Page 196 of Promising You
“Technically yes, but it’s not going to be easy. Almost everyone wants me to be the candidate. At the meeting Friday, the ballot had three other guys and me. I don’t know who the other guys were. I’m not allowed to know. Anyway, almost everyone voted for me. The final vote is just a formality. It’s in the bylaws for the organization and they have to follow the bylaws.”
“If this plan for you isn’t final yet and it’s not happening for months, then why am I being sent away on Monday? What’s the rush? Did they tell you to get rid of me?”
“No, not specifically. But you’re not part of the plan, and when talk of my future fake wife came up and I protested, they gave me the envelope about my mom.”
“So they never actually came out and told you to break up with me?”
“My dad said they never come right out and say stuff. They prefer more discreet tactics that make their message clear. The memo about my mom’s death made it very clear what could happen to you.”
“But they wouldn’t do anything to me anytime soon, right? I mean, it would look awfully suspicious if the girl you’ve been dating for months showed up dead. Even if they tried to cover it up, Frank would have his journalist friends all over that story trying to expose the truth. Then the public would always question whether you were a killer or not. That could destroy any chance of a future political career.”
“That’s true. I didn’t think about that.”
“So they can’t kill me. At least not anytime soon.”
“You’re really making my head hurt with all this. I think the hangover’s kicking in.”
“Let’s get some coffee in you. And I could use some food.”
When we open the door, Pearce is standing there. “I was just coming to get you, Jade. Are you ready to leave?”
“She’s not leaving,” Garret says.
“Well, hurry up and say your goodbyes then.”
“She’s not leaving as in she’s not going back to Iowa. She’s staying in school and finishing the semester.”
“Garret, you know the rules,” Pearce says. “We’ve already decided what’s going to happen here.”
“No,theydecided. But like Jade just pointed out, they’re not going to do anything to her today or tomorrow or next week. And if theydiddo something to her, Frank would have every reporter in the country looking at me as a possible suspect.”
It’s like a light bulb went off in Pearce’s head. His eyes glaze over and he looks off to the side. “I hadn’t considered that.”
“I hadn’t either.” Garret puts his arm around me. “But my girlfriend is smarter than both of us and she’s figured out a plan that might get me out of this.”
Pearce still has that glazed-over look. “Once an idea like that was planted in the minds of the public, even if it wasn’t true, it would destroy your chances. A good percentage of the public would never vote for you. They’d hold protests telling people they can’t vote for a suspected killer.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want people to think I’m a killer. I just want them to dislike me enough that they’d never consider me for any political office.”
Pearce wakes up from his daze. “Say that again.”
“Let’s go downstairs.” Garret walks past him. “Jade needs to eat and I need some coffee. We’ll meet you in your office.”
His dad remains standing there while Garret and I go down to the kitchen.
“I think you just really confused your dad,” I say as I take a seat on one of the tall stools along the kitchen island.
“We’ll explain it to him later. So what can I get you?”
“Anything. But make it something quick because I’m starving.”
He opens one of the big stainless steel refrigerators. “We have some ham and cheese. I can make you a sandwich.”
“That works.”
He hands me a bottle of soda, then pulls out the sandwich ingredients and grabs some bread from the counter.
“I can make it, Garret. You don’t have to do it.”
