by Mary McBride
On the other side of the car, Angela called a final good-bye to Bootsie, then climbed in and slammed the door.
The first words out of her mouth were, “I still don't buy it, Bobby, but maybe we should have taken her into custody. Just in case.”
“Where's she going to go, Ange?” He twisted the key in the ignition. “And if she does take off, how hard do you think she'll be to find?”
She laughed. “Good point.” Her voice became serious then when she asked, “Are you okay? Really?”
“Sure. Fine.” The gravel on the driveway crunched under the wheels as he turned the car east, back to Mrs. Riordan's place. “I don't suppose there's any word from Crazy Daisy and the professor, huh?”
“Nothing,” she said. “What happened?”
“You mean, how did I screw up?” The words came out a bit more belligerently than he'd intended.
“That's not what I said, Bobby.”
He slapped the steering wheel with his open palm. “I did screw up, Ange. The two of them must've had it all worked out. That's probably what all those whispered phone conversations were about. Dammit. She didn't want anybody along this morning other than me. I didn't think it was any big deal. Then Gerrard drove up, Mrs. Riordan let her scarf fly away in the wind, and I went for it, just like a goddamned rookie.” He beat the steering wheel and swore again.
“So, you don't think he abducted her, then?”
He shook his head. “She was in on it,” he said. “They drove off giggling like a couple of randy teenagers.”
“Oh, brother. You don't think they went to a motel or something like that, do you?”
Bobby groaned. “I don't even want to think about it.”
“So, Bootsie's our letter writer,” she said, “and Gerald Gerrard is exactly what he seemed all along—a septuagenarian on the make.”
“I guess.”
He didn't like being wrong, and he especially didn't like questioning his instincts, which were dead-on most of the time. Hell, if his instincts hadn't been good, he'd still be in Wishbone, Texas, pumping gas or painting houses. Now, in the space of a few days, he'd been duped by Crazy Daisy, dismayed by the infamous Bootsie, way off base about the professor, and—last but hardly least— hung out to dry by Angela.
Down the road, Bobby could see the snarl of official vehicles at the Riordan house and dozens of people milling about on the driveway and the lawn. Jesus. The full alert. The whole frigging magilla.
He pulled over onto the shoulder of the road and cut the engine, then drew in a deep breath to test his ribs. They flunked. He just wasn't ready to face it all yet. Not Doug and his steely eyes and stony expression, or the richly deserved dressing-down the man was going to be forced to render because he was the special agent in charge. Not the self-satisfied smirks on the faces of Mrs. Riordan and the professor when they inevitably returned. And especially not the coming afternoon when Angela was going to disappear, to walk out on him for what would probably be the very last time.
If he were a crybaby, this would be the perfect time to do it.
“Why are you stopping?” Angela asked.
For a second he couldn't even speak. His throat ached, as if all the muscles there were suddenly in spasm.
“Bobby?” Angela put her hand on his leg. “Honey, are you okay?”
No. He wasn't. Christ. He didn't think he'd ever be okay again.
“Bobby?”
“Yeah. Hey, I'm fine.” He was. He had to be fine, dammit, even if it hurt to breathe. He'd always had to be fine. Fine. Smart. Brave. That's what he was all about.
If I'm not back by morning, Bobby, see that Billy gets dressed for school.
Bobby, go see if that nasty Mrs. Corbin needs her windows washed or something, and don't let her give you anything less than ten bucks, you hear? And take your brother with you.
Bobby, I'm cold. Here, take my jacket.
I'm hungry, Bobby. Here, eat my half of the sandwich.
Bobby, I'm scared. Aw, there's nothing to be scared of, Billy.
Bobby, I'm dying.Jesus. No.
He rolled his shoulders now to ease the knots, swallowed hard, then said, “I just needed a couple minutes to get my head on straight before we join that circus up there.”
Angela's mouth compressed slightly, and she looked disappointed somehow. Still, she lifted her hand and began to knead his shoulder. “It's not your fault, you know. She would have ditched anybody. I'm sure Doug will understand that. If she knew you were an agent, she probably would have tried it a lot sooner.”
