First Lady

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  Her expression was annoyingly close to a smirk. “Do you know what she said just before I hung up?”

  He shook his head.

  “She said, ‘You go, girl.’ ”

  “Uh . . . did she?”

  “And Hillary Clinton said words to the same effect when I called her yesterday from that gas station.”

  “You called Hillary—”

  “You may not understand why I’m doing this, but they certainly do.”

  “Did you—did you call them for a reason?”

  “I’m not irresponsible, despite what you think. I’ve called someone nearly every day so the White House knows I’m still alive. Now if you think you know more about national security than I do, maybe you’d better tell me about it.”

  He had a long list of questions he wanted to ask about that very topic, starting with how she’d managed to escape the White House, but they’d have to wait until he’d straightened her out. “I’m not saying that you’re irresponsible. I’m just saying that I don’t want you going anywhere without me. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”

  “Maybe I’ll leave it. Don’t forget I have money, and I can go off on my own anytime I want.”

  He gritted his teeth. “You’re not going any-damn-where by yourself!”

  She smiled again, which nearly drove him wild. He took a couple of deep breaths and tried to reconcile this bratty lady in the khaki shorts and buttercup-yellow top with the cool, sophisticated First Lady.

  He tried to regain lost ground. “Who sent you the money?”

  At first he didn’t think she’d answer, but she shrugged. “Terry Ackerman.”

  Ackerman had been the President’s chief advisor as well as Dennis Case’s oldest friend. No time to examine that relationship at the moment, so he filed the information away. “How do you know he hasn’t told the White House where he sent it?”

  “Because I asked him not to.”

  “And you trust him?”

  “As much as I trust anybody.” He suspected that she meant her words to come off as flippant, but they sounded sad.

  He could fight her when she was being haughty and unreasonable, but it was hard to fight sadness. His frustration boiled to the surface. “I don’t even know what to call you!”

  “You’d better keep calling me Nell. Or maybe you’d rather call me Mrs. Case, and tip off all those extremists lurking in that cornfield over there?”

  “This isn’t anything to joke about.”

  “Just worry about yourself, all right? I’ll take care of me.”

  As she bent over to pick up the groceries, he heard the squeal of brakes, the blast of a radio, and what sounded like an explosion.

  He didn’t even think about it. He just threw himself at her.

  They both flew through the air, away from the sidewalk, into the weeds. He heard a small “Oof” as the air rushed from her body.

  “Don’t move!” He wanted a gun. He needed a gun!

  A long silence, followed by a croaky gasp for air . . . “Mat?”

  His heart was pounding so hard he knew she had to feel it.

  And then he got an uneasy prickling along his spine. That explosion he’d heard . . . now that he could think again he realized it hadn’t sounded all that much like a gunshot.

  It had sounded like a car backfiring.

  14

  RAIN PUMMELED THE Winnebago as they crawled across the flat Illinois landscape toward the Iowa border. Nealy gazed out at the fields of corn and soybeans, gray and lonesome under the dreary afternoon sky, and smiled to herself. It really had been valiant of Mat to try to protect her from that vicious backfire, and with the exception of a scrape on her shin, she wasn’t any the worse for wear.

  A passing car tossed a rooster tail of water at the windshield. Mat flicked to another radio station for an update on her disappearance. Although he barely spoke to her, when he did, the awful formality had disappeared. And he hadn’t made any move to turn her in. This morning she’d believed her adventure was over, but now she wondered.

  “Why don’t you let me drive for a while?” she asked.

  “Because I don’t have anything better to do.”

  “Except sulk.”

  “Sulk!”

  “I know it was a bitter blow to you that the car had rowdy teenagers in it instead of a band of armed militia coming to take me hostage, but I’m sure you’ll get over it.” She grinned. “Thanks, Mat. I really do appreciate the gesture.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Just then Lucy reappeared from the back of the motor home. She’d been restless ever since they’d left the service station, alternating between entertaining Button and sealing herself in the back. “It’s so weird, ” she said. “We kept talking about Cornelia Case, and now all they’re saying on the radio is how she disappeared.” She was wearing one of the sundresses Nealy had bought her and only half her customary makeup. She looked darling, but she’d shrugged it off when Nealy had told her so.

