Journey (3 page)

“The ratings showed that people were tired of them.”

“Bullshit, Jack, they love them.”

“That's not what we heard,” he said firmly, unmoved by her comment.

“Why didn't you say something to me about it this morning?” She still looked annoyed as she talked about it.

“It had to go through channels.”

“You never even asked me. It would have been nice
to know. I think you really made the wrong decision on that one.”

“Let's see what the ratings tell us.” They were at the party in Georgetown by then, and lost each other in the crowd for a while. She didn't see Jack again until he came to find her two hours later, and asked if she was ready to leave. They both were, it had been a long day and they'd been up late the night before, at the White House.

They didn't talk much on the way home, and he reminded her that he was going to Camp David for lunch with the President the next morning. “I'll meet you at the plane at two-thirty,” he said, looking distracted. They went to Virginia every weekend. Jack had bought a farm there the year before he met Maddy, and it was a place he loved, and she had gotten used to. It had a rambling, comfortable house, and miles of land around it. He kept stables, and some Thoroughbreds. But in spite of the pleasant scenery, Maddy was always bored there.

“Do you want to just stay in town this weekend?” she asked hopefully, as she followed him into the house after Charles dropped them off.

“We can't. I invited Senator McCutchins and his wife for the weekend.” He hadn't told her that either.

“Was that a secret too?” Maddy asked, looking irritated. She hated it when he didn't ask her about things like that, or at least warn her.

“I'm sorry, Maddy, I've been busy. I have a lot on my mind this week. There's some complicated stuff going on at the office.” She suspected he was distracted by the meeting at Camp David. But he still could have told her about the McCutchinses coming for the weekend. He
smiled at her gently as he said it. “That was thoughtless of me. I'm sorry, baby.” It was hard to stay angry at him when he said it like that. He had an endearing way about him, and just as she started getting angry at him, she always found she couldn't.

“It's okay. I just would have liked to know.” She didn't bother telling him that she couldn't stand Paul McCutchins. Jack knew it. He was fat, overbearing, and arrogant, and his wife always looked terrified of him. She was too nervous to say more than two words whenever Maddy saw her, and she looked as though she were scared of her own shadow. Even their kids looked nervous. “Are they bringing their kids?” They had three pale, whiny children, whose company Maddy never enjoyed, although she generally liked children. Just not the McCutchinses'.

“I told them they couldn't,” Jack said with a grin. “I know you can't stand them, and I don't blame you. Besides, they scare the horses.”

“That's something at least,” Maddy said as they went inside. It had been a long week for both of them, and she was tired. She fell asleep in Jack's arms that night, and she didn't even hear him get up the next morning. He was up and dressed and reading the paper by the time she came down for breakfast.

Jack gave her a quick kiss and a few minutes later, he left for the White House, where he was meeting the Presidential helicopter to take him to Camp David.

“Have fun,” she smiled at him, as she poured herself a cup of coffee. He looked as though he were in high spirits. Nothing excited Jack more than power. It was addictive.

And when she saw him at the airport that afternoon,
he was positively glowing. He looked as though he'd had a great time with Jim Armstrong.

“So, did you solve all the problems in the Middle East, or plan a small war somewhere?” she asked with a look of mischief. Just looking at him in the June sunshine, she fell in love with him all over again. He was so damn attractive, and so handsome.

“Something like that,” he smiled mysteriously, as he followed her onto the plane he had bought that winter. It was a Gulfstream and he was happy with it. They used it every weekend, and he used it for business.

“Can you tell me about it?” She was dying of curiosity, but he shook his head and laughed at her. He loved teasing her with something he knew and she didn't.

“Not yet. Soon though.”

There were two pilots and they took off twenty minutes later, as Jack and Maddy chatted in the comfortable chairs at the back of the plane, and they headed south to their farm in Virginia. And much to Maddy's chagrin, the McCutchinses were already waiting for them when they got there. They had driven down from Washington that morning.

