Midnight by Anna Dove (books for new readers .TXT) 📕

the bottom of Haley’s stomach and she tried to fix her eyes on the car in front of her to distract her own mind from wandering to the worst case scenario. After what seemed like twenty hours but was really twenty minutes, they parked in front of an alley on a nondescript road in the northwestern part of the city.

Sandwiched in between an oyster bar and a hat shop nestled a tiny, grungy dive bar that saw a steady stream of individuals from every social class. Here and there sat the CEO’s who wanted to avoid recognition as they pulled away at their whiskey neat; there in the corner were the blue collar workers taking advantage of five-dollar beers. Professional call girls who could boast a few well known political conquests sipped on vodka martinis. There were legislative aides, Congressmen, and shopkeepers.

         The owner of this bar was named Tom. He had served in Afghanistan with the Senator and the two were lifelong friends. Tom was a decent, plain sort of person, who had built the bar and who loved it with every bone in his body. He had created it, from an empty little building, and he served as a bartender almost every night of the week, chatting with the high and the low, offering advice and consolation, keeping classified secrets that people had drunkenly spilled. Tom knew and kept more secrets, miseries, and tragedies than Pandora’s Box.

         His back room he kept secret, a little treasure of a place unknown to the majority. Only a select few were allowed behind its doors. There were no cameras, no audio, and he kept it that way for situations in which his friends might need it. His loyalty to his friends ran deep, and, in turn, the Senator regarded him as one of the most valuable and trustworthy people in the city.

Haley and Elizabeth now ducked into the front entrance, stepping down a brief flight of stairs and swinging open the iron-grated door. The inside of the bar was feebly attended this evening; a half-asleep man in a suit sat on one end of the bar, a few underage college students from Georgetown poured cheap beers down their polo-collared throats at the other end. Tom was nowhere to be seen. There was not much space between the bar and the wall, four feet perhaps, and Haley and Elizabeth passed the Greek life enthusiasts, reaching another door. This door led to a hall, which led to another door, which led to the bathroom on one side and a small, coded lock door on the other. There was a tiny glass peephole facing outward. Haley knocked.

The bolt slid open from the inside and the lock code box clicked. The door swung on its hinges inward, and there was Tom, a round, short man with a bald head dressed in loose jeans and a sweater. He motioned them in, and shut the door behind them.

In the corner of the tiny room, which was no bigger than the average bathroom, was a standing lamp and a lit bulb that afforded soft illumination to the people and shapes in the room. In the center of the floor stood the only furniture in the room: a square table, with four chairs. Nothing else--only four walls with peeling plaster leftover from the 1920’s, the original construction year of the building. The Senator sat on the far side of the table facing the door with his eyes fixed in absolute concentration on the two women’s faces. He wore a collared shirt and slacks but did not look as cut and neat as usual. The lines seemed to have deepened in his forehead and around the corners of his mouth. His hair was mussed, as if he had just woken up, and his eyebrows bushed fiercely above his piercing gaze. James Landon sat to his right, his brow furrowed.

“Tom will stay,” said the Senator, glancing up at the man who still stood by the door and then back at the women. Authority and grimness deepened his tone. Tom sat down.

“I don’t know where to begin,” said Haley quietly, and her voice sounded in her own ears as if it was coming from far away. She took a breath, her eyes fixed on the table in front of her. There were little brown patterns in the cut of the wood. “It may be something or it may be nothing but a sick joke or something we’ve misunderstood—but I’ve come to you because I know I can trust you, and if you trust Tom then I’ll believe you,” she continued. “I didn’t know what else to do or who else to tell. At the gala--Elizabeth and I went together--at the gala, she was lost in the Eisenhower hallways and overheard a conversation.”

“Stop,” suddenly said Tom, and he stood up abruptly. He went to the door and peered out the peephole; after a moment returned and nodded for her to continue. Haley looked up to find the Senator’s clear blue eyes fixed on hers, with an expression that she had never before seen in him. She was an ant that is being held under a magnifying glass, which gathers the sun’s lethal rays into a concentration too pure to survive.

“I need,” said the Senator softly, turning to Elizabeth, “For you to account to me every word, every detail that you can remember.”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, and swallowed a lump in her throat. She looked very scared and small, for once, and clasped her hands around herself involuntarily. “I remember that I took a wrong turn and went into a wrong room. Someone else was coming in, and I hid behind a curtain. It was Reed, the President’s Chief of Staff, I knew because he was talking and I’ve heard him before and I’ve met with him before for work. I know his voice, I swear on my life it was him. He was talking in