“What?” she screams at him. “Now I can’t cry in my own house?” Her voice cracks even louder with that one. It doesn’t take a shrink to spot the breakdown coming.

I motion to the guard with a can-we-have-a-second-here? look. Deciding it’s time for a break, he gets up and disappears around the corner. At least someone in this place has some sense.

Waiting for him to leave, Nora’s about to crumble. I haven’t seen her like this since the night she showed me the scar. Her chest is heaving, her chin’s quivering. She’s dying to finally let it out-to tell me what it’s really like. Not about her; about here. Still, she inhales as deep as she can and sniffles it all back in. Some things are too ingrained.

Wiping her nose with her hand, she slumps back against the wall and rests her shoulder against a white metal utility box that looks like it houses one of the Service’s emergency telephones.

“You want to talk about it?” I ask.

She shakes her head, refusing to look at me. Over and over, she continues the motion. No, no, no, no, no. Her breathing’s wet-saliva through gritted teeth-and with each movement of her head the motion gets faster, more adamant. Within seconds, it’s too much. Still leaning against the wall, she lifts her left hand and pounds her fist back against the plaster. “Damn!” she shouts. The single word echoes through the hall, and like a bookend to her original reaction, anger that became despair once again turns to anger.

“Nora… ”

It’s too late. With a quick shove of her hips, she pushes herself off the wall and away from the telephone. There’s a slight ripping noise and she stops. Her shirt’s caught on a sharp edge of the metal utility box. “Motherf-” She jerks her shoulder, enraged at the delay, and there’s another loud rip. We both follow the noise. From the top of her shoulder, down to her armpit, her black lace bra strap emerges through the hole in her shirt.

“Nora, take it eas-”

“Son of a bitch!” Spinning around, she swings her arm into the side of the metal box. Again. And again. I race in and grab her in a bear hug from behind.

“Please, Nora… the guard’ll be back in a-”

Struggling against me, she swings her left elbow around and clips me in the jaw. I let go and she wriggles free. In a rabid rage, she raises both fists in the air and delivers a death blow to the box. Pile-driving down, she connects with a hollow, metal bang that sends the door on the small box flapping open. Inside, there’s no phone. Just a gun, shiny and black.

Nora and I freeze, equally surprised.

“What the…?”

“Storage in case of emergency,” she hypothesizes.

I take a few steps back and look up the hallway that runs around the corner. The guard’s nowhere in sight.

Nora couldn’t care less. Without even looking, she reaches forward, her eyes completely lit up.

“Nora, don’t… ”

She grabs the pistol and yanks it out of its hiding spot.

CHAPTER 23

What the hell’re you doing?”

“I just want to see it,” she says, admiring the gun in her hand.

Up the hallway, around the corner from us, I hear a door slam. The guard’s shoes click against the marble floor.

“Put it back, Nora. Now!”

She motions to the theater and flashes me one of her darkest grins. “If you hold them down, I’ll pull the trigger. We can kill ’em all, y’know.”

“That’s not funny. Put it back.”

“C’mon-Bonnie and Clyde-me and you. Whattya say?”

She’s enjoying this way too much. “Nora-”

Before I can finish, she reaches back and tosses the gun through the air. At me. By the time I realize what’s happening, my arms feel like weights at my side. Fighting to lift them, I catch the gun in my fingertips, like a kid playing hot potato. I barely have it three seconds. Oh, shit. My fingerprints. Hearing the guard get closer, I toss it as quickly as I can back to Nora…

No! What if she doesn’t…

She catches it with a laugh. I can barely breathe. I turn the corner and see the guard coming down the hallway. He’s less than thirty feet away.

“Nora, no more psycho games!” I hiss, struggling to keep it at a whisper. “I’m giving you three seconds to put it back!”

“What’d you say?”

I ignore the question. “One… ”

Her hands go to her hips. “Are you threatening me?”

The guard’s got to be less than ten feet away. “No… I’d never threaten… C’mon, Nora… not now. Please put it back!”

I spin around just as the guard turns the corner. Behind me, I hear Nora cough loud enough to cover the sound of the metal box slamming shut.

“Everything okay?” the guard asks me.

Turning around, I look at Nora. She’s standing right in front of the box, blocking it with her body. The guard’s too busy staring at her bra, which is still peeking through the rip in her shirt.

“Sorry,” she laughs, pulling her sleeve up to cover her shoulder. She steps forward and coyly slides her arm around my waist. “That’s what happens when they kick you out of the face-sucking section of the theater.” Before I can object, she adds, “We’ll take it upstairs.”

“Good idea,” the guard says dryly. Without a second glance, he returns to his post behind the desk.

Walking back toward the Ground Floor Corridor, with her arm still around my waist, Nora slides her thumb through the hook on my belt. “So what’s more exciting-that or working on a decision memo?”

Convinced we’re well out of earshot, I quickly pull away. “Why’d you have to do that?”

“Do what?” she taunts.

“Y’know, the… ” No, don’t get into it with her. I take a deep breath. “Just tell me you put it back.”

She looks up and laughs. Instinctively, I step back. After four years of eating with kings and royalty, the only thing that thrills her anymore is risk-take what you love and risk losing it. Light and dark in the same breath. But now… the mood swings are starting to flip too fast.

“C’mon, Michael,” she teases. “Why would you think I-”

“Nora, playtime’s over. Answer the question. Tell me you put it back.”

We reach the entrance that’ll take her back up to the Residence, and she flicks me back with her wrist. “Why don’t you go do some work. You’re obviously stressed out.”

“Nora… ”

“Relax,” she sings. She turns into the entryway and heads for the stairs. “What’m I gonna do? Hide it in my pants?”

“You tell me,” I call out.

She stops where she is and glances over her shoulder. The laugh, the smile-they’re gone. “I thought we were already past that one, Michael.” Our eyes connect and she drives it home. “I’d never hide anything from you.”

I nod, knowing that she’s finally back in control. “Thank you-that’s all I wanted to hear.”

When I eventually finish at quarter to four in the morning, I’m a bleary-eyed mess. Except for a twenty-minute break for dinner and a ten-minute begging session to get an extension from the Staff Secretary, I’ve been sitting in my chair for almost eight hours straight. A new personal record. Yet as the laser printer hums with the fruits of my labor, I find that I’m oddly wide awake. Not sure of what to do, and in no mood to go home, I casually flip through my still unopened mail. Most of it’s standard: press clips, meeting announcements, going-away party invitations. But at the bottom of the pile is an interoffice envelope with a familiar handwriting in the address box. I’d recognize that bubble cursive anywhere.

Opening the envelope, I find a handwritten note with a single key Scotch-taped to it: “For when you’re done-Room 11. Congrats!” At the bottom is a heart and the letter N. As I pull off the key, I can’t help but laugh. Room 11. It’s even better than parking inside the gate.