“She knows, Ange.”
Her hand stilled on his neck. “She told you?”
“She's known all along. She told me the morning after she met Gerrard, when we went for that first walk.” He sighed. “She wanted to know if he checked out.”
His wife was quiet a moment, apparently letting this new information sink in. “And you told her that he did?”
“I said we hadn't finished our investigation yet, but that it didn't look like we were going to find anything criminal or improper.”
“Well, we haven't,” she said.
“I know. But I still keep thinking that one of the reasons she trusts him so much is because I kind of gave her my blessing. I should've handled it better somehow. Different. I should've—”
“Oh, Bobby. Don't beat yourself up about this.” Her deft hand began working his shoulder once more. “Mrs. Riordan trusts Gerrard because he's a nice guy. That's all. It's not because of anything you said or didn't say. Anyway, I'm sure if you'd told her to back off, she would've done just the opposite. The woman's got a mind of her own, you know. Or haven't you noticed?”
“Do you know what she told me this morning while we were walking? That she was the daughter of the town tramp.” He cocked his head toward her and lifted an eyebrow. “Remind you of anybody you know?”
She gave him one of her sweet I-love-you-Bobby smiles. “Yes, it does,” she said softly. “Why did she tell you?”
“We bonded,” he said, only half kidding. “She also told me that her pal, Bootsie, was pretty much Miss Hassenfeld 1920 or whenever, and thought she had a lock on young Charles Riordan until Daisy lured him away.”
“So, that would explain the hate mail, I guess. But, jeez, that's a long time to hold a grudge. Fifty-some years.”
“Yeah. Well.” He chuckled a bit mournfully. “You women can be tough.” Then he reached out to skim the backs of his fingers down his wife's soft cheek.
Angela closed her eyes for a moment, seemingly enjoying his touch. Words surged up in his throat. I love you. Don't leave. Be with me always.
“Ange,” he whispered.
Those green eyes popped open, dry as a desert, hard as jade. “Don't start, Bobby. Just don't say anything more.”
He would have, except just then Doug yelled from the end of the Riordan driveway, “Get the hell back here, Agent Holland. Now.”
Bobby started the engine, figuring whatever it was he wanted to say would have come out all wrong anyway. Or, if it had come out right, Angela would have misunderstood. What was the use?
Angela didn't like the way Bobby seemed to favor his left side when he got out of the car and proceeded up the driveway to join the other agents gathered there. It shouldn't have surprised her that most of the younger guys avoided making eye contact with him. He'd lost his protectee, after all. He'd screwed up. God forbid his failure might rub off on them. Even McCray, the older agent, seemed standoffish, contemplating the shine on his shoes rather than stepping forward to shake his colleague's hand.
What really burnt her cookies, though, was the way Tricia Yates was looking at Bobby now. Gone was all the gooey-eyed yearning, along with the hip-slanting, lip-licking, bitch-in-heat, take-me-I'm-yours gestures. Instead, the female agent stood as far away as possible, and when she looked at Bobby at all, it was with a cold deadman-walking stare. If Angela had wanted to slap the woman earlier for the way she came on to her husband, right now she was sorely tempted
to put a bullet dead center in the Man-Eater's callous heart.
It wasn't his fault, she wanted to scream. It could have happened to any of us.
That was exactly what Doug was saying to Bobby when she caught up with them farther along the driveway.
“That's what I told him, Doug,” she said, resisting the urge to wrap an arm around Bobby's waist. “It wasn't his fault. Once Mrs. Riordan made up her mind to take off, nobody could have stopped her.”
“It'll all be duly noted in my report, Angela,” Doug said, then looked back at Bobby. “But you're still gonna have to get your ass down to the training facility for a couple weeks before they'll let you back in the White House. There's nothing I can do about that.”
Bobby asked grimly, “Have you informed the president yet?”
“I put in a call. I'm waiting for him to return it right now.” He ran his fingers across his jawline, then let out a rough sigh. “I'm not looking forward to giving him the news, I can tell you. I'd rather be run over by a truck.”
