Protective Measures

by Dana Marton

  “Majority Whip Kaye Miller’s house under attack…unknown assailant…terrorists…” The stories and speculations got wilder by the minute. She switched off the small TV in the corner and sank into the relative silence. Much better.

  It didn’t last long. Her cell phone buzzed a minute later. The display showed her secretary’s home number.

  “I’m okay, Marge.”

  “Thank God. I was outside. Just came in and turned the TV on. If there’s anything I can do—”

  “Thank you. I’m fine. I’ll probably be in a little early on Monday.”

  “Should I set up something for a quick press release?”

  “Taken care of. Random burglary. It should be out in the next half hour. I hope this madness will die down after that.”

  “I feel like I should be there.”

  “It’s Saturday. Do we have to have that you-are-entitled-to-live-your-own-life talk again?” She was joking, but Marge’s loyalty touched her. “I’ll be fine.”

  She spent another minute or two reassuring the woman that she was okay, then hung up and turned back to the computer screen in front of her, to a chat board for victims of a certain investigational drug therapy. She was planning on using them as an example in her patients’ rights talk.

  She tried to immerse herself in work, but found it hard to focus. Normally, unless she had some work-related emergency, she spent her weekends in her garden.

  “Knock, knock.” Danny stood in the open door.

  “Are you sure I can’t go out even just to the back yard?”

  “You want to risk a sniper?”

  “No, I guess the weeds are not worth it.” He was right. She needed to be in here. But she felt antsy and could have used the soothing effect the plants and a few hours of physical work would have had on her.

  “Don’t you have a landscaping service?”

  She shrugged. “Gardening gets me outside and moving around.” Not having a service forced her to breathe a little fresh air now and then.

  But her garden was more than exercise. It had become her haven, her therapy over the last couple of rough years. She’d started the first flowerbed as a diversion for her mind, something she could take care of that would grow instead of dying. Then she’d fallen in love with the lilies and peonies, grown attached to her dahlias. “I think I’m becoming addicted,” she admitted.

  He stepped into the room. “That explains the calluses.”

  She rubbed her palm, self-conscious all of a sudden about the rough patches of skin. “I tore out a bed of pachysandra a few days ago to make room for some mums in the fall,” she said, then remembered that he’d probably come in here for a reason. “Do you need me for anything?”

  “I’m thinking about making lunch. Can I interest you in some food?”

  Did she have anything in the fridge? Normally, she went grocery shopping Saturday mornings. If she didn’t get to it over the weekend because of travel or too much work she’d brought home, she left a note for the housekeeper who came on Mondays, and the woman took care of it.

  “I can make lunch.” She shut down the Internet. The man was stuck with her 24/7. The least she could do was feed him. She hoped there was a can of tuna somewhere in the cupboard. “Do you eat tuna fish?”

  “I was thinking bruschetta and minestrone soup.”

  “That’s fine. We can order in. My treat.” There were a couple of Italian restaurants nearby that delivered.

  “I can make it. Not much else to do. We’re practically under siege.”

  “You cook?” She passed by him and padded down the stairs.

  He took them two at a time and caught up, flashed her a disarming smile. “I’m what they call a full-service bodyguard.”

  Her mind took a little detour on that statement. She looked away. What on earth was wrong with her? What was it about him that reduced her thinking to the most basic, hormonal level?

  “You don’t have to cook. It’s not your job to feed me,” she said then turned into the kitchen and saw the grocery bags. “Where did this come from?”

  “Delivery.”

  “We have that?”

  “Almost all the big chains deliver.” He smiled at her.

  She looked back at the bags, at the loaf of Italian bread that stuck out from one, and focused on the aroma of the fresh bread instead of the thought that there were just the two of them in the house. The two new agents who had replaced Harrison and Green were outside, keeping the media at bay.

  She wanted to go back upstairs and hated the cowardly impulse. “Can I help?”

  “Sure,” he said, watching her as if he could read every thought that flew through her head.

  She hoped not. “How about this?” She pulled a pot, suitable for soup, from a base cabinet. “Want me to fill it up with water?”

  He shook his head as he grabbed an onion from one of the bags and started to peel it. “A little olive oil.”

  She brought out the jug from under the sink, poured and set the pot on the stove. He came over to dump the onions in, then turned the burner on low.

  “So where did you learn to cook?” she asked, just to keep on talking, and watched him tackle a couple of cloves of garlic next.

  Ian and she had never cooked like this together. Neither of them knew how. For the most part, the stove was used for cooking pasta on the odd occasion when they didn’t go out, order in, or pop in a microwave dinner.

  “I learned how to toss together a couple of meals in college to pick up girls.” He admitted good-naturedly, looking just the tiniest bit embarrassed. “I’m afraid I was pretty shallow in my younger years. Had a one-track mind.”

  And now? She didn’t ask, not sure if she wanted to know.

  “This job must be hard on the social life,” she remarked instead. Funny, that had never occurred to her with either Green or Harrison. Neither had ever mentioned their private life.

