by Amy Gamet
“Is this Levi Ludlow we’re talking about?”
She leaned back. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but I need something in return. A way into that convention center.”
“Why?”
“So I can get up on that podium and tell the American people the truth—that Doug McGrath lied about his racial background when he gave his most famous speech. His grandmother was African American.”
“This is unbelievable. Do you have proof?”
“Genealogical records. Census data.” She pulled the photograph out of her purse. “This is a picture of her with Doug.”
“This is going to explode all over the convention.” He shook his head, his excitement palpable. “I’ll get you in. Let me make a few phone calls.”
Relief flooded through her. Everything she needed was about to be in place. She pulled out her cell phone and composed a text to Razorback.
I NEED TO DO THIS ON MY OWN. THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING YOU’VE DONE FOR ME. COULDN’T HAVE MADE IT HERE WITHOUT YOU AND HERO FORCE.
A sad frown pulled at the corners of her mouth as she pressed send. This was the end. It was over, for good.
The reporter returned, pulling his chair closer. “That’s taken care of. Now start at the beginning.”
29
Razorback awoke before dawn, his head aching like he’d been drinking. He opened his eyes and took in his surroundings, his stare catching on the empty space beside him in the bed.
Jackie.
All of it came rushing back. Her in his bed, the two of them making love. Her standing naked while he made a fool out of himself like a cranky teenager and told her to leave.
He covered his face with his hand. “Oh, fuck.”
What the hell had he been thinking?
He remembered her touch on his face, her kisses, as if she could make it all better somehow. How it had made him feel like a fool. He’d called her patronizing and she’d denied it. He threw back the covers and sat with his head in his hands. “Double fuck.”
He’d managed to take the best night he’d had in years and twist it into a goddamn pity party. A fight she couldn’t win, one he’d never live down and she wouldn’t forget.
Shame on him for letting himself get caught up in her. Concern and protectiveness had grown into admiration and lust. Strong feelings for a strong woman, either of which had the power to knock him down as they had last night.
He moved to the window, his mind littered with images from the night before. Her competitive spirit wrestling with his. Her acquiescence pleasing him as much as her body. He already knew her well enough to know that wouldn’t have been the last match of its kind, if only he had handled things differently.
Yeah? And how should you have handled it?
He wasn’t a man who could be with a woman long-term. Not anymore. It was right that he should end it now, before the mission was over. A clean break. He didn’t want a relationship with anyone, and definitely not a woman as all-consuming as Jackie Desjardins.
He showered carefully, avoiding the worst of his burns. He told himself he was right. He’d be all business today, there to make sure she got backstage without a hitch and in one piece, too. A bodyguard for the last leg of the race, one she probably didn’t even need.
The sun was up by the time he’d shaved and dressed for the day. They still had several hours before they’d planned to go to the convention center, but damned if he would sit here like he was hiding from her. He opened the adjoining door to her room, only to find hers closed and locked, par for the course he’d carved out of this turf.
“Jackie?”
Nothing.
He went to the hotel phone and dialed her room. It rang off the hook, the first real stirring of concern settling into his gut. The longer he knocked, the more he wondered if she was in there at all. And what if she wasn’t? Would she have gone to the convention center without him?
No way.
He checked his phone for messages. “God fucking damn it!” he yelled upon reading hers, stomping his foot and throwing the device hard at the padded headboard.
There was no telling what she was walking into. What if she ran into McGrath or managed to confront him alone? With his entire career on the line, what was to stop him from strangling her with his bare hands? She was acting as if there was no danger, like she didn’t need Razorback with her, and that was just stupidity on her part.
She did it because you pushed her away, asshole. It’s your fault she went alone.
Razorback had told her to go away and that’s just what she did. If something happened to her, it would be entirely his fault, and he cursed himself.
He packed up his gear, carefully selected to get through the metal detector he was sure to encounter if he was able to get into the convention center at all, which was damn unlikely without her. There was no way to tell where she’d gone, and he was torn between going out to look for her and staying put in case she returned.
His phone rang. “Ian, I’ve got some bad news,” said Cowboy, the tone of his voice even more foreboding than his words. “Sloan missed his check-in this morning, and Moto’s showing three more members of SVX landing on a plane in Mexico City the day after the fire.”
“What?” Razorback’s brain seemed to squeeze, his vision going dim as he broke out in a terrified sweat. Selena was with Sloan. Selena was with Sloan and something was terribly wrong if Sloan hadn’t called into HERO Force on time. “How late is he?”
“Two hours. Cowboy’s team just went wheels up in Atlanta.”
“Two hours!” That was a goddamn eternity. “They can’t get there fast enough!” He pushed his shoulders back, the adrenaline in his bloodstream commanding him to run, fight, anything but stand helplessly in a hotel room thousands of miles away.
“The Mexican authorities are helping us look for them. Did Jackie see anyone who recognized her? Could they have figured out she was there?”
“No, nobody—” Razorback froze, remembering Jackie at the front desk of the hotel, giving her name for her own room. “Christ, Cowboy. The front desk. She gave her name last night at the front desk, so it’s in the computer.”
