“Is that what was scaring you?” Maddie sounded indignant. “You thought
he
was dead? I thought
we
were going to die. That’s what was scaring me.”
Mark smiled at Jess. “Yeah, well, when I heard that Hennessey and Smith had caught up with you at your mom’s house, my whole life flashed in front of my eyes. Their MO is to kill people on the spot.”
“Jess talked them out of it,” Maddie said. “With her computer stuff. It was probably the webcam that did it.”
“So what happened after you were shot?” Jess asked. He had already told her that, just as she thought, the crease in his skull had been opened up by a bullet, which fortunately had ricocheted off his thick skull.
“I was knocked unconscious for a little while. When I woke up, two guys were carrying me through the park. I guess the other two had gone for the car or something. That made getting away from them fairly easy. I circled back to see if I could find you, but you were gone. Not knowing where you were or what was happening to you took a few years off my life there, I have to tell you, because I knew they would be coming after you hard. So I tried to think how to wrap this thing up before they got to you. I was desperate, so I called Harvey Brooks—he ’s a lab guy I know. I had him run some tests on the Lincoln to see if some kind of impact had caused the crash, and lo and behold, when I called him he told me there was evidence that a bullet had been fired into the right rear tire, blowing the tire and probably causing the crash. Anyway, he came and picked me up, and while I was waiting for him I took the opportunity to go over those phone number printouts again. Know what I found?”
He looked at Jess, who lifted her eyebrows at him. “What?”
“Remember how Prescott called Fielding, Wendell, and Matthews right before the crash?”
“Yeah?”
“Right after Prescott called Fielding, Fielding placed a call to Wayne Cooper. To his private cell phone. I happen to have that number, too, so I recognized it. So much as I hated to think it, I knew from that Fielding had to be the one.” He had already told Jess that Fielding was the man who had attacked her in the hospital, the man who’d said “sugar” downstairs in his house.
“Then what?”
“I had Brooks call Fielding and tell him he had some real sensitive information on the death car, as everybody was calling it, and could he come over so he could tell him personally. I knew that if Fielding was involved, that would get him, and it did. When he got there, I tackled him and, uh, basically got him to confess the whole thing.” No need to tell Jess and Maddie that he ’d been so terrified for Jess’s life that he’d put a gun to his old friend’s head and threatened to blow out his brains unless he told everything he knew. The thing was, he would have done it, too. By then he’d been sweating bullets worrying about Jess. If anything had happened to her, he had realized, it would have been a blow from which he would never have recovered.
“I’m sorry Fielding was involved.” Jess’s smile turned sympathetic. She reached over and patted his leg. Mark had to fight the urge to stop the car and take her in his arms. With her teenage sister in the backseat, though, he refrained.
“During the course of our conversation, I reminded him that there had never been a traitor in the Secret Service. You know what he said?” He glanced at Jess, who looked questioningly at him. “He said he wasn’t a traitor. He said he was doing his job, protecting the President and the presidency. Of course, he was conveniently overlooking the fact that he was on Wayne Cooper’s payroll, too.”
“I guess he had to justify what he was doing some way,” Jess said.
“I guess.” Mark frowned out the windshield. They were back in D.C. now, cruising along the Beltway, which was thin of traffic at this time in the morning. “Once I knew the whole story, knew he was the only agent involved, I called up the chain. Arrangements were made, and Fielding was offered a sweetheart deal if he cooperated. See, by that time Fielding had gotten a buzz on his radio to let him know that Hennessey and Smith had captured you.” He cast a glance back at Maddie. “And a sister. I didn’t know which one it was until I got there.”
“Glad to know I’m important,” Maddie muttered. Jess threw her a quick grin.
“After that, we had to move fast.” No need to mention how sick with fear he’d been that he ’d get there, get to Cooper’s house where they were taking Jess, and it would be too late. It had been at right about that time that he had realized just how crazy about her he really was. But that was something to go into with her later. In private. “The deal was, Fielding was going to get me in there so you’d have some protection. The others were going to wait until Fielding and I were inside before storming the place, just in case one or more of the guards managed to get off an alarm. What everybody wanted”—him most of all—“was to get you two out of there safely.”
“Which you did.” Jess’s smile was bright enough to light up the inside of the car.
“I was never so glad to see anybody in my life,” Maddie said. “Oh, wait, get off here, Sarah’s house is two streets over. On Clay.”
Mark pulled off the next exit. The streets of the quiet residential area in which he found himself were dark and deserted. Even the trees looked lonely. He looked for Clay.
“There ’s no chance Wayne Cooper can buy his way out of this or something, is there?” Jess asked.
Mark shook his head, found Clay, and turned onto it. “I was wearing a wire, so everything Cooper said—which was pretty much a thoroughgoing confession—is on tape. Add to that what you put on the Internet, and the whole gang is going down. Wayne Cooper is looking at spending the rest of his life in prison, and David will have to resign. Vice President Sears will wake up this morning to the happy news that he’s going to be the new president.”
“You know, Mrs. Cooper might not even have released those videos to the public,” Jess said, as Maddie directed him to the third house on the left. It was a single-story brick ranch house with a bike lying in the driveway. Mark was glad he saw it before he ran over it. “She might just have used them to get what she wanted in the divorce.”
“Clearly, that was a chance Wayne Cooper wasn’t willing to take.” Mark cut the lights and killed the engine. The house was completely dark, and he didn’t want to wake everybody inside. “Having his son be president meant the world to him. He worked toward that his whole life.”
“I have a key.” Maddie unfastened her seat belt. “You all don’t have to come in with me if you don’t want to. In fact, if we’re not supposed to talk about this to anybody, it ’ll be better if you don’t.”
