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Chapter 4
"I've got something!" Quinn yells. Everyone in the conference room turns around. Everyone except for Harrison, whose eyes are glued to his cell phone screen. "Here," Quinn points to a cell phone number.
Abby looks back and forth from the computer screen to Quinn, waiting for her to expound. "What?!"
Quinn points to the telephone number. "BNC broke the story, right? So I hacked into every reporter's cell and landline and tracked every number that called them."
"Okay."
"I'm not going to bore you with all the details because you won't understand, but this number's a fake. So, if we're able to figure out who the real call came from, we'll be able to figure out who outed Olivia." Quinn wants to pat herself on the shoulder. This is something that would've taken Huck hours to accomplish.
Abby looks at her, itching to bring her back down to earth. "Really what you're saying is you've got nothing. I mean, telling us it came from a dummy phone number tells us nothing. So, congratulations Quinn."
Quinn's shoulders hunch as her ego is deflated by the piercing, yet true words from Abby. It isn't the reaction she expected. Not the reaction she wanted. Perhaps the reaction she deserves because indeed, she has nothing.
Harrison's cell phone rings and he answers as he's walking out of the conference room. Abby eyes him suspiciously because he hasn't been himself in weeks. The confident swagger is somewhat tentative now, though not entirely absent.
Harrison has certain "tells" when something's going on. He tends to rub his head. Or play with his suspenders. Today, he's been doing both. The secrecy. Abby doesn't want to be suspicious, but nowadays, she has to be more guarded than ever, especially with him. And the way he's been acting tells her he knows more about this Olivia story than he's letting on.
For a moment, she considers asking Quinn if she can work some technological miracle, kind of like Thorngate, to listen in on Harrison's phone call. Instead, she opts for something more subtle. "Quinn, can you see who's calling Harrison?'
"Why?"
"Just a hunch. And just between us." Abby gives Quinn a look that tells her not to ask anymore questions.
Quinn punches several keys before she pulls up Harrison's phone log. She points to the screen. "Here."
"Now pull up the other screen. Side by side."
Quinn does and sees an outgoing call at exactly the same time as a call came in to the reporter. It's still a leap because Harrison, he's intelligent and he knows how to cover his tracks. What they have now is a puzzle piece, but the piece may be to a different puzzle. They have to find the originating phone number.
"Quinn, we have to figure this out on our own. You can't let on that you know anything. Oh, here he comes."
When Harrison enters, Abby and Quinn try to look normal, though neither of them has a particularly good poker face. Harrison studies both of them. "Anything wrong?"
"No," they say in unison.
"Good. I need to go out. Call me if you find anything." Without a goodbye or any the parting words, Harrison is gone.
Huck crawls through the small air duct by memory, sweat dripping from his brow. He hates small places. Hates darkness. But these ducts, navigating them, was part of his training exercise. By memory, he knows which left and right will lead him to his destination.
Just relax, Huck tells himself. It's been a long time since he's been in a place like there, where there's no more than two inches of clearance on either side. Inches from madness too. He tells himself to focus on the breathing, not to panic, keep his mind on saving Olivia.
Olivia hears the scratching and then the whisper, "Olivia."
Olivia taps three times with her fingernail, their signal. And waits. She hears Rowan's voice on the other side of the door, threatening. The words are lost in the air as she prays Huck will make it to her before she has to do something drastic. Before she has to pull the trigger. Before the decision has to be made.
The wall vibrates and she knows what's coming and the door jam shakes and she knows what's coming. A hole is being made and she sees a bit of freedom. A frame is cracking and she sees the life she is going to have to take. As the drywall falls to the floor and the door flies open, a shot is fired. A scream. Silence.
Huck rushes through the OPA, followed by Tom and Olivia, who is in a daze. No one says anything. They watch. Harrison looks on from his office but makes no move to see what's going on. Abby and Quinn look from Harrison to Huck to Tom and Olivia. Then, at each other.
