Pursuit

by ROBARDS, KAREN

  By the First Lady’s third visit, she had been anticipating seeing him again, even though she would have died before she admitted it to anyone. Standing behind Davenport’s desk while Davenport and Mrs. Cooper talked, she had given him a little smile.

  He had smiled back with enough charm to make her catch her breath.

  On his fourth visit, he had smiled at her as soon as he had walked through the door. Her reaction? Basically, Be still my heart.

  When Davenport had needed someone to hand-carry some papers over to the White House’s East Wing for Mrs. Cooper’s signature, she had actually volunteered to go despite a punishing workload that already promised to keep her in the office until after ten that night. Because she had hoped to see Mark Ryan there. Because, much as it irked her now to acknowledge it, she’d been nursing a little bit of a crush—oh, all right, a great big giant crush—on him.

  Sure enough, he’d been there, standing right beside the door to the First Lady’s office as Jess had approached. It had been obvious from his unsmiling glance, from his brusque tone as he’d asked her her business, from his entire demeanor, that he hadn’t the slightest clue that he had ever seen her before.

  Humiliatingly obvious.

  After getting the required signatures from Mrs. Cooper, she had slunk back to her office while vowing never to let herself be so stupid as to have her head turned by a handsome face and a practiced smile again.

  And now here she was, stuck in a hospital bed, wearing an ugly green gown that everybody knew meant she was naked underneath, her hair a dirty mess, her face bruised and stitched, which, if you wanted to look on the bright side, at least probably meant that the makeup she wasn’t wearing wouldn’t have been an improvement anyway.

  Wearing the same kind of big black glasses that had led to her high school classmates calling her Four Eyes.

  So what? she challenged herself. Why do you even care? Then she added firmly, I don’t.

  Ryan had found her lying injured and barely conscious after the crash, and had stayed with her until she’d been loaded into an ambulance. He’d come to the hospital that same night, from all accounts running into her hospital room like the Terminator on a mission to save Sarah Connor. From the way her mother beamed at him now and called him Mark like it was something she was used to doing, Jess assumed he’d been in her room more than once since.

  And he still didn’t remember her from before. That was all too clear.

  Bottom line was, she was getting tired of being wallpaper.

  “That okay with you?” He was looking at her, and Jess realized he was referring to her mother’s invitation for him to call her Jess.

  She was tempted to say, “Ms. Ford works,” but didn’t want to listen to the flack from her mother later.

  “Sure.”

  “I’m Mark.”

  Well, golly gee. I get to use your first name. What an honor.

  “You said you had some information?” She couldn’t help it. Her tone was frosty.

  The sad thing was, despite everything, she was itching to whip off her glasses, even though she was practically blind without them. She glared at him through the embarrassingly thick lenses as he walked right up to her bedside, with her clueless mother—who’d clearly spent the hours while her injured daughter had been at death’s door happily working on making the hunk’s acquaintance—sashaying along behind.

  Judy only ever wiggled like that in the presence of an attractive man.

  Jess gave her a look. Give it a rest, Mom.

  Judy didn’t even notice. She was too busy ogling Ryan’s butt.

  Ryan asked, “Remember thinking somebody tried to tamper with your IV the night they brought you in here?”

  Oh, yeah. “I remember.”

  “Well, just to be on the safe side, just so we could know for sure what we were dealing with, I took the bag of fluid that was in your room that night and had some lab tests run on it. The results just came back, and it’s good news—there was nothing harmful in it at all. Nothing that shouldn’t have been in there.”

  Judy said, “That was so smart of you. What a relief.”

  Jess’s lips compressed. She would have glared at her mother if she’d thought Ryan wouldn’t have noticed.

  “So you’re saying I imagined that attack?”

  “It’s pretty clear it was a hallucination, yes.”

  “He never actually put anything into the bag itself, you know. He was emptying the syringe into a port in the tubing when I figured out what was going on.”