  Now she retrieved the Beanie Baby walrus from the floor and handed it back to Button, who was fussing because Mat wasn’t paying attention to her. “Wouldn’t it be cool if somebody at that lookalike contest thought you were really her in disguise, and we had all these army guys chasing us?”

  Mat shuddered.

  “Very cool,” Nealy managed.

  “What’s that noise?” Mat cocked his head to the side. “It’s coming from the back now.”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Lucy said.

  A flying Beanie Baby walrus hit Mat in the shoulder. Nealy turned around to see that Button had stopped fussing. She looked smug.

  Nealy regarded her suspiciously. “That had to be an accident.”

  “You just go on believing it.” He glowered at the baby.

  “Gah!” She glowered back, and her expression so perfectly matched his that it was hard to believe he wasn’t her real father.

  “How much farther?” Lucy asked.

  “The Mississippi’s just ahead. We’re going to cross at Burlington, then go north along the river to Willow Grove. Probably another hour or so.”

  “Let me drive. I know how to drive.”

  “Forget it.”

  She began chewing her thumbnail. Nealy regarded her with concern. “What’s the matter, Luce? You’ve been acting nervous all afternoon.”

  “I have not!”

  She decided the time had come to pry a little deeper. “You haven’t said much about your grandmother. What’s she like?”

  Lucy abandoned her orange juice and sat down in the banquette. “She’s like a grandmother. You know.”

  “No, I don’t. There are all kinds of grandmothers. How do the two of you get along?”

  Lucy got that familiar belligerent look. “We get along great! She’s the best grandmother in the world. She’s got tons of money, and she’s this real nice college professor, and she loves me and Button so much.”

  If she loved them so much, why hadn’t she flown back the moment she learned her daughter had died? And why was Lucy working so hard at matchmaking if they got along so well? “She sounds almost too good to be true.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean that Mat and I are going to meet her ourselves very soon, so you might as well be honest about it.”

  “This isn’t any of your damn business!”

  “Lucy.” Mat’s voice sounded a low warning note.

  “I’m going.” She flounced to the rear of the Winnebago and banged the door.

  “I’m getting a really bad feeling about Grandma,” Nealy said.

  “She’s a college professor. How bad can she be?”

  “What are you going to do if she doesn’t measure up?”

  “She will. Don’t worry about it.”

  She wondered who he was trying to convince.

  Just then, a loud yip came from the back.

  “That’s not an engine noise!” Mat swore under his breath, braked, and pulled off onto the sh
oulder. “Lucy! Get out here!”

  The door at the rear slowly opened. Her head was down, shoulders slumped. She crept forward. “What’d I do now?”

  Mat regarded her stonily. “You tell me.”

  A mournful howl echoed through the Winnebago.

  He vaulted up from the seat and charged to the back. “Son of a—”

  “I guess he found Squid,” Lucy mumbled.

  “Squid?” Nealy said weakly.

  “That’s what the guy at the service station called him. I’d like to give him another name, but I don’t want to confuse him.”

  Another curse from the back, then Mat stalked forward, followed by a dirty, malnourished dog that appeared to be part beagle and part everything else. It had a mottled brown coat, long droopy ears, and a mournful expression.

  “I didn’t steal him!” Lucy pushed past Mat to kneel by the dog. “The guy at the service station said he was going to shoot him! Somebody dropped him off on the side of the road yesterday, and nobody wanted him.”

  “I can’t imagine why.” Mat glared down at the pathetic animal. “Shooting him would be a gift to humanity.”