“Goddamn it! If SVX found Sloan and Selena, then they knew Jackie wasn’t there. The convention is the first place they’d look for her. They’re going to use Selena to keep her mother from exposing McGrath.”
“Or else they’ve already killed her.” The words were out of Razorback’s mouth before they registered in his brain. It was impossible to comprehend, yet his military mind knew it was the most likely scenario. SVX could coerce Jackie into cooperating without proof of life. They had no intention of leaving her alive, anyway.
Nausea threatened his usually strong stomach as he took off running, the phone still in his hand. He grabbed his key card and dashed into the hallway, pounding on the door to Jackie’s room. It fell open at the first touch. Tool marks between the key card device and the wood told him it had been tampered with. “Jesus. Someone broke into her room.” He ran inside, searching for something, anything at all.
“She texted me and said she was going to the convention alone. It was a ruse. A cover.” This couldn’t be happening. Jackie had been taken from her room right under his damn nose. His training took over when emotions would have locked his mind like a steel trap. “I’ll have hotel security pull up the surveillance video. You find Selena, you hear? Just find my girl.”
He hung up the phone and made his way downstairs, insisting on speaking with the head of hotel security, a woman in a navy blue suit and heels. But when he explained he needed to see surveillance video, he was brought to a small office with what appeared to be a teenage boy in jeans and a hoodie.
Razorback had always stayed cool under pressure, but this time he was panicked, out of control, scared. “I need to see who she left with and where they went. Can you do that?”
“Our system is equipped with facial recognition software,” the kid said, typing furiously in a hunt-and-pec
k kind of way. He quickly found the footage from check-in, locking in on Jackie’s features. “Starting the scan now.” A list of several time-stamped files showed up on the screen. “These are images of your friend from every camera she passed by.”
Razorback watched as she exited her room just after six, returning with coffee. She met with a man in the lobby and went back to her room. “Who is that guy?” he asked.
The head of security entered the room. “Any luck?” she asked.
“I need that guy’s name,” Razorback said, pointing at the screen. The kid scanned the man’s features and searched again. “That’s the only footage we have of him, so he’s not a guest of the hotel.”
The woman leaned closer to the screen. “Wait, Jesse, zoom in on that image. Isn’t that Frank Gough? The news anchor for Channel 13.”
The kid blew out air. “I don’t watch the news.” He opened a browser window and searched for the reporter, deftly copying the man’s photo from the station website and importing it into his facial recognition program. “That’s him, all right.”
Jackie met with a reporter? When had she set that up? The last he knew, going to the media before her appearance at the convention wasn’t part of the plan. “Stay with that angle,” said Razorback. “We need to see who breaks into the room.” His eyes were riveted to the screen as the kid fast-forwarded through the recording. But instead of someone breaking in, they saw Jackie walking out, alone.
Razorback sat back in his chair, confused. “Follow her.” The video moved seamlessly from the hallway to the elevator, then to the lobby, where Jackie again met up with the reporter. They walked out of the building together, heading toward the convention center.
“That’s it,” said the kid.
Razorback leaned forward in his chair. “Go to the next clip of her in the hotel.”
“That’s all I’ve got. She never came back.”
“Then when the hell was her room broken into?”
“Let’s see.” The kid brought up the video from Jackie’s hallway, fast-forwarding to the attempted break-in. A man in a T-shirt and dark pants, his face carefully turned away from the camera. He appeared to leave empty-handed. “That’s pretty amazing that we never got a look at his face,” said the kid.
“Not amazing. Deliberate.”
Fucking SVX.
He thanked the kid and head of security and walked outside to the street. Hopefully, Jackie was safe in the convention center, and he still needed to find a way inside. The thought instantly reminded him of Selena and Sloan, his gut telling him those two were anything but safe.
He could see Selena in her baggy rainbow bathing suit, glaring at him, see her pudgy little hand jutting out to color whenever he looked at her.
He couldn’t breathe, could barely think.
He bowed his head, not sure he believed in angels, but knowing he’d make it through the fire at the resort somehow and that he needed the help of one angel in particular more than he’d ever needed anything before in his life.
Peaches, it’s Razorback. Are you there?
30
The atmosphere inside the convention center was electric—red, white, and blue filling the space like jelly beans in a jar. Thousands of people cheered and waved signs.
Jackie stayed close to the news crew, her glasses and press pass making her nearly invisible as she listened to the impassioned speeches of men and women, leaders of the Democrat Party. Her mind wandered through the events of her life that brought her to this moment, each of them circling back to Doug.
She’d loved him once, a very long time ago. It was he who had given her Selena, and for that she would always be grateful. But his self-centeredness had taken away so much from her, forever changing her life by necessitating she separate it from his.
Then there was Ian. Her heart told her he was good, a decent human being with the capacity to love her as she longed to be loved. But in reality, he wasn’t able to get past the demons that kept him separated from life.