  “I remembered you said that, so I had the tubing checked, too. No sign that it had been tampered with. No trace of anything that shouldn’t have been in there in the fluid or on the sides of the tubes or on the bag. Absolutely nothing out of the way at all.”

  Jess didn’t say anything for a moment. A million thoughts chased one another through her mind. Chief among them was It was not a hallucination. Followed closely by I don’t think.

  In the end, what it boiled down to was, there were three possibilities: Her instincts to the contrary, it indeed had been just a very real hallucination. Or the lab that had examined the bag and its contents had made a mistake. Or Ryan was lying.

  Why would he do that?

  Three inches of dark suit pants beneath too-short scrubs. Shiny black shoes in a pool of blue light.

  “Isn’t that wonderful?” Judy enthused, giving her daughter a look that meant Be enthusiastic or die. “We don’t have to be afraid somebody was trying to kill you anymore.”

  “Oh, yay,” Jess said.

  “I just thought knowing that might make you sleep a little easier.” Ryan smiled at her. The same charming, eye-crinkling, you’re-somebody-special smile he had used on her in Davenport’s office weeks before. That she, to her everlasting shame, had believed was actually genuine and meant for her.

  She did not smile back, and pretended not to notice that her mother was practically salivating over the man.

  Who wears dark suits and shiny black shoes? Who had Mrs. Cooper described as being more like wardens than protectors? Who was now parked outside her door giving her the willies with the knowledge that she couldn’t go anywhere without their knowledge?

  Secret Service agents.

  “It will,” she said.

  Like she believed him. Like she trusted him.

  She didn’t. Not for a minute. Maybe he was telling the truth, and maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he’d had that bag tested, and maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he was her friend—and maybe he was her enemy.

  He was a Secret Service agent, too.

  If the Secret Service was somehow involved in this—and she still couldn’t quite get her mind around what she thought “this” was—he was very likely involved, too.

  In Mrs. Cooper’s death.

  Jess felt as though a giant hand had just grabbed her heart and squeezed. There. That’s what you’ve been pussyfooting around. She suspected . . . that it wasn’t an accident at all.

  Oh, God, I can’t think about this now.

  Too late: Her heart picked up the pace. Her mouth went dry. She only hoped that none of what she was trying not to think about was showing on her face.

  Because Ryan was watching her. Carefully. Like he was trying to read her mind. His baby blues bored into her eyes like information-seeking tractor beams.

  For the first time in her life, Jess found herself thankful for her glasses. Superman himself with his X-ray vision couldn’t read much through her lenses.

  “You doin’ okay?” Ryan asked in a confidential tone, as if the question was for her ears alone and her mother wasn’t even in the room. That southern drawl of his—she wouldn’t be surprised to learn he practiced it just to make it sexier—was more pronounced than usual. It was intimate. Just like his smile. Which he probably practiced, too.

  “I’ll live.”

  Giving her a hard sideways glance that was mom code for What’s the matter with you? her mother added, “She’s doing so well; the doctor who came
in this morning said they’ll probably release her in the next couple of days. He said all she needs now is some time to heal, and maybe some rehab. Because she’s still having trouble with her legs, you know. And . . . other things. And she’s in some pain.”

  Mo-ther. Do you always have to tell everybody everything you know? Answer, arrived at with silent, groaning resignation: Yes, you do.

  “I’m sorry to hear she’s in pain. But I’m glad she’s doing so well otherwise.” Ryan flashed one of those smiles at Judy, then looked again at Jess, who gave him a quick little—grim—smile of her own. “You remembering any more about what happened? About the crash?”

  His voice was gentle. His eyes were sharp.

  Dream on, pretty boy. That stupid I’m not.

  Jess shook her head. “Where the accident’s concerned, my mind’s a complete blank.”

  “And let’s hope it stays that way.” Judy shuddered and shook her head. “Why on earth would you even want to remember? It’s just so horrible I hate thinking about it. You’re better off not having any kind of images of it in your head, honey. Just let it go.”

  “Yes, Mother.” Jess’s tone was so sweetly obedient that Judy gave her another of those hard looks. Okay, so she was going to hear it from her mother later. It was worth it.

