First Family (43 page)

M
ICHELLE AND
S
EAN
watched as Frank Maxwell laid the cluster of flowers on his wife’s fresh grave, bowed his head, and mumbled a few words. Then he just stood there, looking off, at what neither of them knew.

Sean whispered to her, “Do you think he’s going to be okay?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if
I’m
going to be okay.”

“How’re your leg and arm?”

“Fine. And that’s not the part of me I’m talking about.”

“I know,” he said quietly.

She turned to him. “Do you have these kinds of family problems?”

“Every family has issues. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

They fell silent as Frank walked toward them.

Michelle put a hand on his arm. “You okay?”

He shrugged but then nodded. As they walked back to Michelle’s SUV he said, “I probably shouldn’t have left Sally to go and investigate. I probably should have stayed with her.”

“If you had, we might not have caught Rothwell and Reagan,” Sean pointed out.

When they got back to the house, Michelle made some coffee while Sean prepared sandwiches for lunch. They both looked up when the voice on the small countertop TV in the kitchen came on.

A moment later they were both looking at Willa’s image on the screen. The news story was not enlightening. It said all the usual things. FBI still investigating. The First Couple anxious. The country wondering where the little girl was. They knew all that. But the
mere sight of the little girl seemed to mesmerize them both, lifting them to a more heightened sense of urgency.

Sean stepped outside to make some phone calls. When he returned Michelle looked at him questioningly.

“Checking in with the First Lady and Chuck Waters.”

“Anything new?”

“Nothing. I left another message for my two-star buddy.”

“How’s Waters coming on tracking down the Koasati angle?”

“They’ve had people all over that town in Louisiana. Nothing so far. Everybody checks out.”

They fell silent. It was clear that now that the mystery of Sally Maxwell’s death had been solved, the priority was finding Willa. Alive. But they needed a break. Just one break.

Later, as they sat eating in the kitchen, Frank wiped his mouth with his napkin and cleared his throat.

“I was surprised you went back there,” he said.

“Back where?” she countered.

“You know.”

“I was pretty stunned to see you there too.”

“We were never happy there, you know. Me and your mom.”

“Apparently not.”

“Do you remember much of it?” he asked cautiously. “You were so little. Not much more than a toddler.”

“Dad, I wasn’t a toddler. I was six. But, no, I don’t remember much about it.”

“But you remembered how to get there?”

Michelle lied and said, “That’s what we call GPS.”

Sean fiddled with a potato chip on his plate while he tried to look everywhere except at father and daughter. “I’ll be right back,” he said and got up and left before either of them could say anything.

“He’s a good man,” Frank said.

Michelle nodded. “Probably better than I deserve.”

“So you two are like a couple?” He gazed over at his daughter.

She fiddled with the handle of her coffee cup. “More business partners,” she said.

Frank glanced out the window. “I worked a lot back then. Left
your mother alone too much. It was hard. I see that now. My career as a cop was my life. Your brothers have balanced things a lot better than I ever did.”

“I never felt ignored, Dad. And none of the boys did either as far as I can tell. They worshipped you and Mom.”

“But did you?”

The look in his eyes was so pleading, she felt the breath harden in her throat. “Did I what?” But she already knew.

“Worship us? Me and your mom?”

“I love you both very much. I always have.”

“Right, okay.” He went back to his lunch, methodically chewing his sandwich and drinking his coffee, the veins in his strong hands pronounced. But he never looked at her again. And Michelle could not bring herself to amend what she’d already said.

As she and Sean were cleaning up after the meal someone knocked at the front door. She went to answer it and came back a minute later holding a large cardboard box.

Sean put the last cup in the dishwasher, closed it, and turned to her. “What’s that? For your dad?”

“No, for you.”

“Me!”

She set it down on the table and read the return address. “General Tom Holloway? Department of Defense?”

“My two-star buddy. Looks like he came through with the AWOL records.”

“But how did they get here?”

“I e-mailed him on the drive down to Tennessee and left this address just in case he had something and we were still down here. Open it up, quick.”

Michelle used a pair of scissors to slit open the box. Inside were separate plastic binders, about three dozen of them. She pulled a few out. They were copies of official Army investigation reports.

“I know he’s your friend and all, but why would the Army provide a civilian with this stuff? And do so with such speed?”

Sean took one of the binders and started sifting through it.

“Sean? I asked you a question.”

He glanced up. “Well, aside from the football tickets I might’ve let slip that the White House was behind our investigation and that any cooperation they could lend would be personally pleasing to both the president and the First Lady. Knowing the Army, I’m sure they checked that out and found it was true. First rule in the military, never do anything to piss off the commander in chief.”

“I’m impressed.”

“That’s apparently what I live for.”

“So we go through these?”

“Page by page. Line by line. And hope to God it’s the break we need.”

A door slammed. Michelle rose and looked out the window in time to see her father climb in his car and drive off.

“Where do you think he’s going?” asked Sean.

Michelle sat back down. “How should I know? I’m not the man’s keeper.”

“The
man
saved your life.”

“And I thanked him for that, didn’t I?”

“Before I go any further, am I getting close to the point where you usually tell me to go to hell?”

“Perilously close.”

“I thought so.” He turned back to the binder.

