“Peter?”
“In here.” His muffled voice came from deep inside the closet.
She tentatively crossed the room, glancing at the half-packed suitcase. The shirts were folded. Socks and underwear were neatly arranged. It didn’t look as if he was unpacking. Her eyes clouded with concern. “What are you doing?”
He emerged from the closet carrying three business suits on hangers in one hand, a pair of dress shoes in the other. He shrugged, as if her question were stupid. “Packing.”
She suddenly felt as if she had grossly underestimated Peter’s reaction to the debate. Her voice shook. “What for?”
He dropped the business suits on the bed. “There’s only eleven days until the election. If I was ever going to hit the campaign trail at your side, I’d say now was the time.”
Her eyes brightened as she came to him, hugged him with relief, and said softly, “Thank you. Thank God. You scared the hell out of me. I thought you were leaving me.”
He stepped back, looking her in the eye. “Were you scared I was leaving, Allison? Or scared I was leaving before the election?”
His words hit like ice water. Deep down, she knew it was both. But that didn’t mean she loved him any less. “My feelings for you have nothing to do with politics.”
He smiled, then led her to the bed and sat her down beside him, squeezing her hand as he spoke. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking in the last twenty-four hours. I feel like this adultery scandal is at least partly my fault.”
“Your fault?”
“Yeah. The fact is, people are bound to have questions about our marriage if they don’t see me with you. Look at the way Lincoln Howe’s wife has been on the road campaigning for him. Just because I’m not the typical First Lady doesn’t mean I should make myself invisible.”
“You haven’t made yourself invisible. I just haven’t done enough to include you.”
“You do want me involved, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. But I’ve made it so complicated, at least in my own mind. You know what a total wreck I was after Emily disappeared. In one night I went from a career woman who thought she could raise a child on her own to-well, I don’t even want to think about it. You’re the one who helped me want to go on living. You made me get out of bed every morning, get on my feet, get a life. I needed you like I’ve never needed anyone. But no one can go on needing someone like that forever. At least not if you want some self-respect.”
“Sounds like you almost resent me.”
“Not at all, darling. I still need you, but in different ways. I think part of me just wanted to say, Hey, I’m back. I can do this. I can do it on my own.”
“Come on, Allison. You’re running for president of the United States, not president of the Elvis Forever Fan Club. No one will fault you for enlisting a little help from your husband.”
She smiled thinly, then turned serious. “Once you jump in, you’ll be fair game.”
“Like I’m not already? Hell, half the world thinks I have to stand in line to have sex with my wife.”
Allison lowered her eyes.
He brushed her cheek. “Hey, I’m sorry. I only said that to show how ridiculous these rumors are, not to hurt your feelings. I know the reason you dodged that question last night was to protect our privacy. That took courage. It means a lot to me that you’re willing to take the political knocks to protect what’s important to us. I have never doubted you, and this media circus isn’t about to make me start.”
Allison leaned closer and gave him a hug. He was right. She was trying to protect their privacy. But that didn’t completely ease her conscience. The fact was, there were things the public didn’t need to know. Strange things the media might misconstrue. Not things she had done, but things that had happened to her. Secrets she hadn’t told anyone-including Peter.
“Peter, I-” She paused, struggling with what she was about to tell him.
“What?”
She put her arms around him, resting her chin on his shoulder. It was a tactical move, a way of embracing him without looking him in the eye. “I love you,” she said with her eyes wide open.
She stared over his shoulder and kissed the back of his neck, leaving it at that-for now.
At midnight Lincoln Howe was in his pajamas, staring out the window from the twentieth floor of the Houston Hyatt. Two days ago Texas was Leahy territory. Not anymore.
He pulled back the swag drapes for a panoramic view. A half moon hung low in the night sky. A sea of lights from a deserted downtown and sprawling suburbia blanketed the landscape. He took a deep breath, as if he had the power to draw fresh air from some faraway Texas plain.
“Lincoln, come to bed,” his sleepy wife grumbled.
Natalie Howe was the general’s wife of forty-one years, the youngest and prettiest daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher. As a homemaker she’d virtually raised their three children alone while their father served his country in Korea and Vietnam. At sixty-three, she retained much of the beauty that had attracted the young enlisted man she’d married in her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. Dark, almond eyes and smooth, healthy skin were the trademarks of her Ethiopian ancestry. Her shiny black hair was usually worn up or straight back to frame the beauty of her face. She never left the house without her makeup, and she weighed only five pounds more than on the day they were married.
Lincoln rubbed his hands together. “I’m too excited to sleep.” He glanced over his shoulder at his wife. She was lying on her back beneath the covers in the twin bed farthest from him. He stepped from the window and sat at the edge of her bed.
“This is the turning point, Natalie. Leahy has finally made the fatal blunder. It’s like we’ve retaken Paris. Now it’s on to Berlin.”
“A lot can happen in eleven days.”
“True,” he said confidently. “But something tells me it will only get better.”
Natalie propped herself up on an elbow. Her eyes narrowed with disapproval. “Must you gloat so much?”
“I have every right to gloat.”
“It bothers me the way you’re acting. It’s as if you’re more excited about her losing than your winning.”
