The White House: A Flynn Carroll Thriller Read Online Free PDF

told would happen, nobody said anything.
    â€œTwo four four,” she said. It meant that she needed a meeting with Flynn.
    The line went dead.
    A moment later, her phone rang. She was given the address of an exclusive restaurant in Georgetown, the Pennington. It was very small, very quiet. There was a bar with high-backed booths. Many an affair had unfolded at the Pennington in one of those infamous booths.
    She called Marty Skinner, her current Secret Service detail, and told him she was going for cocktails at the Pennington. Then she went down to the private entrance to wait for the car.
    As she waited, one of the ushers came discreetly up behind her. “Your mother wants to know where you’re going,” he said. She could hear the embarrassment in his voice, which softened her a little toward him. She’d been about to bite his head off.
    â€œTell her I’m going to a hookah club to smoke a little hash with some cat from the New Republic. Liberal transgender cat. Black. Atheistic. Muslim.”
    â€œOK, you’re going to Madame Sally’s.”
    Madame Sally was a dressmaker expert in alterations, and Cissy had been dieting. Mom would be pleased. “That’ll do.”
    The car came up, and she got in and told Marty to take her to the Pennington.
    â€œDate?”
    â€œNo, I’m gonna sit in the bar and hope for a pickup. Maybe some post-sixty’ll come along and offer to take me to his place and show me his Lawrence Welk DVDs.”
    â€œYou should be so lucky.”
    â€œFunny guy, Marty.”
    â€œI try.”
    â€œWell, don’t.”
    It was five forty when she reached the Pennington. The restaurant, which would be full in an hour, contained only a single ancient customer, apparently a man, gumming away at what looked like a pile of mashed potatoes. The bar was completely empty. Cissy took a booth and waited.
    *   *   *
    FLYNN CARROLL used the Pennington because it had a little-known side entrance that led directly into the bar. The place had been designed a hundred years ago specifically for discreet meetings. During the Cold War, every booth had been bugged by CIA, but now there was only one hot spot, booth three—and sure enough, there was Cissy Greene, all 128 svelte, shimmering pounds of her, sitting well back in booth three.
    An accident? Flynn couldn’t know that, but he could get her to change booths.
    â€œCome on.”
    â€œFlynn!”
    He nodded to his left, and Cissy obediently got up and moved to the corner booth he had indicated.
    She had grown up since he’d last seen her. Her skin was as soft as smoke, and when she moved, she flowed.
    He took a seat across from her, and immediately saw in her eyes something he wished had not been there. She was afraid of him. Terrified, in fact. He watched her tongue touch her dry lips. Her eyes never stopped darting, as if she was also afraid she’d been followed. As well she might have been.
    â€œGive me your phone,” he said.
    He powered it down and removed the SIM card.
    â€œWhat are you doing?”
    â€œTaking precautions. You act like a person who suspects that they’re under surveillance.”
    â€œI am under surveillance.”
    A waiter came. She ordered a vodka martini, he a bourbon on the rocks.
    â€œAre you already twenty-one, Cissy? Has it been that long?”
    â€œNo, but who’s going to card me? Nobody, Mr. Carroll.”
    â€œFlynn.”
    â€œNo, it’s Mr. Carroll. You’re far too frightening for first names.”
    â€œYou’ve changed, Cissy.”
    â€œKeeping secrets is hell. It makes you old inside, Flynn.”
    â€œI’ve noticed.”
    She took a deep breath. ‘Here it came,’ he thought. Small talk was done.
    â€œThere was a murder at the White House today.”
    He contained both his shock at this unprecedented crime and his confusion about why she had reached out to him.
    â€œA