I had our meeting last Friday, his one concern was that he had made a promise
to you all those years ago – a promise to keep your secret if you kept his. He
wouldn’t tell me very much about the bargain. He said he didn’t want to break
faith with you, so he wouldn’t give me any details. But he said once upon a
time you caught him in something and he caught you. The two of you agreed to
keep each other’s secret."

Alyssa caught
herself almost crying.
Oh Matt, if you knew what he didn’t tell you…

"He came
to me because we’ve been friends a long time. He trusts me, and I trust him. He
was in a place where helping the man he loved and admired and wanted as a
leader conflicted with a promise he’d made years ago, and he could trust
me."

"So, Mike
tells me he was ordered by someone high up on the West campaign to give the
press a dossier full of facts and evidence about your record. He was told he
must make sure it’s in the hands of the media by Monday. Is this timeline
ringing a bell with you?"

Indeed it was.
The meeting happened
Friday
, she broke into the West HQ on
Sunday,
West was murdered on
Sunday
, and Vincent was told to make sure the press
had information about her before
Monday
.

It was pretty
clear that this was it. This was the frame up. This was the plan to set her up
as the patsy for the assassination. Mike Vincent had been given explicit
instructions to be sure she was exposed at the moment the crime was discovered.

"Who gave
him the…"

"Reeder,"
Matt replied before she could finish her question. "Senator Lance
Reeder."

Her jaw open,
Alyssa simply stared at Matt for a second or two. Then she whispered, "Of
course. I just saw the TV news talking about it. As West’s Vice-Presidential
pick, he's a natural as the replacement candidate for President when West was
killed. Reeder could never have been a Presidential contender on his own. Now,
he rides into office on the message of ‘Rich West gave his life for the cause.
Don’t let his death be for nothing. Elect the man Rich West wanted to succeed
him.’"

"Lance
Reeder ordered Mike to give the media information that would make you look
suspicious as a possible assassin. Two days later, Rich West is assassinated,
and the biggest profit from his death goes to Lance Reeder."

Chambers just
sat there quietly for a moment. She wasn’t sure what to say. She’d been wanting
to know who killed West and who framed her for what seemed like years, even if
it was only a couple days. Now she knew. Fred Harris pulled the trigger on
West, and Lance Reeder hired it done and arranged to frame her.

"I want
Reeder," were the words that finally came out of her mouth.

Matt shook his
head, "Now Alyssa, be sensible."

"I want to
kill him."

As deep as her
criminal life went, she had never killed anyone before. It was the one line she
never crossed. Beat people senseless, steal from them, provide intelligence
that would be used to blackmail them… she had never committed murder. She never
wanted to until now.

"No,
Alyssa, you don’t want that."

"Yes, I
do. You have no idea what he did to me."

"Obviously
I haven’t suffered like you have, but I have been on the run with you for the
past 24 hours, Alyssa. I have some idea.

"What’s
more, I’ve known you since you and I were both too young to talk. You are not a
murderer."

"Not
yet."

"Alyssa,
stop. I get you’re mad. Obviously you’re mad. And I get that you have a problem
dealing with anger constructively."

She gave him an
icy stare, and Matt held his hands in front of him protectively.

"If we
can’t be honest at a moment like this, when are we ever going to be honest? You
know I’m not wrong about that."

"So what?
You just want me to find him, beat the daylights out of him, and stop short of
killing him? Is that what you want, Matt?"

"Of course
not."

"Then
what?"

He reached
across the table to take her hand.

"I want
you to forgive him, Alyssa."

There was a
second of stunned silence before she laughed.

"Get real!
The man made me into a national hate-figure. Have you seen what the 'man on the
street' interviews have people saying about me? If I went to the center of this
bar and shouted, ‘I’m Alyssa Chambers,’ there’d be ten guys beating me to death
with table legs before you had time to call a photographer. Lance Reeder has
the whole country believing that I killed the most popular politician in recent
memory – the guy who was finally going to restore honesty and integrity to
Washington, and as far as the press and the people know, I murdered him. I’ll
never be able to go out in public again! Even if I clear my name, I’ll die with
most of the country believing it was a CIA conspiracy that got me off, and that
I should have sat in the electric chair."

"Forgive
him?"

"Exactly
like I just did for you, about tricking me into giving Mike away."

Her eyes almost
popped out of her head.

"Are you
kidding me? You’re going to compare a little…"

But it wasn’t
just that one thing, was it? It was his best source shut down. It was his
office burned to the ground. It was his career-making story up in smoke. Those
were all the things she had done to Matt. And even if he didn't know about the
rest of the things she'd done wrong to him, he was still being her friend when
she deserved it less than anyone.

But… Running
for her life with the FBI literally shooting at her. Days with no friends and
no comfort and no safety. Gunter Hauptmann’s bloody wreck of a corpse falling
into her lap.

"I can’t
Matt. I can’t just let it go, what he did to me."

"There is
no peace without it, Alyssa. If you kill him for revenge, it’s not going to
satisfy."

"Oh yeah?
How do you know?"

"Trust me
on this, Alyssa. Forgiveness is the only way to peace."

"I don’t
know if I can. It’s like I’m seeing red. I’m so mad I can’t think."

"Then
trust me to think. Let it go, Alyssa."

She sat silent.
Alyssa felt a debt to Matt. She had been betraying him six ways from Sunday for
years and yet when everything was on the line, he saved her life and risked his
own freedom and reputation to do it. But her guts boiled at the thought of
Reeder getting away with what he had done without paying. When she thought
about him getting off scot-free, maybe ascending to the Presidency…

Chambers ground
her teeth.

She tried to
distract herself. She looked around the darkened bar, watching the ordinary
people living ordinary lives, laughing and chatting and eating their burgers.
She had lived like that once, and Lance Reeder had taken it all away from her.

That wasn’t
working to take her mind off the anger. Her eyes fell on the television.

"By
default, Lance Reeder has risen to the top of the West/Reeder campaign since
the death of Rich West," the anchor said in the closed captioning running
beneath the screen.

"I never
wanted to be President," Reeder said in a quick cutaway clip. "I just
wanted to serve in the best way I could and help a great man do great things.
I’m not the quality Rich West was. No one is. He was one of a kind. All I am is
the man he named to take his place if the worst happened. Well, the worst
happened. I don’t feel I have any choice but to rise to the challenge as best
I’m able."

The screen cut
back to the news anchor. "The West/Reeder campaign – already in the
process of changing their name to Lance Reeder for President – is holding a
major donor fundraiser tonight on the campus of Georgetown University. There,
Reeder expects to make his pitch to the elite of the elite of West’s
supporters."

Alyssa turned
back to look at Matt just as Matt turned to look at her.

"No,"
he said.

"We’re
going," she said.

"Alyssa,
this is not the way to solve your problem."

"We’re
going," she repeated stubbornly.

"No, we’re
not."

"Matt,
look. I know you want me to let go of my anger. And yes, obviously you’re
right. It’s not like I could deny it. We’ve been having this conversation since
high school about how I get so enraged I just can’t see straight. But Reeder
arranged for the murder of the man who might have finally changed American
politics into something more like what it's supposed to be. Then he framed an
innocent person for the murder. He deserves to be punished."