The Inner Circle by Brad Meltzer Page A

It’s just a signal—the morning wake-up call from my ride to work, telling me I now have twenty-four minutes until he arrives. But as the phone stops ringing, my alarm clock goes off. Just in case the wake-up phone call doesn’t do its trick.
    I have two sisters, one of them living in the D.C. area, which is why, instead of waking to the sound of a buzzer, my alarm clock blinks awake with a robotic male voice that announces, “… Thirty percent chance of snow. Twenty-one degrees. Partly overcast until the afternoon.”
    It’s the official government weather forecast from NOAA—the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—where my sister Lesley’s been working for the past year and a half, studying tides and weather and sometimes getting to write the copy that the robotic voice announces. And yes, I know there’s not much “writing” when it comes to saying it’s “partly overcast until the afternoon.” And yes, I’d rather wake up to music or even a buzzing alarm. But it’s my sister. Lesley wrote that. Of course I support her.
    As Robotman tells me about the rest of the forecast, I kick off the sheets and lower my head. My mom used to make us say a prayer every morning. I lasted until junior high, but even then, she taught me that I shouldn’t start the day without being thankful for something. Anything. Just to remind you of your place in the world.
    Closing my eyes, I think about… huuh… I try to tell myself it’s good that Orlando’s at least at peace. And I’m glad I got to know him. But when it comes to what I’m thankful for, no matter how much I think of Orlando…
    I can’t help but picture that look when Clementine first arrived yesterday—that self-assured warmth that she wears as coolly and comfortably as her thumb rings and nose piercing. But what’s far more memorable is that fragile, terrified look she didn’t want me to see as she ducked behind me in the stacks. It wasn’t because she was shy. Or embarrassed. She was protecting me from that look. Sparing me the heartache that comes with whatever she thinks her life has become.
    I help people every day. And of course, I try to tell myself that’s all I’m doing right now—that I’m just trying to be a good friend, and that none of this has anything to do with my own needs, or what happened with Iris, or the fact that this is the very first morning in a year when I woke up and didn’t eye the small bottle of Iris’s perfume that I still haven’t been able to throw out. I even tell myself how pathetically obvious it is to fill the holes of my own life with some old, imagined crush. But the truth is, the biggest threat to Clementine’s well-being isn’t from who her father is. It’s from the fact that, like me, she’s on that videotape from when we were in the SCIF.
    The tape’s still gone. But even without an autopsy, I know that’s why Orlando died. It’s a short list for who’s next.
    From there, I don’t waste time getting ready. Four and a half minutes in the shower. Seven minutes for shaving, toothbrushing, and the rest.
    “ Ping ,” my computer announces from the downstairs kitchen table where I keep my laptop that keeps track of all the morning eBay bids. My townhouse isn’t big. It isn’t expensive. And it’s in Rockville, Maryland, instead of in D.C.
    But it’s mine. The first big thing I bought after nearly a hundred weddings, plus two years of working my eBay side business and saving my government salary. My second big purchase was the engagement ring. I’ve been making up for it ever since.
    In fact, as I head downstairs, on the beige-carpeted second-to-last step, there’s a neat stack of a dozen postcards. Each card has a different black-and-white photo of the Statue of Liberty from 1901 to 1903. On the step below that, there’s another stack—this one with black-and-white photos of baseball stadiums in the early 1900s. And there’re more piles throughout the kitchen: across the counter