  “If it does start coming back to you, I hope you’ll let me know. We’re still trying to figure out exactly what happened. And the press—well, they’ll make your life hell if you let them. Better to let any new information come out through official channels.”

  She knew what he meant: official channels like him.

  “You’ll be the first person I tell if I remember anything,” she promised. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  “I know it’s early days to be talking about this, but the Cooper family wants to . . .” he began, but then the door opened without warning and he broke off. Which was too bad: Jess would have been interested in hearing his version of what the Cooper family wanted just so that she could be sure to avoid it.

  11

  Jess, you’re awake,” Grace said happily as she entered. She was carrying a pizza and looking hot, as usual, in jeans, boots, and her favorite black leather motorcycle jacket. Behind her, Maddie had an arm wrapped around a brown paper bag. Her other arm hung by her side, weighted down by the big red plastic tote bag her mother had used for her beauty essentials for as long as Jess could remember. Despite everything, the sight wrung a slight smile out of Jess.

  What was the first sure sign I was going to live? My mom had her beauty bag brought to the hospital.

  “Hey, guys,” Jess said.

  “Hi, Jess. Hi, Mark.” Grace, who liked good-looking men every bit as much as Judy did, smiled at Ryan as she put the pizza box down on the empty extra bed. Men fell for Grace by the boatload and always had, but Ryan’s answering smile was no different than the one he’d bestowed on Judy—or, for that matter, Jess.

  In other words, it dazzled with practiced charm. Grace’s animated expression made it clear that despite her umpteen past and present boy-friends, she was no more immune than the rest of them.

  What Ryan’s reaction was to Grace Jess couldn’t tell. The eyes behind the smile were unreadable.

  “You would not believe how bad it is out there. They know who we are now—we practically had to fight our way through.” Grace tossed her hair—for Ryan’s benefit, Jess knew—and opened the pizza box.

  “Who are you talking about?” Jess asked.

  “The press. They’re, like, lying in wait out there in the parking lot. They keep asking us how you’re doing, and who’s called, and if you’ve said anything about the accident. Of course, we don’t tell them anything.” She cast Ryan a smiling glance. He acknowledged it with another slight smile of his own, which Jess interpreted to mean her family was keeping silent on his orders. Grace’s gaze shifted back to Jess. “Oh, and I ran into Bruce Minsky and he asked me to give him a call and let him know when he can stop by the hospital to see you. He said he’d been trying to call you here in the room and on your cell, too, but not getting any answer. Which, after I told him you’ve been unconscious, he perfectly understood, of course.”

  Bruce Minsky was a junior accountant employed by the giant accounting firm that did work for Davenport, Kelly, and Bascomb. He and Jess had been on exactly four dates, three for coffee and once for dinner—actually, fish sandwiches eaten at her apartment while they went over some financial records for a case Davenport wanted Bruce’s boss to testify about. Bruce seemed smitten. Jess was less so. Probably because they were so much alike. Both nose-to-the-grindstone types. Both total straight arrows. Both a little uncomfortable with the opposite sex. When the two of them got together, it was, in her opinion, kind of like a geek-o-rama.

  “I don’t want visitors. And I don’t know where my phone is.”

  “But Bruce is so cute. With those little glasses and all.”

  Jess started to make a face at her sister, but it hurt too much. Which was probably just as well. Ignoring her was the dignified thing to do. And the only thing that worked in the long run.

  “I told Grace we should try to sneak in through one of the side doors, but she wouldn’t do it.” Maddie plopped the grocery sack on the bed beside the pizza box and started rummaging through it. “I think she just likes being on TV.”

  “You can get on TV by just walking into the hospital?” Jess asked, bemused, as Maddie pulled out a package of paper plates.

  Grace nodded. “You won’t believe how huge this is. The whole city—the whole country—the whole world, even, probably—is practically shut down. Actually, you’re lucky you’re in the hospital so you don’t have to deal with it. You’re the one they really want to talk to. You’re the survivor.”