  “No girlfriend to complain about it.” His gaze was on her as he dumped the crushed garlic into the pot. “Keep stirring,” he said.

  She focused on that, until the monotonous task finally relaxed her. “What else do we need?”

  She would not ask any more questions about his personal life or allow herself to make another stupid remark. She had been guarded by dozens of men over the years, but she had never let her guard down like this with any of them, had never let any this close. Nor would they have wanted to be. They were trained to be invisible and professional. Why was everything so different with Danny?

  Because he was one of Cal’s men. The trust she had transferred to him was instant and complete. Maybe that had been a mistake. She needed to pull back, if it wasn’t too late already. Things certainly couldn’t go further than this. She wouldn’t allow it.

  “Celery, carrots, herbs.” He pulled the items from the bag as he named them. “Smell this.”

  She bent to the twig of rosemary he held up to her nose. “Nice.” The sweet-spicy scent seemed to fill her head. She recognized the herb from having seen it used at restaurants as garnish, but other than that, she had little idea about what to do with it. She normally avoided the more “gourmet” sections of the grocery store.

  He rinsed and chopped the celery and carrots, did the same with the herbs then dumped everything in.

  “How do we know when it’s done?”

  “The onions will turn soft and see-through.”

  He pulled an eggplant and a zucchini from the paper bag. “While you were upstairs, I had a chance to look through some House transcripts for the last couple of months or so. You’ve taken some hits from the other party.”

  She shrugged. “That’s the way the game is played.”

  “What bothers me more is that you took some hits from a couple of men on your own team. What’s the story with Congressman Cole and Congressman Brown?”

  “Neither of them would come to my house in the middle of the night to shoot me, if that’s what you’re asking. For one, Brown has been in New York since Tuesday
for his mother’s funeral.”

  “Cole has a pretty good alibi, too.”

  She stared at him. “You questioned Roger?”

  “Not yet.” His eyebrows went up. “You didn’t hear it on the news? Congressman Cole had a mild heart attack last night. He’s been in the hospital.”

  Oh, God. “It’s—” She shook her head. “That explains why he was acting so strangely at the awards gala.”

  “How strange?” Danny turned the tap off.

  “Came into the ladies’ room by accident. I was alone in there. I thought—I don’t know what I thought. He spooked me. I didn’t pay close enough attention. Now that I know… I think his heart was troubling him already. If only I—”

  “You are not a doctor. You can’t diagnose a heart attack before it occurs.”

  She couldn’t. Still, if she was so preoccupied by her own troubles that she didn’t pay enough attention to a friend—

  “How come he votes against you on just about every issue?”

  “We used to be on better terms. The whole Speaker thing…”

  “You’re moving up and he’s not.”

  “I really don’t want to believe that he could be like that.”

  “But he sure acts it?”

  “Lately.” She nodded. “Then last night— He seemed a little unwell, but nice again. You know what I mean? Said he heard about my accident. Told me to take good care of myself. He hadn’t talked to me like that for a while.”

  “How did he hear about the accident?”

  The question stopped her. News of the crash had finally gotten out after the attack at her home. The press of course connected the two and speculated wildly. But they had not heard at the time when Roger had talked to her.

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  “Cal and Marge my secretary. I had to reschedule some appointments. There were cops on the scene. An older couple stopped to help, but I don’t think they recognized me. The people at the emergency room and my insurance.”

  “So he could have heard. I’ll still check it out as soon as I can get in to see him,” he said. “What about Brown?”

  She shrugged. “He couldn’t stand me almost from the get go. Not sure why. I know his wife. She’s nice enough. Suze went to college with Ian. They went out for a while, I think. Suze invited us over once. I don’t think Jack liked that. Rumor is, he’s pretty jealous. And Suze is much younger than he is. I used to think he hated us because of Ian, but he hasn’t eased up in the last two years, so who knows? Funny thing is, Suze adores him.”

  “Speaking of jealousy,” he said slowly, with apparent reluctance. “It might help if I knew if either you or your late husband had any extramarital relationships.”

  “No,” she said without thinking, appalled at the suggestion. How could he ask something like that?

  “Have you had any relationships in the last two years that ended badly?”

  She took a long breath. “I haven’t—I’ve been alone since Ian.” Not that it was any of his business.

  “I’m sorry. I had to ask.”

  He was sorry. She could see from the way he was looking at her. But beyond the apology, his gaze held other things she wasn’t brave enough to acknowledge—genuine concern, care, maybe something more.

  She’d had good-looking bodyguards in the past. Why was she having so much trouble with this one? Why did she feel on the edge and all awkward around him? If her body was going to take notice of a man after all this time, couldn’t it have been someone else? Someone who didn’t work for her and who wasn’t a much younger man.

  Maybe she was going through the change early, she thought, and felt better having identified the problem. Obviously a horde of misguided hormones were trying to overtake her body. She wasn’t about to let them. No matter what it cost her, she was going to act with dignity and decorum.

  “I’ll be in the living room. I’m going to check what they’re saying on TV.” The press release would be coming out around now—just the thing to distract her from Daniel DuCharme in her kitchen.

