The First Lady

by James Patterson

  Scotty says, “Sorry she’s not answering.”

  I just look out the windshield, as the traffic slowly pulls to the side.

  He says, “Maybe she’s taking a nap. Or maybe a shower. Or maybe she turned her phone off. Kids, am I right?”

  I wait as long as I can, one hand nervously fingering the red wool scarf my daughter made me.

  “Scotty?”

  “Yes, boss?”

  I say, “The minute you marry, have a child, watch over him or her, see him or her grow up, suffer inside every time you see them cry or fall down or be scared … then you can lecture me on what you think might be going on with Amelia.”

  His jaw tightens, and I know I’ve gone too far, but I’m afraid if I say any more, the tears of wondering what the hell is going on with Amelia will start flowing, and I don’t want to do that in front of my subordinate.

  “Coming up now,” he says with ice in his voice, as we race through the run-down area my daughter and I call home. “About another block.”

  “Thanks, Scotty,” I say, but he doesn’t answer me.

  CHAPTER 43

  SEEING THE YOUNG girl’s head move, Marsha quietly takes two steps back, the rear of the couch now blocking the girl’s view. Fine. Marsha hears a siren from outside and thinks, No, the plan, the plan is a good one, let’s stick with the plan.

  She goes back into the kitchen, sees a wall-mounted phone, and in a few seconds, a surveillance device is placed within the handset.

  Next?

  The bedroom, for whatever pillow talk this old lady might share.

  Marsha goes down the hallway, opens one door, sees a neat and well-made bed with stuffed animals on the colorful bedspread, a bookshelf made of concrete cinder blocks and rough wood planks packed with kids’ books, and there’s a sharp tug, for without the stuffed animals—her parents never had any money for toys—this could have been her bedroom, back there in desolate Wyoming.

  She closes the door.

  Stop thinking so much, she nags herself, and now, here’s the old woman’s bedroom.

  Plain and simple.

  Just like her.

  That makes her smile. There’s a phone by the nightstand, and that’ll be a good place and she works quickly, another device deposited, and then she thinks, well, maybe behind the bureau.

  Marsha walks to the bureau and freezes.

  A muffled adult voice, coming from the kitchen: “Honey, I’m here!”

  Damn it!

  Marsha whirls around—there’s no television here, no home computer, hard to explain why she’s here and what she’s doing, and that damn Secret Service agent, already suspicious and wired up by what she’s been doing—

  Marsha sincerely doubts she’s going to give Marsha a friendly hello and usher her out of the apartment.

  Then—

  A figure comes into the bedroom, and Marsha throws herself at the shape, thinking of her old training—overwhelming and sudden force will win, nine times out of ten—and there’s a struggle and Marsha’s right hand touches a heavy scarf and she works hard, getting a superior position, her strong arms and hands around the slim neck, and a hard twist and crunch and it’s over.

  Marsha drops the body to the floor.

  Time to leave.

  She bursts out of the dark bedroom, races back down the hallway, heading to the lights of the kitchen, and the young girl is in front of her, screaming and screaming, and for the briefest second, Marsha wonders if she should take her down as well …

  A split-second decision.

  No, to eliminate her would raise too much of a ruckus.

  Marsha slams the young girl aside as she bursts through the apartment door.

  Marsha reverses course—never go out the way you came in—by taking a rear set of stairs and going out a fire door. In a minute she’s out on the street, calmly walking along and stripping off her Comcast clothing, dumping it in a storm drain, hearing the sirens get louder as she gets closer to her parked Odyssey minivan.

  Earlier, back at the waterfalls, Marsha had been oh so eager to speak to Parker Hoyt.

  Now, not so much.

  CHAPTER 44

  UP AHEAD AT my apartment building there are blue and red flashing lights, and Scotty swears and passes through a police line, driving through the yellow-and-black police tape and getting us as close as he can. He nearly sideswipes a police cruiser and I’m out, no longer an ex-cop, no longer a Secret Service agent, no longer anything except one very frightened and alone mother.