  “Grace, don’t worry your sister.” Judy’s tone was stern.

  Mother and third-oldest daughter exchanged a look. Jess was left wondering what wasn’t being said. She decided she didn’t want to know.

  “Anyway, we brought dinner.” Sliding a slice of pizza onto a paper plate, Grace advanced on Jess’s bed with it. “Your favorite: thin-crust pepperoni.”

  The smell reached Jess’s nostrils, and she felt the faintest stirring in her stomach: hunger.

  It felt good to be hungry. The last time she had been hungry was around eight on Saturday, when she’d made a grilled cheese sandwich while she’d read over some back cases in hopes of finding additional support for a position Davenport, Kelly, and Bascomb had taken on a pleading that had been overturned on appeal.

  Just hours before the crash.

  “I have Cherry Coke,” Maddie added.

  Her youngest sister was nowhere near as head-turningly beautiful as Grace, but Maddie was still very pretty in her own quieter way, with delicate features and a fresh-scrubbed look that didn’t depend on makeup for its allure. Her natural dark-blond hair was pushed back from her face by a narrow purple headband so that it fell straight and shining to her shoulders, and her school uniform of white shirt, navy blazer, and khaki skirt looked almost stylish on her slender figure. She stood five-foot-six in her white ankle socks and sneakers. She looked like what she was, a wholesome, high-achieving, all-American high school girl with a bright future.

  Jess had spent the entire previous week sick to her stomach at the thought that Maddie was pregnant. But now she was just glad to see her sister.

  “Thanks,” Jess said.

  She smiled at Maddie, who was heading toward her with the can of soda extended temptingly. The Cherry Coke had been purchased especially for her and was a peace offering, she knew, because Maddie was the only one who knew she liked it. Last summer, with Judy tied down by the day care and unable to get away, she and Maddie had discovered it together when Jess, on her precious one week of vacation before starting full-time at Davenport, Kelly, and Bascomb, had driven her around the Northeast on a whirlwind tour of possible colleges—colleges that Jess hoped and prayed Maddie would get a scholarship to. They’d been full of big plans for Mad
die’s future—or at least, as Jess had realized when she thought back over it, she had been full of big plans for Maddie’s future. Maddie really hadn’t said much. The last time Jess and Maddie had been together, it had been over at Judy’s house the weekend before the crash and the whole family had ended up shouting at one another over the ramifications of Maddie’s pregnancy. Maddie had capped off the festivities by running from the house in a flood of tears. Then she’d spent the following week shacked up with the twenty-year-old auto-mechanic boyfriend no one had even known she had. She’d been with him the night of the crash, too, as it had turned out, and thus had been the last of the family to find out what had happened to Jess.

  But that was then. This was now.

  “You’re welcome.” Maddie handed the soda to Jess. Jess’s slice of pizza already waited on the table beside the bed, courtesy of Grace. “There’s plenty,” Maddie added, smiling shyly at Ryan. “Just help yourself.”

  Jesus, he’d charmed her, too.

  Ryan shook his head.

  “Thanks, but I’ve got to go.” He looked at Jess. “If you remember anything, or you need anything . . .”

  “I’ll be sure to let you know.”

  “Your mother has my number.”

  Jess nodded.

  “I don’t know if you should be eating pizza and a Cherry Coke just yet,” Judy worried aloud, frowning at Jess as she carried her own slice of pizza toward the chair in the corner and sat down. “We should probably ask one of the nurses first.”

  “I’ll be fine, Mom.”

  Judy frowned still, but her gaze left her daughter to follow Ryan as he headed toward the door.

  “Bye, Mark.”

  “Bye, Mark,” Grace and Maddie chorused.

  He responded with a wave as he left the room.

  “Yum,” Grace said as the door clicked shut and she plopped down on the corner of Jess’s bed. From her tone, she wasn’t referring to the pizza she was nibbling on. “I could eat him for supper.”

  “He’s too old for you,” Judy said reprovingly.