Predictably, Paul McCutchins slapped Jack resoundingly on the back, and squeezed Maddy far too close when he embraced her, and his wife Janet said nothing. Her eyes only met Maddy's for an instant. It was as though she were afraid Maddy would see some dark secret in her, if she allowed her to look into her eyes for any longer. Something about Janet had always made Maddy uncomfortable, although she had never known what it was, and didn't care enough to think about it.

But Jack wanted some time to talk to Paul about a
bill he was endorsing. It had to do with gun control, an ever-sensitive issue, and eternally newsworthy.

The two men wandered off to the stables almost as soon as Jack and Maddy arrived, which left Maddy stuck with Janet. She suggested they go inside, and offered her fresh lemonade and cookies, the cook at the farm had made them. She was a wonderful Italian woman who had worked for them for years. Jack had actually hired her before he married Maddy. The farm always seemed more his than theirs, and he enjoyed it far more than she did. It was remote, and isolated, and Maddy had never been crazy about horses. Jack used it often to entertain people he needed to see for business, like Paul McCutchins.

Maddy asked about Janet's kids as they sat down in the living room, and when they finished the lemonade, she suggested they go for a walk in the garden. It seemed like an eternity waiting for Jack and Paul to come back from the stables. And Maddy chatted meaninglessly about the weather, the farm, its history, and the new rosebushes the gardener had planted. And she was startled when she glanced at Janet, and saw that she was crying. She wasn't an attractive woman, she was overweight, pale, and there was something infinitely sad about her. Now more than ever. As the tears coursed down her cheeks uncontrollably, she looked totally pathetic.

“Are you all right?” Maddy asked uncomfortably. But obviously, Janet wasn't. “Is there anything I can do?” Janet McCutchins shook her head and only cried harder.

“I'm sorry” was all she could manage.

“Don't be,” Maddy said soothingly, stopping at a
garden chair, so the woman could sit down and regain her composure. “Would you like a glass of water?” Janet shook her head, as Maddy tried not to stare at her, and she blew her nose, and looked at Maddy. There was suddenly something very compelling about her, as their eyes met.

“I don't know what to do,” she said in a quavering voice, which actually touched Maddy.

“Can I help in some way?” She wondered if the woman was ill, or if something was wrong with one of her children, she seemed so distraught, and so profoundly unhappy. Maddy couldn't even imagine what it could be.

“There's nothing anyone can do.” She sounded desperate and hopeless. “I don't know what to do,” she repeated. “It's Paul. He hates me.”

“Of course he doesn't, I'm sure he doesn't,” Maddy said, feeling stupid, with no knowledge whatsoever of the situation. For all she knew, he did hate her. “Why would he?”

“He has for years. He tortures me. He had to marry me because I got pregnant.”

“In this day and age, he wouldn't still be there if he didn't want to be.” Their oldest child was twelve, and they'd had two children since then. Although Maddy had to admit she had never seen Paul be pleasant to her. It was one of the things she disliked about him.

“We can't afford to get a divorce, and Paul says it would hurt him politically.” It was a possibility, certainly, but other politicians had survived it. And then, Janet took her breath away with her next statement. “He beats me.” Something in Maddy's blood ran cold as
she heard the other woman say it. And with that, Janet gingerly pulled up her sleeve, and Maddy could see ugly bruises. She had heard unpleasant stories about his violent temper and arrogant attitude over the years, and now this confirmed it to her.

“I'm so sorry, Janet.” She didn't know what to say, but her heart went out to her and all she wanted to do was hug her. “Don't stay,” Maddy said softly. “Don't let him do that. I was married to a man like that for nine years.” She knew all too well what it was like, although she had spent the last eight years trying to forget him.

“How did you get out?” They were suddenly like two prisoners of the same war, whispering in the garden.

“I ran away,” Maddy said, sounding braver than she'd been at the time, and she wanted to be honest with this woman. “I was terrified. Jack helped me.” But this woman had no Jack Hunter. She wasn't young or beautiful, she had no hope, no career, no way out, and she had three children to take with her. It was very different.