A few yards away, Agent McCray covered the mouthpiece of his cell phone and called out, “They got her, Doug! The state police are bringing her in.”
“Thank you, Jesus,” the special agent in charge breathed. “Where'd they find her?”
McCray ended his conversation, then walked over, shaking his head. “They were on a picnic,” he said. “Had a big basket, a blanket, fried chicken, the whole damned deal. Can you believe that?”
Beside her, Bobby growled deep in his throat, then muttered, “I'm going to kill her.”
McCray's phone bleeped softly, and his face paled just a bit when he answered, then he promptly held out the handset to Doug. “It's the president,” he said. “He doesn't sound any too happy.”
From her vantage point in the passenger seat of the Mercedes, Daisy couldn't see much ahead of her or to the rear because the idiotic and overeager state troopers had kept poor Gerald's car hemmed in with their vehicles, before and aft, ever since they'd all left the little park by the river.
“We'll escort you back now, ma'am,” the granite-jawed sergeant had decreed, which amounted to a polite way of saying, “Get in the car, lady, and behave yourself.”
She was fit to be tied, but Gerald—bless his heart!— was being a very good sport about the entire misadventure. Glancing to her left, she saw his handsome profile and his strong, capable hands on the steering wheel. A beau with liver spots! Daisy almost laughed out loud.
It had been years since she'd felt this alive or this optimistic. When Charles had taken ill five years ago, her own decline had begun in concert with his, despite the fact that she was in amazingly good health. Now, suddenly, she felt ten years younger. Twenty years younger. Whether or not she was in love, she couldn't say. It seemed such a ridiculous concept at her age—falling in love—when the notion of falling at all brought broken bones to mind. But Gerald was in love with her. The old fool. He'd barely brought the fried chicken out of the hamper this morning before he'd confessed his ardor. Then he'd kissed her cheek and whispered, “Come live with me and be my love.”
Of course, he hadn't said, “Come marry me and be my love,” and Daisy hadn't had time to clarify his intentions before the agents of the local Gestapo descended upon them. At the moment, the time didn't seem to be quite right for pursuing the topic, considering that they were boxed in by police cars and about to encounter a dozen disgruntled Secret Service agents. Poor Robert. She hoped she hadn't gotten him into too much hot water with her disappearance.
This was all happening so fast it very nearly took her breath away. When she'd confessed as much to Gerald, he'd just laughed, and his blue eyes had twinkled when he said, “At our age, Margaret, my dear, if it doesn't happen fast, it might very well not happen at all.”
Wasn't that the truth? And wasn't Muriel going to simply explode when she learned that the daughter of the town tramp had stolen yet another eligible bachelor right out from under her pert little nose?
“That's quite a welcoming committee, Margaret,” Gerald said as they neared her house.
Good God. There must have been several dozen people, in and out of uniform, on her lawn, trampling her ivy not to mention her privacy. Fortunately, as far as she could see, they all appeared to be far more relieved at her reappearance than angry at her disappearance.
With one exception. And he was stalking toward the Mercedes right now as if he meant to tear the bumper off with his bare hands.
Bobby wrenched open the passenger door of the Mercedes and held out his hand for the president's mother. For the twentieth time, he told himself this was professional. It wasn't personal.
Like hell.
“How was your picnic?” he snarled.
“Short,” she snapped. “How was your walk?”
“Interrupted.”
On the other side of the car, McCray was leaning in the driver's window, having a gruff tête-à-tête with the professor. Bobby leaned down, closer to Mrs. Riordan's ear, and said, “I need to talk to you in private. Now.”
“Very well. Let me say good-bye to Gerald first.” She angled her head back into the car. “Thank you for a lovely time, Gerald. I'll call you later. Oh, and don't let that thug intimidate you.” She shook her finger at McCray.
“Let's go.” Bobby grasped her arm and began leading her toward the front door.
“This is ridiculous,” she said. “All these people, these paratroopers or whatever they are, called out just because I went for a little drive. I'm sure the taxpayers would have a conniption fit if—”
“Bobby, hold up a minute,” Doug called, striding toward them with his phone in hand. “I've got the president on the line, Mrs. Riordan, ma'am. He wants to speak with you.”
