President's Girlfriend 06 - The Sins of the Fathers (29 page)

“Markie,
where are you?” she said in that sing-song, valley girl way of hers.
 
How some South Carolina, country-ass girl
like her could get a voice like that was a mystery to him.
 
Not that he dwelt on that mystery,
however.
 
He didn’t dwell on it at
all.
 
He, instead, grabbed his bag of
goodies as if it were a bag of his clothes, headed out of the bedroom, and
closed the door behind him.
 
Obstacle
Number One, Samantha Redding, easily adverted and secured.
 
Now he was face to face with Obstacle Number
Two.

“What are
you doing?” Jade asked as soon as she saw that tote bag in his hand.

“What do you
think?” he moved past her, near the sofa where he planned to put her down.

“Daddy
doesn’t own this house.
 
He can’t make
you leave.”

“But you’re
leaving,” he said, sitting down on the sofa, his tote bag at his feet.
 
“You’re going back to Carolina with your
mother.”

“No, I’m
not!” Jade said defiantly, moving toward him.
 
“That’s what she thinks I’m doing, but I’m not.
 
I want us to be together.”
 
She sat down, on his lap, wrapped her hands
around his neck.
 
“Don’t you want to be
with me?”

Marcus
smiled.
 
He’d rather have alligators in
his bed than her obnoxious ass.
 
“Of
course I want to be with you,” he said, smiling that charming smile of his
again.
 
“Right now, in fact.”

Jade
smiled.
 
“You love doing me, don’t you?”

Marcus
reached down, pulled the gun out of his bag.
 
“I do,” he said.
 
“Only this time,
I want to add a little spice to your nice.”

“Mom’s
upstairs somewhere.
 
She might
tipped
down here again the way she did last night.”

“And?”
Marcus said with a smile.
 
“She’ll enjoy
the show, I assure you.”
 
Then he placed
the gun at the side of Jade’s head.
 
Jade’s eyes stretched in shock.

“What are
you doing, Marcus?” she asked hysterically, her eyes trying desperately to see
what it was pressed against her.

Marcus
almost smiled.
 
There was nothing he
liked about this heifer.
 
“I’m getting
what’s mine, babe, that’s all,” he said.
 
“Now you can either cooperate with me, or you can see your brains
splattered all over this cute little sofa.
 
And then, it’ll be mama’s turn.”

Tears began
to appear in Jade’s eyes.
 
“Mama?
 
My mama?”

“Now if you cooperate,
everybody keeps living with their brains intact.”
 
He pressed the gun harder against her.
 
“It’s up to you.”

“Okay!” she
said nervously, careful to not set him off.
 
“What-what do you want me to do?”

“Pull out
your cell phone.”

“I don’t
have it with me.
 
I think I left it at
the Residence.”

“Then you’re
one dead motherfucker then, because I need you to use your cell phone.
 
Pull it out!” he screamed and Jade quickly
pulled it out of the inside flap of the jacket she wore.
 
Marcus knew her too well.
 
He knew exactly where Jade kept that phone of
hers.

“Ah, you
have some sense after all,” he said when the phone appeared.
 
“Now,” he went on, “I want you to call
Daddy.”

Jade’s heart
began to pound even harder.
 
“Why?”

“I want you
to tell Daddy that Mom’s acting crazy again, and you need him to get over
here.
 
Tell him it can’t wait.
 
You need him to come.
 
One thing about your old daddy, he comes when
his precious little girl calls.
 
And if
you value your life, you’d better make sure he comes this time.
 
So make it convincing, Jade.
 
One false move and I shoot you, the old lady,
and your fucking daddy.
 
So don’t fuck
this up, girl.”
 
Marcus made sure they
made eye contact.
 
“I mean it.”

Jade stared
at him, terror in her eyes.

Dutch and
Gina were out on the Truman Balcony, sitting side by side in loungers, still
decompressing from that meeting this morning, when the phone call came in.
 
Gina sipped juice and listened as Dutch spoke
with his daughter.
 
She, undoubtedly,
wanted him to come over to her house again.
 
This, Gina feared, was beginning to be a consistent theme.
 
Use any excuse to get him away from Gina and
with her and that mother of hers.
 
When
he hung up, Gina could tell he knew it, too.

“Let me
guess,” she said.
 
“Sam’s supposedly all
confused and nutty again, and Jade wants you over there.”

“Bingo,” he
said.
 
“Another one of her pathetic ploys
to get me and Sam back together.”

Gina
smiled.
 
“That’s so ridiculous.
 
Do you truly think Jade believes you’ll just
leave me like that?”

“She
believes whatever she wants to believe.
 
Forget the reality of the situation.
 
That, perhaps, is what concerns me most about her.”

“You said
you were going to hook her up with Dr. Katz.”

“I
have.
 
And Dr. Katz has agreed to start
seeing her.”

“But she
hasn’t agreed?”

“Not yet,
no,” Dutch admitted.
 
“She’s certain
she’s fine.
 
But yet she goes around
screwing Marcus right under her husband’s nose, cowering down to her mother as
if she was still some kid terrified of her, and calling me in some twisted ploy
to get me away from you.”

“But I still
don’t understand it,” Gina said.
 
“Doesn’t she realize that you and her mother had a one-night stand?
 