“You can’t feel sorry for the enemy, Natalie. The minute you do, they’ll stick a bayonet in your belly.”
“Maybe. But I honestly don’t think what she did is all that horrible.”
He winced with disbelief. “What she did was downright cowardly. There is nothing the American people hate more than a politician who won’t answer a question.”
Her eyes became lasers. She had yet to say anything about the debate, but his bravado and self-righteousness were suddenly more than she could stand. “I can certainly think of one thing worse than a woman who won’t answer any questions about marital fidelity.”
“What’s that, honey?”
She rolled away, speaking into the pillow. “A man who lies about it.”
He froze, not sure what to say. It wasn’t like the debate, where he could simply look into the camera and deny it. They’d passed that point long ago, before the apologies.
He laid a hand on her shoulder, but she didn’t respond. He rose from her bed and switched off the lamp, saying nothing.
5
Allison managed a couple of hours sleep after making love to Peter, but at 3:00 A.M. she was wide awake. By six o’clock, the first glow of morning light was seeping in around the edge of the balloon draperies, casting a yellow-white frame around the dark bedroom windows. Allison was staring wide-eyed at the ceiling as Peter lay sleeping at her side.
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll actually had her trailing Lincoln Howe, but that was only in the back of her mind. She was still struggling over her conversation with Peter. She was happy about the way he’d come through for her, agreeing to campaign at her side. Her joy, however, was overshadowed by a nagging concern over her inability to tell him the whole story behind her decision not to answer the adultery question. Maybe what made it so diffi
cult to talk about it now was that the whole thing had started so long ago, and she couldn’t explain why she hadn’t told him everything from the beginning. For the tenth time tonight, her mind took her back to that evening in August, almost two months ago-analyzing it, dissecting it, and wondering what made it so difficult to tell her husband about a chance reunion with Mitch O’Brien in Miami Beach…
Humid breezes rolled off the warm Atlantic, rustling through palm trees at Hotel Fountainbleu. A boardwalk, rolling dunes covered with sea oats, and a wide stretch of open beach separated the ocean from the poolside café. Still, the soothing sounds of gentle waves lapping the shore could be heard in the darkness. Allison sat across from Mitch at a round Cinzano table, sipping a nightcap of Cointreau, straight up.
Allison had just delivered the keynote address at the annual meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General, a large gathering of attorneys general and their staffs from all fifty states. It was a good chance to talk tough on crime as her presidential campaign was turning toward the big autumn push. Mitch surprised her in the lobby as she was heading for the elevator. They hadn’t spoken in eight years. After Emily’s abduction, she’d broken things off with Mitch completely. He left Chicago and moved to Miami. She’d never felt any animosity toward him, however, and his offer to buy her a drink and catch up on lost time seemed harmless enough, preferable in any event to yet another hotel dinner with her aide.
“So,” asked Mitch, “how are things among the National Association of Aspiring Governors?”
Allison smiled. “That’s National Association of Attorneys General. And do you really want to know?”
“No.” He was smiling with his eyes. Mitch had warm, engaging eyes, an asset that this skilled criminal defense lawyer had used to his advantage on many a woman juror. What Allison remembered most about him were his eyes. That, and the irreverent sense of humor that used to make her laugh as she hadn’t laughed in years, since the disappearance of her daughter.
“I feel like we’ve been talking about me all night,” she said. “What’s new with you?”
“The usual crazy South Florida stuff that makes me glad I left Chicago. I’ve been offered a criminal case in Key West that I might actually take.”
“You’re kidding? I thought you’d given up practicing law for good.”
“I said I might take it. Just for grins. One of my sailing buddies got into a little trouble at the annual Ernest Hemingway look-alike contest.”
“Hemingway used to live in Key West, didn’t he?”
“Right. This year, they had the usual parade of gray-bearded macho men in bulky turtleneck sweaters-like the Hemingway postage stamp. Then the last contestant walks out looking every bit as much like the real Ernest Hemingway, but with an added touch: He’s sucking on the business end of a double-barrel shotgun.”
“That’s what you Miamians love about Key West. The rest of the world gets to snicker at your bizarre crimes and say, ‘Only in Miami.’ But every now and then you can look south and say, ‘Only in Key West.’”
“Well, it seems the other Hemingway contestants didn’t see the humor. They grabbed the shotgun, threw the guy in the trunk of an old convertible, and were zipping north on U.S. 1 at ninety miles an hour when a state trooper stopped them. Imagine the look on this trooper’s face when he pulls over a flaming red Cadillac packed full of Hemingways hauling ass up the highway. It’s not clear what their intentions were, but the trooper claims he heard the driver shouting, ‘Death in the afternoon!’ Mister big mouth now wants me to come out of early retirement and represent him. They charged him with kidnapping. Can you believe they’re prosecuting?” He laughed, then finished his sparkling water.
Allison forced a smile, but she didn’t laugh.
He looked up from his empty glass, alarmed by the somber expression on her face. “Something wrong?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I guess I suddenly felt funny about you and me sitting here laughing about a kidnapping.”
