The First Lady - James Patterson Page 0,53

the other end to the tape.

Marsha carefully extends her hand back into the apartment, stretches the rubber band as far as she can, and tapes it to the door. With that done, she brings her hand in, slowly closes the door, and—

Hears a slight tinkle. With the door closing, the stretched rubber band—held in place by the tape—slides the chain free. Marsha opens the door slightly, tugs the taped chain loose, and takes two steps into the kitchen, closing the door behind her.

Not bad.

She’s just successfully broken into the apartment of a senior Secret Service agent.

Time to get to work.

In the kitchen she smells cooked bacon, and there’s a twinge of envy there, of being part of a family that would actually get together to share a breakfast, that actually cared about one another. Marsha shakes off that feeling and notes a living room to the left, and a hallway in front of her. The television is on, the volume turned up.

With the chain lock in place and a television playing, it’s clear someone’s home.

Marsha pauses, waiting to see if anyone is going to appear, demanding to know why and how she got in. If she’s very lucky, she’ll explain that the door was unlocked and as an eager Comcast employee, she had knocked and then let herself in upon hearing someone say “Enter.”

Nobody appears.

She slowly makes her way to the living room.

Someone’s on the ratty-looking brown couch.

Marsha takes a slow, quiet, deep breath to calm everything down.

A young girl is stretched out on the couch, watching the screen. About ten or eleven, slim, very pretty, with long blond hair, a light-blue comforter over her. Despite the fact she’s watching television, she’s also plugged in to a video game on her iPad, and the girl—no doubt the daughter of the senior Secret Service agent—has earbuds in.

Which explains why Marsha’s entry has gone unnoticed.

Then a thought punches into her.

What’s her overriding goal?

To keep an eye on the Secret Service agent and disrupt where necessary, causing an opportunity to take care of the First Lady.

The young girl on the couch is moving her gaze from the television to her iPad, back and forth. She takes the earbuds out and examines them, like they’ve suddenly stopped working.

Instead of leaving the surveillance devices behind as planned … well, here’s an opportunity, stretched out on the couch, where Marsha could take direct and violent action and truly disrupt the Secret Service agent’s investigation.

Why not?

The girl shifts her position on the couch, and her head moves in Marsha’s direction.

CHAPTER 42

SCOTTY IS DOING his best to get me home as quickly as possible, but his fast driving and judicious use of lights and siren aren’t easing the tightness in my gut. Three calls to Amelia have gone unanswered, straight to voice mail, and I even swallow my pride and call her dad, and even Ben’s damn cell phone isn’t answered.

Scotty spares me a glance. “What’s wrong?”

“Scotty …”

“Boss, I mean, what’s wrong besides that mess we’re still dealing with?” Then he says, “No answer from Amelia, right?”

“Right,” I say, putting my useless iPhone on my lap.

“I’m sure she’s all right,” he says. “I mean, kids.”

We force our way through a red light, traffic screeching to a halt, horns blaring. He whips the steering wheel in a blur, left-right, left-right, leading me to think of him driving an armored-up Humvee somewhere, dodging small arms fire or RPGs.

“Scotty.”

“Yeah, boss?”

“Back at the waterfalls … did you see anything out of place? Anything odd?”

Scotty’s a smart fellow and knows I wouldn’t be asking this just to pass the time. “No, it looked … well, it was a circus, but a well-managed one. I didn’t see anything that shouldn’t have been there. What got your attention?”

“Just for a moment, across the river, I thought I saw a flicker of light. And movement. Like someone was checking us out.”

“Anything more than that?”

“No, not a thing.”

Scotty says, “Maybe it was a birdwatcher, wondering what was going on. And when he or she saw all the fuss, decided to get the hell out.”

“Perhaps,” I say, very much unconvinced, and I try to call again. No answer. My insides are a mix of anger at Amelia for doing something to get me so upset and scared, along with a real fear that something bad has happened to her. And my veteran cop mind has too many dark examples of what “bad” could turn out to be.

Scotty says, “Sorry she’s not answering.”

I just look out the windshield, as