  “Amelia!” I yell, and I punch and push my way past a couple of cops holding back the local neighbors, and I fish out my Secret Service credentials and yell, “Who’s in charge! Where’s my daughter! Who’s in charge!”

  Besides the fear there’s the clammy coldness of guilt covering me, guilt about being a single mom, leaving her alone in this rough neighborhood, being so stubborn I wouldn’t give Ben a second chance so that we’d be safe at our previous home, and if it wasn’t for the fact I’m running so hard and fast, I’m sure I’d be throwing up in this packed parking lot.

  “Mom!”

  I can’t help myself—that single word makes me burst into tears, and there’s an opening along the police line, and there’s my sweet and terrified Amelia, sitting in the open rear of an ambulance, a gray blanket over her shoulders, two EMTs with blue latex gloves gently poking and probing.

  “Mom!” she yells again, and she joins me in bawling.

  I hug her and kiss her, and the EMTs stand aside. Amelia’s blubbering about a bad man getting into the apartment and a fight, and I whirl at the touch of someone behind me.

  “Ma’am?” comes the soft male voice. Before me is an African-American male, early thirties, gray suit and raincoat, brown eyes filled with concern. He has a closely trimmed beard and around his thick neck, dangling from a chain, is a detective’s shield.

  “Detective Gus Bannon,” he says, “Fairfax County Police Department.” He looks to his notebook and says, “This young girl … Amelia Miller. She’s your daughter?”

  “Yes … can you tell me what happened? Is she okay?”

  He gestures for the two of us to move away from the ambulance, and Amelia is still sobbing, so I kiss her forehead and something else stabs at me: the presence of a stuffed panda bear she had gotten some years back at the National Zoo.

  I haven’t seen it in her hands for at least two years.

  I follow Detective Bannon around to the side of the ambulance, and he says, “A short while ago, someone broke into your apartment. Your daughter is fine. She’s scared and she might have a bruise on her wrist and—”

  “How did she get bruised?”

  “From the intruder,” he softly explains, and I want him to hurry up and tell me what happened, who did it, how it can be made better, and with a shock I realize that for the first time ever, I’m the one answering questions, I’m the one being impatient with the police, I’m—

  I’m the victim.

  He goes on. “The intruder ran out through the kitchen, pushed Amelia away.”

  “Male?”

  He nods. “We think so. It happened very fast, your daughter says. A short man, dark-skinned, wearing some sort of uniform.”

  “Uniform? Like a firefighter? Or cop?”

  The detective shakes his head. “More like a utility worker. Or a technician. Maybe a cable TV worker. That’s all we’ve got for now.”

  I just nod, realize my hands are clenched, and right now, both hands want to be around the intruder’s throat. I’m so angry and focused and relieved that Amelia is safe that I don’t hear what the detective says next.

  “Excuse me?” I ask. “I’m so sorry, I was drifting there for a moment.”

  He looks embarrassed, staring down at his notebook. “That’s all right, it happens. I was asking, Mrs. Miller, if—”

  “Grissom,” I automatically say. “I’ve always kept my name.”

  “But you’re married to Ben Miller. Who works for the Departm
ent of the Interior.”

  I feel like a huge storm is coming right at me, and I can’t do a thing but close my eyes and pretend it’s not out there, heading my way.

  “I am, but we’re currently going through a divorce,” I say. “Detective, please. What’s going on?”

  “It seems like your husband, Ben Miller, he came into your apartment and surprised the intruder. There was an altercation in your bedroom.”

  Everything seems so loud now, the voices, the sound of sirens, the engines idling from the parked emergency response vehicles.

  He looks down at his notebook. “I’m sorry to tell you this, ma’am, but your husband, Ben Miller, he’s dead.”