Today she would rise from the dead and take back the life she’d given up eight years before. She would right Doug’s wrong, and she would leave Ian behind despite the heartache she was sure to have. She would go forward with just Selena by her side, and they would learn to be happy again.
A woman in a red suit took the stage. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am Victoria McGrath. I think you may have met my husband.” A laugh went through the crowd as the hair on Jackie’s arms stood on end. The giant screens on either side of the stage zoomed in on Victoria’s face.
She was pretty in a plain sort of way, with short brown hair cut in a trendy style and a magazine model smile. A strange feeling struck Jackie, as if she was staring at an enchanted mirror that showed her what could have been, instead of what had actually happened.
“When I first met Doug, we were both representatives in the House, and he was still grieving the tragic death of his first wife, Jacqueline. But over time, as we worked together to improve the lives of the citizens of the great state of California, we fell in love. We believed in the same things, both in politics and in life, and I quickly realized I’d found a man who would do great things for this country—and for the lucky woman who got to stand by his side.” The crowd cheered.
Jackie stood. One Mrs. McGrath interrupting the other held a certain Hollywood appeal. She nodded pointedly to one of the television staff who knew why she was there, and headed in the direction of the stage.
The convention center was one large oval like a football field, with a wide hallway on the outermost ring for moving around the building, and she walked as if in a trance, the second Mrs. McGrath’s musings echoing through the concrete structure like music in a dream. “When Doug first told me he had aspirations of reaching the White House, I couldn’t have been more excited. He and I had often talked about what we can do to make this country a better place. Now he will have that chance, and I couldn’t be prouder.”
The hallway grew thicker with people as she neared the stage, but she paid them no mind as she took off her glasses and tossed them into a nearby trash can.
“Oh my God, is that…” a woman exclaimed.
Jackie kept walking.
“It was all of you who made it possible for Doug to succeed in politics, every member of Congress who fought for the tremendous strides we’ve already made in education, tax reform, and economic growth for our great nation.”
The crowd’s applause grew louder as she neared the focal point of everyone’s attention, the crowd in the hallway becoming even more dense. She slipped between people without a word, flitting through the horde like a ghost through a party.
“Jacqueline!” a woman exclaimed, but Jackie kept walking, a hush now spreading through the hallway. The crowd parted, the second Mrs. McGrath’s voice now the only sound around her as she approached the security checkpoint.
A woman in a bright blue suit sat at a low table lavishly decorated with patriotic bunting. Behind her, two men in suits and sunglasses were framed by police officers. Jackie smiled cooly. “I’m here for my speech.”
The woman stared wide-eyed from Jackie to the crowd behind her. “Of course.” She consulted a list in front of her. “And you are?”
“Jacqueline Desjardins…McGrath.”
The woman looked slowly to the men behind her, who ignored her silent plea. She turned back around, pointing to the paper with a shaking pen. “You’re not on the list.”
A deep male voice bellowed from the crowd, “Let her in.”
“Yeah,” called a woman. “What are you hiding?”
More voices joined in. “She’s his dead wife!”
“I want to hear what she has to say.”
“We need to know where she’s been.”
“Let her in!”
The woman was clearly flustered, talking to the men behind her before addressing the crowd. “She doesn’t have clearance. I don’t have the authority to let her onstage.”
A woman spoke f
rom directly behind Jackie. “But I do.”
Jackie turned, grateful eyes flashing when she saw Jenna Bennett, the former senator from California she’d met when Doug was in the House. Jackie had followed the other woman’s career since then with great enthusiasm and respect for her abilities. “Madame Secretary.”
Her gray eyes crinkled at the corners as she took Jackie’s hands. “I’m glad to see you looking so well, Jacqueline. I was concerned for your health.” She addressed the frazzled woman behind the table. “It was an oversight on my part that she was left off the list. She follows Mrs. McGrath.”
Jackie eyed her warily. There would be consequences for what she was doing, the likely end of her career, but the woman only smiled. “Did I mention I’ve recently become a grandmother of twins? I’m retiring at the end of my term to spend more time with family. Maybe sooner. Who knows?” She squeezed Jackie’s hands, giving her a conspiratorial look.
One of the suit-clad guards stepped aside and opened the door, and Jackie stepped through the doorway like Dorothy through the gates of Oz—and straight into the outstretched arms of Levi Ludlow.
31
Levi’s cheeks were just as red as Jackie remembered them being, his face now heavily lined and covered in a spider-like network of gossamer red veins. His yellow hair had turned white, and his eyes protruded from their sockets noticeably more than they had before.
“Jackie! It’s so good to see you.”
She wished she could escape his embrace, the scent of his body odor mixing with his cologne as he spoke into her ear. “My men have Selena.”
Shock and fear stopped her diaphragm from moving, as the noise and environment all fell away. She jerked back and he released her, the tense smile plastered to his face revealing teeth too white and too perfect to be his own.
“No,” she said.
He pulled out a cell phone, flashing her a picture, Selena’s eyes round and full of fear. Hysteria threatened Jackie’s composure. She felt every mile that separated her from her daughter like a dagger through her skin.
