by Mary McBride
WARNER BOOKS EDITION
Copyright © 2002 by Mary Myers
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Warner Books, Inc.
Hachette Book Group
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First eBook Edition: September 2002
ISBN: 978-0-446-55437-4
Contents
PROLOGUE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
About the Author
A Preview of "MY HERO"
“YOU'RE STILL WEARING YOUR WEDDING RING,” HE SAID.
“Yeah.” She dragged some waxy pink color across her upper lip. “So? You are, too.”
“I'm still married.” Angela pressed her lips together, refusing to rise to the bait.
“That's probably why they chose us, you know,” Bobby said. “It makes perfect sense. At least when Crazy Daisy catches on to the fact that we're agents, she won't think we're living in sin right under her nose.”
“I'm not planning on living in sin,” she said. “I'm here to keep some crackpot from hurting the President's mother. And so are you. That's all. We're just doing the job.”
“Right. But part of the job is being married.”
“Acting like we're married,” she corrected. “There's a big difference.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot.” His mouth twitched in a grin. “With one, you just fight and go to bed. With the other, you fight and then you go to bed and make love….”
“A fantastic read.… Smart, sexy, sassy, and full of heart, Mary McBride knows how to hit every note, in just the right key.”
—Kasey Michaels, author of Then Comes Marriage
For Leslie
Again
Always
PROLOGUE
For a moment it was oddly quiet in the Oval Office. President William Riordan could even hear the springs in his chair as he leaned back behind his desk. The sound was something like a sigh of relief. Enjoy it while it lasts, he told himself, just as Mrs. Kemp stuck her head in the door.
“I have your mother on line three, Mr. President.”
So much for peace and quiet.
“Thank you, Mrs. Kemp.”
He sighed, straightened up, and leaned forward for the phone.
“Mother, I'm glad you called. Are you still taking potshots at your Secret Service agents?”
“They're your Secret Service agents, William, and they're damned lucky I'm using BBs instead of live ammunition.”
“You sound well,” he said in response. She sounded heavy on the starch, as usual. Cranky. Irascible. It was her normal disposition, but she'd gotten worse since his father had passed away. They didn't call Margaret Riordan “Crazy Daisy” for nothing. “Sorry I haven't been able to get out there to see you lately.”
The resultant silence on her end of the line was eloquent. It never failed to amaze William Riordan that he was president of the United States, and his mother could still make him squirm.
“You've been busy,” she said at last, absolving him even as she deftly reaccused him in a mere three words. She might just as well have said, “You're not a good son.”
He could have been better. He should have been better. But he was busy, for chrissake. Sometimes he just didn't know how to talk to her.
Then she said, “The Itos are abandoning me.”
The president blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I said the Itos are abandoning me. My domestics, William. My housekeepers.”
“Ah. The Itos,” he said as she continued.
“They're going on a cruise. Mediterranean, they said. Leaving. Just like that. And the silly people seem to think I don't know how difficult cruises are to schedule. I'm sure they've had this in the works for months and simply haven't had the courage to confront me.”
“Well, you can be intimidating, Mother.”
“Only to the weak-minded, William.” She sighed. “Anyway, dear, I wasn't calling to complain. Actually, I was wondering if you might have a cook and a gardener you could spare for a few weeks.”
“From the White House?”
There was a slightly strangled quality to his voice, quite inappropriate for the most powerful man in the world. His mother, of course, heard it too, and proceeded immediately for his jugular.
“You do live in the White House, don't you, dear?” she crooned, which translated as, “Even a homeless bum would move heaven and earth to help his aging mother in a crisis.”
As he was formulating a reply, Mrs. Kemp appeared in the doorway again, tapping her watch and whispering, “The director of the Secret Service is here for his appointment, Mr. President.”
“Send him in,” he replied without covering the mouthpiece. “Mother, let me see what I can do. I'll get back to you this afternoon.”
“Thank you, William. I nap at two.” She hung up, as always, without a good-bye, leaving her victim holding a dead phone.
The president returned the corpse to its cradle, sighed, and rose to greet the director.
Secret Service director Henry Materro had barely begun to describe the disturbing letter that had arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue late yesterday afternoon when the president suddenly stopped him with an upraised hand.
“Wait just a moment. Somebody wants to kill my mother?” William Riordan shook his head, chuckled softly, then added, “Other than me, you mean?”
It wasn't the response that the director had expected. The president received several thousand threats each year, a certain percentage of which were aimed at the First Lady or various members of the White House staff. The warnings—whether by letter, telephone, e-mail, or fax—streamed in on a daily basis, and each one required follow-up to a certain degree, but in the six years that Riordan had been in office, not a single threat had ever been directed at his mother. The agency was taking this threat, unprecedented as it was, very seriously. Very seriously indeed.