Their eyes joined. A stillness fell over their table, as if the sounds of the sea in the background were suddenly more audible. Allison looked away.
Mitch turned very serious. “You blamed me for Emily, didn’t you?”
Her mouth opened, but she said nothing for a moment. The question seemed out of the blue-but then again, it didn’t. “I don’t think blame is the right word, Mitch. I did associate it with you. Maybe that’s not fair, but I can’t get it out of my mind that I was on the phone with you when it happened.”
He glanced at the swimming pool, then back at Allison. “Do you think we would have gotten back together? I mean, if that had never happened.”
“No.”
He fell back in his chair. “Whoa. Didn’t even have to think about that one, did you.”
She sighed. “Mitch, none of this matters. I’m married now. I have a wonderful husband.”
“Yeah, and after seven years he still works in New York and visits you on weekends.”
“How do you know that?”
“You’re a public figure, Allison.”
She shifted uncomfortably. “What else do you know?”
“I know he spent over a million dollars of his own money trying to help you find Emily. I’m truly sorry you never found her.”
“Thank you.”
He leaned forward, cupping his empty glass with both hands. “I’m also sorry that you rewarded his generosity by promising to marry him.”
Allison looked him straight in the eye. Her mouth was suddenly dry.
Mitch didn’t blink. His stare only tightened.
“I really think I should go now.” She rose quickly, digging in her purse for a ten-dollar bill. She dropped it on the table.
He frowned at the money. “You won’t even let me buy you a drink?”
“Good-bye, Mitch.” She turned and started away. Her FBI escort rose from his discreet post by the door, ready to take her to her room.
“Allison,” Mitch called.
She stopped, then turned around reluctantly. It was the eyes. He snared her again with those eyes.
“It’s definitely not your fault,” he said, speaking softly enough so that no one could overhear. “But somebody still loves you.”
She blinked hard, barely comprehending. She turned away nervously and headed for the hotel.
The alarm clock sounded on the nightstand, rousing her from her memories. Her heart skipped a beat as she lunged for the snooze button.
Peter stirred and rubbed his eyes, then rolled toward her. He had the beaming face of a kid cutting school. “Good morning,” he said, looking up from his pillow.
Allison wiped a bead of sweat from her upper lip. “Yes,” she said with a troubled smile. “It’s going to be a very good morning.”
6
Early Monday morning, David Wilcox entered the White House through the tunnel that connected a subbasement in the East Wing to the basement of the Treasury Building. It was an alternative entrance for recognizable visitors who didn’t want their arrival noted by the press. Wilcox had insisted on using it, fearing that a highly visible, personal visit with the president might be seen as an act of desperation by the Leahy campaign.
Two Secret Service agents led the underground journey. One flanked Wilcox. The other watched Eric Helmers, the popular governor of Georgia whom Allison had selected as her vice presidential running mate. Helmers brought balance to the ticket in more ways than one. Aside from being a handsome and well-spoken southern man, he was a decorated Vietnam War veteran who had lost half of his left foot to a land mine. His lifelong work on behalf of the physically challenged had earned him national acclaim, and his well-publicized participation in the Boston Marathon each year was a genuine inspiration to everyone. Wilcox and the Secret Service agents were struggling to keep pace with him, short of breath and sweating at the brow by the time they emerged from the White House basement.
The meeting was scheduled for seven-thirty in the Oval Office. As usual, Pr
esident Sires was late. Wilcox and Helmers sat in silence in the first-floor lobby of the West Wing, sipping White House coffee beneath a framed antique map of Colorado, the president’s home state. At eight-fifteen the president’s executive secretary led them to the Oval Office. Barbara Killian, the stoic chief of staff, greeted them at the door.
“Gentlemen,” she said ominously.
The president stood at the center of the room, dressed in a madras shirt and khaki slacks, crouched over a little white ball in a somewhat awkward putting stance. A long, thin strip of synthetic putting green stretched across the presidential seal woven into the oval office carpet. A half-dozen golf balls surrounded the plastic cup at the other end of the greenery, each engraved with the slogan “Fore More Years.”
He took a smooth stroke, sending the ball eighteen feet straight into the cup. “Yesssss!”
“Good shot, Mr. President,” said the chief of staff.
He flashed a boyish grin. “They don’t call me Lucky Chucky for nothing.” He laid his putter aside and greeted his guests, directing them to the armchairs facing his desk. No introductions were necessary.
“Thank you for taking the time to meet with us, Mr. President,” said Wilcox.
The president returned to his leather chair, flashing his trademark smile. “Hey, we lame ducks have all the time in the world.”
Then why the hell did you keep us waiting for forty-five minutes? thought Wilcox. “Not to be disrespectful, sir, but with just eight days to the election, time is running out for Allison Leahy. She is going to lose this election if she doesn’t get her head out of the sand and flat out deny that she has ever cheated on her husband. I’ve told her that. Eric has told her that. The polls are telling her that.”
“Shoot, David. You can’t put that much stock in polls. If I actually believed my public approval rating was as high as the pollsters say it is, I’d be out there dating again.”
Wilcox grimaced.
“That was a joke,” said the president.
The Abduction Page 4
