The First Lady - James Patterson Page 0,29
questions. Now it’s my turn. Do I still have a job?”
Amanda’s inked-in eyebrows rise. “Of course. You’re one of our best, Tammy, and your notoriety is going to get our phones ringing with new business. But please don’t do anything more to embarrass the firm. Got that? The work you’ve done with Gideon Aerospace and Romulus Oil has fast-tracked you to a partnership. Even if you’re a Harvard girl and a Red Sox fan, which I’ve never held against you.”
Tammy manages a smile. “There are three pastimes in Boston: sports, politics, and revenge.”
Amanda gets up. “A good trio to learn. All right. Be at the firm at your usual hour tomorrow. Stroll in like you don’t have a care in the world. And for God’s sake, don’t even think of talking to the press. Or your neighbors. Or anyone else, for that matter. You could talk to your best friend tonight, under a cloak of secrecy and Häagen-Dazs chocolate ice cream … and she’ll turn around and sell your story to the National Enquirer in a heartbeat. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I do,” she says, glad to think that her boss is leaving her home.
“Good,” Amanda says, walking to the door. “Now I need to start working our potential client list, including that rube from Oklahoma, Lucian Crockett.”
Tammy waits a second and calls out to her, “Just so you know, I’m getting a cleaning company in here as soon as I can, and I’m going to bill it to the firm.”
That brings an amused nod of the head from Amanda. “You do that. And just so you know … and this isn’t for distribution either—the First Lady appears to be missing. At least that’s the rumor I’ve heard.”
Tammy can’t smell the old tobacco smoke anymore. “Missing?”
“Yes, as in she’s disappeared. Not for public information, but I hear that she was so pissed at the President that she ducked out from her Secret Service detail and is on the lam.” Another dry chuckle from her boss. “If I was her, I’d be on a one-way trip to Reno, to get divorced and laid by some twenty-year-old stud, just … because.”
She leaves and the door shuts behind her, and Tammy rubs her tired face.
Holy God.
What now?
Tammy lowers her hands, picks up her purse, takes out her iPhone.
Usually it’s her favorite object, enabling her to communicate with anyone on the planet, but now … it looks and feels like an unexploded hand grenade.
She almost puts it back in her purse … but she has to know something.
Tammy turns on her phone, slides through a couple of screens, and—
Holy shit.
One hundred and twelve missed calls.
A hundred and twelve!
She skims through them, seeing familiar networks and the names of familiar reporters, skim skim skim, and no, there’s no familiar number, not the one she’s looking for.
Tammy jumps when her phone starts ringing.
The caller ID function on her phone says 202-456-1414.
The White House main switchboard.
She gingerly answers it. “Hello?”
“Miss Doyle? This is the White House. Please hold for the President.”
CHAPTER 24
AFTER BRIAN ZAHN finds the First Lady’s untriggered panic button, I make a phone call to Parker Hoyt. He starts arguing with me, until I say, “Mr. Hoyt? This particular pile of shit is mine until the President takes it away. I’m not asking permission. I’m just telling you what I’m doing. Have a nice afternoon.”
I then make one more phone call, to an old friend who’s now working for the enemy. Luckily I have his private number, and when I tell him what I need, I still have to repeat myself three times before he reluctantly agrees.
“All right, Sally, you’ve got it,” he says, “but if I have to, I’ll throw you under the bus so fast that only your pistol and shoes will be recognizable.”
“Randy,” I say, speaking to a very handsome and very capable ex–Secret Service agent whom I briefly dated prior to marrying my soon-to-be ex-husband, and with whom I spent many a lonely hour standing watch in hotel basements or empty rooms. “Trust me, that will be one very fair and happy exchange.”
After I hang up, we’re all together, sopping wet from just above our knees to our soggy shoes. I’ve taken the wet piece of stationery and slid it into a plastic envelope for later examination by our forensics section, just to make sure it’s CANARY’s handwriting. In another plastic envelope is the panic button pretending to be a piece of jewelry. I walk around in a big circle with my