Thinking perhaps he hadn't explained the situation well enough, the director extracted a photocopy of the letter from his briefcase and slid it across the desktop.
“It's quite carefully done,” he said while the chief executive perused the document. “No prints. The paper is generic, available nationwide. Same for the envelope, which is postmarked Tampa and not a great deal of help. Our forensics people are working on the sources of the cutout words, but for now the most they can say is that the person who cut them is right-handed.”
“Doesn't narrow it down much, does it?” the president said, his voice now registering concern and his expression more appropriately grave.
“No, sir, it doesn't. The hope is that this will turn out to be just an isolated specimen from a crank who went to a great deal of trouble to create it and will get his satisfaction from the meticulous effort alone rather than carrying through with the threat.”
“And if not?”
Henry Materro leaned forward. This, after all, was
the reason he was here in the Oval Office on such short notice. “Well, sir, we've already put some things in motion, which is why I requested this meeting with you as early as possible this morning in order to keep you apprised.” He watched the president nod, as if the man would be more than agreeable to and exceedingly grateful for any plan that would keep his elderly mother out of harm's way.
“You know, of course, Mr. President,” Materro said, “that the Secret Service already has agents monitoring Mrs. Riordan's house from the outside. The arrangement has been adequate for her protection until now. But in light of this threat, that isn't the case anymore. Now we feel it's imperative that we have agents positioned inside her residence, as well.”
William Riordan drew in a quick breath. The man nearly gasped. “Inside her house? My mother will never stand for it.”
“I think she will, sir. Let me explain what we've already done, on the assumption that you would concur.”
“The Itos,” the president said, sitting back in his chair. “The Itos and their unexpected cruise.”
“Yes, sir.” Henry Materro smiled. “Exactly.”
“Well, I'll be damned.”
“We've arranged for your mother's domestic staff to take an extended vacation, and beginning tomorrow, then-duties will be assumed by two agents, male and female.” The director cleared his throat. “In order not to offend Mrs. Riordan and to avoid any possible hint of scandal, we've chosen agents who are married.”
A small smile flickered across the president's lips. “To each other, I presume.”
“Yes, sir. As a matter of fact, you know the male agent. It's Bobby Holland. With your permission, we're pulling him off the presidential detail and sending him to your mother's house in Illinois. Mrs. Angela Holland will be joining him there from California.”
“Bobby's a good man,” the president said. “The best. But I thought he and his wife were divorced.”
“No, sir. It's my understanding that they've just been separated. A temporary thing.”
“I see.” The president cocked an eyebrow while he tapped a finger against his chin. “And now you're putting them, Bobby and Angela Holland, together under Crazy Daisy's—under my mother's roof?”
“Yes, sir. That would be the plan.”
“God help them, Mr. Materro. God help us all.”
1
Angela Holland was disgruntled, and she had a gun.
Of course, how she was going to conceal a semiautomatic weapon under a stupid apron was a mystery yet to be solved. This morning when Special Agent in Charge Dolph Bannerman had called her into his office and asked if she'd like to be reassigned to protective detail, undercover no less, Angela had leapt at the opportunity. She'd almost given her supervisor a high five and exclaimed “Would I!” before she bit her tongue and accepted the assignment with a proper and professional “I'd like that very much, sir.” It was only after Bannerman had outlined the duty that Angela realized she'd made a big mistake. A real boner.
She was probably looking at weeks, maybe months, of wearing slacks and an itchy, cumbersome ankle holster. She was definitely looking at weeks, maybe months, in the Siberia of the Secret Service, in the musty armpit of the universe—Hassenpfeffer, Illinois.
“Hassenfeld,” her roommate called out from the living room, making Angela realize that she'd been grumbling out loud while she trudged back and forth between her closet and the open suitcase on her bed.
“Hassenfeld,” she muttered, aligning the sleeves of a linen jacket, folding the garment carefully, and laying it into the already stuffed case. The black linen would be just right for September weather in Illinois. Her wardrobe would be perfect, in fact, as long as this September stint didn't stretch into late October or November.
The timing couldn't have been worse. Just when she was really beginning to enjoy L.A., dammit. Well, enjoy was probably a stretch. Tolerate was closer to the truth. Maybe she was just too uptight for the West Coast, where her colleagues all looked like surfers and tended to call one another “babe” or “dude.”
“How long do you think this assignment will last, babe?” Special Agent Suzanne DiCecco, alias Surfer Girl, wandered from the living room to stand in the bedroom doorway, spooning yogurt from a carton, apparently amused by her roommate's rotten disposition. “Are there any leads on the guy who made the threat against the president's mother?”
“None that I know of.” Angela was shoulder deep in her closet now, hunting for the scarf that went so well with her eggshell blouse. It wasn't where it should have been, in the top left drawer of the dresser, along with her other scarves.
“Any idea who you'll be working with?” Suzanne asked.
