Chapter 6

“The person that pops to mind first is your older cousin, Lady Riley,” Holland said. He pushed my chair over to the side and knelt down in front of the desk. He typed the name into the computer and waited for it to pull up the results. “She’s very power hungry and has never kept it a secret. She’s always talked about her plans for the future after your father dies so that alone puts her at the top of the list.”

The results pop up and Holland selects the right person. “You uncle, Riley’s father, disappeared one night along with his wife, Riley’s mom. They were missing for about two weeks, but they were found in the Miami Canal. Their car was riddled with bullet holes.”’

“How did Riley take the news?” I asked, running a hand through my hair. I would have leaned forward to get a better look at her profile, but Holland was in the way and I was already too close to him.

“She was a little shocked at the beginning, but she handled it like a true politician. She waved it off so to say. She began to talk about her plans for the future now that her dad had passed down his role as governor to her.” he explained.

“How long ago was this?” I asked. So many questions were flooding my mind.

“A year and a half?” he guessed. “She was eighteen when it happened, so she didn’t have to have a guardian or handler. She started making her own decisions from that day on.”

“What state is she the governor of?” I asked.

“Florida,” he answered. “She’ll be here tomorrow for the funeral. She most likely won’t enjoy seeing you.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“You’re the only thing standing in her way. If you hadn’t come out of hiding, she would be inaugurated instead of you,” he answered. “So you can see why she wouldn’t be too happy with you.”

I nodded. “Makes sense.”

“The next person in Missy Weeks,” he typed the name in. “She’s a Senator from New York and has always had major beef with your father. They’ve never gotten along,” he answered. “She would also have the resources to pull it all off. She knows the layout of the White House and could easily get someone through security.”

“Okay,” I drew the word out. “How do we know if she could possibly be guilty?”

He held a finger up, signaling for me to wait. “Hold on.” he scrolled down a little. “She has an alibi. She was actually at a formal meeting with the governor of Michigan.”

I sat back in my seat. “Crud.”

He nodded. “Let me go back and look at Riley’s. See if she has any alibi’s for that day.”

For a few moments, all that could be heard was the fast typing on the keyboard and the clicking of the mouse. I rocked my chair back and forth, trying to soothe my nerves.

“She doesn’t have an alibi,” he said. He stood up and stretched his legs out. “I have a list of suspects I could look up but none of them have such strong reasons for committing murder.

“How old is Riley?” I asked. I motioned him to the side and scooted up to the computer.

“Nineteen,” he answered. “And very manipulative.”

“Do you know her?” I asked, scrolling past all her educational awards and political good deeds.

“Yes,” he nodded. “She’d butter up to your father all the time.”

“So, she’s a brown-noser,” I said.

“Yep,” he smiled. “She’s a brown-noser.”

“You said she’s gonna be here tomorrow, right?” I double checked. I spun away from the desk and looked out the window behind me.

“Yes.”

“I’ll have a word with her then,” I stated. “If I don’t get any information I’ll call her in later to talk to her in private.”

He nodded again. “I’d be careful though. She will use your words against you.”

I smiled at him. “I can play at that game also.”

“I have no doubt about that,” he said. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Hey, let me sit

for a moment.”

I stood up and let him sit. As he scooted up to the computer, I edged closer. I rested one hand on the desk and the other on the back of the chair. I watched as he opened a different file.

“I have an idea,” he started. “The security has probably already slaved away over the security footage of your dad’s assassination, but it couldn’t hurt to try.”

“Let me look,” I ordered. He slid out of the seat and let me sit down. “What time?”

“A little after one,” he answered. I clicked on the timestamp at the beginning of the camera footage and typed in twelve o’clock.

The footage fast forwarded to noon and I watched closely as it played. It was the front view of the White House. Nothing was really happening, so I sped the feed up, hoping to catch a glimpse of anything suspicious. The President’s car pulled up and several security guards got out, followed by my Dad. I paused the footage.

“How do I switch to a roof cam?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Cassandra!” I yelled, my eyes never leaving the screen. The door opened almost immediately, and Cassandra appeared, gun trained at us.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I just need your help over here,” I said. She walked over, lowering her gun, and bent down next to me.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “We’ve already been over these.”

