D.C. Dead (Stone Barrington 22)

“I was not Brix’s only lover,” she said.

“I heard that he was seeing Muffy Brandon. I spoke to her.”

“Oh, not Muffy,” she said. “I mean, yes, he was fucking her, but I also mean he was seeing someone much more important to him.”

“Brix was quite a guy,” Stone said.

“Someone in the White House,” Milly said quietly.

Stone nearly choked on his champagne.

“You se="3llye, in his position, Brix had the run of the place, saw everyone, knew everyone, knew when he could take a quiet moment, lock a door, and conduct an assignation.”

“In the White House?” Stone asked, flabbergasted.

“Oh, yes. For Brix, knowing what he knew about that world, there was no safer place.”

“I’m having some difficulty accepting this.”

“I’m telling you only what Brix told me. It wasn’t always in the White House, he said. After all, Mimi worked, and he did have his own house. There is a garage, and someone could drive right in and enter the house unseen.”

“How very convenient,” Stone said.

“On other occasions they used the White House family quarters.”

Stone sat up in bed and faced her. “Are you telling me he was having an affair with . . .”

“With Katharine Rule Lee? Possibly, he wouldn’t say. But the family quarters were sometimes available when the president was traveling, or just in the daytime, and Brix had full access, keys and everything. I mean, not in the presidential bed, but there are a number of bedrooms in the quarters, and they are usually unused. Brix knew the schedules of the cleaners, and the Secret Service wouldn’t enter the quarters without his permission. I think that the apparent impossibility of what he was doing was a big thrill for him.”

“I can see how it could be,” Stone said. “As far as you know, did anyone at the White House suspect?”

“He told me once that there was someone who had seemed to know something, but he couldn’t be sure. So he just continued as he had before.”

“Did he mention a name?”

“No, Brix was a very discreet man.”

“Did Mimi know about these other women?”

“I think she preferred not to know. If Mimi had been a more attentive and adventurous wife, none of this would ever have happened. I think she viewed sex, perhaps for religious reasons, as a means of procreation and little else. He told me once that she was shocked when he tried to give her cunnilingus, and disgusted by the thought of giving him fellatio. She wouldn’t touch his cock with her hand.” She glanced at the bedside clock.

“Perhaps I’d better go,” Stone said.

“I do have an appointment at five o‘clock, and God knows, after what we’ve been doing, I need a nap.”

Stone got into his clothes, and she walked him to the elevator, still nude. “I’m in New York once, sometimes twice a month,” she said. “I have an apartment at the Carlyle Hotel. Would you like to see me there sometime?”

“I w

ould be delighted,” Stone said. He gave her his card.

“No attachments, no entanglements. I prefer it that way,” she said.

“I understand. That’s fine with me.”

They kissed, then he got onto the elevator. His last image of her was her standing, naked and relaxed, blowing him a kiss.

“Dino is not going to believe this,” Stone said aloud to himself. “Not any of it.”