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away.

 
    7
    I woke in the middle of the night. Luke’s pillow and blankets were on the floor, but he wasn’t. I got up and eased open the bedroom door. Light from the kitchen shone into the hall, and I crept out until I spied Luke alone at the table.
    His back was to me, but his gun was dismantled, and the parts were spread out on Vera’s red vinyl tablecloth. Luke picked up a small brass brush and inserted it into the gun barrel.
    I stood in the shadows, watching his hands move slowly and deliberately. Then I saw my phone lying beside his left hand.
    He looked up as I pulled out a chair. I’d have banged it across the floor if Vera and Harris weren’t sleeping. “You listened to it, didn’t you?” I said, pointing to the phone.
    His brown eyes snapped at me. “Somebody had to.”
    We glared at each other for a minute.
    “This is big, Avie. This could force the vice president out of office.”
    I could hear Sparrow’s giggles in my ears, the rustling sounds of clothing, ice, and glasses clinking, the vice president moaning. I knew it had to be more than a sex tape, even though I wanted to believe that was all it was.
    “I know you listened to the beginning,” Luke said. “I had to rewind it.” He slid the phone toward me.
    Vera and Harris were snoring in the front bedroom, a quiet snuffle and a ripper. There wasn’t a better time unless it was never.
    “Fine, if it means getting you off my back.” I put the phone to my ear and closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to see Luke watch me as I listened.
    Sparrow laughed seductively, and I squirmed in my seat. I wondered where she’d hidden the recording device. Knowing Sparrow, she’d assembled something small, and tucked it into a necklace or her hair.
    “Mr. Vice President,” she murmured. She praised Jouvert, telling him how much she loved being with him at the meeting, seeing him wield power and get that Saudi sheik to give the U.S. so much money. One trillion. “Do you know how many pairs of shoes I could buy with that?”
    “A whole factory.” Jouvert laughed. “You could buy Thailand for a trillion dollars.”
    “Do I want to buy Thailand?”
    “Let me think about it, and I’ll get back to you.”
    “I can’t believe all the sheik wants is what we want anyway,” Sparrow said. “I want a man to pamper me, and take care of me, and decide for me.”
    “It’s the way things should be, isn’t it?”
    “Ugh, I can’t imagine having to get a job and go out and earn money, not when I can stay home and be a wife. And driving? Too scary.”
    “You should be cherished and protected just as the women are in his country.”
    “This was your idea, wasn’t it, getting the sheik to help us?”
    “Guilty as charged.”
    “Well.” Sparrow’s voice turned deep and teasing. “Time to pay for your crimes, Mr. VP.”
    I heard a sharp intake of breath, a moan, and the recording ended. I opened my eyes, remembering the party in Vegas when Jouvert had boasted to the Paternalist leaders about getting the money. Sparrow was at his side.
    “You heard what I heard?” Luke said. “Jouvert admitting he made a secret deal with the Saudis?”
    “Yeah. That’s exactly what I heard.” I saw the uncompleted branch on Maggie’s hanging, and my mouth went dry. The sheik’s name was the one she’d needed to prove Jouvert was a traitor.
    “The Saudis bribed the Paternalists, didn’t they?”
    I nodded. “They changed the laws for women just like the Saudis wanted.” I put the phone facedown on the table. “Jouvert brought Sparrow to the meeting with the sheik. Jouvert knows Sparrow hid proof of what she heard—she basically said that in a message she blasted before she died, but he might not know she recorded the two of them.”
    I dropped my head into my hands. “Why couldn’t she have sent this to one of Maggie’s allies or a reporter even? Someone who hated Paternalists as much as she did?”
    “Sounds like you’re the only person she