Meg was glad to be at Matt’s town house—and to have Lara there, too. It was Lara’s first night out of the hospital. Due to exposure and dehydration, she had pneumonia, and although she was still sick, she was doing much better. Nancy Cooper was driving up to be with her beloved niece, and they’d have dinner here, with Matt and Meg. Then Nancy would be with Lara when she returned to her home by the Capitol and packed up.
After that, Lara was going to Florida. She wanted to lie low and she no longer wanted to be in the public eye. She’d been offered a job at a new dolphin research facility near Miami, a small place where her PR skills would be vital. She’d always had an interest in marine zoology, as well as politics, and it was important that the public understand that the staff weren’t torturing dolphins; they were taking in the old and the wounded and doing research on dolphin intelligence while delighting children and adults alike with the social antics of the sea mammals.
“A scandal like this hasn’t hit Washington since...ever!” Lara said, curled up in an armchair and sipping tea. “I’m still doubtful. I can’t believe that Ian Walker had no clue whatsoever that his wife was so fixated on the White House—or that she was willing to commit murder to get there. Well, to arrange for murders to be committed. Or maybe she didn’t see it as murder. But I heard them talking once. Kendra and Ian, that is. And she was telling him that he should be the one making the bid for the White House, not Congressman Hubbard. But he said that as long as Hubbard was running, he was second man on the ticket and that was that. And...the next thing I knew, Hubbard was dead. Heart attack. I vaguely suspected Ian—or one of his aides. But when I was with that trio—Ellery, Joe and Nathan—they all seemed to be okay. So, while I suspected something, what do you in a situation like that?
“The night we were working so late, he was finishing up his Gettysburg speech, and that’s when I saw how much he intended to change his policies and...his changes did not support Congressman Hubbard’s platform. I didn’t know if those guys had anything to do with Hubbard’s heart attack. Still, I felt I had to get away, try to figure it out, keep my distance from them.”
She hesitated. “I had no idea at the time that Joe Brighton—Slash McNeil—had already decided that I might have to disappear. And that he was out there, murdering and mutilating other women, so there’d be a real trauma on the national scene and that people would believe that I’d either left—or been a victim of the killer. Never mind that he’d apparently found a...an obscene calling as a serial killer. What I still don’t understand is why he didn’t just kill me at the start.”
Meg watched as Matt came around behind Lara’s chair. “Lara, you don’t remember much from that last night in Gettysburg. You couldn’t. You were burning up with fever and then you were in the hospital. Kendra Walker never admitted to anything. She immediately demanded a lawyer, called us liars and said she’d been trying to save Meg because she suspected Joe of being a killer. She’s sticking to her story, but I doubt she’ll get away with it. The prosecutors are organizing their evidence and their case with a vengeance. Walker claims he’s absolutely innocent—but whether he is or isn’t, he’s retired from politics now.”
“I think he might have had a sick feeling that things weren’t right,” Meg said, “but from what I gathered that night, she always ‘wore the pants’ in their family. He wouldn’t have questioned her. He would’ve done as he was told.” She shook her head ruefully. “I’m still staggered by the fact that they managed to get me out of the house that night,” she said, catching Matt’s hand and smiling.
“I went through all of this with Jackson and Angela, trying to straighten out the details,” Matt said. “Kendra played up to Maddie Hubbard all the time, and she made sure that Maddie left her door open so she could run in to ‘check’ on her and that she spent time with her, as well. None of the security forces noticed her going in and out, and there was quite a bit of commotion. So, apparently, when she’d supposedly gone to bed and you’d gone to your room, she went to Maddie’s and had Joe follow her—with the chloroform,” Matt said. “Maddie was out like a light. All they had to do was make sure that Joe could get you when you were either asleep—or in the shower. Kendra made all the plans, always had. She knew when to be with Hubbard, how and when to switch his pills, and yes, she did have to hope he died when he didn’t get his digitalis. What I don’t think she initially realized was that she got a true madman to do her deeds. I think Joe would’ve been happy to cut her throat in the woods that night. He’s gone completely mad now, says there is no Joe Brighton, that his name is Slash McNeil.”
“I think Kendra’s her own kind of psychopath,” Lara said.