“He says he'll kill me if I go and take the kids. And he says if I tell anyone, he'll put me in a mental institution. He did that once, after my little girl was born. They gave me electric shock treatment.” Maddy thought they should have given it to him, in places that would have really mattered to him, but she didn't say that to Janet. Just thinking of what the woman was going through and seeing her bruises made Maddy feel heartsick for her.

“You have to get help. Why don't you go to a safe house?” Maddy suggested.

“I know he'll find me. He'll kill me.” Janet sobbed as she said it.

“I'll help you.” Maddy volunteered without hesitating. She had to do something for this woman. She felt guiltier than ever for never having liked her. But she needed help now, and as a survivor of the same agony she felt she owed it to her to help her. “I'll find out about some places for you to go with the kids.”

“It'll wind up in the papers,” Janet said, still crying, and feeling helpless.

“It'll wind up in the papers if he kills you,” Maddy said firmly. “Promise me you'll do something. Does he hurt the children?” Janet shook her head, but Maddy knew it was more complicated than that. Even if he didn't touch them, he was distorting their minds and terrifying them, and one day the girls would marry men like their father, just as Maddy had, and maybe their son would think it was acceptable to beat his women. No one emerged unscathed from a home where their mother was beaten. It had led Maddy straight into the arms of Bobby Joe, and led her to believe that he had a right to do it.

And as Maddy took Janet's hand in her own, they heard the men approaching, and Janet quickly withdrew it, and within an instant, she was stone-faced. It was as though the conversation had never taken place, as the two men walked into the garden.

That night when they were alone, Maddy told Jack what had happened.

“He beats her,” she said, still feeling sick about it.

“Paul?” Jack looked surprised. “I doubt that. He's kind of a gruff guy, but I don't think he'd do a thing like that. How do you know?”

“Janet told me,” Maddy said, staunchly her friend now. They finally had something in common.

“I wouldn't take that too seriously,” Jack said quietly. “Paul told me years ago, she has mental problems.”

“I saw the bruises,” Maddy said, looking angry. “I believe her, Jack. I've been there.”

“I know you have. You don't know how she got the bruises. She may have just made that up to make him look bad. I know he's been seeing someone for a while. Janet is probably trying to get even with him, by saying ugly things about him.” He was looking worse by the minute to Maddy, and she didn't doubt Janet's story for an instant. She hated Paul just thinking of it.

“Why don't you believe her?” Maddy asked angrily. “I don't understand that.”

“I know Paul. He just wouldn't do that.” It made Maddy want to scream as she listened. They argued about it until they went to bed, and she was so angry at Jack for not believing her that she was relieved they didn't make love that night. She felt far closer to Janet McCutchins, and had more in common with her, than with her own husband. But he didn't seem to notice how upset his wife was.

And before they left the next day, Maddy reminded her that she'd be in touch with information for her. But Janet looked blank as she said it. She was too afraid that Paul would hear them. She just nodded and got in the car, and they drove away a few minutes later. But as Maddy and Jack flew back to Washington that night, Maddy was staring out the window at the scenery below in silence. All she could think about was Bobby Joe and the desperation she had felt in those lonely years in Knoxville. And then she thought of Janet and the
bruises she had shown her. It was as though Janet were being held prisoner, and she didn't have the courage or the energy to escape him. In fact, she was convinced she couldn't. And as they touched down in Washington, Maddy made a silent vow to do everything she could to help her.

Chapter 3

W
HEN
M
ADDY WENT TO WORK ON
Monday morning, she ran into Greg as soon as she got to the office, followed him into his cubicle, and poured herself a cup of coffee.

“How was the weekend of Washington's most glamorous award-winning anchorwoman?” He liked to tease her about the life they led, and the fact that she and Jack were often at the White House. “Did you spend the weekend with our President, or just go shopping with the First Lady?”

“Very funny, smart-ass,” she said, and took a sip of the steaming coffee. She was still haunted by the confessions of Janet McCutchins. “Actually, Jack had lunch with him on Saturday at Camp David.”

“Thank God, you never let me down. It would kill me if I thought you were lining up at the car wash like the rest of us. I live vicariously through you. I hope you know that. We all do.”