The First Lady - James Patterson Page 0,40

foot in that place ever again, is what I think.

I say, “Ben, that was at … the old place.” I turn to Amelia and say, “Your bag all packed? You got money for lunch?”

“Mom—” she starts, and I say, “Hurry up and eat as much as you can.”

And I turn and race back to the bedroom.

Nine minutes later I’m outside with Amelia, dressed, with just a comb through my hair and wearing about 80 percent of what I was wearing yesterday. I’ve made a call to get a pickup from one of the Secret Service staff at H Street. I also make two other phone calls, one to Scotty and one to Pamela Smithson, and both calls confirm what I had suspected: no progress in the search for Grace Fuller Tucker.

“All right,” I tell them both. “Keep at it. I’m going to work matters on this end.”

When I’m done I see the bright-yellow school bus grumbling its way to us in the thick morning traffic. Amelia stands there, looking small, her brightly colored knapsack almost as large as she is. Ben had given her a quick kiss and awkward hug a few minutes earlier before quickly strolling away, shoulders hunched over.

“Hey, hon,” I say, “what’s up?”

“You don’t have to be so mean.”

“Amelia …”

Her head snaps right to my direction. “Daddy came over last night because I was scared! And he helped clean the dishes. And make breakfast. And you weren’t nice to him at all …”

“But Amelia …”

“He came out of your bedroom this morning,” she says. “That means he still loves you, Mommy. Don’t you see? If you stop being so mean to him, we can move back to our real home, and you don’t have to get a divorce and it can all go back to the way things were.”

Her bus comes to a stop, and I note a black Suburban up the way that’s my ride this morning.

“It’s … more complicated than that, honey. And we’re not getting back together. I’m sorry.”

The door to the bus swings open, and she’s now bawling. “If you were nice to him, he’d take us back! He’d take us back, I know he would! We can all be together again!”

“Honey …”

She jumps off the sidewalk, goes up the steps into the school bus, her knapsack bouncing on her little back, and she turns and in a high-pitched voice that always cuts me, no matter how much of a tough mom I think I am, she calls out, “If you weren’t so mean, we’d still be a family! Why do you have to be so mean?”

The door whispers shut. Amelia goes to a seat. The times I’ve waited with her at the bus stop, she’s always turned and waved out the window at me.

Not this morning.

The bus lurches forward into the traffic, and the Suburban stops. I open the door and climb in, and I say to the young driver, “Not a word to me or I’ll toss you out and drive myself.”

Even with his sharp dress and clean-cut looks, he appears scared.

Good.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says.

I fasten my seat belt. “Those were two words. Don’t let it happen again.”

And then we’re off.

CHAPTER 32

PARKER HOYT HAS been at his desk for three hours already this morning, working the phones, soothing scared senators and representatives, bucking up important donors, all the while waiting and waiting to see if the First Lady is going to be found today. The news is still grim from Atlanta, but there’s a hopeful tone in some of the commentary, about the President coming forth yesterday and admitting his mistakes. And the bulk of the coverage and opinion pieces share the same thread: the President’s campaign has received a serious blow, but there’s still time to recover, especially if the First Lady comes forward and offers some forgiveness.

But there are also questions … where is the First Lady?

Parker rubs at the back of his neck. Publicly, she’s in seclusion. Privately … about a half-dozen people know her real status, and in DC, that number will start growing in the next few hours until he finds that bitch, either dead or alive.

At this point, Parker doesn’t particularly care.

His phone rings, and his secretary says, “Special Agent Grissom to see you,” and he says, “Right away, send her in.”

The door opens and Agent Grissom comes in, and she looks awful. Eyes bleary, hair a mess, skin blotchy, and it looks like she’s wearing the same plain outfit from yesterday. A nasty part