The First Lady - James Patterson Page 0,46

“How did it end?”

He seems to be struggling with something, and I decide not to press him. Too much pressure on my end and he’ll wrap things up, and maybe get another compliant Secret Service agent to conduct this fouled-up investigation. An attractive option for sure, but I’m in so deep now that I’m going to see it to the end.

The President says, “She was angry. Very angry. And she asked me when I was going to get to Andrews … and she said, she said, ‘I don’t want to talk to you now, or then, or ever.’ She hung up on me, and then my follow-up calls went unanswered, and … well, you know the rest.”

I certainly do, which included violating a good half-dozen laws, regulations, and procedures in the process. “Sir,” I ask, “do you know of any other place where she might be? Someplace that she might go to as a refuge.”

“Our residence on Lake Erie, in Vermilion. The Erie White House, you’ll recall.”

“I’ll alert the Secret Service detail there, but I don’t think she would have been able to leave the horse farm and get there without being noticed,” I say. “But her detail has told me that besides Camp David, she did have another place where she could be alone and relax. Does that strike a bell with you at all?”

The President shakes his head, and I sense his frustration. “No, no, I wish I could help you … honestly, I wish I could tell you something useful.”

I take a deep breath, decide it’s time for the Big Question. “Mr. President … did you have any indication, or suspicion, or even a suggestion … that the First Lady might be having an affair as well?”

His eyes widen in shock, and I guess that’s my answer. “No … nothing like that, I mean …” And his voice rises. “What in hell are you suggesting? Who told you that?”

“It doesn’t matter now,” I say. “What matters is that my source tells me that he or she overheard your wife talking to a man, expressing her love and affection.”

“Can’t you trace that call, find out who he is?”

“Your wife was using a burner phone, apparently secured by someone from the East Wing.”

The President shakes his head and leans back in his study chair. “I … I can’t believe it. When could she do it? How could she do it?”

I think if I bite my tongue any harder it will be severed in half—That’s what you did, I want to say, and that’s what my husband, Ben, did. Why are you surprised?—and thank God, I’m interrupted by my phone ringing.

I see that it’s Scotty calling, and I say, “Sir, please excuse me, I need to take this call.”

I get up from the chair and cross to the door, open it and step into the hallway. Luck is with me because this narrow stretch of fancy corridor with old paintings and furniture is empty.

“Grissom,” I answer. “What’s up, Scotty?”

A crackle and hiss of static, and the words, “—a body.”

“Say again, Scotty? What is it?”

His voice bellows out. “We’ve found a body! Female … at the Quinnick Falls … about three miles south of the horse farm … you better—”

Another burst of static, and I lose the connection.

No matter.

I start running.

CHAPTER 36

IT’S NEAR DUSK, and Marsha Gray is slogging through a swampy area, near Quinnick Falls, where she’s been dispatched after getting a frantic phone call from Parker Hoyt. Supposedly the First Lady’s body has been found, and Marsha certainly hopes so, because she’s tired of hunting in the First World.

The muck and water are up to her knees as she slowly wades through brush and saplings heading toward the sounds of engines, loud voices, and the thumping hum of a helicopter overhead.

She gets closer, finds a dry spot near a maple tree, takes a breather. In the Third World, hunting could be as fun as trick-or-treating. Cops and security forces can be bribed to look the other way. Traffic laws were suggestions, not rules. And in most of her Third World hunting grounds, being a woman meant you were ignored, were part of the shiftless, covered background.

Which made hunting so much fun.

But here?

She drops her rucksack, opens it up, and removes a pair of binoculars with high-grade optics. She leans against the trunk of the maple, starts scanning what she sees. Damn thing is, here in the First World, if a local cop or a Virginia state trooper were to