It wasn’t any great love to begin with.”

“She knows
the story.
 
I told it to her.
 
Sam’s told it to her.
 
Repeatedly.
 
Yet she still wants me to leave you and to be
with her mother.”

“I think she
wants you to leave me, all right,” Gina said carefully, “but I’m not so sure
it’s her mother she wants you to be with.
 
I suspect, I could be wrong, but I suspect baby girl wants you for
herself.”

Dutch’s
heart began to pound.
 
Could his daughter
be that messed up?
 
He had been urging
her to meet with the therapist.
 
He had
even offered to sit in on a few sessions with her.
 
But all of his efforts were to no avail.
 
Now he might just have to force the
issue.
 
He did it with Gina last
year.
 
He might have to do it with Jade.

“Anyway,” he
said, refusing to even entertain Gina’s theory, “she insists that I come, and
that I come now.”

“But you
have to be on Capitol Hill in fifteen minutes.
 
Why didn’t you just tell her that?”

“I started
to, but then I realized what good would that do?
 
She’ll just insist that I come after my
meeting on the Hill.”
 
He looked at
Gina.
 
“I want you to go.”

Gina looked
at him.
 
“Me?”

“Yes.
 
I want Jade to realize, once and for all,
that you represent me.
 
There’s nothing
wrong with Sam.
 
You know it and I know
it.
 
Sam will always be Sam.
 
Jade knows it too.
 
So go over there, prove to her that her
little attention grabs won’t be grabbing us any longer, check on Sam who, I’m
certain, is just fine.
 
And hopefully
she’ll get the message.”

“Whether she
does or not I do want to talk with Marcus,” Gina said.
 
“I want to see what his plans are.
 
Because Jade, as you know,
isn’t hardly going back to no South Carolina with Sam.
 
She is not about to leave her beloved
daddy.
 
But I don’t want Marcus there any
longer.”

Dutch looked
at her.
  
“Were you surprised that he and
Jade had hooked up?”

“Goodness,
yes.
 
I was stunned.
 
Jade and my brother?
 
It seemed wrong.
 
But then again, after I heard them talk, I
realized just how it wasn’t ridiculous at all.
 
They deserve each other to tell you the truth.
 
It’s Chris I’m most concerned about.”

Dutch
nodded.
 
“He’ll be okay.
 
He just needs a certain kind of woman.”

“What kind
of woman is that?”
 
Gina asked.
 
Dutch always had a warm spot in his heart for
Christian.
 
He always wanted the best for
him.

“I can’t
pinpoint it exactly,” Dutch said.
 
“But
he certainly needs somebody who realizes his worth.
 
Somebody the polar opposite
of that daughter of mine.”
 
Then
he stood up.
 
“I’d better get going,” he
said.
 
“The Speaker of the House awaits
my presence.”

“Lucky
Speaker,” Gina said with a smile as Dutch leaned down and kissed her.
 

But then he
lingered there, looking her in the eyes, a look of fright suddenly appearing in
his own eyes.

“What is
it?” Gina asked, startled by his change in expression.

Dutch didn’t
know what it was exactly.
 
Just a sudden feeling that came quickly and left just as fast.
“It was
just.
. . nothing.”
  
He stood erect, still looking pensive.
 
Mainly because he couldn’t even verbalize
what that momentary feeling really was.
 
“Anyway, you take care of yourself.”
 
Then he thought again.
 
“Maybe
we’ll do something tonight,” he said.
 
“You, me, and Little Walt.
 
We might even go back to the house in Arlington.”

Gina smiled
grandly.
 
“Oh, Dutch,
really?
 
That would be fantastic!”

“Then
consider it done.
 
Set it up.
 
You’re becoming good at that sort of
thing.”
 
Gina laughed.
 
“Bye, babe,” he said, looked at her once more,
and then headed off of the balcony and straight for that enemy territory they
called Capitol Hill.

It was
accomplished.
 
Jade was in the basement,
bound and gagged, and Sam was in the basement, bound and gagged too.
 
Obstacle one and two handled.
 
The phone call had been made and the trap was
set.
 
Beautifully set, if Marcus had to
say so himself.
 
The assault rifle was
rigged and facing the mud room doorway.
 
The only way into the home from the garage was the mud room.
 
The only way into the living area was through
the mud room.
 
The door was always
unlocked as it was the entrance reserved for the Secret Service, whenever
necessary, and the president.
 
Dutch
always had to enter from that particular entrance.

Marcus had
it ready for him, too.
 
He would enter
the home from the garage, walk along the small, narrow mud room, and then he
had to walk under the archway to get into the living area.
  
And as soon as he crossed the threshold of
that archway, the trigger would release, bullets would fly, and Dutch Harber,
Marcus thought with unbridled satisfaction, would be as dead as Marcus felt
alive.

Marcus, in
fact, felt as if he was on Cloud Nine.
 
He was even smiling when he left the home.
 
He spoke to Benny, the agent on street-side
duty, got into his car parked on the street, and left.
 
He was headed for the private jet Thurston
Osgood had waiting for him.
 
He would be
on that jet and out of DC within minutes.
 
He would be offshore shortly thereafter.
 
And his millions would be deposited into his South American bank
account, under his assumed name and new identity, as soon as the media reported
the fall of Dutch Harber.