Huck closes Olivia's office door as she falls onto her sofa. She's exhausted. Physically. Emotionally. And she hasn't begun to deal with the fallout of the recent revelation that she is indeed the President's mistress. She puts her head in her hands as the throbbing begins in the back of her head.
No one speaks to her. They know, instinctively, she needs this time to pull herself together. To get her thoughts together because that's the way Olivia Pope is. Sometimes, all she needs is silence and then the answers, they always they find her.
Huck watches her carefully. For a sign, any sign of distress. Any sign of what he should do next. An image flashes across his mind. He burst through the wall and fired a single shot, right into the head of Rowan. Olivia didn't cry. She immediately went into fixer mode and supervised him as he, along with Tom, disposed of the body.
He looks over at Tom and with a sly nod, Tom quietly exits the room. And Huck continues to watch over her. Like an angel. Like a savior.
Tom quickly dials a phone number and puts the phone to his ear. Abby discreetly moves closer to the door so she can hear his every word. Tom notices her immediately and moves further away. It's almost a dance how one moves and then the other, almost in sync, almost together.
"Sir, we have her."
Abby assumes it's the President.
"I'm with her now. I'll be leaving shortly to return to the White House and I'll brief you when I arrive." Long pause. "You're welcome, sir."
He turns around to find himself looking straight into the eyes of Abby and Quinn who attack him as one.
"Where was she? Who had her? What happened? Why is she like that?" One question after the other.
Tom looks back and forth at them and simply says, "I'm not at liberty to discuss that." And just like that, he's gone.
Olivia can remember the day so clearly. Or the night, more accurately.
She'd been planning it for weeks. Her, what could she call her? Foster mother? Technically, that wasn't right; she had a father. It's just that he was in and out of her life. Bringing her gifts and then disappearing for months at a time. Leaving her with that woman as though she could make up for his absence. As if he could be replaced.
She'd spoken with her friend about it. She kept saying she was going to leave, but he didn't believe her. So many kids talked, but nobody every really did anything when it came down to it. But Olivia, she'd never been "just a talker". If anything, she'd do things just to prove other people wrong.
In the weeks leading to her escape, she carefully gathered things she thought would be useful. Canned goods. Dried foods. Money. Clothing.
She watched the weather reports. She waited for a day of no rain, of no clouds, of no moon at all. She waited until the house was silent. Until all eyes were sleeping and a hush washed over the placed she'd called "home" for most of her life.
She was quiet. A skill her father taught her well. In the beginning, before he got rid of her, which is how she saw it, she'd learned how to be quiet. His colleagues couldn't know of her existence. So, on the night with no moon or clouds or rain, she tip-toed across the wood floor, avoiding all the squeaky spots she'd memorized over the years. She found the window which was the most silent, having oiled it the week before. It wasn't too high. It helped there was strong tree branch and with the right distance and velocity, she could leap from the window and grab onto safety.
She jumped and reached and grasped. There was nothing but the air rushing between her fingers. Miscalculation. But then a save by the branches below. She hit them with a heavy thud, bruising her ribs, but the taste of freedom was too strong so she used her mind the dull the pain. Then, she ran. As far as she could; as fast as she could.
The streets weren't kind to her that night or the night after, as her food supply diminished and the perfect weather she was expecting took a turn and it was cold and damp and she had nothing. It was a perilous position because by now her father knew she was missing and had infinite resources to track her down.
Day turned to night and then day again, and she realized she really didn't have a plan beyond the immediate; beyond the escape. She knew then that she must plan better in the future. For every scenario. No surprises.
She began thinking of alternatives. Thinking of what was once unthinkable. She tried to hang around the same places, become familiar to the people and maybe they'd realize she wasn't a bad person or maybe, just maybe, they'd throw a dollar or two in her direction. Sometimes, they did. It may have paid for her one meal for the day. Other days, she just listened to the endless rumbling of her stomach. But she trained her mind to ignore the hunger. Ignore the pain.