“I need you to switch the view to roof cam. I need it to be at the exact same second though,” I commanded. She swung her gun over her shoulder so her hands were free and started to type. She commandeered the mouse and set to work, clicking away. The feed changed, showing an upper view of the White House.

“I can also switch it to satellite if you need it,” she said, stepping back.

I shook my head. “Hopefully this will be enough.”

“We’ve already been all over this footage. If we didn’t see anything, I doubt you will.”

“Love the faith,” I muttered.

She sighed and headed for the door. “Let me know if you need anything.”

I played the footage and leaned forward in my seat even more. The time stamp read one o’clock. My heart started racing. Dad got out of the car and fixed his suit coat before he turned and looked up at the camera. For a second, he looked straight into it before looking over to the right. My heart rate picked up.

“Cassandra, wait,” I ordered. She stopped, her hand on the doorknob. She turned and walked back as I paused the feed, going back just a few seconds.

“Are these three-sixty cameras?” I asked, looking up at her. I could feel Holland hovering over me, arms braced on the top of my chair.

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“Show me,” I said. Once again, she bent down and rotated the feed to the right and back to the left, giving me a three-sixty view. I pushed the play button. The front of the White House was no longer in my sites but rather the area to my right where my Dad had looked.

We watched and nothing happened. We watched for a few more moments before Cassandra paused it.

“He was just shot,” she answered. “At one-o-three.”

Holland stood straight. He bit his bottom lip before speaking. “Play it again.”

Cassandra obeyed, rewinding the footage. We watched again in silence until Holland said to pause. She did, pausing right at 1:02.

“It’s on a loop,” he said. “Or the footage was hacked.”

“What?” I asked. Cassandra’s eyes widened in fear.

“Look," he pointed at the edge of the screen where part of the front steps was visible.

“There’s a person right there.” his finger hovered over the screen, pointing out a little sliver of a black suit coat. “But you can only see half of it.”

“Could just be a glitch in the feed,” Cassandra said.

“Replay it,” I said. “And focus on that area there.”

She did as I said and we watched it, all eyes trained on that one spot. We watched as the man, who was half cut off by the loop in the camera, ran towards my Dad who had fallen to the ground.

I paused it and stood up. Cassandra backed away, giving my space.

“This man wasn’t just in your building, Cassandra, he was in your systems and for all you know, he’s still inside this building, about to finish the job off,” I said, my voice cold.

She clamped her mouth shut, jaw flexing as she kept from speaking back.

“I want you to get a crew in here to figure out who this guy is. I want to see his face by the end of the day,” I ordered. I stepped around her and headed for the door. Holland reached out and grabbed my arm as I walked by him. His grasp seemed to burn my skin.

“What?” I asked.

“They missed this the first time,” he said, lowering his voice. “What makes you so sure they aren’t going to miss it a second time?”

I thought about what he said.

“Cassandra, I need a tablet or laptop that has access to those feeds. I want to go back to my room and look over it all a little more,” I said.

She nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

Cassandra played the feed and fast forwarded it a few moments. “Red, get over here.”

I walked back over to the computer.

“Look,” she pointed at a group of tourists, racing for the side entrance. Security was hurrying them along. “There’s a straggler. He isn’t trying to get out of there, in fact, he’s walking closer to the action.”

“But this is too soon after Dad’s death…”

“No, it’s actually two minutes after. We had to follow protocol and get all tourists and civilians out of the building before we just start shooting away,” she began. “But it doesn’t make any sense. He’s not going towards the exit. I mean, he’s going towards an exit but not the one everyone’s being led towards.”

“Zoom in,” I said. She zoomed in. “He’s carrying a bag.”

A black bag was swung over his shoulder as he nonchalantly walked away.

“Should we look into this guy?” she asked.

I nodded. “Get a shot and then send it in for facial recognition. I want to know where this man has been for the past three months. I want to know everyone he talked to in the last week. I want to know the last place he was seen, the last hotel room that he booked, I want to know everything. If this man killed my father, then maybe he’s the same one that killed my family. May heaven have mercy on him because I won’t.”

Cassandra tapped her earpiece and started talking. “Wade, we need you to get Jared in Oval Office ASAP. We have a suspect. I repeat, we have a suspect.”