  CHAPTER 45

  THE ROUTINE IS always the routine, and I go through it like one of those smiling robots at Disney World, just nodding and looking around and following the lead of Detective Bannon. We go to the open entryway into the apartment building, ducking under the police tape, and he thoughtfully holds up the tape for me. We go upstairs and the detective talks aimlessly to me— the weather, the baseball playoffs—all in an effort to distract me from what I’m about to see.

  It doesn’t work.

  At the open door to our apartment, a uniformed police officer with a clipboard takes our names and checks the time of our entry, a good way of controlling access to a—

  Crime scene.

  My apartment is no longer the refuge for an angry mom and scared daughter, trying to make sense of a crumbling marriage and family, but is now the scene of violence and death.

  Toward a man I once vowed to spend the rest of my life with.

  “Here,” Detective Bannon says. “We need to put these on. And I know you live here, but—”

  “I know,” I say. “Don’t touch anything.”

  We both slide on light-blue paper booties over our footwear, and then I take that first step into a place that is no longer a home.

  The first thing I notice is the smell of cooked bacon, from that morning, and I turn away from the detective and wipe at my teary eyes. This morning I had been in this very kitchen, with my daughter and my husband, and did I take an opportunity to be nice? To thank Ben for making breakfast? To thank him for trying to make amends?

  No.

  The remembered voice of my daughter slices through me like a razor: If you weren’t so mean, we’d still be a family! Why do you have to be so mean?

  “Ma’am?” Detective Bannon asks quietly.

  “Ah … just give me a sec, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  I take a deep breath, feel like bawling out loud, but no, I’ve got to see this through. I wipe at my eyes again and turn and say, “It’s all right. Let’s do it.”

  He briefly touches my upper arm. “We don’t have to do this. We don’t.”

  “It’s all right. Where … where’s Ben?”

  “In your bedroom.”

  We walk past two forensics techs taking photos, dusting for prints, and I go with Detective Bannon, and the oddest thing happens—my muscle memory comes back. I remember the times I’ve gone into crime scenes over the years, the chatter of the police radios, the murmur among the forensics techs, the smell of the chemicals … it’s all familiar to me.

  It’s almost comforting.

  Detective Bannon stands at the open door and I stand next to him.

  Oh, Ben, I think. Oh, Ben.

  My husband, the man I had loved, the man who wooed me after we had met when I was in the Virginia State Police, investigating a complaint at the Green Springs National Park, my Ben is on his back, legs splayed wide, one arm across his chest, the other stretched above his head. Another forensics tech—this one a chubby woman—is taking photographs, and Bannon says, “Sandy, give us a moment, will you?”

  “Sure,” she says, stepping past us and out to the hallway. I step closer, look down at my dead husband. His face has grayed and his head is turned at an odd angle, and he’s wearing a waist-length leather coat and he has a blue knitted scarf tucked around his neck. The detective looks at my scarf and says, “They look similar.”

  I say, “My … our daughter made them. Red for me, blue for him. She hoped that, well, I think she hoped that the two of us sharing the same kind of scarf would soothe things between us.”

  Bannon just nods.

  Poor Amelia.

  I ask, “Cause of death?”

  “Not official, but it looks like his neck was snapped.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I say. “Any idea how it happened?”

  Bannon says, “Your daughter … she heard the door being unlocked and then your husband yelling out a greeting, like—”

  “‘Honey, I’m here,’” I say dully. “That’s a code phrase we both used, if we’re coming home … I mean, well, coming in. That way Amelia won’t be startled or scared.”

  “Okay,” he says. “Your daughter says she had called Mr. Miller earlier, because the neighbor who usually watched her after school couldn’t make it, and you were running late.”

  My throat is so thick it feels like it’s choking me. Detective Bannon says, “Your daughter says Mr. Miller came in, there was a brief greeting, and then he saw your bedroom door was open, and there was a shadow back there. He … he told your daughter to be still, to call nine-one-one if something happened, and he went to investigate. There was a struggle, then the intruder ran past, knocking your daughter over, and she got up, called nine-one-one.”