“Not now,” she snapped.
The look on Doug's face slipped from respectful determination to spluttering panic as he stood there with the phone in his outstretched hand and the most powerful man in the world cooling his heels on the other end of the line. Bobby almost laughed. Almost.
“Take it,” he told Daisy Riordan.
“I'd rather not,” she said.
“Take it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, very well.” Then she snapped her fingers at Doug. “Give me that, Agent who-ever-you-are.”
“Yes, ma'am.” Doug handed her the phone.
“William?” she said. “Yes, I'm fine. I don't understand all this fuss, however, and I hardly approve—”
When she stopped abruptly and stood there blinking, Bobby figured the president must've shouted something to cut his mother off. That was probably a first. While she listened to whatever it was he was saying, a rosy flush of anger appeared on her cheeks, her free hand tightened to a fist, and her light blue eyes narrowed ominously.
“Yes, William, I hear you,” she said finally through tightly clenched teeth. “Now I want you to hear me. I'm getting married in a few days. You're cordially invited to the wedding. You can give me away, dear. Good-bye.”
She broke the connection and gave the phone back to Doug, then looked at Bobby and said, “Let's go in the house for that private chat now, Robert.”
17
Rather than add to all the confusion in the front yard, Angela had come in through the back door to get a pot of coffee going, which she figured they could all use right about now. Down the hallway, she heard the front door slam closed and Mrs. Riordan's exaggerated moan of relief.
“Thank heavens.”
Barely a second after that, Angela heard her husband bellow, “Are you nuts?”
Oh, jeez. Was he nuts? And if he hadn't had a broken rib before, he probably had one now after Crazy Daisy rammed him with her handbag or butted her head into his torso. Angela didn't even want to know what they were arguing about. She was leaving in a couple hours, and she wasn't going to look back. Ever.
Their escaped protectee was back, seemingly unscathed. The mystery of the hate mail had apparently been solved. Their replacements were on the way, if not canceled. Why
didn't Bobby just let it go, before he wound up losing his job?
She slumped in a chair at the kitchen table, and while the coffee maker burped and burbled, she stared at Mrs. Riordan's blue binder. Good riddance. Good-bye scut work. Adios ankle holster and preparing three meals a day and sleeping in a too-small bed with a too-big man who had a perfect red heart tattooed on his arm because the one inside his chest was probably defective, chiseled out of granite just like all the rest of him, if it was even there at all.
She remembered then that she had intended to fix lunch and dinner for the president's mother. It was early, a bit before noon, and there was still plenty of time to prepare something before she had to leave. Egg salad sounded good. There were half a dozen hard-boiled eggs just calling to her from the fridge.
Wondering if Mrs. Riordan had written any definitive opinion on the subject of egg salad, Angela reached out to flip open the tattered canvas book. Suddenly the lawyers’ names and numbers that Rod had given her swam up before her eyes. She closed the book and sighed out loud, not knowing if she wanted to pull a Scarlett O'Hara and think about that tomorrow, or do a Rhett Butler and frankly not give a damn.
Before Angela could decide whether to be callous Rhett or procrastinating Scarlett, Bobby came muttering and cursing into the kitchen. He was wound so tight that all his muscles were clenched, making the heart on his left biceps appear to be actually pumping. And he was still favoring his left side.
“Ange, do you have a copy of one of those hate letters?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I pitched mine because I didn't want to take the chance that Mrs. Riordan might see it. Why?”
“Well, I want her to see one now. Guess I'll run out to the trailer and see if they have some spares.” He sniffed, then glanced at the brewing coffee machine. “Good. She wants coffee. I'll take it up after I get a copy of a letter.”
“I'll go,” Angela said, hoping to spare him the long walk across the yard, not to mention save him from a possibly unpleasant encounter with Doug and whatever agents were hanging around after this morning's alert. Bobby certainly wasn't on anybody's dance card this afternoon. “I've got nothing else to do until it's time to leave for Springfield to catch my plane to Chicago.”