  “I knew you’d say something crappy like that!” She hugged the dog to her thin chest. “He’s mine! Mine and Button’s.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  While Mat and Lucy scowled at each other, the dog disengaged himself and hoisted his weak body up onto the couch next to the car seat. Nealy was just moving forward to get him away from the baby when he gave Button a doleful look, then covered her from chin to forehead with a long, slow lick.

  “Oh, God! He’s licking her face!” Nealy charged forward to push the dog away.

  “Stop it!” Lucy cried. “You’re hurting his feelings.”

  Button clapped and tried to grab the dog’s ear.

  Mat moaned.

  “Get him away from her!” Nealy tried to wedge herself between Button and the dog, only to feel Mat slip his arm around her waist and pull her back.

  “Where’s that handy cyanide capsule when you need it?”

  “Don’t! Let me go! What if he has rabies?” Even as Nealy struggled to get away from Mat, one part of her was thinking about how good it felt being right where she was.

  “Calm down, will you? He doesn’t have rabies.”

  Mat drew her toward the front of the Winnebago, then let her go so suddenly she nearly fell. She knew he’d just remembered he was manhandling Cornelia Case and not Nell Kelly. She rounded on Lucy. “Get that dog off the couch.”

  “I’m going to keep him!”

  “Put him in the back!” Mat jammed himself behind the wheel and pulled back onto the highway. “First it was just me. Exactly the way I wanted it! Then I got stuck with two kids. The next thing I know—”

  A Greyhound flew past from the opposite direction and water thwacked the windshield. He made a disgusted sound, then flicked on the radio.

  “. . . reports from citizens across the country who believe they’ve seen First Lady Cornelia Case—”

  Nealy leaned over and snapped it off.

  Every surface of the room was covered with knick-knacks. Glass candy dishes sat next to figurines of animals with bows on their heads, which nestled next to ceramic plaques printed with Bible verses. Where was a good earthquake when you needed one? Toni wondered.

  “You sure you don’t want some coffee?” The woman that Toni and Jason had driven across two states to question regarded Jason apprehensively. She wore a short-sleeved blue knit pant suit with a rhinestone umbrella pin and white spiked heels.

  Jason shook his head, anxious as usual to cut to the chase, and gestured toward a blue velour couch that sat underneath the window in the small second-floor apartment. “Do you mind if we sit down and ask you a few questions?”

  “Oh . . . yes . . . no. I mean . . .” She twisted her hands. She’d just returned from church when they’d arrived, and having members of the FBI and Secret Service in her home had clearly undone her. The woman was in her early forties. She had a pudgy moon face, overly permed brown hair, and exquisite porcelain skin.

  Toni smiled at her. “I’d appreciate a glass of water, Miss Shields, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble. I get a little carsick when I ride too long, and water settles my stomach.”

  “Oh, no trouble at all.” She scurried toward the kitchen.

  Jason shot Toni an irritated glance. “Since when do you get carsick?”

  “It comes and goes at my convenience. Listen, pal, you and your steely-eyed stare are making her so nervous that she’s starting to worry about rubber hoses and bamboo slivers.”

  “I’m not doing anything.”

  “Witnesses who get too nervous either forget important details or make them up to please the person asking the questions.”

  Jason frowned at a ceramic statue of a clown. “I want to get this over with.”

  He wasn’t the only one. Special teams all over the country were tracking down tips that had been phoned in from citizens who were sure they’d seen Cornelia Case getting out of a limousine at an airport or lazing on the beach at Malibu. But the tip from Barbara Shields, a grocery store clerk in Vincennes, Indiana, was the one that had caught Toni and Jason’s attention.

  Shields had reported seeing a woman who looked like Cornelia Case shopping in the Kroger’s where she worked. The woman had been traveling with a dark-haired man, a teenager, and a baby in a pink cap. The cursory description matched the description of the woman in the celebrity lookalike contest, right down to the short light brown hair.

  Toni and Jason had discussed it. They both considered it unlikely that a woman traveling with three other people, two of whom were children, could be Cornelia Case. But they still wanted to talk with her in person, and their boss, Ken Braddock, had agreed.

