Pursuit by Karen Robards Read Free Book Online

ultra-luxurious hotel inside where the First Family lives. Now he was headed up to the equivalent of the presidential suite. Mark stared at his reflection in the shiny brass wall. For the first time he became aware that he was sweaty and dirty-looking, his jaw dark with stubble, still wearing the black suit he’d worn to work on Saturday—he’d taken off his jacket and tie when he’d gotten home, sat on the couch, clicked on the TV, and been in the middle of eating his Big Mac when he’d gotten the call about the accident, grabbed his jacket again, and headed out—with his white shirt stained and limp and no tie. Not exactly Secret Service regulation. Well, it couldn’t be helped, and under the circumstances he guessed it didn’t matter.
    Right now he had bigger problems than being on the wrong side of the Secret Service dress code.
    When the elevator opened, the hush was what he noticed first. It was thick and heavy, palpable as fog. The scent of fresh cut roses from a huge crystal bowl opposite the elevator made the whole place smell like a damned funeral parlor. He tried not to think about that as he followed Lowell into a small anteroom and through the double doors that led to the elegantly furnished foyer of the family residence. Price Ferris of the presidential Secret Service detail met them inside the foyer. They exchanged the briefest of greetings. Beyond Ferris, he could see that the Yellow Oval Room was already full of people. Some important—he spotted popular vice president Sears and his wife and the Secretary of State and his—and some not, like the First Nephew. They were milling around, drinks in hand, talking in near whispers that combined to roll out into the hallway like the steady hum of traffic. The somber mood was palpable from where he stood. Nodding at his fellow agents as he passed them—and getting the distinct feeling from the looks he received in return that he was about to get his balls nailed to the wall—Mark followed Ferris and Lowell down the long hall to the President’s bedroom.
    And tried to ignore the knots in his gut.
    Ferris knocked at the door. Another agent, Donald Petrowski, opened it. Mark followed Lowell into the room.
    David Cooper was sprawled on his back on the big mahogany four-poster in the bedroom that had served every president since Calvin Coolidge. He wasn’t a big man—maybe five-ten, one sixty-five—but, thanks to the workout room on the third floor, he was exceptionally fit for a fifty-eight-year-old. Mark knew from personal experience on Cooper’s security detail that his healthy tan owed more to some kind of spray than to the great outdoors, and his famous mane of silver hair got a little help from the dye bottle, but, hey, the guy had cameras trained on him twenty-four-seven, and in the dog-eat-dog political arena image was important. He and fifty-two-year-old Annette had made an attractive, photogenic, popular couple. With their now grown son and daughter, they had been the picture-perfect all-American family.
    Only those closest to them got to see behind the facade. Right about now, Mark found himself wishing he hadn’t ever gotten that close.
    “. . . at Bethesda?” It was the tail end of a question, uttered in a voice that was unmistakably that of the President of the United States.
    “That’s right.”
    The reply, Mark saw as he continued on into the room, came from the First Father, Wayne Cooper. The octogenarian Texas oilman stood near the fireplace with another man Mark didn’t recognize. Built like the President except for a slight paunch, his hair gone now except for a feathery white fringe, Wayne was a widower who adored his only son. He was also a billionaire, which, to Mark’s mind, explained a lot about how that son had made it to the White House. His other child was a thrice-married daughter, Elizabeth, who was pampered and protected but otherwise ignored. All Wayne’s hopes and dreams were bound up in his son.
    “I told you,