“I do love my father. And I loved my mother.”

“I’m sure. And I know these things get complicated.”

“I think my family wrote the book on complicated.”

“Your brothers seem pretty normal.”

“I guess I got all the issues.”

“Why did you want to go back to the farmhouse?”

“I told you, I don’t know.”

“I’ve never known you to take an idle trip.”

“First time for everything.”

“Is that how you want to leave it with your dad?”

She gave him a look. “Exactly
how
am I leaving it?”

“Up in the air.”

“Sean, my mother was murdered after apparently cheating on my dad. The woman who killed her almost killed me. My father saved
my life, but there are issues there too, okay? In fact, for a while there I thought he’d been the one who killed her. So excuse me for being a little conflicted right now.”

“I’m sorry, Michelle, you’re right.”

She laid down the binder she was holding and put her face in her hands. “No, maybe you’re right. But I don’t know how to deal with this, I really don’t.”

“Maybe you start with just talking to the guy. One-on-one, nobody else around.”

“That sounds absolutely terrifying.”

“I know it does. And you don’t have to do it.”

“But I probably do have to do it if I ever want to get past this.” She stood. “Can you take over going through these? I’m going to try and find my dad.”

“Any idea where he might’ve gone?”

“I think so.”

J
ANE
C
OX RODE
in the limo coming back from Mail Boxes Etc. Unbeknownst to her, the FBI had run a trace on the post office box she’d been visiting every day. They had come up empty. Phony name, paid in cash for six months, and no paper trail. They’d given the store manager hell for not following the rules.

“This is how 9/11s start, you clueless moron,” Agent Chuck Waters had snapped at the middle-aged man behind the counter. “You let a terrorist cell get a mailbox here with no background info, you’re helping the enemies of this country attack us. Is that what the hell you want to be remembered for? Aiding and abetting Osama bin Laden?”

The man had been so distressed by this tongue-lashing that his eyes had actually started to tear up. But Waters had never seen this. He was already gone.

Jane reached the White House and climbed slowly out of the car. She had not been seen much in public as of late, which was a good thing, actually, because she looked older and haggard. The HD cameras deployed now would not have been too flattering. Even the president had noticed it.

“You okay, hon?” he’d asked during a brief stopover on the campaign trail where he would give an address to a group of veterans followed by a belated visit from the women’s college basketball national championship team. She had gone straight from the limo up to their private quarters to find him sitting there going over some briefing papers.

“I’m fine, Danny. I wish people would stop asking me that. I’ll start to think there’s something actually wrong.”

“The FBI has briefed me about these visits to the post office box.”

“And not the Secret Service?” she’d said quickly. “The spies among us?”

He sighed. “They’re just doing their job, Jane. We’re national property now. National treasure, at least you are,” he’d added with a quick smile that usually did the trick in boosting her spirits.

Usually, but not today. “You’re the treasure, Danny. I’m just the baggage.”

“Jane, that’s not—”

“I don’t really have time to waste on this and neither do you. The kidnappers communicated with me through a letter. It gave me the post office box and a key to that box. They said I would receive a letter at some point and to check that box every day. I have. And so far, no letter.”

“But why work through you at all. Why not Tuck?”

“Yes, why not Tuck? I don’t know, Danny, because I apparently cannot think like a kidnapper.”

“Sure, sure, I didn’t mean that. So maybe we were right. They’re going to ask me to do something in order to get Willa back. It can’t be money because your brother has more of that than I do. Hell, we can barely cover our personal grocery bills at this place. It must be tied to the presidency.”

“And then it becomes problematic, like you said. Emasculate the office, I believe were your words.”

“Jane, I will do all that I can do, but there are limits.”

“I thought the power of the Oval Office was unlimited. I guess I was wrong about that.”

“We will do all we can to get her back.”

“And if all we can
do
isn’t enough?” she said angrily.

He stared at her, a slightly hopeless look in his eyes.

The most powerful man in the world
, she thought.
Emasculated.

Her anger cooled as suddenly as it had risen. “Just hold me, Danny. Just hold me.”

He rushed to do this, pressing her tightly against him.

“You’re shivering. Are you coming down with something? You’ve lost weight too.”

She stepped away from him. “Look, you need to go. You have your speech in the East Room.”

He automatically checked his watch. “They’ll call up when it’s time.”

He went to hold her again, but she moved away, sat down, and stared off.

“Jane, I am the president of the United States. I am not without influence. I can probably help.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

The phone rang. He picked it up. “Yes, I know, I’ll be down in a minute.”

He bent down and kissed his wife on the cheek. “I’ll come back up and check on you later.”

“After the women’s basketball team.”

“Just what I’ve always wanted to be around,” he quipped. “A bunch of leggy women far taller than I am.”

“I’ve got some events too.”

“I’m going to have Cindy cancel them. You need to rest.”

“But—”

“Just rest.”

As he started to walk away she said, “Danny, I will need you at some point. Will you be there for me?”

He knelt beside her, wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I will always be there for you, just like you have with me. Get some rest. I’ll have them send up some coffee and something to eat. I don’t like how thin you’re getting. We need some more meat on those curves.” He gave her a kiss and left.

I have always been there for you, Danny. Always.