Page 113 of Lessons in Power
Going into midterm elections, the president’s approval rating had been at an all-time low.
I hadn’t paid much attention to the outcome of the elections. But I knew, in my gut, what I would find when I pulled the information up on my phone.
Before the president had been shot, the outlook for his administration had been dire. His party almost certainly would have lost its majority in Congress. The chances that the president would get a second term in office were next to nothing. That waswhyCongressman Wilcox had been working with Senza Nome. The revelation that Walker Nolan had impregnated a terroristhad beenmeantto devastate the Nolan administration at the worst possible time.
And then, the day before midterm elections, the president had been shot—and suddenly, President Nolan wasn’t seen as complicit in Walker’s ordeal. He was a victim, a soldier on the front lines of the war on terror.
Senza Nome had already gotten what they wanted.The thought solidified in my mind.They had no reason to shoot him. None.
I pictured the president in his hospital bed, telling me that the shooter had been connected to the terrorists. I pictured him telling me that he was ready to heal and to lead this country as it did the same.
There were good guys, and there were bad guys, and everything was tied up with a neat little bow.
The shoulder, I thought.He was shot in the shoulder.
I could hear Dr. Clark, tending to Henry:Shoulder wounds are rarely lethal.
I could hear the First Lady:The bullet did less damage than the fall.
If the president hadn’t fallen, if he hadn’t hit his head just right, there wouldn’t havebeena coma. He would have been rushed to the hospital, rushed into surgery.
Do you know what heroically surviving a terrorist’s bullet does to someone’s approval rating?
“Tess?” Asher’s voice pulled me back to the present.
As I covered and picked up the conversation with the three of them, all I could think, over and over again, was that if it wasn’t for the head injury, President Nolan would have beenfine.
CHAPTER 69
Two days later, I got an invitation to dine at the White House. I hadn’t said a word to Ivy about my suspicions. The president was a friend. I couldn’t ask her to investigate the possibility that he’d arranged his own shooting until I was sure.
Sure that there was something to investigate.
Sure that it was worth it.
So I accepted Georgia Nolan’s invitation to brunch, and I went to the White House, uncertain what I expected to find there.
Something to tell me I’m not crazy.Or, better yet—something that would tell me I was wrong.
I’d had forty-eight hours to think about Dr. Clark telling me that the Nolan administration was corrupt. She’d convinced Henry that the president was the fourth player in the conspiracy to kill Justice Marquette. The one who’d brought the other men together. The one who’d walked away scot-free.
Over the past two days, I’d found myself wondering if that was true.
Thepresident’sdoctor, Dr. Clark’s voice whispered in my memory as I took my seat opposite Georgia Nolan.A Secret Service agent on thepresident’sdetail. That doesn’t strike me as a coincidence.
It shouldn’t strike you as one, either.
If President Nolan was the kind of man who could arrange to have himself shot for approval ratings, what else was he capable of?Couldhe have been involved with the assassination of Justice Marquette?
Brunch was served in the family dining room. The residence was different from the public face of the White House, but I couldn’t forget—even for a second—where I was.
President Nolan was out of the hospital and back to work. Ivy was off doing damage control for a famous philanthropist who had apparently gotten caught up in some not-so-philanthropic things.
It was just the First Lady and me.
How well do you know your husband?I thought, as Georgia dished out the food.If I told you what I suspect, would it shock you? Would you turn around and tell him what I’d told you?
Georgia speared a piece of fresh fruit with her fork and assessed me across the table.