  Shields came out of the kitchen with a frosted blue water glass. Toni was ninety percent convinced they were on a fool’s errand, but she managed a smile. “Do you mind if we sit down?”

  “Mind? No, no. Go ahead.” She rubbed her palms on her blue slacks, then perched on the edge of an armchair across from the couch. “I’m just a little nervous. I never met real government agents before.”

  “Perfectly understandable.” Toni took a seat next to Jason. He opened his notebook, but Toni left hers in her purse. “Why don’t you just tell us what you saw?”

  More palm-rubbing. “Well, it was Friday, two days ago. It was my first day back at work since my surgery.” She indicated her wrist. “I got carpal tunnel from scanning groceries. Repetitive stress injury, they call it. Everybody talks about helping office workers who get it from using computers, but nobody thinks about cashiers. I guess we’re not important enough.” Her expression indicated she was used to coming out on the short end of the checkout line.

  “Anyway, this woman came through my line with a really good-looking man and these two kids, and I was so surprised when I saw her that I ran a can of baby food through the scanner twice.”

  “Why were you surprised?” Toni asked.

  “Because she looked so much like the First Lady.”

  “A lot of women resemble the First Lady.”

  “Not like this. I’ve always admired Mrs. Case, ever since the campaign, so I started keeping a scrapbook of pictures and articles about her. I know her face nearly as good as I know mine.”

  Toni gave her an encouraging nod and tried to decide whether the fact that the woman was a Cornelia Case groupie made her testimony more or less valuable.

  “She’d cut her hair. It’s short and light brown, but her face was the same. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen any blown-up pictures of her, but—here, let me show you.”

  She hurried over to a bookcase and pulled out several fat scrapbooks. After rustling through the pages for a moment, she showed them a head shot of the First Lady taken last year for the cover of Time.

  “Look. Right there. Next to her eyebrow. She’s got this little freckle. I’ll bet I stared at this picture a doze
n times before I saw it. The woman in my checkout line. She had a freckle in the exact same place.”

  Toni gazed at the place where she was pointing, but the spot looked more like a blur on the negative than a freckle.

  “Her voice was the same, too,” Barbara Shields went on.

  “You’re familiar with Mrs. Case’s voice?”

  She nodded. “Every time I know she’s going to be on television, I try to watch. This woman sounded just like her.”

  “What did she say to you?”

  “She wasn’t talking to me. She was talking to the man about what he liked on his sandwiches.”

  “She was speaking English?”

  She seemed surprised by the question. “Sure she was.”

  “Did she have any kind of foreign accent?” Jason asked.

  “No. She sounded just like Mrs. Case.”

  He and Toni exchanged a glance. Then he leaned forward. “Tell us as much as you remember of the conversation, right from the beginning.”

  “She asked the man what he wanted on his sandwich, and he said he liked mustard. And then the teenager said she wanted to buy this little paperback we had in the display with the astrology books. Ten Secrets to a Better Sex Life. The woman said no, and the teenager started to argue. The man didn’t like that, and he said something about how the girl had better listen to Nell or she was going to be in trouble. Then the baby—”

  “Nell?” Toni gripped the water glass tighter. “That’s what he called the woman?”

  Barbara Shields nodded. “I thought right away about how much Nell sounded like Nealy. That’s what Mrs. Case’s friends call her, you know.”

  A similar name. A freckle that might have been a negative blur. Not enough to build a case on, just enough to keep them interested.

  They continued their questioning, and Shields provided them with more detailed descriptions of the man and the teenager, but it wasn’t until they were ready to leave that she recalled her most useful piece of information.

  “Oh, I almost forgot. They were driving a yellow Winnebago. I watched them leave through the window. I don’t know much about motor homes, but it didn’t look real new.

  “A yellow Winnebago?”

  “It was pretty dirty, like they’d been driving it for a while.”