Prologue

The early evening light in the sparse room was growing dim as the weathered photo was gently placed on top of a desk near the window. The left half of the image had been cut out of a newspaper and was then ripped in two down the middle; the shot depicted an angelic fourteen-year-old girl in a snowy setting, a pink wool cap on her head. The torn caption read: Teenaged Skiing Champ…

A few seconds later, a different image of the same girl was also set down on the desk and then another. In less than a minute, more than a dozen photos were methodically laid out—some in color, some in black and white—all of the same sweet girl, smiling, innocent, happy.

After several more minutes, the photos were organized in a symmetrical order that only had meaning to the person placing them there. The occupant of the room stared at the photos, lost in memory, consumed by anguish, anticipating the retribution about to be delivered. Though trying to subdue the rage inside, the fury soon grew too intense, and the owner of the photographs suddenly smashed both hands down on the desk and began tearing up each of the images over and over until every precious photo was sent flying to the ground in pieces, lost forever.

Just like her.

Chapter One

What I wouldn’t give to be having one of my usual nightmares instead of the real-life nightmare I’m living through now. Maybe the one where I’m only eight years old, waiting in front of my elementary school for my father to pick me up but he just keeps driving past me over and over. Or maybe the one when it’s three years ago, I’ve just graduated high school, and I pose for a cell phone photograph with my famous father and then see I’m somehow not in the image at all.

Detecting a recurring theme here? Unfortunately, for reasons too horrific for me to even begin wrapping my head around, my daddy issues are utterly unimportant now because all that matters is finding out what happened last night and why I’ve lost my best friend forever.

Not that I care what they must be saying about me, but I can only imagine the joy my family’s detractors must be feeling at this very moment. To everyone across America, my name is infamous at worst and privileged at best. Brian Blaine, the twenty-one-year-old junior at the University of Maryland who—despite his so-called genius-level IQ—has yet to choose a major, minors in ditching class, and seems mainly interested in serving as some kind of spoiler in his own family’s legacy.

And that was before last night.

Truth is I can’t blame them because I am rather a mass of contradictions. Confident one minute, deeply uncertain the next. Yearning for intimacy yet brimming with cynicism about the human animal. Pensive to the point of withdrawal at times yet surprisingly sociable when the mood strikes me at other times. Desperately wanting to love and be loved yet forever unsure whom to trust with that love.

Then there’s the little matter of my longstanding impatience with people who practice the infuriating art of “political speak”—talking in paper-thin little sound bites instead of actually saying what’s on their mind. Which makes me a card-carrying hypocrite, I suppose. Because for someone who extols straight talk, I realize at this worst moment in all of our lives that I’ve avoided just that my entire adult life.

After all, I’ve spent all this time in the public eye but rarely let anyone really see me. I’ve recited “heartfelt” speeches but never truly spoken from the heart. I’ve told my father what I’m doing, where I’m going, and who I’m seeing, but I’ve never told him who I really am. And, unfortunately, I don’t remember the last time he asked.

And now I wonder if I’ll ever have the chance.

Well, I think I’ve covered “me” as much as I can at this point. College. Drifting. Straight talk. Loneliness. Or didn’t I mention that last one?

Anyway, I guess that’s about it for now. Oh, yeah. Two other minor points.

My father is President of the United States, and I’ve just been arrested for murder.

Chapter Two

My new residence—jail—makes my just-off-campus apartment seem like Versailles by comparison. How I miss that crappy, wonderful, little place with its peeling paint, ugly carpet, and useless heater. How I miss my roommate and best friend, Ben Porter.

In deference to my father and security concerns, I’m mercifully being held in a cell by myself, thereby happily denying some tattooed bunkie named Moose lifelong bragging rights about boinking the president’s son. Nevertheless, my relief over being alone in this miserable place is more than overshadowed by my boundless grief and my ever-growing fear.

How could this have happened? How could someone—me?—have shot Ben in the head? How could I have been found apparently drunk or drugged and unconscious on Ben’s bedroom floor with my hand beside the gun that killed him? How could I not remember Ben’s murder when I was, according to everyone who saw me that night—Secret Service included—alone in the apartment with him at the time?

Yet all these unanswered questions take a distant backseat to the one question that’s dominated my every thought since this nightmare began: How am I going to ever come to grips with the loss of my closest friend? The one person I could trust and confide in completely. The one person who could see the real me and not the character I play for the press and the public. No wonder that despite my desperate attempt to maintain a veneer of stoic resolve as I wait here in this cold, dark cell, I can’t help but curl up in the corner and silently cry as I realize for the millionth time that Ben is really and truly gone forever.

Forcing myself to take my mind off my late friend for a moment, I pace the small cell and consider the reality that the court of public opinion has almost certainly already pronounced me guilty. I can almost hear them now: “Such a mercurial young man…so quiet and aloof…so impulsive…Not at all his father’s son…”

My father. Good God. I can only imagine how this is going to affect his job approval ratings, not to mention his re-election chances in November. He and I may have drifted apart the last few years, but whatever I think of him as a father, I’ve never doubted for a second how lucky I am—we all are—to have him as a president.

***

Excerpt from First Line of Defense by Peter Berk. Copyright 2024 by Peter Berk. Reproduced with permission from Peter Berk. All rights reserved.