“No. I tried getting them to him, but it was too late. He doesn’t want to hear from me. I’m pretty sure the woman Martin has lined up to replace me has no intention of following through on any of my programs. I’ve got nothing left, Darlene. My friends are bailing on me as if I were septic. My integrity’s been plowed to the roots. These are good, important pieces of legislation. If they go under, my last shred of dignity and purpose goes with them.”

Darlene bit at her lip and tried to keep Evans’s profound sadness from becoming too much her own. “No promises, but have them sent to me,” she said.

The three turned as the door behind them was opened by Victor Ochoa.

“Mrs. Mallory, Ms. Hajjar, I’m sorry for bursting in like this, but there’s been a multiple shooting with deaths in Kings Ridge, Virginia. We feel you should return to the White House until we have more information.”

“Deaths? Do you know how many?” Kim asked.

“It looks like seven. We should know more by the time we get you home.”

Seven people shot to death.

Darlene felt ill. Countless terrible, vivid images began flashing through her mind. She hadn’t ever told anyone except her husband, but as a teen, she had been the one to discover her father’s body.

“You just have to make every day precious,” Kim said as they gathered their things. “’Cause you never know.”

CHAPTER 8

The final battle for Dr. John Meacham’s life was over almost before it began. On a vent, with IV blood pressure support and other meds, he was essentially being resuscitated before his heart stopped beating. Dr. Schwartz, the salaried intensive care specialist, who had deferred to Lou for the insertion of the chest tube, administered some cardiac stimulants without any success, and then, after no more than ten minutes, turned to Lou.

“Do you see any reason to continue, Doctor?” he asked.

Lou flashed on the day when he and Meacham had first met at the Physician Wellness Office. Meacham was as tight as a drum skin, and positive that he would never be allowed to practice medicine again. Lou, as a survivor of disaster in his personal and professional lives, knew otherwise. Most of that first session had consisted of him exposing his new client to the life strategies of AA—strategies that he had ridiculed at first as being naïve and simplistic—until he actually began to use them in his life.

Meacham had caught on quickly. With the help of an AA sponsor and people at the rehab, his need to drink ceased almost immediately. Following that, his hair-trigger temper gradually came under control.

Now this.

“I can’t think of anything else we should be doing, Dr. Schwartz,” Lou heard his voice saying as if from down a long tube.

Schwartz looked up at the clock and nodded toward Sara Turnbull. “Seven forty P.M.,” he proclaimed.

And just like that, John Meacham’s life was done.