Nick lifted Max to his lap and said, “But if she’s a killer, all positive bets are off, and if she’s your daughter, how would you deal with that? What if she drew down on you, had you in her sights … would you take her down? Could you?”
21
Senator Lloyd Logan lifted the wireless microphone from the podium, surveyed the people, smiled, and said, “This my kind of crowd! Hello good people of The Villages!” I watched as the audience of more than three-thousand cheered. Logan, tall, a touch of gray in his dark, neatly parted hair, looked like he was sent from a casting office to play the part of a presidential contender. His smile beamed as he worked the spectators into rousing bursts of applause, saying all the well-rehearsed lines he knew they expected to hear.
He spoke to them from a raised platform in the center of the town square, American flags and red, white, and blue balloons were everywhere. The town square that could easily be a facade for a film set. The perfect blend of eateries, coffee shops, trendy bars, and a movie theater all around the city center dotted with majestic oaks draped with Spanish moss.
Many of the over age fifty-five residents sat in customized golf carts, resembling miniature classic cars, holding bottles of water in their hands and high hopes in their hearts that Senator Logan was there for them. He was a man who told them he could change Washington into a streamlined system of efficiency.
I stood as far to the right side of the podium as possible in order to get a good look at the first few rows of people standing, wearing sunglasses, ball caps, and big grins on their faces. I didn’t watch Logan. I watched for his wife.
And there she was.
Andrea looked stunning. She wore a blue summer dress, brown hair to her shoulders, and a strand of pearls around her long, slender neck. She stood next to a man in a sports coat, pale blue shirt open at the collar, no tie, dark glasses, and a flesh-colored receiver in his left ear. I knew he wasn’t listening to music.
I thought about Dave’s reference to “Plan B.” Maybe I could come up with a Plan C when dealing with the Secret Service. If the guy to her immediate right was visible to me and everyone else, the other members of his team were not. What I didn’t know was why Lloyd Logan would warrant government agent protection at this stage of the race. He hadn’t won the nomination yet. He certainly wasn’t a minority or an obvious threat to hate groups. There were six other Republican hopefuls hitched to the dream-wagon as well. Did they all have a federal posse in tow?
Maybe these guys were the newbies. Maybe not.
Plan C.
I worked my way through the crowd, careful not to move too quickly, keeping my hands open and visible. I knew their first responsibility was the guy on the stage, the candidate, not the candidate’s wife. These meet-and-greets were more casual, geared to press the flesh, to solicit campaign contributions, to convince voters to buy into future visions. All I wanted was a look into the past. And I wanted to look into Andrea’s eyes when I asked the question that gnawed at my gut and now, my heart. I stepped next to her, the opposite side from where the Secret Service agent stood, and I said, “You must be very proud of him.”
She turned to me and smiled. “I am. The country needs Lloyd right now.”
“What do you need, Andrea?”
Her eyes opened wider, mouth forming a slight O, removing her sunglasses, the carotid artery in the side of her neck pulsating. “Sean … Sean O’Brien. Oh my God! It’s been so long.” Her eyes moistened. She didn’t know whether to shake my hand or give me a hug. She just stood there and looked at me like a ghost just tapped her on the shoulder.
The agent turned to me and nodded, face suspicious. He looked at Andrea. “Is everything all right, Ms. Logan?”
“Yes, everything is fine, Robert. Sean is an old friend of mine.”
The agent looked at me again, his body language taut, lower jaw muscles rigid. I could tell he was listening to a voice in his earpiece. The agent nodded and turned from us, whispering something into his sleeve.
I looked into Andrea’s eyes, eyes as lovely as the first day I saw them across the coffee shop. “If you can sneak away for a quick break, I’d love to buy you a cup of coffee. There’s a Starbucks across the street. As I remember from that first day we met, you liked your coffee with a touch of cream, no sugar.”
She smiled. “I still do. Sean, I can’t believe you’re standing right here. How are you? Do you live here in Florida?”
“I’m good. And even better now. I do live in Florida, but not here. I don’t meet the age criteria. I have an old cabin on the St. Johns River, and I’m restoring a boat in a marina.”
“You always loved boats. You loved anything nautical.”
“Andrea, I need to talk with you.”
She bit her full bottom lip for a second, glanced at her husband on the stage, and turned back to me. “We’ll have to make it quick. Lloyd will wrap up in a few minutes. He’ll do some Q and A, and then we’re off to Tampa for another fundraiser.”
“I’ll have you back before he finishes.”
She inhaled deeply through her nostrils, turned to the agent and said, “Robert, I’m going to have a cup of coffee with my friend, Sean. We’ll be back in a minute.”
“Absolutely, Ms. Logan. May I ask, what’s your friend’s last name?”
“O’Brien, Sean O’Brien.”
I smiled at the agent as I walked away with Andrea, glancing up at the platform and into the eyes of Senator Lloyd Logan. I knew now that they had my last name, probably my image on face-recognition data banks, the searches were moving at the speed of light through the government’s computers. And I knew it was just a matter of a time before more than one agent would enter the coffee shop.
22
Only one customer was in the Starbucks, a man sitting in one corner. He had an iPhone on the table, as well as a tablet and small keyboard. Everyone else was outside, listening to Senator Logan speak. Andrea and I ordered coffee and sat at a table in the opposite corner. I took a chair where I could see the front door. “Your husband’s an eloquent speaker.”
“He’s passionate about what he’s saying as it relates to the betterment of the nation.”
I smiled. “I wish him the best. Why the federal agents at this point in the horse race?”
“The Secret Service offers protection where they think it’s needed the most. Lloyd is a front-runner, doing great in the polls. That means he has his share of detractors, people who would rather harm him than try to beat him at the ballot box.”
I looked over her shoulder and spotted the agent, Robert, standing outside the large front window. “Andrea, do you and I have a daughter?”
Her eyes opened a little more. Nostrils widening. “What? A daughter? Sean, what the hell’s going on? Is this some kind of a joke? Why are you showing up twenty years after we said goodbye, coming out of nowhere to pop up at my husband’s campaign appearance?”
“Because a young woman’s life might hinge on what you tell me.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that a girl, maybe twenty years old, walked into in my life. She knew that I had a shamrock-shaped birthmark on my left arm. And there’s no way she could know that unless someone told her. You always said you loved that birthmark, loved touching it because you said it gave you good luck. This girl said because of it — the birthmark, she knew that she was related to me. But she didn’t say how. She didn’t get a chance, really. She was running from the scene of a killing. Police believe she murdered a man, maybe more than one.”