“Nope. I'm guessing that when Bannerman talked to me this morning, they still hadn't found anybody else dumb enough to do it.” Like me, she thought.
The opportunity to work undercover had had an immediate appeal, especially when it involved protective duty with the president's mother. She'd been pleased, really gratified, thrilled as hell to be singled out for such an assignment. It was only after she'd agreed to do it that her supervisor had told her she'd be working undercover as domestic help. A freaking maid!
Aha! The sought-after scarf had been left threaded under the collar and lapels of her navy blazer for some odd reason. Angela yanked it out.
“Ask me how much I'm looking forward to playing house with somebody I don't even know in Hassleville, Illinois.”
“Hassenfeld.”
“Whatever.” She smoothed out the wrinkles in the scarf, folded it, and laid it gently between the linen jacket and a pair of slacks. She wrapped the cord of her earpiece loosely around her radio and tucked it gently between several pairs of slacks. As always, her Kevlar vest went in last, although how she'd ever conceal it under an apron was another mystery. “That's it I'm officially packed.”
“So, how long do you think you'll be gone?”
“I don't have a clue, Suze. But don't worry about my half of the rent. I'm going to have them do a direct deposit of my paycheck, so I'll send you as many checks as I need to from Illinois. With any luck, it'll be just one, two at the most.”
The buff little brunette shrugged and licked her spoon. “I wasn't worried about that. You haven't been late with your half of the rent since we moved in together. You're the best roommate I've ever had, to tell you the truth. Compared to you, all the rest were total slobs.” She laughed. “Actually, compared to you, babe, everyone is a total slob.”
Angela, aka babe, smiled as she closed and zipped her suitcase. It was nice, she thought, having someone appreciate her organization. Normally her attention to detail tended to irritate people, to really get on their nerves. Some people more than others. Her siblings called her Miss Prim. Her own mother had once suggested that they might have brought the wrong baby—the offspring of a CPA and a crossword puzzle fanatic—home from the hospital. And then there was Bobby. Bobby. As soon as he entered her head, she banished the thought.
“You might as well use my health club membership while I'm gone, Suze. I'll leave the card on the dresser. Right beside the lamp. Oh, and will you forward any mail that looks important or interesting?”
“Sure. No problem.” Suzanne took another bite of yogurt, then cocked her head, grinning. “Can I also have Rod Bishop while you're gone?”
“Rod! Oh, my God!” Angela looked at her watch and swore softly. It was six-thirty, and Rod was sending a limo for her at seven. “I'm supposed to go to his premiere tonight. I completely forgot.”
“You forgot something?” Suzanne laughed. “How could anybody forget about going to a premiere, especially when they're Rod Bishop's date?”
Angela shook her head even as she was frantically calculating driving times and distances, no mean feat when freeway traffic patterns corrupted every equation. It was another reason she didn't like L.A. Its sprawl of communities and tangle of highways struck her as disorganized, just plain messy. In her next life maybe she'd come back as an urban plan
ner. Or not. Since this life wasn't working out so well, maybe she wouldn't even bother with a next one.
To the best of her recollection, the premiere was in Culver City. Her flight to Chicago left LAX at 1:00 A.M. If she scrambled into her long black jersey dress and dragged a brush through her hair right now, she could do it. The last thing she wanted to do was stand Rod up on such an important evening.
No. The last thing she wanted to do was admit that she was really looking forward to seeing him, or confess that his sappy campaign to win her heart seemed to be making headway, or—worse—that part of the reason she had accepted the assignment to Half Ass, Illinois, was to put a bit of distance between herself and temptation.
She looked at Suzanne, who was perched on the bed, wearing not the standard-issue sober expression of a Secret Service agent but the fully glazed, semiconscious expression that always came over her whenever the actor's name was mentioned. Suzanne and a couple million other women, no doubt, all of them smitten with Hollywood's Hunk of the Year.
“He's just a guy,” Angela said irritably.
“Just a guy.” Suzanne sighed like a dopey teenager in the throes of puppy love. “That's like saying an AK-47 is just a gun.” Her glazed expression turned slightly elfish. “Or that Rod Bishop puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like everybody else.”
“I really wouldn't know about that,” Angela snapped as she headed for the closet to get her black jersey dress.
“Oh, come on,” Suzanne called after her. “You've been seeing him for at least three months now, Angela. The guy is absolutely gorgeous, and he's obviously crazy about you. Are you telling me you're not—”
“I'm married, Suze.” She waved her left hand for emphasis before reaching for her dress. “That's a minor detail you seem to have overlooked.”
“You're separated,” the other agent said. “For an entire year.”
Actually, Angela thought, she'd walked out on Bobby eleven months, two weeks, and three days ago, but who the hell was counting? She snatched the plastic hanger off the closet rod with such force that she broke its little plastic neck.