The sound on the clip was turned up as the video zoomed in on Thomas’s face. “I hope you all enjoy your visit,” the president told the group. “I’m afraid I need to get back to work.”
“In her press conference following the attempt on her life,” the anchor said as he came back on screen, “President Thomas vowed to carry on with business as usual, and this surprise appearance, along with the Argentine president’s visit, are clearly intended to reinforce that message. There have been no developments, meanwhile, in the investigation to determine who was behind the well-orchestrated attack that killed her five Secret Service agents, buried earlier this week, and no group or individual has to date claimed responsibility.”
She was too stunned by what she was seeing to even register whatever story came next.
It wasn’t her on the screen. But whoever had taken over for her was a perfect double in every way. Even the voice was the same.
Her heartbeat accelerated. An imposter was running the country, apparently very convincingly, too.
And no one was looking for her. They didn’t even know she was missing.
The realization was chilling. Who was behind this? Why was all this happening? And what the hell did her captors plan to do with her?
*
Houston, Texas
TQ snatched up the phone impatiently when the caller ID informed her that her contact in Vietnam was calling back, hopefully with something she could use to lure Jack into meeting her on her own terms. “Yes?”
“The man you asked me to see was very happy to take your deal,” the contact reported. “He was anxious to get a private cell with better food and his own guard who will see to his needs.”
“Only if he had something worthwhile,” TQ snapped. “And?”
“He said that this Jack was not alone when they came to his home, first posing as a skin-trade dealer and later to take Walter Owens. She had her girlfriend with her, a woman named Lauren Hargrave. Owens kidnapped this Lauren woman when she went snooping around his hideout, and it made Jack very, very angry. Before he died, Owens asked Jack if she would ever feel worthy of Lauren, and she said no.”
“Go on,” TQ said.
“It was Lauren who cut off Owens’s head, and the two of them together gunned down all of this man’s associates, so she was not the naïve mistress she pretended to be,” the contact replied. “The man is blind, so he could not tell me what either woman looked like, but he said his associate described Lauren as blond, young, and very beautiful, and Jack has a scar on her face.”
“Give him what he asks for,” TQ replied, and hung up.
So Jack did have a weakness—a woman, though Lauren Hargrave might not be her real name if the two of them were posing as skin traders, which they obviously were not.
She sat bolt upright. A young blond woman had also been involved in the whole affair that had killed her brother and resulted in the death of Andor Rózsa in France. She hadn’t paid much attention to the woman because she’d been too focused on trying to find Jack.
Typing a few keystrokes on her computer brought up news stories and images from the event. The unidentified blonde had been held captive by Rózsa and was taken to a hospital by helicopter after her rescue on Rózsa’s boat. The media reports said the feds were claiming credit, but TQ knew that Jack and a friend named Brett had been responsible both for saving the woman and for her brother Dario’s death.
She sent the news reports and a few stills she found of the blonde, all of her being loaded into the helicopter, to one of her contacts in France and told him to bribe whatever hospital officials necessary to get all he could on the mysterious kidnap victim.
Three hours later, he sent back an e-mail reply.
Her name is Cassady Monroe. She is twenty-eight years old, five feet seven inches tall, and weighed one hundred sixteen pounds when she was rescued. Her hospital records do not list a home address or phone number. The night nurse who tended her said a woman named Jack stayed at her bedside. Jack was tall, five-nine or so, with dark hair and a scar from her cheek to her lip. The two women talked frequently about going home to Colorado. They also talked about Cassady Monroe’s work as a violinist. Apparently she was going to miss a concert she was supposed to perform in.
A simple Internet search for Cassady Monroe violinist got TQ one step closer to finding the woman who dared challenge her.
Chapter Fifteen
The White House
Shield sat in her usual chair by the window as the president had her breakfast in the private dining room. If she was confused about Thomas before, she was completely baffled after last night. Any doubts she might have had about whether Thomas had been flirting with her were erased by what she heard after the president retired to her room.
The bug Shield planted while Thomas ate dinner had picked up the president’s monologue and thoughts about her. But none of this made sense. Every news and tabloid report throughout her political career and presidential campaign had portrayed Thomas as a very happily married woman, one who was now mourning the loss of her beloved husband. The intel she’d gotten from Pierce even seemed to confirm that.
Could it be the marriage was a sham, covered up to make her more palatable to the conservative, pro-family electorate? It had happened before—similar rumors existed about the Clintons, among others.
Clearly a lot was going on, and as much as Shield wanted to take a peek at the truth behind the curtain, part of her hoped she wouldn’t find anything. Yet whoever was on the phone with Thomas last night, and Shield was convinced it was Moore, had sure taken a lot of interest in what Shield had to say to the president. What was Moore afraid of?
Shield had spent the night reviewing her conversation and evening with Thomas. She was no stranger to sexual attraction and fulfillment of physical needs, but she couldn’t remember ever having had a more erotically charged encounter, and definitely not with a straight woman. Matters had only gotten worse when she found out the feelings had been mutual. She’d spent the late-night hours dwelling on her unprofessional behavior and the early-morning ones wondering what would have happened if she’d kissed Thomas.
Sleep had been elusive; she hadn’t gotten more than a couple of hours. Thomas’s words, Oh, my God. What did I just do? kept ringing through her head, and although she felt the same way, she couldn’t help getting flustered over the fact that this beautiful, yet cold and powerful woman, had cracked.
Thomas, nevertheless, was different this morning. She had barely nodded her good morning and was now sitting with her back turned to Shield while she had her breakfast and watched the news. It was all for the best, Shield thought. It was how it should be.
Still, as she watched the president eat, shoulders tense and with no one to talk to, Shield couldn’t help but feel for her loneliness. Thomas had selected a demanding and accountable life for sure, but having no one to share the weight of her choices and give her strength only made the burden heavier.
Thomas alternated her attention between the various news channels broadcasting from three flat screens mounted on the wall in front of her. She currently had the sound up on MSNBC, which was replaying stock footage of the president as it announced there had been no new leads in the investigation into the assassination attempt. The video included older shots of her giving speeches during her presidential campaign and ended with the press conference she’d held announcing she was all right and would continue business as usual. Shield noticed that the more recent footage showed Thomas looking almost younger and a bit thinner. People lost weight all the time because of loss of a spouse, or stress, but that still didn’t explain her fresher, more appealing appearance now.