The Candidate Read Free

thick fog. The fog of war.
    Without turning from the window Celeste says, almost casually, “Samantha, that gardener you hired last month chopped down the peony hedge.”
    “He says he didn’t recognize them.”
    “Don’t they have peonies in Mexico?”
    “He’s Ecuadorian.”
    “Tell that to the peonies. I’m afraid he has to go. I’ve been paying for his daughter’s tutor. I’ll continue that for six weeks and give him a month’s severance.”
    Samantha looks stricken. She didn’t hire the gardener; Celeste did. But that’s a piddling detail—Samantha was in charge of the search.
    “But—”
    Celeste whirls around. “Don’t bore me with your buts . Go and do your job.”
    Samantha turns and is just about out the door when Celeste says, in a whole new tone of voice, “Samantha . . .” The poor thing turns and Celeste goes to her, takes her hand, and gives it a squeeze. “I’m so sorry about your father’s diagnosis. I’ve donated ten thousand dollars to the Pancreatic Cancer Foundation in his honor.”
    Samantha looks like she might burst into tears. “Thank you.”
    “We’re all in this together.”
    Alone again, Celeste’s wheels start churning, churning. These poll numbers are unacceptable. She feels her anxiety skyrocketing, that awful claustrophobia that strikes when she senses control slipping away. Celeste needs to be in control. She slips off her robe and stands there in her bra and panties, then walks into the dressing room and looks at herself in the full-length mirror. Thanks to a combination of genes, discipline, and the very best doctors, she still has the body of a teenager.
    She walks into her office and over to the console that connects her to the rest of the house. She clicks on the gym. As expected, she sees her husband, Senator Mike Ortiz, exercising—right now he’s on the rowing machine, wearing nothing but gym shorts, his muscular, nearly naked frame covered in sweat. He’s an amazing specimen. And he’s hers. She has him on a strict regimen of campaign events, policy tutorials, and exercise. She and Lily take care of strategy.
    She clicks on her own cam. “Hello, darling.”
    Mike Ortiz looks up at the camera and smiles. That smile.
    “I need you to get up here as soon as possible.”
    “I have a Middle East policy session in fifteen minutes,” Mike says in that earnest way of his that voters mistake for sincerity. Celeste knows better.
    “I’ll postpone it,” she says.
    “What’s up?” he asks.
    Celeste reaches behind her, unhooks her bra, and lets it drop to the floor.
    “I’ll be there in a flash,” Mike says, leaping off the rowing machine.
    A half hour later, after he’s performed his husbandly duties to Celeste’s satisfaction, she sends him off to his policy session and slips back into her robe. The thought that he could even begin to understand the political and strategic complexities of the Middle East makes her smile.
    She walks back into her office, picks up her secure line, and calls Lily. Her heart is racing and she feels that surge of exhilaration, adrenaline, and power that is her drug of choice.
    The call is brief, just long enough to set things in motion. When she’s done, she looks out the window. The fog is lifting.

CHAPTER 1
    IT’S MONDAY MORNING AND ERICA Sparks is in the elevator at GNN headquarters in New York—going up. She’s on her way to a meeting with Mort Silver, the head of the network. Silver called her yesterday and scheduled it. She isn’t sure what his agenda is, but she suspects it has to do with her hopes of moderating one of the presidential debates in the fall. With her nightly news show The Erica Sparks Effect dominating its time slot, and her reputation as one of the best in the business, Erica is searching for new challenges, and the prospect of being part of America’s quadrennial exercise in democracy—messy and imperfect as it is—excites her.
    She feels a little shiver of expectancy as the elevator