Page 92 of The Ruling Class
“Who’s doing this?” Bodie repeated my question. “If you assume the good doctor’s death wasn’t a suicide—and I think, at this point, that’s a safe bet—I’d say we’re looking for someone with military training. Special Forces, most likely, possibly military intelligence.”
Bodie’s phone rang.Ivy.I knew it was her, the way you know the protagonist of a horror movie really shouldn’t go down into that basement. Bodie took the call, then nodded at me to go back inside.
I made my way back down the hall toward my grandfather’s room.
I’d say we’re looking for someone with military training.
I thought about the fact that Ivy had been at Camp David that weekend. She’d pointed out just how much I didn’t know—who’d taken the picture, who’d been standing right outside the frame.
Who else was there the day Bharani and Pierce met?My breaths got slightly shallower.Was Adam?Adam’s father was the one who’d organized the retreat.
Had Adam been at the Keyes Foundation gala?
I’d say we’re looking for someone with military training.Bodie’s words dogged my every step.Special Forces, most likely, possibly military intelligence.
Adam was Air Force. Adam worked at the Pentagon.
No.I rounded the corner. There was an orderly outside my grandfather’s room, his arms stacked high with blankets.Adam isn’t involved. He’s not.One of the blankets tumbled off the orderly’s stack. Trying not to think about Adam—or Ivy or Pierce or any of it—I bent to pick up the blanket.
“Here—”
The orderly surged forward, slamming blankets into my face, cutting off the flow of air to my lungs as he pulled me tight against his body.Not an orderly.
Not Adam.That should have been a relief—but it wasn’t.Too big to be Adam. Too tall.I struggled.Too strong.I couldn’t see,couldn’tbreathe. The man who wasn’t an orderly was going to kill me. I was going to die, smothered to death feet away from my grandfather’s door.
I tried to kick my heel into my captor’s shin. Then I felt a pinch in my neck.
And then everything went black.
CHAPTER 55
I woke with no feeling in my wrists and a throbbing at my temples. At first, all I could see were my own feet, bound at the ankles with transparent zip ties. My shoes had been removed.
So had my clothes.
That realization shocked me into full and unforgiving consciousness. I was wearing some kind of loose cotton shift. The knowledge that someone must have removed my clothes—that while I’d been unconscious, hands hadundressedme—made me shiver violently.
Nausea racked my body. I lurched forward, as far as the ties that bound me to the metal chair would let me. My hair fell into my face and my stomach emptied itself onto the concrete floor. Unable to even wipe the back of my hand across my mouth, I coughed.
Floor, I thought, fighting to pay attention to the details and using them to ground me in the here and now.Concrete floor.
I was inside. The expanse was large—possibly a basement of some kind. No windows. There was a collection of electrical wires at one side. The space was dimly lit, but even that dim light made my head pound harder.
The orderly drugged me.I remembered the pinch at my neck, the darkness that followed. Maybe the headache was a side effect, but that raised the question:A side effect of what?
What had the man injected into me?
Poison?I tried not to think about the likelihood that Judge Pierce hadn’t died of an aneurysm. I tried not to think about the fact that someone had poisoned Justice Marquette.
Not just someone, I thought. I tried to summon up an image of the orderly, but I couldn’t. I hadn’t been paying attention.Dark hair. Tall.That was it. All I’d seen. All I knew.
I struggled against the ties, jerking my body to one side, then the other as hard as I could. All that achieved was knocking my chair over sideways. My head hit the ground. Hard.
I have to get out of here.Knowing that didn’t make it achievable, any more than trying to picture the orderly helped me summon up his face.He’s going to kill me. He knows what I know. He’s going to kill me.
Ivy had sent me out of DC, but she hadn’t sent me far enough.
Focus.My cheek rested against the cold ground.Think.I knew, on some level, that planning wouldn’t do me any good—but what other choice did I have?