  I say, “Did she see Ben dead?”

  “Well, I, well—”

  “Detective, did my daughter see her dead father?”

  He sighs. “I’m afraid so. After she made the call … she ran back. She tells me that she thought he was unconscious, that he had been knocked out while trying to protect her. Your daughter … a brave girl.”

  “She has a brave father,” I say, and then the memories and the good times Ben and I shared, from our first dates to our marriage to our Alaskan honeymoon and that magic night when a small and squealing baby girl was placed in my arms, just overwhelm me, and I kneel down next to him and I kiss his cold forehead.

  Back in the kitchen I’m answering more questions from Detective Bannon, and then I say, “Hold on.”

  “Yes?”

  “You said … you said that Amelia heard Ben come through the door, right?”

  He looks to his notes. “That’s correct.”

  “She didn’t say anything about her undoing the chain?”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Ma’am, what are you getting at?”

  I walk to the door, see the chain dangling free. “When I last talked to her, when I said I was … running late.” Another sob avoided and I go on. “I told her to make sure the door was locked and the chain was secured.”

  Detective Bannon says, “Maybe she forgot.”

  I shake my head. “No. I told her to do it … I was on the phone when Amelia said she was at the door, putting the chain in.”

  He says something, and my fingers gently touch the dangling chain. Halfway up the chain is the sticky residue of an adhesive.

  Like an adhesive tape.

  I say, “He broke in. He picked the lock, and when the door opened, he saw the chain was fastened. Then he used … oh, I don’t know, a string, a cord, a length of rubber band, and some tape … and he got the chain off.”

  Detective Bannon touches the chain as well. “Ma’am, you’re on the third floor. To get entry, the intruder had to have had a key, or picked the lock. And then he had to work to get this chain off.”

  My mind is racing. I don’t say a word back to the detective. He says, “Which tells me this wasn’t a random burglary. Or some crackhead or meth head breaking in to steal some jewelry or electronics. You … this apartment was targeted.”

  “Yes,” I say.

  He steps closer, lowers his voice. “Your daughter says you’re a secret agent. I thought she was just being a kid, you know? But ma’am, what is your job?”

&nbs
p; “I work for the Secret Service.”

  Bannon absorbs that for a moment. “What do you do for the Secret Service?”

  I answer automatically, like I always do. “I’m the special agent in charge, Presidential Protective Division at the White House.”

  “The White House …,” he starts, and then stops. He takes another step closer. “Special Agent Grissom, I need to ask you this.”

  “Yes?”

  “All of the evidence here is leading me to think that the break-in was deliberate, was planned. Is there anything going on with your job, Agent Grissom, that would cause someone to … take action against you?”

  Where do I begin? “No,” I lie. “Not a thing.”

  CHAPTER 46

  TAMMY DOYLE IS curled up in her bed, the television set on low, lights off in her bedroom. A long, long day and she’s happy to be home, but she’s also missing being at work. It’s strange, but at work she could focus on the phone calls, checking the invoices, calling her clients across the globe, and just getting things checked off her never-ending task list. Except for the Secret Service agent’s visit and a couple of odd looks and comments, she was able to temporarily put the whole Atlanta disaster behind her.

  But now, at home, the loneliness is gnawing at her. For the past eight months she’s been able to thrive, knowing that she would meet up with Harry at some point, and that anticipation had always kept her in a good mood.

  But now?

  What anticipation?

  Another day of ducking out of her condo, ducking into her office … waiting for Harry to call her?

  And suppose …

  She’s a big girl. She knows the pressure Harry must be under. If it would mean him winning reelection, mean him getting ahead … he would dump her. Publicly, if it would serve him.

  Tammy feels a good cry coming on. All those whispered promises, all the times together …

  She picks up the remote, starts changing the channels, looking for something, anything that isn’t related to the upcoming election and the “Ambush in Atlanta,” and then she’s on the History Channel, some program about tanks and—