In the interests of national security, Jess and Maddie had been asked to keep quiet about what had happened until the story could be officially released. They had agreed.
“I really don’t feel like facing Mom and Sarah right now,” Jess confessed. Mark didn’t say anything, but he absolutely agreed with her there.
Maddie slid out. “This has been fun, guys, but . . .”
“I’ll walk you in.” Jess got out, too. They closed the doors, and Mark watched as the two of them walked side by side to the front door. They hugged, Maddie let herself in, and Jess headed back. She was small, he registered, watching her, and boyishly slim, and her beauty was the quiet kind. But it was definitely there. Along with so much more. Brains. Guts. A loyal, loving, kind heart.
She was, in fact, the kind of woman he’d been looking for all his life. Who knew he’d find her right under his nose?
She got back in the car then, and before he turned the motor on he leaned over and kissed her. Hard and long.
When he drew back at last he said, “Remember that conversation we were meaning to have later?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m crazy in love with you,” he said, and kissed her again. Kissed her until he saw a light come on in one of the bedrooms inside the house.
Then he drew back, turned on the engine and lights, and started backing out of the driveway. This was a moment he didn’t feel like sharing with anyone but her, much less her whole clan.
She was looking at him with absolute stars in her eyes. Mark felt his heart kick into overdrive.
“Oh, yeah?” she said.
“Yeah.” He backed into the street, shifted into drive, and headed toward the intersection. “If you want, I could take you home with me and prove it.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she said, and smiled at him.
34
T
o my daughter. And the young man she’s going to marry.” Judy was on her feet, glass in hand, delivering the toast with a broad smile. was on her feet, glass in hand, delivering the toast with a broad smile.
The young man in question, the father of Maddie ’s baby and her new fiancé, turned bright red. Maddie glowed. Jess and Sarah and Grace beamed at her. Seated farther down the table in Pat’s Steakhouse, where Jess’s family had gathered en masse to celebrate Maddie’s engagement, Mark saluted with everyone else and took a sip of wine. Beside him, Jess was looking lovely and so happy that her sisters had teasingly asked if she was sure she wasn’t the one who was getting married, while casting sly looks at Mark.
“Don’t be silly,” she ’d answered. But her flushing cheeks had told the real story: They were in love. Like Jess, Mark was happier than he ’d ever been in his life, and he was sure it showed. The icing on the cake was that Jess liked Taylor and Taylor liked Jess. In fact, they got along so well that Mark suspected they would start ganging up on him any day now. For the present, though, he and Jess were taking it slow and just enjoying each other. After all, they had all the time in the world.
A month had passed since the night in Wayne Cooper’s mansion. For the good of the country, no public question had been raised about the accidental nature of Annette Cooper’s death, and the few who knew the truth had been asked to keep silent. David Cooper had been allowed to quietly resign, and President Sears and his family now occupied the White House. Wayne Cooper, Harris Lowell, and a number of Cooper’s private security personnel had been killed in the crash of a private plane less than twenty-four hours after Mark had last seen them alive. Officially, the terrible accident had dealt the final blow to David Cooper’s ability to govern. Unofficially, Mark was sure it hadn’t been an accident at all. The shadowy forces whose job it was to make things that were bad for the country go away had once again performed with impressive efficiency. The videos that Jess had uploaded to the Internet had even been rendered harmless. The originals had been impossible to recall, but damage control had begun immediately. Mark had heard through the grapevine that they had copied the videos, digitally replaced David Cooper’s face with that of the leaders of all the major nations, and uploaded those as well. The resulting uproar had been considerable, but all the videos, including David Cooper’s, were subsequently proclaimed fakes and the public’s attention had shifted elsewhere.
The wheels of government continued to turn without a hitch.
“So are you and Mark coming by the house?” Judy asked Jess when the meal was over and the group was saying their good-byes before leaving the restaurant.
“Not tonight. I start my new job tomorrow, remember?” It was a Sunday night, and Jess had to be in her new office at a law firm that had done business with her previous one by eight a.m. Monday. She’d been excited when the position had been offered to her, and since she was excited, Mark was excited for her. Just like she was happy for him when he got the transfer he wanted into the investigative arm of the Secret Service.
“You won’t be so busy working you’ll forget you’re going with me to try on dresses Saturday, will you?” Maddie asked Jess as she came up to them, pulling her bashful fiancé by the hand. “I have to have my maid of honor with me.”
“Wait a minute. I thought I was your maid of honor,” Grace objected.
“You’re all going to be my maids of honor. I’m having three,” Maddie said, as Sarah, holding her sons by the hand and followed by her husband, joined them. “And you’re all helping me choose my dress this Saturday. And so is Mom.”
“Technically, I’ll be your matron of honor,” Sarah pointed out. “Your
only
matron of honor.”
“Unless Jess . . .” Grace turned twinkling eyes on Jess.
“Not happening,” Jess said firmly, and tucked her hand in Mark’s arm. “Come on,” she said to him. “We’re going home now.”
They were living together in his house. Jess had gone home with him that night a month ago and basically had never left.
“Sounds good to me,” he answered, smiling.
“I’ll see you Saturday,” she called over her shoulder to her mother and sisters as she and Mark left the restaurant. It was dark, with a full moon just beginning to climb the sky, and the area around the restaurant was busy. Mark found himself struck by the exchange he and Jess had just had, and thought it over as he opened the door of his new car for Jess and she got in.
A moment later, he slid behind the wheel and looked at her.
“Just so you know, for a long time my house was just a house, a place where I slept and changed clothes. It wasn’t a home.”
“Are you saying it is now?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Because you’re in it. That’s the difference.”
He leaned over and kissed her. Then he drove her home.