Pursuit Read Free Page A

As far as Jess could tell, neither the businessmen nor the doorman even so much as glanced their way.
    I’m not qualified for this. Scandal Quashing 101 wasn’t even on the course list in law school.
    “Where’s the car?” On the last step now, Mrs. Cooper looked out at the street through the plate-glass doors that were just ahead. She seemed tense, on edge—just about as tense and on edge as Jess felt.
    “Out front.” Jess hadn’t thought to tell the driver to wait anywhere else. A screwup, probably, she realized now. She probably should have looked for a side entrance, but she had been in such a hurry at the time that she had just told the driver to stop at the entrance and scrambled out. She could only hope that in the end it wouldn’t matter.
    “We need to hurry. They’ll be looking for me.”
    “Who?” Jess asked before she thought, although the answer was almost instantly clear: most of official Washington. The press corps. Her husband.
    “The Secret Service.”
    Oh, yeah. Them, too. Although, come to think of it, Mrs. Cooper could probably use a bodyguard about now. And I could certainly use some backup.
    As she pushed through the thick glass door at the far end of the trio from the one the businessmen had used, the knot in Jess’s stomach twisted tighter. For the first time it really dawned on her what she was doing: spiriting away an unprotected, emotionally overwrought, on-the-lam First Lady. On Davenport’s instructions, she reminded herself, but the sensation that she was getting in way over her head here persisted.
    Next time the phone rings at midnight, I don’t answer it, she promised herself as the cold, fresh air of the early April night blew her hair back from her face and plastered her jacket against her body. The smell of car exhaust notwithstanding, its briskness was a welcome antidote to the overly warm mustiness of the aging hotel. You don’t have to be at Davenport’s beck and call twenty-four hours a day, you know.
    But the sad truth was that she did, if she wanted to keep collecting her nice fat paycheck. Which, thanks to her always-good-for-a-complication family, she now needed more than ever.
    “So, where is it?” Mrs. Cooper meant the car. She stopped on the sidewalk beside Jess, who had paused, too, briefly taken aback. The car was not parked where it had been when she had exited it some ten minutes before, which was just to the left of the front entrance, mere steps from where they now looked for it in vain.
    Good question, Jess thought as she glanced swiftly around. The white glow of the hotel’s marquee was too bright for comfort. She felt like they were standing under a spotlight. Other nearby businesses—a sushi bar, a liquor store, a pharmacy—spilled light out over the sidewalk, too. A steady stream of vehicles cruised the street in both directions, their headlights providing even more illumination. There were people everywhere, strolling the sidewalk, entering and leaving stores, exiting a car that had just parked in front of the sushi bar. Their noise rose over the steady hum of the traffic. Anyone could glance their way and . . .
    “Can I get you ladies a cab?” the doorman asked, making Jess jump. He was right at her shoulder, and she hadn’t heard him approach at all.
    “N-no, we’re fine, thanks.” With a shake of her head she fobbed him off, then, without thinking about the whole breach of protocol such a gesture probably constituted until it was too late, caught Mrs. Cooper firmly by the arm. Heart thudding, desperately scanning both sides of the street for the errant car, she pulled the First Lady away from the bright lights of the hotel. Please let it be here some . . . Hallelujah. There it is. Her breath expelled in a sigh of relief. “The car’s right up there.”
    The black Lincoln that Davenport had sent waited at the end of the line of cars parked bumper to bumper at meters almost to the intersection. It had pulled over to the curb in the