  She made it as far as the couch before she saw the stranger in front of the sliding glass doors outside.

  “Danny!”

  What happened next was a blur of action, during which she ended up on the floor behind the couch, watching Danny leap across the room and shove the door aside. He took the man down roughly.

  “Who the hell are you?” His gun was at the intruder’s back, his right knee holding the guy to the ground.

  “Press.” The man could barely get the single word out, his face smushed against the bricks.

  “ID.” The gun didn’t budge. “Don’t move. I’ll get it.”

  Danny reached around the man’s chest and must have found what he was looking for, because he yanked and came up with an ID tag.

  Just a reporter. She willed her heart to slow as she pushed away from the floor and started to stand.

  “You stay where you are,” Danny said without looking at her.

  Agent Meyer burst through the front door at the same time. “Where the hell is he?” He had his gun drawn, came straight through to the living room. “Can’t believe the idiot wouldn’t listen.”

  “Taken care of.” Danny hauled the reporter to his feet.

  “Are you all right, Congresswoman?” Meyer was helping her up. “I’m sorry. They’re going crazy out there. Everybody wants the story behind the story. We checked the lot of them, they’re all clean, but they are a pain in the—” He took a breath. “I saw him come back here, but had to handle another one. And this one just wouldn’t stop. Didn’t want to shoot him in the back.”

  “No. That’s okay. Everything’s fine.” The last thing she needed was a dead reporter on her lawn.

  “Want me to take him out front?” Meyer asked Danny.

  “I’ll do it in a few minutes. Thanks.” Danny was searching the rest of the man’s pockets. “Call in that police unit we have on standby. They can take him in, maybe hold him for the day just to teach him a lesson.”

  “You can’t do that to me,” the reporter protested with outrage and tried to twist away from Danny without success. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I just wanted to talk to the congresswoman.”

  But Meyer was already making the call.

  She went back to the kitchen and sat at the table, next to the scattered ingredients that were still to go into the soup. What was in the pan smelled wonderful. She let the aroma of the spices soothe her, looked up at the sound of an approaching vehicle.

  Flower delivery. She could see through the window as the van stopped behind the press line. For her? From who? Her birthday wasn’t until next week.

  She stood to watch as a young boy got out and went to the back, came away with a large bouquet of pink roses—her favorites. He was immediately stopped by the other agent out there. He looked as though he was protesting, pointing to his watch. Probably had a schedule to keep.

  The agent patted him down and checked the flowers, but still wouldn’t let him through.

  “I’ll get them for you, Congresswoman, once DuCharme comes back,” Meyer said from behind her. “If you’re okay here, I’ll go and do a walk-around.”

  “Of course. Thank you.”

  He went out through the back.

  She watched through the window as a police car arrived, saw Danny go up to it with the reporter, talk to them.

  The flower delivery boy was talking to the agent again, looking sullen and worried. She wondered if he could lose his job if he was late with his deliveries.

  She picked up the walkie-talkie from the counter. Which line was Mr. Dalton’s? Channel two, she remembered and twisted the button. “It’s okay. You can let him through,” she said.

  The agent looked toward the house. She waved the boy on from the window then opened the door for him.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” He was younger than she’d thought, barely old enough to work.

  “No problem. It’s not always as crazy around here as this.” />
  “Signature on line twelve. You someone famous or something?” He handed her a clipboard.

  “Politics.”

  The boy looked disappointed. “Where would you like the flowers?”

  “On the counter will be fine,” she said and shook the pen since it wouldn’t write.

  She grabbed one from the drawer in front of her, signed. “Here, you better take this.” She turned to the boy. “Oh, not there. Here.”

  He was setting the flowers by the stove. She pulled them farther away where they wouldn’t be affected by the heat and wouldn’t drop any petals into the soup.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Thank you, ma’am.” He just about ran on his way back to the van.

  She closed the door behind him then went back to the vase and removed the small envelope from its plastic stick.

  Danny came through the door. “Don’t do that again.” He went straight to the flowers and checked them thoroughly, then moved them out to the patio.

  “They’ll wilt in the heat,” she called after him.

  He pushed the vase a few feet over into the shade. “You should never let anyone in.”

  “He was just a kid. Mr. Dalton patted him down.”

  He shook his head. “Someone could have sent the kid to check out security. Nobody comes in. Mr. Dalton should know better than to let anyone through.” He was opening his cell phone and dialing. “This is Daniel DuCharme from Congresswoman Kaye Miller’s security detail. I’m calling to confirm that you have a reporter by the name of Tom Delinsky out here covering her story.” He listened for a while. “Thank you.”

  He pulled the phone from his ear and dialed again. “This is Daniel DuCharme from Congresswoman Kaye Miller’s security detail. I’m calling to confirm a delivery to…” He gave the address. “I need to know when it was called in, from what number, credit card information, everything you have.” He paused. “Fine. I’ll send someone with authorization to pick it up within the next twenty minutes.” He closed the phone and put it away. “Why are you looking at me like that?”