A couple weeks passed and she was going through a dry spell. She'd never considered going back to that house, no matter how bad things got. She would return one day, to get the boy as she promised, but that was it.
She'd been propositioned. Several times. It was something she hadn't considered because she was above that. But, desperation began setting in. There were only so many nights of sleeping on the cold, hard cement she could handle. So many nights of the wet ground. So many nights of the stink that floated through the night air.
So, on that one day when she was tired of the hard, the wet, the stink, she agreed. Just one time, she told herself. At this point, it was about self-preservation. It was about not letting herself be broken, but this choice, this decision, could be the thing that destroyed her spirit. It was a classic catch-22. As she stepped into the car and was getting ready to close the door, she saw a hand, a hand which kept the door from closing.
"Why don't you get out the car?" the man asked. It was less of an ask, but more of a demand. Immediately, her attitude came out.
"This is none of your business," she retorted, attempting once again to close the door.
This time, he talked to the man. "How much are you paying?"
"Twenty."
The man reaches into his wallet, pulled out forty dollars and threw it at the driver. He grabbed Olivia by her arm, more gently than she expected, pulled her from the car and slammed the door.
"What the hell are you doing?" she asked the man.
"Shut up and follow me." He led her by her arm toward his car. For some reason, and she couldn't explain why, not then, she felt safe. For the first time in her life everything really was going to be okay. He opened the passenger side door for her and closed it after she was inside. He walked over to his side and she watched him. Perfectly comfortable. He eased behind the steering wheel and turned to her, extending his hand. "I'm Cyrus Beene."
She took his hand and hesitated as if pulling a name from the air, which she did. "Olivia. Pope."
Tom enters the Oval Office with the same calmness as always. One would never know what he'd done. Fitz looks up from his desk where he's working on his remarks to the American public, the speech where he lays it all on the line. The one Cyrus doesn't want him to give.
"What happened?"
"It's best you don't know all the details. Just know we took care of it and Miss Pope is at her office with her employees."
"Is she okay?"
"When I left, she was pretty shaken up."
Fitz nods. "Thank you." He crosses in front of his desk to shake Tom's hand, a silent acknowledgement of just how deeply the President appreciates what he's done. He gives Fitz a sad smile and they say, without words, none of what's happened goes any further.
It's relief Fitz feels. Relief that alive. Oddly enough, the sensation of peace again washes over him. It's what her love always brings to his life. Peace. Because he knows as long as both of them are breathing, there is love and as long as there is love, they will always have each other's back.
He wants to call her, but this is the time when they need to be most careful. Every move they make will be watched and analyzed and reported on. He doesn't care, not for him. But it's her, it's her reputation too, her livelihood. There's also the other thing neither of them wants to confront and that's the reality of him being a white male who cheated on his wife and how the public will receive that news, versus how a black woman will be perceived as the mistress. And only the mistress. There's a chance for career revival for him, but for her, that's a different story.
He walks over to his phone and quickly dials a few numbers. "Cyrus, get in here."
Moments later, Cyrus is standing in front of him looking exhausted, exasperated and at the end of his rope. He doesn't say anything. Just waits.
"Olivia's been found. I need to talk to her."
Cyrus rolls his eyes. This is a time when normally, a great monologue would come flowing from his lips but not this time. He has nothing left to give.
"We need coordinate our message with her and make sure she's okay with what we're doing."
"You're the President of the United States, for now, and you need to clear a message with your girlfriend? Mr. President, with all do apologies, do you realize how absurd that sounds? You don't need to clear anything with her. You need to preserve your position as the leader of this great nation."
"Enough, Cyrus! Find a way to get in touch with Olivia because I need to talk to her."
"Yes, sure, your wish is my command," Cyrus says sarcastically. Under his breath he mutters, "Harvard here I come," closing the door as he exits.